Ryan Trecartin has been called the first YouTube art star. Rather than simply go online to see his hallucinatory flicks, it's a lot more fun to view the movies spooled together at the Museum of Contemporary Art , where videos, sets, and props for Trecartin's opus will be on display for "Any Ever." His four-hour-long, seven-movie epic video he produced in the Big Mango between 2009 and 2010 along with collaborator Lizzie Fitch opens at MOCA tomorrow.
Trecartin, who was in Miami for a Moore Space artist's residency program while helming his hallucinatory movies, was also assisted by scores of others including friends and artists with a handful of professional child actors tossed into his celluloid salad as well.
In fact, Trecartin's comet has flamed so bright recently, that after opening the same version of his upcoming Miami show last week at the Big Apple's P.S.1., The New Yorker's critic Peter Schjeldhal wrote the artist was being "hailed as the magus of the Internet century."
"Ryan's work is energetic and innovative. Working primarily with video, he creates humorous and intense narratives that push boundaries in regards to representation; people, places, and products blur and subjective voices are mixed with that of advertising and pop culture," explains Ruba Katrib, MOCA's associate curator who helped organize the Magic City exhibit.
A digital age progeny, Trecartin is known for strip-mining our media-saturated, over-merchandized culture to create garish imagery that not only assaults the peepers, but also distills the virtual cacophony of the Internet, reality TV and Twitter feeds with a schizzy, cheese ball squalor at times insalubrious and mesmerizing to behold.
He blurs and redefines signifiers of race, gender and sexuality, and the very notion of fixed identity, twisting language and images of consumer and popular culture to their breaking points.
But trust us it's a lot more fun to see the movies spooled together at MOCA where the sets and props for Trecartin's opus will also be on display rather than at home on your laptop.
"The entire exhibition space at MOCA has transformed into a quasi domestic and outdoor environment that are reminiscent of suburban lifestyles," Katrib says. "The key is that people can spend time watching the videos in the immersive environments created for the works. I think this is a great show for summer, beat the heat and really get to know Ryan's work," she adds.
This marks the first time "Any After" has been exhibited in its entirety in the Magic City which plays a big role in Trecartin's sensational, can't miss multi-narrative stories.
"Any After" opens Thursday at 6 p.m. and runs through September 4th at the Museum of Contemporary Art (770 NE 125th Street, North Miami). Call 305-893-6211 or visit mocanomi.org.
Follow Cultist on Facebook and Twitter @CultistMiami.
