Touch Sensitive: Anthony Campuzano

In the Project Space Anthony Campuzano will exhibit several new text-based works. Specifically for the ICA presentation, his first museum show, he has fabricated two large freestanding bulletin boards collaged with hand-drawn text.

Known for his use of found language, Philadelphia-based artist Anthony Campuzano activates texts from a variety of sources—newspaper headlines, Wikipedia entries, the covers of paperback novels, trivial cultural events, common clichés, pop song lyrics—in drawings that couple intense color with the tangible presence of the artist's hand.

Like his journalistic sources, Campuzano's use of language condenses—he distills language into succinct phrases that express a particular mood, recall a personal anecdote, or echo a national headline. What is removed textually is replaced visually through bold color and the blocky, erratic shapes of his letters, defying the formality of the printed page, and its capacity for endless reproduction, with the deliberate imperfection of the hand. Campuzano dubs his obsession with color and language "abstract journalism." As the sentences dip and dodge through the composition, the act of reading alternately slows or quickens; sometimes lines are reread, sometimes skipped. Regardless of the route taken, the performance of the text becomes central.

Anthony Campuzano (b. 1975, Philadelphia) received his B.F.A. from Tyler School of Art, Temple University. He has had solo exhibitions at Fleisher/Ollman Gallery, Philadelphia, and White Columns, New York, and has been included in group shows at Franklin Parrasch Gallery, New York; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia; Bellwether Gallery, New York, and Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York.

This exhibition is organized by Curatorial Assistant Kate Kraczon, and is accompanied by a brochure publication.

Installation views at ICA. Photos by Aaron Igler. > click to enlarge

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ICA is grateful for funding from The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation; the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Council on the Arts; The Dietrich Foundation, Inc.; the Overseers Board for the Institute of Contemporary Art; friends and members of ICA; and the University of Pennsylvania. ICA is also grateful for in-kind support from the Fleisher/Ollman Gallery and New Market Builders, LLC.

images, top to bottom: Anthony Campuzano, Journalism, 2008, ink, graphite, acrylic and colored pencil on board, 30 x 40 inches. Courtesy of Fleisher/Ollman Gallery, Philadelphia. Photo: Claire Iltis...Anthony Campuzano, Self-Portrait via Jean-Paul Sartre and The Dream Syndicate, 2008, colored pencil, graphite and ink on board, 30 x 40 inches. Courtesy of Fleisher/Ollman Gallery, Philadelphia. Photo: Claire Iltis