The Big Pileup 2015

Curator: At first glance, it feels rather melancholic, doesn't it? An odd softness despite the implied violence of its title. Editor: Today we are discussing "The Big Pileup," a 2015 painting by Lisa Yuskavage. Yuskavage, working here with acrylic paint, is well-known for her often erotic, yet dreamlike figurative work. I'm particularly interested in the physicality of her process, how she manipulates the medium to create these surreal, fleshy forms. Curator: Fleshy indeed! That large, pale figure being embraced almost looks like a giant, vulnerable organ. There's a sense of protection, but also a bit of suffocation, like it's shielding itself from a looming threat. Is it a kind of cultural subconscious she's accessing? A fear of over-stimulation? Editor: It's fascinating how the material choices influence this. Acrylic allows for layering and blending, which creates that hazy, dreamlike quality. It blurs boundaries, just as she blurs the lines between high art and perhaps even more, say, popular illustration or pulp. Her technique brings to mind a kind of contemporary update on classical allegory. Curator: Yes, there are elements reminiscent of allegorical paintings, particularly in the use of figures representing ideas or emotions. Note those blurred faces in the background - angelic presences or ghosts from the past? They hold a potent symbolic weight; the anxieties of feminine beauty perhaps? Editor: Right, the constant, exhausting, production of beauty. I mean, look at how Yuskavage renders the textures: soft yet somehow synthetic. You're drawn in but there’s always a sense of artifice. What is interesting, too, is to situate her as part of a market system that relies on her ability to craft something compelling. Curator: Perhaps that embrace isn't about protection then, but possession? This reading reframes the entire visual narrative around that symbolic core. Well, “The Big Pileup” certainly gives us plenty to unpack materially, symbolically. Editor: Precisely. It’s that tension between the tactile process and the symbolic resonance that makes Yuskavage's work so engaging. It's all about where it lands, what histories of production and viewing get bound up.