Social satire

Social satire

London – Artist Cory Arcangel’s latest exhibition Currentmood satirises the visual language of social media.

FN Slides / Lakes 2016 by Cory Arcangel at Lisson Gallery, UK FN Slides / Lakes 2016 by Cory Arcangel at Lisson Gallery, UK
Russell's #3 / Lakes 2016 by Cory Arcangel at Lisson Gallery, UK Russell's #3 / Lakes 2016 by Cory Arcangel at Lisson Gallery, UK
Ibiza / Lakes 2016 by Cory Arcangel at Lisson Gallery, UK Ibiza / Lakes 2016 by Cory Arcangel at Lisson Gallery, UK

London – Artist Cory Arcangel’s latest exhibition Currentmood satirises the visual language of social media.

  • The show includes media from a broad range of sources, from low-resolution screen shots to scans of Ibiza flyers
  • Arcangel’s work will also be disseminated as promoted content in advertising spots across the internet

Arcangel’s practice is based around using art as a means of critically investigating web culture and internet language. The exhibition, at London’s Lisson Gallery, was inspired by the American artist’s habit of using social media to document his own browsing habits using the hashtag #currentmood. The show includes media drawn from an esoteric range of sources, including scans of Ibiza flyers, default Photoshop image effects, commercial and mobile phone photography and low-resolution screen shots. It also features emulations and reprints of earlier works by the artist.

The exhibition also exists online thanks to an accompanying advertising campaign that will be dispersed across the internet as promoted content. Arcangel’s decision to display the same works in real life in a gallery context and universally disseminated as clickbait is part of his continuing exploration of open-source culture democratiastion through technology.

What this means for your brand

Memes have a serious side, too. As the visual language of social media becomes more pervasive, artists such as Cory Arcangel and Ian Cheng are using its tropes as a means for critical investigations of contemporary culture. See our Gen Viz macrotrend for more.

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