“We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning.”

― Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation

“I’m afraid that if you look at a thing long enough, it loses all of its meaning.”

-Andy Warhol

We live in a world of imagery, one constantly at odds and in sync with language and meaning. The field of semiotics never had such a rich terrain to examine but, in return, the supersaturation of images has left our eyes and minds fatigued. 

Artist and Writer Alexander Cavaluzzo performs an “exercise in bricolage” with each new work he tackles, oscillating and  synthesizing his work in a bilingual fashion; i.e., playing with images and text. Spanning professional skill in writing (from advertising copy to poetry to articles for Newsweek) and an education in design and fine arts, notably serigraphy, fashion design and graphic design, their work attempts to transliterate and translate concepts within these two broad mediums. 

The amalgamation of disparate elements and techniques through a range of mediums (silkscreen, painting, fashion, readymades, photography) and subject matter (celebrity, nature, self-portrait, text)  strikes an unsteady balance between abstraction and representation, of materiality and intent.

Inspired by the works of Andy Warhol, Barbara Kruger, Olafur Eliasson, Deborah Kass and others, Cavaluzzo jumbles and merges mass media imagery and fine art in order to obfuscate your eye’s ability to determine exactly what you’re looking at. 

In particular, the signature use of reflective surfaces as substrates literally incorporates the viewers’ own image into the composition, ultimately showing a version of yourself that seems familiar, yet like nothing you’ve ever seen before. 

What does it matter? It all depends on how you look at it.