Jordan Wolfson is an American artist known for making animatronic and often controversial sculptures gathered from images on the internet and popular culture.
Read MoreJordan Wolfson was born in 1980 in New York. He received his BFA in sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2003, where he studied alongside artists such as Ryan Trecartin and Dan Colen.
At the time, Wolfson was already producing films and animated works that showed around Europe and the United States. In 2004, he showed work at the Kunsthalle Zurich, and in 2006 his work was featured for the first time in the Whitney Biennial.
Wolfson's work for the Whitney Biennial was based on a Jørgen Leth film called 'The Perfect Human'. Black-and-white, the film featured a sign-language actor, shown from the bow tie down, silently delivering Charlie Chaplin's final speech from 'The Great Dictator'. Wolfson named the piece with the full text of Chaplin's speech, nearly 700 words long.
Wolfson's intricate video animations, installations, sculptures, and performances are often made in collaboration with specialists in robotics and special effects. Known for their engagement with sensitive topics, Wolfson's characters often deliver provocative lines recorded in the artist's voice.
Wolfson's Female Figure (2014) is an immersive environment that features a dancing cyborg-sculpture of a woman programmed to recite lines like 'I'm gay / I'd like to be a poet', spoken in Wolfson's voice.
Made from silicone, the sculpture was first exhibited at David Zwirner in 2014 dressed in a white stripper outfit including white gloves and white platform heels, a green and black, beaky witch mask, and a platinum blond wig. Covered in smudges of dirt, the robot was placed in front of a mirrored wall to which it was attached by a rod piercing its torso. Equipped with facial recognition software, the robot locks eyes with the viewer as it dances in front of the mirror. Made in collaboration with a Hollywood creature-effects studio in Glendale, California, the cost of making the work was reportedly over US $500,000.
Although the artist has not commented on the meaning of the work, it can be viewed as a challenge to the way women are represented and their images consumed. However, when shown it has been controversial for its presentation of a hypersexualised female body.
Female Figure has been shown institutionally around the world. It was featured in 14 Rooms, a performance art event curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Klaus Biesenbach at Art Basel in 2014. It was also shown at The Broad in Los Angeles in 2018 and 2019.
Modeled in-part after Huckleberry Finn, Coloured Sculpture (2016) features a demonic cartoonish boy-robot attached to the ceiling, arms and legs suspended by chains. Over a 15-minute sequence, during which fragments of Percy Sledge's 'When a Man Loves a Woman' play, the sculpture is hoisted up in the air, swung around, and dropped to the floor repeatedly.
During the performance, the puppet's eyes, which are blue and have video screens behind their surfaces, display a collection of images—emojis, a child pointing a gun into his own mouth—as Wolfson recites a horror-movie version of a nursery counting song. 'Two to kill you', he says. 'Three to hold you / four to bleed you / five to touch you'. Using a machine-vision system, the puppet can identify individual people in the room and meet their gaze.
Riverboat Song (2017—2018) is a sixteen-channel video installation made from animated vignettes, video clips from the Internet, looped pop soundtracks, and a voice recording by the artist.
A video companion to Coloured Sculpture, the work is delivered through the same Huckleberry Finn character, alongside equally disturbing animals—an alligator, three rats, two horses—addressing the viewer as would an abusive lover. 'I want to drink your blood,' the boy states in a detached tone.
First shown at the Whitney Biennial in 2017, Real Violence (2017) features the artist beating a very realistic looking animatronic male dummy (with red hair and pale skin) to death with a baseball bat until its face is obliterated by computer-generated blood. It has generated debate around virtual reality and its authentic experience, and the consumption of violence.
As with Female Figure, the dummy makes eye contact with the viewer, but this time the viewer, who wears a headset, can, by turning away, chose not to look. The work is repulsive, but viewers are complicit in its violence.
In 2021, the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, will display Wolfson's The Cube, described as a 'body sculpture' which will interact with the audience by performing various activities.
Wolfson's work has been shown internationally across Europe, Asia, and the United States.
Select solo exhibitions include ARTISTS FRIENDS RACISTS, Sadie Coles HQ, London (2020); Riverboat Song, David Zwirner Gallery, New York (2018); Jordan Wolfson: Colored Sculpture, Tate Modern, London (2018); Jordan Wolfson. Part I: MANIC/LOVE and Part II: TRUTH/LOVE, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2016); Raspberry Poser, Chisenhale Gallery, London (2013); and The Exhibition Formerly Known as Passengers, CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco (2009).
Select group exhibitions: Miami NY, David Zwirner, New York (2020); Highlights for a Future: De Collectie, SMAK, Ghent (2019); ProjectArt, The Underground Museum, Los Angeles (2018); Michael Jackson: On the Wall, National Portrait Gallery, London (2018); Whitney Biennial 2017, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2017); Real Humans: Ian Cheng, Wu Tsang, Jordan Wolfson, Kunsthalle Dusseldorf (2015); America Is Hard To See, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2015); Jordan Wolfson, 6 Glasgow International (2014); Art Post-Internet, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2014); 14 Rooms, Art Basel (2014); Unlooped—KINO, Manifesta 10, St. Petersburg (2014); and 2006 Whitney Biennial: Day for Night, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2006).
Jordan Wolfson's work was awarded the Cartier Award from the Frieze Foundation in 2009.
Jordan Wolfson is represented by David Zwirner in the U.S. and Sadie Coles HQ in the U.K.
The artist's website can be found here. His instagram can be found here.
Elaine Y.J Zheng | Ocula | 2021
