Comments?:
This Part Has Been Covered/Who Turned
the Light Off?/Mounting Instructions/Expected Increase
in Value/ Left Hand Work/Contemplate Souvenirs 1&2 (New Art Will Be Old/Old
Art Was New)/ Half Price, 2007-8
The works in the
series Comments? are constituted by different
playful remarks on certain formal conditions of the artworks:
A canvas has been
covered by paint and a text reads This
Part Has Been Covered (oil on canvas, 20 x 20 cm). The comment is a self
referential description but also alludes to the art’s quest for breaking new
grounds, in the sense: this part has been taken care of.
On a black square
canvas the text Who turned the light off? (oil on canvas, 50 x 50 cm) is placed within a speech bubble. Being
the final possibility of media specific modern painting, the black square
served as a symbol of the end of art, which should have resulted in the
unthinkable situation of abandoning art production all together, leaving it in
the dark.
The painting Mounting Instructions (oil on canvas,
20 x 20 cm)
consists solely of visual directions for placing the piece according to floor,
ceiling and walls.
In Expected Increase in Value (oil on
canvas, 50 x 50 cm)
we are presented with a graph drawing the difference between the expected and
the likely outcome of an investment in that specific artwork.
In Left Hand Work (oil on canvas, 50 x 50 cm) that which is
contained by an outline trace of a hand has been left unpainted. ‘Left hand
work’ means sloppiness but in this case ‘left’ might indicate that something
has been left out. One hand is rendered visible by the action of the other
which remains invisible.
In the works Contemplate Souvenirs 1&2 (mixed media
on mdf, 2 á 50 x 30 cm) we are reminded of new
art becoming old and old art once having been new.
A small stretched
canvas has been cut in half, and one of the parts is here on sale for Half Price (oil on canvas, 10 x 20 cm).
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