Jordan Wolfson: Ecce Homo / le Poseur
Introduction by Martin Germann and Aram Moshayedi. Texts by Esther Leslie, Linda Norden, and Philippe Van Cauteren. Interview with the artist by Aram Moshayedi
This book, which sold out almost immediately upon publication, is a reprint of the catalogue produced on the occasion of Wolfson’s 2012–2013 exhibitions at REDCAT (Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater) in Los Angeles and the Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (S.M.A.K.) in Ghent. Entitled Ecce Homo/le Poseur, the S.M.A.K. presentation marked the most comprehensive survey of Wolfson’s work to date. The volume’s eponymous title effectively expresses the artist’s interest in the ego and its image as well as destabilizing differences between life and imitation, reality and imagination. Anchored by full-scale color plates of Wolfson’s three animations—video stills, details, and installation views of the ambitiously conceived Con Leche (2009), Animation, masks (2011), and Raspberry Poser (2012)—the book provides a critical framework for the artist’s vast and varied practice.
Images are given context by illuminating scholarship by Esther Leslie and Linda Norden, and a conversation between Aram Moshayedi and Wolfson brings their analyses to ground. Also included is a letter personally addressed to the artist by Philippe Van Cauteren. In Wolfson’s words, his work is “about reaching a place of displacement and control within the space of viewing”; this text exists as an embodiment of that ever-evolving vision, which considers the developments of digital and analogue animation as essential to the histories of modernism and modernity, and posits them as responsible for shaping and relaying the concerns of sculptural and pictorial modes of representation, and defining our relationship to both images and objects.
Publisher: REDCAT / S. M. A. K. / Walther Ko¨nig, Cologne in association with David Zwirner Books
Artists: Jordan Wolfson
Contributors: Martin Germann, Esther Leslie, Aram Moshayedi, Linda Norden, Philippe Van Cauteren
Designer: Joseph Logan
Publication Date: 2013. Reprint edition 2015
Binding: Hardcover
Dimensions: 9 x 13 in (22.9 x 33 cm)
Pages: 136
Reproductions: 90 color
ISBN: 9783863354145
Retail: $55 US & Canada | £37 | €47
Status: Available
Jordan Wolfson
Jordan Wolfson was born in 1980 in New York, and he is currently based between New York and Los Angeles. In 2003, he received his B.F.A. in sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design. The artist joined David Zwirner in 2013, and his first gallery solo exhibition was presented in New York in 2014. Prominent institutions which have hosted solo shows include Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (S.M.A.K.), Ghent; Chisenhale Gallery, London (both 2013); Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna; Gallery at The Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater (REDCAT), Los Angeles (both 2012); Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf (2011); CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco (2009); Swiss Institute of Contemporary Art, New York (2008); Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo, Italy (2007); and Kunsthalle Zürich (2004). In 2009, Wolfson received the prestigious Cartier Award from the Frieze Foundation, which helps an artist from outside the United Kingdom realize a major project at Frieze Art Fair in London. Work by Wolfson is held in public collections worldwide, including Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin; Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo, Italy; Magasin 3 Stockholm Konsthall; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (S.M.A.K.), Ghent; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
All Jordan Wolfson books
Martin Germann
Martin Germann is senior curator at the Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (S.M.A.K.) in Ghent. From 2008 to 2011, he worked as curator at the kestnergesellschaft in Hanover, and he has organized solo exhibitions and publications with artists such as Michael Borremans, Aaron Curry, Julian Go¨the, Joachim Koester, Elke Krystufek, Michael Sailstorfer, and Larry Sultan.
Esther Leslie
Esther Leslie is a writer and Professor of Political Aesthetics at Birkbeck College, University of London. She is the author of several books including Walter Benjamin: Overpowering Conformism (2000), Hollywood Flatlands: Animation, Critical Theory and the Avant-garde (2002), Synthetic Worlds: Nature, Art and the Chemical Industry (2006), and Derelicts: Thought Worms from the Wreckage (2014).
Aram Moshayedi
Aram Moshayedi is a writer and curator at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. He was formerly the associate curator of REDCAT (Roy and Edna Disney / CalArts Theater) in Los Angeles, where he organized exhibitions and oversaw the production of new works by Jordan Wolfson, as well as Tony Cokes, Jay Chung & Q Takeki Maeda, Geoffrey Farmer, and Ming Wong. He previously served as curator from 2005 to 2010 at LAXART in Los Angeles.
Linda Norden
Linda Norden is an independent curator, writer, and art historian. Norden’s writing has covered an extensive range of artists and critics, including Richard Artschwager, Robert Gober, Eva Hesse, Roni Horn, Pierre Huyghe, Lucy Lippard, Sharon Lockhart, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Ryman, and Cy Twombly.
Philippe Van Cauteren
Philippe Van Cauteren is artistic director of the Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (S.M.A.K.) in Ghent. He has been selected to curate the Iraqi Pavilion at the 2015 Venice Biennale. In 2002, he was curator of the first Bienal Ceara´ Ame´rica in Fortaleza, Brazil. He has worked as a freelance curator in Germany, Mexico, Chile, and Brazil, and regularly writes and lectures on contemporary art.
