SHELTER SERRA
Roley
2015
Screenprint and diamond dust
30 x 22 in.
Edition of 20
Pencil signed and numbered

About This Work:

Shelter Serra is an artist born in Bolinas, California, in 1972, nephew of post minimalist artist Richard Serra.

Shelter Serra studied art at the University of California and then earned his MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. His eccentric and nonconformist style gained attention in the New York art scene in 2009, when he started to transform objects into multimedia works that investigate the cultural status symbol.

Although made in a wide range of materials and media, Shelter Serra’s work is based on only two core concepts: that art should be accessible to everyone and that art should reflect the desires and concerns of everyday people in everyday life.

With his work, Serra tries to question our system of values, particularly concentrating on the concept of luxury and high-end society. He is known for his thought-provoking recreation of iconic objects that symbolize a cultural status, such as the Hermes Birkin bag or the Rolex, one of his most famous subjects, as seen here.

Roley is an object that carries a determined cultural status. The image of the Roley is nothing but an irreverent representation of luxury, materialism, and consumption. By representing this seemingly mundane watch, Serra tries to question the functionality and the meaning, or lack there of, behind an expensive object. 

Serra created a plastic ‘Fake Rolex’, to be worn on the wrist.  A homage to the ultimate watch of status. These Fake Rolex watches are basically the idea of replicating something and making it available to the everyday consumer. They can be bought for less than $40, clearly mocking the real Rolex and all its social and cultural meanings.

The image of the Roley is one built on questions rather than based on ideas. By representing this worldwide recognizable object in a neutralized and homogenous form, the artist urges the spectators to rethink, and question their values, to discover the absence in an object that we value, and to reflect on the deeper cultural meaning of things and their social, economical or environmental aspects.