Alex Da Corte: Ear Worm (A captivating mix of exhibitions that merge interdisciplinary art, storytelling, and social commentary)

Bring your curiosity – this season promises a captivating mix of exhibitions that merge interdisciplinary art, storytelling, and social commentary. Awaiting visitors on MOCA’s second floor is a dreamlike environment envisioned by Venezuelan American artist Alex Da Corte. Vivid and surreal, Da Corte’s art is culled from popular culture, sexuality, violence, cinema, children’s literature, and art and design history, lending his work a certain familiarity. Within his wild imagination, however, popular symbols are stretched, shrunken, and softened, opening new ways of interpreting them and their cultural significance.

Awaiting visitors on Floor 2 is a dreamlike environment envisioned by Venezuelan American artist Alex Da Corte. Vivid and surreal, Da Corte’s work draws from areas of popular culture, sexuality, violence, cinema, children’s literature, and art and design history. His work feels familiar, yet popular symbols are stretched, shrunken, and softened, inviting us to see things we recognize in new ways and re-evaluate their cultural significance.

Moving image works are often at the centre of Da Corte’s installations. Playing both director and leading actor in his sleekly executed films, the artist morphs into his subjects, fashioning himself into characters like Mister Rogers, Sleeping Beauty, Marcel Duchamp, and the Wicked Witch of the West. By becoming the characters who taught us right from wrong or good from evil, Da Corte challenges us to rethink the stories and protagonists we love or despise.

For MOCA, Da Corte has reimagined his 2018 film Rubber Pencil Devil across several large-scale multicolor rear-projection cubes. This immersive work appears alongside the Mouse Museum (Van Gogh Ear), a newly realized work and intimate experience that invites viewers into Da Corte’s wildly creative mind. The interior of the structure is dark, with an illuminated vitrine spanning the walls like a film strip. It’s “life as a moving image,” Da Corte notes.

Schedule:
Every Wednesday, 11:00 pm – 6:00 am
Every Thursday, 11:00 pm – 6:00 am
Every Friday, 11:00 pm – 6:00 am
Every Saturday, 11:00 pm – 6:00 am
Every Sunday, 11:00 pm – 6:00 am