Author: Melissa Bridwell

Entering the Eyal Ofer Galleries at Tate Modern this spring and discovering My Bed once more, nearly thirty years older, with the sheets still rumpled, the vodka bottles still half-tipped, and the slippers still kicked aside as if their owner had just gone outside for a cigarette, has a subtly defiant quality. Now, the crowd surrounding it appears different. Younger people use their phones to lean in. Elderly guests stand back, folding their arms, trying to figure something out. Seeing a piece of art that once sparked a cultural conflict treated like a relic deserving of preservation is an odd…

One of those tiny cultural artifacts that shouldn’t exist but do, the Anthony Giddens trading card falls somewhere between an inside joke and a sincere homage. It originated from a project that David Gauntlett oversaw at theory.org.uk, a website that in the late 1990s and early 2000s subtly developed into an odd little corner of the internet. The cards resembled baseball or football cards you might find in a corner store, but instead of pitchers and strikers, there were sociologists. Hall, Stuart. Butler, Judith. Foucault, Michel. And Giddens, of course. The whole thing has a humorous quality, and I believe…