Michael Ensminger

What’s Your Sign

June 1, 2006 - July 1, 2006

“What’s Your Sign” is Michael Ensminger’s series addressing the dehumanization of homeless individuals. In the guise of a homeless man on the streets of Denver, the photos depict Ensminger himself holding up cardboard signs which comment on consumer culture. The work’s provocative edge can leave the viewer stranded in an uncomfortable zone between humor and pathos. He writes, “This incongruence leads to a questioning of one’s identity with respect to this homeless character and to homelessness itself…Contemporary culture seems to either vilify or deify the homeless while neglecting to humanize them.”