Prospects

Guston was a renowned painter of abstract art when he turned to figurative painting in the mid-1960s. There is something ridiculous and miserly in the myth we inherit from abstract art, ” he said. “That painting is autonomous, pure and for itself, therefore we habitually analyze its ingredients and define its limits. But painting is ‘impure.’ It is the adjustment of ‘impurities’ which forces its continuity. We are image-makers and image-ridden.” This statement and sentiment became a professional motto. Using a lexicon of light bulbs, shoes, cigarettes, clocks, and other consumer goods, Guston’s work becomes a contemporary poem ridden with images.