About —
In recent years, the democratization of the Internet and the prevalence of social networks have produced unlimited access to knowledge and promoted the flow of all kinds of data. As a creative tool, the Internet has become a source of artistic inspiration that is unlimited and self-sufficient, allowing many artists to develop new practices. Oliver Laric’s artistic research asks questions pertaining the future of copyrights and intellectual property rights in a context dominated by the principles of sharing and appropriation.
In this context, how can one conceive of originality? When the rarity of an object is called into question, how can its value be evaluated? When information circulates freely, who owns it? Laric plays with these questions by exploring a gray area where he can exploit the flaws of legality. Indeed, his works appropriates, alters, and reproduces images that are associated with pop culture as well as art history, which he draws from the Internet and copies using digital techniques. By exploring piracy and reinterpretation, the artist makes the concepts of authenticity and value obsolete.
His sculptures, reproductions of classical Greek and Roman statues made of modern materials such as polyurethane, are made using 3D printers. He can thus copy a work of art that was originally unique, but at the same time archive the information necessary for its reproduction, enabling him to repeat the same process indefinitely. He is also interested in the economics of counterfeiting, which he explores by composing images from holograms that are produced in China and that are usually used to authenticate official documents and objects. Finally, his video work presents a universe where hybridity is the rule: excerpts of cartoons and images of toys found on YouTube undergo strange mutations, crossing the animal, vegetable, human, and technological kingdoms without regard to evolutionary theory. This body of work, exhibited in Quebec for the first time, testifies to the diversity of mediums that Laric uses to fuel his research.
