Seth Price
Reception and interpretation
Reception and interpretation
----------------------------

Novelist [Rachel Kushner](/wiki/Rachel_Kushner "Rachel Kushner") called Price's work a "Vision so accurate it becomes fiction." Price was also referred to by artist and critic John Kelsey as, "one of the original trolls of contemporary art" and art critic Tom Moody described his 2009 Art F City essay *Teen Image* as "entertaining but incoherent." In 2018 art critic Andrew Russeth described Price's show, *Seth Price: Hell Has Everything* at Petzel Gallery as one of the “weirdest shows of the year” and said that “it feels like such an exacting depiction of life in New York right now.”

Price has described a major theme in his work as "the tension between material life and dematerialized life," and spoken of it as a response to the last twenty years’ "trend of increasing abstraction... in finance, the distancing of technology, and the effects of digital tools. Social media accelerates that, and moves it to the realm of the self, where we’re being asked to live in the material and immaterial realms at the same moment." In *[The Brooklyn Rail](/wiki/The_Brooklyn_Rail "The Brooklyn Rail")*, Price said of his "Silhouettes" series: "I never wanted people to look at the 'Silhouettes' and understand how fucking annoying it is to unite plastic and wood. I wanted it to look like that process always existed."

Between 2013 and 2014 Price took a year away from doing shows and other art world activities. Around the same time, he tried to have all press, interviews and photos of him removed from the internet. Some critics have interpreted this attempt as a work in its own right; however, when asked about it in an interview with [Kim Gordon](/wiki/Kim_Gordon "Kim Gordon") for [*Bomb* magazine](/wiki/BOMB_%28magazine%29 "BOMB (magazine)"), Price said: “I never really called it a work. I just thought I would try it.”

Price has spoken about dropping out of social media, distrusting the cloud, and the importance of avoiding predictability.

Additionally, during the aftermath of the [October 7, 2023 Hamas\-led attack on Israel](/wiki/October_7%2C_2023_Hamas-led_attack_on_Israel "October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel"), Price signed a letter on *[Artforum](/wiki/Artforum "Artforum")* that was criticized for being antisemitic, as it intentionally did not mention the terrorist organization [Hamas](/wiki/Hamas "Hamas") or the Israelis who were killed. The letter received more than 8,000 signatures. Many in the art world condemned the petition and its signers for its [antisemitism](/wiki/Antisemitism_during_the_Israel%E2%80%93Hamas_war "Antisemitism during the Israel–Hamas war").


Can you give an example of how Seth Price's work is 'fiction' in its accuracy?