Art Index: Alex Da Corte

Alex Da Corte is an American multimedia artist, known for his site-specific installations, photographs, videos, and sculptures. His works are full of references to popular culture such as music, movies, and pop art. His eccentric and colorful art fits perfectly in the current aesthetic and is interesting for young audiences.

© Alex Da Corte

Artist Biography

Alex Da Corte was born in Camden, New Jersey, in 1980, but spent his formative years growing up in Venezuela.

In 2001, he studied Film/Animation and Fine Arts at the School of Visual Arts in New York City and then went on to receive his BFA in Printmaking/Fine Arts, from The University of the Arts in Philadelphia in 2004. He graduated from Yale University with an MFA in 2010.

He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of the Arts, Philadelphia, and a Master of Fine Arts from the Yale University School of Art. In 2019 he was included in La Biennale di Venezia 2019, the international exhibition (May You Live in Interesting Times curated by Ralph Rugoff and appears in both main sections with 57 Varieties in the arsenale and The Decorated Shed in the giardini); as well as the 57th Carnegie International in Pittsburgh.

Being more detailed, he has shown internationally at Bodega, Gió Marconi, Josh Lilley Gallery, Maccarone, Herning Museum of Contemporary Art, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, and Institute of Contemporary Art. Da Corte has worked on a number of collaborative projects with other visual artists, writers, and musicians including Jayson Musson, Dev Hynes, Sam Mckinniss, and Annie Clark.

In February 2021, his works were selected for inclusion in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's roof garden collection.

Since 2013, Alex Da Corte has mounted shows from New York commercial galleries like Luxembourg & Dayan to international museums like The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark. In 2014, Da Corte had a solo exhibition at the White Cube Gallery in London titled ‘White Rain’.

In 2015, Da Corte's solo show Die Hexe at Luxembourg & Dayan Gallery (NYC) was reviewed by art critic Roberta Smith of The New York Times. In a piece on the exhibition she wrote of Da Corte's previous work, "last year's show dazzled at every turn, weaving confounding narratives about innocence and decadence, mass production and eccentricity..."

In 2016, Da Corte's opus was the subject of an exhibition entitled Free Roses at Mass MOCA in North Adams, Massachusetts which is the largest of his career so far.

In the arena of hip hop, Da Corte directed the 2013 video for the track ‘Hush BB’ by the rapper Le1f. He also contributed the cover art for the second studio album by the hip hop group Spank Rock 2013's ‘Everything Is Boring and Everyone Is a Fucking Liar’.

In 2017, Da Corte directed the music video for the musician St. Vincent's song ‘New York’. In 2018, the duo reunited for a second pairing, whereby the artist/director employed the artist/musician in another video this time as part his exhibition ‘C-A-T Spells Murder’ at the Karma gallery in New York City (February 18 – March 18, 2018); where in an 11-minute video Da Corte shows St. Vincent holding a one-eyed feline while the performer makes a series of facial expressions ending in terror while this film looped was played within an instillation which also featured an eleven foot high sculpture of a cat.

In the recent past Da Corte has taken to taking on the persona of the rapper Eminem which was the crux of his solo exhibition ‘Bad Land’ at the Josh Lilley gallery in London which ran from November 2017 until February 2018.

Throughout Da Corte's career, he has collaborated with other artists, including Borna Sammak, Sean Fitzgerald, Jayson Musson and Dev Hynes. Da Corte's collaborative installation, Easternsports (2014), is two and a half hours of atmospheric video on four channels, and a disjointed essay-poem of tens of thousands of words running through the subtitles. The work was created with Jayson Musson and scored by Dev Hynes. After the completion of Easternsports Da Corte and Hynes worked together to create a video for GAP's ‘Play Your Stripes’ campaign. Alex Da Corte's most recent collaboration opened on September 3, 2016 at the Herning Museum of Contemporary Art in Herning, Denmark. The exhibition, titled 50 Wigs, showcases original sculptures by Da Corte alongside a collection of objects from Andy Warhol's personal estate. Working closely with the Andy Warhol Museum to bring the show to life, Da Corte "transforms Warhol's personal belongings to art objects".

Auction Results

According to Artprice.net, (even if the website reports the data from 2000, and Da Corte started his professional career in 2013), during 2020, Da Corte sold 5 lots with a turnover of $154,000 with a quite high percentage of lots sold (16%) mostly in the US.

But in his career, here are the results:

From 2000 to 2021 the turnover has been $587,000 (US 54%, and UK 44%), mostly in paintings.

Very active in the international art scene, De Corte has no artworks up in public auctions prevues.

Chronological Progression

Source:

http://alexdacorte.com/about

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Da_Corte

https://www.artprice.com/artist/444640/alex-da-corte/index