Alex Da Corte is a Philadelphia-based multi-disciplinary conceptual and visual artist. He creates large-scale, vibrant, immersive, Pop art-informed installations. Drawing from the imagery of American high and low culture, his work examines the psychological complexities and humorous absurdities of late capitalism.
His sculptures operate partly as high aesthetic comedy—one of his first serious works was a hand-sewn 15-foot-long ketchup bottle made of vinyl—and more recent projects have included stuffed-animal snakes, rattlers made of crystals and acrylic fingernails, and homemade batches of cola repurposed on the floors as dried, minimalist grids.
Alex Da Corte, TRUƎ LIFƎ, 2013, HD video, sound, 3 minutes 44 seconds.
Nevertheless, this pop appeal doesn’t come without an ensuing punch in the stomach. Many of Da Corte’s sculptures turn mournful or macabre—or just plain heartbreaking—right in the center of the party. In one work, a Christmas tree appears almost strangled by the extension cord that allows a second tree to be illuminated. In others, a bouquet of flowers is on fire, happy lightbulb faces are mixed with frowns, and declarations of love are amended with slurs like “so much it makes me sick.” “The idea for a work trickles down from everything I see, watch, and collect,” Da Corte says. “I take one idea and I want to add to it, flip it, or just turn it on its head. That’s how it mashes into my own.” Currently, for his thesis, Da Corte is building an elaborate sculpture based on Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s cult classic film The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972) that includes a fur island and the figure of Petra floating in the center and holding a hose that shoots out soda. “It’s her choice,” Da Corte explains. “She can leave the island or stay, but the soda that is pouring out is slowly cutting her off.” It is an image that neither Fassbinder nor the ad execs at Coca-Cola might have ever envisioned, but it is one that says everything about consumption and self-destruction—the interchangeable anthems of Da Corte’s work.
The stories told through imagery, scent and intriguing history join forces for an experience that is quite other-worldly.
Alex Da Corte, The Duplicating Machine, 2017
Alex Da Corte, Delirium, 2014
Alex Da Corte, Body Double, 2013
Alex Da Corte, Puddin, 2013
«I take these things that I think are interesting, and tie them together. Maybe they’re about time, or the particularity of objects, and then I slowly let it build. As I’m making the objects, I’m telling these stories and weaving. I think of the work as weaving or quilt making, and I’m telling jokes and making references to things that maybe only I know. But I’m hoping as I keep telling them to myself that in the work they will transcend and be something bigger.»
Alex Da Corte, from an interview with The Creative Independent
Alex Da Corte, Free Roses, MASS MoCA, North Adams 2016
Alex Da Corte’s background in film spurred an art practice that attempts to dictate the origin, value, and character of objects he uses in his videos, installations, and paintings. He believes in the open-source collection and absorption of objects—be it from a dollar store, thrift store, or sidewalk—and challenges the audience to reflect “upon memory, impulse, the stability of knowledge, and what constitutes value in a work of art.” His interest in fluidity over time and disruptions of authorship have led to faux collaborations with his audience, as occurred at his solo exhibition at ICA Portland, as well as fellow artists that he curates into his installations with the intention of unraveling their motives. Da Corte is planting seed for new archetypes to grow, continually striving to “confuse where things come from,” flatten time, and upend history and taste.
Alex Da Corte, 50 Wigs, Herning Museum of Art, Denmark 2016
Da Corte has exhibited at institutions including Institute of Contemporary Art at MECA, Portland, Maine, DeCordova Museum, Lincoln, Massachusetts, Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, Museum of Modern Art, New York, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, Missouri, and MoMA PS 1, New York, among others. He participated in Portugal Arte 10 in 2010, Art Basel Miami in 2011, and Younger Than Jesus at the New Museum in 2010. He was been awarded the Pew Fellowship in the Arts in 2012.
Victor Kuili
