Tom Sachs: Ritual

In Tom Sachs’s “Ritual,” the artist’s exploration of consumerism and ritual is paired with ideas of classical sculpture and modernist shapes, presenting a series of works that utilize everyday items and objects (purses, laundry detergent, boxes of corn flakes) in a commentary on freedom, domesticity, drug trades, and urban surveillance. Open at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac through July 31, Sachs has created for the works a series of pedestals conceived especially for the exhibition, which are made using familiar branding and imagery like cases of Campbell’s tomato juice, boxes of Brillo pads, and Heinz ketchup. Displayed around the space like totems of domesticity, the selection of works (which have never before been seen in the UK) recalls stacks of things one might find in a late night corner shop, though each item has been manually replicated at the hand of the artist.