Metamorphoses (Bacchus and Ariadne),

Vickie Vainionpää | Metamorphoses at Real Belvedere di San Leucio| Galleria Nicola Pedana
May 28th – July 15th, 2023
OPENING: Saturday, May 27th, 6pm 
Real Belvedere di San Leucio
Via del Setifiicio 5, CE, Caserta, Italy

In her first ever institutional solo show, Vickie Vainionpää collaborates with Galleria Nicola Pedana to bring her Gaze series to the Real Belvedere di San Leucio. The works in this exhibition reference Ovid’s “Metamorphoses.” They specifically invoke the “Triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne” in response to a scene from the same poem painted in fresco by Italian Neoclassical painter Fedele Fischetti on the ceiling of the Grand Dining Room at the Belvedere di San Leucio. When titling this show Vickie references both the “translative processes” used in her work along with the “ever-evolving relationship painting has shared with the technologies of its time. In order to create this “post-digital reimagining of Fischetti” she uses “eye-tracking software to directly translate her own gaze of this work into visualised Bézier curves and stylised spines” she draws on “the act of gazing itself, through technological allowance [which] functions here as a conduit of interpretation and transformation.” In her practice, Vickie considers the impact of technology on the process of painting and investigates the relationship between natural forces and digital processes. By embracing new digital means of reading space and content, the works draw attention to the ever-changing relationship between the human body and digital technology.

Vickie Vainionpää (b. 1992, Toronto) is an emerging artist living and working in Montréal. She holds a B.A Honors with Studio Art Specialization from the University of Waterloo and has exhibited her work extensively both nationally and internationally. Vainionpää was a 2021 resident at Palazzo Monti (Brescia, Italy), and has been awarded impressive accolades such as the Liz Edwards Memorial Award and the Louis Muhlstock Endowment (Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity).

Images courtesy of: Galleria Nicola Pedana, Vickie Vainionpää, Real Belvedere di San Leucio (Photographed by Danilo Donzelli)

Text excerpt from exhibition text by James Frew

May 11th–14th, 2023

VIP Preview: Thursday, May 11th, 2pm–8pm
Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center, Hall 1 (4th Floor)
No. 1, Jingmao 2nd Road, Nangang District, Taipei City

The Hole is proud to announce our participation in Taipei Dangdai. Please visit us at Booth D-04 for works by Anders Oinonen, Hanna Hansdotter, Joakim Ojanen, Jonathan Chapline, Magda Kirk, Mark Posey, Matt Belk, Matthew Stone, Maya Fuji, Monica Kim Garza, Pedro Pedro, Stephanie H. Shih and Vickie Vainionpää.

HOURS
Thursday, May 11th: VIP Preview: 2pm–5pm; Vernissage: 5pm–8pm
Friday, May 12th: 11am–6pm
Saturday, May 13th: 11am–6pm
Sunday, May 14th: 11am–5:30pm

For more information on attending Taipei Dangdai, click HERE.

Vickie Vainionpää, Black and Violet (Double Loop), 2023, oil on canvas, 64 x 92 inches, 162 x 233 cm.

Vickie Vainionpää, Dark Mode, 2022, digital video (4:12)

Monica Kim Garza, Dirty Martini, 2023, oil and glitter on canvas, 58 x 77 inches, 147 x 196 cm.

Matt Belk, Ducks, 2023, acrylic airbrush on canvas, 47 x 40 inches, 119 x 101 cm.

Matt Belk, Salmon Run, 2023, acrylic airbrush on canvas, 47 x 40 inches, 119 x 102 cm.

Joakim Ojanen, Two Dogs Chillin in The Rain, 2023, oil stick on paper, 23.5 x 16.5 inches, 60 x 42 cm.

Joakim Ojanen, A Banana in The Rain, 2023, oil stick on paper, 23.5 x 16.5 inches, 60 x 42 cm.

Joakim Ojanen, Hectic Times, 2023, oil stick on paper, 23.5 x 16.5 inches, 60 x 42 cm.

Maya Fuji, A Post Bath Treat, 2022, acrylic & airbrush on wood panel, 48 x 36 inches, 121 x 91 cm.

Maya Fuji, Meeting Place, 2022, acrylic & airbrush on wood panel, 36 x 48 inches, 91 x 121 cm.

Stephanie H. Shih, Red Snapper, 2023, ceramic 5 x 13 x 5 inches, 13 x 33 x 13 cm.

Stephanie H. Shih, Four VHS Tapes, 1941-1987, 2022, ceramic, 4 x 8 x 4.5 inches, 10 x 20 x 11 cm.

Stephanie H. Shih, Sempio Jin S Soy Sauce, 2020, ceramic, 12 x 4 x 4 inches, 30.5 x 10 x 10 cm.

Stephanie H. Shih, Healthy Boy Brand Soy Sauce with Mushroom, 2020, ceramic 11 x 3 x 3 inches, 28 x 8 x 8 cm.

Stephanie H. Shih, Datu Puti Toyomansi, 2020, ceramic, 11 x 3 x 3 inches, 28 x 8 x 8 cm.

Stephanie H. Shih, Golden Mountain Seasoning Sauce, 2020, ceramic, 10 x 3 x 3 inches, 25 x 8 x 8 cm.

Stephanie H. Shih, Mizkan Ajipon Ponzu, 2020, ceramic, 10 x 3 x 3 inches, 25 x 8 x 8 cm.

Stephanie H. Shih, Yamasa Soy Sauce, 2020, ceramic, 10 x 3 x 3 inches, 25 x 8 x 8 cm.

Stephanie H. Shih, Kimlan Soy Paste, 2020, ceramic, 9 x 3 x 3 inches, 23 x 7.5 x 7.5 cm.

Stephanie H. Shih, Bok Choy, 2022, ceramic, 4 x 6 x 4.5 inches, 10 x 15 x 11 cm.

Hanna Hansdotter, Kiss My Lips, 2023, mould blown glass, mirrored, 21 x 11 x 11 inches, 54 x 27 x 27 cm.

Hanna Hansdotter, Baroque Love, 2023, mould blown glass, mirrored, 20 x 11.5 x 11.5 inches, 50 cm x 29 x 29 cm.

Hanna Hansdotter, Leo Quilted Print, 2023, mould blown glass, mirrored 19.5 x 12.5 x 12.5 inches, 49.5 x 32 cm.

24K-Valhallvägen, 2023, acrylic, ink, pastic hearts, glitter, resin, gold leaf on canvas, 59 x 47 inches, 150 x 119 cm.

BENJAMIN REICHWALD & JONAS RÖNNBERG
FUCKED FOR LIFE
Open to the public:
May 23rd – June 2nd, 2023
Tuesday – Saturday 11 am – 6 pm

86 Walker Street, Tribeca

NEW YORK — The Hole is proud to present Fucked for Life, Benjamin Reichwald and Jonas Rönnberg’s first collaborative exhibition. The two artists have worked side by side to create a series of haunted sigils and a symbolic language in pigment. Their paintings assemble as a corrupt lacquer glaze, dense with overlapping marks but still shimmering like a smog-ridden halo.

Also known as highly influential and iconoclastic musicians, Bladee and Varg2™, Reichwald and Rönnberg share the same self-abiding attitude and interdisciplinary approach to their work that is nothing short of world-building. Both often mediate between the visual and the aural in their respective musical practices. With cartoon sigils, they make otherwise ineffable ideas manifest; using painting as a form of architecture for their songwriting. FFL is made with a mix of precious and canonised mediums (oils, resin, and gold leaf) as well as the cheap, errant tools of 3 AM wandering like grease pens, spray paint and broken pencils. Each painting balances baroque aspiration with a broke-ass disregard for institutionalized value. Oils and acrylics mix dis-affectionately in a naive impasto style. Resin is dripped and dragged in all directions creating a sickly lacquer glaze. Gold leaf is sometimes crumpled and pasted underneath, glimmering like a smog-ridden halo or a candy wrapper in the gutter. Canvas edges are often left raw, and occasionally, checkerboards line the perimeters like crude frames. A paint pen is loosely taped to the side of a canvas like evidence left casually at a crime scene. The act of making is viscerally felt in the presentation, much like the DIY qualities of their music.

When painting, Rönnberg and Reichwald like to work side by side. They collage on top of one another quickly and without hesitation. Similar to the act of crossing out another vandal or being buffed by the law, their techniques mimic the persistent layering of urban wall-scrawling. It is the lack of discretion for what they cover that creates new forms within each piece. Using subtractive pencil marks in wet paint, they reveal trickster mandalas. Smiling demonic faces are juxtaposed with runic tags, chains and crosses. The use of symmetry and loosely derived Christian occult symbols call back to the painters of Sweden’s past, from the Rosicrucian-affiliated polymath Johannes Bureus to the mystical abstract painter Hilma Af Klint. The works are instilled with the sense-making of older imagery but accelerate towards a contemporary moment that is both neon and pitch black. Reichwald and Rönnberg’s densely stained canvases capture the fleeting, seditious moments of a digital age.

Benjamin Reichwald (b. 1994, Stockholm, Sweden) has created a prolific body of work and gained global notoriety under the pseudonym Bladee. Oscillating between his praxis as a musician, designer and visual artist, his work is evolving and highly inventive, amplifying a potent combination of dream-logic, spiritual aspiration and lived experience across various mediums. Reichwald has released eight solo projects and three further collaborative albums with fellow members of the music collective Drain Gang. His catalog entangles a wide web of collaborators including Skrillex, Yung Lean, Evian Christ, Mechatok, CharliXCX, and Ecco2k to name a few. As a designer, he has produced capsule collections for American-Swedish brand Gant as well as the subversive luxury fashion house Marc Jacobs.

Jonas Rönnberg, otherwise known as Varg2™, is a musician and interdisciplinary artist based in Stockholm. Over his career, Rönnberg has established himself as a prolific producer and provocative force in Stockholm’s cultural scene and beyond. In his music, Rönnberg is unafraid to challenge listener expectations, freely moving between hyperpop-infused rap, heavyweight techno and complex ambient soundscapes. His list of collaborators is equally uncompromising, including Whitearmor, Bladee, Ecco2k, RX Papi, Drew Mcdowall, Puce Mary and Croatian Armor. Rönnberg founded the record label Northern Electronics in 2013 with Anthony Linell and has recently launched the imprint Cease 2 Exist.

For press inquiries email kaitlinephillips@gmail.com

For sales inquiries email charlotte@thehole.com

MBK STE, 2023, Acrylic, oil stick, resin on canvas, canvas dimensions 59 x 47 inches, 150 x 119 cm. framed dimensions 61 x 49 x 2 inches, 155 x 124 x 5 cm

24K-Valhallvägen, 2023, Acrylic, ink, pastic hearts, glitter, resin, gold leaf on canvas, canvas dimensions 59 x 47 inches, 150 x 119 cm. framed dimensions 61 x 49 x 2 inches, 155 x 124 x 5 cm.

Nyfödd Gilera 180, 2023, Acrylic, pencil, resin on panel, panel dimensions 21 x 18 inches, 55 x 46 cm. framed dimensions 28 x 24.5 x 2 inches, 71 x 62 x 5 cm.

HSS, Motorsåg i en blå sandlåda, 2023, Acrylic, oil stick on panel, panel dimensions 24 x 19 inches, 61 x 50 cm. framed dimensions 30.5 x 26 x 2 inches, 77 x 66 x 5 cm.

Solvalla Pusher, 2023, Acrylic, pencil, resin on panel, panel dimensions 21 x 19 inches, 55 x 48 cm. framed dimensions 28 x 25.5 x 2 inches, 55 x 65 x 5 cm.

OCB dinitrol, 2023, Acrylic on wood, wood dimensions 27 x 30 inches, 68.5 x 77.5 cm. framed dimensions 34 x 38 x 2 inches, 86 x 96.5 x 5 cm.

EXC, 2023, Acrylic, oil stick on wood, wood dimensions 24 x 19.5 inches, 61 x 49.5 cm. framed dimensions 30.5 x 26 x 2 inches, 77.5 x 66 x 5 cm.

Power king, 2023, Acrylic, Acrylic on wood, wood dimensions 24 x 19.5 inches, 61 x 50 cm. framed dimensions 30.5 x 26 x 2 inches, 77 x 66 x 5 cm.

Dry Sift Candyflip, 2023, Acrylic, oil stick, resin on canvas, canvas dimensions 59 x 47 inches, 150 x 120 cm. framed dimensions 61 x 49 x 2 inches, 155 x 124 x 5 cm.

Snösätra Blomster, 2023, Acrylic on PVC plastic, plastic dimensions 44 x 22 inches, 112 x 58 cm. framed dimensions 50 x 29 x 2 inches, 127 x 73 x 5 cm.

Dov Hämnd, 2023, Acrylic, oil stick, resin on canvas, canvas dimensions 59 x 47 inches, 150 x 120 cm. framed dimensions 61 x 49 x 2 inches, 155 x 124 x 5 cm.

Återfall, 2023, Acrylic, oil stick, pencil on wood, wood dimensions 49 x 33 inches, 125 x 84 cm. framed dimensions 55.5 x 39 x 2 inches, 141 x 99 x 5 cm.

Antti, 2023, Acrylic, isolation paint, oil stick, resin on canvas, canvas dimensions 59 x 47 inches, 150 x 120 cm. framed dimensions 155 x 124 x 2 inches, 155 x 124 x 5 cm.

06 Insekt, 2023, Acrylic, pencil, resin on canvas, canvas dimensions 31.5 x 31.5 inches, 80 x 80 cm. framed dimensions 33.5 x 33.5 x 2 inches, 85 x 85 x 5 cm.

Kallhäll, 2023, Acrylic on canvas, canvas dimensions 31.5 x 31.5 inches, 80 x 80 cm. framed dimensions 33.5 x 33.5 x 2 inches, 85 x 85 x 5 cm.

vila i frid, T centralen, 2023, Acrylic on canvas, canvas dimensions 59 x 47  inches, 150 x 120 cm. framed dimensions 61 x 49 x 2 inches, 155 x 124 x 5 cm.

Anti Cimex, 2023, Lithograph, oil stick, spray paint, ink, knives, needles on plastic film, 34.5 x 24 inches, 88 x 61 cm.

Katti i fönster, 2023, Lithograph, oil stick, spray paint, knives, needles on plastic film, 34.5 x 24 inches, 88 x 61 cm.

Matthew Hansel, Morning’s Light We Can’t Forget, It Warms Us Like An Ember, Illuminating With Regret, The Nights We Can’t Remember, 2023, oil and flashe on canvas, 70 x 56 inches, 178 x 142 cm.

MATTHEW HANSEL
MY INNER DEMON NEVER SLEEPS ALONE

May 6th–June 24th, 2023

OPENING: Saturday, April 29th from 6–8 pm at 86 Walker Street

LOS ANGELES — The Hole is proud to present My Inner Demon Never Sleeps Alone, a body of work that Matthew Hansel has been developing over the course of the last three years.

The main gallery features a bestiary of demons, pixies and nude men and women in all kinds of entanglements, poses and rituals. The human figures are painted from clippings from 1960s and ‘70s brochures for West Coast nudist colonies, while their demons, with scaly bodies, attenuated snouts and poulaine-toed feet, recall the morality paintings of Hieronymus Bosch. Hansel’s allegorical twist: instead of admonishing the viewer, he aims to enchant them, conjuring a universe in which, he says, “people are able to live beside and enjoy their demons in a way that they can’t in the real world.”

In more of Hansel’s own words:

It’s in our unattended moments that we allow ourselves the freedom to contemplate the abject. We allow ourselves to flirt with our demons; to be seduced by them. Pursuant to this point, the critic Pear Salabert wrote, “The redemption of the flesh through the raw materiality present in art can lead the spectator to a state in which his physical or moral integrity is altered. The abject is the process, always in transit, which dominates the obscene instance of the object. That’s why the subject is drawn to it, instead of rejected, in a sort of ‘seductive disgust.’”

It is this transitional state between disgust and delight, pleasure and refusal, Eros and Thanatos that makes the grotesque so intoxicating. Art persuades us of its beauty and allows us to delight in the paradox. It’s this paradoxical world that I am most interested in. Where the freedom exists to fall in love with the unlovable and seek the unknowable. A place where one can eschew the coldness of classical beauty and indulge guilt-free in the allure of the repulsive. A hinterland where you can happily live alongside your demons—or at least date them for a while.

The rear gallery contains five oil and flashe works that Hansel describes as meditations on color and 20th century abstraction, each of them filled with the precisely painted knots, fringes and folds of rumpled oriental carpets. Lavishly topographic, their titles—A Patterned Promised Land (Red), The Unfolding of Wrinkle Ridge (Pink), Midnight on Modest Mountain (Blue), The Crease In Desert Canyon (Yellow) and Moonlight on Moss Covered Cliffs (Green)—refer to landscapes, the carpets’ undulations suggesting mountains, caves and valleys. 

Hansel’s inspiration for the series came while visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art as a student: he saw A Maid Asleep, Vermeer’s depiction of a young woman nodding off next to a glass of wine, a composition that is dramatically interceded upon by a 17th-century Anatolian Kilim rug draped across a table in the foreground. The imported textile is a common yet normally subtle element in depictions of Dutch upper class interiors of the time. Hansel was transfixed by the Vermeer: “there’s this beautifully painted rug,” he remembers, “and I thought: that rug is enough for the whole painting.” 

Rounding out the show in the west gallery is Hansel’s first-ever series of drawings, each of them seemingly a study for a staffage painting in flashe paint and colored pencil on paper. As in his large canvases, demons and humans are engaged in some baffling and surreal kind of recreation. A person’s head sprouts a windmill or a crop of mushrooms, bouquets and trumpets emerge from butts, and a chimera on roller skates pauses to concentrate on a task that’s much better seen than described. 

Matthew Hansel (b. 1977) holds an MFA from Yale University and BFA from The Cooper Union School of Art. This is his third solo exhibition with the gallery, following Inner Demon Delectatio in 2021 and Giving Up the Ghost in 2019. He has had other solo exhibitions in Milan, London, Tokyo, Detroit and Culver City and has shown at Brand New Gallery, Galerie Droste, PM/AM among many others. 

Email raymond@thehole.com for more information.

We Exclaim Our Desires, Brief Whispers In The Wind, Our Ecstasies Our Instrument, Our Demons Our Delight, 2023, oil and flashe on canvas, 32 x 40 inches, 81 x 102 cm.

The Only Secret Worth Keeping, Is Safely Held In A Place Unseen, 2023, oil and flashe on canvas, 40 x 32 inches, 102 x 81 cm.

The Studio Assistant, 2023, oil and flashe on canvas, 40 x 32 inches, 102 x 81 cm.

Dancing On The Toes Of Our Shadows, 2023, oil and flashe on canvas, 70 x 56 inches, 178 x 142 cm.

Selfie, 2023, oil and flashe on canvas, 70 x 56 inches, 178 x 142 cm.

Morning’s Light We Can’t Forget, It Warms Us Like An Ember, Illuminating With Regret, The Nights We Can’t Remember, 2023, oil and flashe on canvas, 70 x 56 inches, 178 x 142 cm.

The Garden Party, 2023, oil and flashe on canvas, 70 x 56 inches, 178 x 142 cm.

The Bounty Of Our Love Grows Silent and Unseen, 2023, oil and flashe on canvas, 60 x 48 inches, 152 x 122 cm.

Moonlight On Moss Covered Cliffs (Green), 2023, oil and flashe on canvas, 60 x 48 inches, 152 x 122 cm.

The Crease In Desert Canyon (Yellow), 2023, oil and flashe on canvas, 60 x 48 inches, 152 x 122 cm.

A Patterned Promised Land (Red), 2023, oil and flashe on canvas, 70 x 56 inches, 178 x 142 cm.

The Unfolding Of Wrinkle Ridge (Pink), 2023, oil and flashe on canvas, 60 x 48 inches, 152 x 122 cm.

Midnight On Modest Mountain (Blue), 2023, oil and flashe on canvas, 60 x 48 inches, 152 x 122 cm.

A New Hat, 2023, flashe paint and colored pencil on paper, paper dimensions 19 x 12 inches, 48 x 30 cm, framed dimensions 23.5 x 17 inches, 60 x 43 cm.

Field Party In Paradise, 2023, flashe paint and colored pencil on paper, paper dimensions 17 x 11 inches, 43 x 28 cm, framed dimensions 22 x 15.75 inches, 56 x 40 cm.

Rainy Denouement, 2023, flashe paint and colored pencil on paper, paper dimensions 19 x 12 inches, 48 x 30 cm, framed dimensions 23.5 x 17 inches, 60 x 43 cm.

Mr. Muscles, 2023, flashe paint and colored pencil on paper, paper dimensions 19 x 11.5 inches, 48 x 29 cm, framed dimensions 23.5 x 16 inches, 60 x 41 cm.

The Hikers, 2023, flashe paint and colored pencil on paper, paper dimensions 19 x 12 inches, 48 x 30.5 cm, framed dimensions 23.5 x 17 inches, 60 x 43 cm.

Standing On Shaky Ground, 2023, flashe paint and colored pencil on paper, paper dimensions 17.5 x 11 inches, 44.5 x 28 cm, framed dimensions 22 x 16 inches, 56 x 41 cm.

Below The Surface (Bouquet), 2023, flashe paint and colored pencil on paper, paper dimensions 19 x 11 inches, 48 x 28 cm, framed dimensions 23.5 x 17 inches, 60 x 43 cm.

Conversation Games, 2023, flashe paint and colored pencil on paper, paper dimensions 19 x 12.5 inches, 48 x 32 cm, framed dimensions 23.5 x 17 inches, 60 x 43 cm.

Helga, 2023, flashe paint and colored pencil on paper, paper dimensions 19 x 12 inches, 48 x 30.5 cm, framed dimensions 23.5 x 17 inches, 60 x 43 cm.

Helping Hand, 2023, flashe paint and colored pencil on paper, paper dimensions 19 x 12 inches, 48 x 30 cm, framed dimensions 23.5 x 17 inches, 60 x 43 cm.

Along For The Ride, 2023, flashe paint and colored pencil on paper, paper dimensions 19 x 12 inches, 48 x 30 cm, framed dimensions 23.5 x 17 inches, 60 x 43 cm.

Interlocking Interlocutors, 2023, oil and flashe paint on canvas, 24 x 18 inches, 61 x 46 cm.

The Couple, 2023, oil and flashe paint on canvas, 24 x 18 inches, 61 x 46 cm.

Caitlin Cherry | Baltimore Museum of Art

The Culture: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century
April 5th–July 16th, 2023

The Hole is proud to share news of Caitlin Cherry‘s contributions to The Baltimore Museum of Art’s blockbuster exhibition The Culture: Hip-Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century. 

From the BMA website: 

Since its emergence in the Bronx in the 1970s, hip hop has grown into a global phenomenon, driving innovations in music, fashion, technology, and visual and performing arts.

Coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the birth of hip hop, The Culture: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century captures the extraordinary influence hip hop has had on contemporary society through more than 90 works of art and fashion by some of today’s most important and celebrated artists and iconic brands.

The Culture, co-organized with the Saint Louis Art Museum, explores the past two decades of hip hop through a wide range of painting, sculpture, photography, installations, video, and fashion organized into six themes—Language, Brand, Adornment, Tribute, Ascension, and Pose.

“Hip hop’s impact, meaning, and influence are both imperceivable and obvious, and are felt, in equal measure, across both mainstream culture and fine art in the U.S. and abroad,” said Asma Naeem, the Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director. “With this exhibition, we are developing a greater depth of scholarship about hip hop, and how it appears as its own canon in so many aspects of contemporary artmaking, allowing us to better understand its distinct qualities and the reasons why it has so deeply embedded itself in the global psyche.”

Filtering media through layers of digital manipulation, Cherry’s work draws parallels between Black femme bodies, frequently commodified and positioned as sexual assets, and the seductiveness of art objects in the commercial gallery circuit. Resisting easy placement in the cultural marketplace of hot-takes, these paintings decline respectability politics in favor of a nuanced and unabashedly sexy assessment of online drama, distortion and desire.

Caitlin Cherry | The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
I’ll Be Your Mirror: Art and the Digital Screen
February 12th–April 30th, 2023

The Hole is proud to share news of Caitlin Cherry‘s contributions to The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth’s I’ll Be Your Mirror: Art and the Digital Screen.

Filtering media through layers of digital manipulation, Cherry’s work draws parallels between Black femme bodies, frequently commodified and positioned as sexual assets, and the seductiveness of art objects in the commercial gallery circuit. Resisting easy placement in the cultural marketplace of hot-takes, these paintings decline respectability politics in favor of a nuanced and unabashedly sexy assessment of online drama, distortion and desire. 

From The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth’s website: 

The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth presents the landmark I’ll Be Your Mirror: Art and the Digital Screen, a thematic group exhibition that examines the screen’s vast impact on art from 1969 to the present. This exhibition surveys more than sixty works by fifty artists over the past five decades. The artists included examine screen culture through a broad range of media such as paintings, sculpture, video games, digital art, augmented reality, and video.

Screens affect nearly every aspect of life today. Their pervasiveness has bred a 24/7 breaking news cycle, the looming corporate-sponsored virtual-reality “Metaverse,” unlimited accessibility and content, and an ease in how ideas and images are distributed, undoubtedly shaping culture in profound ways. This exhibition starts in 1969—the year of the televised Apollo moon landing and the launch of the internet’s prototype, ARPANET—as this was the watershed year where collective connectivity through screens was first mobilized in mainstream culture. This era forged what the media theorist Marshall McLuhan presciently deemed in the 1960s a “global village,” a place where distance is collapsed and people from across the world readily interact. Following this trajectory, contemporary life is hybrid and increasingly mediated through screens. These flat and finite surfaces embody more than what meets the eye—they hold up a mirror to society and contribute to forming meaning in life and mainstream culture.

I’ll Be Your Mirror: Art and the Digital Screen is organized into nine key themes: liminal space, connectivity, surveillance, the repository, digital abstraction, the posthuman body, automation and the loneliness epidemic, ecology, and turning a mirror on ourselves.

More than 25,000 square feet of gallery space will be devoted to the exhibition, which will include iconic works by prominent national and international artists of the 20th and 21st centuries, such as Cory Arcangel, American Artist, Gretchen Bender, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Arthur Jafa, Nam June Paik, Hito Steyerl, and Andy Warhol, and as well as several leading artists living in Texas, including Liss LaFleur, Kristin Lucas, and John Pomara. Several new and never-before-seen works by key artists Caitlin Cherry, Simon Denny, Kahlil Robert Irving, and Hasan Elahi will debut in this exhibition. This is the most in-depth show of its kind in the Southwest region and is only one of a few presentations exploring art and digital technology in the past decade at this scale. The exhibition is organized by the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth and is curated by Curator Alison Hearst.