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拍品專文
Fred Tomaselli's colorful re-interpretation of the genre of landscape painting brings up-to-date one of the noblest forms of art, in a way that only an artist of his generation can. Composed of multiple layers of psychedelic pigment and tiny white pills embedded in coatings of clear resin, Multiple Landscape would, at first glance, seem to have clear connections to the California drug and surf culture of the 1960s and 1970s. But closer inspection reveals that the pills are in fact tablets of the artificial sweetener saccharin, taking our understanding of the work in an entirely new and more intriguing direction.
Growing up in Los Angeles, Tomaselli was surrounded by theme parks and a movie industry that projected a particular view of American life to the millions of people around the world who lapped it up with an insatiable appetite. As a child Tomaselli would spend most of his free time at Disneyland absorbing this very particular view of the world. This form of utopia had a profound effect on the art that he would begin to produce as an adult: "For me, that theme park world of L.A. created this sense that the fabricated was the realist thing that existed. The work I was making utilized the trope of theme parks that attempted to simultaneously deliver an escapist experience while commenting on the mechanics of that experience" (F. Tomaselli, quoted by I. Berry, 'Knowing Nothing: A Dialogue with Fred Tomaselli,' Fred Tomaselli, exh. cat., Aspen Art Museum, 2009, p. 52).
This sense of 'utopian fabrication' cuts to the very heart of Tomaselli's Multiple Landscape. Not only is the work itself a complex construction, but its intricate aesthetic is an intrinsic part of the artifice that the artist seeks to present. The ribbons of color that spread out across the surface of the painting obscure what appears to be a Utopian landscape concealed behind it. The maze of pigment parts only briefly allow glimpses of a pristine rural landscape populated by majestic trees, green fields and the first signs of an early morning sunrise. The chromatic intensity combined with Tomaselli's characteristic visual sophistication produce an image that is as hallucinatory as any pharmaceutical induced high.
By combining West Coast surf and drug culture with elements of mass entertainment and so-called 'high' art, Tomaselli provides an intriguing reassessment of the roles played by each genre within contemporary culture, while at the time re-examining the role of painting in today's digital age. In the process, Multiple Landscape becomes a place where beauty, nature, pleasure and artifice meet and, as such, becomes an invigorating reassessment on much of what modern society holds dear.
Growing up in Los Angeles, Tomaselli was surrounded by theme parks and a movie industry that projected a particular view of American life to the millions of people around the world who lapped it up with an insatiable appetite. As a child Tomaselli would spend most of his free time at Disneyland absorbing this very particular view of the world. This form of utopia had a profound effect on the art that he would begin to produce as an adult: "For me, that theme park world of L.A. created this sense that the fabricated was the realist thing that existed. The work I was making utilized the trope of theme parks that attempted to simultaneously deliver an escapist experience while commenting on the mechanics of that experience" (F. Tomaselli, quoted by I. Berry, 'Knowing Nothing: A Dialogue with Fred Tomaselli,' Fred Tomaselli, exh. cat., Aspen Art Museum, 2009, p. 52).
This sense of 'utopian fabrication' cuts to the very heart of Tomaselli's Multiple Landscape. Not only is the work itself a complex construction, but its intricate aesthetic is an intrinsic part of the artifice that the artist seeks to present. The ribbons of color that spread out across the surface of the painting obscure what appears to be a Utopian landscape concealed behind it. The maze of pigment parts only briefly allow glimpses of a pristine rural landscape populated by majestic trees, green fields and the first signs of an early morning sunrise. The chromatic intensity combined with Tomaselli's characteristic visual sophistication produce an image that is as hallucinatory as any pharmaceutical induced high.
By combining West Coast surf and drug culture with elements of mass entertainment and so-called 'high' art, Tomaselli provides an intriguing reassessment of the roles played by each genre within contemporary culture, while at the time re-examining the role of painting in today's digital age. In the process, Multiple Landscape becomes a place where beauty, nature, pleasure and artifice meet and, as such, becomes an invigorating reassessment on much of what modern society holds dear.