Currently the museum Ludwig in Cologne, Germany is showing an interesting exhibition from work of American artist Wade Guyton. The monochrome planes, stripes and bars, which Guyton has recently begun using very often, are computer-generated. The colour black and the letter X have become signature motifs in his work. These newer paintings by Wade herald the modernist motif par excellence: the monochrome. The classical monochromes by Alexander Rodchenko or Robert Ryman had already served to reduce painting to its essence: color, canvas, and frame. It can be assumed that Guyton’s monochrome bars, even when they appear in larger complexes, have a similar objective to that of Rodchenko and Ryman, namely self-reflective painting. However where other artists have used brushes, light, sounds or even metaphors to paint, Wade started (ab) using an inkjet printer. As medium he started out with paper but moved to canvas. He prints the elementary geometric forms he uses over and over again by feeding the canvas into the printer again and again. This sometimes causes the print head to lose grip. These errors in the printing process produce elisions and streaks.
Guyton follows a strict plan; it is for instance important that the dimensions of each canvas be adapted to the technical details and the space in question. And although the width of all the artist’s works produced on the printer is the same, the length is oriented to the architecture of the exhibition room.
The exhibition in the museum Ludwig is curated by Dr. Julia Friedrich and will run until 22-08-2010
Photos Wade Guyton Maurice Cox | museum Ludwig