Milton’s horror show -2021

Milton’s Horror Show, 2021
Patinated silver, video screen, remote.

« An intriguing jewelry gadget by Christol is the brooch-TV showing a clips of different interviews of Milton Friedman. This amplifier of seemingly simple economic ideas reduced complex systems to flat, populist, sometimes terrifying slogans. For instance, Friedman saw corporate social responsibility as a single goal: “increase profits.” His audaciously simplistic yet dangerous presentation reminded me of Khrushchev’s utopian schemes, such as attempting to save Soviet agriculture by mass-planting corn, regardless of climate or consequences. In this tiny brooch, in a small TV, Friedman becomes a comic character. As in fairy tales, where a villain is reduced to something small and harmless, like the ogre in Puss in Boots turned into a mouse eaten by the cat, Friedman ceases to be a person, the “big brother” dictating life; he is reduced to a quiet, flat, black-and-white image. Despite this, the gadget is riddled with bullet marks: this person was responsible for a lots of deaths, poverty and destructions.  » Elena Karpilova