If there is no Water in the Tap. Warhol 2011

Alexander Roitburd made this painting, If there is no Water in the Tap. Warhol, with oil paints. The paint is applied in short, thick strokes, like little jabs of color, especially noticeable in the wig and the prayer shawl. You can see the movement and the making in the build-up of the material itself. There's something almost irreverent in the way Roitburd mashes together the sacred and the secular. The dark glasses and the pallid skin bring Warhol to mind, while the prayer book and the yarmulke pull in a totally different direction. There is a real tension in the meeting of traditions and ideas. This feels like a conversation, maybe a debate, between Pop Art and something deeper, more ancient. It makes me think of Marlene Dumas, another painter who isn't afraid to deal with the weight and complexity of representation. Art is always a mirror reflecting back what we already know, but sometimes it distorts the reflection, and it's in those distortions that we find something new.