Armory Show visitors may have noticed some of the attendees toting black helium-filled balloons that read YOUR MOM in white letters. The balloons are part of an installation by Ed Young, represented by the South African SMAC Gallery in the Focus section, which is centred near one of the entrances. There you will find a teddy bear holding a bundle of balloons below two massive banners that read: NOT ME IT’S YOU and ALL SO FUCKING AFRICAN. Young said he saw the piece as a critique of the sort-of commodification of Africa, which “feels like a problem when everybody’s talking about it, but then it doesn’t when people stop, so it isn’t actually a problem, really”.
He’d wanted the entrance installation to be much more racy, with the banners reading BLACK PUSSY and the balloons reading FUCK YOU, but the fair nixed those ideas. As it stands, the YOUR MOM balloons are actually very popular with mothers wandering the fair, Young said. Most want one and indeed it is middle-aged women who tend to be spotted carrying them. When Young put up a photo of the installation on Facebook, his own mother commented that she was touched by the whole thing.