sive accumulation of consumer objects and family mementos assembled in groupings which involuntarily reminded Rhoades of Brancusi's studio. Rhoades transformed one room of the museum into an environment that was as much an artist's studio as it was a mechanic's workshop. The installation, made entirely of mobile groups, included hardware-store items, small gasoline engines, a "modernist minibike," various tools, and a doughnut machine. The freshly made mini-doughnuts were stacked on tall poles that parodically recalled the Endless Column. On the walls surrounding the room, Rhoades displayed photographs of Brancusi's studio. Given the way these were lit, the viewer could see not only the photographs, but also reflections of the installation mirrored in their framing glass. According to the artist, the intended effect was to position the viewer between trying to look at something and being inside it. From that standpoint visitors had no choice but to address the dialectic of the two environments.Trained in the welding tradition at Bennington College in Vermont, Tom Sachs first learned about Brancusi from Lee Tribe and William Tucker. After studying at the Architectural Association in London, Sachs freelanced as a window dresser at Barney's New York. He also worked with Frank Gehry on prototypes of bent-plywood chairs, and with furniture designer Tom Dixon, whose unorthodox practices have been thoroughly informed by Brancusi's production. Presently, Sachs has his own studio, known as Allied Cultural Prosthetics, where he produces painstakingly crafted furniture, firearms, and sculptural installations out of base materials such as duct tape, industrial scraps, and brand-name packaging. Given Sachs's long-term engagement with commercial display procedures, the Endless Column has become a recurrent pedestal motif in many of his mobile groups. For instance, in Shredded Wheat for Oklahoma City (1995), it supports a model of the Ryde...
