Contemporary Art Daily

Artist: Jordan Wolfson

Venue: T293

Exhibition Title: Basics

Date: November 25, 2008 – January 31, 2009

Full gallery of images, press release and link available after the jump.

Images:

Basics, 2008
2 channel color video with sound
5 minutes / 10 minutes

Images courtsey of T293, Napoli.

Press Release:

Imagination is a mechanism which can produce continuous reversals of meaning characterized by a never-ending employment of logic: objects that change their sense, real actions which become virtual and vice versa. Reality, on the other hand, produces a whirling kaleidoscope of differences that generate confused and difficult conditions which can be ascribed to a unique feeling. Jordan Wolfson’s (New York, 1980) installation has a paradoxically modern sense of difference and critique at its theme. “Basics” is a two channel video projected on either side of a hanging screen. The one side shows a mime alone in an empty photostudio pretending to take a photograph while an audio track taken from YouTube of a young man’s absurd diatribe on Islamic religion is appropriated. The video is conceptually doubled back and obscured again by the second channel which shows a video recorded screen shot of a document being typed on the subject of essential kitchen appliances and communal cooking. The installation expands throughout the art gallery going beyond the projection space by means of a system of benches placed along the walls. The meaning based on the practical use of long seats, typically recalls those of a gym or a prison. Playing with reproductions, appropriation, analogies and ambiguity, Jordan Wolfson, creates a continuous and distorted mix of reality, imagination, and cultural critique.

Jordan Wolfson lives and works in Berlin and New York. Selected solo shows include: Untitled false document, Swiss Institute of Contemporary Art, New York (2008); Art Statements (with T293), Art 38 Basel, Basel (2007); Optical Sound, Gamec – Galleria d’ Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Bergamo (2007); Galerie Johann König, Berlin (2007). Recent group shows include: T- Torino Triennale d’Arte Contemporanea, 50 lune di Saturno, Turin (2008); Gladstone Gallery, Brussels (2008); Presentation collection, S.M.A.K., Gent (2008);The Eternal Flame, Kunsthaus Baselland, Basel (2008); Passengers, CCA Wattis Institute, San Francisco (2008); Learn to Read, Tate Modern, London (2007); Stop & Go, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin (2007); the 2nd Biennial of Contemporary Art in Moscow, Moscow (2007).

Link: Jordan Wolfson at T293