ARTIST:

Julia Wachtel

Champagne Life
Julia Wachtel

Champagne Life, the eponymous title of the exhibition itself, inverts an image of Kanye West and Kim Kardashian, with the poorly copied plastic sculpture of Minnie Mouse. The pathos of the latter’s pathetic construction provides what the artist terms “a place of interiority” which is both “intimate and vulnerable” in stark contrast to the pure “exteriority” of Kim Kardashian, a figure who manipulates the public eye and spectre of fame so dexterously as to have “broken the Internet.” The title itself is drawn from a song by R&B artist Ne-Yo, who sings of a life “where dreams and reality are one in the same”. This paradoxical attempt to converge the fantastical with the real is the epitome of a culture driven by the lust for celebrity, and the figure of champagne as a relatively affordable signification of luxury life, the highest aspiration and emptiest cipher.

Landscape No. 19 (Witness)
Julia Wachtel

Poppy panels of colour overlay grainy images taken from various media. Each is punctured by an invading cartoon character, drawn from greeting cards,
perversely and hysterically juxtaposed with the appropriated imagery. Wachtel, who has been working in the same vein since the 1980s as part of the Pictures Generation, is heavily influenced by Andy Warhol, a prevalence in her oeuvre that has been accelerated by the Internet’s quicksilver exchange of images and the blossoming of celebrity culture; ink dot subsumed to pixel, Marilyn Monroe to Kim Kardashian.

Landscape No. 18 (Container/Cave)
Julia Wachtel

Her screen prints are almost algorithmic in their composition, taking thetemperature of contemporary popular culture in both an instinctive and premeditated way

THAT
Julia Wachtel
Circles and Door
Julia Wachtel
Circles and Door
Julia Wachtel
Circles and Door
Julia Wachtel

© Natasha Hoare, 2015

FLAT
Julia Wachtel
0
    0
    Your Cart
    Your cart is emptyReturn to Shop

    Thank you for your enquiry!

    Your message was sent and one of our Admin team will respond as soon as possible.

    If you have an urgent question, please call our front desk on 020 7811 3070.

    For more information on how we store and use your data please view our privacy policy here. You can unsubscribe from our newsletters at any time by clicking on the links below the emails we send you.

    Essential Information Before Your Visit:
    Click Plan Your Visit for full information on upcoming closures.

    Register for email updates
    Be the first to hear about the latest Saatchi Gallery exhibitions, events, offers and news