2020-03-16_The_New_Yorker

(Joyce) #1

52 THENEWYORKER,MARCH16, 2020


Jordan Wolfson is best known for his interactive animatronic sculptures: uncanny,

I


n a recent Frieze article, the edi­
tors, trying to decide on the most
important artist of the past de­
cade, tossed around a number of names.
The list included O.W.A.s, or Older
Women Artists, recognized after years
of neglect; it had Njideka Akunyili
Crosby, an artist of the African dias­
pora, and Olafur Eliasson, who her­
alded the rise of immersive works con­
ducive to selfies. The editors, somewhat
reluctantly, also discussed Jordan Wolf­
son, a thirty­nine­year­old sculptor
whose work is emblematic of a cha­
otic, maddening, fearful time.
Wolfson is best known for the in­
teractive animatronic pieces that he
makes in collaboration with a Holly­
wood creature­effects studio in Glen­
dale, California. His creations are un­
canny, mashed­up not­quite­humans,
which perform “scenes” and deliver lines
that Wolfson writes, often accompa­
nied by a pop­music score. Like memes
turned loose from the laboratory of the
Internet, they engage with the audi­
ence in unsettling ways, delivering con­
tradictory and controversial messages.
“Female Figure,” which débuted at
David Zwirner’s New York gallery in
2014, is a silicone­skinned simulacrum
of a woman, besmirched with dirt, in
a platinum­blond wig, a white strip­
per outfit, and a beaky green­black
witch mask. After delivering a mono­
logue—“I’m gay/I’d like to be a
poet”—spoken by Wolfson, who is
straight, the figure, which is transfixed
through the diaphragm by a metal
pole connected to a mirror, begins to
dance. While it vogues and twerks, a
tiny camera hidden behind the mask,
equipped with facial­recognition soft­
ware, allows the figure to lock eyes
with the spectator and, via the mirror,
with itself. Did the piece express mi­
sogyny, or a criticism of it? Homopho­
bia? A veiled confession? It was im­
possible to say for sure; Wolfson’s
medium is plausible deniability. One
Frieze editor said, “The politics were
all wrong, yet no one could look away.”
Wolfson, who moves between New
York and Los Angeles, has succeeded
in creating event art that people, many
of whom don’t typically go to galleries,
line up to see. An instinct for contro­
versy helps. “Annoyingness is an in­
teresting strategy in art­making,” David


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