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*Non-underlined: to be updated

Date: 05.17.24 –– 08.31.24

Location: 

The Opening Gallery
42 Walker St.
New York, NY 10013

Overview

The Opening Gallery, a contemporary art gallery in TriBeCa, commissioned a visual identity design for their exhibition Rainer Ganahl: If the Price Is Right, featuring paintings by conceptual artist Rainer Ganahl. We implemented the visual identity through exhibition pamphlets, digital ad designs, and a site-specific vinyl installation on the outside-facing glass of the gallery.

Who Is Rainer Ganahl

Rainer is insane, and I don't say that lightly. Last summer he told me that he's been in psychiatric hold longer than he's lived in America. He goes to court every weekend. He collects dead cockroaches. Sometimes he pisses into empty Listerine bottles and leaves them around his house. But he's totally brilliant. He knows like 30 languages. He's won every art award you can think of. Imagine how hard it must have been to show at the Venice Biennale thrice. I remember when he decided to wear a dirty tank top and some scraggly jean shorts to the If the Price Is Right opening, while I and the dealers and collectors showed up in black suits. People loved him for it. I don't really know whether I should be proud of or scared of Rainer Ganahl but I know that working with him was fun.

I met Rainer by complete chance. Here's the backstory. For my internship I needed to find a place to stay in New York City for dirt cheap. And if you know anything about New York City or the fucked up real estate market or the cost of living anywhere you know that's real difficult. I ended up going for the cheapest room on the entire Facebook Marketplace. The room was 6 feet by 8 feet – the exact dimensions of an industry-grade prison cell. That's how I met Emily Wisniewski, the generous soul who offered me that room. She's way more experienced in the art world than I am but she was super willing to help make things happen. While we were moving my shit into the room I remember she asked me if I wanted to design a show for an artist.

“Even if he's a little crazy?” she asked.

“Absolutely.” 

How I Met Rainer

I met Rainer in his East Harlem basement. It was a total mess. And there was artwork everywhere: in stacks, on shelves, tucked between clothing piles, even on his toilet seat. I think this is how a lot of great artists live. He insisted that I sit on the floor so I sat. I think I sat through half an hour of his rambling about Trump and minimum wage and divorce proceedings before we even brought up the project. In a thick Austrian accent he announced that the show would be titled If the Price Is Right.

“Other than that you have carte blanche,” he spat. Before I could ask questions he grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the door and eased me up the stairs and out of that dirty basement. He hugged me once more and pointed toward the train station.
I was flabbergasted but I left anyway. That evening I looked through all 400ish of his paintings. I thought they were really weird at first. They were like news articles and Basquiat and protest posters all in one. I didn’t know what Rainer was going for with almost any of these but they all very laughed at American culture. Every one of his paintings made some sort of dig at capitalism by drawing caricatures of Trump or recreating corporate logos or straight-up calling his fashion line Comme des Marxists. I think it takes a European to do that. Even if I didn’t understand Rainer, I did understand his love for criticizing Americanism.

Visual Identity

This show’s visual identity takes inspiration from the New York Stock Exchange. It feels like one of the most capitalist, corporate, and American organizations. We believed it would be exciting to see how far we could satirize the NYSE's aesthetic, especially since Rainer's artwork so unabashedly criticizes American consumerism and culture. We also thought that idea would go well with the name If the Price Is Right since the NYSE’s entire focus is the price of companies. I was surprised by how enthusiastic Rainer was when I first presented the idea to him.

First, we wanted to find a font that resembled the LED tickers inside the trading floor. We found a free font online called “LED Counter 7” where every glyph is made of dots, just like the iconic dotted stock charts. The font looked great in green, red, and white on black background. It looked especially convincing when animated – it felt like something you'd actually see if you took a look around the NYSE. Plus, the font was versatile. It looked great at both small and large scales. We ended up using the font for ads, press releases, the show catalog, social media posts, tombstone information, and even a window graphic at the gallery. Everything felt cohesive.


Next, I gathered a bunch of recognizable financial logos like Visa and Mastercard and ICE. I played around until I made a giant mess of fake stock graphs, knockoff logos, and message animations in that dotted font. Rainer’s work satirizes consumerism by using its own elements, and so I thought it would be a good idea to do so even if he didn’t end up liking it. I made some silly logos and went back to his basement. More onion smell. I opened my laptop and he spat all over it with a “Great!” in a super thick German accent. I was relieved that he liked it. He said it was satirical just like he is. Curation and Installation I decided that Rainer's two biggest paintings should sit near the front of the gallery to make sure that passersby could see them through the gallery window. The first was a news article painted by Rainer, and the second was a picture. Issues 1. The gallery had these ugly dark blue walls. I proposed painting them white but the owner said no. It really fucked up the aesthetic I was going for with the show. 2. Rainer likes to eyeball things like measurements and alignment. I'm more of an exact person. He's the artist though so I had to listen to him. 3. The gallery shared an old poster for the show from before I created a brand identity. Most people probably saw that poster before they saw the NYSE-based identity. The poster was super abstract and had nothing to do with the elements of the show.