In 2014 Jonas Lund (born 1984, Link�ping, Sweden) created a project called Flip City whereby he put tracking devices on generic-looking (i.e., Zombie Formalist) abstract paintings and logged their locations into an online database. Well, two years later, Lund is still ruminating on the art market. At Miart in Milan this week, his installation for Steve Turner will incorporate live-streaming video, digital paintings, video sculpture, and text-based enamel signs that critique the art fair model while still qualifying as product. The phrase “have your cake and eat it, too” comes to mind.
[Image at top: Jonas Lund, Early Blue Chip 3, 2016, enamel sign, 34 1/2 x 31 1/2 inches.]
Jonas Lund. Hype Cycle, 2016, monitors, metal frames and custom software, 29 x 60 x 3 inches.
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For Miart 2016, Steve Turner will present a solo booth by Berlin-based Jonas Lund featuring works that relate to both technology and to the market for emerging artists. Lund will present live streaming videos, illuminated digital paintings, video-sculpture hybrids and text-based enamel signs.
The live streaming video Hype Cycle consists of three monitors displaying a continuous stream of online content that seek to identify the next trend in the contemporary art market. Based on parameters that Lund designed, one monitor focuses on artists� concerns; the second, on those of a curator; while the third presents those of the gallerist.
For the illuminated digital paintings, Lund programmed an algorithm to optimize their visual content specifically for an art fair. Printed on florescent plexiglass and lit by LED frames, they represent several years of Lund�s research into the factors that make a work successful at an art fair.
The video-sculptures consist of obsolete LED monitors that have been encased in concrete pedestals. The monitors display continuous animations reminiscent of those in old-fashioned arcade games.
Finally, a group of powder-coated metal signs in various shades of blue bear the text �Early Blue Chip,� a favored expression used by those who hype emerging artists.
Young painters in the secondary market: “Chewed up and spit out”
Steve Turner Gallery responds to the post about Jonas Lund’s Flip City