Assume Astrid Vivid Focus: Open Call

assume vivid astro focus (avaf for short) is an artists' collective whose members prefer not to let the public know their names. Their multiple authorship both comments on and evades the cult of personality--it is ostensibly designed to set their art squarely in the public eye, without gossipy biographical distractions, but it has received a lot of attention itself. The avaf works collected here are largely site-specific and in multiple media, including spatial interventions, projections, music programs, drawings and installations, stickers, masks and T-shirts. Motifs of diverse provenance are sampled and mixed, and sources range from Tibetan prayer rugs to soft-core porn. Among bits of pop culture and everyday aesthetics, historical and spiritual art, an aesthetic of appropriation and collage emerges. Alice-in-Wonderland-esque environments, naked people, drag queens, flowers, butterflies and birds of paradise lead to a sensory overload that seems to explode the limits of perception. avaf has recently shown at Tate Liverpool, and was a standout at the 2004 Whitney Biennial.Matt, Gerald is the author of 'Assume Astrid Vivid Focus: Open Call', published 2007 under ISBN 9783938821886 and ISBN 3938821884.