“Must/Have” Exhibition
Theodore:Art
This event has ended.
Theodore:Art presents MUST/HAVE, an exhibition that examines the concept of aspirational consumption in the inescapable ‘spectacular’ economy.
The spectacle urges us to watch and consume life instead of actively constructing our own—losing our grasp of our own desires and replacing them with others.
The spectacle is capital to such a degree of accumulation that it becomes an image. #34
The fetishism of commodities reaches moments of fervent exaltation similar to the ecstasies of the convulsions and miracles of the old religious fetishism. #67
The spectacle is the moment when the commodity has attained the total occupation of social life. Not only is the relation to the commodity visible but it is all one sees: the world one sees is its world. #42
…the spectator feels at home nowhere, because the spectacle is everywhere. #30
“Everything that was directly lived has receded into a representation. #1
all quotes from The Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord (1967, translated 1977)
Alan Belcher is an established visual and conceptual artist, with a foundation of solo and group exhibitions. He is recognized as a driving force behind the hybrid of photography and sculpture (“photo-objects”), and is known for a directness and a sharp simplicity when approaching difficult subject matter. A sense of humour and a reverence for Pop, as well as a hands-on approach, invade much of his conceptual practice. He was co-founder and co-director of Gallery Nature Morte (with artist Peter Nagy) in New York’s East Village from 1982–88. Born in Toronto, he has lived in Vancouver (1976-77), New York City (1977-86), and Köln (1991-96) —has lived and worked in Toronto during all other periods of time.
Jeff Gibson is an Australian-born artist and occasional critic who has worked in a variety of media and contexts—photography, video, prints, posters, banners, and books for galleries and public spaces. A former senior editor of Art&Text magazine, Gibson moved to New York in 1998 to work for Artforum, where he is currently managing editor. Since arriving in New York, he has produced two artist’s books (Dupe: A Partial Compendium of Everyday Delusions [2000] and Sarsaparilla to Sorcery [2007]), exhibited on the Panasonic Astrovision screen in Times Square as part of Creative Time’s “59th Minute” program, and mounted solo shows at the New York Academy of Sciences, Stephan Stoyanov Gallery (New York), and The Suburban (Chicago and Milwaukee). Throughout January 2011, two of the artist’s videos, Smoke and Asylum (both 2010), were projected onto the facade of the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, New York, as part of a curated series presented by Light Work and the Urban Video Project. His video Metapoetaestheticism, 2013, was exhibited in the 2014 Whitney Biennial. In 2016, Gibson produced a billboard, titled Armagarden, for the I-70 Sign Show, a curated program of artworks occupying advertising sites on the Missouri interstate. In conjunction with this project, he also produced a foldout poster for the Sunday opinion pages of the Columbia Daily Tribune newspaper.
Richard Paul is an artist based in South-East London. He is also Senior Lecturer in Photography at the Arts University Bournemouth. His work is concerned with material transformation and subjective perception, recently taking the form of 3D lenticular photographs and video. He has also just released an audio novella on vinyl LP – the observers - on the GSOH Records label www.gsohproductions.com. The novella describes the sea voyage of two observers on their way to the atom tests at Bikini Atoll; it is underpinned by music loosely based on Schubert’s Winterriese. He has recently exhibited at the Q Gallery Tokyo, the Center for Fine Art Photography in Colorado, and Annely Juda, London. He has had two solo exhibitions at Theodore Art: You might find yourself in 2013, and Compound Noun in 2011. He was also commissioned to make a series of 3D lenticulars for the contemporary art publisher Used Paper, available at www.usedpaper.co.uk.
Michelle Vaughan received her BFA at UCLA. Her art practice focuses on political or historical subjects: she examines topics and then deconstructs and reinterprets the material through her work. In addition to her studio work, she has produced temporary installations in public settings surrounding topics such as science, history and politics. Solo shows have been exhibited at Dumbo Art Center and the South Street Seaport, where she was awarded fiscal sponsorship from the New York Foundation of the Arts for Sea Warriors: A Public Art Project, in 2009. Her most recent solo exhibition at Theodore:Art, “Generations” (2016), received critical acclaim from Hyperallergic, Two Coats of Paint, The New Criterion, Kill Screen, and Artnet. Vaughan was born in Anaheim, California and lives in New York City.
Media
Schedule
from November 04, 2017 to December 17, 2017