Sarah Morris

Kunsthalle, Zurich
Through August 13

Midtown is a series of works presented by the American artist Sarah Morris in her first personal exhibit in Switzerland housed in Zurich's Kunsthalle. Around 15 canvasses and 2 videos complement each other, offering an instantaneous slice of life using the metropolises of New York and Las Vegas as backdrops, both interpreted as if they were amusement parks for the masses and meccas for artificial pleasures. Spectacular esthetics of skyscrapers and gigantic hotel complexes are the starting point for a decidedly glamorous abstract pictorial formalism which becomes an icon of the visual universe of a technologically advanced society, which America is by definition.

While the images that appear on the canvasses are fragments of reality that recall architectural facades with neon advertising signs or macroscopic enlargements of backlit pixels or ions, the two audiovisual installations present quick birds' eye view glimpses of the cities alternating with close ups of individuals caught in the anonymous mass, whether in movement or at rest.

In addition to explicit references made to the subjects and the gaudy emphasis on color characteristic of Pop Art, the choice of formal abstraction comes close to the methods used by DeStijl di van Doesburg and Russian Constructivism in the 1910's, as well as to Neo-Geo of the Eighties. In Sarah Morris' case, such a solution can be interpreted as a means of research on various levels.

From a perspective level, the artist uses abstract formalism as an instrument to create psychological tension between naturalistic details architectural surfaces and portraits and the synthetic graphic scheme of structural modulation that makes them unrecognizable.

From a symbolic level, the distilled and dematerialized image is interpreted as a sign of the process of human alienation.




Diana Baldon
Translation by Joanne Tedone