Better Than de Kooning

STONED AGIN Better than de Kooning , this title quoted for a group exhibition sounds like a terrible genre joke, because nobody can paint better than de Kooning , so it is an ideal title for a group show exhibition. Peter Saul paints during the mid-1970s a series of pictures of women that parodies the Woman -pictures (1950-53) of Willem de Kooning. He meticulously imitates the brush strokes and the impasto in a stylistic mix of Pointillism and Graffiti Art, turns up the colour regulator, and allows the abstract-expressionist painting and the women themselves to blend in a Daliesque manner, like soft ice cream (see the text Un Autre Monde by Marcus Weber and Ice Creams, Atom Bomb, I-Screens, Data Bomb by Esther Leslie in this book). In 2008, Saul paints another version of this cartoon-like, neon avatar and calls his painting Better than de Kooning …a relief of US reality.

Artists:

Tim Berresheim, Jana Euler, Maria Lassnig, Lee Lozano, Michel Majerus, Dieter Krieg, Katrin Plavcak, Jon Rafman, Gunter Reski, Peter Saul, Matthias Schaufler, Jim Shaw, Amy Sillman, Sue Williams

Exhibition:

Villa Merkel Galerien der Stadt Esslingen: 12/9-15/11/2015