Contemporary Art Daily

Artist: Tony Just

Venue: Sommer & Kohl, Berlin

Date: February 27 – April 17, 2010

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Full gallery of images, press release and link available after the jump.

Images:

Images courtesy of Sommer & Kohl, Berlin

Press Release:

Sommer & Kohl are pleased to present the first solo exhibition with new works by Tony Just (*1969, USA).

“The ways in which people see and how they then interpret what they see are themes I think about when working. This exhibition of paintings includes images based on a graffiti of a dripping eye, the original ten images of the Rorschach test, and the character Rorschach from the comic book series Watchmen.

Using elements of abstraction, representation, illustration and duplication I try to produce paintings which show the infinite possibilities of interpretation. The magic of seeing images revealed or dissolved. To move the viewer just a little bit closer to seeing something they may have missed.“ Tony Just

Starting point for Tony Just’s exhibition is a graffiti of a dripping eye that was tagged around New York City. He takes up this image with an interest in its symbolic as an archetypal talisman to ward off evil or envy, used in many Mediterranean cultures.

Other works are based on the 1980s graphic novel Watchmen, featuring superhero characters no longer allowed to do their work. One of the main characters is Rorschach, a psychopathic vigilante who wears a white mask containing a symmetrical but constantly shifting ink blot pattern. Rorschach went underground and continued fighting crime from there. The story reflects contemporary anxieties and skips through space, time and plot, classifying itself as a nonlinear narrative.

Another important impetus for the paintings is the Rorschach test itself. It is used to examine personality characteristics and emotional functioning by recording and analyzing a subjects’ perception of ten different inkblots.

Tony Just’s works will be included in the exhibition The Berlin Box, curated by Friederike Nymphius, at CCA Andratx Art Foundation in Mallorca from 3 April to 31 October 2010. Recent solo exhibitions took place at Galerie Maisonneuve in Paris and Gavin Brown’s enterprise in New York. Tony Just’s work is featured in Bob Nickas’ new publication Painting Abstraction: New Elements in Abstract Painting, published by Phaidon Press, London.

Link: Tony Just at Sommer & Kohl