Seated Group 1962

Richard Artschwager made this painting called ‘Seated Group’ with maybe acrylic or some kind of house paint and a dry brush, and the effect is, well, ghostly, but also somehow bureaucratic? I imagine him making it, maybe starting with an image, then wiping it away, re-stating it, kind of like Gerhard Richter. The muted tones are so Artschwager. It’s like he’s saying something about the everyday and the uncanny, all at once. That big, blank table is so present. You can almost hear the silence in the room. Who are these people, and what are they deciding? The facelessness of these figures, rendered in stark blacks and whites, creates a sense of anonymity. It's giving me a heavy, ponderous feeling. But painting is about feeling your way through uncertainty, right? It's about embracing the not-knowing. Artschwager always gets me thinking about how we see, and what we think we know. Artists are constantly in dialogue with one another, riffing off each other's ideas, and pushing the boundaries of what painting can be.