Jason Gringler is a Berlin based conceptual artist working within the medium of sculpture and painting. His work is an unorthodox reflection on the brutal, consuming nature of the cities we dwell. By using raw industrial materials Gringler mirrors an environment that consumes him and in turn, the viewer is consumed by the works that take shape.
M1RRORING has joined #CO
<CO>
Your work is influenced by industrial technique and form, often utilizing materials such as sheet metal, concrete and fire. What prompted your fascination with this subject matter?
<M1RRORING>
In 2007 I moved from Toronto to Brooklyn. Before my final Canadian departure, I took a brief 2 day trip to New York to secure a studio. I rode the bus for 10 hours arriving at Port Authority in Manhattan. That weekend, I managed to accomplish my goal. I rented a space within a small industrial complex. During those years the language of my work developed from the utilitarian nature of securing and protecting American industrial architecture. Fear and safety became defining aesthetic interests for me. Encrusted bricks with decaying advertisements and rotten adhesives, supplied my interest in mark making. Barred windows were positioned as points of light – interior accessibility just removed. I took this information and slowly eliminated more traditional materials replacing them with Acrylic glass, glue, silicone, steel and mirror etc..
Regarding the ‘fire’ portion of your question: My studio output produces excess material offcuts and remnants. The video works utilising fire, glass and florescent lights are a direct result of mining my production waste and finding a use for the unused.
<CO>
A recurring theme in your work appears to be the void of the black screen. Where did your exploration with screens begin?
<M1RRORING>
There is a distant intellectual commonality between a reductionist painter like, let’s say, Ad Reinhardt and the blank screen of a laptop or iPhone. Both surfaces are available as sources of contemplation, work, research, information and entertainment. Both objects provide a viewer or user the opportunity to confront the self with one’s own limitations, projections or (if you are like me) a penchant for self-annihilation. The materials I work with relate directly to industrial production, like the technology mentioned above, but also have a post-Reinhardt lineage with Minimalist sculpture. Given today’s massive reliance on digital communication, I cannot escape the parallel between my artistic practice and the tools I stare at daily in order to assist in the communication of my work to others.
<CO>
Some of your pieces have a slight gloss/reflection to them, a dulled reflection of the viewer can be seen when interacting with these works - a distorted version of reality. What does mirroring mean to you?
<M1RRORING>
Reflective media interests me within a painting context. Light, space, depth and surface. Reflections also reference the cinematic space of the screen. I am interested in stable objects that are continuously in flux based on my vantage point. I am interested in objects that change as a result of the architecture that houses them. I am, in a sense, relinquishing control over my completed work to waning daylight.
<CO>
What influence has the internet had on the concepts you explore within your practice?
<M1RRORING>
I think I will answer this question in a sober way:
I grew up in Toronto. At the time there was not much international contemporary art to look at outside of a few venues. I grew up on the internet, or, as I am a bit older than that, I grew up on the pre-internet. Until my departure for New York, my education was entirely facilitated by online research. Without the internet, I would not be an artist today.
<CO>
Can you talk a little about @work2day and how it came to be?
<M1RRORING>
@work2day is an extension of the early defining research I did for myself to learn about contemporary art. @work2day filled a niche that I felt was missing on social media 5 years ago. @work2day has predominantly been a pleasure project that has allowed me to meet some interesting people and has facilitated some great friendships. Sharing my contemporary art research is the only magnet keeping me attracted to a platform like Instagram.
<CO>
What are your thoughts on the internet/social media’s role in art today?
<M1RRORING>
I think the potential is phenomenal but I have mixed feelings on a social media-related art conversation. The main issue I see is that people tend to lean on social media only in terms of viewing and consuming art online. I see a domino effect where an insular wheel of information is regurgitated between different art accounts rather than a legitimate interest in research and discovery. For my blog, I tend to look outside of social media 99% of the time as I have a wealth of bookmarked websites to draw from. When possible, I take my own photos at exhibitions and post those instead.
Gringler’s work is an exploration of technology, industrialisation and accelerationism. A dissection of the materials that flood our senses each and every day – a cracked phone screen, the perspex glass of a bus stop, the sheet metal inside your television – each is a piece of the puzzle within Jason’s exploration of what it means to be a human devoured by the sheer intensity of modern life.
The city, the streets and the machines, and you.
