Publicholidays 1989

Bram Bogart made "Publicholidays" with paint so thick it's practically sculpture. It's got this red and white thing going on, and when you look at it, you just know this was all about the process. I mean, check out the globs of paint, how they build up and push out. The texture is so physical, like you could reach out and squish it. I bet he used a trowel or something, not just a brush. There’s this one spot where the white paint curls over the red, like cream on top of jam, or maybe the opposite! It feels both accidental and deliberate, like he was wrestling with the material and letting it have its say. This reminds me a bit of Guston's late work, where he piled on the paint to make these weird, cartoonish shapes. Both artists are embracing mess and letting the physicality of paint speak for itself. "Publicholidays" is just a whole lot of fun, really. It doesn’t want to be pinned down to one meaning; it’s happy just being itself.