Ian Cheng, Emissary Sunsets The Self live simulation and story, infinite duration, sound 2017 courtesy of the artist, Pilar Corrias, Gladstone Gallery, Standard (Oslo)
The Serpentine is going all Digital for Spring exhibiting two young US artists Ian Cheng and Sondra Perry, both making their full UK debuts – Sondra is the youngest ever solo artist to exhibit at the Serpentine. Her installations rework black memes and viral violence to address race in the digital space. She will present huge video installations and the show promises to be powerful, especially her piece relating to JMW Turner’s Slave Ship painting. Meanwhile, Ian Cheng is building an aquarium of sentient beings, the BOBs (“bag of beliefs”) – AI artworks that will evolve in real time based on their interactions with visitors.
We will get you more information nearer the time, both exhibitions open on 6th March at the Serpentine galleries. www.serpentinegalleries.org
About The Artists
Ian Cheng Espace Louis Vuitton Mu?nchen 2017. Photo by Christian Kain
Ian Cheng (b. 1984, Los Angeles) is a New York-based artist whose work utilises computer simulation as a way to understand and relate to continual change. Cheng has been the subject of solo exhibitions at MoMA PS1, New York (2017); Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh (2017); Migros Museum, Zurich (2016); Pilar Corrias Gallery, London (2015); Triennale di Milano (2014); among others. His work has been included in group exhibitions at the Louisiana Museum, Copenhagen (2017); Yokohama Triennale (2017);
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C. (2016); the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2016); Taipei Biennial (2014); 12th Biennale de Lyon (2013); and Sculpture Center (2012). Cheng holds an MFA from Columbia University (2009) and a dual BA in Cognitive Science and Art Practice from the University of California, Berkeley (2006).
Sondra Perry Lineage for a Multiple-Monitor Workstation: Number One (Still), 2015. Courtesy of the artist
Sondra Perry’s (b. 1986, Perth Amboy, New Jersey) videos and performances foreground the tools of digital production as a way to critically reflect on new technologies of representation and to remobilise their potential. Her work revolves around blackness and black American history and ways in which technology shapes identity, often with her own personal history as a point of departure.
Recent solo exhibitions include flesh out, at Squeaky Wheel Film and Media Art Center in Buffalo, New York (2017); Resident Evil at The Kitchen, New York (2016) and at the Institute for New Connotative Action (2017). Group exhibitions include Trigger: Gender as a Tool and a Weapon, New Museum, New York (2017); Sick Time, Sleepy Time, Crip Time: Against Capitalism’s Temporal Bullying, Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts Project Space, New York (2017); Disguise: Masks and Global African Art, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn
New York, previously shown in Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, and Fowler Museum at UCLA, Los Angeles (both 2015); Greater New York exhibition at MoMA/PS1, New York (2015); A Curious Blindness, Miriam & Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery, New York (2015); Of Present Bodies, Arlington Arts Center, Arlington VA (2014); and Young, Gifted, & Black: Transforming Visual Media, The Camera Club of New York (2012). She performed Sondra Perry & Associate Make Pancakes and Shame the Devil at the Artist’s Institute, New York, in 2015. Perry’s video work has been screened at Tribeca Cinemas in New York, Les Voutes in Paris, France, LuXun Academy of Fine Arts Museum in Shenyang, China, and at the LOOP Barcelona Media Arts Festival.
