Oliver Laric: Untitled

Repetition, recycling, and reinvention characterize Oliver Laric’s multimedia artistic practice. In Untitled (2014-15), Laric culls animations from around the world to create a rhythmic, morphing flow of graphic bodies. Set in a blank white space and backed by an ominous soundtrack, these hybrid creatures mutate from human to object to animal to machine. Some changes seem natural—the smooth transition of aging hands—while others are unsettling—humans turning into monsters. Laric intersperses these animated runs with stills of disturbing, digitally-modeled “crossbreeds”—slick machines with lumpy human arms and legs; a melted humanoid in a black oily pool on the ground surrounded by clothing he once wore; a submissive hybrid on its hands and knees in front of a standing woman, who is taking its picture like an animal at the zoo. Together, these images destabilize notions of past and present, original and copy, even human and nonhuman. As with his larger body of work, in Untitled, Laric challenges us to identify the current or “right” version of any given form, heightening the anxiety and confusion that change brings.

Oliver Laric (1981, Innsbruck, Austria) lives and works in Berlin. He studied at the Universität für angewandte Kunst Wien, Vienna. Recent solo exhibitions of his work have been held at the Austrian Cultural Forum, London (2015); Tanya Leighton Gallery, Berlin (2014); Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC (2014); Seventeen Gallery, London (2013); and MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, MA (2013). He has been included in group exhibitions including Screen Play: Life in an Animated World, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY (2015); the New Museum Triennial Surround Audience, New York (2015); Speculations on Anonymous Materials, Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany (2013); Imagine the Imaginary, Palais de Tokyo (2013); The Imaginary Museum, Kunstverein München, Munich (2013); and Memery: Imitation, Memory, and Internet Culture, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams, MA (2011).