All Things Already Lost

All Things Already Lost
March 8 – April 5, 2023

Opening Reception: Thursday, March 9, 4 – 7 pm

Reading event: Tuesday, March 28, 4 pm

Herter Gallery is pleased to present All Things Already Lost, a solo exhibition by Jenny Vogel, Associate Professor in the Department of Art at the University of Massachusetts.

Jenny Vogel’s work explores subjective themes as they are experienced in the digital age. She examines the anxiety of alienation, the desire for communication, and a sense of belonging in a virtual world. Featuring digital prints, drawings, animation, and sculptures made within the last year, All Things Already Lost is a reflection on the loss of the body in the digital world.

Jenny Vogel is strangely fascinated by the lives we live online. Perhaps this is the result of being brought up without a TV, in an environment that valued handicraft skills over technology. Her childhood experiences in that regard were not the norm even back then but are even more exceptional today as participation in the digital or virtual world is becoming less and less a matter of choice. Vogel observes all of this with a healthy dose of skepticism but also fascination. Through her work she is orienting herself in this world, trying to will a level of personal connection and emotions into the algorithm, constantly searching for the irrational, the glitch, the mystical, or simply the unexpected. These attempts are all bound to fail, sometimes comically, sometimes tragically, and sometimes in revelatory ways.

To speak about the virtual world, Vogel often employs the same tools that are used to create it. 3D simulation software, AI text, or image generators are used simultaneously and indiscriminately alongside drawing and sculpting in plaster. The work in the exhibition suggests plausible worlds at first sight that collapse into hauntingly beautiful meshes, vertices, and points.

Jenny Vogel lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Her work has been screened and exhibited in group and solo- shows in numerous locations and galleries: Storefront Gallery, NYC; The Dallas Museum of Art, TX; McKinney Contemporary, TX; San Francisco Camerawork, CA; Arnolfini, UK; The Siberia Biennial, Russia; The Swiss Institute, NYC; EFA Gallery, NYC; Kunstwerke, Berlin; PS1 Contemporary Art Center, NYC. She received her MFA from Hunter College (NYC) in 2003. She is a 2005 NYFA fellow in Computer Arts and is currently an Associate Professor of Studio Art at the University of Massachusetts.

This event was made possible with generous support from the UMass Fine Arts Council.

Gallery Hours:
Mon – Fri: 11 AM – 4 PM
Sat: 1 PM – 4 PM
(Closed on Sundays and state holidays)