“Painting has been lifeless for so long, all that is remaining are the bones of the stretcher bar skeleton. And a handful of scraps of barbeque,” reads the announcement for the new two-man or woman clearly show of Mark Flood and Preston Douglas at PRP in West Dallas.
With the “death of painting” reference, these two artists are positioned in the prolonged custom of these who would like to emphasize not art’s ability to visually represent an imagined scene, but its role as a token in a match or negotiation in between artist and viewer: What do you consider of this get the job done, and what are you going to do about it?
The works here pose these issues in a raw, rough and aggressively in-your-confront style. Every single of them is a jolt to the senses. They’d go properly with shots of whiskey and distorted guitar power chords played loud.
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/dmn/O5WI3JSNVJDAZP6QFMFFENQEJA.jpg)
The 11 parts in the two galleries largely fall into two types. In the entrance area are substantial, bare stretchers (6 toes tall or far more) that, in its place of currently being coated with canvas like a “normal” painting, are hung with bits and pieces of plastic, vinyl and wire (Flood) or hydrodipped and draped with poly chiffon fabric (Douglas). In the again place, on a smaller scale (1 or 2 feet tall), are framed black-and-white inkjet prints from Douglas and two self-consciously crude collages from Flood.
Even though the two artists’ aesthetics in shape alongside one another remarkably effectively, there remain distinctive variances concerning them. Flood’s colorful collages frequently aspect observed objects and ransom-note-style textual content keywords and phrases like “rich” and “sadist,” among the more printable illustrations. In trying to keep with his prolonged-managing terrible-boy pose, Flood normally would seem to be mocking the rituals of the art small business, with the physical appearance of phrases like “empty gallery” and a stapled VIP card from the Pulse Artwork Truthful in Miami.
By distinction, Douglas’ much more strictly grayscale get the job done employs motifs from net tradition and online video video games, glitched and remixed nearly to oblivion but with nonetheless-obvious brand name names like “Google” and “Sublime.” The use of cloth also implies his interest in fashion and the human system. The intricacies of Douglas’ designs give a viewer’s eye a bit additional to review than does Flood’s function, but the total influence stays amazing and distant.
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/dmn/MVJNVGDD75EPTKAW5SSHL6FMEI.jpg)
The kind of punk-rock mindset visible in the get the job done of Flood and Douglas was arguably pioneered by newborn boomers this kind of as Richard Prince and Cady Noland in the 1980s and then carried on by Technology X artists Banking companies Violette, Josephine Meckseper and their younger colleagues. For this reason, Flood (born in 1957) and his previous studio assistant Douglas (born in 1995) plainly belong to a greater tradition of provocation and problem, which finds some echoes in the existing installation.
“Stretcher Barbeque” is the second in a series of reveals curated by artist Greg Meza at PRP, providing welcome exposure to more youthful artists who, like Douglas, are reasonably new on the scene. Though Flood has been based in Houston for lots of decades, and so was Douglas (until finally his the latest shift to Brooklyn), neither will be all that familiar to a Dallas audience.
Created for viewers who are fatigued of looking at pretty pics, this demonstrate dares them to go shot for shot with the artists and see how prolonged they can keep up.
Information
“Preston Douglas and Mark Flood, Stretcher Barbeque” continues by way of July 31 at PRP, 508 Fabrication St., Dallas. Weekly open gallery several hours are posted on the gallery’s web page, prp.company.