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Daneyal Mahmood Gallery presents “Justine Cooper: Havidol” through March 17.

Consumer advertising for prescription medications was legalized in 1997. Since that time, more and more prescription drugs are being developed and sold which can be lifestyle enhancing rather than life saving. Calling to task the marketing and advertising tactics of the pharmaceutical industry, Justine Cooper has created a fictional marketing campaign to launch her magic-bullet lifestyle pharmaceutical Havidol, which treats “Dysphoric Social Attention Consumption Deficit Anxiety Disorder.”

“Havidol” is a frightening approximation of the real thing. Parody gives way to possibility as Cooper recreates the entire drug marketing process—from the invention of a new disorder to the branding process of naming the drug, its pill and logo design, promotional merchandise and finally its Web site, television and print advertisements.

“Havidol” taps into our collective desire and expectation that there is always room for improvement, while walking the line between poking fun at ourselves and wondering how to obtain a prescription. The marketing message leaves us with the sense that we are never good enough, nor have enough. Are we a society of hypochondriacs, or are we biologically built and genetically urged to out-compete our peers and former selves? Cooper’s works on exhibition comment on our temperamental relationship to western medicine, built upon the idea of a malfunctioning body or mind, and the yearning to believe everyday life can be remedied.

The exhibition is an artful parody of a new kind of gold rush heralding an era in which pharmaceutical companies mine psycho-chemicals for a public who is ready to swallow almost anything in the pursuit of the new American Dream: a life without pain, only gain.