Joshua Stern "Straw Economy"
Parker's Box
This event has ended.
Referring to an exhibition of Joshua Stern paintings in the late eighties, the critic, John Sturman, writing in the now defunct Arts Magazine, called the work "timely", but stated that the artist hadn't yet "thought of a great deal to say". Although other reviewers of the same exhibition (Kate Linker in Artforum) thought otherwise, Sturman's statement is perhaps indicative of misinterpretations of the complexities of Stern's work over the last twenty years that may have robbed him of certain types of mainstream recognition.
Indeed, Stern's tireless curiosity about the very nature of contemporary art and the complexity of its possible multiple relations to History, Art History, Politics, the Market and the Economy, for example, means that his work always has a huge amount to say, (as does the artist), and whether or not this makes it "timely", his practice has always eschewed any concerns with fashion, making him generally both atypical and impossible to categorize at the best of times. This has been his strength and his handicap.
Joshua Stern's solo exhibition: Straw Economy, his third at Parker's Box, brings together selected examples from different bodies of work made over the last two decades or so. Not wishing to take on a retrospective stance as such, the choice of works sets out instead to explore the artist'ss common concerns, charting a thread of reflection through a range of contrasting works.
Media
Schedule
from September 11, 2009 to October 25, 2009