Object Permanence 1986

Curator: There’s a very distinct atmosphere to Bo Bartlett’s oil painting from 1986, titled "Object Permanence." Editor: It has this strange mix of staged domesticity and dreamlike surrealism. The coloring is very intentional, giving the scene a slightly muted and unsettling feeling. Curator: Indeed. Bartlett worked very consciously within a tradition of American realist painting, but this piece pulls us into more than just surface reality. It seems to play with ideas of home ownership and the construction of an idyllic family unit. Look at the crisp lines of the house contrasted with the ambiguity of the figures’ gazes and spacing. How might this contrast invite interpretation about consumerism, family values, and even anxieties surrounding the concept of 'home'? Editor: From a purely constructionist standpoint, there is an incredible labor embedded in this painting, reflective of the period in the late 80s in America. Note the attention to detail in rendering each individual, their tools, their clothes and the suburban backdrop; the physical act of creating the painting mirrors the labor-intensive project of building a home and a family. There's a tension there: the 'perfect family portrait' facade versus the hard work required. Curator: Absolutely, it echoes those sentiments. And the scale adds to the effect. We should also examine how galleries showed such a picture back then, what values are validated, how some members of society are valorized while others are obscured or effaced. The title itself points to ideas about existence and representation, "Object Permanence." It’s thought-provoking about identity. Editor: I'm especially drawn to how Bartlett layers those social narratives. I now see the contrast between the apparent stasis of this middle-class construction of suburbia with the precarity and social realities that go into maintaining such a structure. Curator: Very insightful, and those layered contradictions make it more than just another family portrait from the 80s. Editor: Exactly. Thinking about the painting in this way shows it does have this fascinating, enduring commentary.