About the Work
What is a self-portrait of an anonymous artist? The Bruce High Quality Foundation, known for their humorous and irreverent projects and performances that often take a subversive and critical stance towards the current market’s seemingly insatiable appetite for hyped new artists, answers this question ad nauseum by insinuating the image cum icon of their namesake, Bruce High Quality, into thousands of images from popular culture and art history. Simultaneously a face and a mask, an insertion into history and a blotting out, the Foundation uses the problematic of its own existence to metonymically reveal the tenuous footholds of truth, history, and humanity. “Self Portrait (Sometimes That Just Happens)” sees Bruce High Quality as a young pop idol, repurposing Michael Jordan’s iconic #23 Bulls jersey, a symbol of aspirant African American masculinity, as one of exuberant tween sexuality. Sometimes that just happens.
The Bruce High Quality Foundation – Mission Statement
The Bruce High Quality Foundation, the official arbiter of the estate of Bruce High Quality, is dedicated to the preservation of the legacy of the late social sculptor, Bruce High Quality. In the spirit of the life and work of Bruce High Quality, we aspire to invest the experience of public space with wonder, to resurrect art history from the bowels of despair, and to impregnate the institutions of art with the joy of man’s desiring.
About the Foundation
The Bruce High Quality Foundation will mount their solo exhibition, “Vive la Sociale!” at Almine Rech Gallery in Brussels this coming September. In June, Thomas Ammann Fine Art AG featured new works by The BHQF at Art Basel. Other recent exhibitions have taken place at the Brooklyn Museum, the Lever House, Susan Inglett Gallery in New York, Contemporary Fine Arts in Berlin, and Galerie Bruno Bischofberger in Zürich. The BHQF was also featured in the 2010 Whitney Biennial, as well as other group exhibitions at MoMA PS1 in Queens, Acquavella Gallery in New York, and Centre Pompidou in Paris, among others. The Foundation also heads the free institution, BHQFU, which provides learning opportunities and residencies for artists, and until last year hosted expansive, open call exhibitions called “Brucennials.”