Mark Moore Gallery (Venue Partner)
5790 Washington Blvd.
310.453.3031
This event has passed.
-
Untitled #101a (SYNW), 2009
-
- When
-
Opens Saturday Feb 13, 2010 (5–7pm)
Feb 13, 2010 – Mar 13, 2010
Tuesdays–Saturdays (11am–6pm)
- Where
-
- Price
- Links
“Known for his video and photography manipulations of monumental news imagery, including the 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, and the Tiananmen Square protests, Josh Azzarella is a whiz at altering and erasing history. The artist's latest project, which was two years in the making, takes on something nearly as significant in pop culture, Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video. Stripping it of its song and all signs of life — bar the ticket booth attendant at the cinema — Azzarella's interpretation of the classic offers a landscape that ripe for new fantasies. There are no zombies, no lovers, no screams, and no dance numbers in Azzarella's Untitled #100 (Fantasia). The artist has, however, left the fog, which rolls through the haunting scenes like a ghostly curse. Viewable online at the humorously titled www.thefunkof40000years.com, which references Vincent Price's "Thriller" rap, Azzarella's video retains the spooky visual atmosphere of John Landis' film scenery. Those woods, cemetery, vacant industrial streets, and abandoned old house are set to a new ambient music soundtrack that poetically heightens the tension of looking at an emptied icon. Azzarella may have taken the thrill out of "Thriller," but he leaves us with a new playground for the mind.”
Paul Laster, Flavorpill
Note:
The opening reception features DJ MoreDillon and event coverage by Will Tee Yang
Opening the same night as Kim Rugg's latest exhibition, Please Remain Calm, Mark Moore Gallery is also pleased to present a simultaneous solo exhibition of new works by Josh Azzarella. Recently acquired by the SFMOMA (CA), and the recipient of the 2006 Aldrich Museum's "Emerging Artist Award," Azzarella creates videos that explore the power of context in the authorship of memory, oftentimes utilizing seminal televised moments in pop culture and politics to create accessible confrontations with historiography. For his first solo show in Los Angeles, he will showcase his benchmark work to date, Untitled #100 (Fantasia) (2007-2009) in the Project Room, alongside five studio-fresh stills from the video. Sourcing the opus of pop music videos, Azzarella will unveil a masterpiece born of two laborious years of frame-by-frame manipulation and editing. This, is Thriller.
