Zach Nader
something familiar
July 25 – August 22, 2020
– online –
Microscope Gallery is pleased to announce that Zach Nader’s new solo exhibition “something familiar” is currently featured on The Armory Show’s “Armory Access.” The exhibition features new works — made during lockdown in New York City due to the Covid-19 pandemic — in mixed-media, sculpture, and video. Nader is known for his radical misuse of photo and video software and tools as applied to disposable imagery such as ads, commercials, and social media. His work is subtly subversive, creating new narratives and aesthetics from disposable imagery to draw attention to a world in which every surface is a potential site for pictures.
In a new series of UV print and acrylic on hand-carved panel works, fragments of once refined imagery are layered and integrated through the misuse of editing softwares, often degrading or defacing the original material through digital erasures, pixelation, filters, brush strokes, and other markings embedded within. At the foundation of these works is a revolt against unwanted images that intrude upon us daily.
The video “something familiar” is composed mainly of segments from current commercials that have been playing during the pandemic. The idealized portrait of American life put forth — only faintly acknowledging a common sense of isolation — is visually disrupted by Nader through various manipulations, revealing the video clips as nothing more than digital marketing tools with clichéd slogans. Unable to reflect or adjust to our present-day reality, the soothing imagery and rhetoric of these ads continue to urge the viewers to find consolation in the featured products and proposed lifestyles, with the single unsettling message: everything is fine.
Nader’s “strawberry” and “frozen treat” — acrylic paint on plaster sculptures created with consumer molds for popsicles — point to the commodification of even a simple, ephemeral, homemade delight.
For inquiries please contact the gallery by email at inquiries@microscopegallery.com or by phone at 347.925.1433.
“fair grounds”, 2020
UV print and acrylic on hand-carved wood panel
25 x 18 inches, 63.5 x 45.7 cm
“ice cream social”, 2020
UV print and acrylic on hand-carved wood panel
25 x 18 inches, 63.5 x 45.7 cm
“frozen treat”, 2020
Acrylic on plaster, wood
5 1/4 x 1 3/4 x 7/8 inches, 13.3 x 4.4 x 2.2 cm
Zach Nader
“something familiar”, 2020
HD single-channel video
4 minutes 15 seconds
“candy coated measurements”, 2019
UV print and acrylic on hand-carved wood panel
40 x 56 inches, 101.6 x 142.2 cm
“church picnic”, 2020
UV print and acrylic on hand-carved wood panel
25 x 18 inches, 63.5 x 45.7 cm
“strawberry”, 2020
Acrylic on plaster, wood
6 x 3 x 7/8 inches, 15.2 x 7.6 x 2.2 cm
“ring toss”, 2020
UV print and acrylic on hand-carved wood panel
25 x 18 inches, 63.5 x 45.7 cm
“suspicious packages”, 2019
UV print and acrylic on hand-carved wood panel
40 x 56 inches, 101.6 x 142.2 cm
“swing smile”, 2020
UV print and acrylic on hand-carved wood panel
25 x 18 inches, 63.5 x 45.7 cm