![]() ![]() Since the French historical painter Paul Delaroche first laid eyes on a daguerreotype in 1839 and proclaimed that painting is dead, interlopers (photography, drawing) have arrived to carry its standard, cast as “the new painting.” It was just days ago that ArtNews declared that “ fiber is the new painting.” ![]() (And if not evident by the eye alone, meaning was conjured with a little bit of help from the title.) Of course, the invitation to curate an online exhibition of works submitted to a call for “New Painting” suggests that there is such a thing as “old painting.” And it is with this prompt (taking “old” to mean “traditional”-not “painted a long time ago”) that I approached the selection, leaning into works that challenged characteristics of traditional painting creating a sort of “community of paintings” in which defamiliarization, emotion, and social commentary collide and converse. Experiments in form and material abound, eliciting a sensorial and emotional reference to the world. In light of this moment, I find myself gravitating toward works that-through a host of divergent approaches and strategies-stretch the possibilities of painting in subtle and sometimes surprising ways. From Claude Monet’s Impression, Sunrise, showing the Sun casting an orange glow across the post at Le Havre through a misty haze in the late 19th century, to Frida Kahlo’s Sun and Life (1947), which fixes on a mesmerizingly blood-red, three-eyed sun, surrounded by the plants nourished by her live-giving light, the Sun has fueled painting for generations. As people looked skyward, it was a moment to pause on the many painterly representations of the Sun. The thick cloud barrier offered a rare occasion to get a decent photograph of that notoriously difficult subject, the Sun. With orange-brown smoke coating the sky and the smell of fire in the air, the scene is apocalyptic. As I write this, the afternoon sun over New York City is attempting to burn through the dense haze caused by record-setting wildfires in Canada, a devastating result of late May heatwaves linked to anthropogenic climate change.
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