Man, fuck, do I love Alex Gingrow. I have a huge art crush
on her. Even when she is taking shots at Laurel Nakadate (whose work I am a fan
of), I still find Gingrow’s work utterly amusing. I mean “Nicole Klagsburn is
my greatest nightmare” is pretty harsh / funny. Gingrow’s paintings of wall
labels are also excellently executed and almost become a subtle minimalist exploration
of the color white, and the pairing of her work with her (if I am not mistaken)
real life significant other and fellow bad ass artist Michael Scoggins is rad.
Now granted, the show relies heavily on what Scoggins is most known for, the gigantic
sheets of paper, where in the past he has made epic doodles. These now feature
the most over the top Ruscha / Prince text art ever, where he declares his
greatness, mocks his own art and declares its decorativeness in a very
pleasuralably snarky, ironic tone. Now the text work makes sense with Gingrow’s
work, but I loved the styrofoam fingers and the Fat Head from the superbowl
show at Small Black Door, and I am looking forward to seeing where Scoggins is
going artwise. With Gingrow, I am a tad worried how she is going to follow up the
critical wall labels.
Also in the show is the Brooklyn institution that is Loren
Monk. I loved his appearance on the Bad At Sports podcast and enjoyed his somewhat
critical take on what he described as crappy painting or a genre of painting
where the final result might not always be as important as the process that
went into it. It took me a long time to realize he wasn’t talking about his own
work, which, despite its excellent use of color, always seemed more about
documenting recent art history in a rather idiosyncratic manner than about making
a painting in any kind of traditional sense. But I have to say, I think the
work in this show is his most painterly to date. The largest one even seems to
be aggressively playing with font and type and also engaging in the history of
sign painting. If he wants to distance himself from Brooklyn’s infatuation with
crappy painting, I think sign painting is a legacy I can see Loren Monk more than
happily claiming.
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