Pharmacie, a moving image piece from Nick Fudge's Picasso Pizazz collection, represents the convergence of modernist aesthetics and machine futurism from a meta-modern, technologically advanced perspective. Set in the French town of Honfleur, the birthplace of the eccentric composer Erik Satie (who is represented in the collection), Pharmacie brings together three avant-garde modernists. The work depicts a Citroën Picasso, a symbol of modern mechanization, reflected and refracted through an animated sequence that alludes to painted abstraction (a genre Picasso avoided) and the algorithmic recursions that drive machine-generated images. Duchamp's presence in this evolving mise-en-scène is represented by reductive iterations of the Pharmacie, with its flashing green sign as the work's finale; the work references Duchamp's (assisted) readymade Pharmacie with its conceptual play on commercial and mundane objects transformed into art. The work alludes to mimetic representations of nature in art and to machine learning algorithms represented in the design of the Citroën as shifting mirror reflections and abstract refractions.
In Picasso Pizazz collection, the contexts of modernism and postmodernism are introduced through the genre of portraiture, weaving them into our current metamodern discourse on the art of the past in relation to a seemingly technologically determined future. This approach serves to recontextualize the impact of machines on modernist art and values. The collection focuses on two of the most influential artists of the twentieth century, Picasso and Duchamp, who had markedly different responses to the machine. The collection not only revisits the motifs and stylistic innovations of its subjects but also integrates modern digital techniques to reimagine their legacies in the context of today's technological advancements. Dive deeper into Picasso Pizazz and Nick Fudge's artistic practice with our exclusive interview.
Accreditation:
It is with great appreciation and admiration that I thank Léna Lewis-King for her invaluable expertise and exceptional skill as a technical animator who worked tirelessly with me to bring this moving image work to fruition. - Nick Fudge
