Artist Anuar Maauad’s “Share” is the kind of work that’s hard to put in a box. Which is a little ironic since it comes in a box.
The piece is just a collection of jumbled letters, really — 28 total, all caps — though when you put them together, they read like this:
“TO SHARE IS PRECIOUS PURE AND FAIR.”
If you go
Black Cube Nomadic Museum is placing editions of “Share” across Denver. Participants receive the work, as a gift, and must agree to display it publicly for at least one year. Info at blackcube.art or via email at hello@blackcube.art.
And who can argue with that idea: short, sweet and almost proverbial, and it just happens to be a lyric from Marvin Gaye’s 1976 hit song “I Want You.”
But as another proverbial saying puts it: It’s not what you sing, it’s the way that you sing it. Maauad is expressing his sentiment in a polished golden color, and in a font that looks a lot like the one used for the recognizable “TRUMP” logos attached to the exterior of hotels and office towers across the globe.
While Maauad’s letters are a lot smaller, maybe 2 inches tall, “Share” is also meant to be displayed on buildings. There will be 100 editions of the work, and they will be given away for free to people and institutions willing to install them in highly visible places. Expect to start running into different versions of “Share” on houses, schools and storefronts across Denver over the next few months.
With its connections to the Trump name, it’s easy to see the artwork as a political move, a literal act of opposition to the president of the United States.
And that, it must be said, is a logical leap for viewers to make. Trump — both the man and the brand — stands as a symbol of greed and excess, as an accumulator of wealth, not a sharer. This isn’t just a speculative political understanding of the controversial president or his philanthropic habits; there’s evidence of his selfishness. One bit: Trump actually shut down his charitable Donald J. Trump Foundation in 2018, after regulators found that it was “functioning as little more than a checkbook to serve Mr. Trump’s business and political interests,” as New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood put it to the media.
Maauad understands that people will interpret the work that way, and he’s fine with that. He’s Mexican, so Trump isn’t his president or his problem, really, but he’s no supporter of the administration, either.
Still, he insists, his work — sponsored locally by the nonprofit, nonpartisan Black Cube roving art museum — is more than a poke at a public figure. “It’s a conversation,” he said. “It’s not about criticizing Trump. It’s an observation on the duality of things, but on a small scale.”
Though, with rather large intentions. Maauad wants viewers to look broadly at “the celebrity of wealth” in general, and the way we admire those who take over those who give. More than that, he wants to send up a warning about “pop culture becoming something that it’s not.” As in, it’s probably not the best place for people to find their intellectual and social leaders.
He sees the sculptures as mini-monuments to a politician, albeit an unusual one and, in that way, “Share” fits neatly into both his career-long body of work and his cultural background.
Maauad has long used reconfigured monuments as a way of expressing big ideas. They are a common language in Mexico, he says, with bronze statues of political leaders thrown up as a matter of course. In the United States, we tend to wait until a hero is dead before we memorialize them. In Mexico, they can also be a way of honoring the living, and winning his or her favor.
The practice fuels an entire industry of metal foundries in Mexico, he points out, and keeps alive the craft of making intricate bronze sculptures by hand. Mexican bronze is well-regarded across the globe, and the high quality of its products are reflected in the “Share” pieces; they’re shiny and precise and impressive to behold.
One of Maauad’s best-known works actually used a recently created bronze statue of a political leader as its source. The statue was rejected by the politician because he thought it made him look fat. Maauad rescued the discarded piece from the trash and melted it back down, turning the metal into two-dimensional, abstract wall sculptures that questioned the process of memorialization and the way it uses a common art form to freeze one version of history for eternity.
“I’m always trying to understand what art is and how we value it and the power structures behind everything,” he said. “That’s what I like to play with.”
That said, “Share” doesn’t have the feel of an artist playing. Maauad has a serious reputation as both a maker and supporter of art. He’s a significant figure in Mexico City’s contemporary art scene and well-known there for founding Casa Maauad, a residency program that supported a world-wide lineup of emerging artists until it closed for a lack of funding in 2017. Respected Denver artist Adam Milner is an alumnus of the program.
A lot of the work that came out of Casa Maauad delved into bronze or the making of monuments, so Maauad is familiar with the power that objects have when you cast them in metal and put them on public display. People pay attention to them. They believe the messages they send out.
As a piece of art, “Share” gets its power by leaving its message a little obscure and by forcing viewers to interact with it. Most memorials carry with them a sense of certainty — you look and you admire. But “Share,” which employs text as well as familiar materials, asks you to interpret its symbols on your own.
For some people, that will be as simple as reading the words and agreeing with its positive nod to acts of generosity, to the purity and fairness of sharing. Maybe it will even inspire acts of generosity.
But others will be stopped by that famous font and the ridiculousness of its size. Those people will read it again, and probably again, and repeat that practice as they encounter it at different locations over time. What does it mean to share, and do we, as a society, really value sharing over hoarding? Which of those practices do we truly reward with our respect (and our votes)?
“Share” also gets strength — physical strength — from the fact that it is cast in bronze. Politicians come and go; social attitudes change. But bronze stands up to time and weather and, as history has shown, even the upheaval of civilizations.
By employing a material for the ages, Maauad has created a think piece with the ability to outlast Trump the man, and Maauad the artist, and the moment of cultural change we are all experiencing collectively right now.
There will be 100 versions of “Share” across Denver. Their meanings will evolve over time, and they will be very hard to put back in a box.