Chris Coy’s work inhabits an uncanny valley of gestures created through the encoding of libidinal desire through digital interventions. Rooted in the expression of cultural and psychological repression, Coy embeds this terrain within varied multimedia installations, paintings, photographic assemblages and video works. In situating his work in the rituals of social identification, beauty, sexuality and superfluidity, Coy addresses how the visual paints a vector towards both unknowable and transcendent potentialities.
EXHIBITIONS
A Little Death, September 10 – October 22, 2016.
Born Provo, UT, 1980. Lives and works in Las Vegas, NV and Los Angeles, CA.
EDUCATION
MFA, USC Roski School of Fine Arts, Los Angeles, CA
2012
BA Graphic Design, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT
2007
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
A Little Death, Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles, CA
2016
Real Sex, CUAC Contemporary Art, Salt Lake City, UT
2015
We Eat w/ Our Eyes (Thesis Exhibition), USC MFA Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2012
New Jpegs, Johan Berggren, Malmö, SE
2011
THEEND/THEBEGINNING, ignivomous.org (curated by LoVid)
2007
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
PDA Lovers, Parisian Laundry, Montreal, Canada
Art Los Angeles Contemporary, with Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles, CA
Untitled San Francisco, with Anat Ebgi, San Francisco, CA
2017
EXPO Chicago, with Anat Ebgi, Chicago, IL
Deep Inside, 5th Moscow Biennale for Young Art, Moscow, RU
2016
NADA New York, with Anat Ebgi, New York, NY
2015
The Museum of Love and Devotion, organized by Jason Metcalf, Fairview Museum of History and Art, Fairview, UT
Under-Parallel-Alter-Multi-Outer-Inner-Other-WORLDS, Michael Thibault, Los Angeles, CA
Liquid Crystal Palace: Recent Works with Jeremy Blake, Honor Fraser, Los Angeles, CA
2014
Driving Fast Nowhere, Polansky Gallery, Prague, CZ
Print Show, Central Utah Art Center, Salt Lake City, UT
Brand Innovations for Ubiquitous Authorship, Carroll Fletcher, London, UK
TIN — Transitions and Trajectories 10+ Years Beyond Art School, Rio Gallery, Salt Lake City, UT
Gordian Conviviality, Import Projects, Berlin, DE
Analogital, Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, Salt Lake City, UT
2013
In Post, Stadium Gallery, New York, NY
Big Reality, 319 Scholes, Brooklyn, NY
RE:CUT, Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, CA
New Work I.R.L. (in this room), STATION Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2012
Circulate, Exchange: Nugget & Gravy, New Wight Gallery (UCLA), Los Angeles, CA
Instant LA Summer (Heavy Happy), Carmichael Gallery, Culver City, CA
Seven Minutes in Heaven, Control Room, Los Angeles, CA
An Important Project, Important Projects, Oakland, CA
2011
Doomslangers, Allegra LaViola Gallery, New York, NY
Speed Show: Traces, Bucharest, Romania, RU
Go West, Salt Lake Art Center, Salt Lake City, UT
Superman II point 0, XSPACE/XWEB, Toronto, ON
SoundFjord Sonic Art Jukebox, Soundfjord, London, UK
Full/Operational/Toolbox, Athens, GR Breakfast, hosted by ISCP, Brooklyn, NY
Low Lives 2, El Museo del Barrio, Fusebox Festival, Galería de La Raza, Diaspora Vibe Gallery, The Temporary Space, Terminal, Obsidian Arts & Studio, 304, New York, Austin, San Francisco, Miami, Houston, Brooklyn, USA
Hallway Projects residency with Brion Nuda Rosch, San Francisco, CA
Avatar 4D, curated by jstchilling.org, Noma and Reference galleries, San Francisco, CA and Richmond, VA
2nd Annual Terminal Short Video Festival, Austin Peay State University, Clarksville, TN
An Immaterial Survey of Our Peers, Sullivan Galleries, Chicago, IL
2010
Awesome and Painful, Free Form Film Festival, San Francisco, CA
Once Upon a Time in the West, Pixxelpoint New Media Art Festival, Nova Goriza, Slovenia-Goriza, IT
Versions, Nederlands Instituut voor Mediakunst, Amsterdam, NL
Contemporary Semantics Beta, Arti et Amicitiae, Amsterdam, NL
The Wheel of The Devil (aka the loop lecture), curated by MTAA with Ed Halter, New York, NY
Nasty Nets presents: endless pot of gold CDR’s, Sundance Film Festival’s New Frontier, Park City, UT
2009
Montage: Unmonumental Online/Unmonumental: the Object in the 21st Century, curated by Lauren Cornell and Marisa Olson, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, NY
Young Curators, New Ideas, curated by Laurel Ptak, Bond Street Gallery, New York, NY
K.I.S.S., curated by Constant Dullaart, Club Internet, clubinternet.org
Is it possible to make a photograph of New Jersey regardless where you are in the world?, Pierro Gallery, NJ
The Great Internet Sleepover, Eyebeam, New York, NY
2008
CURATORIAL PROJECTS
BYOB LA, Gayle & Ed Roski MFA Gallery at USC, Los Angeles, CA
Stephen Groo Symposium, Sego Arts, City Library, Provo, UT
2010
Forms of Melancholy, Sego Art Center, Provo, UT
2009
SELECTED PRESS
Tessa Nicholson, “Opulent Gargoyles,” Solar Magazine, Spring 2017, p 280.
2017
“Chris Coy ‘A Little Death’ at Anat Egbi, Mousse Magazine, October 6, 2016.
“Chris Coy at Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles,” Blouin Artinfo, September 22, 2016.
Amy Slocum, “Chris Coy”, Flaunt Magazine, September 2016.
2016
Stephen Anderson, “Justin Berry and Chris Coy at CUAC,” Temporary Art Review, March 3, 2015.
Brian Staker, “Chris Coy Looks Beyond Repression to Find Real Sex,” Salt Lake City Weekly, February 2015.
Domenico Quaranta, “Link Editions releases After Brad Troemel, by Chris Coy,” Rhizome.org, May 2015.
2015
Robert Grunenberg, “Gordian Conviviality at Import Projects Berlin,” REVIEWER Magazine, April 2013.
Angela Connor, “Import Projects: Gordian Conviviality” Berlin Art Link, April 23, 2013.
“Best of Utah 2013 – provoshows.com,” Salt Lake City Weekly, March 27, 2013.
2013
Gavin Sheehan, “Provoshows.com,” Salt Lake City Weekly, September 2, 2012.
William Morris, “Chris Coy on provoshows.com”, A Motley Vision, June 1, 2012.
Ceci Moss, “Big Reality: PICKS,” Artforum, March 2012.
2012
Kyle Chayka, “Five L.A. Internet Artists You Need to Know”, LA Weekly, December 8, 2011.
“Rhizome Commissions 2011,” Rhizome, July 6, 2011.
2011
Gene McHugh, “Contemporary Semantics Beta,” Post Internet, June 2010.
John Lopez, “A Creative Retreat in the Digital Age,” Los Angeles Times, October 17, 2010.
Brion Nuda Rosch, “Sequential Image Viewing Device,” Open Space (SFMOMA Blog), August 6, 2010.
2010
Brian Droitcour, “On Sale!”, Rhizome, April 9, 2009.
2009
“Photo Collection by Chris Coy,” Faund #2. November 2008.
Ceci Moss, “THEEND/THEBEGINNING by Chris Coy,” Rhizome, March 2008.
2008
PUBLICATIONS
Gene McHugh, “The BAMF! Studies,” Post Internet, July 2010.
“Best Before – A Dsico Fanzine,” UPITUP RECORDS, November 2008.
“Montage: Unmonumental Online,” New Museum of Contemporary Art, February 2008.
Mona Lisa Overdrive 1, 2016
Oil on canvas
78 x 104 inches
A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes, 2016
Wood, high-density foam, dye-sublimated aluminum print, MDF base
80 x 24 x 72 inches
LED video installation
Infinite loop
dimensions variable
Goodbye Horses, 2016
Digital print, framed
49 x 43 inches
Shot, Reverse Shot, 2015
Oil on canvas
29 x 22 inches each
Single Hung 5-6, 2015
Digital print, framed
36 x 50 inches
Unique
Single Hung 3-4, 2015
Digital print, framed
36 x 50 inches
Unique
Deformer-1979-07, 2015
Rosco DigiComp Blue 5705 on canvas36 x 36 inches
Deformer-1983-11, 2015
Rosco DigiComp Blue 5707 on canvas36 x 36 inches
Unexpressed Resentment: A Possible Beginning, 2014
HD Video, 4 min 35 sec
Audio: Daniel Lopatin
From ongoing collaboration with Jon Rafman
Cartoon Paintings, Installation view, 2013
We Eat With Our Eyes, 2012
Installation view
We Eat With Our Eyes, 2012
Installation view
We Eat With Our Eyes, 2012
Installation view
We Eat With Our Eyes, 2012
Installation view
BIOGRAPHY
Chris Coy’s work inhabits an uncanny valley of gestures created through the encoding of libidinal desire through digital interventions. Rooted in the expression of cultural and psychological repression, Coy embeds this terrain within varied multimedia installations, paintings, photographic assemblages and video works. In situating his work in the rituals of social identification, beauty, sexuality and superfluidity, Coy addresses how the visual paints a vector towards both unknowable and transcendent potentialities.
EXHIBITIONS
A Little Death, September 10 – October 22, 2016.
CV
Born Provo, UT, 1980. Lives and works in Las Vegas, NV and Los Angeles, CA.
EDUCATION
MFA, USC Roski School of Fine Arts, Los Angeles, CA
2012
BA Graphic Design, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT
2007
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
A Little Death, Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles, CA
2016
Real Sex, CUAC Contemporary Art, Salt Lake City, UT
2015
We Eat w/ Our Eyes (Thesis Exhibition), USC MFA Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2012
New Jpegs, Johan Berggren, Malmö, SE
2011
THEEND/THEBEGINNING, ignivomous.org (curated by LoVid)
2007
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
PDA Lovers, Parisian Laundry, Montreal, Canada
Art Los Angeles Contemporary, with Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles, CA
Untitled San Francisco, with Anat Ebgi, San Francisco, CA
2017
EXPO Chicago, with Anat Ebgi, Chicago, IL
Deep Inside, 5th Moscow Biennale for Young Art, Moscow, RU
2016
NADA New York, with Anat Ebgi, New York, NY
2015
The Museum of Love and Devotion, organized by Jason Metcalf, Fairview Museum of History and Art, Fairview, UT
Under-Parallel-Alter-Multi-Outer-Inner-Other-WORLDS, Michael Thibault, Los Angeles, CA
Liquid Crystal Palace: Recent Works with Jeremy Blake, Honor Fraser, Los Angeles, CA
2014
Driving Fast Nowhere, Polansky Gallery, Prague, CZ
Print Show, Central Utah Art Center, Salt Lake City, UT
Brand Innovations for Ubiquitous Authorship, Carroll Fletcher, London, UK
TIN — Transitions and Trajectories 10+ Years Beyond Art School, Rio Gallery, Salt Lake City, UT
Gordian Conviviality, Import Projects, Berlin, DE
Analogital, Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, Salt Lake City, UT
2013
In Post, Stadium Gallery, New York, NY
Big Reality, 319 Scholes, Brooklyn, NY
RE:CUT, Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, CA
New Work I.R.L. (in this room), STATION Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2012
Circulate, Exchange: Nugget & Gravy, New Wight Gallery (UCLA), Los Angeles, CA
Instant LA Summer (Heavy Happy), Carmichael Gallery, Culver City, CA
Seven Minutes in Heaven, Control Room, Los Angeles, CA
An Important Project, Important Projects, Oakland, CA
2011
Doomslangers, Allegra LaViola Gallery, New York, NY
Speed Show: Traces, Bucharest, Romania, RU
Go West, Salt Lake Art Center, Salt Lake City, UT
Superman II point 0, XSPACE/XWEB, Toronto, ON
SoundFjord Sonic Art Jukebox, Soundfjord, London, UK
Full/Operational/Toolbox, Athens, GR Breakfast, hosted by ISCP, Brooklyn, NY
Low Lives 2, El Museo del Barrio, Fusebox Festival, Galería de La Raza, Diaspora Vibe Gallery, The Temporary Space, Terminal, Obsidian Arts & Studio, 304, New York, Austin, San Francisco, Miami, Houston, Brooklyn, USA
Hallway Projects residency with Brion Nuda Rosch, San Francisco, CA
Avatar 4D, curated by jstchilling.org, Noma and Reference galleries, San Francisco, CA and Richmond, VA
2nd Annual Terminal Short Video Festival, Austin Peay State University, Clarksville, TN
An Immaterial Survey of Our Peers, Sullivan Galleries, Chicago, IL
2010
Awesome and Painful, Free Form Film Festival, San Francisco, CA
Once Upon a Time in the West, Pixxelpoint New Media Art Festival, Nova Goriza, Slovenia-Goriza, IT
Versions, Nederlands Instituut voor Mediakunst, Amsterdam, NL
Contemporary Semantics Beta, Arti et Amicitiae, Amsterdam, NL
The Wheel of The Devil (aka the loop lecture), curated by MTAA with Ed Halter, New York, NY
Nasty Nets presents: endless pot of gold CDR’s, Sundance Film Festival’s New Frontier, Park City, UT
2009
Montage: Unmonumental Online/Unmonumental: the Object in the 21st Century, curated by Lauren Cornell and Marisa Olson, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, NY
Young Curators, New Ideas, curated by Laurel Ptak, Bond Street Gallery, New York, NY
K.I.S.S., curated by Constant Dullaart, Club Internet, clubinternet.org
Is it possible to make a photograph of New Jersey regardless where you are in the world?, Pierro Gallery, NJ
The Great Internet Sleepover, Eyebeam, New York, NY
2008
CURATORIAL PROJECTS
BYOB LA, Gayle & Ed Roski MFA Gallery at USC, Los Angeles, CA
Stephen Groo Symposium, Sego Arts, City Library, Provo, UT
2010
Forms of Melancholy, Sego Art Center, Provo, UT
2009
SELECTED PRESS
Tessa Nicholson, “Opulent Gargoyles,” Solar Magazine, Spring 2017, p 280.
2017
“Chris Coy ‘A Little Death’ at Anat Egbi, Mousse Magazine, October 6, 2016.
“Chris Coy at Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles,” Blouin Artinfo, September 22, 2016.
Amy Slocum, “Chris Coy”, Flaunt Magazine, September 2016.
2016
Stephen Anderson, “Justin Berry and Chris Coy at CUAC,” Temporary Art Review, March 3, 2015.
Brian Staker, “Chris Coy Looks Beyond Repression to Find Real Sex,” Salt Lake City Weekly, February 2015.
Domenico Quaranta, “Link Editions releases After Brad Troemel, by Chris Coy,” Rhizome.org, May 2015.
2015
Robert Grunenberg, “Gordian Conviviality at Import Projects Berlin,” REVIEWER Magazine, April 2013.
Angela Connor, “Import Projects: Gordian Conviviality” Berlin Art Link, April 23, 2013.
“Best of Utah 2013 – provoshows.com,” Salt Lake City Weekly, March 27, 2013.
2013
Gavin Sheehan, “Provoshows.com,” Salt Lake City Weekly, September 2, 2012.
William Morris, “Chris Coy on provoshows.com”, A Motley Vision, June 1, 2012.
Ceci Moss, “Big Reality: PICKS,” Artforum, March 2012.
2012
Kyle Chayka, “Five L.A. Internet Artists You Need to Know”, LA Weekly, December 8, 2011.
“Rhizome Commissions 2011,” Rhizome, July 6, 2011.
2011
Gene McHugh, “Contemporary Semantics Beta,” Post Internet, June 2010.
John Lopez, “A Creative Retreat in the Digital Age,” Los Angeles Times, October 17, 2010.
Brion Nuda Rosch, “Sequential Image Viewing Device,” Open Space (SFMOMA Blog), August 6, 2010.
2010
Brian Droitcour, “On Sale!”, Rhizome, April 9, 2009.
2009
“Photo Collection by Chris Coy,” Faund #2. November 2008.
Ceci Moss, “THEEND/THEBEGINNING by Chris Coy,” Rhizome, March 2008.
2008
PUBLICATIONS
Gene McHugh, “The BAMF! Studies,” Post Internet, July 2010.
“Best Before – A Dsico Fanzine,” UPITUP RECORDS, November 2008.
“Montage: Unmonumental Online,” New Museum of Contemporary Art, February 2008.