Jonah Freeman (and his collaborator Justin Lowe) gained attention in 2008 and 2009 with their installations of maze-like rooms created down to the most intricate detail. Drug-related subcultures, social events, architecture, and history are mined and re-imagined in these dizzying works, which have contained recreations of an Upper East Side apartment, a meth lab, a squatter’s filthy living space, and a Chinese pharmacy. Freeman’s San San International Archive mixes a similar set of references. In speaking about the series, Freeman says:
The San San International Archive catalogues raw elements like sheetrock or theatrical light to media ephemera such as advertisements, magazines, and newspapers to historical texts, artworks, countercultural relics, and objects of curiosity like the Presto Meat Toaster or Benjamin Brand Leather Socks.
In this work, an image of a busted piece of sheetrock is silkscreened onto a mirror, producing a jarring collision of the mirror’s reflective surface with the opaque image of the broken wall material. Freeman’s work has appeared in the Prague, Tirana, and Busan Biennials, and at museums including MoMA PS1 and the Wexner Center for the Arts.