This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Jan. 25, 2013 - Curators arranging artworks in an exhibition space consider the ways art objects converse with one another: a sculpture of an axe leaning against an apple tree shifts its meaning when displayed in proximity to George Washington’s portrait.
White Flag Projects director Matthew Strauss uses the reflective properties within the eight artists’ work now on his Grove gallery walls to explain the concept of his new show Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out.
The east walls of White Flag are lined with color field canvases. Ryan Sullivan’s coyly titled October 27, 2011- December 27, 2011 and October 15, 2012 – November 25, 2012- explore the materiality of the paint as it dries into cracks and ripples up to build craters that look like the surface of the moon, creating a simultaneously tranquil and eerie effect.
Joshua Smith’s untitled study of red is just that – red. And Markus Amm provides untitled white in two panels.
The west wall offers action, veering toward violence.
Carroll Dunham has been compared to R. Crumb. Duhnam’s Mule leaves less understood than Crumb is known for, but does appear rooted in a similar psychology.
1980s Neo-Geo artist (that’s short for “Neo-Geometric Conceptualism),” Ashley Bickerton is the big, bright splash against which the seven other artists whose work makes up Nothing are, instantly, at play. The Neo-Geo movement, which included Jeff Koons, regarded art from its commodity status. Bickerton’s over-the-top self-promotion is a major part of the product he’s painting.
Bickerton likens his South Pacific subject matter, centered on red light district imagery, to Paul Gauguin’s use of French Polynesian imagery. The focus of his license plate framed, celebrity signed production at White Flag, Red Scooter Nocturne, is Bickerton’s blue muse – a massively obese, but reportedly graceful surfer around whom cling young zombee-like nude women. The materials Bickerton uses are also apt descriptors of the world he depicts: acrylic, digital, plastic, laminated.
Sarah Hermes Griesbach is a freelance writer.