Mike Bouchet, Flood.
Installation View, 2013
Courtesy of Marlborough Chelsea.

Mike Bouchet, Olsen Twins Jacuzzi, 2010. fiberglass resin, cardboard, enamel paint, associated materials: beige carpet. 128 x 53 x 45 1/4 inches. Courtesy of Marlborough Chelsea.

Currently on view at Marlborough Chelsea, New York is Mike Bouchet’s solo exhibition “Flood”. Presented on two floors of newly renovated galleries, the show brings together new colachrome paintings, Jacuzzi sculptures and a four-channel, high definition video. The driving forces behind this show are manifold, but coalesce into an incisive critique of popular culture that nevertheless celebrates the strange effectiveness of its machinations. An important blueprint for the exhibition is Bouchet’s observation that Surrealism was rendered obsolete by the explosion of advertising in the middle of the last century—effectively outshining the artists with a more sophisticated and depraved dream-machine.

The paintings (made by spraying, soaking and staining huge swaths of sheer cotton with the artist’s proprietary diet cola formula) make direct use of the caramel-colored gold that is one of America’s greatest symbols of youth and freedom as well as its premier health risk—an exported analogue to crude oil.

“Flood” is on view through November 9th, 2013.

For more information on “Flood” visit Marlborough Chelsea, New York.