Barnaby Ruhe "Dialogues, 2012"
Dorfman Projects
This event has ended.
Ruhe’s Dialogues are a collection of 50 small collage/paintings on wooden boxes varying in size from 3 x 6 x 2” to 7 x 11 x 2”. Each one of the works forms its own unique dialogue: between a collage clipping, and the abstract drips and strokes of acrylic paint (in grisaille and color) that the clipping is pasted upon.
Ruhe imbues each painting with a heroic composition that betrays its small stature. The singular collaged piece and the abstraction beyond it interact, interrogate, and animate each other.
Each of these collage/paintings gives “abstraction” a quality it rarely gets credit for: narrative. Ruhe’s introduction of the narrative element in his paintings is crucial. As Ruhe admits, he has an “art historical bias” that causes him to question how the artists, artworks, and art periods that are alluded to in each of the collaged elements would have used “Abstraction” as a tool in their visual language.
Ruhe is extending “an invitation to artist, art period, or medium to consider how they may use this tool of painterly abstraction—that Ruhe exhibits so skillfully—were it accessible to them in a time that pre-dates abstraction.”
This ‘invitation’ of sorts forces the viewer to take on Ruhe’s art historical bias as well, and reconsider the artists and artworks that pre-date him. It calls their aesthetic legacy into question as you re-imagine classic works, recognizable names, with the modern visual language of abstraction. Barnaby Ruhe’s Dialogues create a discourse that paradoxically expands the concept of visual language, by limiting it to a simple combination of image and abstract paint.
Media
Schedule
from December 13, 2012 to December 22, 2012
Opening Reception on 2012-12-13 from 18:00 to 20:00