The Contemporary Art Modern Project will be kicking off the new year with three exhibitions running alongside each other in the gallery. Starting with Jason Micheal Hackenwerth’s The Playground in Gallery A, we invite viewers to explore Hackenwerth’s latest series The Champions, which tackle big food and consumerism by creating mythical beings that play with their new commercial identity. Each of the three exhibitions offer the viewer to experience five different artistic expressions all reacting to the world in which they inhabit.
Opening January 3rd and running through the month, we also invite visitors to an Artist Talk on January 25 from 1:00 to 5:00 with an in-person interview with Jason Micheal Hackenwerth and Andrew Arocho where they will speak not only about their artworks and process but also their journey as artists.
Using collage as a metaphor for adaptability Hackenwerth attaches cut outs from popular cereal and food brands toying with ideas of ‘big business’ and consumption. Topically the works suggest a sense of lightheartedness, while simultaneously calling to task brands that feed our children with highly processed foods, thereby endangering these children. Included in his works are notions of class, as these highly processed foods are more often than not what certain classes are able to afford - in some ways insinuating a dark suggestion - that not all classes and their offspring are important. Similar to notions of Darwinism, but played out by corporate greed, or what Hackenwerth sees as: Corporatecracy. But, and there is a but, though the above reality may very much be in play, Hackenwerth’s dissecting of these boxes into embellishments on his works shows that we do have choice, we no longer need to be fed by these brands, but instead we can use them to our advantage. That advantage being - choosing and being aware and ultimately an educated consumer.
Hackenwerth also plays with the notions of subversive marketing directed at youth, and need, and instead of playing into that game - he takes this subversion and fashions it into ‘monsters’ that happily prance across the canvas evolving into hero’s that ‘battle’ the viewer into awareness.
True to his confidence as a painter, Hackenwerth stands forth and puts out his philosophies of our current society and practices, yet, he stands in the position, now, as a herald highlighting concerns we all have as the corporate world has removed their responsibility to the consumer, the one who keeps them in business, to focusing more on the bottom line - regardless at what price.
