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If you're anything like us, you've spent the better part of this past year imagining the ultimate bunker: what would your ideal lockdown abode look like? What would folks find inside of it? Would the outside match the madness we felt on the inside? That concept is part of the inspiration behind New York City-based artist Doug Meyer's new solo show, "WyldLands," now on display at Daniel Cooney Fine Art until May 8.
Once stay-at-home orders took over the city, Meyer took shelter in his Chelsea studio and began work on the pieces that now make up the exhibit, one based on the current world order.
"In Meyer's alternate universe, we discover that 2020 was merely the start of a series of bad things to come," reads the official press release describing the show. "Meyer imagines that in 2021, a novel SARS virus would emerge, resulting in the death of 6.5% of the world's population."
In the artist's fictional world, private equity firm Cherenko-Moskovitz Capital LP creates an "escapist playground in a time of confinement" in the Sonoran Desert called WyldLands. The actual exhibit focuses on the year 2036, when WyldLands, where "the global elite can slip away from the horrors of everyday life and indulge their desires," opens.
A total of 15 pieces—from drawings to memorabilia and "future relics"—are exhibited, including a slew of shelters where the world's richest folks would potentially take residence in.
Although a far-fetched concept a mere couple of years ago, Meyer's project takes on a realistic aura as we still deal with the repercussions of a global pandemic that has likely forever altered the way we live. Whether the artist's fatalistic outlook on the future of humankind will turn out to be our reality is yet to be seen, but one thing is for sure: things will no longer feel the same.
Check out photos from the exhibit right here:
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