James G: Ritchie, Wilson, Stockholder, Herrera

The artists this week are very diverse, but clearly have some comment themes. Matthew Ritchie is a painter and sculpture who has a complicated mythos that he has constructed about the history of time and the creation of the universe. Using 49 different characters, he has an internally consistent storyline that describes and explores our understanding of time. He has massive computer drawings that manifest themselves in paintings, wall installations, and large metal sculptures. Abstract but still with a concrete story, Matthew Ritchie is a postmodern artist with grand ambitions and a keen intellect.

Fred Wilson is famous for rearranging artwork in museums to change the meaning of the work and question the historical context of the collection. His most famous work “Mining the Museum” in 1992 rearranged the pieces of a Maryland museum’s collection. When he was done, questions about Maryland’s relationship to Native Americans and slaves were apparent, and many of the pieces interacted to create a sort of narrative. Like Matthew Ritchie he is using narrative to comment on something hidden beneath the surface, in this case the work of the museum. His critique of the museum establishment is a postmodern idea.

Jessica Stockholder is a sculptor who uses lots of junk to make what she often describes as some sort of sculptural paintings. Plastic, chairs, lawnmowers, and all sorts of things are all thrown together in a way that compliments the space she is working in. Sometimes she uses large scale installations, other times smaller collage on canvas, and everything in between. Also exploring ideas of postmodernism, her sculptures are abstract in an opposite way than Matthew Ritchie. Her sculptures are abstract in a way that works purely about form and content, rather than some underlying narrative.

Arturo Herrera works like Jessica Stockholder in the way that he is taking found objects and changing their context to make them abstract. Disney characters and magazine clippings are all pasted together to create an abstract piece that is only minimally recognizable. Arturo Herrera’s collages are abstract but eerily familiar.