Zach Nader
psychic pictures
April 5 – May 12, 2019
Opening Friday April 5, 6-9pm
Zach Nader, “hot dog holiday”, 2019, acrylic and UV print on hand-carved wood panel, 40 x 56 inches – Image courtesy of the artist and Microscope
Installation Views
Microscope is very pleased to present “psychic pictures” the 3rd solo exhibition at the gallery by Zach Nader. In new mixed media works, sculptures, and video, Nader addresses the psychology of advertising, stripping print ads, commercials and other appropriated advertising imagery of their persuasive powers, emphasizing their ubiquity and the public’s passive reception.
Nader, who over the past few years has been digitally manipulating disposable images — through the removal and replacement of products and actors, the re-introduction of imperfections usually edited out of the highly scripted scenes such as moiré patterns, and the insertion of personal markings, among others — is interested in “how images program our world and the opportunities to reprogram those images”.
In “psychic pictures” any surface becomes a potential “screen”, receptacle or trap to catch and transform imagery engineered to make viewers aspire to idealized lifestyles. Images that have been subject to Nader’s reworking processes — which typically involve the misuse of the image editing software — are then printed with UV ink onto household objects and other materials such as acrylic mesh. Similarly, a new series of acrylic and UV print on hand-carved wood panel works seeks to disrupt the familiar tropes, colors, shapes, and lines used to entice the consumer.
In the single-channel video “psychic pictures”, island-like fragments of commercial clips some flickering, others morphing or in various states of digital decay, float across the screen and each other. As in the mixed media and sculptures, glimpses of idyllic moments of American life and its summer picnics, pool parties, happy birthdays, and waving flags draw attention to “an artifice that induces feelings of longing or nostalgia for something that never was and cannot be”.
“psychic pictures” runs from April 5 through May 12, with an opening reception on Friday April 5 from 6-9pm. For additional information please contact the gallery at inquiries@microscopegallery.com or by phone at 347.925.1433.
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Zach Nader is an artist excavating new possibilities in content and aesthetics for existing photographic imagery through the use and misuse of contemporary image editing software. His reworkings of print ads, commercials and other disposable imagery has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including during a month-long nightly video installation on 23 advertisement billboards as part of Time Square Arts’ Midnight Moment. His work has also been shown at Culturrcentrum Hasselt, Belgium (currently), Centre Pompidou Paris, France; Haus der elektronischen Künste, Basel, Switzerland; Eyebeam, New York, NY; Interstate Projects, Brooklyn, NY, and Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts, Birmingham, AL, among others. Nader was an Art & Science Residency at The Pioneer Works Center for Art and Innovation in Brooklyn, NY and has been a featured speaker at ICP-Bard, New York, NY, and Bard at Simon Rock, Great Barrington, MA, among others. Nader was born in Dallas, Texas and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
Zach Nader, “outlet #4”, 2019, UV print on steel outlet wall plate, 5 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches – Image courtesy of the artist and Microscope
Zach Nader, “psychic pictures”, 2019, single-channel HD video, silent, 4 minutes 35 seconds – Image courtesy of the artist and Microscope