Jordan Wolfson’s new video, Riverboat song is installed in Sadie Cole’s Kingly Street gallery – and a group of new works in a parallel display at Davies Street. Over the past decade, Wolfson’s practice has traversed video, film, installation, performance, print and photography. Employing animation, digital imaging and animatronic sculpture, his recent work has centred on ideas of literal and virtual reality, especially the projection of inner impulses (desire, optimism, violence or guilt) into constructed selves or scenarios.
Riverboat song is a narcissistic surreal nightmare, drawn from the banalities and horrors of contemporary life and its online extension. Combining animation and found clips, pop soundtracks and voiceover, the video revolves around a Huckleberry Finn-style character (seemingly lifted from a Disney classic) who has recurred and morphed in Wolfson’s work. In one sequence, the boy delivers a monologue voiced by the artist. Addressed to an absent lover, it is a chain of deadpan statements – confessional, coercive, retributive. The words are funnelled through other cartoon cut-outs including a crocodile in the bath and a pair of dining horses.
Also on show at 1 Davies St London W1
