Mixed-Media Assemblage

Overview

Mother’s Last Show examines how meaning can emerge long after an event has passed. At its center is a poster from the inaugural exhibition at the Brandt Foundation Art Study Center, visited by the artist and his mother together in May 2019. They each purchased a different poster to remember the occasion—she kept the horizontal edition while the artist kept the vertical version. Years later, the protective pane of glass covering that poster was reauthored into a Data Frame through the addition of Rimowa typography spelling “Mother’s Last Show,” accompanied by the soundtrack “If I Ain’t Got You” by Alicia Keys, an album the two repeatedly listened to together while sitting in parked cars after its release. The poster itself was subsequently removed, leaving the Data Frame suspended independently beside it using aluminum tape and Penco clips. What once functioned as protection became the artwork itself. The original memory remains preserved, while a later recognition transforms its meaning. The work therefore documents not only a shared visit to an exhibition, but the artist’s eventual understanding of what that day had become. Mother’s Last Show does not represent remembrance. It performs reauthorship.

Metadata

Artist
Seth / Ezra Dager

Year
2025–2026

Medium
Mixed-Media Assemblage

Status
Complete

Archive
Human Archive

Location
The Rigley Field

Components
Brandt Foundation exhibition poster (May 2019); reauthored protective glass Data Frame; Rimowa typographic elements; handwritten Data Frames; aluminum tape; Penco clips; framed assemblage.