Cover Fetish gear and antique tableware branded with Nike logos make up just some of Eduardo Enrique’s incisive commentaries on consumerism and globalisation
Fetish gear and antique tableware branded with Nike logos make up just some of Eduardo Enrique’s incisive commentaries on consumerism and globalisation
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Fetish gear and antique tableware branded with Nike logos make up just some of Eduardo Enrique’s incisive commentaries on consumerism and globalisation today
Flanking the gates of Santo Domingo’s Chinatown in the Dominican Republic are two stone lions, weather‑beaten and ornately detailed, their jaws hinged open in an intimidating growl. The day artist Eduardo Enrique visited, however, a plastic bottle had been jammed between one of the pair’s teeth. Maybe someone was waiting for the garbage truck to come, maybe someone was too lazy to dump it in the bin. But there it was, grandeur defaced by a bottle. “It went from being something really sacred to being a cartoon character,” he says. “This cultural accident—the vandalism of an object of high culture by somebody who had no idea [about its meaning—was a perfect example of ] globalisation gone wrong.”
For an artist who has dedicated his practice to interrogating our fetishistic relationships to brands, commodities and consumerism, Enrique knew in that instant that no artwork he could fashion would ever be as powerful as that mundane masterpiece of absurdity. In fact, Enrique’s work thrives on the recontextualisation of the mundane, which is exactly how his commentary on capitalist consumerism and globalisation is so pointed. In 2019, he started an anonymous Instagram account called Dick Worldwide, featuring luxury bags and shoes transformed into the titular male body part.
Above Eduardo Enrique
Eduardo Enrique
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By 2020, he was putting on shows under his name, including Brand Love in 2022, showcasing BDSM gear he designed that came branded with Nike logos—a continuation of themes earlier explored in Dick Worldwide. Elsewhere, he has digitally rendered antiques with branded, modern goods—think a Chinese bronze vessel with a Nike basketball, and a brass bowl emblazoned with the BMW logo.
The effect is jarring and sometimes provocative, forcing us to question how entrenched our relationships with brands and commodities really are. “I want to poke at this obsession that we feel about the stuff that we have. How much of that stuff becomes pillars of our identity?” he questions. Before you start accusing him of criticising from a high horse, he is the first to admit that he is a “terrible consumerist”; as he tells it, he has a “disgustingly large collection” of Nike sneakers. “[I want to] criticise how empty we’ve become as a society, to the point where our identity is built on things we own,” he says.
This search for an identity and “community approval” through things, Enrique claims, has ironically resulted in the opposite. What takes its place, he says, are “ideologies” and “values” that are “expressed through commodities, signifying, perhaps, [one’s] support of a certain cause or [one’s] allegiance to a certain culture”.
And as a professional in commercial creative advertising (he is now a freelance creative director and consultant), he is no stranger to what he calls “altering the DNA of culture” and “facilitating the spread of ideology” by working with influential brands—which gives him the perfect viewpoint to critique the very culture that he works in.
Above In works that question our relationships with brands and commodities, the artist digitally rendered antiques with branded, modern goods
In works that question our relationships with brands and commodities, the artist digitally rendered antiques with branded, modern goods
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Equally important to Enrique’s practice is his outsider perspective. With his mother in the oil industry in Venezuela, where he was born, he grew up moving across the country, staying in both the big cities and the rural areas. “That allowed me to always be an outsider,” he says. “I’ve never fully felt that I belong to a single place.” In fact, he shares that as an adult, he is even “addicted to feeling out of place”—he finds inspiration when he puts himself somewhere that he feels, as he puts it, “completely disconnected from”. “Culture becomes invisible to you when you’re a part of it. It’s only when you don’t belong to it that you can really dissect what’s going on, or see parallels between [cultures],” he says.
Being in Singapore certainly helps—before he moved to Dubai, where he is now based, he lived in the Lion City for six years, which to him is a prime example of globalisation. “Whether it has gone right or wrong is another [matter],” he quips. He now splits his time between Dubai and Singapore.
In other interviews, Enrique explained how his mother had affirmed his artistic development as a child, which eventually led him to his scholarship to study design and technology at the Parsons School of Design. He tells us, however, that in the “current state of the world, it’d be inaccurate and dishonest to avoid the privilege of [my] upbringing: to be in an environment where I was allowed to feel and perceive [that I was] a means of making somebody proud”.
Above In works that question our relationships with brands and commodities, the artist digitally rendered antiques with branded, modern goods
In works that question our relationships with brands and commodities, the artist digitally rendered antiques with branded, modern goods
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When asked if he often changes his answers to questions he has been asked before, his reply is an absolute yes—because the world is constantly changing. “If [artists] are not connected to what’s going on [in the world], we’re failing at our reason to exist,” he says. The same goes for his art, which is a constant process of change. “My biggest fear in life is to stop evolving,” he confesses.
Another thing about his art: he shares that he “spends more time thinking about what not to do than what to do”—against the stereotypical idea of creativity as free‑flowing and limitless. The result is a creative process that has many restrictions, one of which is to “make work that makes people feel like it’s something they could have done”, he says. “The moment that I start over‑crafting, that I start doing things that require a certain skill, I completely stop. I always want to remind people that art is not always about skill.”
As such, Enrique is less interested in defining his next project for certain. “I’m growing to be a lot more patient, a lot more faithful and a lot more intentional,” he says. “I’m just trying to fully enjoy and be fully present in every single thing I do and make. I’m fascinated by uncertainty, but as a professional, it’s always something that can scare you. I’m learning how to love that. I’m learning how to see it as a space to think beyond what you can imagine.”
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Images: Daniel Silva / Shankay; Eduardo Enrique
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About
Ethan is a dining writer with Tatler Singapore. Trained in literary arts and filmmaking, their work has previously been published in Esquire Singapore, Men's Folio, and with the Asian Film Archive and the Singapore International and Film Festival, across a wide range of interests from gastronomy to fashion and arts criticism.
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Ethan writes about exciting news in the F&B industry, specialising in fine dining, exclusive spirits launches, and new restaurants. They are always looking for riveting voices to bring something fresh to an already-dynamic industry.
Follow them on Instagram at @faustiangourmand.
