Armed with four monitors and a 3-D printer, Jacolby Satterwhite is closing out a very busy year chock-full of shows, including Sundance, the Whitney Biennial, and MOCA Los Angeles’ Step and Repeat, with a solo show at OHWOW in Los Angeles. Last week, Opening Ceremony got a special preview of his latest show, How Lovely Is Me Being As I Am, now on view at OHWOW—just a stone’s throw from OCLA.
All of Jacolby’s work springs to life from his mother’s concept drawings for products designed to be sold on the Home Shopping Network of all places. “She had insomnia and schizophrenia, and these programs would say, ‘You could be an inventor too!’ They were like con-artists grabbing the attention of middle America. When her schizophrenia developed, her drawings became art objects. She would start making them more surreal.” And rather than escapist fantasy, Jacolby’s video installations read as a celebration of his mother’s enduring creativity.
Jacolby interweaves his live-action performance into his videos. Can’t miss him—he’s the figure in the gold jumpsuit alternating between voguing and near-contortionist poses. The jumpsuit is also Jacolby’s brainchild fabricated under the tutelage of Mark Ruffin, a Jim Henson Company alum and Emmy-winning costume designer. “We mimic Philip Treacy’s couture structure, we bite his style, and then make it our own,” the artist told us. “Mark is instrumental; he taught me how to properly make them and he sewed the last two suits.” For design inspiration, the artist binges on Alexander McQueen and Isabella Blow documentaries.
Video games play a central role in Jacolby’s development as an artist. As an obsessive teen, his dream was to work for Squaresoft Entertainment, the developers of the Final Fantasy series. “Those games are very durational; they take 150 hours to build your levels up and progress. There’s a certain aesthetic to the space that mimics a Hieronymus Bosch painting,” he told OC. The rotating perspective typical of RPGs guides the narrative of his video work.
The references in Jacolby’s work don’t stop there. Everything from Madonna’s iconic red bed from her Blonde Ambition tour to Caravaggio paintings find themselves at home in Jacolby’s narratives. Of his video Reifying Desire 3: The Immaculate Conception of Doubting Thomas, Jacolby said, “I wanted to concentrate on all of my mother’s drawings that dealt with medicine and enhancing the performance of the body like MRIs, X-rays, pills, capsules, and synthesized them with an appropriation of Caravaggio’s Doubting Thomas. It’s very gay, anal sex, AIDS narrative, transgressive, and I wanted to give a beginning, middle, and end to that. I took Patricia’s archive and made a virtual reality performance video that repurposes the Biblical narrative into something more queer.”
Referencing the Baroque period does not at all discount his references to contemporary pop culture. As a child, Jacolby religiously watched Janet Jackson tour videos every day after school. “I think concert tours are really inspirational,” he said. “No one talks about that language and infrastructure. That is a modern visual language.”
How Lovely Is Me Being As I Am runs through December 20
OHWOW
937 N. La Cienega Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90069
All of Jacolby’s work springs to life from his mother’s concept drawings for products designed to be sold on the Home Shopping Network of all places. “She had insomnia and schizophrenia, and these programs would say, ‘You could be an inventor too!’ They were like con-artists grabbing the attention of middle America. When her schizophrenia developed, her drawings became art objects. She would start making them more surreal.” And rather than escapist fantasy, Jacolby’s video installations read as a celebration of his mother’s enduring creativity.
Jacolby interweaves his live-action performance into his videos. Can’t miss him—he’s the figure in the gold jumpsuit alternating between voguing and near-contortionist poses. The jumpsuit is also Jacolby’s brainchild fabricated under the tutelage of Mark Ruffin, a Jim Henson Company alum and Emmy-winning costume designer. “We mimic Philip Treacy’s couture structure, we bite his style, and then make it our own,” the artist told us. “Mark is instrumental; he taught me how to properly make them and he sewed the last two suits.” For design inspiration, the artist binges on Alexander McQueen and Isabella Blow documentaries.
Video games play a central role in Jacolby’s development as an artist. As an obsessive teen, his dream was to work for Squaresoft Entertainment, the developers of the Final Fantasy series. “Those games are very durational; they take 150 hours to build your levels up and progress. There’s a certain aesthetic to the space that mimics a Hieronymus Bosch painting,” he told OC. The rotating perspective typical of RPGs guides the narrative of his video work.
The references in Jacolby’s work don’t stop there. Everything from Madonna’s iconic red bed from her Blonde Ambition tour to Caravaggio paintings find themselves at home in Jacolby’s narratives. Of his video Reifying Desire 3: The Immaculate Conception of Doubting Thomas, Jacolby said, “I wanted to concentrate on all of my mother’s drawings that dealt with medicine and enhancing the performance of the body like MRIs, X-rays, pills, capsules, and synthesized them with an appropriation of Caravaggio’s Doubting Thomas. It’s very gay, anal sex, AIDS narrative, transgressive, and I wanted to give a beginning, middle, and end to that. I took Patricia’s archive and made a virtual reality performance video that repurposes the Biblical narrative into something more queer.”
Referencing the Baroque period does not at all discount his references to contemporary pop culture. As a child, Jacolby religiously watched Janet Jackson tour videos every day after school. “I think concert tours are really inspirational,” he said. “No one talks about that language and infrastructure. That is a modern visual language.”
How Lovely Is Me Being As I Am runs through December 20
OHWOW
937 N. La Cienega Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90069