American Mad Libs

Released: 
Format: Collage/Paper
Country: USA
Genre: Visual Art

As with most of her work, Rosamond S. King’s ongoing American Mad Libs series is deeply informed by culture, history, and a sense of humor. These works use various media to question the enduring legacy of seminal American texts (such as the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence). The pieces combine the playfulness of a children’s game with the weight of history and politics. They question what the founding USAmerican texts mean today, and how much we really know and understand them. King uses every day materials to emphasize how these documents affect our everyday lives.

This is an interactive piece; viewers can use red or blue chalk (not shown) to complete or alter the text of the Preamble to the Constitution of the USA.

This piece is a $50 bill with part of the minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee printed on it - minutes which state, in part, that the economic recovery will be "unusually gradual and prolonged."
American Mad Lib #4 is part of a series within a series; the other pieces are also all legal US currency, and are as follows:
American Mad Lib #3 - a $100 bill depicting text from the TARP bill stating executives cannot be paid bonuses of more than $500,000
American Mad Lib #5 - a $20 bill with the text of a generic layoff letter
American Mad Lib #6 - a $10 bill with the text of a rejection letter to a job applicant
American Mad Lib #7 - a $5 with the text of a foreclosure letter
American Mad Lib #8 - a $1 bill with instructions on how to apply for food stamps.