Mathew Cerletty at The Power Station

(link)

As "photography" becomes ever more processed by virtual machines, and "realism" so abstracted beyond anything concrete, the term "photorealism" becomes meaningless against our cartoon stuf. The new plastic real. The protagonists of Toy Story are not representations of cowboys or Space Rangers, their being is rendering: "YOU ARE A TOY," screams the sheriff of this reality. But through the power of movie magic, they are suspended between. Their image is the real, the world around them is made false, a rendering in comparison. When you buy the cartoon sponge off the shelf, you don't purchase the one in your hand, you purchase that higher order of its affective image, its grease scrubbing sorcery. This higher order that arranges us. Originals without origin. Which rubber duck is this? Where is this image located?

Martin Soto Climent at Michael Benevento & Yuji Agematsu at The Power Station

(link: Martin Soto Climent, Yuji Agematsu)

The enrapture of sensitivities, enwrapment, a container allowing movement, transaction. The Amazon box that allows its sales; cardboard a larger problem than the items it contains. The packaging that makes up the mass majority of waste.  Shouldn't we be speaking more of wrapper than "content", the mass majority of garbage that we have become hostages who love their captors to, enshrine odes to our hurt.

Nancy Lupo at Kristina Kite & Yuji Agematsu at Miguel Abreu, Yuji Agematsu at Real Fine Arts,  Yuji Agematsu at Artspeak, “May the Bridges I Burn Light the Way” at STANDARD (OSLO, Martín Soto Climent at Proyectos Monclova, Martín Soto Climent at DREI, Martin Soto Climent at Atlantis

Steven Parrino at The Power Station

(link)

The slick seductive surface of James Dean wrapping his vehicle around another thrown through glass, rolling across the pavement, the shiny waste of his wreckage, the waste of something beautiful. David Fincher. It’s cool to watch violence. Wet things across pavement. Entropic angst, saying no to dad and smoking indoors.  It feels anti-authoritarian to buy a leather jacket. It doesn’t matter that the jacket is pleather, it's that smoking indoors feels [fucking (ed.)] good.