Galeria Leme is pleased to present an individual exhibition by American artist Tony Oursler. Known as one of the greatest multimidia artists of our time, Oursler brings to this exhibition a rescue of important drawings and performance installations of his career.
The artist is vastly known for his innovative combination of performance, vídeo and sculpture. Always interested in the relashionship between human beings and mass media systems, his curiosity grew even more when he read about Japanese children feeding their pets on the internet. He then started to notice how this empathy bond developed and how could it evolve in a digital space.
Often overtly humorous and sometimes grotesque, the characters created by Oursler seduce the viwer in many different ways. The artist created a series of digital pets – or companions – from photographic manipulation and, in spite of ironic and funny, they provoque on the viewer a reflexion on if, in fact, having a virtual and amorphous friend can be funny at all.
As a multimedia artist, Tony Oursler sought to merge into the performances the private dialogues between people and their pets, as well as some ‘pillow talks’, often vulnerable and embarrassing.
His cartoons can sometimes be disturbing, once their features are distorted – streched or shrunken – through manipulation, showing a caricatural evolution that could only happen in digital space. In this process the artist creates noseless faces, shifting the viewer’s eyes gravity point, around which all the other facial aspects would be organized. Sometimes evoking aliens, accidents or diseases, Oursler’s works never fails to impact those who see it.
The exhibition also engages drawings, that show his versatility in creating bi and tridimensional works. It is not about discussing the validity of both supports, but exploring a particular mode of appearance of the seemingly flat.
