Pursuing Identity

Wherever you go, commercials and advertisements are plastered everywhere, convincing the American people that they need to be better than what they are. Age cream, makeup, weight loss pills, and even clothes are being pushed onto the working class to show them that they won’t be satisfied without them. In Jim Arendt’s display, “Unraveled”, the sculptures Emerging II and Mike portray how consumerism plays a major role in how people portray themselves.

Unraveled, which was made entirely from denim jeans, was created by Jim Arendt to show how the economy affected the lives of many people. The jeans used to create this display were from those who he thought depicted the working class. According to John Berger, the author of Ways of Seeing, publicity is directed towards the working class to promote the desire to become a part of something that we are incapable of actually reaching. This dream and desire drives people to buy certain products. He conveys how insufficient the ideal of being “Americanized” is and how it deprives the American people of their true self. The people Arendt represented in “Unraveled” experience this tension between letting identity be based off of consumerism and being content with their position despite the pressures of the world around them.

Jim Arendt’s sculpture Emerging II was of a person who looked to be in deep agony. The figure was vomiting, with the arms confined and the shoulders wrapped up, taking control away from the upper body. The jeans were also spread out all around the sculpture like a dress. The stress that the sculpture portrayed shows the idea of how American ways can make people sick on the inside. The pressures of wanting to be something that you’re not is evident and hard to avoid in life because they are all around. Being so wrapped up in culture, individuals begin to lose themselves in it. They no longer have control over their own lives because society has taken over their ways of thinking. They are engulfed under all the pressures of wanting to fit into society and be given a name that people will remember, that they don’t think they themselves are good enough. The spread of jeans emphasizes how influential or contagious this idea is in America. The idea of wanting to be a part of something is a universal phenomenon and proves itself in cultures all around the world. Self-identity is a topic that every person questions at least once in their lifetime. This is what Arendt is showing. The working class cannot be completely satisfied because of all of the factors in the workforce, and in everyday life that influences them to want more.

In Jim Arendt’s Mike, the display shows a man who has a cut out of baby in his body. This cutout is where the man’s heart, stomach, ribs and other core parts in the body should be. This shows the instability of the man without all of his real parts. In this display, this man is struggling with his identity as his inner child is missing from his life. Children are open to new ideas and are like sponges who soak up the world around them. However, because this part of him is missing, he is not able to decide for himself who he wants to be. Instead, his ideals are based off the structuralized ideas in society that give no wiggle room of who you can or cannot be. Either you can be a part of the American way or you are an outcast. This deprives people of true happiness in the same way as Berger’s idea of publicity. Publicity deprives the working class of being completely satisfied with simply having a job and this makes them want more than what they already have.

The “American” ideal that one cannot be happy unless they have a certain amount of money or a certain product is prominent throughout society. In this economy, it’s not about being yourself but instead about living in an unachievable false reality. Arendt’s displays exemplifies the pressures of wanting to be more than satisfied. Comfort is no longer being comfortable but instead, overly ambitious for something that is out of reach. One thing that Arendt tries to relay is that these American ideals are suffocating the lives of our true selves. Instead of looking for temporary things in Berger’s idea of publicity, we should look more towards eternal things that will exhilarate us and bring life to the person who is really us.