Biography of Tony Oursler
The work of filmmaker and artist Tony Oursler (born in 1957) is incomparable with any other artist working today. His multimedia installations convey with crude visual apparatus and unbounded imagination the humor, ugliness, and malice of modern social interaction. Always fascinated by the interconnectedness of mass-media systems and the individual, Oursler is adept at melding traditional performance methods with modern technologies.
A graduate of California Institute of the Arts where Tony Oursler studied under John Baldessari, he had moved back to his hometown New York by the early 80s. Oursler first became known for his handmade videotapes and stop-action animation. His constantly changing practice, however, began to incorporate the use of dolls in raucous environments combined with coarse and earthy language. This new direction bought Oursler astonishing critical success.
In the early 2000s Tony Oursler embarked on a series of prominent public projects and in 2013 created the video for Bowie's comeback song, Where Are We Now? Oursler's work can be located in all major collections around the world including the Centre Pompidou in Paris and MoMA in New York. In 2014 Oursler exhibited at the prestigious Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.
