Artist-in-Residence

Ryan Trecartin

Ryan Trecartin, Auto Balance, 2009–10. Unique sculptural theater. Dimensions variable. Looping: Ryan Trecartin, Sibling Topics (section a), 2009. HD video. Running time: 51:26; Ryan Trecartin, P.opular S.ky (section ish), 2009. HD video. Running time: 43:51 minutes. Courtesy of the artist and Elizabeth Dee, New York. Photo credit: George Benson.

Ryan Trecartin collaborated with FWM, along with his usual circle of associates and friends, on the 2009/2010 Rotation film project, his most expansive and ambitious work of video at the time. K-CoreaINC.K (section A), Sibling Topics (section A), and Re’Search Wait’S (Edit One Re’Search MissingCorruption Budget) represented the initial three chapters in a series of seven films, all of which are closely related but are also meant to stand alone as independent features. Filmed over the course of several months at a rented house in Miami, Trecartin’s new films crackle with the combination of manic energy, garish imagery, and overthe-top characters that has become synonymous with his work, all while exploring his most topical and visionary themes.

Trecartin salvaged set pieces and props for an installation at FWM’s former The New Temporary Contemporary location, encompassing everything from airplane seats to home windows and doors. Trecartin installed each of the three rooms with items unique to the film that was on view. Taken as a whole, the rotation of films comments on the present and supposed future situations of the business world and the complexly interlinked global economy, in which characters and circumstances foment to levels of over-the-top absurdity. K-CoreaINC.K foresees a world in which a corporation called Global Korea rules the nations, with each represented by executives called “Koreas” obsessed with self-serving corporate culture and unity. Conversely, Sibling Topics explores interpersonal relationships in a family business setting where the identity of each family member bleeds into that of another, achieving a state of constant flux. Re’Search Wait’S, the longest of the three films, posits that incessant market research evaluations lead to an economy in which an individual’s life experience becomes valued as legal tender.

Artist Bio

American, born 1981, lives and works in Los Angeles.  

Ryan Trecartin earned his BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2004. He emerged from the 2000s as an innovator of ecstatic new frontiers in art and cinema. The narratives in his stream-of-consciousness, montage-heavy video pieces do not follow a linear progression, but despite the sense of extreme chaos, adhere to their own circuitous logic. Trecartin has lived and worked in Providence, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Miami, and Los Angeles. His non-sequential, seven-part body of work completed in 2010, Any Ever, has been exhibited in its entirety at MoMA PS1, New York (2011); Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami (2011); The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2010). Trecartin has participated in numerous international exhibitions and art fairs, including the Berlin Biennale (2016); Venice Biennale (2013); Singapore Biennial (2011); Gwangju Biennial (2010); and Whitney Biennial (2006). In 2009 he received the Jack Wolgin Fine Art Prize from the Tyler School of Art at Temple University in Philadelphia, and the Calvin Klein Collection New Artist of the Year Award at Rob Pruitt’s First Annual Art Awards at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, and a Pew Fellowship in the Arts.