Richard Jackson: Unexpected Unexplained Unaccepted

More than any other artist of his time, Richard Jackson has focused his attention on the radical expansion of painting. The American artist pushes the formal boundaries of the picturesque and creates situations, which link the application of the paint through the use of machines to its processual aspect. The Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt is presenting his characteristic Rooms—room installations based on the principle of automated painting. Jackson combines critical commentary on painting with social contexts, pairing this with provocative wit and ambiguity, as well as references to iconic works by artists such as Marcel Duchamp, Robert Rauschenberg, and Jasper Johns. The exhibition provides glimpses into the Bed Room (2002), The Delivery Room (2006–07), The Dining Room (2006–07), The Maid’s Room (2006–07), and The War Room (2006–07). Some are viewable from all sides, others only through windows or peepholes. 

Dr. Philipp Demandt, Director of the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, says: “Richard Jackson’s Rooms are a unique combination of his both humorous and provocative critique of art and society. The Schirn is now presenting, for the first time, five of these unconventional and at times crude everyday scenes, covered in garish colors by the artist’s automated painting machines. Jackson succeeds in creating an impressive pictorial setting that he uses to destroy and thus ultimately create his works.”

Inside the rooms, comic-like figures, animals, or objects become the protagonists in a unique process: air compressors and pumps cause rich colors to flow through tubes and funnels, through ears, mouths, and other body orifices, and spread them across the floor, walls, furnishings, and the protagonists themselves. The thematic rooms document a painting process that is detached from the artist and expands into the spatial. By the time visitors enter the space, it is all over. They become the investigators of the previous spectacular painting act, and voyeurs of bizarre scenarios.

Matthias Ulrich, curator of the exhibition, explains: “Since the 1970s, Richard Jackson has pursued a consistent development of painting—up to and including the mechanical production of paintings extending into space. Essentially, this is an attempt to depersonalize the painting process. The artwork and its production are identical in Jackson’s work. Both are at the center, both may be viewed separately, and both ultimately merge into one entity, into a single image.”

Richard Jackson developed his working method, belonging to so-called expanded painting, against the background of the art discourse in the US during the 1960s, which was influenced by Abstract Expressionism and conceptual Minimal Art. In the 1970s and 1980s, he focused on the concrete production of paintings, creating his Wall Paintings directly on the museum wall with the still wet surface of the canvas, or he stacked hundreds of painted canvases to form three dimensional objects within the space. Jackson thus reflected and criticized both the institutional conventions and the viewing habits of the art world. He eventually developed an automated kind of painting, independent of the human gesture, that characterizes his Rooms. In these installations, paint is sprayed once at the push of a button to create a three-dimensional painting.

Richard Jackson (*1939) lives and works near Los Angeles, California, where he taught Sculpture and New Forms at the University of California (UCLA) from 1989 to 1994. His works have been shown internationally in numerous exhibitions. In 1997, he was represented at the 4th Biennale in Lyon, and in 1999 at the 48th Venice Biennale. In 2013, the Orange County Museum of Art (OCMA) in Newport Beach, California, dedicated a retrospective to him, which was subsequently shown at the Museum Villa Stuck, Munich, and at the Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (S.M.A.K.), Ghent.

The exhibition Richard Jackson: Unexpected Unexplained Unaccepted is supported by the City of Frankfurt am Main and by the SCHIRN ZEITGENOSSEN. 

A catalog edited by Matthias Ulrich has been published in an English/German edition. It includes a foreword by Philipp Demandt, essays by Chris Kidd, Christian Janecke, Matthias Ulrich, as well as texts by Johanna Laub and detailed views of the works.

Director: Dr. Philipp Demandt
Curator: Matthias Ulrich
Press contact: Johanna Pulz (Head of Press/Public Relations):
presse [​at​] schirn.de / T (+49 69) 29 98 82 148
Press material: www.schirn.de/en (texts, images, and films for download under PRESS)