Organized by Jamillah James

Maryam Jafri’s first solo institutional exhibition in the United States revolves around the vexed and varied histories of discontinued food products from the past century. Geared toward lower-income consumers, these motley, American-made products—Diet Pepsi baby bottles; Jell-O flavors for salads; frozen, ready-made PB&J sandwiches, and the like—offer up a fascinating window onto the commodification of desire. In a selection of work made between 2014 and 2015, the artist presents photographs and multimedia displays featuring reappropriated packaging from thirteen such products—the fruits of Jafri’s time spent rummaging through obscure specialist archives—along with texts that animate the socioeconomic milieus in which they came into being. Jafri, whose earlier projects have explored the antinomies of the wellness industry, the politics of images, and the invention of tradition, casts a wry look at how these consumer goods—stark, typographically interesting, even chic—uncannily evoke high design, fashion, and Conceptual art as they circulate anew, untethered to their origins.

— Negar Azimi