Ryan Trecartin, Lizzie Fitch/Ryan Trecartin, Priority Innfield, 2013. Installation view Zabludowicz Collection, London, 2014. Photo: Stuart Whipps.
Unitil 21st December 2014 Admission: FREE Thursday–Sunday, 12–6pm or by appointment 176 Prince of Wales Road, London NW5 3PT zabludowiczcollection.com
This is the first UK solo exhibition by Lizzie Fitch/Ryan Trecartin, two artists whose collaborative practice is producing some of the most interesting and fun work in contemporary art today.
The exhibition is an ambitious and completely new reconfiguration of the installation Priority Innfield. Commissioned for The Encyclopedic Palace at the 55th Venice Biennale,
CENTER JENNY, 2013 from Ryan Trecartin on Vimeo.
Lizzie Fitch/Ryan Trecartin have completely taken over of the venue with paint and carpet, and centred the exhibition around the presentation of four movies . For each movie, a viewing area has been built within the superstructure, with a fifth acting as an observation deck from which you can watch people watching the movies . In CENTER JENNY (see above) , students in a post-future world study their ancestors via a live-action video game, in which they strive to level-up the caste system through increasingly cruel competition. Item Falls, filmed at the artists’ Los Feliz home, sees a group of performers trapped in an audition while being attacked by special effects. Junior War features edited footage of Trecartin’s Ohio high school shot in the 1990s, and in Comma Boat (see below) he portrays an unhinged film director.
Comma Boat, 2013 (1 Screen) from Ryan Trecartin on Vimeo.
Rather than an ironic or simplistic parody of our mediated culture, Trecartin implicates himself fully inside of its workings. From this cacophony he manages to edit language, performances, virtual surfaces and three-dimensional forms into inventive and emotionally affecting spaces that reflect something of the chaos of existence.
