Age of You

Age of You is a timely exhibition about how the self has become more extreme, and what it means to be an individual today. Curated by Shumon Basar, Douglas Coupland and Hans Ulrich Obrist, with graphic design by Daly & Lyon, it includes over 70 visual contributors from the worlds of art, design, filmmaking, photography, performance and electronic music. Age of You has been commissioned and produced by MOCA Toronto. 

Guess what this century’s most valuable resource is? It’s you—and all your online behaviours, enriched data sets and millions of meta-data points. In this process, a large part of you is extracted from you, and now exists everywhere and nowhere, independently of your five senses. Is this why the inside of your head feels so strange? Are you really built for so much change so quickly? And, what if individuality is, in fact, morphing into something else?

Age of You previews a forthcoming book by Basar/Coupland/Obrist, The Extreme Self, a sequel to their previous title, The Age of Earthquakes: A Guide to the Extreme Present. Set over two of MOCA’s gallery floors, Age of You presents 13 immersive chapters that chart how individuality is currently changing, emotionally, socially and spiritually. Wry words and slogans by the curators are juxtaposed against portraits sourced from:

Agnieszka Kurant, Amalia Ulman, Amnesia Scanner, Ana Nicolaescu, Ania Soliman, Anna Uddenberg, Anne Imhof, Asad Raza, Barry Doupé, Bogosi Sekhukhuni, Cao Fei, Carsten Höller, Cécile B Evans, Chen Zhou, Christine Sun Kim, Craig Green x Moncler Genius, Dennis Kavelman, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Emmanuel Iduma, Farah Al Qasimi, Fatima Al Qadiri, GCC, Goshka Macuga, Heman Chong, Ian Cheng, Isabel Lewis, Jarvis Cocker, Jenna Sutela, Johannes Paul Raether, John Menick, Jürgen Klauke, Koo Jeong A, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Liam Gillick, Liam Young, Lorraine O’Grady, Lucy Raven, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Michael Stipe, Miles Gertler, Miranda July, Momus, NVIDIA Research, Pamela Rosenkranz, Pan Daijing, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Peter Saville & Yoso Mouri, Philippe Parreno, Pierre Huyghe, Precious Okoyomon, Rachel Rose, Raja'a Khalid, Samuel Fosso, Sara Cwynar, Satoshi Fujiwara, Simon Denny, Sissel Tolaas, Sophia Al-Maria, Stéphanie Saadé, Stephanie Comilang, Suzanne Treister, Tabita Rezaire, Thomas Dozol, Thomas Hirschhorn, Trevor Paglen, Urs Lüthi, Victoria Sin, Wang Haiyang, Yaeji, Yazan Khalili, Yu Honglei, Yuri Pattison.

Interspersed are major works in film, photography, fashion, sculpture and installation, each articulating a salient aspect of the extreme self. Throughout Age of You, visitors will encounter a recurring presence of “the face,” today’s dominant data metric, as well as new ways in which crowds are being composed, computed or even weaponized. 

An evolved version of the project, a collaboration between Art Jameel and MOCA Toronto, will be presented at the Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai, in fall 2020.

Support for Age of You comes from The Lindy Green Family Foundation and The Schulich Foundation.