“FADE IN: INT. ART GALLERY DAY” at Swiss Institute
Artists: Danai Anesiadou, Nairy Baghramian, Michael Bell-Smith, Dora Budor, Heman Chong, Mike Cooter, Brice Dellsperger, GALA Committee, Mathis Gasser, Jamian Juliano-Villani, Bertrand Lavier, William Leavitt, Christian Marclay, Rodrigo Matheus, Allan McCollum, Henrique Medina, Carissa Rodriguez, Cindy Sherman, Amie Siegel, Scott Stark, and Albert Whitlock; performances and public programs by Casey Jane Ellison, Mario García Torres, Alex Israel, Thirteen Black Cats, and more
Venue: Swiss Institute, New York
Exhibition Title: FADE IN: INT. ART GALLERY DAY
Date: March 3 – May 8, 2016
Full gallery of video, images, press release and link available after the jump.
Video:
Scott Stark, Noema, 1999. Videotape, color, sound. 11 minutes.
Images:
- GALA Committee
- GALA Committee
- Brice Dellsperger
- Amie Siegel
- Amie Siegel
- Danai Anesiadou
- Albert Whitlock
- William Leavitt
- Allan McCollum
- Mike Cooter
- Mike Cooter
- William Leavitt
- Carissa Rodriguez
- Nairy Baghramian
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Left: Henrique Medina
Right: Cindy Sherman
- GALA Committee
- GALA Committee
- Mathis Gasser
- Scott Stark
- Dora Budor
- Rodrigo Matheus
- Rodrigo Matheus
- Rodrigo Matheus
- Michael Bell-Smith
- Christian Marclay
- Christian Marclay
- Bertrand Lavier
- Jamian Juliano-Villani
- Heman Chong
Images courtesy of Swiss Institute, New York
Press Release:
Recasting the gallery as a set for dramatic scenes, FADE IN: INT. ART GALLERY – DAY explores the role that art plays in narrative film and television. FADE IN features the work of 25 artists and considers a history of art as seen in classic movies, soap operas, science fiction, pornography and musicals. These works have been sourced, reproduced and created in response to artworks that have been made to appear on-screen, whether as props, set dressings, plot devices, or character cues.
The nature of the exhibition is such that sculptures, paintings and installations transition from prop to image to art object, staging an enquiry into whether these fictional depictions in mass media ultimately have greater influence in defining a collective understanding of art than art itself does. Certain preoccupations with artworks are established early on in cinematic history: the preciousness of art objects anchors their roles as plot drivers, and anxieties intensify regarding the vitality of artworks and their perceived abilities to wield power over viewers or to capture spirits. Such themes were famously explored in the 1945 film adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, from which Cindy Sherman has sourced the original portrait painted for the production. Across genres, the character of the artist is habitually portrayed as a volatile, mercurial figure with license to subvert societal norms, who is thereby ridiculed, feared and revered. From many such narratives, FADE IN draws out the art objects, granting them the status only previously achieved on-screen, whilst pointing to moments in which one form of media wrangles with the power of another.
The exhibition includes new commissions from Danai Anesiadou, Michael Bell-Smith, Dora Budor, Heman Chong, Mike Cooter, Brice Dellsperger, Mathis Gasser, Jamian Juliano-Villani, Bertrand Lavier, Christian Marclay, Rodrigo Matheus, Carissa Rodriguez and Amie Siegel. Source material ranges widely from The Maltese Falcon (1941) and Teorema (1968) through 9 ½ Weeks (1986) and The Princess Diaries (2001), to the The Twilight Zone (1959-64), Melrose Place (1992-99) and The X-Files (1993-2002).