The works presented in the exhibition The Age of Happiness, organized at the Hellenic American Union, form a representative sample of Titchner’s art. His How to Change Behavior is certainly one of the most interesting ones, using computer designed billboard alongside hand-chiselled quasi-magical contraptions. Through it Titchner presents conflicting ideologies and outmoded ideas without mockery or cynicism, allowing the viewer to form their own conclusions. In so doing, his installation questions both our blind faith in science and our obedience to authority.
Considered one of the most charismatic young British artists, Mark Titchner was born in 1973, in Luton, UK and studied at the Central St. Martins College of Art and Design in London. His Athenian show is the last in a series of solo exhibitions abroad (London, Los Angeles, Madrid, Berlin) and a participation in the Venice Biennale in 2007 and is going to be followed by a big display at the prestigious Tate Britain of London.
As artist/Artemis Potamianou, who curated the HAU exhibition says, Titchner’s art attempts to question the truth of the information which bombards us on a daily basis, as well as our blind faith in science, religion and the political status quo. “The basic element of his concepts and what he is best known for involves the relationship between the art object and the viewer. To different degrees and in diverse ways, Titchner experiments with, but also achieves, a step by step interactive relationship with the viewer”, Potamianou explains.
The artist himself describes his art as “a dialogue about how you receive thought and ideas”. His works, that draw elements from pop culture, investigate communication and perception. Found text is a constant ingredient that attempts to promote art’s directness and ability to convey messages. Titchner integrates messages and quotations from various sources, physically described and digitally scripted into his installations: religious texts, a political manifesto, a scientific paper, a philosophical or literary work, or lyrics from hit songs. His personal language leaves the spectator to decide ways of interpreting it.
Even one word in a work can change everything according to Titchner: “We react to language in a complete different way, you can’t stop yourself from reading a word, it is a real moment of power”. More so, when it refers to the bold and deliberately vague words that he uses in his work to which the viewer either submits or remains stunned.
Titchner uses a variety of mediums: painted walls, light boxes, digital imaging and sculpture. “Structures that resemble totems, emblematic images, male and female symbols, psychedelic imagery –hallucinatory motifs digitally processed in Photoshop form the connective links of a production chain with underlying common denominator the text, the word”.
At the core of his work is an ambiguous attitude towards the ideas that he appropriates that has the effect of empowering the viewer. “Put simply,” he has said, “it’s about people having a different relationship to art. Rather than something you walk around, it’s something you have to step inside and interact with. It’s really affirmative.” He is absolutely right and this is the way you should see this exhibition.