Brian Ulrich’s Copia series, named for the Latin word for “plenty,” began when the artist set out to investigate “patriotic shopping” in the aftermath of September 11, 2001. While US military efforts during World War II prompted rationing on the home front, in this case Americans were encouraged to spend in order to stimulate the economy. Over the decade that followed, Ulrich photographed interiors of “big-box” stores in the Midwest and his native New York. He was struck by the drama of these vast, harshly lit environments, which seemed designed to absorb shoppers in a hypnotic state and to display products as though they offer transformative experiences. In this photograph, spilled milk spreads across a gridded, laminate floor at a supermarket in the upper Midwest. The spill is surrounded by colorful bulk soda cans and gallon jugs of milk, a context of abundance in which such wastefulness may seem inconsequential. To Ulrich, the sight of the spill was “just so organic and beautiful and simple, like an action painting on the floor.” Like the abstract expressionist works to which the artist refers, the image of the spill provides a reminder of human presence in an otherwise controlled, impersonal setting.