Byword review series#

For every painting the artist mixes the paint at the time so that the colour of each is unique.

Byword review series#

Every painting in the series conforms to one of eight sizes, all horizontal in orientation, ranging from eight by ten inches to 61 by 89 inches. Some days he made two paintings very occasionally, he made three but most days there were none. If he did not complete a painting by midnight, he destroyed it. Kawara began producing these paintings in 1966, using a monochrome background on which he wrote the date the painting was executed, in the language and according to the calendar of the country that Kawara was in at the time. Having just had a remarkable retrospective at the Guggenheim in New York, Kawara’s signature date painting laments a life of art, and one of rigorous ritualistic formalities. On Kawara’s (1991) offers the most exuberant use of text. Thus the differing monetary values accredited to the equal piles of rice become a visual metaphor for social standings and judgements. The board is then balanced on two piles of rice, one jasmine and the other normal. On top of this, on the left hand side of the composition, is written in thick, black letters “SAME BUT NOT EQUAL”. Likewise, at the opposite side of the room, Rirkrit Tiravanija’s Untitled (same but not equal) (2014) also uses language combined with symbolism to confront social issues. The fact that it is repeated and displayed in a familiar domestic-like fashion draws the viewer to censorship, and to consider where the line lies between a joke and something more offensive. The statement is comical yet at the same time brash and obtrusive. Each composition becomes foggier and more illegible than the last.

In contrast, Christopher Wool’s series of three works, My House I, My House II, My House III (2000), uses the slogan “IF YOU DON’T LIKE IT YOU CAN GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE” beneath a distorted CMYK blotchy veneer. The work challenges the viewer to question which is the real lamp to which the answer would be the definition, as without a definition, the viewer would never know what a physical chair is. It is with a hint of irony that One and Three Lamps can be perceived as a model of the science of signs.

The meanings of the three elements are congruent in certain semantic fields and incongruent in others: a semantic congruity (“One”) and a threefold incongruity (“One and Three”). His installation One and Three Lamps (1965) problematises relations between the physical object, its visual representation and the verbal reference of said object. Language or, more specifically, words, have been utilised by artists in outstanding and innovative ways to bring new dynamics to their aesthetics. Artistic meaning and context become the audience’s guidelines as Bonami lures us ever deeper through a brief but thoroughly calculated snapshot of text as art. The viewer is sucked into the depths of social, political and artistic commentary. Word by Word, curated by Francesco Bonami, which recently showed at Luxembourg & Dayan, explores the use of text by 20th century artists.