DD Herschlein - Spite House

At the center of DD Herschlein's Spite House is a photograph: Burning the Universal Facade. Against a pictureseque, partly sunny sky sits a mansion. Its windows, licked by flames, have started to char. The building is, in reality, an incombustible set, a bygone stop on a Universal Studios tour. But in Herschlein's hands, its image is a mirror and a manifesto. The artist asks us to consider spite—to reassess its reputation and recognize it as a righteous rebellion, a tool for seizing dignity. For the disempowered, spite can alchemize stagnation into energy. U.S. empire, bloated by bloodthirsty self-superiority, is a brute oppressor. To undermine its power, the subjugated must try and try again to assail the facade, to wear it down—much like this false home, reinforced against attack, is nonetheless battered by fire, again and again. These efforts may appear inconsequential; spite is a balm, nonetheless.