ART-PRESENTATION: Cory Arcangel-Verticals
Cory Arcangel’s unique approach to making art stems from his education in classical guitar and music technology from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio in the late 1990s, which coincided with the start of the digital revolution and inspired him to self-identify as an artist, composer, programmer and entrepreneur. The impartiality with which Arcangel perceives software, hardware and Internet resources as raw art materials, placing them in new contexts, reveals a completely novel style.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac
Is his solo exhibition “Verticals” Cory Arcangel focus on his new series of 14 “Scanner Paintings”, these new works are shown together with a number of drawings, a laser animation, two video sculptures referring to Nam June Paik’s “TV Buddha” and a new minimalist sound installation. The “Scanner” Paintings, a series conceived since 2010, are based on commercially available textiles, which are scanned, inscribed with the artist’s signature and printed with UV ink on IKEA LINNMON table-tops. They show various types of leggings – sweatpants, track pants, Daisy Dukes and ripped denims. In each work, details such as waistband, pockets, zips and logos are combined, usually collage-like, on two boards hanging one above the other. Overlapping letters create word-plays and new meanings, or the logo is legible only by force of the branding typography. Independently of changing fashions, the sports labels are part of a contemporary pop culture and a collective memory to which the artist refers. Arcangel’s almost abstract laser animation “Dunk” takes the form of a stylised basketball player from an NBA video game throwing a ball into the basket. The artist drew the animation by hand into a computer using a Wacom tablet. It is projected onto the wall using a Kvant Laser Clubmax 800. Arcangel sees the Slam Dunk as a typically American phenomenon that illustrates America’s current role in the world – requiring only brute height and strength, rather than ball-handling skills or finesse. The “Original” and “Season 6” are videos made in real-time with the aid of baby monitors. In the first of the two video sculptures, the digital video baby monitor is directed at a plastic mannequin’s head wearing a structured man’s hat from Ping Men’s Tour and Oakley Men’s OO9154 Half Jacket XL 2.0 golf sunglasses. The other baby monitor is directed at a Yeezy Season 6 crepe slide slipper on an acrylic display stand. The displays echo Nam June Paik’s legendary “TV Buddha” (1974), in reverse: the object is being observed, and baby monitors are surveillance devices. As the artist says “I studied music, and discovered John Cage, Nam June Paik and Karlheinz Stockhausen. My works often refer to art history, particularly to Paik. A few years ago, I saw his closed-circuit video installation TV Buddha in the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin. At the time, I’d already had the idea for an installation with two computers continuously sending each other mails with an automatic out-of-office message”. The artwork entitled “Sonic Attack” consists of a speaker and a data visual system directed at the doorway, to register people entering the gallery, emitting the typical ping sound as though it came from their pocket, causing them to think they have received a message on their iPhone. The exhibition also presents a series of seven works on paper. The abstract drawings were made by dripping triple-concentrate espresso onto the paper and tilted to produce modernist patterns.
Info: Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Villa Kast, Mirabellplatz 2, Salzburg, Duration: 27/1-16/3/19, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 10:00-18;00, Sat 10:00-14:00, https://ropac.net
