early works and MORALLY SUPERIOR PRODUCTS 1980-1990
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION NATIONAL MONUMENT 1984/2004/2017
AMERICA THE PERFECT COUNTRY 1980-1990
Freedom of Expression products 1989-PRESENT
ArtNet News 2020: The New Museum, founded by Marcia Tucker, a radically progressive Whitney renegade, has its own notorious history with glazed storefronts. While located in SoHo (from 1979 to 2004), the museum’s “Window on Broadway” program exhibited site-specific work in its street-level windows. This free offering of art was an innovation in museum practice and allowed for critical and polemical messaging in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood. The best-known contribution to this series might be the “Silence=Death” neon sign, designed to raise AIDS awareness. But perhaps the most provocative, and relevant today, was Erika Rothenberg’s show “Have You Attacked America Today?” The installation—a critique of America’s political and social agenda, complete with DIY flag-burning kits and a satirically rewritten national anthem—caused such contention in 1989 that decriers smashed the windows with garbage cans three times."
