Tuesday, June 24, 2014

David Robilliard at ICA

David Robilliard, Wondering What to Do this Evening, 1987, acrylic on canvas. Photograph: Paul Knight. Courtesy collection Chris Hall. © The Estate of David Robilliard. All rights reserved. DACS 2014.          

They’re flat in their half-humored, and accurate modern ennui. Doodled adverts of modern world of half-hearted enjoyment. An anhedonia of Nauman-neons made paintings. Posters of a gay vietnamese hairdresser who knows everyone, all the gossip, is invited to all the parties, and at night just can’t wait to get home and clip his toenails and curl his hair in front the glowing tv. The irrational slogans and trademarks of contemporary life. At once as splitting as they are banal as they are absurd. Both inspirational and defeatist. the work is waist deep in mire of bored tragi-comedy. There should be more, these should be in every museum. Like a Paul Thek who never got out of bed in the morning.