.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
'I've become interested in when something starts as an accident and then becomes a template for other things, or reproduces itself and generates its own logic until something else intervenes to change it'
(W. Guyton, quoted in S. Rothkopf, Wade Guyton: OS, exh. cat., Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 2012, p. 23).
Wade Guyton's Untitled, 2008, is a delicate composition of diaphanous thin black striations against white linen, exuding a quiet poetry in spite of having been created using a computer and printer, the critical tools of the artist's trade. Guyton's horizontal bands create a hypnotic effect, inviting the eye to scan from top to bottom in rapid succession in order to absorb the whole. Recalling the restrained linear coordinates of Agnes Martin, Guyton looks to develop 'a certain type of abstraction or Minimalistic-looking work that wasn't iconic' (W. Guyton, quoted in D. De Salvo, 'Interview', in S. Rothkopf, Wade Guyton: OS, exh. cat., Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 2012, p. 199). Close inspection of the work offers a surface which is not entirely free from the quiet imperfections inherent in his mechanised process. Over the years, these elements of 'controlled chance', as the artist puts it, have become the chief pictorial marker and celebrated event in Guyton's paintings, of which the artist has said, 'I've become interested in when something starts as an accident and then becomes a template for other things, or reproduces itself and generates its own logic until something else intervenes to change it' (W. Guyton, quoted in S. Rothkopf, Wade Guyton: OS, exh. cat., Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 2012, p. 23). In its documentation of the skips, skids, stutters and smears that inadvertently occur during the printing process, Guyton's inkjet medium paradoxically betrays a singularity or individuality in the face of mechanisation that encourages viewer engagement.
Working on a larger scale than his technology would allow, Guyton folded the linen, executing the computer file on one side and then the other; the resulting image has a bisecting line that simultaneously unites the mimetic bands on either side and fractures the work. Guyton creates these large scale works on an Epson 9600, a printer made to reproduce images on paper within certain weight and surface parameters, neither of which are met by his primed linen. 'I've tried to embrace the directional quality of the way the paintings are made. And also let that spooling quality to the material and the machine come through in the work' (W. Guyton, quoted in R. Kushner 'To Build a Fire: Wade Guyton in Conversation', in The Painting Factory: Abstraction After Warhol, exh. cat., Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 2012, p. 136). As the fabric is much thicker than the intended paper, particularly when folded in two, Guyton revels in the potential for the printer to jam and this action is loaded with the possibility of random and unique results in the same tradition as avant-garde automatic painting. Speaking of this random quality Guyton notes, 'but sometimes the printer doesn't want to cooperate-the printer wants to find the ideal spot to start printing...It's supposed to be efficient, but it doesn't realize the scope of its job here. It keeps its nose to the grindstone' (W. Guyton, quoted in D. De Salvo, 'Interview', in S. Rothkopf,Wade Guyton: OS, exh. cat., Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 2012, p. 203).
(W. Guyton, quoted in S. Rothkopf, Wade Guyton: OS, exh. cat., Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 2012, p. 23).
Wade Guyton's Untitled, 2008, is a delicate composition of diaphanous thin black striations against white linen, exuding a quiet poetry in spite of having been created using a computer and printer, the critical tools of the artist's trade. Guyton's horizontal bands create a hypnotic effect, inviting the eye to scan from top to bottom in rapid succession in order to absorb the whole. Recalling the restrained linear coordinates of Agnes Martin, Guyton looks to develop 'a certain type of abstraction or Minimalistic-looking work that wasn't iconic' (W. Guyton, quoted in D. De Salvo, 'Interview', in S. Rothkopf, Wade Guyton: OS, exh. cat., Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 2012, p. 199). Close inspection of the work offers a surface which is not entirely free from the quiet imperfections inherent in his mechanised process. Over the years, these elements of 'controlled chance', as the artist puts it, have become the chief pictorial marker and celebrated event in Guyton's paintings, of which the artist has said, 'I've become interested in when something starts as an accident and then becomes a template for other things, or reproduces itself and generates its own logic until something else intervenes to change it' (W. Guyton, quoted in S. Rothkopf, Wade Guyton: OS, exh. cat., Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 2012, p. 23). In its documentation of the skips, skids, stutters and smears that inadvertently occur during the printing process, Guyton's inkjet medium paradoxically betrays a singularity or individuality in the face of mechanisation that encourages viewer engagement.
Working on a larger scale than his technology would allow, Guyton folded the linen, executing the computer file on one side and then the other; the resulting image has a bisecting line that simultaneously unites the mimetic bands on either side and fractures the work. Guyton creates these large scale works on an Epson 9600, a printer made to reproduce images on paper within certain weight and surface parameters, neither of which are met by his primed linen. 'I've tried to embrace the directional quality of the way the paintings are made. And also let that spooling quality to the material and the machine come through in the work' (W. Guyton, quoted in R. Kushner 'To Build a Fire: Wade Guyton in Conversation', in The Painting Factory: Abstraction After Warhol, exh. cat., Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 2012, p. 136). As the fabric is much thicker than the intended paper, particularly when folded in two, Guyton revels in the potential for the printer to jam and this action is loaded with the possibility of random and unique results in the same tradition as avant-garde automatic painting. Speaking of this random quality Guyton notes, 'but sometimes the printer doesn't want to cooperate-the printer wants to find the ideal spot to start printing...It's supposed to be efficient, but it doesn't realize the scope of its job here. It keeps its nose to the grindstone' (W. Guyton, quoted in D. De Salvo, 'Interview', in S. Rothkopf,Wade Guyton: OS, exh. cat., Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 2012, p. 203).