Unveiling Alex Da Corte's Survey: Exploring the Contrasting Dark underbelly of his Upbeat Sculptures
At Texas's Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Alex Da Corte's exhibition "The Whale" is running through September 7. This exhibition showcases a less-exhibited aspect of Da Corte's oeuvre: his painting practice.
In "The Whale", Da Corte critiques pop culture by deconstructing familiar icons and brands, placing them in surreal, unexpected contexts. One such painting is the 2019 work, Triple Self-Portrait (Study), which does not feature the artist's representation at all. Instead, it could be read as a negation of a beloved painterly genre.
Two of the earliest paintings in the exhibition are from 2014 and feature appropriated images from a website advertising couple's costumes. Da Corte's work often mimics how corporations, movie studios, record labels, and the media push certain people out of the picture.
The exhibition also includes Mirror Marilyn (2022-23), an appropriation of Warhol's Shot Sage Blue Marilyn, but printed backward. Another notable work is Non-Stop Fright (Bump in the Night) from 2019, which is made from foam and shows a jack o' lantern that has been cracked.
Da Corte's paintings in the exhibition are not conventional oil-on-canvas paintings. Instead, they challenge traditional notions of what a painting can be. For example, The Anvil (2023) takes its form from the steel blocks that typically fall on Wile E. Coyote as he chases after Road Runner.
Elsa the Snow Queen from "Frozen" is also included in the exhibition. In A Time to Kill (2016), Elsa wears a smile that becomes a frown, and the work also includes a faux bouquet, two mini disco balls, a Storm Trooper standee, and the cardboard from which Elsa was cut. This piece seems to be a critique of the massacre at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, although Da Corte does not explicitly represent or directly allude to the event.
Da Corte's identity as a queer Venezuelan American artist informs his practice of unraveling meaning in popular culture to explore broader social themes like marginalization and cultural representation. His role curating artworks at the Modern Museum further reflects his engagement with art's societal roles and contexts.
One of his latest works, The Great Pretender (2021), is a painting in which a pair of hands hold a white top hat surrounded by stars. The work is a statement about erasure, specifically queer erasure, as enacted by the media.
Da Corte's exhibition "The Whale" is a must-see for those interested in contemporary art and social critique. It runs through September 7 at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.
[1] Source: Artforum [2] Source: The Art Newspaper [3] Source: Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth [4] Source: Hyperallergic [5] Source: Brooklyn Rail
- The retrospective exhibition of Alex Da Corte at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, titled "The Whale," critiques pop culture by deconstructing familiar icons and brands, placing them in surreal, unexpected contexts.
- In "The Whale," Da Corte's painting practice is showcased, as he challenges traditional notions of what a painting can be, such as in The Anvil, which takes its form from steel blocks used in cartoons.
- Two of the earliest paintings in the exhibition, from 2014, feature appropriated images from a website advertising couple's costumes, signifying Da Corte's engagement with art's societal roles and contexts.
- One of Da Corte's latest works, The Great Pretender (2021), is a painting that serves as a statement about erasure, specifically queer erasure, as enacted by the media.
- Elsa the Snow Queen from Disney's "Frozen" is also included in the exhibition, in a piece titled A Time to Kill (2016), which seems to be a critique of the massacre at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.
- The exhibition, which runs through September 7, is a must-see for those interested in contemporary art, art history, and social critique, and demonstrates Da Corte's identity as a queer Venezuelan American artist who explores broader social themes like marginalization and cultural representation.
