ISSUES

On initiative by the gallery Issues, CENTER JENNY, the video art work by American artist Ryan Trecartin will be shown on all television screens at Media Markt’s flagship store in Gallerian in Stockholm, Sweden. The screening is free and open to the public on Friday 17 April, 10am–8pm.

Coinciding with Stockholm Art Week 2015 and the art fair MARKET, Issues will screen CENTER JENNY, the video art work by Ryan Trecartin. The screening is produced in collaboration with Studio Fitch Trecartin and the home electronics retail store Media Markt, whose flagship store now becomes a temporary scene for world-class contemporary art.

- We are very happy to be a part of this project and hope that the collaboration with Issues and screening of the piece by Ryan Trecartin will initiate an exciting dialogue that reaches beyond the traditional art scene, says Anna Sjödin, head of communications, Media Markt Sweden.

The video piece CENTER JENNY was shown for the first time at the 55th Venice Biennale 2013 along two other videos, Comma Boat and Junior Wars, in five different sculptural theatres. The critics agreed on that CENTER JENNY stood out and has since then been mentioned as one of the highlights of the entire biennale. We meet a large number of characters in the movie and many bears the name Jenny. This can be understood as a collectively created personality named Center Jenny. The collapsed storytelling and intense editing style is typical for Trecartin’s art practice. Together with collaborator since many years, Lizzie Fitch, they created 360° scenes on which shooting of the movie was done at night. As a viewer of the piece, we jump between different groups of youth acted by friends of the artists but also professional actors. In the movie, we see them break things, filming each other, talking to and of each other. They mostly talk about themselves but in CENTER JENNY we see a mirror image of our time, where all settings are turned to the step after maximum.

- I think we’re living in a time when you can use more than just words and how they’re strung together to express an idea. Because of the way people read, share and merge information now, the way something is contained and frames is just as valuable as the content inside, says Ryan Trecartin.

ISSUES aims to challenge the ways we experience contemporary art. By not having a permanent gallery space, there is a dynamic platform, which allows for a specific site for each artwork or project. This time, the large number of screens at Media Markt will reflect the fragmented character and narrative in Ryan Trecartin’s CENTER JENNY. The project poses questions of who gets to show contemporary art and in what way. Institutions such as the consumer electronics retail does fill a particular need but it is not perhaps a place where we previously expected to experience contemporary art.

RYAN TRECARTIN b. 1981 in Webster, Texas, USA. Lives and works in Athens, Ohio.

Ryan has been mentioned as the most consequent artist to appear on the international art scene since the 1980’s. Since graduating from Rhode Island School of Design in 2004, Ryan's work has been shown in the 2006 Whitney Biennial and New Museum’s much appreciated survey Younger Than Jesus, 2009 in NYC. He has toured the world’s museums, among others, Bonniers Konsthall 2012 with Any-Ever, a heptalogy created 2009-10. In 2013, he took part in the 55th Venice Biennale and the autumn of 2014 saw his first major solo survey in a European institution, Site Visit at Kunstwerke Berlin. In February 2015 he returned to the New Museum but as a curator of the triennial there named Surround Audience.

LIZZIE FITCH b. 1981 Bloomington, Indiana, U.S. Lives and works in Athens, Ohio.

Lizzie has been Ryan's close collaborator since the two met while studying. She creates the set design and props we see in the movies while Ryan writes, directs and edits them.

Media Markt and Saturn, Germany and Europe’s Number One consumer electronics retailers, are housed under the roof of Media-Saturn-Holding GmbH. The success enjoyed by the two retail brands, which currently operate more than 1000 stores in 15 different countries, is based on a unique selection of low-priced brand name products, competent staff, excellent service, a distinctive advertising presence and a decentralized organizational structure. Media Markt and Saturn conduct their operations separately and are in direct competition with each other. Both retail brands are currently being developed internationally as multichannel retailers. In July 2011, the Media-Saturn Group acquired the online retailer redcoon, which operates in eight European countries.