MMP: Jason Dodge

Jason Dodge’s beautifully executed sculptural installations oscillate between the known and the unknown. He may combine borrowed logotypes with invented ones, much like a techno DJ mixes appropriated music with original versions. The signs Jason Dodge uses are mostly from 20th century design history, for example, Karel Marten’s telephone card and the logotype for the Swiss Expo of 1964, and they often allude to theseductive qualities of design. contrasted with the kind of design that appears on tickets, in grocery stores and other places where design is less expected. He has even made his own design for the 500 Euro note. His designs can recall a specific event or evoke the mood or atmosphere of a particular time. In this way the familiar is given a new context, which in turn leads to many new meanings where both a collective memory and the viewer’s personality play important roles.

Anders Contrave is the name of the fictive enterprise Jason Dodge uses as a model for how exoticism can function. In a previous exhibition in the gallery Casey Kaplan in New York in May 1998, journeys of discovery composed the model for exoticism. In both cases our expectations of a certain culture or subject area are focused upon – how these expectations are satisfied or contradicted. In Anders Contrave, Parts 1 and 2, even Europe and the European cultural heritage can be seen as exotic. And as so often in this artist’s work, here too we find absurd and cruel elements.

After studying in the sculpture department of Yale University in the US, Jason Dodge was employed as a teacher there for two years. He lives in New York. In conjunction with his Moderna Museet Projekt, Jason Dodge has been granted an atelje stipend from IASPIS, enabling him to work in Stockholm until 31 November.

Curator: Maria Lind