search 2015
Proudly presenting Joshua Hashemzadeh's first iteration of “Search,” a publishing project started in 2015, which aims to build a lifetime archive of the artist's browser search history. For 2015, Joshua has produced an 11-volume collection of books containing over three thousand pages revealing every URL the artist has viewed in the past year. The works although conceptually abstract and hugely documentative, can be seen as a comprehensive self portrait, anthropological object, or sociological inquiry.
Looking extensively at On Kawara’s notions of time, Joshua delves into a similar conceptual space as he pursues a body of work that “creates a physical mass that reflects the time spent in intangible realms.” Between a re-familiarization with ephemeral moments, digital interactions, increasingly obsolete methods of documentation, and the publicizing of intimate or abject information; this work produces infinite signifiers, ironically mimicking the nature of the web itself.
“We’re always posting and reveling in convenience yet complaining about privacy. The work confronts digital history instead of treating it like deletable excrement. It's something all of us have now, and the more you engage with it the more it’s a part of you… As my history gets longer, the work gets bigger, I get older, and become smaller. Eventually you’re only left with a digital reflection, a vague mass of my existence if you will.” - Joshua Hashemzadeh
Joshua Hashemzadeh, born in 1993, is currently working in Los Angeles, CA after receiving his BFA in 2015 from the San Francisco Art Institute. His work, often varying in mediums, is built around an investigation of postmodern conditions referring in detail to: millennial identity, social institution, and commerce. Trained as a painter and inspired by Fluxus and the Conceptualist movements of the 1960’s, he looks to his practice as a continuous reflection of inquiry. Recent works have been featured in several exhibitions in the San Francisco and Los Angeles areas with recent highlights being: Tethered, Like Minded Salon, San Francisco; 32 Shades of Plastic, MRG Fine Art, Los Angeles; and Formal Attire Only, MRG Fine Art, Los Angeles.
