Zach Nader
suspicious packages
April 10 – May 17, 2020
Opening Friday April 10, 6-8pm (via Zoom)
– Online Only –
VIEW EXHIBITION HERE
Microscope is very pleased to present suspicious packages, an online solo exhibition of new and recent works by Zach Nader that will be on view on our website starting from Friday April 10th and continuing through May 17th.
Nader’s work is subtly subversive, creating new aesthetics from disposable imagery to draw attention to a world in which every surface is potentially a site for pictures. The artist’s compositions are assembled out of digital “chunks” of images selected from the hundreds of advertisements and commercials we are inadvertently exposed to every day, even in times of isolation. Through a process involving the misuse of editing software to degrade or deface ads, fragments of once refined imagery integrate with each other to find new purpose and aesthetic value.
In his UV print and acrylic on hand-carved wood panels, Nader weaves together new narratives from idyllic scenes featured in commercials and advertisements. The carvings on the panels, upon closer inspection, are revealed as tracings of the silhouettes of products, actors and sets from additional advertising sources than those printed on the surface. When considered as a group, the works function as collections of dense visual information as well as representations of our overcrowded minds or unconsciouses. They revolt against unwanted images, still or moving, that delay and intrude upon our daily existences.
The exhibition also marks the debut of a short single-channel video work and small-scale plaster sculptures. In the video “telescope eyes,” a digital grid is stretched and distorted to follow the contours of colorless snippets from televised and online commercials, as well as footage shot by the artist. Transparent as ghosts, and devoid of hues or content, the familiar objects seem to ask to be recognized, with the characters often looking at each other through telescopes and other devices. The grid — which Nader uses to convey a sense of spatiality and to highlight the three-dimensionality of shapes in the source material — almost dissolves completely as layers accrue and distortions intensify.
Created with consumer molds for frozen popsicles, Nader’s plaster sculptures “watermelon” and “pineapple” point to the commodification of even a simple, ephemeral, homemade treat. It is not the food that matters or the pleasurable experience of eating it, rather its design. Their grey-painted surface, like an empty billboard or a blank screen suggests another opportunity yet to be taken.
For inquiries please contact the gallery at 347.925.1433, or by email at inquiries@microscopegallery.com. To receive Zoom meeting info for the opening, please RSVP to rsvp@microscopegallery.com
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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 image editing softwares. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including at Thomas Erben Gallery, New York; Time Square Arts’ “Midnight Moment”, New York; Eyebeam, New York; Interstate Projects, Brooklyn, NY; Centre Pompidou Paris, France; Haus der elektronischen Künste, Basel, Switzerland; Cultuurcentrum Hasselt, Belgium; and Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts, Birmingham, AL, among others. Nader’s work was most recently published in Foam Magazine: #54 Play!. He was an Art & Science Resident 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.
