Two-part exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam marks the artist's first solo exhibition in The Netherlands
2016–2017
JORDAN WOLFSON: MANIC / LOVE / TRUTH / LOVE presented major works spanning several years of the artist's practice in a two-part exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam—Wolfson's first solo exhibition in The Netherlands.
The first part, MANIC/LOVE, featured Wolfson’s most recent large scale animatronic installation Colored sculpture (2016), whose red hair, freckles, and boyish look draw associations with such literary and pop cultural characters as Huckleberry Finn and Howdy Doody. Highly polished in appearance and featuring facial recognition technology in its eyes, the work is suspended with heavy chains from a large mechanized gantry, which is programmed to choreograph its movements. MANIC/LOVE also included a selection of wall-mounted digital paintings and video works including Raspberry Poser (2012).
The second part of the exhibition, TRUTH/LOVE, featured Wolfson's animatronic sculpture Female figure (2014), which was first presented at David Zwirner in New York in 2014 in the artist's debut exhibition with the gallery. The sculpture combines film, installation, and performance in the figure of a woman dancing and wearing a witch mask. At David Zwirner and at the Stedelijk Museum,a limited number of visitorswas admitted to see Female figure at one time. Like Colored sculpture, Female figure reflects the artist’s interest in states of interaction between the viewer and his work, in particular as they are activated by the gaze.
Read more: An interview with the artist in ARTnewsabout Colored sculpture, and a conversation between Wolfson and the Stedelijk Museum DirectorBeatrix Ruf for the Fall 2016 issue ofKaleidoscope.