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Unlike last Saturday’s sleep performance, the only live element in Jennifer Coster’s installation for the Corcoran’s “Take It to the Bridge” series will be the tweeting of birds. “Canaries in McMansionland,” on view Aug. 1 through Aug. 5, will feature just that: canaries in a McMansion—-or, really, a birdcage made to look like one.
Technically, these structures look more like rowhouses, not McMansions, but her meaning is clear: They replicate the kind of monstrosities that sprout anew every day in the D.C. exurbs. They have more space than the typical family needs, and they symbolize middle-class decadence and sprawl bred by unsustainable cheap credit and oil. The bubbles have burst for both. The canaries are metaphor, like those in a coalmine. Fortunately ASPCA doesn’t have to worry—-the birds will be looked after by their breeder.
Take it to the Bridge runs to Sept. 15 at the Corcoran Gallery of Art.