Fabulous

Covering themes like wealth, music, fame, fashion, and desire, the art in the group show “I Want You to Want Me” screams for attention. Kehinde Wiley has young hip-hop musicians posing like Old Masters’ heroes. David Hevel, known for his taxidermy “celebrities” and supermodel monkeys, does something sinister to Gwen Stefani. Hank Willis Thomas offers slave-imagery jewelry, Libby Black erects a paper microphone and amp, William Powhida presents scattered documentation from the tour of his fake rock band, and Kendell Carter provides the Kangol chandelier lamps and shoelace drip paintings. The cherry on top is courtesy of art duo Simmons and Burke's You Can Live Forever in Paradise on Earth #4, a massive and massively dense six-foot-tall photo collage composed of thousands of images the duo scavenged from myriad online sources. It’s chaotic, insane, an accumulation of everything, but it’s also geometrically keen, with countless little narratives to keep you entertained. To this they added music: specifically, hundreds of audio samples culled from the Internet, from both popular and high culture, a cacophony that’s in perfect synch with the visual feast.
April 4-May 16, 2009