One could spend hours (or pages) discussing the aesthetic and technical merits of Richard Bell’s individual paintings at Milani gallery, compositional design not the least. The truth is –and I will limit my discussion to the four major works on the ground level – I believe the paintings work more successfully as a total installation.
American artist, Barbara Kruger has in recent years, produced a mix of images, voices and texts in a similar installation entitled ‘Twelve’, but with four video projections instead of four large scale paintings. The sensory effect of the wall of noise is the same here.
Bell seems to adopt his previous work’s Freud persona, in continuing to distract and mystify his audience. Four hypnotic eyes provide a focus, and visual stability at the centre of a noisy quilt of Western culture’s dross and doctrines. The viewer is enveloped in ideas, thoughts, jolts of colour. In confounding and confusing the mind they can create a stillpoint of reflection beyond the jarring surface. This is what these works do best.
Installation View 2011 http://www.milanigallery.com.au/artwork/installation-view-178
Visual adeptness aside, one might wonder why it was that Bell chose painting to deliver his message, over video as he has done before in ‘Scratch an Aussie’ , 2008. The touchstone here is the large painted headline “Western art does not exist”. This is the signifier of Bell’s intent. With an intelligent wink and an ironic nod Bell travels from Pollock to Stella to Tillers and everywhere in between. Begging borrowing or stealing from Western art’s modern painting lexicon is clearly not a problem for Bell. And fair enough if your aim is a dialogue with the art orthodoxy, but is there more than just that for the average punter. Are we only required to stand amidst the barrage of white noise (pun intended) and piled up visual references and try to make sense of it all?
Installation View 2011 http://www.milanigallery.com.au/artwork/installation-view-178
Visual adeptness aside, one might wonder why it was that Bell chose painting to deliver his message, over video as he has done before in ‘Scratch an Aussie’ , 2008. The touchstone here is the large painted headline “Western art does not exist”. This is the signifier of Bell’s intent. With an intelligent wink and an ironic nod Bell travels from Pollock to Stella to Tillers and everywhere in between. Begging borrowing or stealing from Western art’s modern painting lexicon is clearly not a problem for Bell. And fair enough if your aim is a dialogue with the art orthodoxy, but is there more than just that for the average punter. Are we only required to stand amidst the barrage of white noise (pun intended) and piled up visual references and try to make sense of it all?
I can’t shake the uncomfortable feeling that, like much contemporary art, the message isn’t as important as the process behind it. Has Bell become the wised up native selling the art world’s latest post modern fashion back to the dumb white guy? Does his work deserve to be taken seriously in this context? It depends on whether you think parody, satire or appropriation is intellectually or philosophically futile. Food for thought.
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