“Sorry?” I asked.
“I said this painting is beautiful,” the man repeated.
It was McArthur Binion’s work, DNA: Season: I, 2016. I asked him for a general impression of Binion’s work, after showing him the whole collection. He loved all the works and commented that the reason he loved the paintings was because they were appealing to the eyes.
“I love the color, light but not too bright to hurt my eyes. The grids are attractive as well, especially for OCD like me.”
Nothing is better than having a random conversation with a stranger, in the sunshine on a lovely Saturday afternoon, except catching McArthur Binion’s solo exhibition, McArthur Binion: Seasons, at Kavi Gupta Gallery. Visiting the exhibition is a really relaxing experience. The exhibition is composed of two spaces. One is showing the painter’s first collection, the DNA: Seasons; and the other one is displaying his other collection, honey, plus some of the works from the third collection of the painter, MAB: 1947. In other words, the exhibition contains paintings from three collections of McArthur Binion. From the exhibition, we can see the painter’s personal style very well. All of his collections are built of paintings with depicting grids and hand-drawn lines, reminiscent of breathing. The color plate of the paintings is natural, as the man I met in the café said, light but not so bright. Additionally, the paintings are strongly presented in both entirety and detail. Looking closely, you will find that there are things hiding under the pigment, photocopied numbers and names (gleaned from Binion’s personal address book of the 1970s New York) or tightly ordered photographs. Standing in the exhibition space, I feel like the paintings on the walls are windows caged by peacefully colored strings. The world outside is the reality, allegorized by those printed words and photos. You can have a good dream in the innocent white room, with the protection, against the reality.
What can wake up a dreaming person? Take an information booklet on the galley counter, read something about McArthur Binion, and you’ll find the exhibition doesn’t mean to be lovely or dreamy for the artist. “The grids, themselves a result of intensive labor, is underlaid by the emotional weight of his collected address.” The paintings are supposed to give the audience a feeling of tenseness and great emotional impact. But the way the curator (or the painter) did, doesn’t give me such feeling at least.
Art is subjective, people can choose the angle to view the art themselves. The curator wants it to be heaven and serious, I would rather not. Choose an afternoon to come to the gallery, have a one-hour daydream in the dreamy cage, then go back to reality.
That’s nicer, isn’t it?