March 31, 2009 |
Tags: america, antonioni, consumerism, europe, peter saul, suburbs, zabriskie point
Peter Saul's exploding America
Sometimes I feel like I'm living in Peter Saul's world. He's an artist drawn to the shocking and outrageous. He twirls everyday forms around his finger like a wedding ring; he's married to the wild explosion of surplus and junk in American life.
A stellar show of his early work is on view at George Adams Gallery in Chelsea (through April 11). Saul's later work becomes more dayglo and provocative as it gets more character-based.
In the early drawings, though, we see Saul beginning to grapple with comic books and highways and refrigerators while the art world was still in its abstract-expressionist hangover. Everyday objects tend towards the abstract and become occasions for whimsy and endless whirl.
In some ways these drawings remind me of Antonioni's great finale to Zabriskie Point, where a brand new suburban home explodes in the American desert, sending all manner of consumer goods tumbling through the air to a Pink Floyd soundtrack (go to 3:30 in the video below for the explosions. Trust me: it's worth it).
But where Antonioni is making a movie about the catastrophe of modern relationships that are intertwined with suburbia and consumerism, Saul is taking a bumpercar ride through their birth.
