MoMA PS1 presents the first significant U.S. museum solo show of Berlin-based artist Simon Denny (b. 1982, Auckland, New Zealand). The Innovator's Dilemma adopts the architectural typology of the industry tradeshow, staging literal platforms for content drawn from various recent bodies of Denny’s work. Drawing its title from Clayton M. Christensen's 1997 book of entrepreneurial theory, the exhibition will include Denny's projects created around the 2012 Digital Life Design conference in Munich (ALL YOU NEED IS...DATA? [2012]), the Internet copyright infringement scandal involving Internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom (The Personal Effects of Kimdotcom [2013]) and Samsung's 1993 international announcement of supposedly watershed business practice shifts (*New Managemen*t [2014]), among others.
Denny’s work often refers to the psychology and abstract language of the new media economy, invoking "clouds" of big data and the constant pressure to "update” our lives. He typically finds the sources for his work within the materials, advertising, and packaging produced by technology and media companies, and often deploys graphic interfaces borrowed from commercial display to highlight connections between the utopian goals of the new media economy and those of historical modernism. Denny has had solo exhibitions at the Aspen Art Museum; Kunstverein Munich; Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien (MuMoK), Vienna; and Portikus, Frankfurt; and was included in the 2013 Venice Biennale. In 2015, he will represent New Zealand at the Venice Biennale.
Simon Denny: The Innovator’s Dilemma is organized by Peter Eleey, Curator and Associate Director of Exhibitons and Programs, MoMA PS1, with Jocelyn Miller, Curatorial Assistant, MoMA PS1.