The US artist Josh Kline’s provocative works take on some of the biggest issues of our time and how they affect us all, from climate change and mass unemployment to surveillance and the breakdown of democracy. Last year he opened a survey titled Project for a New American Century at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and his solo show Climate Change is now on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (until 5 January 2025).
But his most recent exhibition in New York—the first with his new gallery Lisson, which he joined in May—was titled Social Media (5 September-19 October). Among his usual dystopian and catastrophic subjects, social media may seem like an odd target. But Kline says he sees online platforms as part of the downfall of humanity. “Social media has erased the boundaries between personal and professional life, destroying privacy. It isolates us, spreads feelings of inadequacy, and has unleashed an epidemic of depression,” he tells The Art Newspaper.
In his exhibition, Kline focused on the ways that social media is changing the art world and the role of the artist in particular. The works are made up of 3D printed sculptures of dismembered body parts and pieces of tech, like mobiles phones and computer keyboards. The show is installed within white walls reminiscent of an art fair stand. “The show is explicitly about the commodification of artists,” Kline says. “It’s called Social Media, but the exhibition is really about the art world turning into the art industry. Social media creates conditions where artists—and everyone else—are constantly promoting and selling themselves. It’s a form of self-trafficking.”
Dumbing down
Kline believes that online platforms have even negatively affected the quality of art made today. “It’s contributed to a glut of very cynical, speculative, market-driven painting and cheapened the photographic image,” he says. “Social media has accelerated the simplification of art, prioritising the consumption of art through images, divorced from all context and meaning. It also furthers the celebrification of artists, foregrounding the image and personality of artists over the art they make, turning artists into circus performers.”
The final sculpture in the exhibition was a selfie—but not the kind you’re familiar with. For Mid-Career Artist (2024), Kline has 3D printed himself in the foetal position and tied the piece up in a clear plastic bag placed on the floor. “It felt important to implicate myself in the work. That said, this will be the first and only show of self-portraits that I make,” Kline says.
Despite his disdain for social media, Kline has an Instagram account, although he rarely posts. “Whenever I open the app, it only takes a minute before Instagram makes me feel awful and then I turn it off,” he says. So why does he keep his account? “So many people working in the art industry look at work first on Instagram. Opportunities come via Instagram, so it’s become difficult to avoid if you want to have a career now,” he says. “I do feel like I have to use it.”
