BOGO
BOGO presents a new series of Value Paintings by Josh Hash. This exhibition focuses on the formal qualities of language and modernist traditions within Western painting. This artwork series depicts proletariat-facing marketing verbiage and euphemism as formalized color abstraction. Hash pulls inspiration from the practices of concrete poets as well as contemporary text painters like Mel Bochner, Jenny Holzer, & Ed Ruscha.
These works are branded with contemporary sales slogans that serve as signifiers that point to the sometimes enigmatic distinctions between art, design, & commerce. From phrases like “Buy One Get One Free” to “0 Down,” this exhibition concocts an allegorical portrait of creative production at a time when art is increasingly commodified and sensationalized luxury objects – and artists as retail brands.
Josh Hash looks to recent articles such as “Connoisseurship and Critique” by Ben Davis and “Going Pro” by Daniel S. Palmer to deconstruct the intersections of artistic traditions and capitalism’s influence on the public’s perception of the art object.
The artist examines the idea of an “artistic self-consciousness” by creating works that possess juxtaposing qualities like gestural mark-making and hard-edge fonts that reference commercial production. Although the art is inevitably consumed by those of privilege, phrases like “Buy One Get One Free” and “0 Down” are appropriated from messaging geared towards the proletariat class. This paradox illustrates Hash’s anxiety around accessibility in the arts and how economic disparity can result in the homogenization and narrowing of culture.
Despite the aesthetically minimal nature of the work, Hash looks to use subtle delineations to create play beyond each painting’s immediate grammatical expression. He interprets each phrase as a way to equate the “value” of art-making as something that can both enlighten and empower the working class. This subtle critique creates a tongue-in-cheek poke at historical notions that art needs to remain an elusive and functionless object reserved for wealthy patrons and clergy.
Further examples of this critique are projected through monochrome paintings like “0 Down 1” & “0 Down 2,” which depict language that literally carries into the piece’s sales process. Each painting’s accompanying purchase agreement reveals contractual terms that allow prospective collectors to divert immediate payment and acquire the work via a “layaway” program. These elaborate contracts allow the works to be acquired more easily yet run the risk of compounding interest and repossession. These terms act as a metaphor for the way unattainability is marketed to the masses and how Duchampian ideas, like art’s dependence on viewership, are manifested in contemporary retail hysteria that’s largley driven by attention and exclusivity.
