New Work: R. H. Quaytman

R.H. Quaytman’s newest body of paintings continues the artist’s ongoing investigation of the interrelationship of site, history, and object. The artist developed this series, titled I Love - The Eyelid Clicks/ I See /Cold Poetry, Chapter 18, using photographs in SFMOMA's collection that resonate with motifs explored in the poems of Jack Spicer, such as the moon, mirrors, baseball, TV, male lovers, and the camera. The "chapter's" title is taken from a poem by Spicer, an important poet associated with the San Francisco Renaissance of the 1950s and 1960s, who similarly worked in series. Quaytman uses the photographs, mostly by unknown photographers, to reflect on his life and work.

Collectively the paintings - methodically produced on beveled-wood panels in seven proportional sizes based on the golden ratio - portray a tantalizing range of patterns and surfaces. Like words in a poem, they are singular elements whose effects are amplified in combination, creating an optical experience that engages the architecture of the surrounding gallery space. The pulsing sense of movement generated as the eye takes in the flickering optical patterns and shifts in scale and perspective in these paintings emphasizes the dynamic visual relationship between figure and ground. Chapter 18 reflects Quaytman's ruminations on the context for which it was made, involving the particulars of the museum and a specific moment in San Francisco's history.

New Work: R.H. Quaytman is on view through January 16, 2011, and is organized by SFMOMA Assistant Curator of Painting and Sculpture Apsara DiQuinzio.

New Work:
R. H. Quaytman
Kurator: Apsara DiQuinzio