To say Canadian artist Chloe Wise’s practice is “expansive” is a bit of an understatement. She’s sculpted Prada bags out of urethane pastries and sex swings out of Chanel’s signature quilted leather. She’s painted large-scale oil works of India Menuez drinking Sprite at a picnic, and of Bachelor-esque roses. She filmed a parody of the musical Grease set at the Acropolis and screened the piece at Art Basel. All of these works have been created within just two years — in which time Wise has opened three solo shows, participated in countless group exhibitions, lectured at Cornell, and gotten a mysterious mock “divorce” from Eric Wareheim. Now, it’s all going in her first artist’s monograph.
“The whole book is sort of like, the inside of my brain just printed,” Wise tells me over email of the self-titled tome, which comprises hundreds of her drawings, video stills, sculptures, and portraits produced between 2014 and 2016. “It’s images of my work but also photos from my phone, stills from my videos, things I find funny about the process of making artwork in general —all in all it’s pretty amusing,” she says.
The book also includes a series of essays and conversations that consider the overarching ideas guiding Wise’s practice. Celebrated curator Jeffrey Deitch’s essay contextualizes the young New York-based artist’s work within a nexus of Pop Art philosophies and emergent technologies; Division Gallery curator Loreta Lamargese considers queer pleasure and neoliberal politics. Actor, comedian, collaborator, and dance partner Wareheim has even contributed a conversation with Wise, which I personally hope pertains exclusively to their songs “Piss On These Panties” volumes I and II (both variations are represented, “in a way,” says Wise).
“I hope people think it’s pretty and funny and take away a greater understanding of my body of work as a whole. Considering I am so multidisciplinary I imagine some of the work across different media might feel disparate, but to me it’s very very connected,” Wise explains. “Hopefully this [book] aligns that connection to viewers, and hopefully it can be a really dope Hannukah gift or something. I’M JUST SO EXCITED THAT I HAVE A BOOK WOW.”
Chloe Wise launches in New York on Monday, October 24 and in Toronto on October 28. Until then, she’s preparing for a new solo show, opening at Division Gallery in Montreal next month. “Can you come? I know it’s in Canada but like, by then we might have a misogynistic megalomaniac president so it would be great to come to Canada and start setting up shop? Come colonize my solo show?” Depending on how tonight’s debate goes, count us in.
Credits
Text Emily Manning