MoMA Hosts SAIC Alum Andrew Norman Wilson’s Video Retrospective

New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is currently exhibiting artwork by School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) alum Andrew Norman Wilson (MFA 2011). Wilson’s video installation Workers Leaving the Googleplex is on view in MoMA’s Systems Gallery and will be accompanied by a retrospective of his video works on September 25.

Before his artistic career, Wilson worked as a video producer at Google’s California headquarters. As a contractor enjoying the corporate benefits offered across the campus, Wilson noticed an anomaly in worker privileges. The workers comprising Google’s ScanOps team left their shifts in masses, starkly contrasting the individual mobility and freedoms of full-time workers, contractors, and interns. Reminiscent of the  Harun Farocki and the Lumière Brothers' film Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory, Wilson’s video installation offers a contemporary view of labor practices.

Workers Leaving the Googleplex was first exhibited in 2011 during Wilson’s graduate studies at SAIC. The video installation now accompanies Wilson’s retrospective at MoMA, presenting seven video works including The Fly (2023) and The Unthinkable Bygone (2016).