Wednesday, September 27, 2017

“Pharmacy for Idiots” at Rob Tufnell


(link)

This fall color is in. Schmutz is hot, and the figurative no longer the province of the cerberally impoverished. Just a number of seasons ago this would have been unheard of. People wanted their painting printed, indexed, sprayed from fire extinguishers, run through a series of conceptual parameters that stood in for ideas. People wanted ice cold abstraction. Wanted painter's hands replaced with scissors and aerosols, desiring our painters as machines for production. Now they want comedy, hard illustrative, want brush work, florals, subjects, want subjectivity. "Art is a pharmaceutical product for idiots." - DADA manifesto 1920, quoted at full in the PR. History repeats.


See too: Joanne Greenbaum at CroneWade Guyton at Academie Conti & Le ConsortiumZak Prekop at Shane Campbell, Nathan Hylden at Misako & Rosen,