Alex Da Corte
Alex Da Corte (born 1980) is an American conceptual artist who works in painting, sculpture, installation, and video. Da Corte often uses surreal imagery and everyday objects in his practice and explores ideas of consumerism, pop culture, mythology, and literature. He has shown internationally at Bodega, Gió Marconi, Josh Lilley Gallery, Maccarone, Herning Museum of Contemporary Art, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, and Institute of Contemporary Art. Da Corte has worked on a number of collaborative projects with other visual artists, writers, and musicians including Jayson Musson, Dev Hynes, Sam Mckinniss, and Annie Clark. In February 2021 , his works were selected for inclusion in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's roof garden collection. Early life and education. Da Corte was born in Camden, New Jersey, in 1980. He spent his formative years growing up in Venezuela. 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. 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". 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..." In 2016, Da Corte 's opus 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. In the arena of hip hop, Da Corte directed the 2013 video for the track "Hush BB" by the rapper Le1f. 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. 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 "57 Varieties" in the arsenale and "The Decorated Shed" in the giardini. 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 facsimile representation of  the ambulatory avian 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". Collaborations. Throughout Da Corte's career, he has collaborated with other artists, including Borna Sammak, Sean Fitzgerald, Jayson Musson and Dev Hynes. Da Corte's collaborative installation, "Easternsports" (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. 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. 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" In 2017, Da Corte directed the music video for the  musician St. Vincent's song "New York". In 2018, the duo reunited for a second pairing, whereby the artist/director employed the artist/musician in another video this time as part his exhibition "C-A-T Spells Murder" at the Karma gallery in New York City (February 18 – March 18, 2018); where in an 11-minute video Da Corte shows St. Vincent holding a one eyed feline while the performer makes a series of facial expressions ending in terror while this film looped was played within an instillation which also featured an eleven foot high sculpture of a cat. Alex