A disembodied condom filled with love hearts floats and jiggles across the screen, spilling its contents across New York streets, designer bathrooms and empty apartments. Computerised versions of the HIV virus bounce about, a punk wanders round Paris and a ‘Beano’-esque character repeatedly stabs and strangles himself, all to a ridiculously loud soundtrack of Beyoncé, Mazzy Star and Roy Orbison.
It’s an absurd, over-the-top, animated environment that Jordan Wolfson, the young prince of New York’s contemporary art scene, has created. He sets the stage by making visitors take off their shoes – heaven forbid you should muddy the cream carpet that covers the gallery floor. It makes you feel like you’re about to enter a calm space, like a yoga studio. Then you get blasted by Bey’s ‘Sweet Dreams’, the animated virus starts bouncing and you realise you’ve been sucker punched. Like someone offering you a hug just so they can knee you in the nuts.
Wolfson weaves a tangled tapestry, filled with complicated riffs on the potential danger of sexuality, the artifice of consumerism and the violence hidden in innocent imagery. Everything is double-edged – the punk (played by the artist) is wistful, diseases are cute, cartoons are vicious… Wolfson’s a clever artist, no doubt, eager to distil the world into an enveloping vision of new media pop art. This is a discomforting as well as a funny work. But you get the impression that, despite the absurdity of it all, ‘Raspberry Poser’ was made with the straightest of faces. A niggling sense of knowingness undermines the enjoyment factor.
Eddy Frankel