THE EXTREME PRESENT
Presented by Gagosian and Jeffrey Deitch
Opening reception: Tuesday, December 3, 5â8pm
December 4â8, 2019
Moore Building, 191 NE 40th Street, Miami
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The odd thing about right now is that people are more connected than theyâve ever been beforeâexcept that theyâve been tricked into thinking theyâre isolated.
âThe Age of Earthquakes: A Guide to the Extreme Present (2015)
Gagosian is pleased to announce The Extreme Present, the fifth in a series of annual exhibitions at the Moore Building in the Miami Design District during Art Basel Miami Beach, presented by Gagosian and Jeffrey Deitch.
The Extreme Present will explore artistsâ reactions to the conditions of our accelerating and increasingly complex world. The title is inspired by The Age of Earthquakes: A Guide to the Extreme Present, a book by Shumon Basar, Douglas Coupland, and Hans Ulrich Obrist, published in 2015. Their provocative thesis addresses the rapidly evolving digital era, half a century after Marshall McLuhanâs groundbreaking study on technologyâs influence on culture, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, in which he coined the phrase âthe medium is the message.â
Works in this exhibition explore concepts of media, communication, togetherness, and isolation. Theaster Gatesâs tar paintings, their manufacture prompted by his inheritance of his fatherâs tar kettle, unite the act of making a painting with the manual labor of making a roof. The abstract composition Torchdown (2014) conflates family history and memory with modern formalism. In Josh Klineâs Fox and Friends 3 (2019), âthin blue lineâ flags are wrapped around the casing of a television screen mounted to the wall, evoking the fractured, ideological nature of media. Chris Burdenâs Gold Bullets (2003) comprises ten gold-plated bullets in a Plexiglas vitrine, their deadly and chaotic potential neutralized. Adam McEwenâs life-size Voting Booth (2017) is made entirely from machined graphite, suggesting a sketch, or the idea of the object, as well as the object itself.
Taryn Simonâs ongoing photographic series Black Square (2006â) sets images of selected objects, documents, and people within a black field that has precisely the same measurements as Kazimir Malevichâs 1915 Suprematist work of the same name. Here, a Zimbabwean billion-dollar bill, a blackened palm from the California wildfires, and the pedestal that once supported a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee in New Orleans all assume new significance, suggesting the zero-sum game of humankindâs inventions and interventions. In Jeff Wallâs photograph Parent child (2018), a toddlerâs uninhibited behavior is juxtaposed with background passersby caught in mid-stride, creating an eerie scene that evokes some of Wallâs persistent themes: self-absorption, or the failure to connect. Deana Lawsonâs photograph House of My Deceased Lover (2019) depicts a nude woman sitting at the head of an unmade, threadbare bed; despite her ramshackle surroundings, Lawsonâs subject is regal and impervious, with the radiant look of one of the religious icons on the wall behind her. Similarly, Sayre Gomezâs photorealist painting of a roadside, Lakeview Memento Mori (2019), shows the signage for a strip mall and the siding of a graffiti- and trash-strewn highway in the foreground, against a serene pink and gold-tinted sky.
The Extreme Present offers a compact history of our time, told through artistsâ contributions that are both political and personal. In conjunction with the exhibition, copies of Basar, Coupland, and Obristâs book will be distributed free of charge to visitors.
The Extreme Present includes works by Derrick Adams, Richard Artschwager, Andisheh Avini, Frank Benson, Lucas Blalock, Joe Bradley, Chris Burden, Julien Ceccaldi, Theresa Chromati, Douglas Coupland, Chelsea Culprit, Celeste Dupuy-Spencer, Gardar Eide Einarsson, David Ersser, Roe Ethridge, Urs Fischer, Nicholas Galanin, Theaster Gates, Isa Genzken, H. R. Giger, Samara Golden, Sayre Gomez, Douglas Gordon, Duane Hanson, Camille Henrot, Damien Hirst, Carsten HĂśller, Jamian Juliano-Villani, Josh Kline, Harmony Korine, Alicja Kwade, Deana Lawson, Austin Lee, Robert Longo, Goshka Macuga, Paul McCarthy, Adam McEwen, Cady Noland, Katja Novitskova, Albert Oehlen, Rudolf Polanszky, Tabor Robak, Sterling Ruby, Ed Ruscha, David Salle, Taryn Simon, Frances Stark, Diamond Stingily, Tavares Strachan, Moffat Takadiwa, Hank Willis Thomas, Kon Trubkovich, Daniel Turner, Andra Ursuta, Banks Violette, Jeff Wall, Andy Warhol, and Anicka Yi.
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