Steven Parrino

When I started making paintings, the word on painting was “PAINTING IS DEAD.” I saw this as an interesting place for painting [. . .] Death can be refreshing, so I started engaging in necrophilia. . .
—Steven Parrino

We are not painters.
—BMPT

Gagosian is pleased to present an exhibition that for the first time juxtaposes key works by American artist Steven Parrino with European counterparts spanning two generations: John Armleder, Martin Barré, Daniel Buren, Simon Hantaï, Olivier Mosset, Michel Parmentier, and Niele Toroni.

Bringing an extreme punk sensibility to bear on the history of abstraction, from the late seventies Parrino began to literally attack the canvas, piercing and tearing its surface, or twisting it off the stretcher to disrupt the conventional rectangular plane. These “misshaped” canvases painted in viscous enamel or lacquer, such as Spin-Out Vortex (Black Hole) (2000) and Skeletal Implosion (Thick Stripes) (2001), were in part muscular, performative responses to the refined aesthetics of abstract precedents. 13 Shattered Panels (for Joey Ramone) (2001) is a wall-size installation of plasterboard painted shiny black, a spontaneous and emotive abstract composition born out of destructive action and Parrino’s shrine to the punk legend whose rock band, The Ramones, forever changed the American music scene of the late seventies with driving reductive guitar rhythms and a minimalist visual style of black leather and torn jeans.