STAY AT HOME #03
JILLIAN MAYER
You’ll Be Okay, 2018
Press Release
PRESS RELEASE
Annka Kultys is pleased to present Jillian Mayer’s video You’ll Be Okay (2014) as the third instalment of the gallery’s online exhibition Stay at home, a presentation of new digital works produced by artists in response to the coronavirus pandemic. On every Sunday of the lockdown during Stay at home, a new artist will be showcased on AKG’s recently launched online platform [The art happens here]. Mayer’s work is on show for the third week of Stay at home, following on from Adad Hannah’s Social Distancing Video Portraits last week and James Irwin’s Surface Collider (23032020) two weeks ago.
AKG is also announcing all gallery benefits (i.e., profits after the artist has been compensated in the usual manner) from featured digital works sold via [The art happens here] will be donated to the National Emergencies Trust. The purchasers’ generosity will help to financially support the featured artists during this unprecedented period when non-essential shops are closed, including art museums and commercial galleries, leading to postponed exhibitions for artists, and ensuring at least part of artists’ incomes can be maintained.
You’ll Be Okay is a 4 minute looping animation of the title’s reassuring text written against a background of white clouds in a blue sky, composed to appear as if a skywriting plane had created the text. The aesthetic is one of man-made tech mimicking nature. Set to time-lapsed clouds, the words of the message fade away over several minutes before slowly being re-written in a continuous pre-programmed loop of reassurance.
Although it is not a recent video made during the coronavirus lockdown, the gallery decided to include You’ll Be Okay in Stay at home, to echo and publicise the City of West Hollywood, Los Angeles’s decision to play You’ll Be Okay on a giant screen over the city as a positive message for Los Angelenos during the lock down. Annka Kultys wishes to continue spreading the “You’ll be Okay” message of hope and optimism to our international audiences during this continuing period of uncertainty and just as it has been announced that the lockdown in the UK will be extended for another three weeks. You’ll Be Okay was also featured, along with four more of the artist’s videos, in Jillian Mayer’s solo presentation Impressions at Annka Kultys Gallery in October 2018.
BIOGRAPHY
Through videos, sculptures, online experiences, photography, performances and installations, Jillian Mayer explores howtechnology affects our lives, bodies and identities by processing how our physical world is impacted and reshaped by our participation in a digital landscape. Mayer investigates the points of tension between our online and physical worlds and makes work that attempts to inhabit the increasingly porous boundary between the two. Her artwork models how to subvert capital-driven modes of technological innovation.
Mayer’s solo exhibitions include: Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, Nebraska (2019); Kunst Aarhus, Aarhus, Denmark (2019); University of Buffalo Art Museum, Buffalo NY (2018); Tufts University, Boston, MA (2018); Postmasters Gallery, New York, NY (2018); Pérez Art Museum, Miami, FL (2016); LAXART, Los Angeles, CA (2016); Utah Museum of Fine Art, Salt Lake City, UT (2014); and David Castillo Gallery, Miami, FL (2011 & 2016). She has exhibited and performed at MoMA PS1 (2017); MoMA (2013); the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, FL (2013); the Bass Museum of Art, North Miami, FL (2012); the Guggenheim Museum (2010); and the Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal, Québec as a part of the Montréal Biennial (2014). Her work has been featured in Artforum, Art Papers, Art in America, ArtNews, The Huffington Post and The New York Times. Mayer is a recipient of the Creative Capital Fellowship, South Florida Cultural Consortium Visual/Media Artists Fellowship, Cintas Foundation Fellowship for Cuban Artists and was named one of the “25 New Faces of Independent Film” by Filmmaker Magazine.
She has lectured at leading cultural and academic institutions including: The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, CalArts, the Sundance Institute, ICA Miami, Carnegie Mellon University, Otis College of Art & Design, Tufts University, Salt Lake Museum of Art, University of Nebraska, University of Texas Arlington, McCord Museum, the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, SXSW (South by South-West), Portland State University, Museum of Fine Arts St. Pete, Pitzer University and MoCA North Miami.
Mayer’s video works have screened at international festivals including: Sundance, SXSW, Rottenberg Film Fest and the New York Film Festival. She is a fellow of the Sundance Institute’s New Frontiers Lab and New Narratives on Climate Change Lab.
