Wednesday, October 9th from 7:00 P.M. to 8:15 P.M.
Rutgers - Mason Gross School of the Arts
Department of Art & Design
Civic Square Building, Room 110
33 Livingston Ave, New Brunswick, NJ.
Mason Gross welcomes the New Jersey-born, Alex da Corte, whose distinct visual style and pop culture commentary is recognizable as a distinct voice of their contemporary art generation. Da Corte's films recall their childhood television icons and can create the feeling of being inside the worlds of early 1990s public programming. The artist's immersive installations and colorful videos invite viewers to engage with the absurd and acknowledge the delusions and mash up-like universal references we carry and repress. Da Corte's Slow Graffiti (below) to which Devonté Hynes (Blood Orange) contributed a moving score, is a recreation of Jørgen Leth's 1967 The Perfect Human. However, in Da Corte's version, the subject is reminiscent of Frankenstein’s monster.
Image of Frankenstein eating junk food at a green table with play button overlay.
Image of Frankenstein spray painting yellow and blue cans in front of their body. Walking towards camera through mist and floor lighting.
Video stills (two above) from Slow Graffiti, Alex Da Corte, 2017. (via Vdrome.org)
Biographical overview below courtesy of the artist:
Alex Da Corte was born in Camden, New Jersey, in 1980. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of the Arts, Philadelphia, and a Master of Fine Arts from the Yale University School of Art. Da Corte was most recently included in La Biennale di Venezia 2019, the international exhibition May You Live in Interesting Times curated by Ralph Rugoff; as well as the 57th Carnegie International in Pittsburgh. His most recent solo exhibition was held at Kölnischer Kunstverein, Köln, Germany (2018). Other recent solo exhibitions include Karma, New York (2018); Secession, Vienna, Austria; Art + Practice, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2016); MASS MoCA, North Adams, Massachusetts (2016); Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Netherlands (2015); and Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia (2014, together with Jayson Musson).
Image of large geometric room styled similarly to a 1980s TV set (red and magenta walls and screens, neon lights on ceiling, red walls). Includes giant rug, kitchy pet statues.
Free Roses, Alex Da Corte's 2016 survey at MASS MoCA. (Photo via Architect's Newspaper: John Bernardo/Courtesy of Luxembourg & Dayan Gallery, New York)
The Visiting Artist Lecture Series is organized by the Rutgers MFA program and includes weekly lectures, studio visits and critiques by luminaries working across a wide spectrum of mediums.
Free and open to the public.
Wheelchair Accessible; ASL/CART available on request.
Contact Cassandra one week prior to event:
coliveras@mgsa.rutgers.edu or 848-932-5399