Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/641424
ART S A R A L U D Y @SARALUDY BY THE NUMBERS More than 125,000 people visited Sara Ludy's seminal work WALLPAPERS during its six-month run at the Vancouver Art Gallery. A collaborative project with artists Nicolas Sassoon and Sylvain Sailly, the exhibition featured an immersive installation comprised of floor-to-ceiling video works. EARLY ADOPTER Ludy graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has had great support from her Chicago network. Artist, critic, and fellow SAIC alum Nicholas O'Brien was one of the first to review Ludy's practice for a publication, and has since acquired a number of her video works. She has a strong collector base, which includes art world influencers such as Megan Newcome of Phillips auction house and Helene Winer of Metro Pictures. T R E V O R PA G L E N @TREVORPAGLEN WEB APPLICATIONS Trevor Paglen is basically the art world's flashlight on a planet that is increasingly shadowy. Using photography, text-based work and sculpture, Paglen has shone that light on classified satellites in the night sky, code words used by the National Security Agency and military black sites. But for Paglen, the goal isn't to decode or help viewers visualize these hidden subjects. "It's not really about trying to make sense of it," he says. "For me, it's more about directing one's attention towards things." BROWSING HISTORY For Paglen's 2012 The Last Pictures project, 100 photographs depicting human civilization were attached to a satellite and launched into orbit—the assumption being that satellites will be here long after everything else is gone. And his latest project, last year's Trinity Cube, was installed in the closed area near the Fukushima nuclear power plant, and will be seen by the public once radiation levels become safe. It's an art- cum-tech approach that pushes the boundaries of the knowledge art can generate. WHEN IT CLICKED Paglen's Ph.D. in geography from Berkeley along with his MFA from the Art Institute of Chicago has led to a wide-ranging career. He contributed to Laura Poitras' Academy Award-winning documentary Citizenfour, received the Pioneer Award from the Electronic Frontier Foundation and has had solo exhibitions at Metro Pictures in New York and Altman Siegel in San Francisco. TA K E S H I M U R ATA @TAKESHIMURATA WHEN IT CLICKED It wasn't until "Black Box: Takeshi Murata," his landmark solo show at the Hirshhorn Museum, that the pioneering glitch artist felt the full power of institutional support. The museum's subsequent purchase and installation of videos like Pink Dot (2006) signaled a shift in attitude towards digital animations and glitch inside the art world. "The Hirshhorn did feel like the big one, but I got gallery support first," says Murata. "Institutional support has been really important, but it's hard. I've talked to other artists who don't work with materials that are very easy to sell. It's great for the bigger shows but it's harder to actually make a living." EARLY ADOPTER Murata began animating and toying with film as an undergraduate at the Rhode Island School of Design. "It was something that I grew up admiring. It seemed like a natural medium to adopt." #CULTUREDMAG The museum's purchase and installation of videos like Pink Dot signaled a shift in attitude towards digital animation and glitches inside the art world. • • • • Leaders of the New Media pack CULTURED 165 COURTESY SARAH MEYOHAS; ©TREVOR PAGLEN; TAKESHI MURATA, COURTESY ©DAATA EDITIONS; ©SARAH HUNNTINGTON S A R A H M E Y O H A S @SARAHMEYOHAS WEB APPLICATIONS Every day for the duration of her performative exhibition at 303 Gallery, Sarah Meyohas sat at a desk in the middle of the space making stock trades via an online broker. Then she would transcribe the movements of the stocks onto canvas, essentially manipulating the market for visual purposes. "The day trader wants to buy low, sell high," says Meyohas. "I don't care as much about that as conveying a sense of drama in the line." Her collectors include not only art fans, but also finance managers. BROWSING HISTORY Meyohas first grabbed headlines by exploring the financial applications of the Internet when she unveiled BitchCoin—a digital currency backed by her photographs (as Meyohas grows more famous, and the value of the photo rises, so does the currency)—at Where gallery in Brooklyn. "I've gotten more attention than I anticipated, because nobody else is talking about finance," she says. "I liken it to Pop Art talking about commodification; I'm making art that talks about financialization in a similar way." WHEN IT CLICKED "Richard Prince was one of my critics at Yale. It's so funny that he, of all people, was the one who took a liking to my work. He introduced me to Lisa Spellman [of 303 Gallery]." "Richard Prince was one of my critics at Yale. It's so funny that he, of all people, was the one who took a liking to my work." By Kat Herriman, Lindsay Howard, Maxwell Williams and Janelle Zara