Jonathan Monk with his collection of Sol Lewitt books
(photographed in the style of Ed Ruscha c. 1971), 2000
b/w photograph
24 x 18 cm
'In contrast, much of Monk's recent work emphasises the very aspects of modernist art with which art historians have difficulty. His piece, A Brush With Death, acknowledges a sympathy, maybe even a nostalgia for a timewhen Jackson Pollock could get drunk and paint masterpieces without any sense of irony. However, Monk clearly knows that these days are gone and that artists now operate in a social space where they must think as well as make, discuss as well as present.'
'His tongue-in-cheek methods often recall procedural approaches typical of 1960’s Conceptualism, but without sharing their utopian ideals and notions of artistic genius. Instead, Monk grounds his conceptual approach in more commonplace concerns, that of personal history, his family, even pets, whilst still alluding to the types of systems and processes that artists such as Sol LeWitt employed so rigorously. While much of his work is gently playful and tinged with nostalgia for the late 1960’s, it also challenges the idea of purity in modern art, demystifying the creative process and suggesting alternative models for how art and the role of the artist can be interpreted.'
documentino I
