“If I have to be discarded, let it be in the beautiful green space of this painting.”
Karl Wirsum
The Wild World of the Hairy Who
The Chicago version of Pop Art, embodied in the work of the Hairy Who, is sweaty, nervous, sometimes giggly or goofy.
Transfigured: An Interview with Karl Wirsum
It’s tempting to characterize Karl Wirsum’s recent spate of exhibitions in the city as his New York moment.
Plastic Purses and Comic-Book Catalogues: American Postwar Art at the Margins
Life-size knit body suits mingle with painted metal lawn chairs, plastic purses, and rows of zines and ephemera in the summer show at Matthew Marks Gallery, What Nerve!, which gathers the work of four outlying postwar art groups in the United States.
Monsters’ Ball: Peter Saul and the Company He Keeps
The great iconoclastic painter Peter Saul, for the first time ever, has turned his hand to curating, gathering together nearly two dozen kindred spirits for a show that revels, as to be expected, in the libidinous and the ravenous, the stunted and the scared, the blinkered and the grotesque — that is to say, humanity. The effect, as to be expected, is sublime.
The World According to Wirsum
Do you ever wonder how stupid the New York art world can be? Well, if you don’t have enough proof, here is another example to add to your cache. Karl Wirsum at Derek Eller (October 12–November 16) is the artist’s first exhibition of recent work in New York since 1988.
Courtney Love’s Hole Inspires Art Show
With the exhibition Pretty on the Inside, co-curators KAWS and Erik Parker reveal that they must be fans of the Courtney Love-led band Hole’s debut album and song for which it is named, but they also make us wonder about the show’s connection to the music.