At the Whitney, Frances Stark’s Giant Paintings Argue Against the Censorship They Promote – artnet News

THE DAILY PIC (#1757Whitney Biennial edition): I guess my all-around favorite objects in this years Biennial were a suite of huge paintings by Frances Stark that simply reproduce whole pages from a book called Censorship Now!! by the cranky, radicalbut not dismissableIan Svenonius. His text, so painstakingly reproduced via Starks brushstrokes, argues for the censorship of many of the nastier bits of mainstream and establishment culture, in just the way that parts of the establishment have wanted to censor parts of the counterculture that it disapproves of.

The enlargement that Stark does is of course the direct opposite of censorship, and could be generalized as a defense of free speech in all cases. Theres clearly some kind of celebration of Svenonius in Starks paintings. But in their sheer, unavoidable legibility, they might also stand as a counterweight to Svenoniuss call for silencing voices he doesnt like.

One other thing I like about these pictures. The vast majority of contemporary paintings are hobbled by the weight of authority their ancient medium carries. (Worse, they dont even notice that they are.) Stark is using just that weight to make us consider the words of a radical anti-authoritywho seems to have an authoritarian streak. (Photo by Lucy Hogg)

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At the Whitney, Frances Stark's Giant Paintings Argue Against the Censorship They Promote - artnet News