But in her new exhibition, "Reparation Hardware," at Larrie through March 11th, the artist Ilana Harris-Babou takes aim instead at the meticulously rugged aesthetic of Restoration Hardware, and at how the desire to return a worn-down or devalued thing to its greater glory rests on a troubling legacy of disenfranchisement.
Well, that's about to change because we're now running Hardware Alley, a one day exhibition of some of the coolest hardware start-ups in NY and beyond.
Startups chosen to participate in Hardware Battlefield will now receive exhibition space free of charge in CES' startup venue, Eureka Park.
And Reparation Hardware is mock ad for the exhibition that stars an abandoned New England barn, a field of urinating cows, and a wry Harris-Babou herself as the Reparation Hardware spokesperson.
Yet it is the impressive, often imposing, hardware that steals the show in this exhibition.
Dignity and sorrow make for a powerful exhibition that answers the military hardware in the Imperial War Museum with flowers and snowflakes.
The exhibition has lots more devotional hardware, from a cushiony soft-sculpture shrine that looks to be made of gold lamé to a roomful of temple gift-shop souvenirs.
On our way to lunch, we found 20 dump-bound wooden palettes curbside on Bowery outside the Chinese hardware store, which Retna needed for the exhibition and hadn't been able to find.
Recently, hardware chips were displayed at the Interop exhibition in Las Vegas that can switch IP version 4 packets at 11.5 million packets per second.
Look, people, we're giving you the chance of a lifetime here: this is Hardware Battlefield where participating startups getting free exhibition space at the 2015 International CES and competing for $50,000 and the coveted Metal Man trophy.
