What you see before you is a sculpture entitled 'Shoeshine' dating from the summer of 2013, depicting the powerful figure of Ronald McDonald waitng impassively as his ridiculously oversized clown shoes are buffed to a fine shine. Ronald was adopted as the official mascot of the McDonald's fast food corporation chain in 1966. Fiberglass versions of his likeness have been installed outside restaurants ever since. Thus, making Ronald arguably the most sculpted figure in history after Christ. For this piece, the artist has reproduced Ronald McDonald in perfect detail, singlehandedly. If, by perfect detail, you mean 'roughly', and by singlehandedly, you mean with two people helping. The result is a critique of the heavy labor required to sustain the polished image of a mega-corporation. Is Ronald's statuesque pose indicative of how corporations have become the historical figures of our era? Does this hero have feet of clay and a massively large footprint to boot? But, take a closer look and you may notice something familiar about this clown. His face is that of the Greek god Hermes, carved by Praxiteles in 340 BC. Is this a wry, oblique reference to Greek mythology? Or did the artist have such difficulty trying to sculpt the face he simply pronged on the nearest replica bust he could find? We will never know. (whispered) It's the second one!

/transcript via Erin Jackson

Joe Stracci