Jordan Wolfson
Raspberry Poser
December 2, 2012–January 27, 2013
Opening: Saturday, December 1, 6–9pm
REDCAT
631 West 2nd Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012
The world of Raspberry Poser, a new video by New York-based artist Jordan Wolfson, is inhabited by silvery heart-filled condoms, mutating red blood cells, a lock and key in coitus, a listless punk, a destructive shapeshifting kid and a rubbery anthropomorphic HIV virus. Set against a backdrop of still and moving images and a pop soundtrack, the actors and animated objects float, bounce and pulsate from one scene to the next––their rhythmic activities framed by Soho boutiques, children’s bedrooms, Parisian parks and the paintings of Caravaggio. The systems of reference in Wolfson’s Raspberry Poser are varied and disparate, but linger on the inherent flatness of hand-drawn animation and the illusion of depth and realism afforded by recent advances in computer-generated imagery (CGI). Seemingly limitless in possibility and scope, the video’s scenarios draw upon the technical abilities of commercial animators to create worlds and forms based in life and digital images but with no binding reality.
Employing materials culled from Internet image searches, the artist’s own lived experience and the histories of art and popular entertainment, Raspberry Poser touches upon and undermines the gravity of such pervasive themes as life, death and love. An assembly of found images, sampled music, commissioned animations and scenes filmed on location in Paris and New York are subject to a series of formal strategies borrowed from the history of animated cartoons, including a disregard of the fourth wall through direct address; the endless repetition and mutation of form; a malleable and permeable cinematic frame; and the appearance of depth on a layered two-dimensional plane. Through these means, Raspberry Poser considers the developments of digital and analog animation as essential to the histories of modernism and modernity, responsible for shaping and relaying the concerns of sculptural and pictorial modes of representation since its invention and defining our relationship to images and objects.
The third in a trilogy of recent animated works that includes Animation, Masks (2011) and Con Leche (2009), Raspberry Poser is Wolfson’s most ambitious synthesis of digital video, CGI and hand-drawn animation. The presentation of Raspberry Poser at REDCAT is the artist’s first solo exhibition in Los Angeles and is accompanied by a publication, co-produced by REDCAT and the Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (S.M.A.K.), Ghent, Belgium, with contributions by Esther Leslie, Aram Moshayedi, Linda Norden and Philippe Van Cauteren.
Jordan Wolfson (b. 1980, New York) graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2003 and currently lives and works in New York. He was the recipient of the prestigious Cartier Award in 2009, was included in the 2006 Whitney Biennial and has been the subject of solo exhibitions and screenings in national and international museums and cultural institutions, including Midway Contemporary Art, Minneapolis, Minnesota (2012); Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf (2011); CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco (2009); Swiss Institute, New York (2008); GAMeC, Bergamo, Italy (2007); and Kunsthalle Zürich (2004). In June 2013, S.M.A.K., Ghent will present Wolfson’s most comprehensive survey exhibition to date.
Jordan Wolfson: Raspberry Poser is funded in part with generous support from Jill and Peter Kraus; Isabelle and Charles Berkovic; James Lindon; Brooke and Daniel Neidich; Johann König, Berlin; and T293, Naples/Rome. In-kind sponsorship provided by Dazian Creative Fabric Environments. The Standard is the official hotel of REDCAT.
Raspberry Poser is co-produced by REDCAT and the Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (S.M.A.K.), Ghent, Belgium.
Gallery at REDCAT aims to support, present, commission and nurture new creative insights through dynamic projects and challenging ideas. The Gallery presents five exhibitions every year, often of newly commissioned work that represents the artist’s first major presentation in the U.S. or Los Angeles. The Gallery also maintains an active publishing program producing as many as two major monographs per year. Proceeding from the geographic and cultural specificities of Los Angeles, its program emphasizes artistic production of the Pacific Rim—namely Mexico, Central and South America and Asia—as regions that are of vital significance to California. The Gallery aims to facilitate dialogue between local and international artists contributing to a greater understanding of the social, political and cultural contexts that inform contemporary artistic practice.
Gallery at REDCAT is open Tuesdays through Sundays from noon to 6pm or until intermission. It is closed Mondays and major holidays. Admission to the Gallery at REDCAT is always free.
REDCAT is located at the corner of W. 2nd and Hope Streets, inside the Walt Disney Concert Hall complex in downtown Los Angeles (631 West 2nd Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012).
