Interview Magazine
In Conversation: Christine Tien Wang and Kenny Schachter Get Real About Art World Economics
August 30, 2024
by Kenneth Schachter and Emily Sandstrom

"Christine Tien Wang and Kenny Schachter are in the business of self-abasement. The two multi-media artists, hailing from San Francisco and New York respectively, have a lot in common: they’re both fascinated, and frustrated, by the avaricious nature of the art world. In their work, they look to provoke by way of humor and humiliation. That they both have solo exhibitions opening at the same time, each exploring the cultural impacts of excessive technology use, is just the cherry on top."

"Exhibiting at The Hole in New York, Wang recreates, or “re-deploys,” as Schachter proposed, a series of popular memes that confront the bizarre and inherently comical nature of cryptocurrencies.

“'I wanted to lean into the fear and embarrassment of copying, and of using a dead medium like painting,'” she explained of her show, CryptoFIRE Degen , when she and Schachter got together over Zoom earlier this month. His show, Phone Face, which opens today in Cologne and includes a number of paintings and sculptures accompanied by sardonic or “gossipy” texts, considers the screen as a projection of the “masks of detachment” that shape contemporary existence."

"After meeting briefly at a cocktail party in L.A. earlier this year, a more formal tête-à-tête was long overdue, so we convened the artists for a candid conversation about crypto, narcissism, humiliation, and the art world’s money problem."

Read the full article here

Christine Tien Wang, Awkward Look Meme, 2024, oil and acrylic on canvas, 72×72 inches, 152x152 cm.

Christine Tien Wang, Mean Girls Crypto, 2024, oil and acrylic on canvas, 60 x 60 inches, 183x183 cm.