Game Change: Videogames as Art Medium and Inspiration
at Telfair Museums, Jepson Center for the Arts
February 27 - April 8, 2012
Contemporary artists have modified existing videogames or game technology, designed games themselves, created movies and narrative works within game worlds or employed the visual vocabulary of videogames in other media. This exhibition brings together visual artists who are utilizing these strategies, changing gaming and art in the process. Works include a series of game poems for vintage Atari systems by game designer and theorist Ian Bogost, videos exploring the nature of games and virtual worlds by Mary Flanagan, independent games from New York arcade Babycastles and independent developer Mark Essen; Greg Borenstein's exploration of alternative uses for recent game technology such as the Kinect, a projection game by Andrew Hieronymi, video by Mark Callahan and Baden Pailthorpe, and two dimensional game-inspired work by Shinji Murakami, Joe Alterio and Federico Schneider.
- Curator Harry DeLorme
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Memery: Imitation, Memory, and Internet Culture at MASS MoCA
April 3, 2011 - January 30, 2012
Does the Internet only consist of ephemera, or does it contain something more permanent? What roles do time and memory play in an ever-evolving online world? What is the relationship between memes and memory? Taking these questions as its point of departure, Memery examines the tensions and intersections of passing fads and enduring icons in online culture.
The exhibition includes work from AIDS-3D, John Michael Boling, Mark Callahan, Constant Dullaart, Martijn Hendriks, Brian Kane, Oliver Laric, Rob Matthews, and Penelope Umbrico.
Mark Callahan, an artist based in Athens, Georgia, slows down the fast pace of the World Wide Web by creating subtle, sedate portraits of popular Internet content that is both familiar and uncanny. Modeled after Douglas Gordon's 1993 work 24 Hour Psycho, which extended Alfred Hitchcock's acclaimed film, Callahan's 24 Hour Miss South Carolina stretches a 30-second viral video of a confused beauty pageant contestant's speech to a 24-hour loop. At this pace, each frame temporarily becomes a still image and opens up the much-scrutinized video to a new kind of meditative analysis. Memery also debuts a new work by Callahan, in which he erases the figures from popular YouTube video blogs, leaving only empty rooms in sight. Through settings that may have enjoyed only fleeting recognition, House and Universe formally references a long artistic tradition of interior and architectural studies.
- Curators Emily Leisz Carr and Oliver Wunsch
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John Michael Boling edition of Memery announcement card
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You All Fell for My Act at MAMA: Showroom for Media and Moving Art
Rotterdam, The Netherlands
August 27 - October 16, 2011
You All Fell For My Act is an international group exhibition about the way in which we relate ourselves to idealised images of a prevailing norm. The participating artists mainly use lens-based media to show emerging tendencies of how we present ourselves on a global stage. This approach is informed by the wealth of different platforms to stage yourself as an individual: TV talent shows, social media, YouTube, but also city photography and fashion blogs. Whilst the individual performs the implication is that the world is watching.
The exhibition features work by Ai Weiwei, Evan Baden, Mark Callahan, Kalup Linzy, Kim Nuijen, Renée van Trier, and Jamie Warren.
There are currently many possibilities to showcase yourself to large audiences - your images being received through vast global networks. And so, the Internet has become a podium at everyone's disposal, where images circulate rapidly and behind the computer the whole world is a voyeur. The artists in You All Fell for My Act utilize the power of rapid circulation of images on the Internet and respond to stereotypes arising from contemporary image culture.
Kalup Linzy uses stereotypes and cliches taken from the soap operas he grew up with to create camp parodies. There is a selection of performance artist Jamie Warren's humorous and theatrical self-portraits in different scenarios. The strong performative character of Renée van Trier's work is concerned with the variability of identity in artificial worlds and the tension between real and pretended behavior. Mark Callahan lets us dwell on the phenomena of fame, voyeurism and entertainment. He took a popular YouTube film of Miss South Carolina during 2007's Miss Teen USA pageant, and by stretching it over 24 hours, transformed her superficial response into something of epic proportions.
The artists in this exhibition express themselves from the position of the outsider, critical of prevailing norms, and looking at the way the public deal with these rules. The iconic photo of the recently arrested Ai Weiwei shows how the artist makes a political statement by sending a self-portrait via the internet to the world. Evan Baden explores images of young women who upload their self-made bedroom portraits to the Internet, by photographically restaging them. Kim Nuijen simply asks the public to look at her camera, and in doing so she describes the moment when people become aware of the lens.
In You All Fell for My Act the power of the lens is explored - what do we chose to share and what do we not? Do you show yourself explicitly or different from prevailing norms, or conversely, conform to expectations? How do people react when the lens is focused on them? And how do artists use this lens to make a political statement? The artists in You All Fell for My Act respond to stereotypes arising from contemporary image culture and utilize the power of rapid circulation of images on the Internet. They act from the margin, or focus on the large mass. They express their own relation to ruling norms and look at the way the public deal with such standards and rules.
- Curators Benjamin Li, Jesse van Oosten, Kyra de Boer, Naomi Oosterman, and Thomas Molenaar.
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A Happy Ending in Marco Polo Magazine
When A Happy Ending was conceived, neither the artists nor I had seen Francois Truffaut's La Femme d'à côté (The Woman Next Door).
Nearly thirty years ago in Paris La Femme d'à côté had its debut. At that time, Francois Truffaut was 49 years old and this was his 25th film. Fanny Ardant plays Mathilde, the woman next door.
She was 31 when the film was released. She and Francois Truffaut were in love. They would make another film, Vivement Dimanche!, together.
It is 2011. A Happy Ending features 37 artists.
- Curator Darrin Beasley