Opening reception: Double or Nothing

A playfull investigation in the way we deal with media images and objects from consumer society.

18 feb 2012

1 apr 2012

19:00
<>TAG
Weimarstraat 1E, Den Haag
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+31703468500
http://www.tag004.nl/new

TAG is pleased to present “Double or Nothing”, featuring works made by Eileen Maxson, Leidy Churchman and A.K. Burns. The exhibition draws upon artistic methods of simultaneously inflating and puncturing the authority of persons, institutions or objects. With formal playfulness the artists undermine the way in which we are accustomed to dealing with media images and objects from consumer society.

eileen Maxson

Exhibition

Eileen Maxson
Leidy Churchman
A.K. Burns

Central to the exhibition is a series of prints commissioned by Eileen Maxson (b. 1980, USA) based on the archives of 419eater.com, a website dedicated to exposing Internet scammers - a form of Internet vigilantism that involves communicating under false pretense, in order to waste the scammer’s time, gather information that will be of use to authorities, or publicly humiliate the scammer. Maxson’s work considers the role and function of communication and the creation of identity through video, performance, print and installation.

Through conducting seemingly banal experiments in his videos, Leidy Churchman (b. 1979, USA) is drawing lines between painting, gesture, gender and subjectivity. The artist’s approach to medium-specific interventions registers his fascination with transformative processes and uncertainty.

A.K. Burns’s sculptural video installation is created by watching several YouTube videos focused around a particular fetish. The artist (b. 1975, USA) is redoing a set of gestures from memory; by appropriating esthetics and using similar framing or camera work from the ‘original’ videos banal activities such as the layering of pairs of gloves, the crushing of food underfoot or popping a balloon get translated into tangible expressions of a specific set of desires.

Double or Nothing in a betting situation is where the loser of a bet gets another chance at the bet. If the loser of the initial bet wins, he owes nothing. But if the loser of the initial bet loses again, then the winner gets double the original bet. The title, which has become ubiquitous in film, refers to the politicized roles and functions of the use of media and the creation of identities. Through their work, the artists present accounts of ambiguous interpersonal communication and transmissions of desire.