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Image 1 of 1
Image 1 of 1
Image 1 of 1
Vintage tin ceiling tile, neon
12.5 × 24.5 × 4 inches
Copyright Rod Lathim
Mounted on an ornate vintage tin ceiling tile—stamped with patterns once meant to elevate the architecture of turn-of-the-century New York—this wall piece stages a collision between beauty and breakdown. Across the purple metal surface, freeform neon lettering spells the title of the piece, rendered in a playful, whimsical style and a carnivalesque palette of colors.
The humor is intentional—but so is the discomfort. The work functions as a political statement and a cultural mirror, pointing toward the chaos, dysfunction, and spectacle that have increasingly defined American governance and public life. By placing an obscene contemporary verdict onto a surface historically associated with dignity and craft, the piece asks what has happened to the ceiling of our democracy—what we once built to inspire, and what we now accept as “normal.”
Bright, funny, and unapologetically blunt, the sculpture turns neon into protest: a beautiful object carrying an ugly truth.
-Rod Lathim
Shitshow, Poem by Michaela McGinnis
Who makes the bed when the world is ending'
Who washes their car
Or cleans their house
The world feels like a carnival ride
With clowns you try to laugh at
Instead of cry
At the head of the FBI
Crashing out at reporters
In front of our eyes
You are stuck on this ride
(The entire poem is available at the gallery.)
Vintage tin ceiling tile, neon
12.5 × 24.5 × 4 inches
Copyright Rod Lathim
Mounted on an ornate vintage tin ceiling tile—stamped with patterns once meant to elevate the architecture of turn-of-the-century New York—this wall piece stages a collision between beauty and breakdown. Across the purple metal surface, freeform neon lettering spells the title of the piece, rendered in a playful, whimsical style and a carnivalesque palette of colors.
The humor is intentional—but so is the discomfort. The work functions as a political statement and a cultural mirror, pointing toward the chaos, dysfunction, and spectacle that have increasingly defined American governance and public life. By placing an obscene contemporary verdict onto a surface historically associated with dignity and craft, the piece asks what has happened to the ceiling of our democracy—what we once built to inspire, and what we now accept as “normal.”
Bright, funny, and unapologetically blunt, the sculpture turns neon into protest: a beautiful object carrying an ugly truth.
-Rod Lathim
Shitshow, Poem by Michaela McGinnis
Who makes the bed when the world is ending'
Who washes their car
Or cleans their house
The world feels like a carnival ride
With clowns you try to laugh at
Instead of cry
At the head of the FBI
Crashing out at reporters
In front of our eyes
You are stuck on this ride
(The entire poem is available at the gallery.)