Alex Da Corte's 'Slow Graffiti' Exhibition: A Transformative Installation at Secession

This exhibition features the US artist Alex Da Corte's first major solo show in Europe, presenting 'Slow Graffiti,' a site-specific installation transforming the Secession's main exhibition space into a fragmented, dystopian urban landscape. The work explores themes of desire, sensuality, alienation, and the symbolic power of everyday objects.

The work of US artist Alex Da Corte, known for his videos, sculptures, paintings, and immersive installations, is characterized by its cinematic quality and its deep engagement with the complexity of human experience, particularly themes of desire, sensuality, and alienation. Da Corte is interested in the cultural and psychological properties of everyday objects, which he manipulates and repurposes to create a sense of illusion and deception. His practice involves exploring the formal potential of consumer culture artifacts, imbuing them with new symbolic power. For his first major solo exhibition in Europe at the Secession, Alex Da Corte created a new, site-specific work titled 'Slow Graffiti.' This expansive installation reconfigures the 600m² exhibition hall into a fractured urban landscape filled with dysfunctional objects. A skeletal city constructed from neon light casts the White Cube in a hazy twilight, evoking the traces of lived lives and the ghosts of human presence. Velvet-draped walls and a patchwork carpet with a stencil-like pattern add a tactile softness to the space. Scattered throughout are various objects and Frankenstein-like sculptures. In a quiet zone with seating, a video is shown every twenty minutes: a scene-by-scene remake of Jørgen Leth's 'The Perfect Human' (1967), with Da Corte himself reimagined as Boris Karloff and Frankenstein's monster, set to music by Devonté Hynes. 'Slow Graffiti' emanates softness, vulnerability, changeability, and ephemerality, as if imbued with the spirit of an invisible city that takes form here in the imagination. In the context of today's accelerated digital world, the work's meticulous execution and underlying sense of community can be seen as radical.

The Secession offers tickets for entry, which can be purchased via their ticketing partner Eventjet. Visitors are directed to the official ticketing link for purchasing admission. General opening hours are Tuesday-Sunday, 10 AM to 6 PM, and the museum is open today (as indicated at the top of the page). For specific exhibition entry, the provided ticketing link is the primary source of information, but direct pricing or entry policy details beyond directing to the ticket vendor are not present on this exhibition page itself, beyond the general museum operating hours and ticketing partner reference. No specific details on free admission or special ticket requirements for this exhibition are detailed here, beyond the general directive to purchase tickets via the provided link. The exhibition ran from July 6 to September 3, 2017, suggesting this is an archival page and current ticketing information is not applicable, though the page structure still directs to the general ticketing portal and museum hours as if active.