Alex Da Corte
Subtitle: free roses
By: edited by Susan Cross and Alex Da Corte
Contributors: Cross, Susan (Susan Mallette), editor; Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art
Publisher: MASS MoCA; DelMonico Books, an imprint of Prestel Publishing
Published: 2016
Place of publication: North Adams, MA; Muncih
Language: eng
Number of pages: 208
ISBN-13: 9783791355337
Copyright date: 2016
Subjects: Exhibitions
Other titles: Free roses
Work titles: Works
Description: For his largest solo museum exhibition, Alex Da Corte took over all of MASS MoCA's second-floor galleries, presenting a selection of existing works and an expansive new sculptural installation inspired by Arthur Rimbaud's prose poem 'A Season in Hell'. Restaging past exhibitions and remixing examples from multiple bodies of work in a fresh narrative, the artist presents his bold output in a sumptuous environment that transforms the museum space. Carpeted and tiled floors, brightly painted walls, and neon lighting create a milieu for the art that is part suburban living room, part plush strip club. Full page illustrations of the visually intoxicating exhibition form the centerpiece of this volume are complemented by stills from the artist's electrifying videos as well as reproductions of his formally rigorous, brightly colored mashups of consumer objects and appropriated images. Two essays illuminate Da Corte's engagement with film, animation, and appropriation while exploring the personal, cultural, and political themes that run through the work. The book provides a glimpse of the prolific artist's breadth while capturing the sensory impact of Da Corte's simultaneously seductive and unsettling worlds.
Notes: Published on the occasion of the exhibition of the same name, curated by Susan Cross, held at MASS MoCA, North Adams, Massachusetts, March 26, 2016-February 2017.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 192-195).