US World Studies II

Jules de Balincourts US World Studies II is a colourful critique of the superpower culture in an age of rapid political change. In his own unique and biting style de Balincourt redraws the familiar map of the United States to produce a work which questions the notions of geographical power and political influence. Updating the traditions laid down in Jasper Johns' 1961 masterpiece Map, de Balincourt inverts the familiar geographical outline of the US geographical and rearranges the mainland States into a jumbled mixture of familiar names in unfamiliar locations. Florida finds itself relocated to the interior and California moves from the west coast to the Atlantic seaboard. The tension inherent in US World Studies II is derived from taking the familiar cartography of the school textbook and combining it with the realities of modern global politics. By inverting his colourful map of the United States and surrounding it with the ominous dark masses of other countries and empty oceans, de Balincourt is clearly playing with the idea of a so-called 'established world order' in this rapidly changing post 9/11 world.

Born in France in 1972 and now living and working in Brooklyn, New York, de Balincourt is a member of a generation for whom arbitrary geo-political borders are becoming increasingly irrelevant. In addition depicting the arbitrariness of national borders, de Balincourt is also trying to demolish artistic boundaries by combining a range of different artistic styles ranging from pop art and graffiti to American folk art to produce a work that questions the idea of national identity. Through his faux-naïf style US World Studies II is a humorous comment on contemporary notion of identity politics and politicians' desperation to cling onto it at all costs.