New York artist Justine Cooper's latest project is a brilliant faux marketing campaign for an imaginary drug called HAVIDOL (avafynetyme HCl). The magic blue pill treats Dysphoric Social Attention Consumption Deficit Anxiety Disorder. It's available in 20mg tablets and suppositories. The "HAVIDOL: When More Is Not Enough" comprehensive marketing campaign exists as a Web site and gallery installation that opens tonight at the Daneyal Mahmood Gallery in NY.
From the marketing material:
"Everyone should be able to live life to its fullest. I used to believe I did. I felt confident in myself, and my relationships. I exercised regularly. I slept quietly through every night, and awoke each morning feeling refreshed and ready to start a new day. I now know I had a treatable disorder…"
From the artist's statement:
HAVIDOL taps into our collective desire and expectation that there is always room for improvement, while walking the line between poking fun at ourselves and wondering how to obtain a prescription. The marketing message leaves us with the sense that we are never good enough, nor have enough. Are we a society of hypochondriacs, or are we biologically built and genetically urged to out-compete our peers and former selves? Cooper's works on exhibition comment on our temperamental relationship to western medicine, built upon the idea of a malfunctioning body or mind, and the yearning to believe everyday life can be remedied.
Link to Havidol.com Link to the gallery (Thanks, Heather Sparks!)
Previously on BB:
• Justine Cooper's photos of the American Museum of Natural History Link
