Thanks to technology and social media, creating and navigating alternate realities is something most of us do every day. These constructed landscape are not so much tangents of “the real world” as they are part of a new contemporary space in which the real and the artificial are increasing blurred. A new exhibition opening at London’s Annka Kultys Gallery tonight seeks to explore this grey area, focusing on radical young artists fluent in fabricating new, imaginary landscapes. The curators themselves are people who have probably lured you into their own worlds, both digital and IRL: the meticulously staged, glitter-covered, “girlworld” of Arvida Byström, the private bedroom of self-described “webcam princess” Molly Soda, and the apartment-turned-gallery space of Sunday Los Angeles innovator Ada Rajkovic. In Zero Zero, a phrase the curators say “means cloudy, and a lack of visibility,” Arvida, Molly, and Ada will showcase works by their friends and contemporaries who are similarly erasing the line between virtual and real.
“The way that the world is now is that it’s so fluid,” the curators said over email about the fantastical show, rejecting the concept of reality entirely. “There is not much of a difference between virtual space and reality. Reality is maybe the wrong word. Just because something isn’t tangible doesn’t mean it is not real. Everything we realize is real.” The featured works include deceptively surface-level and hypnotically flashy installations by Signe Pierce, evocative photos of femininity and nature by Maisie Cousins, and skin-resembling sculptures by Ivana Basic that claw at the limitations of human physicality. Beijing-based artists Cao Fei and Oliver Haidutschek have contributed pieces that span multiple mediums.
“Zero Zero” runs from June 30 through July 30, 2016 at Annka Kultys in London.
Credits
Text Hannah Ongley
Images courtesy of the artist and Annka Kultys Gallery