Who is Josh Kline?
Josh Kline an American artist that addresses issues of postmodernism, and the transformative effects technology has on society. He was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1979, but currently is a resident of New York. Kline works as a curator and often displays his work in art museums throughout the borough of Manhattan. He premiered his solo gallery exhibition in 2014.
An only child, watching his parents tussle through “the American dream” would inspire Kline’s vision. His father was a biochemist who was laid off, and his mother died a few years later, when he was in college. Born in the Philippines, she worked in the pharmaceuticals industry, but had to cater food, peddle insurance, and process returns to support the family.
He attempted to follow the path of his folks and studied physics and nanotechnology, but his initial interests in science concluded when he couldn’t master his calculus requirements. Kline then decided to pursue a film degree from Temple University. He started making video art and stylized pieces, called installations, which questioned the impacts of uninhibited and
widespread commercialism.
He honed his artistic skills by observing and interrogating his peers and the experience individuals in his circle. Kline admits to completing early expressions while having a full-time job and says he had to resort to pushing himself “beyond the boundaries of his health to make art happen.
Ideals
Kline belongs to a body of artists who support post-internet art, which uses multimedia, sculptures, and assembly to deliver a message about the repercussions of the digital age and the online world. Much of Kline’s work examines the philosophy of post-humanism and the waning of human production during the era of automation.
He projects his concerns with Ai, climate change, democracy, data collection, and privacy through science fiction-based creative designs. His goal is to envision alternative histories and possible futures that mirror the trajectory of our existing society.
Josh is engrossed in how recent innovations impact life, industry, and diligence. He believes that technological progress might be detrimental to ergonomic responsibility. He investigates the human ability to function within a working environment while being marginalized and compared to more competent mechanical components. Likewise, he emphasizes the contemporaneous obsession with a conceptual future and the shared desire to project into an abstract virtual nonreality.
His art also discusses the gap social media creates between generations and the possible ramifications of a system that openly allows and advertises their youth for sale.
Positive thinking… Maybe?
Kline’s collections are described as dystopian, but still, there is a fascinating duality in Kline’s efforts. He does offer a beam of hope via a paradigm of optimistic possibilities. What could do and what would we do, if we realized the problematic predicaments and made the appropriate changes to make sure society proceeded in a better direction? Would we sacrifice convenience for human prosperity?
Another thought. What if Ai and technology ultimately did eliminate the need for unwanted, hard labor; leaving humans to their own devices, liberated and sanctified with unlimited leisure time? What would people undertake if they were free from drudgery and no longer needed to work for a living? Would advancements result in a utopian reality filled with passion, creativity, and family- or would it develop into something else?
Notable works
Adaptation
Adaptation is a film set in the aftermath of post-flooded Manhattan, where essential workers must continue with their day-to-day lives amid the contaminated water. Presented with related photography and monuments, the piece is meant to address the severity and how people cope with geological disasters. He considers climate change a fundamental concern of the 21st century that could reshape civilization, even washing away gargantuan cities like New York.
Civil war
Civil War displays Americana imagery; a nation ravaged by unemployment, where automation replaces white-collar workers, and a despotic state is divided by class. This work explores the socio-political consequences of the rift in the nation prompted when Trump was elected president.
The exhibition consists of concrete ruins, large cast sculptures, and a short video set in a revolutionary United States. One set features figures of giant plastic virus particles, each one holding an encapsulated cardboard box depicting the remnants of a laid-off employee, referencing a connection between work relations, health, and disease.
Unemployment
Kline hired out-of-work professionals to be 3D scanned. The printed bodies were confined in transparent plastic bags in a space surrounded by carts of empty plastic bottles and silicone parts.
This installation warns against the potential loss of humanity at the frontier of scientific advancements and questions the ability of an artist to exist successfully within a technocratic society. By his own account, he addresses the struggles of professionals, being forced to push the human body past natural capacity to compete with computers; denying anthropological instinct to become researched-based brands of their existence in order to succeed and serving institutions versus prioritizing personal fulfillment.
Freedom
Freedom is a 3D-printed exhibition that focuses on activism born out of the financial crisis and civil rights infringements, centering on politicians, protests, supervision, and surveillance. Employing sculpture and installation, Kline reflects on the effects of the enduring campaign against terror, the recession, and the control tactics enforced by corporations and governing organizations of authority. It merges conversations about police brutality and the influence of Silicon Valley, additionally while contemplating our roles as contributing citizens.
Kline recreates Zuccotti Park of NYC’s financial district, the location where the Occupy Wall Street movement, to rally against corporate greed and economic inequality, started in 2011. Life-sized Teletubbies are presented on grids, standing in SWAT gear, surrounded by broken glass, asphalt, and black cell phone towers that are sprouting credit cards and zip-tie handcuffs.
The screen on the bellies of these 90s childhood TV characters displayed videos starring retired police officers reading from opinionated social media posts and scripts produced by Kline. Behind them, an even bigger screen airing “Hope and Change”, featuring a software-produced, reimaged Obama delivering the 2009 Presidential Inaugural speech. This represents information being fed, digested, and absorbed into the minds of the public.
“Email is a waste of time…and a destroyer of actual productivity.” – Josh Kline
Discover more from Stay Up-to-Date on the Latest Art News with Gothamartnews.com
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
