Zefrey Throwell "Ocularpation: Wall Street"
Tanja Grunert Gallery
This event has ended.
Klemens Gasser & Tanja Grunert presents the exhibition Ocularpation: Wall Street by Zefrey Throwell, from January 6-February 11, 2012, featuring photographs, paintings, video, and sculpture. The exhibition centers around a large-scale continuous video projection of Ocularpation: Wall Street, created on August 1, 2011, in which 50 performers directed by Zefrey Throwell, gathered outdoors on Wall Street, stripped down to nothing, and began working in a call for transparency that caught fire and spread across the globe.
The experience and documentation of Ocularpation informs the varied works in the exhibition. A series of oil paintings, using signature Wall Street blue trader jackets sewn together as the canvas, are collaged with photographs of the performances. Fifty sculptures of everyday objects, relating to the Wall Street professions (i.e. broom—janitorial, handcuffs—police, piggybank— banker, etc.), have been coated with a thin veneer of gold enamel, thereby transforming them into precious artworks. Zefrey, who used nudity so powerfully as a symbol of exposure and transparency in the Ocularpation performance and the recent strip poker game I’ll Raise you One… at Art in General, uses gold in this body of work in reference to the current American financial dream, sold as a glittering jewel, but in fact is a fantasy whose value is speculation.
Ocularpation: Wall Street continues Zefrey Throwell’s extensive body of investigative and interactive projects focused on the connecting points and underpinnings of social discourse. Projects shown at the MoMA, Whitney Museum, Performa, and Venice Biennials, as well as major media coverage of Ocularpation (including The New York Times, BBC, CNN, NBC and more) have provided the artist with a platform to ignite public discussion and an international call to action. The artist states, the inspiration for the Ocularpation performance and exhibition was personal: “When my mother lost all her savings and was forced to come out of retirement from the market crash of 2008, I knew we had to refocus attention on Wall Street, its actions, secrecy, and real repercussions on people’s lives.”
Artist Talk
A talk with Zefrey Throwell, Clark Winter (an internationally known investor and commentator on geopolitics and global financial markets) and more, will take place at the gallery. Date and additional participants TBA.
Media
Schedule
from January 06, 2012 to February 11, 2012
Opening Reception on 2012-01-06 from 18:00 to 20:00