Jeffrey Deitch and Larry Gagosian hosted their fifth series for “The Extreme Present” which explore artists’ reactions to the conditions of our accelerating and increasingly complex world. The title is inspired by The Age of Earthquakes: A Guide to the Extreme Present, a book by Shumon Basar, Douglas Coupland, and Hans Ulrich Obrist, published in 2015.

Their provocative thesis addresses the rapidly evolving digital era, half a century after Marshall McLuhan’s groundbreaking study on technology’s influence on culture, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, in which he coined the phrase “the medium is the message.” “The Extreme Present offers a compact history of our time, told through artists’ contributions that are both political and personal. In conjunction with the exhibition, copies of Basar, Coupland, and Obrist’s book were distributed free of charge to visitors. In attendance alongside Jeffrey Deitch and Larry Gagosian were Chloe Wise and Tali Lennox to name a few.

Moore Building, 191 NE 40th Street


Photo Credit: Courtesy of  World Red Eye