Eliana Willis

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    in Street Art

    “Everything is Relative” by PEJAC in Madrid, Spain

    If ever there were an artist capable of switching seamlessly between indoor and outdoor practice, Pejac would instantly spring to mind. Following his much-acclaimed fourth solo show in Berlin at the end of 2021, he kicked off 2022 working on the streets of Madrid. When working in the urban space, one of the elements that most distinguishes Pejac is his ability to find poetry where there is none and this is the essence of his latest intervention in the Carabanchel neighborhood in Madrid, literally. Located in the south of the city, this traditionally working-class neighborhood is one of the most diverse areas of the capital. Paying homage to the local residents, Pejac has created a minimalist artwork charged with surrealism, a piece that spreads over the side wall of the new VETA Gallery – a symbol of the cultural and artistic transformation that the neighborhood has undergone in recent times. With his intervention, the artist not only resists restoring that which appears to lack value, but also carefully enhances the imperfections of the wall. With the goal of focussing attention on what already exists, Pejac deemed it sufficient to add discreet touches to the existing texture of the wall. Next to the areas of the wall where the paint has fallen off, the artist has depicted tiny groups of people who, in a collective and organized way, carry these “empty spaces” as if they were valuable objects.With this artistic intervention, Pejac invites the residents of Carabanchel to look at these patches of broken paintwork with pride and a fresh perspective. Perhaps it is his way of singing the praises of the history of the neighborhood and its residents, of what is authentic.The artwork can be found at:Calle de Antoñita Jiménez 39, Madrid 28019, Spain More

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    in Street Art

    ” Jon’s Pizza Shop” NFT Project by Jon Burgerman

    NYC-based and UK-born veteran contemporary artist, Jon Burgerman, is teaming up with the Taiko NFT team to create the very first NFT collection that enables collectors to combine their pizza slices into whole pies in exchange for physical artworks and more. Jon’s Pizza Shop will feature over 120 uniquely hand-drawn attributes by Jon Burgerman that have been digitally generated into 6,666 pizza slices. Pizza Pie collectors will also get an opportunity to be awarded physical pizza artworks created specifically for this NFT series. There will be a total of 23 physical artworks and each piece will feature one of the attributes from the collection. The NFTs will be minted on the Solana blockchain, as the team see the low cost and high speed of transaction as appealing to fans who want to collect and combine their pizza slices for a special round pizza pie NFT.“Pizza is something that has been represented in a lot of my work over the years. The idea of pizza, a food we all know and love to share, provides the perfect use for the medium artistically and technically. I am thrilled to work with Taiko NFT to bring my love for Pizza to a broader community!” – Jon BurgermanJon Burgerman’s instantly recognisable art has been exhibited all over the world from art fairs, galleries to museums to even the White House. His works are held in the permanent collections of institutions including the Victoria and Albert Museum, London and recently his digital work was acquired by the Upper Austrian Landes-Kultur museum in Linz.He creates work in a wide variety of media from paint, aerosols, digital and moving image. Online his gifs have been viewed over 9bn times and he has a dedicated following across social media. He has collaborated with brands including Apple, Samsung, Pepsi, Lotte, Snapchat, Instagram and Nike. He’s made vinyl collectable toys, picture books, apparel, fabric collections, inflatables, homeware, sportswear, underwear and many other things, including NFTs. Burgerman has had eight sell-out collections on Nifty Gateway since April 2020 and continues to be a rising star in the burgeoning scene. Expressing creativity and having fun is key to Burgerman’s practice. It’s his belief that simple creative acts can allow people to change not only their world but the world around themJon’s Pizza Shop is launching in February 2022. More information can be found on the website.About Jon Burgerman Jon Burgerman is a UK born, NYC based artist instigating improvisation and play through drawing and spectacle. His work is placed between fine art, urban art and pop-culture, using humour to reference and question his contemporary milieu. Expressing creativity and having fun is key to Burgerman’s practice. It’s his belief that simple creative acts can allow people to change not only their world but the world around them.About TaikoTaiko NFT is an international creative agency that empowers IPs and creators to tell their stories and build their unique communities. Leveraging blockchain technology, Taiko NFT aims to reshape how they support, share and interact with musicians, artists and brands. Taiko NFT provides IP holders a one-stop-shop solution to engage and tokenize its community with minimal effort but yield unlimited upside. Official LinksWebsite: jonspizzashop.ioDiscord: https://discord.gg/Q6XG3yPqAvTwitter: @jonspizzashopInstagram: @jonspizzashopJon Burgerman’s Collection: https://jonburgerman.com/The Story of Jon Burgerman: https://vimeo.com/226372581 More

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    in Exhibitions

    Sadie Barnette Has Made Art From the Files the FBI Kept on Her Father. Now She Has Recreated His Path-Breaking Nightclub

    The gallery for Sadie Barnette’s current exhibition at the Kitchen is practically pitch black—except for a horseshoe bar ringed with stools. Barnette’s re-creation of the New Eagle Creek Saloon—a gay bar and nightclub, the first Black-owned one in San Francisco, which her father, Rodney Barnette, ran from 1990 to 1993—sits in the middle of the room, lit up in neon pink and purple. 
    When I visited the celebrated art institution in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood, where Barnette’s installation will be on view through March 6, a family with two young children walked in behind me. They let out a collective gasp. The kids ran up to the installation, instantly amused by seeing their reflections in the mirrored bar. They then stood in front of the installation, underneath the neon “Eagle Creek” sign and near the glittered boom box they’d just been gawking at, and signaled for their parents to take a picture. After that, they all left.
    Installation view, Sadie Barnette, “The New Eagle Creek Saloon,” at the Kitchen, New York. Photo: Adam Reich.
    And this is what the installation will be for a lot of people. It’s dramatic. It’s fun. It sparkles. On the days when madison moore, assistant professor of queer studies at Virginia Commonwealth University and the Kitchen’s first nightlife and club culture resident, is hosting DJ events in the gallery, it’ll be a raucous dance party, invoking the spirit of queer nightlife.
    As Barnette sees it, expressions of pleasure and joy are legitimate responses to the work—the bar, in its day, generated quite a bit of both for its patrons. Digging a little deeper into “New Eagle Creek,” though, there is far more to the installation than first meets the eye—which is why, in the last two years, it has traveled to venues including the Lab in San Francisco and the Institute of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. This presentation at the Kitchen, and in collaboration with the Studio Museum in Harlem, is its first on the East Coast.
    Installation view, Sadie Barnette, “The New Eagle Creek Saloon,” at the Kitchen, New York. Photo: Adam Reich.
    Man, Father, and Muse
    Sadie, now 37, was seven years old when her dad first took her to the New Eagle Creek Saloon in the Haight. At the time, the bar was sponsoring a float for the 1992 San Francisco Pride Parade. 
    Rodney opened the bar “because of the racism that he and his multiracial group of gay friends experienced at white gay bars in San Francisco,” Barnette explains. “So it really was out of necessity—for the dignity of being cute and Black and gay in San Francisco in the 1990s that he set up this bar. And it really ends up being kind of a community center, a safe haven.”
    As Barnette remembers it, the theme for the float was “Black people through the ages.” She was dressed up as a Black Victorian. The event conjures up memories of being surrounded by an exuberant group of Black pharaohs and Black robots and Black astronauts. It was like being a part of the Black past, present, and future, all at once. From that moment on, the bar lived on in her imagination as a “larger than life; a mythical, fantastical space,” she recalls. “So it didn’t make sense to make my installation look like the original bar. It made sense to make it look like me dreaming in my aesthetic about the bar.”
    The “New Eagle Creek Saloon” was hardly the first time Barnette has pulled from her family’s history for her work. Back in high school, she says she took up photography as “a way of seeing the world or a way of engaging with the world as a witness”; realizing how political even her own personal history was, she has nurtured a documentary impulse ever since. “I was entranced by the stories and the performing of stories and the gatherings and the history and seeing so much of American history contained just within the living room,” she says. 
    In the last five years or so, the Oakland-based artist has centered her practice on her father’s past. In 2011, when Barnette was working on her MFA at the University of California, San Diego, her father suggested that they submit a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to obtain the surveillance file the FBI had once compiled on him. In the 1960s and ‘70s, Rodney was a Black Panther. He founded the Compton chapter of the organization in 1968; stood guard for Angela Davis as she awaited trial for murder, kidnapping, and conspiracy in 1970; and was for years deeply involved in Black revolutionary activism. 
    Sadie Barnette, Family Tree (2021). Courtesy of the artist and Jessica Silverman, San Francisco. Photo: John Wilson White.
    “I figured the [FOIA documents] would make [their] way to being a part of my work, since my work has always been centered around my family,” Barnette says. 
    Her father’s past, in particular, provides direct links to significant movements in Black history still left largely untold, such as the extent to which the Black Panthers influenced American politics and how Black people were active participants in the rise of LGBTQ culture of the late 1980s and early ’90s. 
    Sadie Barnette, Untitled (Dad, 1966 and 1968). Courtesy of the artist and Jessica Silverman, San Francisco.
    When the FBI documents—500 pages in total, covering seemingly mundane but also intensely private details of her father’s life—arrived four or five years later, Barnette started integrating them into her practice; first, as material in her first solo show in San Francisco, at Jenkins Johnson Gallery in 2016—which ran concurrently with her installation of similar work in a group exhibition at the Oakland Museum of California—and then within countless other shows over the years. In her approach, she doesn’t just display the documents as is. She manipulates them; she marks them up with spray paint, decorates them, tarnishes them—but never lets them escape her personal touch. By doing this, Barnette folds her voice into the construction of her dad’s legacy. She reclaims the parts of the documents that make no sense to her. Because she’s never seen her father as a threat. He’s always just been her dad.
    “The project that she did with the FOIA act that she submitted for her father,’” says Legacy Russell, executive director and chief curator at the Kitchen, “that body of work has since become really instrumental and a turning point across her process.”
    Installation view of “Sadie Barnette: Legacy and Legend” at the Benton Museum of Art at Pomona College, July 22–December 18, 2021. This exhibition was co-organized with Pitzer College Art Galleries. Photo: Fredrik Nilsen Studio.
    And in recent years, her projects have become even larger and more ambitious in scale—while still directly tied to her father’s life. 
    “I knew my dad had this amazing history with his bar. But the story was almost lost to history,” Barnette notes. So why not, she thought, also focus on this other profound period in Rodney’s life? Lately, though, she’s also “really looking to and is excited about fusing those narratives together,” says her dealer Jessica Silverman, “so that they don’t become these two separate issues. They became part of a whole, because that is who he is.” (The artist is also represented by Charlie James Gallery in Los Angeles.)
    The two narratives might not be so separate anyway. As Barnette puts it, Rodney’s engagement with many different communities—especially marginalized ones—is “just a part of the way that my father moves through the world,” she says, “whether it’s fighting for Angela Davis’s freedom or hosting a bar, I think it’s all about protecting the people.” Barnette’s forthcoming installation at Los Angeles International Airport, scheduled to be unveiled in 2024, will pay homage to efforts to shelter Davis while she was sought by the FBI.
    “Here’s one thing that my father said to me that I really appreciated,” Barnette says. “He’s like: when you read the history books, you don’t necessarily need to see your name there, but you just want to know that you were there and participated.”
    Installation view of “Sadie Barnette: Legacy and Legend” at Pitzer College Art Galleries (Lenzner Family Art Gallery) at Pitzer College, July 22–December 18, 2021. This exhibition was co-organized with the Benton Museum of Art at Pomona College. Photo: Fredrik Nilsen Studio.
    Beyond the Barnette Orbit 
    While it suits her father just fine knowing that he was there and made a difference, Barnette is striving for a little bit more.
    “In Sadie’s case, she’s really drawn to thinking about the way in which those who lived these experiences can be the ones that tell their own story,” says Russell. 
    In many ways, her work is breathing life into a history on life support. As far as official records of the New Eagle Creek Saloon, Barnette’s work is “not really reintroducing [the archive],” Silverman notes, “because there really never has been one.” 
    “There isn’t a National Archives for queer nightlife,” moore says. “Obviously, people have papers that might be related to queer nightlife—such as Langston Hughes, for example, whose papers are at the library and you can find some stuff in there about nightlife—but you have to sort of read between the tea leaves, if you will.”
    There has been a growing contingent of artists of late, ranging from Karon Davis to Garrett Bradley, who are intent on filling in gaps within the annals of Black history. And in reevaluating the idea of what that archive can be, “the documentation of [Barnette’s] project over time is in and of itself the archive,” Russell says, becoming much more than simply “the preservation and resurrection of Rodney’s legacy, and the memory of the space that he founded.”
    Installation view of “Sadie Barnette: Legacy and Legend” at Pitzer College Art Galleries (Lenzner Family Art Gallery), July 22 to December 18, 2021. This exhibition is co-organized with the Benton Museum of Art at Pomona College. Photography courtesy of Fredrik Nilsen Studio.
    Such an archive can also be meaningfully integrated in other arenas. In bringing this installation to the Kitchen, Russell hopes to explore “a really important history that creates a through line between different parts of New York City history,” she continues, “[because] this project steps right into those intersections. It’s a project about city change and gentrification. It’s a project about the whitewashing of Black space. It’s a project about the kind of migration and journeying of Black people and Black economies.”
    When Barnette takes stock of her own life, as she’s done with her father’s for her work, she realizes that she is, and always has been, a storyteller. 
    “The title of the show that was just at Jessica Silverman was ‘Inheritance,’” Barnette says, “and I really do think of history and stories as a type of inheritance. And it’s a gift. It’s a treasure. It’s also a responsibility.”
    “Sadie Barnette: The New Eagle Creek Saloon” is on view at the Kitchen, 512 West 19th Street, New York, through March 6.
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    in Exhibitions

    The Whitney Museum Will Stage a Landmark Show of Puerto Rican Art Made in the Five Years Since Hurricane Maria

    The Whitney Museum of American Art will mark the five-year anniversary of Hurricane Maria with the first major exhibition of Puerto Rican art to be organized at a U.S. museum in five decades.
    The exhibition, titled “No existe un mundo poshuracán: Puerto Rican Art in the wake of Hurricane Maria,” will bring together an intergenerational group of more than 15 artists based in Puerto Rico and across the diaspora, more than half of which identify as women, trans, and nonbinary. Their contributions, all created since the storm hit in September 20, 2017, “seek to analyze the cracks left by the storm in the very structure of Puerto Rico’s politics, culture, and society,” according to an announcement from the museum.
    Marcela Guerrero, the Whitney’s curator who organized the show along with current and former museum fellows Angelica Arbelaez and Sofía Silva, said in an email to Artnet News that the exhibition would not be another celebration of a community’s resilience in the face of tragedy. 
    “‘Resilience’ is a word that has been used uncritically in the context of post-Maria,” the curator said. “As scholar Marisol Lebrón has said, resilience abdicates the state of responsibility. Efforts to build a Puerto Rico beyond the constraints imposed by its colonial design have always existed and this, perhaps, is one of its most acute and visible moments.”
    Gamaliel Rodríguez, Collapsed Soul (2020-21). Courtesy of the artist and Nathalie Karg Gallery NYC. © 2021 Gamaliel Rodríguez. Photo: Gamaliel Rodríguez.
    The exhibition and its catalogue, Guerrero went on, “are examples of this coalescing of voices of artists and thinkers who share an interest in exposing this dire moment in Puerto Rican history, yet offering an alternative in how to see things and how to resist simplistic understandings of what is a very complex political and social reality.”
    Studies have estimated that between 3,000 and 4,645 Puerto Ricans died as a result of Hurricane Maria in 2017—an appalling figure that experts say has as much to do with the severity of the Category 5 storm as it does with the lack of state and federal resources granted to the island territory both before and after the catastrophe. (To many, the image of former President Trump throwing paper towels to Puerto Ricans epitomized the negligence.)
    Sofía Gallisá Muriente, Celaje (2020). Courtesy of the artist. © 2020 Sofía Gallisá Muriente.
    The exhibition checklist is still being tweaked, Guerrero said, but the show will include paintings, prints, performances, and other artworks. And it’s not just the hurricane that it’ll address. Also on the table are other events that have altered the island territory in the years since, including the 2019 ousting of governor Ricardo Rosselló and the pandemic. 
    “Hurricane Maria left an indelible mark on the history of Puerto Rico,” Guerrero said. “With the hindsight of five years since that fateful event, we know that Maria’s effects cannot be reduced to the storm itself but rather unfold across the events that preceded and followed September 20. The arts community understands the nuances of this reality, and through their work can at once denounce the policies of disinvestment in the lives of Puerto Ricans while also communicating a message of resistance.” 
    “No existe un mundo poshuracán: Puerto Rican Art in the wake of Hurricane Maria” is set to take place November 23, 2022–April 23, 2023 at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.
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    in Street Art

    D*FACE “Death and Glory” Limited Edition Sculpture – Available February 9th

    Atelier Kismet collaborated with D*Face (Dean Stockton), one of the UK’s most prolific Urban Contemporary artists. This collaborative piece, entitled Death & Glory, represents the third iteration of the original D*Face artwork under the same title. On 07 May 2021, Atelier Kismet released an edition of 75 silver Death & Glory.On 09 February 2022, the atelier will release three new variants (Gold, White, and Delft); each variant will come in an edition of 10. The piece features a hidden incense burner chamber inside the ceramic model, bringing the sculpture to life as is smokes and fumes with the incense of choice.The sculpture represents a significant landmark in D*Face’s career as it was the opening statement to his first solo show Death & Glory, StolenSpace Gallery, London (2006). Featuring a police car, smashed under the weight of the iconic D*Dog, the work reflects on the recklessness of the police force actions in law enforcement and is a statement of the artist’s reaction against such conduct.“Death and Glory” sculpture comes an edition of 10 for each variant (Gold, White, and Delft) with measurements as the following:D*DogCeramic with Platinum Coating19 cm x 11 cm x 12.5 cmPolice CarGlazed and Hand Decorated Ceramic24 cm x 10 cm; height: 7.5 cmBox28.6 cm x 27.6 cm; height: 21.2 cmDean Stockton, also known as D*Face, is one of UK’s most prolific Urban Contemporary artists. Taking the public streets as his canvas, he blends art, graffiti and design to create murals that at the time, preceded Urban Art’s emergence as it is known today. The artist describes his work, often characterised by vibrant hues and sharp lines, as ‘aPOPcalyptic’. D*Face seeks to pick up from where the masters of 1980’s American Pop Art left off by subverting everyday images and icons, criticising the consumer dominated world and encouraging the viewer to carefully consider what otherwise might be taken for granted.Check out below for more images of “Death and Glory”.The sculpture will be available on February 9th, Wednesday @ 5PM UK Time at Atelier Kismet. More

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    in Exhibitions

    In Pictures: See How LACMA’s New Interscope Records Show Pairs Artists With the Musicians That Inspire Them, from Lana Del Rey to Dr. Dre

    For just a few short weeks, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is hosting “Artists Inspired By Music: Interscope Reimagined”, which pairs paintings by Ed Ruscha, Amoako Boafo, Kehinde Wiley, and Anna Weyant with songs or albums from Interscope Records. The exhibition came about as a means to celebrate the music label’s 30th anniversary, and Dr Dre, Billie Eilish, Kendrick Lamar, Nine Inch Nails, and Lady Gaga are among the musicians from which the participating artists drew their inspiration.
    The show closes on February 13, so in case you can’t go see the works yourself, take a look at (most of) the work on view here.

    Adam Pendleton, Untitled (Dr. Dre, The Chronic) (2021), reimagining the Dr. Dre album The Chronic (1992), silkscreen ink on canvas. Courtesy of the artist and David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles.
    Amoako Boafo, 6Lack – Black Woolen Hat (2021), reimagining the album FREE 6LACK (2016), oil on canvas. Courtesy of the artist and Roberts Projects, Los Angeles, California.
    Anna Park, Intermission (2021), reimagining the Billie Eilish album When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? (2019), charcoal on paper mounted on panel. Private Collection.
    Anna Weyant, Dessert (2021), reimagining the Gwen Stefani album The Sweet Escape (2006), oil on canvas, Courtesy of the artist and Gagosian
    Burnt Toast, Seeing Sounds (2021), reimagining the N*E*R*D album Seeing Sounds (2008), digital file. Courtesy of the artist.
    Cecily Brown, If Teardrops Could Be Bottled (2021), reimagining the Billie Eilish EP don’t smile at me (2017), oil on linen. Courtesy of the artist.
    Chloe Wise, The River’s All Wet (2021), reimagining the Yeah Yeah Yeahs album It’s Blitz! (2009), oil on linen. Courtesy of the artist and Almine Rech.
    Damien Hirst, Addict (2021), reimagining the Eminem album The Slim Shady LP (1999), mixed media. Private Collection.
    Derrick Adams, The Breakthrough (2021), reimagining the Mary J. Blige album The Breakthrough (2005), acrylic on wood panel. Courtesy of the artist.
    Ed Ruscha, All Eyez on Me (2021), reimagining the 2Pac album All Eyez on Me (1996), acrylic on linen. Private Collection.
    Emily Mae Smith, Broken (2021), reimagining the Nine Inch Nails EP Broken (1992), oil on linen. Courtesy of the artist and Petzel Gallery, New York.
    Ferrari Sheppard, Blackstreet Harmony (2021), reimagining the song “No Diggity” (featuring Dr Dre and Queen Pen) from the Blackstreet album Another Level (1996), acrylic, charcoal and 24k gold on canvas. Ferrari Sheppard Studio.
    Genesis Tramaine, Black Woman Saint Cleans Jesus (2021), reimagining the Summer Walker album Over It (2019), acrylic, oil paint, Lawry’s Seasoning Salt, the Holy Spirit. Courtesy of the Artist and Almine Rech.
    Henni Alftan, Untitled (2021), reimagining the Olivia Rodrigo album SOUR (2021), oil on canvas. Courtesy of the artist and Karma, New York.
    Henry Taylor, Untitled (2021), reimagining the song “DNA” from the Kendrick Lamar album DAMN (2017), acrylic on canvas. Private Collection.
    Hilary Pecis, Untitled (2021), reimagining the Selena Gomez album Rare (2020), acrylic on canvas. Private Collection.
    Issy Wood, Gwen with All the Obstacles (2021), reimagining the song “Cool” from the Gwen Stefani album Love. Angel. Music. Baby. (2004), oil on linen. Lent by the artist and Carlos/Ishikawa, London.
    Jenna Gribbon, Lana Watched (2021), reimagining the Lana Del Rey album Born to Die (2012), oil on linen. Private Collection.
    Jennifer Guidi, Seeking Hearts (Black Sand MT, Pink Sand, Pink CS, Pink Ground) (2021), reimagining the BLACKPINK album The Album (2020), sand, acrylic and oil on linen. Private Collection.
    John Currin, Newspaper Couple (2016), reimagining the song “Beautiful Day” from the U2 album All That You Can’t Leave Behind (2000), oil on canvas. Gagosian, Courtesy of the artist.
    Jordy Kerwick, Bloody Valentine (2021), reimagining the song “Bloody Valentine” from the Machine Gun Kelly album Tickets to My Downfall (2020), acrylic on canvas. Private Collection, courtesy of Vito Schnabel Gallery.
    Julie Curtiss, Venus (2021), reimagining the song “Just a Girl” from the No Doubt album Tragic Kingdom (1995), acrylic and oil on canvas. Courtesy of the artist and Anton Kern Gallery, New York.
    KAWS, Better Days Ahead (2021), reimagining the Snoop Dogg album Doggystyle (1993), acrylic on canvas. Private Collection.
    Kehinde Wiley, The Watcher (2021), reimagining the Dr. Dre album 2001 (1999), oil on canvas. Private Collection.
    Lauren Halsey, Untitled (2021), reimagining the Kendrick Lamar album To Pimp a Butterfly (2015), gypsum on wood. Courtesy of the artist and David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles.
    Loie Hollowell, Mandalora Squeeze (2019), reimagining the Lady Gaga album The Fame Monster (2009), oil paint, acrylic medium and case resin on linen over panel. Private Collection.
    Lucy Bull, 10:00 (2021), reimagining the song “Spiderwebs” from the No Doubt album Tragic Kingdom (1995), oil on linen. Private Collection.
    Marc Quinn, We Share Our Chemistry with the Stars (MGK200) (2021), reimagining the Machine Gun Kelly album Tickets to My Downfall (2020), oil on canvas. Marc Quinn Studio.
    Matthew Wong, The Outside World (2018), reimagining the Lana Del Rey EP Paradise (2012), gouache on paper. Matt Wong Painter Ltd.
    Nicolas Party, Portrait with a Parrot (2021), reimagining the Lady Gaga album Joanne (2016), pastel on cardboard. Private Collection, courtesy of Karma, New York.
    Nina Chanel Abney, 2 PM (2021), reimagining the 2Pac album The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory (1996), collage on panel. Pace Prints and courtesy of the artist.
    OSGEMEOS, The End (2021), reimagining the Black Eyed Peas album The E.N.D. (2009), mixed media on MDF. Courtesy of OSGEMEOS.
    Rashid Johnson, Good Kid (2021), reimagining the Kendrick Lamar album good kid, m.A.A.d city (2012), ceramic tile, mirror, red oak, oil stick, spray enamel. Courtesy of the artist and David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles.
    Raymond Pettibon, No title (Lake Placid) (2019), reimagining the Lana Del Rey album Norman Fucking Rockwell! (2019), ink on paper. Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner.
    Reggie Burrows Hodges, Swimming in Compton: Look Ma (December Day) (2021), reimagining the song “Swimming Pools (Drank)” from the Kendrick Lamar album good kid, m.A.A.d city (2012), acrylic and pastel on canvas. Courtesy of the artist and Karma, New York.
    Richard Prince, Untitled (2021), reimagining the Nine Inch Nails album The Downward Spiral (1994), acrylic and ink jet on canvas. Courtesy of Richard Prince.
    Sayre Gomez, Commemorative Merchandising (2021), reimagining the 50 Cent album Get Rich Or Die Tryin’ (2003), acrylic on canvas. Courtesy of François Ghebaly Gallery.
    Shepard Fairey, Yeah Yeah Yeahs (2021), reimagining the Yeah Yeah Yeahs album Fever to Tell (2003), stencil impression and mixed media collage on album covers. Courtesy of Obey Giant Art Inc.
    Stanley Whitney, Roma 32 (2021), reimagining the song “King Kunta” from the Kendrick Lamar album To Pimp a Butterfly (2015), oil on linen. Courtesy of Lisson Gallery.
    Takashi Murakami, Goodbye & Good Riddance (2021), reimagining the Juice WRLD album Goodbye & Good Riddance (2018), acrylic on canvas mounted on wood frame. Courtesy of Kaikai Kiki Co Limited.
    Titus Kaphar, Seeing Through Time (2021), reimagining the Eve album Scorpion (2001), oil on panel. Private Collection.
    Toyin Ojih Odutola, Damn (2021), reimagining the Kendrick Lamar album DAMN. (2017), graphite on black board; graphite on Duralar. Private Collection.
    Umar Rashid, The Dar al harb according to Tupac. Or, Shakur vs the other world. Earth like, violent, and prone to frequent periods of injustice. Alas, if one seeks it, one can find beauty in the hideous. (Me against the world) (2021), reimagining the 2Pac album Me Against the World (1995), acrylic and spray paint on canvas. Courtesy of Half Gallery and Blum and Poe.
    Will Boone, HELMET (2021), reimagining the Helmet album Meantime (1992), acrylic on canvas. Courtesy of the artist and David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles.

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    in Exhibitions

    Dive Into the Confusing and Manipulative World of Deepfakes Through This Chilling Show at the Museum of the Moving Image

    “Can you spot a Deepfake?” That is the question that first greets visitors to the website for In Event of Moon Disaster, an Emmy Award-winning documentary that uses deepfake technology to present an alternate history of the 1969 Apollo 11 mission to land on the moon.
    After viewers answer either “yes” or “no,”—if you click yes, the response chides: “Okay Hot Shot, Let’s Go”—they watch a short film and then are asked a series of questions to discern what in the video is real and what is not. The results are surprising, to say the least.
    
    That’s because the video depicts US President Richard Nixon informing the public that the Apollo 11 astronauts did not survive their mission. The speech was written for Nixon by William Safire in case such an unfortunate scenario occurred. Since it didn’t, the speech was never delivered.
    At the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens, the film, presented on an older model television set in a period-appropriate living room, serves as the centerpiece of a fascinating, timely, and unsettling exhibition “Deepfake: Unstable Evidence on Screen.” The show explores the phenomenon of “deepfake” videos, which use advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning to create deceptive content, and how they are used to manipulate audiences and perpetuate misinformation or propaganda.
    Installation view of In Event of Moon Disaster at the Museum of the Moving Image. Photo by Thanassi Karageorgiou / Museum of the Moving Image.
    The moon disaster film, which was co-directed by Francesca Panetta and Halsey Burgund and produced by the MIT Center for Advanced Virtuality, is a perfect jumping-off point to explore the potential harms and benefits of deepfake technology.
    By presenting “an alternative version” of landmark historical events, the installation demonstrates that the representation of both the past and present is subject to powerfully effective technical manipulation, which can challenge our belief in what is real, according to a statement about the show.
    Excerpts from the documentary To Make a Deepfake (2020), produced by Scientific American, are also on view, as well as a wide range of deepfake videos distributed online.
    Installation view of How do you spot a deepfake? Mirror Room. Photo by Thanassi Karageorgiou / Museum of the Moving Image.
    The show also offers examples of contested depictions of actual events from throughout the history of the moving image, ranging from a Spanish-American War reenactment dating to 1899 and credit to Thomas Edison, to the 1963 Zapruder footage of the JFK assassination.
    Keep an eye on the related event series “Questionable Evidence: Deepfakes and Suspect Footage in Film,” which includes screenings and other public programs that explore synthetic media from a variety of perspectives.
    The exhibition was organized by Barbara Miller, the museum’s deputy director for curatorial affairs, and Joshua Glick, assistant professor of English, film, and media studies at Hendrix College and a fellow at the Open Documentary Lab at MIT.
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    in Exhibitions

    What Can a Family of Simulated Orcs Teach Us About the Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse? This Absurd New Exhibition Shows Us

    “The feeling of presence: this is the defining quality of the metaverse.” 
    So begins an audio composition in Theo Triantafyllidis’s new exhibition “The Metaverse and How We’ll Build it Together” at Meredith Rosen Gallery. That paradoxical line as well as others in the recording, which blasts from inside ceramic pots installed on old Amazon boxes, were culled from the video Facebook released upon rebranding itself to Meta, an eerie piece of technocratic propaganda that was lampooned to death on social media last fall.
    Like many, Triantafyllidis—an artist who builds virtual worlds to interrogate our lived-in, physical one—found the video unsettling. 
    “There is this very bizarre conflict between reality and fiction—between this totally utopian, almost completely tone-deaf, representation of our own lives that Mark Zuckerberg seems to have in his mind versus the banal reality of our online experience,” the artist said over video chat recently, Zooming in from Athens, Greece, where he was born and raised. (He’s primarily based in LA.)
    An installation view of Theo Triantafyllidis’s exhibition “The Metaverse and How We’ll Get There Together,” 2022 at Meredith Rosen Gallery, New York. Photo: Adam Reich.
    “Banal” is a funny word for the artist to use, given the way he illustrates that disjunction between fiction and reality in the second half of the exhibition. Two live simulations—that is, video games controlled by AI rather than human button-pressing—play out on a pair of screens.
    The first is populated by a family of tech-obsessed orks. Operating by a code similar to that which drives The Sims, the creatures mindlessly perform a series of repetitive tasks in their virtual home as various catastrophes slowly destroy the world around them.
    One ork sprawls before the TV, for instance, while another texts atop a toilet or surfs the web. A tortoise with a camera strapped to its back rides a Roomba, or at least tries to, as his weight keeps the robotic vacuum in place—a clever metaphor, perhaps, for how technology both speeds up our lives and keeps them in place. A fire in the kitchen blazes the whole time.  
    A still from Theo Triantafyllidis’s Ork Haus (2022). Courtesy of the artist.
    The orks look more like Shrek than those of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but that’s not to say they’re all cute and cuddly. Triantafyllidis’s creatures are crude and vulgar; that’s why he chose them as his avatars. Within gaming communities, the artist explained, there’s a debate about orks, with some saying they’ve been villainized in popular culture through the coded racial attributes we’ve chosen to assign to them. For Triantafyllidis, the idea relates to algorithmic radicalization, or the theory that the algorithms driving social media platforms inherently push people to extremist views.  
    Algorithmic Radicalization is also the name of the second simulation in the show. Whereas the first plays out a domestic simulation, the second is all-out war. Humans and monsters alike fight, die, decompose, and respawn in an endless, self-perpetuating loop of violence on a blank battlefield.  

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    “The more you look at the work the more you realize how stuck these characters are in the simulation,” Triantafyllidis said. 
    The game-like war scene may look like it exists in a different world than the Zuckerberg-themed sound installation found in the room opposite, but for the artist, there’s a line to be drawn between the cycle metaphorized in the simulation and Facebook/Meta’s technocratic vision.  
    “I think there’s a direct link between the radicalization pipeline and this utopian aura that this new video tried to present, offering up this new dream to look for during the hellscape situation that we’re in right now,” Triantafyllidis concluded.   
    “Theo Triantafyllidis: The Metaverse and How We’ll Build it Together” is on view now through February 26, 2022 at Meredith Rosen Gallery in New York.
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