Monday, July 12, 2010

Review: Raymond Saunders at Stephen Wirtz Gallery

Raymond Saunders, Untitled, 2009-10; mixed media on wood, 54 1/2 x 32 3/4 inches

Mark van Proyen of Northern California art blog Square Cylinder offers this review of Raymond Saunders's latest show, "Beauty as Empathy," at Stephen Wirtz Gallery in San Francisco.

His review singles out a work (pictured above) which includes elements printed at Magnolia Editions:
This is the most consistent and subtle exhibition of Saunders’ work that we have seen in a while. All of the works contained therein are recent and untitled, but I cannot help but point to one that is a clear throwback to an earlier work and perhaps also a harbinger of things to come. I refer to a work that features the image of another work that Saunders made in 1972, a high-resolution reproduction of a piece titled Jack Johnson, which is well-known because it adorns the cover of Richard Powell’s 1997 book, Black Art and Culture in the 20th Century. It has been convincingly reprinted on a sheet of wood and subsequently painted and collaged upon in such a way so as to completely confuse the difference between the made and the manufactured, showing that technological images can be subjected to improvisatory impulses.

Read the full review at Square Cylinder

More work by Raymond Saunders from Magnolia Editions

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