Wednesday, July 19
6–8 PM
Click for more details
alt-facts
Meriem Bennani | David Diao | David Herbert
Matt Johnson | Eva and Franco Mattes | Jennifer and Kevin McCoy
William Powhida | Kenya (Robinson) | Rachel Rossin
Ultra Violet Production House [Joshua Citarella and Brad Troemel] | The Yes Men
June 17 - August 4, 2017
It's not always possible to sort out fact from fiction, but to believe that everything is a lie is to know nothing.
—Jill Lepore, "The World That Trump and Ailes Built," The New Yorker
Alternative facts are lies. Fake news is propaganda.
Both are indicative of the aestheticization of politics that Walter Benjamin warned against. The media is tightly molded and
controlled, beginning in the White House Press Office and algorithmically landing in our feeds. The truth is exaggerated with
ideological results in mind.
alt-facts is a politically charged response to today's mediascape. Spanning both gallery spaces, the works therein propose that
the politicization of aesthetics—propaganda's opposite—can offer profoundly powerful alternative truths.
Art condenses its message into objects; meaning is extrapolated. It lends itself to constructing fictions: Painting is illusion.
Sculpture is fabrication. Virtual reality is unreal reality. In alt-facts, conceptual and material interventions produce
fictitious narratives, alternative histories, objects and images both real and virtual. Poetic license does not have evil intent.
It is a departure from reality because reality bites. Hello, you've reached the winter of our discontent.
If fiction is more credible than truth, and if building a world only requires making things up, we are equipped to build the
world we want.
Meriem Bennani's FARDAOUS FUNJAB, Episode 1 (Pilot): Fardaous is a mock reality show that follows the life of
Fardaous, the designer of the high fashion hijab that makes piety fun: the Funjab. A selection of Faradous's designs are featured
in the show, like the XTRA POCKET Hijba ©, which doubles as a purse, and a hijab with mechanical hair extensions. Your Year, a
printed lightbox, reads like an ad for the designs. Both works simulate two constructed formats: the reality show and advertising.
Two paintings by David Diao feature in the exhibition. 40 Years of His Art takes the invitation design from Picasso's retrospective
at MoMA in 1939, curated by Alfred H. Barr, Jr., the only change being Diao's name appears in lieu of Picasso's—and, of course,
that Diao's show never happened. Dancing 1 pictures a costumed Diao posing in front of Matisse's Dance, as one might expect a 20th
century Matisse to appear. Self-deprecating and earnest, Diao playfully portrays himself as canonized artist. The silkscreened
square image operates a geometric formal device—a pivotal example of how Diao came to blend New York school abstraction with
identity politics in the nineties.
David Herbert's monumental sculpture The Phantom of Liberty comprises twelve-feet of scaffolding around the Statue of
Liberty—except the Statue isn't there. Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free... The memory
of the message remains but its vessel is gone. The icon has been replaced with its void, its negative, its opposite.
Matt Johnson's meticulously carved wooden sculptures look like trash—literally. Untitled (Amazon Box) and Untitled (Avocado Box)
are trompe-l'œil objects, where wood appears to crumple as easily as cardboard, and hand-painted surfaces transform expertly
crafted objects into disused boxes.
In Eva and Franco Mattes's No Fun, the artists staged Franco's hanging to be broadcast on Chatroulette, an online chat and video
website that was particularly popular when the work was made in 2010. The video contains both the constructed action and real
reactions: Franco hangs on one side, with viewers responses to the scene on the other. Reality and fiction are dependent on one
another.
Scale is one of the basic lies of photography (think: William Eggleston's "monumental" tricycle), perhaps only second to cropping.
In Jennifer and Kevin McCoy's series of photos related to BROKER, a film about the insidious illusions of luxury merchandising, we
find a smaller scale replica of the set. And in place of BROKER's Gillian Chadsey, we find a smaller scale human, too. None of
this is totally obvious, though, as scale shifts and becomes increasingly difficult to navigate with each image.
William Powhida's Didactics comprise past and sci-fi advertisements and news clippings. Arranged in a chronology,
the series begins with the first Art Basel Miami Beach in 2001, canceled following of 9/11, and ends in 2024 with Art Basel
Thieland (yes, you read that right). Crumpled, the works appear as ripped out, discarded pages from the likes of Artforum and
the New Yorker. For the future-looking content, this locates the works in the present.
Kenya (Robinson)'s newest works are sex toys and sensual objects designed with prisoners in mind. Severe limitations in prisons
serve to dehumanize inmates; having sex is a crime and access to anything beyond the already limited commissary is bleak.
(Robinson)'s objects, made with bodega or 99-cent store goods like curlers, marbles, and latex gloves, envisage what inmates might
design in this space, instilling prisoners with deserved humanity and urging the viewer to remember all the lives—and human
needs—that occupy prisons.
Rachel Rossin brings the explosive denouement of Zabriskie Point point into contemporary focus. In Scrubbing 1, Maquette,
VR enables a participant to enter a scene and become the narrative agent, setting off explosions or spinning these actions into
reverse. Like Antonioni's cathartic explosives that blast away every pristine and empty promise of consumerism, we find a similar
impulse in Rossin's work, located in our current moment.
Ultra Violet Production House [Joshua Citarella and Brad Troemel] is an Etsy store that sells products that don't exist until
they are purchased. The products pictured are digital composites of products sourced from around the web, presenting a hypothetical
view of what the work will look like after assembly. For alt-facts, UVph is reinstating the Spiders for Change Fund during the
opening reception. Donate $1 and a wolf spider will be released into the gallery. For every photo snapped with an official Spider
and verified by UVph as such, the gallery will make a $100 donation to the Cancer Research Institute in your name. To donate:
www.etsy.com/listing/537314413/the-spiders-for-change-fund-donate-1
In the fall of 2008, The Yes Men, along with a cadre of co-conspirators, handed out fake copies of the New York Times. Literally
fake news, the front page headline read: IRAQ WAR ENDS. Dated July 4, 2009, the faux Times situated its wishful thinking in the
future. A decade later, we still haven't reached this future. It's hard to say when we will. At least with a gesture like this,
we can imagine and hope.
Special thanks to Sensorium for generously providing the PC in Rachel Rossin's installation. Sensorium is an interdisciplinary
creative studio, co-founded by Matthew Niederhauser and John Fitzgerald.
alt-facts
2017
installation view
Meriem Bennani
Fardaous Funjab Episode 1 (Pilot): Fardaous
2015-2017
digital video, 9 min 31 sec
edition of 3 + AP
courtesy of the artist and Signal Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
Preview
alt-facts
2017
installation view
David Diao
40 Years of His Art
2013
acrylic and vinyl on canvas
40 x 60 inches
David Diao
Dancing 1
2002
acrylic and silkcreen on canvas
84 x 84 inches
alt-facts
2017
installation view
David Herbert
The Phantom of Liberty
2017
wood, string, latex paint, hardware
12 x 5.5 x 4 feet
alt-facts
2017
installation view
Matt Johnson
Untitled (Amazon Box)
2016
carved wood and paint
23 x 23 x 17 inches
courtesy of the artist; Blum & Poe, Los Angeles / New York / Tokyo; and 303 Gallery, New York
Matt Johnson
Untitled (Avocado Box)
2016
carved wood and paint
13 x 25 x 17 inches
courtesy of the artist; Blum & Poe, Los Angeles / New York / Tokyo; and 303 Gallery, New York
Eva and Franco Mattes
No Fun (screenshot)
2010
single-channel video installation, 15 min 34 sec
dimensions variable
edition of 3 + AP
alt-facts
2017
installation view
Jennifer and Kevin McCoy
Staging (view)
2017
digital C-print
14 x 8 inches
Jennifer and Kevin McCoy
Staging (sink)
2017
digital C-print
8 x 14 inches
edition of 3
Jennifer and Kevin McCoy
Staging (stool)
2017
digital C-print
14 x 8 inches
edition of 3
Jennifer and Kevin McCoy
Staging (shoe)
2017
digital C-print
8 x 14 inches
edition of 3
William Powhida
Didactics (Contemporary Art Daily)
2017
digital print on aluminum
20 x 20 inches
William Powhida
Didactics (ReOccupy)
2017
digital print on aluminum
20 x 20 inches
William Powhida
Didactics (McEwen)
2017
digital print on aluminum
20 x 20 inches
William Powhida
Didactics (#CTSUMMIT2022)
2017
digital print on aluminum
20 x 20 inches
William Powhida
Didactics (Gagosian and Zwirner)
2017
digital print on aluminum
20 x 20 inches
William Powhida
Didactics (Thieland)
2017
digital print on aluminum
20 x 20 inches
alt-facts
2017
installation view
Kenya (Robinson)
Fingertips Pt. 3 (or Project Buildings)
2017
plastic rollers, shoelaces
5 x 13 x 3 inches
Kenya (Robinson)
Bad Dog
2017
nitrile glove, New York Magazine (Issue May 1-14, 2017), glass marbles
5 x 14 x 6 inches
Kenya (Robinson)
One is Usually Bigger Than the Other
2017
neck pillow, wig cap, plastic cable ties
10 x 10 x 4 inches
Kenya (Robinson)
Mouthfull
2017
plastic cap, glass marbles, non-lubricated condom, salad tongs
9 x 2 x 2 inches
Kenya (Robinson)
A Dreamcatcher of Sorts
2017
hair net, bamboo clothespins, dowel, plastic air dryer
11 x 8 x 11 inches
Rachel Rossin
Scrubbing 1, Maquette
2017
installation view
virtual reality installation
dimensions variable
Rachel Rossin
Scrubbing 1, Maquette
2017
installation view
virtual reality installation
dimensions variable
Rachel Rossin
Scrubbing 1, Maquette
2017
installation view
virtual reality installation
dimensions variable
Rachel Rossin
Scrubbing 1, Maquette
2017
installation view
virtual reality installation
dimensions variable
Ultra Violet Production House [Joshua Citarella and Brad Troemel]
The Spiders for Change Fund: donate 1 dollar to anonymously release a wolf spider in the
gallery to be photographed by an attendee for $100 towards cancer research
2017
Donate here
alt-facts
2017
installation view
The Yes Men
New York Times
2008
newspaper
22 x 13.5 inches