On the up
Contemporary artists we're tipping for success...
Kaari Upson
We've been fans of LA artist Kaari Upson for quite some time, and are delighted to note that her work is finally receiving wider exposure, particularly in New York where she recently held a well-received solo show.
Upson's complex and fascinating practice centres around a man known simply as Larry, whose abandoned personal documents she discovered several years ago by chance.
A project that began as an attempt to discover more about his identity has stealthily expanded into a neo-narrational excursion into the realms not only of Larry's pieced-together identity, but Upson's own pysche.
His and hers astrological charts, analysis of Larry's handwriting, and performances with a 'Larry' mannequin filmed in a replica of the Playboy Mansion grotto provide detailed, increasingly dark docu-fictional explorations of a relationship between subject and artist which at times seems as parasitic as it does symbiotic.
November 2009
further articles
Further articles
