Monkkonen's quotational action-figure use of product forms, graffitoed delivery vans as allegories of painting, a more precisely modern take on Vermeer's, and then the walled faces dimensionality exaggerating their form, containers of subject's latent toy childhood, but here finally now Monkkonen taking the step to make totally flat bland branded paintings, actually producing, and no longer mocking, product. And adding a merry song so we can feel the irony of another once happy artist succumbed to the needs of the market, making flat, blank fungible artwork, like enacting a Vaerslev like production line on your own brand. We could have chalked this one up quietly to a polite cash-out of symbo-cred, but then CAD posts its embarrassment sedimenting as unrescindable history, ouch.
Pentti Monkkonen at High Art, Fredrik Vaerslev at Centre d’Art Contemporain Passerelle, Zak Kitnick at Clearing, "Paris de Noche" at Night Gallery
