Gucci Forever

Parking for opening reception and artist talk: 
Visitors can park for free after 5 p.m. in Lots 33, 32, and 34 in any non-reserved spaces.

Gucci Forever features an unlikely assortment of objects and stories, both miraculous and monumentally mundane, that showcase a contemporary quest for timelessness and the fountain of youth. Gucci Forever exhibits the multidimensional nature of timelessness and documents the infinite quest for an indefinable quality simply known as cool.

Through his persona, Chad Bentley, Miles Warner uses humor and satire to examine the phenomenon of celebrity. Through objects, video, and performance, the installation ponders the “absurd nature of the upper echelon.”

Artist’s statement: Commonly used, fashionable formulas are employed to detail an unattainable lifestyle valued by our society as one of the highest degrees of success. The existence of Chad Bentley is to serve as the cover story that critiques a generation consumed by parasocial relationships and a vicarious lifestyle. The spectacle of the new American Royalty, and its enamoring characteristics, are condensed into objects and performances that allow for a closer examination of our contemporary values. The details and polished edges that make up Chad Bentley reference a world that prefers the sign over the signified. Caught between being appalled by its absurdity and lost in its decadence, I use this facade to critique both the upper echelon and those who ceaselessly perpetuate the illusion of the new American Dream.

Miles Warner holds a BFA from Keene State College and an MFA from Southern Illinois University Carbondale. He has recently exhibited his work in Flashing The Leather at the Alabama Contemporary Art Center and in Relentless Melt at LaunchF18 in New York City.