Avery Singer’s Zurich exhibition at Hauser & Wirth transforms a gallery floor into a casino, exploring AI, surveillance, and the War on Terror through striking portraits of female poker players.
At the recently concluded show at the historic Löwenbräu in Zurich, Avery Singer transformed the upper floor of Hauser & Wirth Gallery into a captivating casino setting. The exhibition delved into the War on Terror, the role of AI in contemporary art, and themes of surveillance, creating an immersive experience that engaged visitors from the moment they entered. Singer’s installation reimagines the gallery’s traditionally bright wooden floors with patterned dark carpet and reflective mirrored walls. Stage-like curtains and drapes envelop the space, while security cameras hang overhead, emphasizing a powerful feeling of containment and surveillance. On the left and far walls, four large portraits of female poker players command attention, with smaller pieces scattered throughout the room. These acrylic-on-canvas works, framed in aluminum and coated with a gelatine-like finish, depict the players in muted tones with vibrant color accents. The oily sheen on the pieces contrasts sharply with the deep red curtains and busy casino carpet, enhancing the tension within the space. As viewers step closer, the portraits reveal fractured collages of armed soldiers, news panels, and civilians—drawn from Singer’s personal memories of 9/11 and the televised conflicts of the early 2000s. The use of AI-generated imagery is evident in the uncanny, blurred features, reflecting the imperfect nature of early generative artificial intelligence. Through this, Singer critiques the Western media’s portrayal of war as a spectacle, where violence is consumed rapidly via news, television, and social media algorithms, blending into a chaotic mix of images rather than direct encounters. Singer’s AI-driven technique, which she calls the ‘AI Slop aesthetic,’ raises questions about truth, knowledge, and memory in our digital age. She explains, “Strong uncanny valley feeling throughout. Unsettling artificial humanity. [...] Appears generated by a broken AI system trained on corrupted military…