Thursday, April 26, 2018

Ken Lum at Wattis


(link)

Whereas for Baldessari the image and text ruptured to dissonant stupidity, for Lum the relation between text and its image, or stylization as font, vacillates in complicating tone, affect, and comprehension, fritzing usual relations to vertical text so usually standardized, corporate, and sanded of any possible misunderstanding. Vertical text is intended to be clean, sleek and lozenge like, a clearly defined transaction between speaker and reader, and Lum's version bubbles with all manner of nerves in us. You see the human erupt through the advertorial transaction which is supposed to remain free of subjectivity - there is never a plaintive plea in advertising, and in witnessing this breakdown of decorum we feel pity.


See too: Mark Grotjhan at KarmaJohn Baldessari at Marian GoodmanJohn Baldessari at Sprüth Magers