Cory Arcangel (b. 1977, New York) is often described as a “digital media” artist, although he is more fully understood as an artist concerned with the forms and processes of digital and media culture. Having first gained widespread recognition for his reworking of obsolete video game systems, his practice has grown to encompass imagery and sound drawn from across popular culture, ranging from Guns and Roses' iconic Sweet Child of Mine music video to Glenn Gould’s landmark recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations. Arcangel, who studied classical performance and electronic music composition (under tape-music pioneer Pauline Oliveros) at the Oberlin Conservatory, approaches these familiar sources—and the technology by which they are delivered—with the unusual but effective combination of compositional rigor and pitch-perfect deadpan humor. Arcangel’s work has appeared in numerous important group exhibitions and has attracted international attention in recent years. This will be Arcangel’s first solo exhibition in a North American museum. His installation at UMMA is a newly commissioned work.
This project is made possible in part by the University of Michigan Office of the President and UMMA’s New Visions Venture Fund including the Susan and Richard Gutow Fund.
