Galerie Edward Mitterrand, 2006
Merlin Carpenter
Sounds of War: May 18th – July 15th, 2006

A new fundamentalism. A period of transition. Period Bleu.

Abstract paintings, neither abstract nor good. But no other compromises either. What ideology do you do when you don't know what to do? Write your name on a painting? Three paintings here are a critique of the show "Make Your Own Life" at the ICA Philadelphia, in which MC concurrently appears. Seemingly dumb abstracts are explained by supposedly intelligent texts painted on top. But they are being shown in the wrong place. A landscape as seen by a cow (or dog) in Switzerland in wartime. Sound piece. And some primitive sexual studies, wood sculptures and a carving of Bin Laden. Paint on a wood relief becomes its own truth, not the truth of representation, however mediatized. A self-defining description, circular self-understanding. A post-psychoanalytic relation to oneself - basis for a conflictual relation to society?

Undercutting through quality. Good is bad is good. Bad is good is bad. Capital needs to fail for the next cycle of primitive accumulation to begin. Failure - albeit via protest and critique - is the only creator of value. "It's bad being misunderstood but it's worse being understood." Faced with this simple and closed system, and when she herself is the artwork, the artist becomes a successful guru of failure.