Shelf (Mutton Chops) with Unpainted Donkey 2003

Jason Rhoades presents us with a rolling shelving unit stacked with brightly lit neon sculptures. Imagine Rhoades in his studio, wrestling with these buzzing, colorful words, each tube bending to his will. It's a chaotic, electric still life. There's a punk energy here, a sense of playful rebellion against the preciousness of art. What was he thinking, piling up these glowing phrases like spare parts? And an unpainted donkey, too? It's as if he's inviting us to rummage through his mind, to make connections between these disparate elements. Rhoades throws everything at the wall, trusting that something will stick, that meaning will emerge from the chaos. I think of artists like Mike Kelley, who also embraced the messy, the abject, and the overlooked. This piece feels like a conversation, a shout-out across time and space. Each gesture is a form of expression, an exploration of ambiguity and uncertainty. The shelves and the neon lights are a metaphor for how artists build on each other's ideas, constantly reinterpreting and reinventing the world around them.