Tony Oursler

Reception for the artist: Tuesday, March 3, 5-7 pm*

Metro Pictures will present an exhibition of new work by Tony Oursler February 28 – April 11, 2009. Oursler has been a pioneer of new media art since the mid-1970s, known for his video and installation works combining spoken text, moving image and sculptural objects.

For this show, Oursler will present a variety of new works that take on technology, obsessive desires, phobias, socially acceptable addiction, and self-help culture. Large works feature Pop-inspired, outsized sculptural versions of everyday objects. They include an 8-foot long five-dollar bill with an eerily animated Abe Lincoln, a bottle featuring the artist as a modern-day genie, an enormous cell phone spewing disjointed snippets of conversations and a group of stark white columns transformed into a forest of smoldering cigarettes. These will be joined with a series of miniature architectural-model tableaux illuminated with projected performers that enact scripted existential dramas. Wall pieces that combine video and painting are inspired by image juxtapositions from internet searches and browser windows.

Tony Oursler lives and works in New York and has had numerous project and survey exhibitions in institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Tate Gallery, London; the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and the Musée de Jeu de Paume, Paris. He will present a show of new work at the Kunsthaus Bregenz later this year.

Gallery hours: 10-6 pm, Tuesday – Saturday
Please direct press inquiries to James Woodward at James@metropictures.com or at 212-206-7100

*The exhibition will be open for viewing Saturday, February 28.