Abandoned Painting C, Archival pigment print, 44 x 54 inches
Christopher Lew: It almost reads as a painting that is left behind by the former occupants of the home. But then it also ties to the aspirations of these student artists, and it makes you wonder where these people have gone on, or why someone would leave an artwork behind. One of the powerful things that we found with John’s work is that it echoes some of the issues that we’ve been reading in the headlines, in terms of the mortgage crisis, and housing, and how people are being forced to leave their homes. It’s unclear from these images exactly why they’re abandoned, but it evokes the sensibility and the kind of precariousness that we’re finding right now.
The 2017 Whitney Biennial runs through June 11, 2017 at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. The Biennial will include all eight photographs from John Divola’s Abandoned Paintings series.