"The Badge of Honor"

1. When I first glimpsed at the work of Pepon Osorio, I was, in a way, shocked as there was too much of everything on the photograph. Walls with multiple players' cards, sports and movie stars posters, numerous amount of sneakers, a few basketball balls, black and white and color family photographs, too much glass reflecting all this "tidy mess" of the room in it, specific bedframe and bed itself, bike in the middle of all of it - I wondered for a moment if the author exaggerated too much or the teenager's room really looked like this?!

Based on my observations, I could assume that the teenager is into sports: basketball, martial arts and biking; he is family-oriented and a religious person; he appreciates comfort shoes and likes to stay fit. Based of the posters on the wall of Michael Jordan, Scott Pippen, Charles Barkley, Chris Webber and Bruce Lee, we could suggest that time takes place in the mid-nineties. The multiple features of the hand into the fist actually surprised me a lot and I can not still figure out the meaning of it... I did not pay any attention to the video on the wall as my attention was drawn towards everything else on that piece. Only after reading the "follow words", I looked into it.

Pepon Osorio uses completely different elements to draw people's attention.  We see the scene, we watch the video on the wall and we hear what is being said in it. To create his installation Pepon uses variety of materials. For example, while creating art, he applies found objects.

Even though he concentrates on the particular example, I think he tries to get our attention to something much more bigger then that particular teenager's bedroom and pass the general message to the mass.

2. In my opinion, Pepon has one an amazing job. He really concentrates on details of the bedroom that help us better understand the culture and interests of this kid. How he lives and what he breathes.

Exaggeration seems to be the only aspect that makes me think of the fiction and fantasy of his work rather then the fact. Even though I would assume it is based on the real story or a few stories applied together to create this piece. While at the same time conversation between father and son, Nelson Sr. and Nelson Jr., is true and this is the fact.

"For me fiction doesn't exist, and fantasy is only an imagination" (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_difference_between_Fiction_and_Fantasy#ixzz2705wEBNG).

I quite agree with this quote. Fiction is unbelievable, created by us, while fantasy can apply real objects to develop our imagination.