Carlos Montes: Chained Dogs
Montes's sculpture, “The Piggy Bank” was inspired by those trinkets that banks here offer youth who are opting into their corrupt system. The piece is far from the delicate pretty little pink banks offered to new customers. It is an ugly, hungry, fat pig, which obviously does not hide its greed of want.
Greed and Complacency
Carlos Montes's work, “Chained Dogs” depicts to half-starved dogs standing on two separated old wooden crates, but chained neck to neck and unable to get away from each other. The two dogs are vicious and their stress and rage is visceral! Carlos explains that they are representative of people who are caught in circumstances of poverty and a sense of powerlessness to effect change, but who must fight each other constantly to survive. They can not see beyond their own circumstances and all their energy is directed at protecting themselves and their small lot in life. They do not see that they are enslaved by a system that mocks them. This system makes pretenses at helping them, and rectifying their problems, but in actuality the systems own survival is dependent on maintaining this status quo.