Their exhibition, ‘Shadow Fux’, presented through the Swiss Institute,
is the duo’s first collaboration and takes as its point of departure
Korine’s controversial and psychologically jarring recent film,‘Trash
Humpers’ (2009). Featuring drawings and large-scale paintings on vinyl
and canvas, Ackermann and Korine reworked stills of ‘Trash Humpers’
overtly weird, alien-like cast of youthful misfits with haggard and aged
faces to create new characters and narratives. Through a process of
editing, splicing, painting and collaging, the resulting works reveal
the pair’s shared interest in fringe society and subversive culture with
eerie compositions acting as monuments to the freaks, hysterics and
eccentrics among us. Two confronting film pieces by Korine accompany the
paintings: ‘Pots and Pans’ (2010) which documents a deaf Cuban family
banging hysterically on pots and a second piece made up of fragmented
outtakes from ‘Trash Humpers’.
The collaboration began 18 months ago. “Ackermann and Korine, who are
very good friends, started sending images back and forth, beginning
their ‘call and response’ method of working together – taking
inspiration from Korine’s beautiful, weird, abstract film, ‘Trash
Humpers’,” explains Gianni Jetzer, the show’s curator. “Both artists
share a fascination with really weird, strange beauty and fictional
characters, which came through clearly in their works. It’s interesting
because through their collage and painting technique, they paralleled
the art of film-making as well as painting–it is a rare and wonderful
exchange.”
“Shadow Flux” is open until January 22, 2011 at the Swiss Institute in
New York.Photos by Daniel Perez.
