In 2003 I began a series of public interventions / performances where I made, sold, and distributed hand-painted cardboard signs to passers-by in Manhattan's Fifth Avenue shopping district.  With slogans such as “Make Tacos Not War”, “There’s No Place Like Homeless”, and “In the Future Everyone will be Famous for $15.00”, these conceptual, campy and political signs continue to inform my work and exemplify my ongoing interest in humor infused politics and in art as a form of entertainment, social activism and free enterprise. My newer works in sculpture and installation continue to expand on the “hand-made” sign as a form of public vernacular speech and as a form of text drawings grounded in the aesthetics of poverty.
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Featured Image: Alejandro Diaz, Make Your Own Damn Tortillas..., 2009. Diorama consisting of traditional pre-Columbian implements for grinding corn and making tortillas. A disgruntled absent figure has left behind a sign—perhaps as a wishful counterpoint to the stereotype of Mexican passivity. Courtesy of the artist and the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum.