If I Go There, I Won't Stay There

Alteronce Gumby, James Hayward, Ravi Jackson, Richard Jackson, Jule Korneffel, Jim Lambie, Ilana Savdie, Tariku Shiferaw, Vaughn Spann, Monique Van Genderen

The paint stands there like a signpost. It points a certain way. Picture it. Some kind of arrow at a junction or along a road. Nailed to the overpass rapidly approaching. It suggests a direction to take. Not a mandate but a possibility. Despite inclinations toward the individual, toward the self-determinate genius, there is nothing wrong with following directions. There is nothing wrong with letting someone else lead the way, but it all depends on whom is directing, on whom is setting the path. “If I go there, I won’t stay there” – a mantra for considered movement. So this group takes up the task, follows the paint, allows it to set the path as it falls.

Following is not the same as agreeing, or deciding, or coming to any sort of conclusion. These artists are in a relationship with paint. It is not love, nor is it marriage. It is a mutual enabling. Theirs are active practices. The paint is still being moved around, set on a course, sent on its way. The paint is being “handled,” but the manual connotations of that word aren’t quite appropriate. There is no overpowering imposition of will upon material. Each artist is listening to the paint, not telling it what to do. This is not a consideration of what paint demands, or what is required by paint. Rather, here is a wandering down the paths of paint, its trails, divots, valleys, and streams. The paths paint could make, can make if only it has a little help. Paths to nowhere, paths somewhere, paths right here. Space for the paths to lie.

Relate to liquid, to movement. Play with the paint. The game can be abandoned at any time. The paint is gonna run.

To chart these courses more specifically, follow along. Let’s start with disassembly. Monique van Genderen unravels painting with a slip and a slide, while Jim Lambie’s pierced bags of paint drip and ooze, swirling into a puddle on the floor. As the smell of paint fills the air, Alteronce Gumby’s atmosphere wafts from a fundamental tension, the tension between two opposing forces flowing against and with themselves. With thick gestural movements, James Hayward brings color into solid unities, allowing patterns to emerge in monochrome.

Ravi Jackson applies pattern to wood structures, setting little patches and quick gestures alongside fractals and rectangles, while Jule Korneffel’s scribbles, dots, separations, and incompletions hover between sense and nonsense. As she considers and reconsiders the details of her practice, Vaughn Spann engages the crackle of surface, its architectural stability and strength. Ilana Savdie pinches, folds, and soaks her canvases, and Tariku Shiferaw sends surface back into your eye, his bands of gold and silver rest against reflective black backgrounds. Richard Jackson crashes into surface, a paint plane into a painted plane. The end of a trip. Come back again.