We The People

‘We the People’ is the opening of the Preamble to the United States Constitution of 1787. The text also promises Americans justice, general welfare and liberty. But where do we stand today in terms of individual and social freedom? And what has become of the political demands of the Enlightenment which formed the backdrop to the Constitution? These are the very questions that Vietnamese artist Danh Vo sets out to answer. He had a full-size replica of New York’s famous Statue of Liberty built in China. Unlike the original, however, the 267 individual parts that make up Danh Vo’s version of the allegorical figure are not assembled into a single whole but presented as separate fragments, of which the Kunsthaus holds four. The image of the dismembered symbol of liberty lying on the ground is a striking metaphor for the times in which we live and the failure of utopias.