Alex Da Corte

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Alex Da Corte
Born1980 (age 43–44)
Camden, New Jersey, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
Education Yale University
Website alexdacorte.com

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. [1]

Contents

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 [2] In February 2021, his works were selected for inclusion in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's roof garden collection. [3]

Early life and education

Da Corte was born in Camden, New Jersey, in 1980. He spent his formative years growing up in Venezuela. [4] In 2001, he studied Film/Animation and Fine Arts at the School of Visual Arts in New York City and then went on to receive his BFA in Printmaking/Fine Arts, from The University of the Arts in Philadelphia in 2004. He graduated from Yale University with an MFA in 2010. [5] [6]

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". [7]

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..." [8]

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. [9] [10]

In the arena of hip hop, Da Corte directed the 2013 video for the track "Hush BB" by the rapper Le1f. [11] 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. [12] [13]

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. [14] [15]

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 Mupppet 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. [16] [17]

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 [18] (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. [19] The work was created with Jayson Musson and scored by Dev Hynes. After the completion of Easternsports Da Corte and Hynes worked together to create a video for GAP's "Play Your Stripes" campaign. [20] 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." [21]

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. [22] [23] 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. [24]

Selected exhibitions

Solo

(2023)

Group

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References

  1. ↑ "Alex Da Corte: Harvest Moon". www.newmuseum.org. Retrieved February 20, 2018.
  2. ↑ "Artist Alex Da Corte Gets Spooky at Karma". Vogue. Retrieved February 20, 2018.
  3. ↑ "'Absurd', yet 'deadly serious': Alex Da Corte will create the Met's next rooftop installation". www.theartnewspaper.com. February 12, 2021. Retrieved February 16, 2021.
  4. ↑ "Alex Da Corte: Dancing Around Delusion". May 28, 2015.
  5. ↑ "Alex Da Corte". Frieze. Archived from the original on August 13, 2016. Retrieved August 2, 2016.
  6. ↑ "Alex Da Corte". Interview Magazine. March 23, 2010.
  7. ↑ Cube, White. "Alex Da Corte Inside the White Cube 2014 – White Cube".
  8. ↑ "Alex Da Corte: 'Die Hexe'". The New York Times. April 3, 2015.
  9. ↑ "Upcoming Events Alex Da CorteFree Roses". June 2015.
  10. ↑ "Alex Da Corte's 'Free Roses' Puts His Eccentricities on View". The New York Times. March 28, 2016.
  11. ↑ "Exclusive Video Premiere: 'Hush Bb,' Le1f". October 10, 2013.
  12. ↑ Eckardt, Stephanie (November 25, 2017). "An Eminem Impersonator Is Smoking Bongs on Loop at a Gallery in London". W Magazine. Retrieved May 12, 2019.
  13. ↑ "Josh Lilley". joshlilley.com. Retrieved May 12, 2019.
  14. ↑ "Touring the Venice Biennale, Part 2: The Giardini". May 8, 2019.
  15. ↑ "10 Artists at the Venice Biennale We Know & Love". May 7, 2019.
  16. ↑ "Alex da Corte: As Long as the Sun Lasts".
  17. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on July 7, 2021. Retrieved July 7, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  18. ↑ "Excerpt from Alex Da Corte and Jayson Musson's Easternsports, 2014".
  19. ↑ "Alex Da Corte and Jayson Musson – Reviews – Art in America". artinamericamagazine.com. February 19, 2015. Retrieved August 5, 2016.
  20. ↑ "The GAP: "Play Your Stripes" w/ Blood Orange (Dir. Alex DaCorte)". Vimeo. December 2014. Retrieved August 5, 2016.
  21. ↑ "Alex Da Corte – 50 wigs – HEART – Museum of Contemporary Art". heartmus.dk. Archived from the original on August 21, 2016. Retrieved September 19, 2016.
  22. ↑ Zara, Janelle (February 16, 2018). "Basking in the Day-Glo of St. Vincent and Alex Da Corte". The New York Times. Retrieved May 12, 2019.
  23. ↑ "Alex Da Corte: C-A-T Spells Murder". Karma. Retrieved May 12, 2019.
  24. ↑ Media, Surface (March 5, 2024). "Alex Da Corte Sets St. Vincent Aflame, and Other News". SURFACE. Retrieved March 26, 2024.
  25. ↑ "Alex Da Corte's 'As Long as the Sun Lasts' Will Be The Met's Roof Garden Commission 2021". ArtfixDaily. Retrieved February 16, 2021.
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