Jeff Bailey Gallery is pleased to present Michael Salter, Are You Sure. This is his first solo exhibition in New York.
Every American city and town has a street lined with strip malls, fast food restaurants and discount stores. These engines of mass consumption present us with a cacophony of visual imagery: signs, logos, advertisements and products compete for our attention. Salter examines this visual chaos by mixing up, sorting out and re-sampling bits and pieces of contemporary visual culture.
A fourteen foot tall sculpture, titled Styrobot, dominates the exhibition. Constructed of Styrofoam packaging, each functional piece seems to have replicated endlessly, changing from a protector of packaged contents into a robot that might crush everything in its path.
A mash-up of images and strange icons wraps around a gallery wall. Rendered in pink vinyl, the outtakes seem individually familiar but alien in their groupings, questioning their visual function.
Subzero is a series of small glazed porcelain figures, each with a different logo. At first glance it appears to be some sort of toy. Yet they are slouched over with heads bowed, almost immovable, frozen by indecision. Like a consumer with too many choices, Subzero does not know where to turn.
The exhibition also includes a kinetic sculpture, drawings and an animated video. With a dark sense of humor and looping illogical analysis, Salter seeks to categorize various aspects of contemporary visual culture, searching for clarity and meaning.
Michael Salter's work has been exhibited at The Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Winston-Salem, NC; Lump Gallery/Projects, Raleigh, NC; Ambrosino Gallery, Miami, FL, Black Market Gallery Los Angeles, CA; The University of Texas, Arlington and Think.21 Gallery, Brussels, Belgium. He received his MFA from the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. He currently teaches as an Associate Professor of Digital Art/New Media at the University of Oregon, where he resides in Eugene.
