Oscar Murillo: through patches of corn, wheat and mud at DAVID ZWIRNER

James Kalm takes leave of his studio and makes a beeline to West Chelsea to take in Oscar Murillo’s “through patches of corn, wheat and mud”. Murillo’s artistic career has taken a meteoric arc, and this thirty year old artist is internationally recognized. Though much early interest was kindled by his provocative performance work, his painting has also recently received intensive institutional support. “Through patches” presents two distinct sections of work, first; a vast installation of black sewn and collaged tarpaulin paintings draped, stacked, folded and presented on metal structures. This display presents these paintings a just another commodity, a collection of “product” that reproduce a trade mark look, but have little to no individual characteristics. The second gallery presents a more conventional hanging of large expressionistic works that seem intentionally to riff on the well known styles of famous artists, as if Murillo were using a focus group algorithm to decide what percentage of what artistic mannerism the market desires at any particular time. This mode of avoiding “originality” thus reduces any chance of loosing market share by avoiding unpopular painting decisions. A musical introduction is provided by the Meetles. This program was recorded September 24, 2016 in Chelsea.