"The Golden Death" from "The Last Days of Pompeii" by Eleanor Antin, 2001

Unbridled consumption, greed, and downfall due to either are universal themes. It’s tempting to say that this theme is contingent to the first world or those who already have money – since it takes money to make money. But I think its universality transcends this factor in its design. The steps create a hierarchy which has the rich at the top, and those drowning in their greed at the bottom. So, the people at the bottom could be the poor countrymen of the people pictured above or they could be the poor of another nation. The artist uses this intentional ambiguity to tie the Roman history of ambition and greed with the American culture of consumption. Rome was an Empire, and America could be accused of being one as well considering the amount of outsourcing. Therefore, people at the bottom of the hierarchy can be from any place, because everyone can be hurt by someone else’s greed.

Another reason this picture sparked my interest was a caption by the artist that is featured on the PBS website, "We finished this piece two-and-half weeks before 9/11...So the relationships between America as this great colonial power and Rome- one of the early, great colonial powers- were extremely clear to me," Eleanor Antin. She was born in New York, but instead of being part of the post 9/11 resurgence of patriotism, she sees the parallel to Mount Vesuvius.

The title of the series, “Last Days of Pompeii” is also significant in reinforcing the theme. First it was a novel written by Edward Bulwer-Lytton in which he used decadent Roman characters and contrasted them against characters from Greek, Egyptian, and Christian cultures. In consumption, it seems that American should use a cross-cultural examination to reflect on our norms.

I think that the art really ties in with this quote from the UN General Assembly, “We must not allow the burden of the boundless greed of a few to be shouldered by all,” said President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil. Bush gave his last address to the UN that day, and although he mentioned that the US was taking “bold steps” to cure the economic crisis, he focused on pushing his war on terror.