Monday, August 3, 2009

Portraits of St. Louis Artists: Jay Babcock

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Jay Babcock makes art that has something to say. The installation on the wall is in the shape of our state, made up of losing Missouri Lottery tickets. We talked about what this might communicate. Who buys lottery tickets, and why? A cynic once described lotteries as a tax on the stupid but it's much more complex than that. Lottery tickets buy big dreams for little money - unless you get hooked on them. You might purchase them if you have debts, little money and a lot of dissatisfaction. It is sometimes said that the chances of winning a lottery in the U.S. are less than those of being hit my lightning. Babcock asks us to contemplate this.


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5 comments:

Olivier said...

une recherche artistique originale ;o)

Ming the Merciless said...

I was at the state fair this weekend and there were a lot of 'state fair lottery tickets' and other gambling tents on the grounds. The sad thing was the people who were playing those games looked like they could least afford to do so. Granted, I could be mistaken and some of them might be well-to-do, but it definitely felt like a game that preys on the poor.

I also went to a downtown sidewalk art festival. Some of the artists there were incredibly talented but most were not very original or good.

Dan Jaboor said...

How do you know they were all losing tickets? I think it would be funny to put a high price tag on that one and tell any potential buyers that the price was so high because one of them is a winning ticket....

Virginia said...

What a great creative piece and the artiste looks like a fun kinda guy as well. As soon I get home, I'm driving across the state line to Georgia and buy me up a fistful of lottery tickets so I can get back over here to Paris. With all that money I'm buying me a fine Paris apartment too! Whooooeeeee! HA
V

Anonymous said...

That it truly art....

Looks like he spent alot of money on lottery tickets...and if they all were losers, why not try to make something out of it...