Provincetown, Massachusetts
Provincetown Art Association and Museum
Jay Critchley creatively uses the codified capitalist convention of incorporation. As a CEO, he orchestrates his participation in public discourse, with fascinating outcomes regarding AIDS/HIV, nuclear energy, the carbon footprint, the impact of offshore sewage dumping, and development destabilization. His conceptualist activism is subversive. “Jay Critchley, Incorporated,” a recent retrospective curated by Bailey Bob Bailey, explored 30 years of interventionist practices. The show highlighted Critchley’s prescient mapping of off-kilter variants on the American Dream, delving deeply into a contextualization of his performativity, which was intellectually agile, affable, organic, original, and often hilarious. The product placement strategy for Old Glory Condom Corporation, unfettered by sexual taboo, was accompanied by the patriotic slogan “Worn With Pride Country-Wide.” Critchley’s interpretation of Miss Tampon Liberty trod an equally fine line of decorum, with a campaign that included a processional robe adorned with 3,000 discarded tampon applicators and worn by the artist in his role as the ambassador of TACKI (Tampon Applicator Creative Klubs International). It was developed to raise awareness of the negative impact of plastics in the environment. Critchley’s voice has three-dimensional authenticity, with a maker’s mindset that expresses itself in meticulously crafted objects imbued with the porosity of conscientious objection. …see the entire review in the print version of December’s Sculpture magazine.
