NOVACENE No.1 Triptych 2021 [MARK EVEN x STEVE OKLYN]

The intersection of persona, product, propaganda, and profit. In 2021 is the brand Supreme any different than the brand GAGOSIAN? No. They are both strategic entities focused on valuations, cultural and capital. Each bestow status on their investors. What I am fascinated by is that they both trade in Dead Data. I find no intellectual difference between a Supreme x John Woo collaboration as GAGOSIAN exhibiting Harmony Korine’s paintings. In each case the two of them are basing the products social influence and exchange value on established [Dead] [Data] information. Both are DOA. Each of the artists and brands chosen for the first exhibition STUPID and the second DROPS are attempting an impossible narrative, to raise dead informational bits. What I find Intellectually horrifying is the scale of the audience and the financial market for this morbid display. The culturally transgressive destroys established values. The works in STUPID and DROPS are intellectual crimes in that they present what has already lost all meaning and value and the propaganda creates an altogether false meta-value. The transgressive preserves creative innocence by exposing the inherent corruption of the status quo.

MARK EVEN x STEVE OKLYN
2021