Media Yarn

iGenY

My aunt invited me to join her for a tour of the New Museum, located at 235 Bowry of NYC, highlighting the latest acclaimed exhibit, “The Generational: Younger than Jesus.” The group of about 12 beneficiaries gathered in the lobby as two of the lead curators, Laura Hoptman and Lauren Cornell, eloquently gave us an introduction of the inspiration and vision of the project.

The staff selected 500 artist portfolios from around the globe that were under the age of 33, which would label them as a “Millennial” or “Generation Me.” Like me all of these artists were born around the year of 1980 and see the world through a lens far different from their parents. It’s so refreshing to finally see a true modern exhibit that showcases works of young artists producing work relative to today.

None of these artists really revolutionized an “ism” of design but rather introduced the public to a new perspective of society using innovative mediums and technology. The dominant medium used was video but I was impressed to see a wide variety of materials used such as: print, installation, drawing, and sculpture.
Despite what some people my think of the stereotypical glutinous generation, these artists conveyed provocative themes like politics, AIDS, virtual messaging, identity, space & time.

One artist that stuck out to me was Cory Arcangel, who created a large print of Blue hue selected from Adobe Photoshop color wheel. Making a plain statement of “this is blue.” He includes directions in his title on how to reproduce the work (PS CS: 72 by 110 inches, 300 DPI, RGB, square pixels, default gradient,  “Spectrum” mousedown y=1416x=1000, mouseup y=208 x=42).
Also in the middle of the room was a full size bed with girl sleeping under a white down comforter…a real live girl! The artist has a real participant take an ambien and sleep for the entire duration of the museum open hrs. I want that job!

Overall I think the group, whose average age was about 55, left feeling very hopeful and inspired rather than confused. We left to visit some of the featured artist studios in Brooklyn-promise to write a follow up post with more details.

Check out more photos from the exhibit on Flikr. Article write up from The New Yorker magazine.