User:ZioBrandongo/Alex Da Corte

Article Draft
Alex Da Corte (born 1980) is an American conceptual artist who works in painting, sculpture, installation, performance and video. Da Corte often uses surreal imagery and everyday objects in his practice and explores ideas of consumerism, pop culture, mythology, and literature.

'''His works often combine both installation and video in a multimedia style. His works also often make references to and are inspired by various works and figures from art history. He often chooses to portray various figures both from pop culture and art history himself in his works, such as the Wicked Witch of the West, Alan Kaprow, or Jim Henson.'''

He has shown internationally at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Secession, and the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, among many others. Da Corte has worked on a number of collaborative projects with other visual artists, writers, and musicians including Jayson Musson, Dev Hynes, Annie Clark, and Tierra Whack In February 2021, his works were selected for inclusion in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's roof garden collection.

Work
Since 2013, Alex Da Corte has mounted shows from New York commercial galleries like Luxembourg & Dayan to international museums like The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark. In 2014, Da Corte had a solo exhibition at the White Cube Gallery in London titled "White Rain".

In 2015, Da Corte's solo show Die Hexe at Luxembourg & Dayan Gallery (NYC) was reviewed by art critic Roberta Smith of The New York Times. In a piece on the exhibition she wrote of Da Corte's previous work, "last year's show dazzled at every turn, weaving confounding narratives about innocence and decadence, mass production and eccentricity..."

In 2016, Da Corte was the subject of an exhibition entitled Free Roses at Mass MOCA in North Adams, Massachusetts which is the largest of his career so far. 'It featured a selection of his works from over the years as well as a new installation, Lighting. The installation was named for the Joseph Beuys Sculpture Lightning with Stag in its Glare'' as well as being inspired by Arthur Rimbaud's "A Season in Hell". '''

In the arena of hip hop, Da Corte directed the 2013 video for the track "Hush BB" by the rapper Le1f. He also contributed the cover art for the second studio album by the hip hop group Spank Rock 2013's "Everything Is Boring and Everyone Is a Fucking Liar".

In the recent past Da Corte has taken to taking on the persona of the rapper Eminem which was the crux of his solo exhibition "Bad Land" at the Josh Lilley gallery in London which ran from November 2017 until February 2018.

Da Corte's work is included in the 2019 58th edition of the Venice Biennale "May You Live in Interesting Times" curated by Ralph Rugoff and appears in both main sections with Rubber Pencil Devil in the Arsenale and The Decorated Shed in the Giardini.

'In 2020, Da Corte presented a reimagining of Allan Kaprow's 1962 Happening Chicken'' at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. During this, he performed dressed as Kaprow himself, with the focus of this new interpretation being painted orbs and objects representing the moon, rather than chickens.'''  

In 2021 Da Corte was the recipient of the Metropolitan Museum of Art roof commission for which he created an adapted replica of an Alexander Calder mobile upon which is seated a bright blue representation of the Muppet personality Big Bird. The sculpture is inspired by the work of the Italian writer Italo Calvino (1923-1985) and named for his story As Long as the Sun Lasts.

For the Whitney Museum of Art's 2022 Biennial, Quiet as It's Kept', Da Corte debuted his hour long film ROY G BIV. In the hour long video, Da Corte portrays multiple characters including Marcel Duchamp, the Joker, and a representation of a figure from Constantin Brâncuși’s sculpture The Kiss (1916). '''

'Also in 2022, Da Corte was the subject of a retrospective exhibition Mr. Remember'' at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art covering two decades of his works. Shown alongside his previous works was a reinterpretation of Claes Oldenburg's Mouse Museum (1977), with one of the structure's ears removed as a reference to Van Gogh. '''

Collaborations
Da Corte has collaborated with other artists throughout his career, including Borna Sammak, Sean Fitzgerald, Jayson Musson and Dev Hynes. Da Corte's collaborative installation, Easternsports (2014), is two and a half hours of atmospheric video on four channels, and a disjointed essay-poem of tens of thousands of words running through the subtitles. The work was created with Jayson Musson and scored by Dev Hynes. After the completion of EasternsportsDa Corte and Hynes worked together to create a video for GAP's "Play Your Stripes" campaign. Alex Da Corte's most recent collaboration opened on September 3, 2016 at the Herning Museum of Contemporary Art in Herning, Denmark. The exhibition titled, 50 Wigs showcases original sculptures by Da Corte alongside a collection of objects from Andy Warhol's personal estate. Working closely with the Andy Warhol Museum to bring the show to life, Da Corte "transforms Warhol's personal belongings to art objects."

In 2017, Da Corte directed the music video for the musician St. Vincent's song "New York". In 2018, Da Corte and the musician reunited for the artwork The Open Window, an 11-minute video in which St. Vincent held a one-eyed cat while cycling through expressions of terror. The Open Window premiered in the 2018 exhibition "C-A-T Spells Murder" at KARMA in New York City; it was later displayed and formed the citywide visual identity of the artist's video retrospective "Fresh Hell" at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, Japan, in 2023. '''In 2023, he collaborated with Prada and Scarlett Johansson on a video to promote Prada's galleria bag campaign. ' In 2024, Da Corte served as the creative director on All Born Screaming'', St. Vincent's seventh LP, creating the look of the album in collaboration with Clark and directing the video for "Broken Man," the album's first single.