Monday, February 21, 2011

David Hammons

A remarkable show of David Hammons at L&M Arts...

Chris T. posted this review of the show last night to my FB page--definitely worth a read.
I'm completely fascinated by Hammons' recent work work:
1. by the way they somehow elude the categorization of painting and yet are some of the most interesting painting I've seen in a long, long time.  In the first few moments of looking at them, I had this barrage of thoughts, wow, this completely changes my notions of what I thought painting could be--in fact, painting can be so much more!  My own notions have been so limited--the boundaries are wide open once again.  Hallejuah!  (or something akin to that exclamation of supreme delight...) 
2. by the way they are adamantly abstract, utterly, heart-wrenchingly poetic and deeply aesthetic--conjuring all kinds of affinities with what we assume poetic abstraction to be at first--and yet, they do not really reside where we think they should reside in the end.   They flirt with race and politics, attaching the complexities of race and politics to an appropriately complicated form.
3. by the way they teach me how to see painting, aesthetics, abstraction, and politics-as-dealt-with-by-art anew--

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