Aug 18th, 2020 • 10 minute read
Share
The Weekly Curation: Text in Art
Click/tap below to copy url
Text or the written word crafts its own art form, of course, but it can be extremely challenging for visual and studio artists to incorporate it within their compositions. Like faces, we as humans are programmed to be drawn directly to text in an image. It is familiar, giving us a peek into the artist’s intention. What the piece may be literally saying. This creates a challenge for an artist –– it can overpower the work, possibly even diminishing the intended meaning and the images incorporated in the piece. So, this week, we decide to focus on some of the ever-impressive artists who do this well. We have so many great Art in Res artists who approach this challenge head on, incorporating text in their work in visually exciting, intriguing, and often emotional ways.
This week artist and curator Mel Reese brings together a collection of Art in Res pieces that approach text in their art, all in different, intriguing, and purposeful ways that are extremely successful both compositionally and conceptually. Scroll through the post to see Mel’s placement of each piece, as well as how the selected works come together in a thoughtful, coalescent collection. Make sure to also catch Mel’s helpful educational tips on curating your own collection!
It’s a great time to revamp the living room, bathroom, or bedroom. As we all dream of designing our permanent homes, we can select stunning new artwork, lending our design tastes an extra dose of class and sophistication.
Now let’s read ;) onward –– happy browsing!
The Word
We start with the most word-centric piece Art in Res might have. The word itself is the work of art. Like a glowing neon sign at a late night diner in New York City, the word glows. There is no escaping its meaning and letters. The painting is Picabia. But, though the piece is almost “hit you over the head” clear, we are left without context as to what we are meant to take from the piece. Even with literal text, the meaning is obscured and, thus, more powerful. We are given a neon sign, but no simple direction. Instead, we can google meanings, think about process, contemplate the choices of the artist –– and we can, also, simply enjoy the letters for their glowing beauty.
Meme
Is there any more iconic use of picture and text in 2020 than the meme? Art in Res collectors know we have to include Dan Bina in this week’s curation. Bina is a master of using text and words within his work, always with a deft sense of humor and hilariously stunning image. From his studio visit last week, we learned that Dan uses humor as a method for entering the mind of a viewer. He uses the meme trope quite often as means for achieving this relationship. In this meme, text and image are one; they cannot be fully understood or appreciated without the other. We read the painting as we would our phone screen. We engage with the work on a surface level, making us laugh, absorbing and moving on. It’s a passing, fleeting moment of hilarity. But then we pause, remembering this is a painting crafted painstakingly by an individual artist. The craft is impressive –– the cow now hilariously beautiful and mournful as he stares into the sea. We return to the image time and time again –– experiencing a little laugh, an ephemeral moment from the internet captured as we ourselves change and grow day to day.
Dan Bina lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. His work addresses themes of identity, media, culture, gender, and commerce. He examines social media, human desire, and the advertising languages that market individuals, products, and ideas.
Brand
A store sign is so iconic, simple, and recognizable that we might forget it even has text. In this piece, we see a Foot Locker store, text organically placed within the environment. We see these “titles” every day, but we rarely acknowledge their presence beyond decoration or a set of instructions. We pay little to no mind to the brands passing by. The word itself loses meaning –– it no longer feels like a word or text. It has become a purely branded image –– like the McDonald's arches. Understood beyond language in a capitalist world. We see in the piece meticulously painted orange text, juxtaposed with the iconic black and white vertical stripes and we don’t need to read the words –– we already know.
Silas tells us about his experience painting this piece, “I sat here for 3 mornings painting this. I considered painting it with the gate closed, but it's nice to have a place for your mind to wander into and all those shoes in the window play well against the strong stripes of the building.”
Formatting
Dario Salvatore Bucheli’s work is fascinating –– he recontextualizes images as viewed on a computer screen, making them into rich paintings. This text formatting is visual reading. Our world now exists largely virtually and the concept of formatted text is statured into our every moment. As second nature, we understand how to read or interpret text when it is below an image or italicized in specific contexts. We recognize titles and subtitles, footnotes and captions. The visualization of text is formatting. We understand this in an acute manner via the meta approach of Bucheli’s painting of a screen snapshot, of a photograph of a sculpture in an exhibition… woah.
Bucheli was born in a small industrial city in Mexico, and moved to the United States almost a decade ago. Bucheli tells us about this piece, “This work is part of the “Embodied Perception” series. This body of work consists of paintings of pictures of paintings (by other artists who I admire) as they were found on the internet. It allows the viewer to consider the differences in experience of looking at photographs of paintings, as opposed to seeing them in person. It also allows me to reflect on the constituent aspects of the psychological process of perception.”
Shapes
Like a dusty sign on the highway or an old advertisement, the words in Matias Arganaraz’s piece seem to fade away. We have to concentrate when we take in the painting. At first glance, we see soft clouds of colors, like pollen in the air, fiery red and mustard yellow converging in a vast galaxy field. It has an organic, natural feel. But then we see the hard, straight edges of familiar text and we uncover the word. We may read first as shapes, then realizing they are letters forming distinct words. The fact that Arganaraz hides the text makes us, as the viewer, want to uncover it, read it, and understand what is being said, as it eventually fades away into the background.
Matias Arganaraz creates mesmerizing, complex paintings. Gas station decals and cigarette butts sit within glowing, ambiguous spaces evocative of mid-century abstract painters like Joan Miro, Willem de Koonig and Robert Rauchenberg.
Direction
The seeming simplicity of this piece is almost comical. Everyone has received that dreaded “OK” text –– and it is impossible to look away. The text here, crafted by artist ChaeWon Moon, is a directive. Unlike Arganaraz's hidden, faded words, Moon hands us the bluntness of the word OK –– bold and front and center, unobstructed from our view. And doesn’t that make you laugh? Like the text we are used to seeing on screens or printed paper, we read this as being a clear statement or responsive command –– there is nothing unclear about what is being said. Smack in the center of the composition, surrounded by stark white, we understand the text to be the most integral part of the image. Yet, we are left searching for visual clues of what this response might be for. What have we done to elicit this blunt OK?
ChaeWon Moon collects goal-oriented instructions and icons in daily life, and reassembles them in pseudo manual images. Her work acts as a response to the shortcoming experience when one digests a new system of behavior.
Story
Even if the words are obscured, we all recognize a page from a book. We know this is a story. In this piece, we read the text, small and distinct, desperate to know if we are already familiar with the writing. Is this a story we have been told before? What is it telling us now? Are the words crucial for the understanding of the painted image? Or are they incidental? As we relate image and story, we make our own decisions and implications, as we do with all art. Like fire, the painted image engulfs the words, trapping them in its grip. Obstructing them from our view. But we want to finish reading. What does that last word say?
Kenneth E. Parris III is a Brooklyn based Visual Artist born in Philadelphia, PA, raised in Austin, TX. He is a Creative Director in advertising and is the Art Editor of H.O.W. Journal.
Poster
The poster is an iconic, informative work of art that has been appreciated for many years. It translates information, pictures, locations and decorates street lamps, college dorm rooms, and industrial walls. Everyone in America knows exactly what a poster may be. When we see Claire’s french poster, we think back to the iconic, gorgeous, colorful posters and graphic lithographic prints of the French master Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. We may not speak French or be able to read these words, but we recognize the text and what it evokes in us as viewers. Unlike Parris’ piece, we have this feeling that what it says is not necessarily important for understanding the context –– we appreciate the text as graphic image and enjoy it more as a compositional tool than anything else. Whether we are fluent or unfamiliar, French text makes us feel something. And the text leads us into another cryptic visual, the black and white photograph. Much like the French text, we may not be able to decipher the image above. Our understanding may remain unclear. Do we recognize the forms within it? What shapes do we see? Does it matter?
Claire Price is a New Zealand born artist living and working in New York City. An accomplished singer-songwriter, she was signed to Universal Music (France) and Festival/Mushroom (Australia). Painting took a singular focus in 2015, which coincided with the birth of her son and her relocation from Paris to the United States. Her studio is located in BedStuy, Brooklyn where she works almost exclusively in a figurative style inspired by vintage photographs and a disappearing natural world.
Bringing it Together
On curating the collection:
Let’s learn how and why I brought these pieces together –– I want to walk you through what I’ve considered. Whether you’re an experienced collector or totally new to the art world, it’s always fun to thoughtfully discuss what makes a great collection.
This week we will discuss what makes these pieces successful in their approach to text as an image.
Color:
Color! When has color ever felt more important? Many of the pieces here incorporate white with traditional black or grey text. This is how we picture text by default –– from websites, book pages, and computer screens. This combination further emphasizes the weight of the value of the text within each piece. The line between painting and book, screen, or ad is blurred in these moments. And when text transcends that traditional black and white, we are all the more intrigued.
Composition:
Where the text falls within each composition plays a key role in our understanding and visual intake of the image itself. In Dan Bina’s piece, we know this is a meme because of the traditional placement of text. It’s standard formatting signals to us that we read the text first, then view the image below in an order that’s silly and eye-catching. In Dario Salvatore Bucheli’s painting we understand the text as a caption of an image from its placement below what looks to be a photograph. And with Erin Hauer’s lone, glowing word, we have an overwhelming central image. We understand that this is all we need from this piece –– totality of one word to be seen all at once.
Size and Scale:
Many of the pieces in this curation are small. This is not surprising, as reading is often a personal, intimate affair. The vehicles for words tend to be small –– a book, a text message, a letter, or a postcard. Things we can hold in our hands. It’s a familiar scale seen in the work. They are “life-size” in that the text exists in this familiar scale. Even the glowing Picabia neon word feels like a sign hung in a store window. With each piece, they draw us closer, begging us to lean in and read the words on our own. In contrast, a few pieces are larger, blown up text like a billboard or advertisement. This is text to be read together. Like interacting with a billboard on a road trip or a restaurant sign, we are meant to share our experience of this piece with others.
With these new viewing tools in hand, happy collecting!
Curated by Mel ReeseZhuzh by Emily Berge
Virtual installations courtesy of ArtPlacer