It Might Blow Up, But It Won't Go Pop

About

An exhibition from multidisciplinary artist Vishal Shah, collaborating with a creative production team, exploring the powerful and irreconcilable tension between commercial advertising and fine art. Using an audio video installation playing on a loop, communicative languages warp, design is beautifully abstracted but blocked and concepts are made to jar.

The film abstracts the many signs and symbols of corporate advertising, social communication from their natural context, and observe them as art. In some cases, the beauty remains, in others meaning is obscured, significance is lost, disruption takes president and surfaces are played upon. This tension is profound; it is a powerful tension within, swinging precariously between a wish to resolve and a need to scream. It might blow up but it won't go pop is a piece of work that is poised on this very delicate point.

The title of the exhibition is taken from the looped lyric in De La Soul’s third album ‘Buhloone Mindstate’ released in Sept. 1993. The hookline "it might blow up, but it won't go pop" is repeated over and over, until the sound of a balloon popping replaces the final word "pop" - the hope of expanding their artistic popularity, without selling out.

Artist
Vishal Shah

In collaboration with
Dr. Adam Stanović
Jakob Kienzerle
Dave Goodall
Rick Schubert
Serge Castro