MALMO.- Jordan Wolfson is one of the most exciting young artists on the American art scene right now. On February 2, his video sculpture “Riverboat Song” opens at Moderna Museet.

At first glance, it might look like an entertaining flow of randomly arranged images from popular culture and found clips from the internet. But the scenarios in Jordan Wolfson’s works are, in fact, meticulously composed to explore a specific, real feeling, and to catch the viewer off balance. Wolfson manipulates the ostensibly familiar and challenges the bond of trust between sender and receiver.

In Riverboat Song (2017–18), which was recently acquired for the Moderna Museet collection, derailed animated figures are combined with found clips from the less savoury sides of the internet. The boyish Huckleberry Finn-like protagonist recurs in several of Wolfson’s works, possibly as an alter ego or a symbol of the American Dream. Searching for happiness, adventurous, free. There are also recurring references to the Greek legend of Narcissus, who falls in love with his own reflection and whose self-absorption eventually leads to his death.

Wolfson (b. 1980 in New York) belongs to a movement in art that is sometimes called “post-internet”, a style that both comments on and is closely linked to a digital information and consumer society. He culls inspiration from various fields, including the Hollywood movie industry, with its special effects illusions and capacity to manipulate.

Jordan Wolfson is currently based in Los Angeles, and his previous exhibitions include Tate Modern in London, The Broad in Los Angeles, and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.