commune and Midori So present
Vinnie Smith × Jen Shear exhibition
Pictures In The Sun

7th(fri) – 17th(fri), July 2017
OPEN: Mon – Fri 14:00-20:00 | Sun & Sat 14:00-20:00
– Opening Reception – 7th July(fri) 19:00 – 21:00
Place : MIDORI.SO (Tokyo)
address : 3F 3-3-11 Aobadai, Meguro, Tokyo
instagram: @midoris0

Tune into the meta nature of collage. Visual media is of and about visual media; content in reflection. “Pictures in the Sun” is the fourth collaboration between Jennifer Shear and Vinnie Smith. In their first collaborative Tokyo exhibition, the artists use collage to engage with the physicality and subjectivity of print. Image-content, tactility and replication are all balanced. Visual artifacts, divorced from origin and context, are given new life. Culture reflects back into itself.

In today’s fragmented media climate, manipulation tactics and the hysteric tenor of fake news can debase all information. Artists continue to search for ways to communicate something fundamental and true despite the unpredictable environment. Although these works do not offer specific solutions, they call into question manufactured perception and disrupt information compliance. The dynamic of power associated with media politics is subject to adjustment. New pathways of communication can be opened, and others closed.

In Shear’s work, printed materials are meticulously cropped and placed within a grid or graphite border. Rarely are subjects organically cut out of their original environments. Each piece recalls a puzzling Google Image search, or a view into a visual database. Left with an answer seen as a nude, an anemone, words scrawled on a wall; the viewer can only wonder at an obscured question.

By collecting, organizing, and xeroxing found images, Smith is able to use a wide range of degraded and de-saturated source materials. Color photographs that would normally pop out lose their vibrancy and recede into visual mediation. Objects, figures, and symbols persist against, and dissolve into, a void of negative space. At first glance chaotic and cacophonous, these collages also conjure a meditative quality. Some images survive, others are sabotaged – the outcome is a study in the devalued image.

Vinnie Smith (b. 1987 California) predominantly works in photography and collage. He lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area.
www.vinniesmith.us

Jennifer Shear (b. 1987 Taiwan) lives and works in California. Her collages are an ongoing study and critique of visual culture. She’s shown her work at Low Rence, VI Dancer, Ace Hotel, Yale Union, and Ladybug House.
www.jenshear.com  instagram: @jen__shear