The Rematerialization of the art object
Mulherin + POLLARD, New York, 2012
Eric Doeringer’s Rematerialization is a dystopic nation where contradiction reigns. It is at once a country - out country - and a state of mind, in which fiction shapes reality, travesty reveals essential truths, and beauty resides in the tawdry and illicit. This psychic, yet all-too-real-place has been the subject of Doeringer’s art for more than a decade. As chronicler of our culture’s insatiable appetite for both transgression and transcendence, debasement and deliverance, Doeringer gives this paradox aesthetic form.
Through an ever-shifting array of techniques and mediums, all grounded in the act of appropriation, he shows us what we already know about our world but have yet to really see. He excavates the “normal,” borrowing content from art history to expose the inner mechanics of desire - how it is framed, sold, and perpetuated in our mass-cultural consciousness. In Doeringer’s America, Warhol’s infamous “fifteen minutes of fame” is no longer enough. Fame - and the fantasy of indulgence and escape that accompanies it - is the new religion of our time.
This narrative is but one connective thread in Doeringer’s rigorously conceptual art, which simultaneously embraces and critiques its quintessentially American subject matter. No single exhibition can hope to capture the multidimensional quality of Doeringer’s practice, which exists today in various manifestations: the aesthetic objects, including photographs, paintings, works on paper, and sculptures; autonomous site-specific installations that function like miniature museums; quasi-fictional writings; illustrated artist’s books; and his own highly refined collecting activities.
For this exhibition at Mulherin + Pollard, which is cast as a survey of Doeringer’s career to date, the installation will privilege formal and thematic comparisons over strict chronological or medium-based parameters. Eschewing the conventions of retrospective presentations, The Rematerialization of the Art Object will focus on iconography, teasing out the various narratives of provocation and contestation embedded in the work.
A 56-page full color catalog was published in conjunction with this exhibition.
