Phantom Limb: Approaches to Painting Today
Sat. 05/05 - Sun. 10/21 @ Museum of Contemporary Art (map)
- Event Details
- Despite the periodic ringing of the death knell for painting, it is common knowledge that this genre of art-making is alive and well. One reason for its continued relevance is that it has gotten tougher and smarter in true Darwinian fashion. Painters are bound to the traditions they inherit and know that in order to keep painting alive, push it forward, and agitate for its relevance, they must find ways to connect it to our times. The artist’s hand—the central protagonist in modern gestural painting from John Singer Sargent to Jackson Pollock to John Currin—has become a primary reference point for many artists intent on rethinking painting anew. Artists from Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol to Christopher Wool and Wade Guyton have fostered a skepticism about the role of the hand-made as an indicator of artistic genius or authenticity, a doubt that has found an outlet in a wide variety of paintings and artistic practices since the 1960s. This ambivalence towards the hand inspired the title of this exhibition, Phantom Limb, which brings together a wide cross-section of painterly activity by artists who are defining the terms by which we understand this tradition today. Primarily based on the MCA’s own collection, but augmented with works from the Chicago community, the exhibition shows that a skepticism about how painterly gestures are made is a concern that dates back decades. Rauschenberg and Warhol were early adopters of the silkscreen process in the 1960s, pioneers who have become so central to the discussion, while across the Atlantic artists such as Sigmar Polke also combined the hand-painted and the printed, often complicated further by using patterned fabrics instead of pristine canvas for his provocations. An artist like Chicago native Christopher Wool is another leading example, represented by several works in the exhibition. Wool has been a prime figure in this struggle, and over the course of a 30-plus year career, he has given painting a solid roughing up, challenging its rules, its biases, and its cherished truths, delivering it to the free and fertile territory that it currently finds itself in today. Wool first came to attention in the 1980s for aligning fine art painting with sign painting in stenciled text works and then went on to besmirch it further by using techniques more common in home decorating such as rolling floral patterns on his surfaces. More recently, he has been making paintings as much by wiping away paint as by adding it, and his methods have become very reliant on photography, computers, and screen printing to usher forth works that are entangled in a web of reproduction and permutation. Meanwhile, a new generation of artists has come to public attention who have built on these breakthroughs, keeping a critical eye on the romance of the hand in painting. By using printing techniques, staining, spraying, and other methods, artists as diverse as Guyton, Rebecca Morris, Sergej Jensen, Kerstin Brätsch, and Sterling Ruby, to name just a few, extend these ideas into the present, connecting them with new concerns and conditions. As in the original medical origin of the term, with a phantom limb the body part may not be on evidence any longer, but its owner is still aware of its presence, haunted by it and instinctively wanting to use it, just as painters today, perhaps perversely, find ways to maintain a critical distance to the hand, even though its presence is hard to deny. Curated by James W. Alsdorf Chief Curator Michael Darling. Organized by the MCA Chicago. Support for this exhibition is generously provided by Marilyn and Larry Fields. Official Airline of the Museum of Contemporary Art
- Poster
-
- Comments
-
You must Login to post comments.
