JILLIAN MAYER

Commissioned to create a large-scale site-specific sculpture for the exhibition, Jillian Mayer appropriated a discarded jet ski. It was created to function in the outside world to assist man in gliding over water, and conquering nature. It assists man in crossing bodies of water at high speeds and can be used recreationally or for transportation until it no longer functions. Here, Mayer repurposes a jet ski as an art object by transforming it into a sculpture and reappropriating it from its fate or becoming another human relic of obsolescence.

With wry humor, Jillian Mayer (Miami, b. 1984) explores identity in the Internet age and the slippery divide between reality and virtual reality, in drawings, photographs, installations, performances, videos, and “meta-pop music” collective, #PostModem. Ubiquitous social media platforms like YouTube and Twitter are integral to her work, in which she adopts the look and tone of viral videos—including her own Internet sensation, ‘I Am Your Grandma (2011)’, an absurdist music video in which she addresses her future grandchildren, promising to love and nurture them as a digital simulacrum—as well as online chat boards, and the streams of pablum appended to everything. The mindless appearance of Mayer’s work belies the fraught questions underlying them, about the relationship between humans and technology. In recent years, Mayer's interest has shifted from exploring technologically intertwined with life/living to imagining its absence and what that looks and feels like. Mayer has developed a new body of work inspired by survivalist communities, with a particular focus on how class and privilege function in apocalyptic or near-apocalyptic conditions. Is an off-grid lifestyle a privilege or the only option? Is it more economically viable to live in a city within community planning or in nature? Where do leisure, access, and privilege overlap and what does the role of art play in this scenario?