Your Best Life
at
The Yeh Gallery, St. John's University
May 11 - December 10, 2022
"Your Best Life is a solo project by Brooklyn-based artist Hallie McNeill organized in
conjunction with the exhibition From Confucius to Christ. Utilizing the sequential nature
of the vitrines in the hallway outside the Yeh, McNeill structures a narrative in the format
of a parable. Each window focuses on a virtue: of working hard each day of the week,
being organized, resisting temptation, and staying on task to ascend to the realm of
success and accomplishment.
Through moralizing tableaus filled with ceramic to-do lists and organizers, ✓s and
Xs to measure progress and failure, cast pewter tchotchke distractions, McNeill’s
installations parody a range of aspirational cultures, from self-help to the “always on”
influencer to Marie Kondo’s organizational pseudo-spirituality to the Protestant work
ethic and prosperity gospel Christianity. Your Best Life, a reference to Joel Osteen’s
best-selling self-help devotional, conflates instructions for spiritual ascent with that
of material success to reconsider our culturally-constructed beliefs about the virtues
of work."
This project was made possible, in part, through funding from the Scholastic Art &
Writing Awards Alumni Microgrant Program.
Photos by Philip Hinge.
at
The Yeh Gallery, St. John's University
May 11 - December 10, 2022
"Your Best Life is a solo project by Brooklyn-based artist Hallie McNeill organized in
conjunction with the exhibition From Confucius to Christ. Utilizing the sequential nature
of the vitrines in the hallway outside the Yeh, McNeill structures a narrative in the format
of a parable. Each window focuses on a virtue: of working hard each day of the week,
being organized, resisting temptation, and staying on task to ascend to the realm of
success and accomplishment.
Through moralizing tableaus filled with ceramic to-do lists and organizers, ✓s and
Xs to measure progress and failure, cast pewter tchotchke distractions, McNeill’s
installations parody a range of aspirational cultures, from self-help to the “always on”
influencer to Marie Kondo’s organizational pseudo-spirituality to the Protestant work
ethic and prosperity gospel Christianity. Your Best Life, a reference to Joel Osteen’s
best-selling self-help devotional, conflates instructions for spiritual ascent with that
of material success to reconsider our culturally-constructed beliefs about the virtues
of work."
This project was made possible, in part, through funding from the Scholastic Art &
Writing Awards Alumni Microgrant Program.
Photos by Philip Hinge.