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Is the ubiquity of installation views today (over the very obsolete taste for images of the paintings cropped of which here there are presented none) merely today's fashion, or is it a use of its authority. Wasting space is form of symbolic violence, of power, and the empty whiteness surrounding paintings today is the latent frame replacing yesteryear gilt to showcase its images held in power and wealth, the symbolic wealth of the museum, or the hundreds of dollars per square foot of galleries, that any gold leaf would be understood to be redundant.
See too:
Sophie Nys at Crac Alsace, Florian Hecker & John McCracken at Künstlerhaus KM- , Midway Contemporary Art, Lois Weinberger at Kunsthalle Mainz, “Being Thing” at Centre International d’Arte et du Paysage & Treignac Projet, “About Face” at Kayne Griffin