Ryan Trecartin

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Electronic Arts Intermix and International Objects are pleased to present an evening with Jake Brush, whose dynamic practice stretches popular culture tropes to their most absurd. Brush has chosen videos from the EAI collection by Alex Bag, Michael Bell-Smith, and Ryan Trecartin and Lizzie Fitch to screen alongside his work. 
A former student of Bell-Smith, Brush sutures together the dizzying syntax of reality television, internet slang, drag sensibilities, and hometown lore to poke fun (and horror) at the dopamine-crazed tendencies of contemporary culture. In Petpourri (2023), Brush performs as a “genetic clone” of Marc Morrone, host of the titular Long Island public access show in which the local pet store owner advised live callers on animal rearing, simultaneously attempting to keep the peace between an assortment of domesticated animals. Laundry Detergent (Cheers!) (2023) stages a Real Housewives-esque interaction between three nouveau riche laundry detergent heiresses, each sporting a haphazardly pinned blonde wig and makeup smeared across their drooping synthetic skin. The video encompasses core facets of American reality TV: Egregious wealth, familial trauma and alcoholism, tactical self-mythologizing, bitter interpersonal conflict, and fleeting moments of human connection. Like much of Brush’s other work, both pieces draw from the artist’s childhood on Long Island, re-staging contemporary tragedies and family gossip in a setting where curious engagement precedes moral judgement.
There will be a Q&A with Bell-Smith and Brush following the program.

Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI)’s venue is located at 264 Canal Street, 3W, near several Canal Street subway stations. Our floor is accessible by elevator (63" × 60" car, 31" door) and stairway. Due to the age and other characteristics of the building, our bathrooms are not ADA-accessible, though several such bathrooms are located nearby. If you have questions about access, please contact cstrange@eai.org in advance of the event.

EAI and The Sagamore Hotel in Miami Beach presented Screen Play: Moving Image Art, a special exhibition of moving image artworks for the public spaces of the hotel during Art Basel Miami Beach. Screen Play, guest curated by Lori Zippay, EAI's Executive Director, brought together video, film, and digital artworks drawn from the EAI collection across six decades. These works highlighted the cross-disciplinary relation of the moving image to other artistic media and forms—performance, photography, painting, drawing, sculpture—while also exploring the distinctive vocabularies of video, film, and digital media. The public encountered artists' moving image works in multiple public spaces of the hotel, as well as a dedicated "EAI TV Channel" for the hotel guest rooms. Screen Play featured moving image works by artists including Michael Bell-Smith, Takeshi Murata, Leslie Thornton, Jacolby Satterwhite, Joan Jonas, Merce Cunningham, Alex Hubbard, Dara Birnbaum, Shana Moulton, Lawrence Weiner, Steina, and John Baldessari.

EAI presented Warp Drives, a special summer screening of videos driven by science fiction's far-out forms of matter and energy. In videos that ranged from dark stories of doomsday and destruction to speculative meditations on technological evolution and alienation, artists Peggy Ahwesh, Joan Jonas, George Kuchar, Tony Oursler, and Ryan Trecartin confronted the viewer with visions of individuals disconnected from the present or inhabiting alien psychological states.

EAI presented 45 Years of Performance Video from EAI, a survey of four decades of artists' engagement with video and performance. This project is presented in conjunction with 100 Years, an exhibition on the history of performance art organized by P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center and Performa 09.

EAI participated in The NY Art Book Fair 2009, organized by Printed Matter at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center. EAI's project space, installed in P.S.1's basement vault, presented FREE TRADE, a program of videos exploring economies of exchange in a globalized world: the circulation of art, ideas, information and capital. On view were new and historical works, drawn from EAI's extensive collection, by artists including Chris Burden, Bernadette Corporation, Martha Rosler, Dan Graham, VALIE EXPORT, Dara Birnbaum, Kalup Linzy, Seth Price, Lawrence Weiner, Harry Dodge and Stanya Kahn, Ken Jacobs, Gordon Matta-Clark, Muntadas, Takeshi Murata, Leslie Thornton and Ryan Trecartin.

EAI launched its representation of the video works of Ryan Trecartin with this daylong screening. One of the most innovative young artists working with video today, Trecartin merges sophisticated digital manipulations, uncanny performances, and footage drawn from the Internet and other media to craft startling, often surreal visions. This program included his astonishing narrative A Family Finds Entertainment (2005) and his rarely-seen short video pieces.

EAI collaborated with the NADA Art fair to present a screening of videos by artists involving intervention, intrusion, and trespassing. Documenting literal, formal, or conceptual acts of breaking and entering, their works harness disruption and surprise. Artists in the program included Bernadette Corporation, Chris Burden, VALIE EXPORT, Delia Gonzalez and Gavin Russom, Dan Graham, Klara Liden, Rachel Mason, Takeshi Murata, Michael Smith, and Ryan Trecartin.