Seven Eggs Per Week Is Safe and Average, Mark Zimmerman, 2025, archival inkjet print, 50 x 30 in. / 127 x 76.2 cm.

The American Condition in Mark Zimmerman's Conceptual Work

July 8, 2025 Gavin Coates

Featured image: Seven Eggs Per Week Is Safe and Average, Mark Zimmerman, 2025, archival inkjet print, 50 x 30 in. / 127 x 76.2 cm.

Mark Zimmerman's latest photographic works probe the disquieting undercurrents of American identity through an incisive blend of conceptual wit and visual austerity.

Mark Zimmerman explores identity, labor, and consumer culture through performance-based photography and conceptually layered imagery.

In three meticulously constructed images, Zimmerman fuses object, performance, and composition to critique labor, consumption, and national mythologies. Each piece functions as a self-contained commentary while contributing to a broader narrative on the commodification of selfhood and the illusion of belonging in the modern American landscape.

Explore our curated selection of contemporary artists from around the globe.

Naturalist Gallery offers artist representation internationally. Apply your art.

Ready For Hire, Mark Zimmerman, 2025, archival inkjet print, 20 x 30 in. / 50.8 x 76.2 cm.

Ready For Hire presents a staged photograph of a suited figure whose head is obscured by a white pillow emblazoned with the phrase "READY FOR HIRE." This pillow, stuffed with Zimmerman’s own shaved hair, originates from a private performance wherein the artist transformed himself to become more "presentable." The act is both literal and metaphorical, suggesting the violence of self-erasure in the pursuit of employment, conformity, and acceptance. The figure becomes an anonymous object for hire, visually echoing the displacement of identity in a culture obsessed with professional image.

Standard Sleeping Situations in America, Mark Zimmerman, 2025, inkjet prints, 30 x 120 in. / 76.2 x 304.8 cm.

In Standard Sleeping Situations in America, a linear progression of five identical bed sets, diminishing in size from California King to Twin, is depicted using sculptural forms made from dryer sheets. The visual rhythm of the shrinking beds mirrors the stratified realities of economic disparity and domestic idealism. With the beds printed at a consistent 20 x 30 inches, the illusion of equal scale emphasizes how visual equality can mask structural inequality. The embedded dryer tissues in the frames further collapse the distinction between the image and the material of everyday American domestic labor.

Apple Pie and a Bud, Mark Zimmerman, 2024, inkjet print, 20 x 30 in. / 50.8 x 76.2 cm.

Apple Pie and a Bud juxtaposes two images: a brown-bagged beer can labeled "Pick Up 219" and a waffle crust densely pierced with miniature American flags. The pairing operates as a stark, ironic rebuke of consumer nationalism and performative patriotism. The apple pie, flattened, impaled, and ornamental, is drained of its sentimental symbolism, while the labeled beer can echoes themes of surveillance and commodified indulgence. The piece critiques how American iconography is mass-produced, consumed, and discarded like fast food and gig economy labor.

Taken together, these three works offer a wry, brutal meditation on American life, its promises, its branding, and its systemic absurdities. Zimmerman uses minimalism not to soften his critique, but to sharpen it. His photography becomes sculpture, his props become protagonists, and his performances become ghost stories of the American dream. Through a calculated stripping away of detail, he unveils the truth beneath the glossy veneer: a nation of images that can’t sleep, can’t breathe, and can’t find a face.

Learn more About Naturalist Gallery of Contemporary Art.