Out Of Order

Out of Order is a collection of images Penelope Umbrico found between 2008 and 2013 on office liquidations websites that buy the entire stock of furniture from offices going out of business. Among the offerings of used office desks for sale are the office plants whose job it was to make office employees feel more human – to give them something to care for in these synthetic modular spaces. The objects pictured in these images are the aftermath and by-products of a Modernism infused with a disparity between free market optimism and its dystopic result.