Regions destabilized while-u-wait!
Neon, Glass, 20″x30″, 2008

Phillip Toledano is not only one of the most productive photographers I know, but he creates beautiful and unusual project spaces for many of them. I wrote on Shoot! about Days with My Father and Phone Sex Operators, and while we’ve been mulling those over, he has set up a whole gift shop! Astounding!

Entitled America the Gift Shop, the new project is an installation project to help us parse the long, strange eight years we’ve just had:

“We buy souvenirs at the end of a trip, to remind us of the experience. What do we have to remind ourselves of the last eight years?”

Good point. Also, It’s fun to buy things. I hear it’s good for the economy. You’ve got your finger on the button zeitgeist, Toledano.

Cheney shredding secret documents
Snow globe, 6″, 2008

Inflatable Guantanamo Bay bouncy prison cell
Reinforced Nylon
6′x8′, 2008

Choc and Awe chocolate bar
Chocolate, foil, paper, 2008

Choc and Awe chocolate bar, unwrapped

Pre-emptive strikes
Cotton T-shirt, 2008

I’d go for the snowglobe (I have a collection) and the neon. You? See more trinkets and tchochkes, here.