Cory Arcangel (beige)

Cory Arcangel is known for his subversive use of technology.  His art uses the aesthetics of different technology as a ready-made.  Significant in his practice are pieces like Super Mario Clouds v2k3 (2003), a hacked Super Mario Bros video game transformed into a series of wall projections that show an intense blue sky crossed by slowed down white clouds, an aesthetic reminiscent of Pop Art’s obsession with mass imagery. In another seminal work - I Shot Andy Warhol (2003) – he replaced the targets of a shooting game with Pope John Paul II, Flavor Flav and Colonel Sanders (of KFC fame) to let the player slip into the role of Valerie Solanas, the woman who tried to assassinate Warhol in 1968. In all Arcangel’s works, technology and pop culture converge, sustained by performances where the artist grants access to his research and process without any hierarchy or control. In the two-channel video Sweet 16 (2006) for instance, he applied minimalist composer Steve Reich’s concept of ’phasing’ to the 80s’ rock anthem Sweet Child O’Mine by Guns ’N’ Roses, and also presented handout manuals for the audience to learn how to recreate the piece on their home computer. In a more compositional piece, Arcangel wrote additional instrumentation for Bruce Springsteen’s 1975 LP Born to Run to highlight the sound of the glockenspiel, a xylophone-like instrument that to his mind is an under-appreciated component of this classic album.  This was then freely distributed remixed into the original, thus further blurring the line in the traditional hierarchy of the artist, his work, and control over this work.  

Having graduated from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music with a degree in Technology in Music and the Related Arts, Arcangel came to the art world through a number of Internet based activities. These, in turn, lead to invitations from institutions for lectures and demonstrations, a performative aspect which naturally called for the creation of digital environments which have then evolved into art works. Frequent collaborations include the programming ensemble Beige, which Arcangel co-founded in 1998, and the Paper Rad Art Collective.

Arcangel (b. 1978, Buffalo, US) lives and works in New York. This year he has solo shows planned at the Miami Museum of Contemporary Art and Max Wigram Gallery. In 2009 solo exhibitions included Montevideo (the Netherlands Media Art Institute, Amsterdam) and the University of Michigan Museum of Art. Group exhibitions last year included ’Pop Music as Subject for Visual Art’ at Kunsthaus Graz (Austria), ’Younger than Jesus’ at the New Museum (New York) and ’Abstract Cinema and Technology’ at the Museum of Contemporary Art (Miami). His work was included in a UK touring commission by Film & Video Umbrella (2008); Time Frame (2006) at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center(NY); the 2004 Whitney Biennial and in 2005’s Greater New York exhibition at P.S.1/MoMA. He has also shown his work in a solo at Zürich’s migros museum für gegenwartskunst in 2005 and participated in group exhibitions at The Museum of Modern Art, The New Museum of Contemporary Art, and at The Guggenheim Museum, New York.

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