TEST PATTERN
organized by Laura Phipps and Nicholas Robbins
Whitney Museum
945 Madison Avenue - New York
22 August - 1 December 2013
A selection of recent acquisitions from the Museum’s permanent collection, Test Pattern brings together works, made mostly in the last three years, that demonstrate artists’ shared interests in investigating the entangled roles of materiality, reproduction and process. Perhaps in response to the increasingly seamless exchanges of visual information in the digital age, the artists featured in this exhibition seem intent on complicating and obscuring content, encouraging slower and more nuanced ways of looking. The phrase “test pattern,” a graphic tool that enables the synchronization of signals for optimum color and clarity, suggests a metaphor for the way these artists question the legibility of images at a moment where technology has amplified the impact of images and accelerated their transmission. Including works by Michele Abeles, Tauba Auerbach, Mathew Cerletty, Leslie Hewitt, Meredyth Sparks, Kaari Upson and others, the exhibition demonstrates the Museum’s continued commitment to collecting work by younger and emerging artists.
Image: Nick Mauss, b. 1980, only that, 2012. Glaze on ceramic, 11 1/4 × 14 7/8in. (28.6 × 37.8 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
organized by Laura Phipps and Nicholas Robbins
Whitney Museum
945 Madison Avenue - New York
22 August - 1 December 2013
A selection of recent acquisitions from the Museum’s permanent collection, Test Pattern brings together works, made mostly in the last three years, that demonstrate artists’ shared interests in investigating the entangled roles of materiality, reproduction and process. Perhaps in response to the increasingly seamless exchanges of visual information in the digital age, the artists featured in this exhibition seem intent on complicating and obscuring content, encouraging slower and more nuanced ways of looking. The phrase “test pattern,” a graphic tool that enables the synchronization of signals for optimum color and clarity, suggests a metaphor for the way these artists question the legibility of images at a moment where technology has amplified the impact of images and accelerated their transmission. Including works by Michele Abeles, Tauba Auerbach, Mathew Cerletty, Leslie Hewitt, Meredyth Sparks, Kaari Upson and others, the exhibition demonstrates the Museum’s continued commitment to collecting work by younger and emerging artists.
Image: Nick Mauss, b. 1980, only that, 2012. Glaze on ceramic, 11 1/4 × 14 7/8in. (28.6 × 37.8 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
