Standing seductively and defiantly at the hyper-contemporary crossroads of politically problematic social media performance, secretive art world patronage arrangements, and en vogue academic resistance to female capitalization on the male gaze, The American Dream Project is Leah Schrager’s irl/online memoir via imagery and confessional of her ongoing relationship with “Man Hands,” a mysterious, mythical, and maddening “producer type” who gives her 1 million dollars so she can “produce a more female friendly image” and become a “mainstream art star.” In the course of their exchanges and engagements, the two debate various hot topics that include Man Hands’s view that Schrager should end her artistic collaboration with @OnaArtist, an Instagram ass model with 3M followers, the personal and creative complexities of intentionally producing art for a specific market ethos, and the extent to which private desires should over-rule public displays. Are they in love or in hate? Who’s got the power and who gets the picture? Is art more true to its sexual foundry when it defies or submits to its object of desire?
View the archive of the @LeahSchrager Instagram (2018-2020).