Marcus Herse

Mitchell Syrop has been investigating the written word in previous bodies of work, hereby drawing connections between text and its qualities as an image. His maniacally written abstracts, blow-ups of scribbled notes are concerned with ambiguities of language, the visual properties of its presentation, identity, and interchangeability. The physio-psychological aspects of the work and its self-deprecating content are disrupted by the technical sophistication and confidence of the final image, evidence of performative actions, presented in a distanced manner.

York Chang’s interest in text lies with its possibility to create history. Via the construction of a fictitious historical art movement, the “visceral realists” and the re-enactment of actions attributed to the group, he challenges the notion of the grand historical narrative, which contemporary art is committed to. He exposes it as similarly arbitrary, playing with its function as creating meaning, and makes us aware of a society drawing conclusions based on truths, which are always created one-sidedly, as is mostly the case, by the ones in power.

The notion of the type of political and actionist artist that the visceral realists promote is an option that although it never existed, indeed had its moment in time. Chang poses questions of identity and authorship in creating these heroes, which are not a romantic fantasy, but rather a poetic improvisation on art history’s keyboard. This in turn is utterly contemporary.

Where Syrop is direct, expressive and sometimes goes blue, Chang answers in his deadpan, sly and calculated style. The pairing of their different methods of investigation provides commonalities, and exciting new constellations and timbres of their respective work, while showing the continuation of conceptual approaches in L.A.’s most recent art history.