Talk
The Un-Private Collection: Tony Oursler + Branden Joseph
Overview
Tony Oursler worked with artists including John Baldessari, and embraced the notion of starting with an idea and then moving to a formal expression of the idea. His concern with the consequences of television and the moving image on psychology and personal relationships was his starting point. This demanded an expanded vision of what art making could be and what could be presented in a gallery setting. After working through painting, single-channel video, and various installation strategies, Oursler succeeded in creating a hybrid of multiple media for the utmost critical and psychological impact. He has a dynamic video practice that combines and expands the confrontational installations of Nam June Paik and Bruce Nauman, the countercultural analysis of Mike Kelley and Jim Shaw, and the impact of mass media on the individual. Oursler’s most famous works feature videos projected onto three-dimensional objects, like stuffed heads. These works are metaphors for both alienated, isolated modern individuals in a technology-driven culture and real encounters intended to trigger feelings of empathy and understanding in viewers. The Broad collection includes six of Tony Oursler’s works; Dust (2006) is on view in the collection installation, Creature, through March 19, 2017.
Tickets to this program include same-night access before the program to the museum's galleries, starting at 5:30 p.m. The museum closes at 8 p.m. and will not be open after the program.
About Tony Oursler
Tony Oursler (b. 1957, New York) received a BFA from the California Institute of the Arts in 1979. Oursler’s extensive exhibition history includes the acclaimed 2004 exhibition Disparities and Deformations: Our Grotesque, SITE Santa Fe, curated by Robert Storr; the retrospective exhibition Dispositifs, which traveled from the Jeu de Paume, Paris, to the DA2 Domus Atrium, Salamanca, and the Kunstforeningen, Copenhagen, in 2005; and recent solo exhibitions at Artsonje Center, Seoul (2012); ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum Denmark (2012); Pinchuk Art Center, Kiev, Ukraine (2013); The Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2014); and LUMA Foundation, Arles, France (2015). Tony Oursler’s work has been shown most recently at Museum of Modern Art, New York in the exhibition Imponderable: The Archives of Tony Oursler.
About Branden Joseph
Branden W. Joseph is the Frank Gallipoli professor of modern and contemporary art at Columbia University in New York. He is the author of five books, including Beyond the Dream Syndicate: Tony Conrad and the Arts after Cage; The Roh and the Cooked: Tony Conrad and Beverly Grant in Europe; and Experimentations: John Cage in Music, Art, and Architecture. In addition, he has published work on the artists Mike Kelley, Cameron Jamie, John Miller, Angela Bulloch, Seth Price, and Lee Lozano; edited Is It My Body?, a collection of artist and musician Kim Gordon’s early writings; and contributed an essay on UFO photography to Imponderable: The Archives of Tony Oursler, published by the LUMA Foundation in 2015. Branden Joseph is a founding editor of the journal Grey Room, published quarterly by MIT Press since fall 2000.
About The Un-Private Collection
The Un-Private Collection is an ongoing series of public programs The Broad began in September 2013. The series introduces audiences to the museum’s 2,000-work contemporary art collection by showcasing stories behind the collection, the collectors and the artists. Since launching the program, The Broad has brought together a variety of artists whose works are in the Broad collection in conversation with cultural leaders, including Mark Bradford with Katy Siegel, Shirin Neshat with Christy MacLear, Jeff Koons with John Waters, Takashi Murakami with Pico Iyer, Eric Fischl with Steve Martin, John Currin with James Cuno, Kara Walker with Ava DuVernay and architect Elizabeth Diller with Eli Broad, Joanne Heyler and Paul Goldberger. Talks have been held at venues throughout Los Angeles, making the programming available to audiences across the city. Conversations are live-streamed and full videos of past talks are available online. The Un-Private Collection series is part of the Broad collection’s 30-year mission to make contemporary art accessible to the widest possible audience.
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