hyperfaciality

Artist: Michel Platnic

SOLO SHOW ZAZ10TS GALLERY
May 16 - September 20, 2024
10 TIMES SQUARE | 1441 Broadway, New York, NY 10018

HyperFaciality deals with notions of faciality—coined by Deleuze and Guattari in A Thousand Plateaus—to explore alternative forms of identity and subjectivity. In Michel Platnic’s works, the face serves as a canvas to operate a manipulation of facial features and expressions. He engages with the complexities of visual representation. By referencing modernist iconic paintings, Platnic highlights the responsibility of artists who often reconsider established norms while creating new ones.

Platnic combines several techniques such as painting, sculpting, performance, drawing, video, and photography. Many of his works are living three-dimensional tableaux staged in his studio or in front of a live audience. The creative process involves several stages; first, he builds a life-size space in which he places objects and the performers. Then, he paints all the elements, including the set, objects, clothing, and models. Finally, the living tableau is photographed and filmed, merging all the mediums into one scene.

Platnic's approach involves restaging works by modern painters. He keeps the original composition as a method to focus on the medium itself and not the subject matter. Inspired by McLuhan's concept that 'the medium is the message’, Platnic views the medium as central to his artistic dialogue. He reimagines iconic paintings primarily from the medium perspective, transcending the materiality of the subject matter to unveil new dimensions of essence and significance. In Platnic’s artistic dialogue, the medium emerges as a transformative force, inviting viewers to explore familiar artwork through a lens of renewed vitality and meaning.

Featured on ZAZ Corner’s In Between | May 16 - June 15, 2024

The exhibition also features adapted videos of After ‘Triptych, 1983’ and After ‘3 Studies for Portrait of Lucian Freud’ by Michel Platnic as part of the ZAZ Corner’s In Between Programming. Platnic has created several works inspired by Francis Bacon. These works delve into specific painterly scenes by Bacon, exploring them through reconstruction and shifting, both on technical and conceptual-psychological levels. The Living Painting videos offer a meticulous examination of Bacon's selected work.

The artwork is displayed for 15 seconds at a time on a large LED billboard in the heart of Times Square, located at 41st Street and 7th Avenue, New York, NY.

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