Robert Buck: Second Hand
Ulterior Gallery is pleased to announce the second of two consecutive exhibitions by New York-based, trans-disciplinary artist Robert Buck, who in 2008 changed his surname from Beck to Buck as a work of art. Second Hand will be open April 21 through May 27, 2018, with a reception for the artist Saturday, April 21, 6鈥�8 pm.
In 2008, Robert Beck reconceived his artistic self, and challenged our notions of patriarchy, authorship, and identity. By altering his surname by one letter he marked a shift in his artistic practice and broadened its implications. The change was as subtle as e to u, but as powerful as 鈥渕e to you.鈥� It was his way to re-signify himself, and bypass the system structured by the Name-of-the-Father (the paternal figure of the law, so termed by Lacan, that upholds patriarchal institutions, such as family, church, nation, and markets). The status of the Name-of-the-Father changed irrevocably in the 20th century, and Buck, with his simple exchange of vowels, calls attention to this evolution and its repercussions in his art making鈥攁s well as his presence. With this maneuver, topologically like a M枚bius band, Beck traversed an exclusively artistic dimension and became Buck.
Robert Buck鈥檚 Second Hand exhibition debuts his ongoing series of modified thrift store paintings, which he began ten years ago in concert with his self-nomination. In the series, he appropriates guest-book signatures from his exhibitions as Buck and transcribes them using a one-inch ink grid onto found paintings鈥攕econd hand, as it were. He then signs them 鈥淩. Buck.鈥� The amended paintings are installed on 3-inch-grid metal display panels. The lattices on the paintings are amplified against the retail trellises, and together engage larger social frameworks, e.g., commerce, ownership, and identities. With his artistic reclamations, Buck elevates a fragment of a life rendered by a homemade painting, and of another one implied by a name in a gallery guest-book. By coupling a canvas with an appropriated signature, and 鈥渘otarizing鈥� it with his new name, Buck highlights the role of all three 鈥減articipants,鈥� and queries the act of naming itself.
By amending salvaged, often lyrical paintings with a name he made for himself, Buck infuses them with deeper significance, and attests to the 鈥渟econd hand,鈥� or readymade, nature of the Name-of-the-Father in the 21st century. The effects of his interventions are at once prosaic and uncanny. For instance, superimposed on an oil landscape of a windblown tree is the elongated and wispy signature 鈥淲illiam Wind.鈥� A confection of three Barbie doll-looking girls, signed by 鈥淢. Hartzog,鈥� is amended with the signature 鈥淣ancy Doll.鈥� Another landscape, a crimson-colored western sunset with a windmill and cattle fence, signed 鈥淧atti,鈥� bears the appended name 鈥淩obert Brand.鈥�
While Beck鈥檚 earlier exhibition Vestige insinuated the body as a remainder, it is the mind that is solicited by Second Hand, with its conceptual matrices, comprised of the discarded paintings Buck recuperates in the spirit of e to u.
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Ulterior Gallery is pleased to announce the second of two consecutive exhibitions by New York-based, trans-disciplinary artist Robert Buck, who in 2008 changed his surname from Beck to Buck as a work of art. Second Hand will be open April 21 through May 27, 2018, with a reception for the artist Saturday, April 21, 6鈥�8 pm.
In 2008, Robert Beck reconceived his artistic self, and challenged our notions of patriarchy, authorship, and identity. By altering his surname by one letter he marked a shift in his artistic practice and broadened its implications. The change was as subtle as e to u, but as powerful as 鈥渕e to you.鈥� It was his way to re-signify himself, and bypass the system structured by the Name-of-the-Father (the paternal figure of the law, so termed by Lacan, that upholds patriarchal institutions, such as family, church, nation, and markets). The status of the Name-of-the-Father changed irrevocably in the 20th century, and Buck, with his simple exchange of vowels, calls attention to this evolution and its repercussions in his art making鈥攁s well as his presence. With this maneuver, topologically like a M枚bius band, Beck traversed an exclusively artistic dimension and became Buck.
Robert Buck鈥檚 Second Hand exhibition debuts his ongoing series of modified thrift store paintings, which he began ten years ago in concert with his self-nomination. In the series, he appropriates guest-book signatures from his exhibitions as Buck and transcribes them using a one-inch ink grid onto found paintings鈥攕econd hand, as it were. He then signs them 鈥淩. Buck.鈥� The amended paintings are installed on 3-inch-grid metal display panels. The lattices on the paintings are amplified against the retail trellises, and together engage larger social frameworks, e.g., commerce, ownership, and identities. With his artistic reclamations, Buck elevates a fragment of a life rendered by a homemade painting, and of another one implied by a name in a gallery guest-book. By coupling a canvas with an appropriated signature, and 鈥渘otarizing鈥� it with his new name, Buck highlights the role of all three 鈥減articipants,鈥� and queries the act of naming itself.
By amending salvaged, often lyrical paintings with a name he made for himself, Buck infuses them with deeper significance, and attests to the 鈥渟econd hand,鈥� or readymade, nature of the Name-of-the-Father in the 21st century. The effects of his interventions are at once prosaic and uncanny. For instance, superimposed on an oil landscape of a windblown tree is the elongated and wispy signature 鈥淲illiam Wind.鈥� A confection of three Barbie doll-looking girls, signed by 鈥淢. Hartzog,鈥� is amended with the signature 鈥淣ancy Doll.鈥� Another landscape, a crimson-colored western sunset with a windmill and cattle fence, signed 鈥淧atti,鈥� bears the appended name 鈥淩obert Brand.鈥�
While Beck鈥檚 earlier exhibition Vestige insinuated the body as a remainder, it is the mind that is solicited by Second Hand, with its conceptual matrices, comprised of the discarded paintings Buck recuperates in the spirit of e to u.
Artists on show
