Shock of the New – Guest Curated On-line Print Exhibition
We are delighted to have David Lawrence, owner of the David Lawrence Gallery as guest curator.
“Shock of the New was the title of a book written many years ago by Robert Hughes. The few lines of that book I never forgot was Mr. Hughes’ questioning as to where was the British Picasso, and felt that World War I had somehow eliminated the possibility of producing a Picasso from the UK. Mr. Hughes showed how new art can shock at the time it is produced. History has a way of highlighting the genius of paradigm changing artists with an everlasting effect on our artists landscape.
At the same time this is happening on a small scale with a handful of artists, most art and artists are fading into the noise over time. This Shock of the New is continually changing. How would you have felt to be in New York in 1950’s when the abstract expressionists are marching into power and you were still clinging to academic figurative style of painting, or a 1960’s pop artist, when painting died in the 1980’s? I remember Art in America in the 1980’s claiming on the cover “Is Painting Dead?” as a prelude to trying to understand the new wave of performance art. I was working with American Performance Artist, Chris Burden at the time, and felt some vindication, or at least I was at the right place at the right time, for the first time in my life.
