Bright colors, music, and vintage design are all good ways to catch our eye, so we were hooked on Jerry Meyer’s new work from the moment we laid eyes on his The Hit Parade over at Designboom. But Meyer’s Technicolor jukebox is more than meets the eye. One of many Photoshop-enhanced lightboxes on view in his Civilization and Its Discontents show, it mixes real songs (“Killing Me Softly”) with pathos-filled parodies like “My Tear Ducts are Blocked” by The Macular Degenerations, casting a shadow of aging and mortality over a cheerful-looking object of nostalgia.
As the show’s title suggests, Meyer’s work explores Freudian obsessions, anxieties, and neuroses through a pop-culture lens: Very Trivial Pursuits (3AM Edition) is a mashed up game board cataloging thoughts that might keep you up at night (“What happens if I can’t remember that I can’t remember that I can’t remember?”), while the show’s title piece is a New York subway map where Manhattan is “Lust,” The Bronx is “Crazed,” and Queens is “Indulgence.” See these pieces and more images from the show after the jump. Civilization and Its Discontents runs through May 28th at New York’s Denise Bibro Fine Art.
Jerry Meyer, The Hit Parade, 2011, mixed media, 30” x 26 1/4” x 7 1/4”. All images via Denise Bibro Fine Art.
Jerry Meyer, Smash-Ola, 2011, mixed media, 30” x 26 1/4” x 7 1/4” (detail)
Jerry Meyer, Very Trivial Pursuits (3AM Edition), 2009, mixed media, 30 1/2” x 25 3/4” x 6”
Jerry Meyer, Civilization and Its Discontents, 2010, mixed media, 33 1/2” x 31 1/2” x 7”
Jerry Meyer, Civilization and Its Discontents, 2010, mixed media, 33 1/2” x 31 1/2” x 7” (detail)
Jerry Meyer, Astrology for the Very Worried, 2009, mixed media, 27 1/2” x 23” x 7”
Jerry Meyer, A Vital Interest (The Freud-Claster Correspondence), 2010, mixed media, 30 1/2” x 35 1/4” x 8 1/2”
Jerry Meyer, My Great-Grandfather’s Attempts to Turn Sexual Energy Into Electricity to Power Small Machinery Based on the Principles of Sigmund Freud and Nikola Tesla (exterior), 2011, mixed media, 10′ x 8′ x 7 1/2′
Jerry Meyer, My Great-Grandfather’s Attempts to Turn Sexual Energy Into Electricity to Power Small Machinery Based on the Principles of Sigmund Freud and Nikola Tesla (interior), 2011, mixed media, 10′ x 8′ x 7 1/2′
Jerry Meyer, Ida, 2011, mixed media, 13” x 17 3/4” x 7 3/4”
Jerry Meyer, Lady Day, 2011, mixed media, 12” x 17 1/2” x 8 1/4”