Mark Essen: The Next Art Jesus?
According to New York Magazine and anyone who desires to suckle from the tit of Charles Saatchi, “video game artist” Mark Essen (whose games include such masterpieces as PUNISHMENT, wherein you “try to climb to the top of the screen while the game tries to confuse you.”) is the next big thing and there is nothing you or your so-yesterday’s aesthetic can do about it.
At 22, Essen is about to erupt on the art scene. He is the youngest of the 50 artists in the New Museum’s “The Generational: Younger Than Jesus,” the international exhibition exclusively showcasing the work of artists 33 and under (it opens April 8). His medium is as slacker-appropriate as it gets: Essen creates video games that are lo-fi in the extreme, evoking not the elegance of Shadow of the Colossus but dim memories of your old Commodore 64. “We looked at hundreds of portfolios,” says New Museum curator Lauren Cornell. “The way we made the selection was partly through the themes we saw, and one of the themes was obsolete technology. Mark’s working with video games because they’re cheap, available, and outdated, and he’s original in terms of applying his knowledge of avant-garde cinema to their creation.”
All hail the new Art Overlord Jesus King Mark Essen, may his reign be as short and tortuous as his video games.
