Hell’s Trailer 1996
billboards, wood, upholstery, hardware
Bridge Center for Contemporary Art, El Paso TX
Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati, OH 2005-2021
Wheels Museum, Albuquerque, NM 2021-ongoing
Hell’s Trailer is a bricollage of hand-painted billboards found in a Route 66 signage graveyard, reconstituted into the symbol of nomadic leisure that is inexorably tied to the American highway-the travel trailer. This piece is a parody of the quick-moving, signage-riddled American dream: a reflection of our highway-based holidays, where the natural scenery is marked with an endless string of billboard advertisements. Though not fit for the road, the trailer’s curved form allows it to rock with the bodily thrusts of those who step inside the padded, upholstered interior. With nostalgia for this mothballed era of the compact caravan, Hell’s Trailer proclaims, if you can’t ride, you may as well rock.
