Julie Blackmon: Fantastical Everyday Life

Roxanne Vardi

Niio is proud to introduce a selection of artcasts by celebrated photographers in collaboration with Fahey/Klein Gallery, the leading contemporary photography gallery in Los Angeles. Curated by Nicholas Fahey, these selections dive into the work of the artists, presenting key series and iconic images, and are available to our members for a limited time only.

Julie Blackmon (b. 1966) is an American photographer who lives and works in Missouri. As an art student at Missouri State University, Blackmon became interested in photography, especially the work of Diane Arbus and Sally Mann. Blackmon’s oeuvre also shows influences from Masters of the Dutch Renaissance such as Jan Steen.

The artist focuses on the complexities and contradictions of modern life, exploring, among other subjects, the overwhelming, often conflicting expectations and obligations of contemporary parenthood. Blackmon has stated that her works deal with “modern parenting, and the contradictions and expectations and the overwhelmed feeling that go with parenting today as compared to the past” furthermore the artist has stated “with the little ones it’s more metaphorical than about parenting, and speaks of the anxieties of everyday modern life”.

Julie Blackmon, Pool, 2015.

“with the little ones it’s more metaphorical than about parenting, and speaks of the anxieties of everyday modern life”

Blackmon’s imaginary narratives walk a darkly humorous line between lighthearted Americana and the chaos and occasional darkness of our daily lives. In her first book, Domestic Vacations (2008), Blackmon described the inspiration she received when encountering the works of 17th century Dutch master Jan Steen; “the conflation of art and life I discovered in Steen’s work is an area I explored in photographing the everyday life of my family and the lives of my sisters and their families at home,” she wrote of this book.

The artist has also discussed her works as “everyday moments and my everyday life told in a fantastical way, exaggerating what I see around me to say the truth in a way the truth can’t expand upon us unless I exaggerate it”. In essence, Blackmon’s works portray everyday contemporary life in a seemingly surreal way.

Julie Blackmon, Bubble, 2020.

The artist has said about her work that she portrays “these little moments within the day where you’re trying to escape the reality of where you are right then”, Blackmon has stated that the buzz word today is to ‘live in the moment’, however what she found is that sometimes “the key to surviving a day is to take yourself out of that moment”. Blackmon’s works indeed transport the viewer into fantastical windows into the artist’s personal life. Many time the narratives take place within the artist’s own home or backyard.

Julie Blackmon, Records, 2021.

Blackmon’s array of works are charged with a sense of the uncanny as they constantly shift between reality and fantasy, the artist has also stated about her work: “my work is about fantastical everyday life instead of documentary, looking at stressful things in a lighthearted way. People try too hard sometimes to say the right thing, but really you don’t have to be a person into art or an intellectual, if the work watches over people and they feel moved by it with just a laugh”.

“My work is about fantastical everyday life instead of documentary, looking at stressful things in a lighthearted way”

Julie Blackmon, Chicken Littles, 2021.

Jonathan Monaghan on the decadence of the digital age

Roxanne Vardi and Pau Waelder

An award-winning artist whose work is characterized by otherworldly narratives, Jonathan Monaghan introduces in his animations, prints, and sculptures a critical view of our contemporary society that aims at consumerism and our growing dependence on digital technology. His work has been exhibited at the Sundance Film Festival and the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, and has also been acquired by numerous public and private art collections, including The Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and the Washington, D.C. Art Bank Collection.

In a recent artcast, Revelations, we showcased a selection of artworks that combine the mundane and the supernatural, drawing inspiration from diverse sources such as depictions of mythological creatures in Middle-Age tapestries or the iconography of the Book of Revelations by St. John of Patmos. Monaghan’s exploration of otherworldly narratives continues in his two recently commissioned artworks, Panther Incensed I and II, which we are now presenting in a dedicated artcast.

In this interview, the artist discusses the themes that inspire his work and his views on the digital age, which contrary to what his stunningly beautiful animations may seem to convey, is deeply critical of what our technology-mediated society has become.

Jonathan Monaghan, Panther Incensed I, 2021

In many of your artworks, including Panther Incensed I and Panther Incensed II, we find Baroque architectural structures that are warped into technological beings. What is it about the combination of these two different motifs that interests you?

I work with baroque ostentation, because the digital age is decadent, in my opinion. It is an age very much about excess, and one that is pervaded by extreme wealth inequality. Also, in all of my work, there is a tension and discordance between natural and synthetic forms, which allows me to explore our uneasy relationship to technology. You can think of my work as therapy for an uncertain future because, like a dream, the imagery in my work embodies these fears and anxieties we have.

You incorporate mythological creatures in your works which are based on art historical references, such as the Unicorn, which is inspired by French medieval tapestries. In contrast, this same creature is frequently used as a pop culture reference, oblivious of its symbolism. What is your opinion on this popularization and vulgarization of mythological references, would you say it is part of the decadence you perceive in our consumer culture?

Traditionally, mythological stories have been born out of a desire to understand humans’ relationship to the wilderness and are deeply connected to the human psyche. Fantastical and otherworldly visions of mythical creatures sometimes offer the best channel to understanding the complexities of human nature and the inhabited world. Stories and symbols that are thousands of years old have indeed been appropriated by entertainment and commercialism, and their meanings have been lost. So my work asks today, in the midst of ecological crises and an often dehumanizing technological dependence: What would contemporary mythology look like? I rebuild these ancient symbols and stories for the digital age.

The digital age is decadent in my opinion. It is an age very much about excess, and one that is pervaded by extreme wealth inequality.

In your works there is frequently a narrative that is laid out in a series of scenes with no dialogues but with significant actions and transformations. How do you conceive of these narratives? What do you want to make explicit, and what do you leave for the viewer to imagine?

The narratives in my work are very loose and subjective, meant to evoke fears and anxieties surrounding authority, commercialism and technology. Because I work closely with the techniques and aesthetics of mass-media, my computer animations are sleek and refined, however the narratives are disjointed and ambiguous. With imagery drawn from science fiction, corporate logos, ancient mythology and baroque architecture, the works are at times jarringly absurd. Installed as continuous loops, with no definite beginning or end, my works allude to a disconcerting reality behind the seductive surfaces of technology and consumerism.

Jonathan Monaghan, Panther Incensed II, 2021

In your art practice there is always this fine balance between a dream-like world and a feeling of dystopia. How would you describe this contrast?

Like many artists, I want my work to reflect the tensions of our contemporary culture. Consumerism and technology co-depend, and utopia and dystopia co-exist in the digital age. So I confront my audience with an illusionistic, yet dehumanized world in which past and present merge into a dreamscape filled with opulent architectural décor and banal mass-produced items of today. At once fanciful and bleak, it portrays our consumerist culture in which technology takes over ecology.

My work asks today, in the midst of ecological crises and an often dehumanizing technological dependence: What would contemporary mythology look like?

There is often a reference to surveillance equipment and cameras in your work. How would you describe your interest in these intrusive apparatuses?

The worlds I portray in my video installations are devoid of human presence, yet these are not your typical post-apocalyptic landscapes. If there are human-like figures, like in Panther Incensed II, they are robotic or like a cyborg. More importantly, in my worlds, products may be on display, security cameras are ominously moving, and everything is sterile and corporatized. I envision this world as an alternate future where technology, the surveillance state, and consumer goods take on a life force of their own, replacing human presence.

Niio X SOUTH SOUTH: showcasing video art from the Global South

This month we want to highlight our meaningful partnership with SOUTH SOUTH on its second edition of VEZA. SOUTH SOUTH is an online community, an anthology, an archive and a resource for artists, galleries, curators and collectors, institutions and non-profits invested in the Global South. 

VEZA 02 features a digital showcase of seminal video art from the Global South which coincided with the April 2022 edition of SP–Arte in Brazil. An exclusively designed installation powered by Niio was set up at the fair, presenting selected video art works.

Nicolás Paris, Desvío (2017). Installation view SP-Arte.

SOUTH SOUTH Veza takes its name from the isiZulu word which means “to show, produce, or reveal” and presents its audience with a new way to experience and engage with new media artworks.

VEZA 02 also boasted a robust curated art programme titled Bending the Axis. This year’s programme was curated by Meyken Barreto, Uche James Iroha, and the curatorial duo Carlos Quijon, Jr. & Kathleen Ditzig and was made possible with the generosity of Mr. Jorge M. Perez and the inaugural SOUTH SOUTH x El Espacio 23 Curatorial Residency. It included works by emerging and established artists and a Talks Programme engaging cultural practitioners from across the globe which took place from 31 March – 10 April 2022.

Veza 02 focuses on digital and video art, and the remarkable possibilities of new media, as well as its core activity of facilitating new connections within the cultural ecosystems across the Global South and beyond.

Galleries from 25 cities spread across five continents came together to present a selling exhibition of important video artworks at SP–Arte (Sāo Paulo) and simultaneously online. This marked SOUTH SOUTH ’s transition into a hybrid model through collaboration with regional fairs.

Niio supported and powered both the physical exhibition and the online presentation through our state of the art technology platform which enables new media to be preserved, certified and seamlessly acquired through Niio and the Blockchain, with an accompanying NFT.

SOUTH SOUTH offers a repository and a space for new, shared value systems centered on community, collaboration and exchange. It is a central portal to experience the programs and artist profiles of galleries within and dedicated to the Global South.

The SOUTH SOUTH platform was conceived by Liza Essers, owner of Goodman Gallery as a response to the global pandemic and as an extension to an ongoing curatorial initiative established by Goodman Gallery in 2015.

Niio facilitates and enables the acquisition of new media and video art works and ownership through our highly advanced platform offering storage and preservation of digital works, securing NFT & blockchain technology for provenance and attribution, and providing the best in class display technology for showcasing screen based works, in-turn enabling art spaces and arts practitioners to shape their own narratives within the cluttered and developing conversations about the relationship between art, new technology and web3.

With the help of Niio, SOUTH SOUTH also launched the VEZA NEW MEDIA FUND which allows museums focused on the Global South and diaspora to acquire new media works from galleries taking part in VEZA for their collections.

This year’s beneficiary was El Museo del Barrio, New York’s leading Latino cultural institution. Niio together with SOUTH SOUTH has launched a $40,000 fund through which El Museo Del Barrio has acquired two new digital artworks: one that addresses the erosion of civil liberties by the high-profile Cuban-American artist Coco Fusco — The Empty Plaza/ La Plaza Vacia, 2012, represented by Alexander Gray Associates. Centrally located public squares are a key component of social and political life throughout Latin America, Caribbean cities, and the rest of the world. In The Empty Plaza/ La Plaza Vacia, artist Coco Fusco, inspired by the Arab Spring protests of 2011 explores discussions among Cubans about the reason that plazas were left vacant. In this work the Plaza de la Revolución in Havana becomes the protagonist in the artist’s mediation on public space, memory and revolutionary promise.

The second artwork acquired by El Museo Del Barrio through the Veza New Media Fund is Siboney, 2014 by the 32-year-old Dominican-American artist Joiri Minaya represented by Embajada gallery. The work Siboney is at once a mural painting and a performance in which the artist hand-painted the design of a found fabric onto a museum wall. The video work is accompanied by the song Siboney by Connie Francis composed by Ernesto Lecuona in 1929 allegedly while homesick, away from Cuba. Once the artist finished painting the mural she pours water on herself and scrubs the mural with her body while dancing to Siboney in doing so questioning the exoticism in the representation of black and brown women in the Caribbean, and to challenge these constructions and the control of the Other historically in order to reclaim the voice of these women.

Both video artworks were sold together with their accompanying NFT through Niio Art, and have been transferred to the museum via the Niio pro tool platform. We invite you to discover the VEZA exhibition and available artworks through Niio’s digital online catalog. We hereby want to give a special thanks to all participating featured artists and galleries:

Patfudyda / Abre Alas 17 A Gentil Carioca, São Paulo / Rio de Janeiro

Coco Fusco Alexander Gray Associates, New York City / Germantown

Luis Enrique López-Chávez Bode Projects, Berlin

Gigi Scaria Chemould Prescott Road, Mumbai

Jackie Karuti Circle Art Gallery, Nairobi

Joiri Minaya Embajada, San Juan

Bárbara Wagner & Benjamin de Burca Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel, São Paulo / Rio de Janeiro

Eder Santos Galeria Luciana Brito, São Paulo

Nicolás Paris Galeria Luisa Strina, São Paulo

Nalini Malani Galerie Lelong & Co., New York City / Paris

Kiluanji Kia Henda Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg / Cape Town / London

Peter Nelson Hanart TZ Gallery, Hong Kong 

Zheng Chongbin INKstudio, Beijing

Hardeep Pandhal Jhaveri Contemporary, Mumbai

Wura-Natasha Ogunji kó, Lagos

Minerva Cuevas kurimanzutto, Mexico City / New York City

Yazan Khalili Lawrie Shabibi, Dubai

Letícia Ramos Mendes Wood DM, São Paulo / Brussels / New York City

Tsubasa Kato MUJIN-TO Production, Tokyo

Amina Benbouchta OH Gallery, Dakar

Jorge Méndez Blake OMR, Mexico City

Miguel Angel Rios Sicardi Ayers Bacino, Houston

Ayrson Heráclito Southern Stars Projects, London

Charles Lim Yi Yong STPI – Creative Workshop & Gallery, Singapore  

Ryoko Aoki Take Ninagawa, Tokyo

Sara Ramo Travesia Cuatro, Madrid / Guadalajara / Mexico City

Atul Bhalla Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi

NIIO Joining NEW INC.

We couldn’t be more thrilled to be a part of the newest “class” of NEW INC. the first museum-led incubator dedicated to supporting innovation, collaboration, and entrepreneurship across art, design and technology.

We were selected to participate in this prestigious program (’16/’17) and have joined an incredible co-hort of talented creators and entrepreneurs from around the world.  We’re working out of a inspiring, light-filled space on the Bowery (NYC) which is located just next door to the New Museum.

Read more about the program and its participants.