Jordan Wolfson's Gagosian Show Features AI-Generated Imagery

(MENAFN- USA Art News) Artist Jordan Wolfson 's latest exhibition at Gagosian gallery in New York, which opened on Friday, appears to incorporate AI images linked to Bob Dylan, 9/11, and Jeff Koons 's 1989“Made in Heaven” series. Wolfson, known for provocative works like a gyrating female android and a chained boy sculpture, has been reluctant to discuss the show, his first new work in New York since 2018.

When questioned by Artnet News editor Andrew Russeth about the exhibition, Wolfson simply stated,“I don't care what people know or don't know.” He described the show as“a very traditional sculpture show” in the interview. Details about the exhibition have been sparse, with a three-paragraph press release offering little insight.

More information emerged from a conversation featured in Gagosian Quarterly between Wolfson and author Ottessa Moshfegh. Moshfegh experienced a virtual tour of the exhibition using VR technology, which Wolfson has utilized in previous projects. The discussion began unconventionally, with Moshfegh asking Wolfson why he reread her 2018 novel, My Year of Rest and Relaxation. Wolfson responded,“Because my show has references to 9/11.” While the exact nature of these references remains unclear, the article mentions a 2026 artwork depicting the Twin Towers at night.

During the VR tour, Moshfegh encountered what Wolfson called a“CGI image” of a semi-nude Bob Dylan, depicted dripping with water after emerging from a pool. Wolfson explained that Dylan represents“singularity, the loneliness of artmaking, or the autonomy of the creative experience.” Subsequently, Moshfegh viewed an image of a crowd watching Allen Ginsberg perform in London in 1967, which Wolfson modified with AI to make all eyes focus on Ginsberg. Wolfson added,“There was a newspaper in the original image and then AI hallucinated some gibbily-gobbily text.” He further noted that AI“takes all emotions and simplifies them.”

Another segment of the exhibition reportedly includes appropriated artworks, or images of them, such as an unspecified Philip Guston painting and a piece from Koons's“Made in Heaven” series. Wolfson commented that the Koons work initially struck him as“AI cartoon porn.” After removing the VR goggles, Moshfegh's conversation with Wolfson continued, touching on a work featuring the cast of the Saturday Night Live 1991–92 season. Wolfson described this photograph as“particularly racial” because the showrunners“divided up the Black people and the white people and made a pattern out of them.”

In response to Moshfegh's inquiry about an obsession with race, Wolfson stated,“I think I'm obsessed with the times we live in. It's not so much about race, it's about the idea that you would create separatism toward another individual based on a physical attribute that they have, and the absurdity of that. And your initial assumption would be that this individual or group of individuals is less good than me, or specifically less conscious than I am.”

Source: ARTnews

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