John Currin has talked in the past about misunderstanding a memory, misrepresenting the past in such a profound way that it almost becomes comical. Sadie Coles, who opened their gallery in 1997 with a Currin show, now present him here in Opening Credits, with a body of work that is “replaces the disappointing contemporary world, with a ‘lost golden world’,” but the memory is so distorted and so slightly twisted it becomes probably something closer to reality. Indeed, there is no golden world, never was.
So what you get with a Currin show is something of a 1970s near-horror genre film mixed with a comedy. It works and continues to work all these years later. And it probably works because so much of America is now is one side recalling the past and exclaiming life was better and it has been ruined by the other side who wanted to be it equitable and fair. Currin takes the idea of a memory and elongates it, stretches it, bends it, gives it a post-human quality. The women in these triplets pairings are nice enough, but they go beyond the form of a person. In Carol, Alice and Mary, he almost paints one as skeletal. All the while he is doing this with the backdrops of 17th century painting, the 70s and 1700s clashed together in a utopian vision.
The exaggerated proportions, awkward expressions, and vulgar or contemporary details rupture nostalgia, turning reverence into satire. The result is a past that is both sumptuous and corrupt—beautifully rendered memories distorted by desire, irony, and social critique—leaving viewers uncertain whether they’re looking back or into a caricatured, dreamlike reconstruction. There is an unease in each work, but there is unease in our history as well. —Evan Pricco
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