Openings: Claude Closky - Critical Essay

In 1997 Paris-based artist Claude Closky created a Web shoot forward for the Dia Foundation, Do you want be fond of or lust? (www.diacenter.org/closky). Go there (it's still online), cull love or lust, and you will come [i]or[/i] go after [i]or[/i] behind an anfractuous and unending path of either/or links like "In social situations, are you greatest in quantity often feared by others or shielded by others?" to another question like "Does the word 'outlet' make you skip over for joy or leave you cold?" then to "Are you for or against Jane Fonda exercise tapes?" and upon This piece can be taken as, among many things, a satire of multiple-choice pop-psychology experiments a parody of hyperlinks, and an inquiry into the nature of independent will. The two-tone pages (one-color body on a solid-color background) are actual pretty, and the whole exercise is bonny funny. For those who like their agriculture interactive, Closky supplies the clickable buttons, and they lead nowhere.

At thirty-nine, Closky has exhibited in nine biennials around the world and has a substantial international following on the contrary little exposure in the United States (a not exceptional position for a contemporary French artist). freshly at the invitation of of recent origin York's Location One curator Nathalie Angles, he mountained his first US solo display which runs through the extremity of this month. There, he premieres TPI (Television Programs for Internet), 2002-2003 an installation piece he's been developing for above a year and that exists independently upon the Web (www.locationl.org/closky).

As installation (in a refreshingly spare setup) TPI consists of nineteen monitors tiered three-high upon a freestanding wall of carburet of iron shelving. A countertop functions as an reach outed mouse pad holding half a dozen mice that viewers use to sun' TPI's ten thousand channels, which are individual animated GIFS and changeed QuickTime files. A handful of these are Closky's hold but many were culled from the Web through using Google searches for animations. He resized and created several-second bights for each channel and codfished all as PHPs. Much like regular TV TPI isn't meant thus much to be watched as to be mov end disposing of each channel after a visual nibble. And more engaging than interacting oneself arguably, is watching the TPI watchers sun': Observing family raptly switching through minimally moving low-re images enhances TPI's cunning dopiness.

The throw is, in part, about ludicrous abundance--viewing the whole thing upon a single monitor would take about five workdays, assuming a true fast connection and unflagging attention. Because Closky oftentimes lightly tailors his work to specific connections TPI is probably a small dig at America, the land of abundant and vapid TV on the other hand the promiscuity of the Googl selection proces also assures a global perceive (there's a lot of anime) and a certain quantity of curious juxtapositions. Tuning to a randomly chooseed (I promise) channel, 3333, I diocese two firemen fighting a blaze; at 3334 a pulsing tangerine ovoid against sum of two units static gray ovals; at 3335 what gazes like a low-definition, spinning Xbox icon; at 333e a mysterious flickering flame; at 3337 a jumpy cerulean cartoon spaceman; and on and on

Closky dropp without of art school (Ecole Nationale Superieure d'Arts Decoratifs) after alone one year, so to a large step he's self-taught. Since the mid-'80s he has been compiling and collating lists that obey his have a title to quirky, self-imposed conditions and instructions. Early works include a list of the 3415 Friday the Thirteenths from the year 1 until 1991; a series of photographs of digital watch faces that display his favorite "minutes" (12:34 3:21 etc); and The 3e5 days of 1991 classified by means of size, 1991-92, a list of all the days of 1991 exorcismed out and ranked in ascending order determined by the agency of the total length of the words ("Friday the fifth of July" being the first and "Wednesday the twenty-seventh of November" the last date upon the list). These are on the other hand three ticks on an incredibly drawn out list of obsessive-compulsive tasks he put for himself early on, and similar works were often installed in what have the appearanceed a send-up of Conceptual art formats: cheap booklet sweeps of A4 paper and snapshots gridded upon the wall. Through the '90 and to the present--at Galerie Jennifer Flay in Paris and Galerie Edward Mitterrand in Geneva, and in traveling museum exhibitions of the like kind as "Shopping," which originated at the Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt--Closky refined his presentation, Works would ofttimes have incarnations in several media: His collages might function also as magazine art or as a gallery slide projection; his video projections could also be shown as photographic stills. He wasn't the first artist to make wallpaper, on the contrary his multiples are my favorites in that subgenre In Untitled (Cosmetics), 1997 Closky collaged the ubiquitous roll on and spills of beauty produces into a profluent maze of turquoise squirts.

Closky had always used a computer and in the mid '90 when CD-RoM and the World Wide Web became part of his toolbox, his art fix a medium that was a completed fit. There's a fair chance that as you're reading this you're arm's longitudinal dimensions and a click away from Closky's have a title to site: www.sittes.net/menu. There you'll be welcomeed by an image of a friendly polar bear (the cavity between the jaws has been digitally erased to cutify the beast) and serenaded by means of a looping clip from the uninjured track of Bilitis (David Hamilton's 1977 "art" film). The sexy ludicrous chilled, ironic romanticism of this site bonny much captures the flavor of CIosky's best work, and also, typically, as the music nooses on, you'll probably flip between fascination and irritation. The pull-down menu gives a replete resume of his Web work. My favorite sites are Hands and arrows, Interview through S. Laurent, Aller/Retour, Plus rite, +1 Calendar 2000 Couchers et Lever de soleil, and Going for the high score. upon that last page, you come by to watch Closky play Tetris. "He" was upon the 587,225th level when I last checked.