Donelle Woolford — MaLeVoLeNcE — Valentin Gallery — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: October 26 → December 8, 2012

Donelle Woolford’s new work is malevolent.

Having experienced the joys and challenges of being an emerging young artist, she isn’t so interested in spending the next twenty years mounting more solo shows, getting reviews, participating in biennials, etc. Instead, Woolford has decided to just assume the identity of a mid-career artist now. As a fictional character she can do that. All she needs is a motivation, a few plot points, some conflict, and presto: Act II. With the wave of a hand, Donelle Woolford is 58 years old and blissfully immersed in the wisdom that comes with being a mid-career artist—the most complex, committed, vivid, truth-telling, vulnerable kind of artist you can be.

Through a series of “joke” paintings, MaLeVoLeNcE chronicles the adventures of a character named Richard Who comes to mind when you see these letters:

Richard Pr

Richard Pryor or Richard Prince?

Whichever one emerged from your subconscious, it placed you (and them) in one demographic to the exclusion of another. Richard Pryor was black. Richard Prince is white. Richard Pryor told jokes, Richard Prince painted jokes. Richard Pryor invented a racially explicit brand of comedy that, once begun, could not turn back, no matter how destructive. Richard Prince instigated the act of appropriation, a gesture that, once made, could not turn back, no matter how productive. Woolford’s Joke Paintings investigate this destruction/production dichotomy.

As images, Woolford’s paintings deepen her commitment to making artworks that “look like” known artists and styles. Woolford’s paintings are stand-ins, facsimiles, stage props. The paintings, rendered in marker, acrylic paint, and ballpoint pen, have all the telltale signs of “process” and “revisions,” evidence of the artist thinking out loud. Except that in Woolford’s case, all the signs have been figured out beforehand so that they can be executed by the skilled hands of studio assistants. It’s not important who makes Woolford’s paintings. Not because she cares about the critique of authorship, she just prefers not to make her own work.

Donelle Woolford (b. 1954 in Detroit, U.S.A.) lives and works in New York City, Brooklyn, The Bronx, Philadelphia, London, and Vienna. She has participated in the exhibitions Double Agent at the ICA London; The Sharjah Biennial, United Arab Emirates; and Buy American at Chez Valentin, Paris. Her performances have been staged at The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the PRELUDE theatre festival, New York; The Lewis Center for the Arts, Princeton; The Suburban, Chicago; White Flags, Saint Louis; and the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven.