OLIVER LARIC | 787 Cliparts

Oliver Laric, 787 Cliparts, 2024

ANNKA KULTYS GALLERY is pleased to present an AI animation by Austrian artist Oliver Laric (b. 1981). 787 Cliparts presents hundreds of figures derived from re-worked stock illustrations of people participating in a variety of activities - marshal artists and dancers, gurus and yogis, lovers and soldiers, wrestlers and musicians, on and on they run, like depictions of historic saints with attributes illustrating their characterisation. Costumes, accessories, poses or ethnicities emphasises the differences between them.

This is an evolution of a work Laric made over 18 years ago, based on his collection of 1990s and early 2000s clip art - graphic pre-made found imagery. Laric has now re-worked and upgraded the original hand drawn images with an AI image to image algorithm. Full of rich detail, here is a new quality of image - they read like photographs but are not quite photographs. The artist has created a new aesthetic, one that will continue to evolve as AI itself develops in the coming years.

787 Cliparts questions concepts of authorship – who drew the originals? We will never know what corporate presentation, advertisement or whimsical use such stock imagery might have been put to. Smooth and seamless, they are stylised, anonymous figures, standing in for aspects of human life. Detached from an environment, as these figures rapidly scroll past, although we recognise a cross-section of human life, it becomes clear this is not a neutral representation. They depict stereotypes and the bias of the original AI training data. As Laric says, “They are a portrait of emphasis and omission at the same time.” 787 Cliparts is a representation of a particular moment in time - open-ended and non-narrative, the meaning remains elusive. 

Over the next 12 months, ‘Illuminated: Moving Image Perspectives’ will introduce a new artist online each week. The first four featured artists will be Jonas Lund, Sara Sadik, Oliver Laric, and Lauren Lee McCarthy. Each artist will be highlighted on the gallery’s social media every Sunday, beginning on the 17th of November 2024, with weekly updates.

The online streams will be augmented by physical presentations of digital artworks in a private home setting at the gallery founder’s loft in Shoreditch. These installations will be accompanied by regular, invitation-only dinners and carefully curated exclusive viewings for art professionals, fostering deeper connections between artists, collectors, journalists, and museum curators.

As part of this initiative, prints of video stills by the artists will be made available for purchase on the gallery’s website. Furthermore, the gallery is pleased to announce a monthly giveaway, offering subscribers the opportunity to win a selected artist print. Each giveaway will be introduced in the monthly Full Moon newsletter, with the winner announced in the subsequent edition, scheduled for 15 December 2024.

CONTACT US
For general enquiries, please contact Klaudia Jedlecka at 
office@annkakultys.com

For all sales enquiries, please contact Annka Kultys at
+44 74 555 61 887 (WhatsApp) annka@annkakultys.com (email)