This past Thursday exhibitions featuring work by Blinky Palermo & William Eggleston opened at LACMA. Although they are two independent exhibitions, the works in them operate similarly. This makes their sharing of BCAM's second floor a fruitful coupling. In a conversation a couple days before the opening Lynne Cooke, curator of the Blinky Palermo exhibition, and artist Mathias Poledna spent much time discussing the lightness of Palermo's work. Mathias noted that Gerhard Richter, a friend of Palermo's, was jealous of Palermo's light touch and skill with color. Lynne expanded on this, stating that although Palermo's work seems effortless he struggled and destroyed many paintings he felt to be beneath his standards. His work embodies the effort of looking effortless. This quality also exists in Eggleston's work. His photographs may appear as though they could be taken by anyone but very few people could take the same modest photograph and have it look as successful and effortless as Eggleston. Eggleston, like Palermo, is also a master of color. He was one of the first photographers to use color photography, earning him the title the 'Father of Color Photography.'
Palermo, To the People of New York City, 1976, 40 individual panels, acrylic on aluminum installed at Dia on 22nd St. NYC, 1987-88.
Wallpainting by Palermo
Two Sculptures for a Room by Palermo. The sculptures depict Blinky Palermo (left) and Gerhard Richter (right). The wallpainting was originally executed by Palermo in Munich yellow and ceiling and borders in white.
Palermo wallpainting at Kabinett für aktuelle Kunst, Bremerhaven (1970). The wallpainting mirrors the structure of the building facade. It inaugurated what is now a long tradition of wallpainting at the Kabinett in Bremerhaven. In 2008, Luc Tuymans cited Palermo's wallpainting in one of his own which extended onto the space's walls and floors.
Konrad Lueg, Sigmar Polke, Blinky Palermo and Gerhard Richter in front of Galerie Heiner Friedrich, Cologne 1967
Photographs by William Eggleston
Greenwood, Mississippi 1974
Installation view of Mathias Poledna's Crystal Palace, a 35 film shot in Papua New Guinea paired with a false soundtrack that specifically references the 1951 album Sounds of a Tropical Rainforest, produced by Folkway Records for the American Museum of Natural History.
Mathias Poledna (second from left)
