The Living End: Painting and Other Technologies, 1970鈥2020
The claim that painting is dead has been a common refrain among critics for decades. Nevertheless, artists have continuously pushed the medium forward. The Living End: Painting and Other Technologies, 1970鈥2020 surveys the arc of painting over the last 50 years, highlighting it as a mode of artistic expression in a constant state of renewal and rebirth.
This international and intergenerational group exhibition presents the work of more than 60 artists who have redefined painting using emerging technologies, imaging techniques, and their own bodies. Examining the impact that computers, cameras, and television, as well as social media and automation, have had on the medium, The Living End positions painting itself as a manual 鈥渢echnology鈥 that has shifted further away from the immediacy of the artist鈥檚 hand over the past 50 years. The subsequent conceptual shift has led artists to challenge what constitutes a painting, how they are produced, and who (or what) can be considered a painter.
Employing a range of mediums beyond painting, such as video and performance, the featured artists subvert longstanding traditions and mythologies of painting鈥攁nd the notion of the painter as singular genius鈥攖o offer a vital portrait of a medium that is still being reinvented.
Recommended for you
The claim that painting is dead has been a common refrain among critics for decades. Nevertheless, artists have continuously pushed the medium forward. The Living End: Painting and Other Technologies, 1970鈥2020 surveys the arc of painting over the last 50 years, highlighting it as a mode of artistic expression in a constant state of renewal and rebirth.
This international and intergenerational group exhibition presents the work of more than 60 artists who have redefined painting using emerging technologies, imaging techniques, and their own bodies. Examining the impact that computers, cameras, and television, as well as social media and automation, have had on the medium, The Living End positions painting itself as a manual 鈥渢echnology鈥 that has shifted further away from the immediacy of the artist鈥檚 hand over the past 50 years. The subsequent conceptual shift has led artists to challenge what constitutes a painting, how they are produced, and who (or what) can be considered a painter.
Employing a range of mediums beyond painting, such as video and performance, the featured artists subvert longstanding traditions and mythologies of painting鈥攁nd the notion of the painter as singular genius鈥攖o offer a vital portrait of a medium that is still being reinvented.
Artists on show
Contact details
Related articles
The Smart celebrates its anniversary in a very UChicago way: by exploring the meaning of its very existence鈥攁s a center for learning, and as an evolving art institution serving not only its academic environment, but also its South Side community.
Dance is in vogue this fall, with a pair of major museum shows for choreographers Alvin Ailey and Ralph Lemon.
A show at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago challenges the timeworn critics鈥 contention that painting is dead, expanding the idea of what painting can be.
Fifty Years of Painting Innovation: What Jamillah James Wants You to Know About 鈥淭he Living End鈥.