Eduardo Enrique

Exhibition

Eduardo Enrique

Venezuela, 1989

Having served a long portfolio of fashion, lifestyle, and entertainment brands as a marketing and advertising creative for more than 10 years, Enrique’s combination of professional experiences and artistic concerns enables him to occupy a unique place in Singapore’s creative scene where he is both a marketer and a socialist, a connoisseur yet critic of culture. It is this tension that the artist attempts to make sense of in his ironically humorous works.

‘Brand Love’

DISCLAIMER: The artist is not affiliated, associated, authorized, endorsed by, or in any way officially connected with the Nike, Inc. brand or any of its affiliates or subsidiaries.

What is it about our innate human condition that compels us to shop and to consistently associate ourselves with brands?

In our quest to find meaning and identity through acts of consumption, what is it about the state of things and materiality that compels our psyche to really do so and attempt this connection?

In this solo show by Singapore-based Venezuelan-born artist Eduardo Enrique, he continues his inquisition and fascination of this human condition to consistently connect with branded goods, resulting in a series of provocative artifacts, fashion garments, and visual works that bridge the gap between material and immaterial.

Original branded goods are reconstituted with fetish materials, invoking the dark nature of human compulsion, as well as ironic and sometimes humorous depictions of sought after sneakers through unexpected reformations via digital reimaginings and tongue-in-cheek visual works.

The show is further set in an immersive setting where audiences are invited to partake in ways directly or indirectly with this creations, further illuminating the theme of human connectivity and our constant need to invoke sensations in whatever ways we can.

“Basketball Love” (2022) | Limited edition of 5

A Nike basketball rests suspended between the claws of a human rectal dilator commonly used in bondage practices.

Some interpret the hyperbole as a sheer commentary on the rising integration of basketball culture that we see nowadays in mass consumerism, while others see it as a romantic ode to one’s own radical fanaticism of the sport.

No matter where you stand in the analysis spectrum of this (like in any other) conceptual work, the viewer is inevitably confronted by the physical strain suggested by the function and scale of the device, sentiment I intentionally rely upon to examine the inevitable interconnectedness that exists between joy and affliction.

“Concept For A Nike Anal Hook” (2022) | Limited edition of 4.

How deep is your (brand) love? (Pun not intended)

Often resembling a fishing device in design, rectal hooks are often woven into rope “shibari” harnesses or tied to the participant’s hair in bondage practices.

In this piece, a Nike golf ball replaces the metallic ball typically placed at the tip of the device to provide an “intensified experience”.

“GORE-TECH®” (2022) | Spike studs on original Nike goalkeeper glove.

The best concepts are always the most simple.

“Untitled” (2022)

Sometimes titles are redundant.

A silicone adult toy is tied using a bondage cotton rope to the top of a Nike basketball from the “Dominate” sub-brand, standing altogether over a stainless steel spider gag.