Down to his almost invisibly generic name, Robert Wilson is about as far from the celeb-artist persona embodied by Damian Hirst as is humanly possible. And yet his solo show at Ace Gallery (which opened Friday Night), trounced Gagosian’s Hirst show at every turn.
Wilson, the American, used celebrities as beautiful accoutrements to his overwhelming digital artworks. Hirst used his own crude celebrity to push product out the inventory door.
Wilson’s high-tech digital portraits, utilizing Voom HD monitors, presented living subjects. Hirst’s low-tech glue jobs presented death at the master’s studio assistants’ hands.
Wilson’s lit monitors were exhibited in a darkened gallery that was then made to glow with life in an ethereal space that functioned as an experiential sculpture all on its own. Hirst’s spectacle required garish lighting to illuminate the butterfly wings in order to mimic stained glass, a cheap effect made all the more hilarious by watching a cranky Larry Gagosian regularly beelining to his gallery’s home depot light switches as the gaggle of gawkers at his gallery continually bumped into them and threw flourescent assaults on the already overwhelming incandescent display.