Steven Parrino

For close to three decades, the work of Steven Parrino has represented a vital link to the (supposedly obsolete) idea of “radicality.” Back in the early eighties, when the word on the street pronounced painting dead, rather than join the flock of mourners, Parrino (1958-2005, USA) took a shot at necrophilia. In his hands, appropriationist strategies became a kind of black ops technique, a means to convulsively incarnate the historical breakdown of avant-gardes narratives. Not to provide a distanced, critically laden image of ideological collapse, but to produce a raw, visual materialization of its effects. Neither nostalgic nor cynical, his “misshapen” and gutted monochrome paintings, performance-based films, photo-collages and works on paper made with such loaded materials as engine enamel, blood and glitter, owe more to Stella’s Black Paintings’ “what you see is what you see” credo than to any post-pop tradition of cultural intervention. And just not any Frank Stella’s Black Paintings, but specifically: Arbeit macht frei (1958) and Die Fahne Hoch (1959). As far as Parrino was concerned, these works were not called “black” for nothing.

In the artist’s words: “Radicality comes from context and not necessarily form. The forms are radical in memory, by way of continuing the once radical, through extensions of its history. The avant-garde leaves a wake and, through mannerist force, continues forward. Even on the run, we sometime look over our shoulders, approaching art with intuition rather than strategy. Art of this kind is more cult than culture”.

Three years in the making, this retrospective gathers over 200 works, including paintings, sculptures, drawings, photographs and films. This exhibition will include photo-documentation of the artist’s earliest performances and monochrome paintings, both generically titled DISRUPTION, as well as his early attacks on then-current late avant-garde dogmas of “Radical Painting,” with images of comic books superheroes literally wrecking Malevitch’s Black Square (1915.) The retrospective then moves on to works shown between 1983-1988 at Nature Morte and Metro Pictures, two galleries who then represented the most “vanguard” art made in New York, including Parrino’s first shaped and “misshaped” canvasses– monochrome paintings wrenched from their stretchers, before being stretched back, distorted, in a supremely frozen gesture, suggesting, in Robert’s Nickas’ words, “the crumpled body of a car after an accident (…) a clear sign of violence being served cold.” This section of the exhibition will also provide a large survey of the artist’s first foray into “figurative” drawings and collages, using motifs appropriated from biker, no-wave, punk rock, and comic book culture. Contrarily to the works of his Californian counterparts (Mike Kelley, Jim Shaw, Raymond Pettibon, etc.,), these drawings do not unearth the repressed, psychosexual impulses of American culture, as much as physically embody its infinitely pliable, one-dimensional surface– the “dumb” and glamorous non-sites of underground radicality Moving into the Nineties, this exhibition includes the artist’s large scale, walk-in, installations (Hell’s Gate Shifter, 1997), full-scale comic book project (Exit/Dark Matter, 1998-1999) and further radicalization of earlier series– such as, for example, his repainting of previously multi-colored canvasses in either black or silver, further collapsing the conceptual space that separates Stella’s Black Paintings from Warhol’s Disaster’s series. A large selection of works made in the last five years shows the artist recent moves from video to 16 mm film, and, most significantly, from painting into the realm of sculpture, and will include models for yet unrealized large-scale sci-fi inspired earthworks such as Study for a model of the Universe to be placed in the Forbidden Zone (2003). Finally, this retrospective will include prime examples of the many collaborations

Parrino initiated throughout his career, including works made with Olivier Mosset, Jutta Koether, as well as with younger artists. (F.S.)

An inclusive large monographic catalogue, co-edited by Mamco, Geneva, Les presses du réel, Dijon, and JRP-Ringier, Zurich, is scheduled for the end of the year 2006.

Pressetext

Steven Parrino
RETROSPECTIVE 1977-2004
Kurator: Fabrice Stroun