MIT List Center Hosts Jeremy Couillard’s First Solo Museum Exhibition

The MIT List Visual Arts Center presents “List Projects 30,” featuring Jeremy Couillard’s first solo museum exhibition. Running from July 18 to October 6, 2024, the exhibition showcases Couillard’s unique blend of digital art and gaming.

Jeremy Couillard, initially trained as a painter, has evolved into a self-taught coder and digital artist. His works encompass playable games, web projects, and video installations, often merging these forms. Couillard’s games are known for their inventive character designs and surreal storylines. For example, “Alien Afterlife” (2017) traps players in the bardo after alien terrorists steal the machine powering reincarnation, while “Fuzz Dungeon” (2021) involves a rat-dog-witch escaping a job, only to find the way back is inside a Sasquatch sex amulet. These projects merge art and gaming with a sense of surprise and critical commentary.

The centerpiece of Couillard’s List Center exhibition is an installation of his latest game, “Escape from Lavender Island” (2023). Players start by dreaming of a dystopian city, then wake up to find themselves in that very place. The city, divided into areas like the “Corporate University Prison Town” and the “Clown Crypt Renovation Zone,” is controlled by the Lavender Corporation. Players navigate through the city using various masks, each granting unique powers such as shooting pharmaceuticals at passersby or walking through walls. Inspired by anthropologist David Graeber’s ideas, Couillard uses this game to critique and explore our own societal structures.

Visitors to the Bakalar Gallery can play the full game and view “Zede’s Dream,” a video simulation that journeys through Lavender Island’s streets and neighborhoods. Accompanied by music from Chris Parrello and narratives read by actors, the simulation offers glimpses into the lives of the city’s residents, touching on themes of labor, exhaustion, and escape. The exhibition also features related artworks, including wooden sculptures and a giant neon sweater reading “Depression.”

Additionally, Couillard debuts a series of textured acrylic paintings based on digital tiles from Lavender Island. These paintings, with titles derived from their corresponding digital assets, emphasize the psychedelic artificiality of his virtual world.

“List Projects 30: Jeremy Couillard” is curated by Natalie Bell, with assistance from Zach Ngin.

Jeremy Couillard, born in 1980 in Livonia, Michigan, currently lives and works in New York. He has exhibited solo at Denny Gallery and yours mine & ours Gallery in New York. His works have been shown at Times Square Midnight Moment, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Flux Factory, and the New Museum, among others. Couillard holds an MFA in Painting from Columbia University and teaches New Media at LaGuardia Community College in Queens. In the gaming world, he has received nominations for the Independent Games Festival Awards and A.MAZE fest in Berlin.