VARIOUS ARTISTS
Assume Vivid Astro Focus
Merging drawing, sculpture, video, and performance, Assume Vivid Astro Focus enmesh gender, politics, and cultural codes into fantastical installations. For their presentation on The Bass’ Instagram gallery @TheBassSquared, three works by the Brazilian and French duo survey their digital and video practice. Colorful and psychedelic, yet meditative, the collage-like work, antes vulgar agora fino (2012) abstracts and animates imagery from another series of drawings titled “Cyclops Trans Cheesecakes”. LSE ABBA/FASSBINDER (in collaboration with Los Super Elegantes) (2004) and Relevee (2006) highlight Assume Vivid Astro Focus’ numerous collaborations with musicians, who integrate their installations into music videos and more experimental video works.
antes vulgar agora fino, 2012
Video, 00:15:00 mins
The abstract imagery in this video is a reminiscence of the process of making our “Cyclops Trans Cheesecakes” drawings, a series depicting surreal, ultra fierce transgender goddesses/super heroines. The elements are in fact zoomed in details of paint-marker blots that preceded the making of these drawings. This piece was initially conceived as a wallpaper piece and then turned into an animated video. The wallpaper version of this piece accompanied the first presentations of the “Cyclops Trans Cheesecakes” series. We made an animated version of this wallpaper with Honeygun Labs for a one night only event at MAM São Paulo where we did a 3D mapping projection of it onto Oscar Niemeyer’s OCA building in Parque do Ibirapuera.
LSE ABBA/FASSBINDER (in collaboration with Los Super Elegantes), 2004
Video, 00:06:24 mins
The video work is inspired by the theatricality of actors movements present in Rainer Fassbinder’s film “Chinese Roulette”. The artists came across some of ABBA’s music videos from the 70’s and realized that they featured similar theatricality. AVAF replicated many of the actors’ “choreography” in both “Chinese Roulette” and ABBA’s music videos in “LSE ABBA Fassbinder”. The video features L.A. based performance artists/musicians Los Super Elegantes (LSE) and it was shot at the artists’ 2004 Whitney Biennial installation.
Relevee (Neons Only Version), 2006
Video, 00:07:34 mins
A music video for Gavom Russom and Delia Gonzales’ song of the same name.
ABOUT THE BASS²
The Bass² (@TheBassSquared) is The Bass Museum of Art’s satellite virtual gallery hosted exclusively on Instagram, exhibiting art native to the digital realm. Launched in summer 2019, The Bass² was made possible by the John S. and James L. Knight Center Foundation. The Bass² is a free and publicly accessible virtual exhibition space, modeled after a traditional (physical) museum experience. The project presents art in direct and unmediated ways as an extension of the brick and-mortar museum, uniting artists who work in digital media with audiences from around the world who engage with digital platforms in their daily lives.
