Amalia Ulman | Stock Images of War

About

James Fuentes is pleased to announce a solo exhibition with Amalia Ulman. Her first solo exhibition in New York, Stock Images Of War is an immersive installation exploring themes of deconstruction, confinement, fragility and war.

In a global community of emotions, war is gossip, torture is a parallel act of deconstruction and images serve the function of heavy artillery.

Cherry Picker, Sherwood Forest, Pink Rose, Night Blossoms.

Becoming a log: logging in, logging out.

Where narcissism becomes a stratagem we need mirrors to learn our poses, to attract and seduce like England does with a third world country.

Within the gallery, Ulman has installed a series of augmented metallic figures produced during a period of personal confinement. Dispersed throughout the room, these wire skeletons are constantly fighting to stand their ground. Stuck in a purgatory of imperfect balance, their compositions oscillate between stability and complete collapse. Around the gallery’s perimeter is an immersive black drapery entombing the audience. This ceremonial décor theatrically frames the frail sculptures, whose only illumination is a handful of spotlights.

All of this happens amidst a nauseating smell of Baked Apple Strudel, of someone cooking dessert in factory quantities, of someone cooking and dancing to teenage hits, to easy political songs, because only in a state of neoteny is it possible to believe in the fantasy of the dehumanized other, the other as cake.

We don't need no water let the motherfucker burn,
Burn motherfucker burn.