YOSHUA OKON   Onwards and Upwards, 2002

Onwards and Upwards is a piece where two painted foam sculptures depict, in a realistic yet caricaturesque way, two oversized (3 feet) hands that project from opposite walls as if they are about to shake.  A small fragment of attire is featured: black suit jackets over white shirts, suggesting these could be the hands of two businessmen or politicians –hard to distinguish between the two these days— about to seal the deal. The piece is a humorous and grotesque fragment: a glimpse of a larger picture alluding to both notions of formality and calculability behind social conventions and to modern notions of progress.

installation views