Saturday, December 24, 2016

Paul Sietsema at Matthew Marks


(link)

The hamfisted questioning of painting representation which we all thought had died when pipes were called to question, and Foucault treatised, returns possibly with intonations of "Forget Foucault" whose simulacrum comes bulldozing in with questions of representations replacing real. It's literal here in the currency whose IRL lines authenticate it, and questions abound as to whether perfect replication of those lines would still make authenticate currency, since the map makes the territory, the code to make the currency, etc. etc. and MFA questions of whether painting a drip is the same as a drip. The most interesting question is "Hey, what's under there?" covered by authentication lines. Did Sietsema expose his underwear showing his own very-technically-unaccomplished painting or is it very technically reproduced copy of an unaccomplished painting? The main point is we like looking at dead things and wondering if they can still be considered life.