CAN YOUR MONKEY DO THE DOG by Josh Smith, Christopher Wool

Description:

Josh SmithChristopher Wool21111

80Robert GoberCady NolandRichard Prince

Can your monkey do the dog is the title for this book conceived jointly by Josh Smith and Christopher Wool. Thanks to digital imaging, they created together a series of pieces; one of them proposed an image from his corpus, which the other one reworked, by adding or removing elements. A new "layer" was each time superimposed on the previous one, without any constraint or mutual censorship regulating the alternating interventions.

Josh Smith (*1978, lives and works in New York) has recently gained a wide acclaim for paintings that seem to turn Abstract Expressionism into cartoon-like forms of appropriation. He first became known for the works in which he used his name as a motif on the canvas, an ironic act of self marketing. His later "abstractions" and "palettes" further demonstrated his ability to collage manual imput and mechanical reproduction, challenging the notions of creation. In a world of incessant flows, products, and images, Smith succeeds in offering an alternative flow that serves to break the repetition of the same. Authenticity is not to be sought in a triumphant subjectivity whose return would be signaled through signature and expressiveness, but in a frenzied search whereby subject and work are constantly co-produced and modified.

Since the early 80s Christopher Wool (born 1955 in Chicago, lives and works in New York City) has been using his painting to explore and expand the boundaries of a painting whose heroic period is past. Like Robert Gober, Cady Noland and Richard Princewith whom he has workedWool has helped invent new forms for a supposedly wornout discipline. Throwing in references to music, cinema and art, he has created works testifying to the contemporary experience. Beginning with decorative patterns and letters that produced All-over paintings in which expression was cut to a minimum, he went on to use silkscreening for works that became steadily denser and freer.