Jordan Wolfson is known for his provocative work in a range of mediums, including sculpture, installation, video, photography, digital animation, and performance. Filtering the languages of online and broadcast media through digital and mechanical technologies—and employing an array of invented characters—he crafts enigmatic narratives that explore uncomfortable social and existential topics. Wolfson has characterized this collage-like methodology as being derived from and focused on the “byproduct(s) of culture,” but he is more concerned with the psychological power of the uncanny and the confrontational than with any direct critique. In his most recent works, he contrasts the physical, virtual, and imaginary realms, examining the projection of internal impulses onto constructed selves and scenarios.
Wolfson was born 1980 in New York and lives and works in Los Angeles. In 2003 he received a BFA in sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design, and in 2009 he received the Frieze Foundation’s Cartier Award, which assists an artist from outside the United Kingdom in realizing a major work at the Frieze Art Fair in London. In 2013, following institutional exhibitions worldwide including presentations at the Kunsthalle Zürich (2004); Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo, Italy (2007); Swiss Institute, New York (2008); Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf, Germany (2011); and Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2012), the Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Ghent, Belgium, organized Ecce Homo/le Poseur, the most comprehensive survey of his work to date. In 2016, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam hosted a further two-part solo survey exhibition, MANIC/LOVE/TRUTH/LOVE.
Gagosian