Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Press release of the week

Roberts & Tilton is pleased to announce an exhibition of new work by Los Angeles-based artist Jeremy Everett. The large-scale sculptural installation, Opium Feast, is his largest and most ambitious exhibition to date. Jeremy Everett's populated composition of wax sculptures is as decadent as it is dead. The massive grotesque accumulations underline his interest in archaeological strata, Classical antiquity and the modern landscape of detritus, emotion and memory. Constructed entirely from wax and fragments of architectural ruin, the artist builds layers of vast fields of opium poppies-a substance that has been used for pain relief and ritual since Neolithic man. What is left is a landscape of the subconscious void. The physical body is lost, notions of being no longer pertain. Surrounded by compositions of opulence and portraits of sexual climax, buried in a still life of the Symphony Fantastique, the viewer is left hovering between fantasy and reality, fame and oblivion.
Beverages provided by Grolsch.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

i like the sentence about the Grolsch.

Katharine Smith-Warren said...

this is either very sad or very funny. Could english be their second or third language, perhaps?

Spatula said...

At least each sentence can be understood without an English-Artspeak interpreter.

I kind of want to see the subconscious void, while drinking the beverages provided by Grolsch. They better include absinthe.

Anonymous said...

This sort of grandiloquent writing has been a part of the art world for a long, long time. Centuries, in fact:
http://www.signandsight.com/features/1703.html

It's marketing rhetoric meant to inflate the product's significance, as you probably know. Same with the wall texts you abhor, Ms. Diehl. It's silly, and no one is persuaded by it, it's just a carnival barker's come-on. However it did make me want to go to their site and look at the work--to be charitable it's no better or worse than most of what is out there these days. As an artist and former art reviewer, I've learned to tune out that aspect of gallery business and museum going and focus on the work itself.

I've enjoyed your reviews in AiA and only just stumbled on your blog via google. It's quite engaging. Cheers.

Neanderthals Destroyed Atlantis said...

"is as decadent as it is dead"

???

"massive grotesque accumulations underline his interest in archaeological strata"

???

"a landscape of the subconscious void"

???

"notions of being no longer pertain"

???

"the viewer is left hovering"

???