The first institutional exhibition of John Russell outside of Great Britain presents six newly rendered, large-format paintings, nine sculptures, a series of drawings and a newly produced full-length feature film. Russell’s art is hard to pin down, as one is overwhelmed without being able to quite figure out why. It is not against or for something, it is not symbolic or realistic, it is not cynical, ironic, or serious, it is not painting or sculpture, it is not figurative or abstract, it is not apocalyptic, romantic or dystopic. Whatever words you will choose to describe his works, they are the opposite as well. We are invited to figure out how to approach art beyond these useful but worn out dichotomies. We get lost to invent other languages for understanding, and to work out how art might “do something” and have some force, aesthetically and/or politically.
On occasion of the exhibition at Kunsthalle Zürich, John Russell’s new book DOGGO is published by Miami-based press [NAME].
Kunsthalle Zürich
Limmatstrasse 270
CH-8005 Zürich
26.08.2017-12.11.2017
DOGGO on Vernissage TV; review by Aoife Rosenmeyer in Frieze; review by Tobias Madison in Spike; review by Daniel Horn in artforum; review by Mitchel Anderson in Flash Art
artreading.org 