Objects like these, presented in the context of the Kunst Halle, confuse notions of what an artistic medium is or can be. Arcangel says that he believes the medium of an artwork encompasses everything from ‘what the information [gained] from a work does’ to ‘how a work is talked about, who is talking about it, where it is sold, and which communities are interested in it.’
Through a new installation in the show, Arcangel addresses the specific medium of immersive exhibitions. Femmes d’Alger dans leur appartement (Version A) (2024) offers his take on the worldwide trend for wildly commercially successful immersive lightshows, where paintings by historic masters such as Picasso, Van Gogh, and Monet are digitalized and projected in warehouse-like spaces at massive scales. When the works are animated, their inherent value as paintings disappears, and a new kind of spectacular value is added by the virality of photographs taken in and posted from these colorful, all-consuming rooms. To construct his environment, Arcangel uses inexpensive materials, mirrors, and digitally distorted images, calling it a ‘cheap, fly-by-night version’ of an immersive Picasso experience. But the piece is, like a hacked Nintendo cartridge, a reimagined, broken version of a medium that might soon be outmoded.