hopped (popped), New York

Edward Hopper House, New York
Oct. 26 - Jan. 4, 2014

Edward Hopper House presents a new installation by renowned multi-media artist Tony Oursler (born 1957) from October 26, 2013 through January 5, 2014. Like Edward Hopper (1882-1967), Oursler grew up in Nyack, NY and spent his childhood exploring the landscape from which Hopper drew inspiration. For this installation, Oursler will create a series of interventions in the architecture of Hopper's childhood home based on Hopper's caricature drawings. These lesser-known works portray a different side of Hopper in which he uses a more humorous and improvisational approach. Oursler sees these works as a potential bridge between the anarchic 1960s and 70s and the suburban landscape and somber quietude of Hopper's melancholia. 

The series includes Oursler's signature projections on three-dimensional constructions, as well as his endeavors with painting and digital space. The works are shot in the landscapes around Nyack, NY, comprised in part of reenactments featuring friends and relatives in the Nyack area and focusing on personal anecdotes, such as the theft and return of a brass bed in the early 1970s, when the Edward Hopper House was in disrepair. 

Thematically the artist responds to the deeply psychological spaces of Edward Hopper's paintings, which he uses as a starting point for this project. He looks at the alteration of the suburban space over time, specifically the 1960s and 70s as well as today. Upstate New York has long been a site of utopian fantasy and Oursler sees Hopper's paintings as a counterpoint to this perspective. Oursler will explore the tension between these two points of reference. Oursler played a crucial role in the development of video art as a sculptural form. His work is in collections, and he has exhibited, in major institutions throughout the world, including the Tate Gallery, London; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC. 

This exhibition is made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.