Bienko videos part of winter exhibit in Kansas City gallery

Videos by [Joshua Bienko] (http://www.joshuabienko.com/index.php?/ongoing/artraps/) , assistant professor of architecture at Texas A&M, were part of an exhibit that ran through Jan. 7 at a Kansas City gallery that critic Theresa Bembnister calls “smart and engaging work by artists who acknowledge the impossibility of originality in the 21st century.”

Bienko and his three fellow artists in Plug Projects’ [“Remasters”] (http://plugprojects.com/exhibitions/remasters.html) exhibit unabashedly borrow images and concepts from the pages of art history textbooks and contemporary art magazines, modifying them with their own ideas and aesthetic sensibilities, wrote Bembnister in the [Kansas City Star] (http://www.kansascity.com/2011/12/28/3340230/remasters-draws-on-art-history.html#storylink=cpy) Dec. 28.

In his hilarious music videos, she wrote, Bienko raps about art world celebrities and his own prowess as a visual artist, appearing in front of a background dotted with what appear to be luxury brand logos interspersing clips from movies, video games and performance art.

“Bienko adds another layer of meaning to his video [‘Rappin Bout Art’] (http://www.joshuabienko.com/index.php?/ongoing/artraps/) by inserting clips from music videos by Milli Vanilli,” she wrote. “The pop duo caused a controversy in the late 1980s when the news broke that the voices on the album were not those of the two men on the album art and in the videos … by including a performance by a fake musician impersonating a visual artist, Bienko sends a sly wink to his viewers. What really is authentic here? And does it really matter?”

“Remasters” was exhibited at [Plug Projects] (http://www.plugprojects.com/) , 1613 Genessee St. Kansas City, Mo.