lakes series

source: bbook

Pop icons receive artist Cory Arcangel’s technologically inclined treatment in his latest exhibit “tl;dr”. On display at Team Gallery’s Wooster street location, the exhibit consists of a series of works entitled Lakes, in which Arcangel applies the Java applet “Lake” to pop culture related images on flat screen televisions turned vertically. The humorously relevant works include an Instagram post of Larry David and Skrillex and Diddy boarding a private jet. Arcangel’s televisions function as unconventional frames for the pop icons, while the application of the applet creates an entrancing liquid reflection of the images on the lower half of the screens. The artist’s post-internet savvy subject matter coupled with the integration of the applet mirrors his signature affinity towards utilizing technology as his choice medium.
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source: thvndermag

Cory Arcangel es un joven artista multimedia norteamericano con sede en NY. Él crea sus obras a través de la pintura, la música, el vídeo y la transformación de videojuegos. Arcangel a menudo utiliza la estrategia de apropiación artística creativa, re-utilizando materiales existentes, para crear nuevas obras de arte. Su obra explora la relación entre la tecnología digital y la cultura pop.
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source: canadianart

American artist Cory Arcangel explores technology’s relationship to culture and its rapid obsolescence by repurposing and masterfully modifying what could be interpreted as contemporary incarnations of Marcel Duchamp’s readymades: YouTube clips, video games, music videos, films, computer data etc. As the Dada artist of the digital age—indeed, many of his works were Internet memes before they were shown in galleries—Arcangel messes around with the internal workings of systems, and his slight modifications to video games and other software both celebrate and critique technology and the open-source culture of the web. Arcangel’s primary interests and mediums are finding increasing acceptance in the contemporary art world—a transformation one might give him some credit for. Less than one year ago, the Museum of Modern Art in New York announced its acquisition of iconic video games, a decision that caused a stir in some sectors. With that announcement, objects that could once only be found in suburban basements were also now part of the collection of an international art institution.

Interestingly, it is the history of Modern painting that comes most to mind at the start of the show. In the exhibition’s first room, works from Arcangel’s Photo Gradient Demonstrations series offer a renewed perspective on colour-field painting. A plush purple carpet covers the floor while brightly hued pixels are arrayed in enormous expanses on the walls. Blues, fuschias and lime greens fade into each other seamlessly; while some works have thin vertical lines that might evoke Barnett Newman’s “zips,” others look like works Mark Rothko might have made if he had owned a MacBook.
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source: lissongallery

Cory Arcangel is a leading exponent of technology-based art, drawn to video games and software for their ability to rapidly formulate new communities and traditions and, equally, their speed of obsolescence. It was in 1996, while studying classical guitar at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, that he first had a high-speed internet connection – inspiring him to major in music technology and start learning to code. Both music and coding remain his key tools for interrogating the stated purpose of software and gadgets. In Super Mario Clouds (2002-), for example, he disabled the vintage Nintendo game to leave only the iconic backdrop of blue sky and clouds; in Drei Klavierstücke op.11 (2009) Arcangel recreated Arnold Schoenberg’s 1909 score of the same name by editing together YouTube clips of cats playing pianos, note for note, paw by paw. Outcomes can be surprising, funny and poignant, whether in the final form of installation, video, printed media or music composition, in the gallery or on the world wide web. Reconfiguring web design and hacking as artistic practice, Arcangel remains faithful to open source culture and makes his work and methods available online, thus superimposing a perpetual question-mark as to the value of the art object.

Cory Arcangel was born in Buffalo, New York in 1978 and lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. He received a BM from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in 2000. He is the youngest artist since Bruce Nauman to have been given a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2011). Other major solo exhibitions include Fondation DHC/Art, Montreal (2013); Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh (2013); Barbican Art Gallery, London (2011); Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2010) and Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami (2010). He was awarded the Jury Prize of the 2005 New York Underground Film Festival.
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source: arts-numeriquescodedrops

Artiste Américain vivant à New York, né en 1978. Il fait partie d’une génération d’artistes qui a grandi avec les consoles de jeux. Faire entrer la culture 8bits au musée semble son pari réussi. La peinture de paysage fait partie de l’histoire moderne des arts. Elle a fait passer, entre la renaissance et le romantisme, un objet secondaire de la peinture (ce qu’il y a autour d’une madone, d’une scène de la bible), au premier plan, affirmant qu’un rapport à Dieu, une présence de l’homme, pouvaient être manifestés par ce qui est considéré comme un accessoire.

Ce glissement historique a quelque chose à voir avec l’abstraction, au fait d’abstraire, littéralement, de morceaux de la peinture pour les exhiber, béants, fascinants de virginitude, insensés. La fascination de l’insensé, la révélation de l’accessoire sont des enjeux typiquement modernes.

Tout cela pour placer le travail de Cory Archangel dans une filiation de la peinture de paysage, et de la modernité. Les travaux de Arcangel les plus connus sont cependant plus complexes qu’une simple continuité de la peinture romantique, même si une certaine nostaglie empreint l’ensemble de son travail sur les jeux 8 bits. La console NES semble avoir été le point d’entrée de Arcangel dans la culture digitale. Une sorte de fétichisme semble du coup frapper ces cartouches de jeu démontées, recodées et ressoudées. Elle mettent à nu l’inconscient visuel des jeux Nintendo, ses motifs infinis et répétitifs, ses formes simples, iconiques et emblématiques.

Beaucoup d’adolescents des années 80’ auraient voulu stopper l’action des 2 premiers volets de la guerre des étoiles pour pouvoir goûter au quotidien sur la planète Tatooine. Super Mario Clouds réalise ironiquement ce fantasme adolescent, supprimant l’action des cartouches de jeu, ne laissant que des objets flottants et disjoints s’étaler sur l’écran.