Nov 22nd 2014

Jeff Gibson & Ethan Breckenridge: Skymall

@ Andrew Rafacz Gallery

835 W. Washington Blvd., 2nd Floor, Chicago, IL 60607

Opening Saturday, November 22nd, from 4PM - 7PM

On view through Friday, January 16th

ANDREW RAFACZ continues the 2014 fall season with Skymall, a two-person exhibition featuring a new installation and object by Jeff Gibson and Ethan Breckenridge. This is the artists’ first exhibition with the gallery. It continues through Saturday, January 16, 2015.

Covering the walls in the gallery are Jeff Gibson’s stream of internet-mined images, placing the viewer within the endless scroll of a Google image search. Unlike the daily supply of images purposefully prodding the visual plane via advertising, the .jpegs and product snapshots that Gibson culls are brought to attention by choice, produced through the artist’s own volition. The wrap-around repeat-patterning of Product (2014) is purposefully produced to adapt to any space, just as its objects within can be called upon, or found, by any individual with just a few keyboard strokes. The acutely organized objects are not specified or branded images, but those available to the masses— innocuous gems taking the shape of donuts, stilettos, wing nuts, and fluffy croissants.

Skymall pairs Gibson’s wallpaper with Breckenridge’s mirrored-vinyl beach umbrella, an object with obvious associations to vacation and relaxation. The object reflects the banality of the images on the wall, making them exciting through the lens of a future escapism. Skymall is a publication that contains juxtaposed consumerist images flagged for your enjoyment. The glossy pages are presented to you without request, but read with hungry interest. One doesn’t ask for the barrage of images to be placed within his or her vicinity, but it is without question that the individual enjoys digesting them. The umbrella also points to the superfluous product design unearthed within the pages of the publication, directing us to visions of a mundane future while flying to a sandy beach.

JEFF GIBSON (Australian, b. 1958) is an artist and critic living in New York. Gibson is managing editor of Artforum and has produced two artist’s books, Dupe: A Partial Compendium of Everyday Delusions [2000] and Sarsaparilla to Sorcery [2007]. He has exhibited as a part of Creative Time’s “59th Minute” program and mounted solo shows at the New York Academy of Sciences, Stephan Stoyanov Gallery, New York, and The Suburban, Chicago. Gibson’s video Metapoetaestheticism, 2013, was exhibited in the 2014 Whitney Biennial. This is his first exhibition with the gallery.

ETHAN BRECKENRIDGE (American, b. 1977) lives and works in New York. He received his B.F.A. from the School of the Visual Arts, and M.F.A. from Columbia University. Recent exhibitions have taken place at The Elizabeth Foundation New York, NY, The Zabludowicz Collection, New York and London, and the University California San Diego. Breckenridge has upcoming shows with Lullin-Ferrai, Zurich and Boltelang Zurich. This is his first exhibition with the gallery.

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