Translation Exhibition Space

Andy Warhol Big Electric Chair

Johannes Kahrs Untitled (Man Crawling)

Robert Rauschenberg Retroactive I

Elizabeth Peyton Pete & Carl 

Gerhard Richter Woman with Umbrella

John Keane The Painter Never Lies

I have taken a busy, urban street in New York and replaced the exisiting advertisements with selected artworks from my exhibition Translation (working title). I have taken the time to blend the artwork in with the light and surroundings to give the most realistic view as possible. I also want to see if people will notice any change or even distinguish the artwork from the surrounding advertisements. It will like a test to see how immune to or consumed by advertising/media people really are.

I split the selected pieces in my exhibition into two groups - the political and the aesthetic - I think that in this location the political pieces are most suited as they all question and investigate our (western societies) relationship with the media and the media itself - its power, bias, influence, control ....

Though I would like to include the work from the aesthetic group as there are some amazing pieces of art included and there are political/historical elements to many of the pieces but I don't want them to weaken or confuse my overall message/theme or undermine the political pieces. In the location I have chosen I think that an image from the aesthetic group would work really well where the KODAK strip advertisement is in the space where Elizabeth Peytons work currently sits but I can't just include one. I will look for different locations with more opportunities to present work.

The location of New York is important to me as it is one of the main art hub's in the world and somewhere I have always wanted to visit and somewhere I would love to exhibit and work. This street overloaded with imagery, media and advertisments is an iconic location and fits perfectly with the media concept/theme of my chosen pieces. It is from billboards and computer screens like these that many of the images used by my artists would have originated from or its where imagery like it would be seen now e.g. pressing news clips depicting crime/violence/sex/celebrities etc. as used in Kahrs, Warhol's and Peyton's work - imagery lifted from the popular press.