Christopher Wool is best known for his series of his paintings of large, black text stencilled onto white canvases. Wool began to create word paintings in the late 1980s inspired by the graffiti he was seeing in New York City. Reportedly, one day he saw a brand-new white truck violated by the spray-painted words 'sex' and 'luv.' Wool made his own painting using those words and went on to make more saying things like 'Run Dog Run' or 'Sell the House, Sell the Car, Sell the Kids.'. At 303 Gallery in 1988, Wool and fellow artist Robert Gober presented a collaborative exhibition and installation which included Wool's seminal text-based painting, Apocalypse Now (1988). The work features words from a famous line in Francis Ford Coppola's film Apocalypse Now, based on the Joseph Conrad novel Heart of Darkness. In 2013 it sold at Christie’s for over $26 million.
The very simple feel of his work, just black text on a white background works with my idea. I want to present my poem snippets simply without anything extra that might in a way enhance them - I want the words to be able to speak for themselves.
Comments