by RM Vaughan on November 28, 2016
We live in terrible times. I need not explain that assertion. And while I do not subscribe to the reading of art as always and/or necessarily “therapeutic”, it would be silly of me to not acknowledge that art can be therapeutic, even healing. To wit, Matthew Metzger’s exhibition The Shade of a Line is the Xanax in my tea.
Metzger is a Chicago-based painter whose work tilts back and forth between neo-Minimalism and neo-Color Field. I normally have nothing good to say about Minimalist work, as I find such works have nothing to say (and, yes, that is reductive, but so is the style). However, in Metzger’s case, the paintings vibrate with buried colors and dreamy pools of semi-occluded light. They teem with an interior life that reminds me of staring into precious stones, of the first hues of the morning, of being less than lucid. Put plainly, Metzger’s paintings are pretty. Let us give thanks for prettiness in an ugly world.
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by Rhett Jones on August 5, 2016
I’ve always hated minimalism. I don’t think that’s a blanket statement I’d make about any other artistic movement but I hate minimalism. From my perspective, it was audacious for like a year, and then it was decoration. This hatred even extends to minimalist design for the most part, though I can occasionally be persuaded to appreciate a nice, functional spice rack. But, I’ve always loved the tension between the experimental electronic music duo Autechre’s stark album packaging and dense, maximal music.
Throughout their 30-year career, the experimental electronic music duo Autechre (Sean Booth and Rob Brown) has been subverting expectations of what an album in the genre looks like. And as their music became more complex and structurally more in line with sound art and noise, they’ve crafted an uber-minimal visual identity.
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