Josh Azzarella

Exhibitions

Two-person Exhibition, S/ample Data, 2020

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Josh Azzarella interrogates the ways in which images shape collective memory. Through his multi-displinary practice spanning video, digital art, and installation, Azzarella arbitrates the relations between the signifier and the signified, the real and the representation (or re-presentation), by pointing reflexively to the arbitrary nature of media materials (and of language itself, by extension). Azzarella preserves the intrigue of the original and by virtue of technical genius yields a series of artifacts; a museum of our contemporary mythology. Yet, the contents of this museum are not mere pastiche or monument, but an altogether new vision, pieced together from the fragments of a shared mythos.

“We often note, in trying to understand our own history, that the photographs which signify the events we experience come to replace or complicate our own memories. In this way, I intend the works I produce to further alter those collective memories. Moreover, the works often seek a meditative or still moment during which the viewer can stand transfixed. This contemplative moment is an opportunity to introduce the larger context in which we collect and chronicle our communal history.”

-Josh Azzarella

Azzarella was the recipient of the 2006 Emerging Artist Award and related solo exhibition from The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum (CT). He has previously shown at the California Museum of Photography (CA), University Art Museum, Long Beach (CA), Vancouver Art Gallery (Canada), Kavi Gupta Gallery (IL), Academie der Kunste (Berlin), Sean Kelly Gallery (NY), Catharine Clark Gallery (CA), Mississippi State University (MS), the Santa Barbara Museum of Art (CA) and DCKT Gallery (NY). His work is included in the permanent collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (CA), the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (CA), the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PA), the Museum of Fine Arts Houston (TX), the San Diego Museum of Modern Art (CA), the Margulies Collection (FL), Western Bridge (WA) and JP Morgan Chase (NY).


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