Creative Destruction refers to capitalism’s inherent tendency to create new wealth by destroying the previous economic order. This concept was popularized in the United States after World War II when economist Joseph Schumpeter adapted it as a model of economic innovation but still warned of its self-destructive nature. This exhibition reclaims the phrase “creative destruction” in order to emphasize how preexisting systems of representation can be reconfigured for different political purposes. The artists illuminate the way in which certain ideological structures perpetuate a constructed yet naturalized state of inequality.

The publication was produced in support of the exhibition by the same title at the height of the Occupy Wall Street protests.