Future Shock
Jan 23rd – March 27th
Opening reception, Saturday Jan 23rd 2-7 PM
Jan 23rd – March 27th
Opening reception, Saturday Jan 23rd 2-7 PM
“The future always comes too fast and in the wrong order.”
― Alvin Toffler
MiM Gallery is pleased to present Sam Vernon: Future Shock, a site-specific installation and first solo exhibition of the artist’s work in Los Angeles. Using Alvin Toffler and Adelaide Farrell’s 1970 publication Future Shock as a critical point of departure, Vernon stages the gallery with textiles, paintings and found objects, creating a constellation of made and found images to address a climate of visceral agitation and urgency.
Vernon uses collage, drawing, photography, printmaking and painting to convey a sense of frenzy within the familiar. Her work is heavily abstract, leaving the viewer responsible to invent context in which existence can be witnessed “when too much changes in too short a period of time.” Contemplating “future as a way of life,” Vernon’s personal narrative fuses with larger social issues to create a visual cacophony that challenges the neutrality of the gallery and the autonomy of the viewer. The installation does not keep neatly to the corners of its container, but erupts from the walls over its viewers and across the space.
Through a heightened sensory turbulence, Vernon offers an introspective installation that wrestles with the limits of “seeing” and demonstrates how presence can be given to absent voices amidst overwhelming change and technological fury.