»I prefer a doomsday mood and I love to laugh at bad news«
It was arguably during the 1960s that painting got caught up in the loop
of permanent rehash and constant transformation, which--in contrast to
the hypothesis of progress--forms the working principle of
postmodernism. Peter Saul (* 1934 in San Francisco) is one of the most
important protagonists of this radical change that is often, and rather
inaccurately, connected exclusively to the advent of Pop Art. With his
painterly and graphic work, Peter Saul has created a complex amalgam of
high and counterculture, combining comics, Pop, surrealism, and abstract
expressionism with the radical (and in part quite trivial) social
critique of the Haschrebellen (Hashish -Rebels). As a matter of course,
such a painter would have never been a champion of American troops in
-Vietnam, never a party-supporter of Reagan or Bush, but politically
reducing his work to agitprop would mean overlooking the hedonistic
impulse of a baroque compositional joy within his images. After
publications on the work of the last few years in the USA, this first
individual exhibition in Europe including this catalog, devised by
Martina Weinhart and the Schirn, focuses on the work of the 1960s, as
sex and crime, politics, drugs, karma and revolt first began to
penetrate the world. Some of Saul's works, in their pastel tones, may be
reminiscent of Philip Guston, the other great US painter of late glory.
Asked about this, Peter Saul only said that Guston's paintings had never
interested him; in his opinion they were too »softcore«. He thought his
attitude towards the subject was too amusing and that personally he
rather preferred a doomsday mood; he said, he loved to laugh at bad
news.
Exhibitions:
Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, June 2 - September 3, 2017
Deichtorhallen Hamburg/Sammlung Falckenberg, September 30, 2017 -
January 28, 2018
