“LOL: A Decade of Antic Art” is a survey of recent artworks which either riff off or intervene on the real. “LOL” includes works by Kendall Bruns, Kahty Chen Milstead, Chto Delat?, Patrizia Giambi, Gimhongsok, Larry Hammerness, Jonathan Horowitz, Katie Kehoe, Nina Katchadourian, Larry Krone, Jennifer Levonian, Ryan Mulligan, My Barbarian, Dan Perjovschi/Nedko Solakov, William Powhida, Rob Pruitt, David Schafer, Alysse Stepanian/Philip Mantione, Joey Versoza and the Yes Men!
The intent of antic art is to surprise or catch passersby, who often become indirect participants, in funny situations. Ever since Marcel Duchamp entered Fountain (1917) into the Society of Independent Artists exhibition, the artworld has produced a plethora of pranksters. “LOL” artists have found crafty and ingenious ways to insert either themselves or their art into TV shows, New York magazine, United Nations meetings in Geneva, meat markets, political campaigns, neighborhoods, zebra crossings, animal habitats, public parks, the Washington Monument, choral concerts, celebrity shoots, museum benefits and official WTO meetings. Others merely gain inspiration from absurd “actual” events.
Although “LOL” is Spaid’s first exhibition for the Contemporary, antic art has appeared in her shows since 1997. Several of her past exhibitions, such as “The Comestible Compost” (1998), an exhibition featuring grocery-store art and cake-sculpture demonstrations in the Pavilion’s Grocery Store in West Hollywood, and “Cremolata Flotage” (1999), an exhibition featuring live actions and experiential installations aboard the Staten Island Ferry, have laid the groundwork for this museum survey of recent “antic” art.
