The New Beauty of Our Modern Life

Dates: 01.30.2014 – 03.01.2014

Opening: 01.30.2014, 6-8pm

Higher Pictures presents The New Beauty of Our Modern Life, a group exhibition curated by Kate Steciw. The artists in this exhibition represent a node in an expanding network of post-everything practitioners. Recognizing the flexible nature of images and materials, anything from a font to a floor tile can act as a site of potential intervention. Everything is information: information synthesized becomes material and all of this happens at breakneck speed. One gets the sense that anything is ‘up for grabs.’ The resultant works represent a shift in how we perceive ourselves and the world around us. They are the product of products, yet they are more handmade than readymade—elements are bent, scraped, pinned, sliced, smashed and smeared into shape.

Central to each practice is an expanded definition of ‘image’ and an understanding of its central role in contemporary cultural exchange. Actions of editing, accumulation, arrangement and output are prioritized in a moment when it is not so much about what one puts into the world but how one reconfigures existing information to reveal new aesthetic horizons. Each piece exhibits a sense of agency over an onslaught of media both consumed and self-generated. The ‘hand’ of the artist is reintroduced as a cyborg (altered, yet recognizably human,) twisting meaning from the chaos of relentless input.

Artists: Sara Cwynar, Alex Da Corte, Rachel de Joode, Ethan Greenbaum, Asha Schechter, Kate Steciw, Yannick Val Gesto and Harm Van Den Dorpel.

 

For more information please contact the gallery at 212.249.6100.

 

 

Upcoming Exhibition: Travess Smalley, March 6 – April 5, 2014