For Alex Israel and Bret Easton Ellis, the state of California provides rich material for cultural examination and lush, film-inspired aesthetics. Silicon Valley results from the two Los Angeles natives’ collaboration on a series of work that draws from each artist’s exploration of cinema and cultural mythology. Israel is known for channeling the mythos and sunset-soaked palette of his hometown, simultaneously embodying and critiquing a distinct brand of California cool and boundless optimism. So enmeshed in the defining traits of his city, his studio is famously on the lot of Warner Brothers Studio. This work sees the artist pair with author and screenwriter Bret Easton Ellis, who first gained attention for his novel Less Than Zero in 1985, set in the raucous Los Angeles of the 1980s, and received wider recognition for his films The Rules of Attraction, 1987, and American Psycho, 1991.
If it were to be cast into a film genre, Silicon Valley is film noir. Furthering both Israel’s and Ellis’ sharp investigations of the American Dream, the present work explores the concept’s darker undertones as tropes of California imagery and theatrics are critiqued in the work’s use of stock imagery and satirical prose. A richly hued photograph of Spanish style roof shingles—yet another nod to the Golden State—forms the backdrop for bold white text. The undulating forms are nearly abstracted, cinematically surreal as they fade to black along the work’s upper edge. Ellis’ darkly humorous caption alludes to a larger overarching story, brilliantly distilled to its core intrigue in just one sentence. The text’s larger-than-life emotional tenor is matched only by the work’s billboard-esque scale.
For their collaboration, Israel prompted Ellis for short texts, which Israel then translated into specific fonts drawn from the local landscape. He then selected commercial stock images ranging from sunsets and rolling surf to aerial views and close-up details of vernacular architecture, which were purchased online and adapted into monumental paintings. The final results were fabricated at Warner Brothers studios by production crews who previously hand-painted Hollywood film backdrops. In a true collaborative spirit, Silicon Valley’s hyperfilmic result is an astute commentary on artifice, fantasy and the cultural subconsious.
