Photography (Photography)

Scene from Masculin/Féminin

Untitled (Breathless) presents a folded newspaper article on Jean-Luc Godard’s À Bout de Souffle (Breathless). The work uses collage techniques—it is stapled down and has a thick strip of contact sheet paper taped over it—that convert the media coverage on Godard’s film into a filmic object itself. The black paper enacts a kind of cinematic “jump cut” on the article, while simultaneously drawing attention to the medium of the film, as well as the photograph reproduced in this newspaper article.

Wallace says of his Heroes in the Street series, “The street is the site, metaphorically as well as in actuality, of all the forces of society and economics imploded upon the individual, who, moving within the dense forest of symbols of the modern city, can achieve the status of the heroic.” The hero in Study for my Heroes in the Street (Stan) is the photoconceptual artist Stan Douglas, who is depicted here (and also included in the Kadist Collection) as an archetypal figure restlessly drifting the streets of the modern world. Patches of canvas cover parts of this otherwise representational photograph and ask the viewer to consider the role that editing and play in our perception of the urban landscape and modernity.

While Untitled (Shuffle) presents the same formal characteristics as the rest of Berman’s verifax collages, this constellation of specific images inside the radio’s frames—the Star of David, Hebrew characters, biblical animals—have Jewish symbolism and attest to the artist’s lasting obsession with the kabala. The piece’s sub-title, “Shuffle,” suggests the presence of chance and randomness in any given organization of elements.

NFT (NFT)

Ian Cheng’s project 3FACE is based on a model that is derived from both the artist’s extensive readings on psychology and cognition, and his own intuitive understanding of how people function. 3FACE positions the process of minting a generative NFT as a metaphor for personality development. While part of a series, because of the responsive coding, each NFT is unique and is informed by the contents of the owner’s wallet.

Drawing & Print (Drawing & Print)

Untitled

NFT (NFT)

Ian Cheng’s project 3FACE is based on a model that is derived from both the artist’s extensive readings on psychology and cognition, and his own intuitive understanding of how people function. 3FACE positions the process of minting a generative NFT as a metaphor for personality development. While part of a series, because of the responsive coding, each NFT is unique and is informed by the contents of the owner’s wallet.

NFT (NFT)

Ian Cheng’s project 3FACE is based on a model that is derived from both the artist’s extensive readings on psychology and cognition, and his own intuitive understanding of how people function. 3FACE positions the process of minting a generative NFT as a metaphor for personality development. While part of a series, because of the responsive coding, each NFT is unique and is informed by the contents of the owner’s wallet.

Film & Video (Film & Video)

“BC/AD” (Before Cancer, After Diagnoses) is a video of photographs of the artist’s face dating from early childhood to the month before he died, accompanied by the last diary entries he wrote from April 2004 to July 2005 (entitled “50 Reasons for Getting Out of Bed”), from the period from when he lost his voice, thinking he had laryngitis, through the moment he was diagnosed with lung cancer and the subsequent treatment that was ultimately, ineffective. The diary entries are at once poignant, ironic, laced with gallows of humor, with his continued eye for the little incidents in life, interweaving the past with his experience of the present. The morphing of the portraits—the eyes and sight remaining leveled—is haunting, beginning with very blurry images of childhood and ending with a pin-sharp photograph of Breakwell the month before he died.

NFT (NFT)

Ian Cheng’s project 3FACE is based on a model that is derived from both the artist’s extensive readings on psychology and cognition, and his own intuitive understanding of how people function. 3FACE positions the process of minting a generative NFT as a metaphor for personality development. While part of a series, because of the responsive coding, each NFT is unique and is informed by the contents of the owner’s wallet.