Gender and art

Is an exhibition ever too beautiful for its own good? Jenny Holzer’s new show at Cheim & Read, Dust Paintings, is ravishing. But the sensuality of these text-based abstractions, done in oil on linen in mostly muted colors, runs counter to their content, which is derived from declassified government reports of brutalization and death during the Afghan War. At what point does the exquisiteness of the paint undermine the barbarity of the subject?

 

Jenny Holzer: Dust Paintings continues at Cheim & Read (547 West 25th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan) through October 25.

http://www.cheimread.com/exhibitions/2014-09-11_jenny-holzer-dust-paintings/