Josh Kline: Social Media – The Brooklyn Rail

2 October 2024

New York-based artist Josh Kline’s work is often heralded as “prescient,” espousing a foreboding version of the near-future in which America is destroyed by fascism, climate change, or technological dependency—whatever takes hold first. In his 2023 mid-career survey Project for a New American Century at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the first victims of his predicted apocalyptic hellscape were working- and middle-class people whose careers will be rendered obsolete by the rise of artificial intelligence and continued predatory outsourcing. Kline’s economic predictions are all but assured, but I left the survey wondering if this future weren’t already a reality for the creative industry, especially as arts workers—including myself and my former coworkers at the Whitney—were subject to layoffs in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic just three years earlier. With Social Media at Lisson Gallery, Josh Kline answers this question, turning his exacting, unsparing critique of American capitalism on himself and the art world with a sense of dark humor and introspection.

For Social Media, Lisson’s gallery space is split into four sections by clinically white, cheap-looking drywall dividers, giving the illusion of four office cubicles. In the first cubicle is a trio of mounted sculptures: “Wellness,” Whatever It Takes 2024, and Artist Fare (all 2024). Cast in an eerily flesh-toned silicone, the sculptures each consist of nine disembodied hands holding various markers of everyday life such as a donut, a Listerine bottle, and other accoutrements. One of these works—Whatever It Takes 2024—is a cheeky allusion to finding success in the art world, symbolizing three potential paths in the industry through hands holding Magic 8 Balls, braced in casts, or those that are lifeless and empty. It is arguably the weakest of the four sculptural groupings, and notably, where Kline’s physical presence is least visible.

Read more of Madeleine Siedel's review for The Brooklyn Rail here.

Image: Josh Kline, Professional Default Swaps, 2024. 3D-printed sculptures in acrylic-based photopolymer resin; steel, low-iron tempered glass, plywood, custom tinted polyurethane paint, tinted acrylic enamel paint, UV protective coating, and museum wax, 37 1/2 x 50 x 30 inches. © Josh Kline. Courtesy the artist and Lisson Gallery.