Josh Kline, Cost of Living (Aleyda), 2014

Narrator: Take a minute and look closely at all of the parts of this sculpture by Josh Kline. I wouldn’t blame you if you had a hard time taking your eyes off of the head on the middle shelf of this cleaning cart. It looks so real! What do you think of the look on her face? Did you notice the dark circles under the eyes?

This sculpture is based on a real woman. Her name is Aleyda. When Kline made this sculpture, she had a job cleaning rooms in the Rivington Hotel in Manhattan. The artist made two copies of her head using a three-dimensional scanner, and then printed it. He had one painted realistically, and one so that it matched the label of her cleaning fluid. He’s also scanned and printed a copy of her foot, and some other cleaning supplies.

Josh Kline makes a lot of art about workers. He thinks our society sometimes focuses so much on how work gets done that we forget about the real people who are doing it. What do you think this sculpture has to say about that?