Carissa Rodriguez
Carissa Rodriguez is a New York-based artist and filmmaker whose practice spans video, photography, and installation, often exploring themes of desire, commodification, labor, and the art world itself. Her work frequently references and appropriates images and objects from commercial and art historical contexts, investigating the circulation of images and the fetishization of objects. She is known for her sharp conceptual approach and has exhibited internationally, with her work appearing in major institutional and commercial contexts.
Artists in conversation
Andrea Fraser
Fraser similarly turns a critical lens on the art institution itself, examining the labor, desire, and commodification inherent in art world structures. Her use of performance and video to expose institutional critique closely parallels Rodriguez's conceptual concerns.
Zoe Leonard
Leonard's photography and installation work examines the fetishization of objects, economies of desire, and the politics of looking, themes that resonate directly with Rodriguez's practice. Both artists navigate the intersection of the commercial, the intimate, and the art historical.
Artists who inspired them
Sherrie Levine
Levine's foundational practice of appropriation and her interrogation of authorship, originality, and the commodity status of the artwork provided a critical framework that deeply informs Rodriguez's own engagement with image circulation and reproduction. Rodriguez has directly referenced Levine's strategies in her work.
Louise Lawler
Lawler's photographic examination of how artworks are displayed, sold, and contextualized within institutional and domestic settings directly influenced Rodriguez's interest in the conditions of art's circulation and commodification. Her sharp institutional critique is a clear precursor to Rodriguez's conceptual approach.
Cindy Sherman
Sherman's use of photography to explore constructed identity, desire, and the commercial image has been a touchstone for Rodriguez's investigations into representation and the fetishization of images. Her critical engagement with visual culture informed Rodriguez's own appropriative and conceptual methods.