ART CITIES: Basel-Jordan Wolfson
Jordan Wolfson is known for his thought-provoking works in a wide range of media, including video, sculpture, installation, photography, and performance. Pulling from the world of advertising, the internet, and the technology industry, his ambitious and enigmatic narratives frequently revolve around a series of invented, animated characters. Through his art, Wolfson probes difficult, often controversial topics and themes that underlie American culture and contemporary society.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Fondation Beyeler Archive
As a leading voice among a generation that has redefined the boundaries of art through emerging digital technologies, Jordan Wolfson engages head-on with some of the most provocative and unsettling aspects of American culture and contemporary life. His work offers an unflinching, immersive exploration of human vulnerability, identity, and perception. Drawing instinctively from the visual languages of advertising, internet culture, and the tech industry, Wolfson constructs ambitious, often cryptic narratives populated by invented, animated characters that both captivate and confront. Wolfson’s art is deliberately disorienting. It challenges how we consume images, process information, and understand ourselves within a media-saturated society. Through a unique fusion of cutting-edge technology and psychologically charged storytelling, his work probes the subconscious, revealing the often uncomfortable intersections between desire, violence, and alienation. A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, Wolfson currently lives and works in Los Angeles. His latest project, “Little Room”, a pioneering virtual reality (VR) installation, recently premiered at the Fondation Beyeler. In this experimental work, visitors become active participants in a shifting, uncanny environment that places them at the center of the experience. Upon entering the space, each visitor is paired—either with a companion or a stranger—and undergoes a full-body 3D scan. The participants are then immersed in a virtual world in which they inhabit one another’s scanned bodies, leading to eerie and increasingly surreal distortions of space, movement, and identity. “Little Room” pushes VR beyond conventional narrative or gaming experiences, exploring the mutable boundaries between the real, the virtual, and the imagined. In doing so, Wolfson confronts the viewer with profound questions about the nature of consciousness, embodiment, and the erosion of stable identity in an age of technological transformation. The installation becomes not just a spectacle, but an existential encounter—unsettling, uncanny, and wholly unforgettable.
Photo: Installation view: Jordan Wolfson, Little Room, 2025, 3D scanning booth, VR headset, high-definition video, Dimensions variable, © Jordan Wolfson. Courtesy Gagosian, Sadie Coles HQ, and David Zwirner. Photo: Mark Niedermann
Info: Fondation Beyeler, Baselstrasse 101, Riehen/Basel, Switzerland, Duration: 1/6-3/8/2025, Days & Hours: Mon-Tue & Thu-Sun 10:00-18:00, Wed 10:00-20:00, www.fondationbeyeler.ch/
