Tom Król at Neuer Aachener Kunstverein

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"Artists have such a strange relation to the face, to our lumpen forms. ... No matter what gratuitous things they do it, whatever fingers clawed through it, we recognize it. Perhaps reason to hate it, through the violence it remains, you can get a smile."

And the face is a surface display, a graphical user interface, like a particularly nuanced iPad, so why not peacock its plumage, blast it with painting.


see too: Chloe Seibert at Mickey, The violence against faces., Nathaniel Mary Quinn at Rhona Hoffman & Genesis Tramaine at Almine Rech

Egan Frantz at Neuer Aachener Kunstverein

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"Yes, any painting which is any good looks strange in the beginning — bad ones too!, comes to the defense of analogizing’s weakness."

Presaging your paintings misunderstood, unappreciated in their own time. Getting ahead of the story, an important part of any PR campaign but usually you let the dealer do that, not the title of painting, and what level tongue approaching cheek, hard to tell. Not quite the stupendous iron-fist-stupidity of Kippenberger's titles (and painting as excuses for them), or the so painfully played straight writ of Carpenter. More like an apologetics, an excuse me, for the brown faux pas currently being committed. Call it shit, but aha, excuses already in order, I intended to.