Josh Azzarella Works 2004-2011    Apr 9 - May 14, 2011

The recipient of the 2006 Emerging Artist Award from the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum (CT), Azzarella has been heralded for his scrutiny of popular historiography. Oftentimes appropriating images from current and archival news media, he painstakingly modifies infamous moments in time as a demonstration of individual perception of communal events. By engineering alternative renditions of famed events, Azzarella simultaneously disputes the authenticity of chronicling and denotes the gravity of context in the authorship of memory. While the earlier works featured in the exhibition rely heavily on headline imagery, recent works evince a shift towards pop culture and commercial iconography. Investigating topical subjects from the Vietnam War to Michael Jackson's "Thriller" music video, Azzarella assesses our detachment from the globally momentous and fixation on the sensational. The exhibition also features the premiere of Untitled #105 (SFDF) (2011), Azzarella's first three-channel video work. A major project that required over two years of production time, Untitled #105 (SFDF) is comprised of three seamlessly looped video channels, each with 5.1 surround sound that create a grand 15.3 surround sound experience. While maintaining his practice of arrogation, Azzarella assumes a position behind the camera for the first time. Isolating three pivotal moments of anticipation from 1933's King Kong, the artist suspends the iconic scenes and merges them with newly captured footage. Through this fusion, Azzarella displaces our experience of filmic events, and challenges our grasp of legendary eminence.

Josh Azzarella (b. 1978, Ohio) received his MFA from the Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers State University (NJ). He has had solo exhibitions in Seattle, Chicago, New York and Los Angeles, among others, as well as inclusion in shows at the Akademie der Kunste (Berlin), Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art (IN) and Western Bridge (WA). His work can be found in the public collections of JP Morgan Chase (NY), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (CA), Western Bridge (WA) and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (CA). Azzarella is also the recipient of the 2003 Fassbender Award for Excellence in Photography. He is also represented by DCKT Contemporary in New York City, where he lives and works. This is Azzarella's second solo exhibition with the gallery.