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Lot Essay
“The Pjätteryd series all begin as stretched inkjet prints purchased from IKEA. In fact, that's IKEA's Swedish word for the art that they sell. My very simple goal for this project is to breathe life into a lifeless, mass-produced substitute for art” – Rob Pruitt
Rob Pruitt’s Pjätteryd Oil Painting: World Map (2011) is an iconic example of the artist’s wry, tongue-in-cheek, Pop-Conceptual style. No stranger to art world scandal, Pruitt has been pushing the boundaries of art and taste since the early 1990s. World Map, originally a manufactured simulacrum of art produced by IKEA, has been converted by Pruitt into a sensual commentary on craft, the readymade, and the boundaries of taste.
The Pjätteryd Oil Painting series was first shown at “Pattern and Degradation”, Pruitt’s return to the art world in 2010 at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise. While on hiatus due to repeated scandal, Pruitt was forced to find work outside of his studio practice, resorting to working for a brief period of time at Martha Stewart Living magazine. It was here that Pruitt was to discover and embrace Stewart’s craft-art aesthetic and incorporated it into his oeuvre. His first major investigation into this practice was the droll art book “101 Art Ideas You Can Do Yourself”. By mixing the quotidian with the conceptual, Pruitt seemed to mock accepted art practices while championing more down-to-earth strategies of artmaking. But, as in all Pruitt’s work, “101 Art Ideas” is redolent with irony and mischief.
World Map continues this investigation. Originally an IKEA product designed for mass-consumption, the company’s Pjätteryd picture series are inkjet prints of a variety of subjects, stretched onto canvas to resemble fine art. But these products are in fact not art, but rather commercial goods churned out by a factory, designed for mass-appeal, consumerism, and profit. In order to subvert their functionality, Pruitt appropriates IKEA’s inkjet prints and transmutes them into art objects by painting over their surfaces with thick, impasto-laden oil paint. Through Pruitt’s alchemy, World Map loses its factory-like hollowness and becomes a playful, craft-like work whose thick surface resembles the hand-stitching textiles of Alighiero Boetti’s Mappa series or the sumptuous, tactile, and delicious cakes and pies of Wayne Thiebaud.
Simultaneously, Pruitt’s World Map also exists in dialogue with much of post-war art history. By using pre-defined subject matter in a fine art context, Pruitt’s paint-by-numbers strategy sardonically recalls the flags and targets of Jasper Johns and the rigorous orderliness of Frank Stella’s canvases. Perhaps Pruitt’s most significant influence, however, is Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain from 1917. By appropriating a readymade object with a (very) non-art function, Duchamp converted the urinal into a work of fine art by painting “R. Mutt” onto the surface and displaying it in a gallery setting, permanently changing the work’s context and calling into question the very nature of art itself. Pruitt extends this strategy to simulated art. By layering his own craftsmanship on top of a machined surface, Pruitt questions whether the artist’s power can also convert non-art into high art. World Map unquestionably succeeds.
Rob Pruitt’s Pjätteryd Oil Painting: World Map (2011) is an iconic example of the artist’s wry, tongue-in-cheek, Pop-Conceptual style. No stranger to art world scandal, Pruitt has been pushing the boundaries of art and taste since the early 1990s. World Map, originally a manufactured simulacrum of art produced by IKEA, has been converted by Pruitt into a sensual commentary on craft, the readymade, and the boundaries of taste.
The Pjätteryd Oil Painting series was first shown at “Pattern and Degradation”, Pruitt’s return to the art world in 2010 at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise. While on hiatus due to repeated scandal, Pruitt was forced to find work outside of his studio practice, resorting to working for a brief period of time at Martha Stewart Living magazine. It was here that Pruitt was to discover and embrace Stewart’s craft-art aesthetic and incorporated it into his oeuvre. His first major investigation into this practice was the droll art book “101 Art Ideas You Can Do Yourself”. By mixing the quotidian with the conceptual, Pruitt seemed to mock accepted art practices while championing more down-to-earth strategies of artmaking. But, as in all Pruitt’s work, “101 Art Ideas” is redolent with irony and mischief.
World Map continues this investigation. Originally an IKEA product designed for mass-consumption, the company’s Pjätteryd picture series are inkjet prints of a variety of subjects, stretched onto canvas to resemble fine art. But these products are in fact not art, but rather commercial goods churned out by a factory, designed for mass-appeal, consumerism, and profit. In order to subvert their functionality, Pruitt appropriates IKEA’s inkjet prints and transmutes them into art objects by painting over their surfaces with thick, impasto-laden oil paint. Through Pruitt’s alchemy, World Map loses its factory-like hollowness and becomes a playful, craft-like work whose thick surface resembles the hand-stitching textiles of Alighiero Boetti’s Mappa series or the sumptuous, tactile, and delicious cakes and pies of Wayne Thiebaud.
Simultaneously, Pruitt’s World Map also exists in dialogue with much of post-war art history. By using pre-defined subject matter in a fine art context, Pruitt’s paint-by-numbers strategy sardonically recalls the flags and targets of Jasper Johns and the rigorous orderliness of Frank Stella’s canvases. Perhaps Pruitt’s most significant influence, however, is Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain from 1917. By appropriating a readymade object with a (very) non-art function, Duchamp converted the urinal into a work of fine art by painting “R. Mutt” onto the surface and displaying it in a gallery setting, permanently changing the work’s context and calling into question the very nature of art itself. Pruitt extends this strategy to simulated art. By layering his own craftsmanship on top of a machined surface, Pruitt questions whether the artist’s power can also convert non-art into high art. World Map unquestionably succeeds.