PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE

DANIEL HOROWITZ: PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE
Curated by Mitra Khorasheh and Elise Herget
March 12 – April 12, 2015
The Dept. of Signs and Symbols, 54 Hudson Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11201
Opening reception: Thursday, March 12, 6:00 – 9:00 p.m.

The Dept. of Signs and Symbols is pleased to announce its inaugural exhibition: Planned Obsolescence, a solo exhibition by Daniel Horowitz. The exhibition will feature a selection of paintings and mixed media collages. The body of work examines notions of identity, reality, and our precarious existence in the face of globalization and mass consumerism. Planned Obsolescence will be on view from March 12 through April 12, 2015, by appointment only.  An opening reception will be held onThursday, March 12 from 6:00 – 9:00 p.m.

Contemporary society is built on a paradox, in order to bolster the cycle of consumption, manufacturers are encouraged to engineer products to fail and quickly become obsolete. On the one hand, this precarious model creates and builds industry as it accelerates innovation, however, this inevitable cycle ignores the less obvious implications of the detrimental effect on both the environment and on the consumer. How are the philosophical implications of planned obsolescence affecting our reality? How is the exponential growth of technology undermining our sense of self?

Horowitz’s practice criticizes our lust over the disposable, as he repurposes imagery form discarded vintage advertising, encyclopedias and History books, as source of inspiration or as a direct surface of intervention. Distorting the glossy veneer of the 50s era of commercialism, he presents us with a precarious-post-Fordism in his surreal and often dark imagery. Subverting the idealistic, we are presented with an alternate reality lurking within social anxiety, where phantasmagorical atmospheres, faceless figures and chimerical scenes represent a displaced identity. As a result of technology taking over, Horowitz states, “we are becoming obsolete.”

Daniel B. Horowitz was born in 1978 in New York, and currently lives and works in Brooklyn. Horowitz gained recognition as an artist for his diurnal 365 drawings series, which debuted in March 2012 at the Invisible Dog Art Center in Brooklyn, NY, an exhibit that has subsequently been displayed in part at Christie’s New York, at the Direktorenhaus in Berlin, and at the Warsaw Museum of Modern Art. In 2014, Horowitz was awarded artist residencies at Pioneer Works Center for Art and Innovation and Residency Unlimited in New York, and Galeria Karen Huber in Mexico City. His recent work, which has grown to encompass drawing, painting, and mixed media collages, has been exhibited in curated solo and group exhibitions nationally in New York and San Francisco, and internationally in Mexico, France, Poland, Canada, Switzerland, and Germany. In 2015, Horowitz will participate and exhibit with the Leipzig International Art Programme in Germany and the Encontrarte Art Center in Barcelona, Spain. Horowitz has been a member of the Artist Pension Trust since 2013.

The Dept. of Signs and Symbols is a laboratory for innovative experimentation and expression. The curatorial program serves to nourish emerging artists, to disinhibit the ordinary and to incite the unexpected. Focused on interaction and visible process, the project space allows for critical exposure for the artists, as well as a fostering of curatorial voices and collaboration. Through this crossing of art and life, a constellation of people, ideas, backgrounds, intentions and dreams form. Open to the public and based within the distinctive neighborhood of Vinegar Hill, The Dept. of Signs and Symbols will be activated in March 2015, with its inaugural exhibition presenting the work of Brooklyn-based artist Daniel Horowitz.