Devan Shimoyama: Clear History : Perrotin Gallery

The term "Clear History" is part of a broader lexicon of web vernacular and evokes our daily digital rituals. Terms like "The Cloud", "Hot Spot", "Portal", and "Window" conjure visions of ethereal lightness and technological transcendence. These words promise transparency and transformation, even as they mask the weight of their physical infrastructure. "Clear" becomes both verb and adjective - suggesting obstruction and transparency, deletion, and visibility.

Yet history resists such ethereal treatment - it's messy, woven with contradictions and half-truths that refuse to be cleared with a simple click. In an era where technology promises to edit, revise, and reinvent our past into something as thin as a screen, these artworks reveal what lies beneath our attempts at erasure. They record, reinvent, and freeze moments with one eye on the past and another squinting toward an uncertain future.

Intimately versed in both the effervescent and constraining dynamics of the contemporary art world, Oli Epp composed a show that balances conceptual fluidity with formal rigor. The result is an environment where physicality reasserts itself - dripping, popping, crunching, and fogging up our glasses - while subtly addressing the immaterial currents that shape our contemporary experience.