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拍品专文
Rendered on aluminum, the artist’s signature substrate, Untitled is a masterful example of Christopher Wool’s layered dynamism. Decorative patterns of clovers, dots, and geometric forms have been screen-printed onto this epic expanse, all of which was then covered in iridescent white paint. Wool intended for such visual chaos: in this and related works, he has created a visual palimpsest wherein the viewer must interrogate and decipher the strata of pigment. It is no coincidence that the overlapping lines and shapes appear to belong to a hieroglyphic system, drawing parallels with the artist’s earlier word paintings. The experience of looking can be exhilarating and vertiginous, what critic John Kelsey has described as “getting all of these moments at once, all in one look, seeing as if from the middle of the work” (J. Kelsey, “Painting and its Side Effects”, in Christopher Wool, Berlin, 2012, p. 18).
After several years of wild investigation, Wool settled on painting in the early 1980s. His eureka moment occurred one afternoon while watching his landlord paint the hallway of his New York City apartment building. The painterly hiccups left by the roller intrigued the young artist who had long been drawn to imperfections of all types. Shortly thereafter, Wool purchased a set of paint rollers, which he incised with various, often floral designs. By using such a quotidian tool, a painter’s roller, Wool purposefully drew attention to the actual objects and instruments necessary to his art. As Madeleine Grynsztejn explains, “Wool’s ambition is to incorporate into the work a sustained consciousness of art-making’s activity” (M. Grynsztejn, “Unfinished Business” in . Goldstein, ed., Christopher Wool, exh. cat., The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 1998, p. 265).
Alongside his painting practice, Wool developed an interest in photography, and during the 1990s, he began to shoot the streets between his East Village studio and home in Chinatown. He turned his camera toward the detritus he encountered, and the resulting images are frank documents. In many ways, Wool’s paintings emanate a similarly urban aesthetic, a sense underscored in the present work which conjures memories of graffiti and all its attendant bravado. Thomas Crow has referred to Wool’s aesthetic as “Manhattan sublime” and certainly, such works revel in the grit of the city (T. Crow, “Streetcriesinnewyork: On the Paintings of Christopher Wool”, in A. Goldstein, ed., Christopher Wool, exh. cat., The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 1998, p. 273). But Wool’s paintings are far from grim but instead suggest that beauty resides in the visceral.
Indeed, layering has long played an outsized role in Wool’s oeuvre, a strategy the artist relies upon both materially and conceptually. Wool, whose practice includes painting, photography, and bookmaking, understands media to be contingent, and it is the act of accumulation itself that interests the artist. Instead of cleaving to traditional divisions, Wool gravitates towards enlargement and excess. Untitled is neither abstract nor representational but instead dances between the two, taking care to avoid expected arguments by “encouraging all sets of differences and all sets of painting faiths to coexist, if impatiently, on the aluminum surface” of the work (B. Ferguson, “Patterns of Intent: Christopher Wool”, Artforum, vol. 30, no. 1 (September 1991), p. 95). Ultimately, it is language—visual, literary, vernacular, expressive—that Wool probes, and in paintings such as Untitled, he proffers new ways of representing the world.
After several years of wild investigation, Wool settled on painting in the early 1980s. His eureka moment occurred one afternoon while watching his landlord paint the hallway of his New York City apartment building. The painterly hiccups left by the roller intrigued the young artist who had long been drawn to imperfections of all types. Shortly thereafter, Wool purchased a set of paint rollers, which he incised with various, often floral designs. By using such a quotidian tool, a painter’s roller, Wool purposefully drew attention to the actual objects and instruments necessary to his art. As Madeleine Grynsztejn explains, “Wool’s ambition is to incorporate into the work a sustained consciousness of art-making’s activity” (M. Grynsztejn, “Unfinished Business” in . Goldstein, ed., Christopher Wool, exh. cat., The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 1998, p. 265).
Alongside his painting practice, Wool developed an interest in photography, and during the 1990s, he began to shoot the streets between his East Village studio and home in Chinatown. He turned his camera toward the detritus he encountered, and the resulting images are frank documents. In many ways, Wool’s paintings emanate a similarly urban aesthetic, a sense underscored in the present work which conjures memories of graffiti and all its attendant bravado. Thomas Crow has referred to Wool’s aesthetic as “Manhattan sublime” and certainly, such works revel in the grit of the city (T. Crow, “Streetcriesinnewyork: On the Paintings of Christopher Wool”, in A. Goldstein, ed., Christopher Wool, exh. cat., The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 1998, p. 273). But Wool’s paintings are far from grim but instead suggest that beauty resides in the visceral.
Indeed, layering has long played an outsized role in Wool’s oeuvre, a strategy the artist relies upon both materially and conceptually. Wool, whose practice includes painting, photography, and bookmaking, understands media to be contingent, and it is the act of accumulation itself that interests the artist. Instead of cleaving to traditional divisions, Wool gravitates towards enlargement and excess. Untitled is neither abstract nor representational but instead dances between the two, taking care to avoid expected arguments by “encouraging all sets of differences and all sets of painting faiths to coexist, if impatiently, on the aluminum surface” of the work (B. Ferguson, “Patterns of Intent: Christopher Wool”, Artforum, vol. 30, no. 1 (September 1991), p. 95). Ultimately, it is language—visual, literary, vernacular, expressive—that Wool probes, and in paintings such as Untitled, he proffers new ways of representing the world.