Following on from their virtuoso sprawling and maniacal installations Bright White Underground, 2010 and Black Acid Co-op, 2009, the brilliantly twisted art duo of Jonah Freeman and Justin Lowe are back, with another virtuoso sprawling and maniacal installation – this time at New York gallery, Marlborough Chelsea.
For those of you not familiar with Freeman and Lowe’s brand of painstakingly constructed dystopian visions, they take the shape of warren-like networks of film-set style rooms and spaces – largely depicting a drug-fuelled breaking down of American society. From homemade meth-labs to a recreation of The Buck House – an imagined modernist home that imagined famed psychonaut Dr. Arthur Cook briefly lived in during the early 1960s – the duo’s eccentric work sweeps through high society, to hippie communes; the narrative dramatically shifting with each smashed doorway.
Their latest, Stray Light Grey, is no different and – as the name suggests – seeks to unify many themes and narratives from their previous works. Once more, it’s powerful stuff – throwing you directly into the disjointed chronology of the most fucked-up film you’ve seen in a long time, their work is immersive, exciting, bewildering… more experience than installation, it’s convention-defying art at its very best.
Stray Light Grey runs through 27th October at Marlborough Chelsea, New York.
