Statement

“Not only are the works funny, they are profound. With great tongue-in-cheek incision they address issues of self-conscious and trendy fashion and of the fabrication of identity.”
-Los Angeles Art Critic, James Scarborough

Jörg Bivendørf, whose name is spelled for aesthetic reasons without regard for any language, is the collaborative team of artists Angela Beloian and Adam Walker. Created in response to the New York Times Style magazine, the photographs depict Walker in the role of similarly fictional male-model Benjamin Swanson in ensembles, settings and poses which invoke and parody the tropes of fashion advertisements.

During an economic period of housing foreclosures and bank bailouts, the advertisements in the New York Times magazine are jarringly out of touch with Middle America. The use of salvaged clothing and deliberately plebian settings highlights this disparity. Jörg Bivendørf is a reminder that we are unique in our own right and the marketing of consumer identity is both absurd and potentially damaging.

The title of the show, Granfalloon is taken from Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle. According to Vonnegut, a “granfalloon” is a group of individuals who “outwardly choose or claim to have shared identity or purpose but whose association is actually meaningless.”

-Angela Beloian and Adam Walker, 2010