Lot 22
Mark Verabioff
untitled
2004
vinyl, widdy darts
$2,800-$3,200
dimensions variable
courtesy of the Artist

In the early 1980s, Mark Verabioff studied “Intermedia" at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design under theorist Benjamin H.D. Buchloh, who had a “huge” impact on the artist’s development. Verabioff has been using “word as image” as a means of “cultural therapy” in a variety of forms: actions, happenings, video and sound. Most notably, his current dartboard works set up a critical dialogue between Buchloh and socialite Paris Hilton as if written by artist Jenny Holzer. Given the social pervasiveness of the game of darts, these works invite the audience to participate in a rejoinder of meaning – questioning the displacement found in contemporary art history and rhetoric, and judgement of the celebrity culture it exudes.