The technically and iconographically striking paintings of Avery Singer (born in 1987, lives and works in New York) thwart our visual expectations.

At an initial glance, they resist a clear classification of painting or printing processes. Hence her works raise the obvious and artistically pressing question of how the digital information that surrounds us can materialize itself — be it as a flat image on paper or more recently in 3-D in plastic, or on and in every other possible material surface.

Allusions to the motifs and styles of classic modernism and to post-modernist debates can be identified in her works. The insignias of the ‘fine arts’ collide with avant-garde tropes, and parodic-autobiographical motifs constantly allude to clichés of the art world. Adopting a humorous tone, Avery Singer demonstrates rituals and social patterns and presents stereotypes of the artist, curator, collector and writer.

This first monograph on the artist includes a metaphoric exegesis of Singer’s work by Sven Loven and an insightful text by Aram Moshayedi focusing on the artist’s work and its contextualization. The contributions by Matthew Brannon—a short story centering around students at art school—and illustrations by Ebecho Muslimova extend the theme of living as an artist today.

In addition, the artist compiled an image essay, offering a subjective approach to assembling images that become innocuous in their overabundance yet stay subversive at the same time. Published in the Kunsthalle Zürich series in collaboration with the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin.

English and German text.