Artwork Description
Walter Robinson – Tumbril
Dimensions: 82 x 60 x 37.5″ finished size
Year: 2018
Medium: wood, leather, canvas, steel
Walter Robinson-Tumbril addresses concepts of expansionism and Manifest Destiny. Tumbril is defined as “A farm dumpcart for carrying dung; carts of this type were used to carry prisoners to the guillotine during the French Revolution.”
Expansionism was about moving into areas and taking over their resources. The cart is representative of consumption, yet the cart is empty. The logos on the covered roof represent product placement. The companies featured are benefitting from their exposure on the cart, and they could be buying their way into our contemporary consciousness by adding themselves to this cart’s journey. The visual images on the patches are like logos for societal beliefs, which are marketed like actual consumable products. Whether we buy into the beliefs or ideologies behind these images represented on the patches or not, by consuming certain products or aspects delivered to us by those ideologies, we may be consuming and literally “buying” into them involuntarily, unknowingly, or subconsciously.