11 Z 2018

Curator: Oh, that’s intense. There's a real sense of rawness here, an almost uncomfortable exposure. Editor: Indeed. This piece is titled "11 Z," created in 2018 by Justin Earl Grant. It's a mixed-media work, employing acrylic paint, graphite, and other drawing materials, on what appears to be paper. I’m immediately drawn to the artist’s gestural application and bold colors. Curator: Absolutely, and the materials themselves seem to be doing a lot of the work here. Notice how the layering of acrylic and the scratchy graphite creates this feeling of something being built up and then torn down, almost violently. It strikes me that it embodies post-studio practice where there's no defined distinction between material hierarchy and artistic intention. I wonder about the relationship between artist labor and value assigned in such processes. Editor: A crucial point. Thinking about how works like this enter the gallery system and are subsequently framed or treated—it always invites reflection on whose labor is highlighted and obscured in that institutionalization. There's a visible tension between spontaneous mark-making and the formal structure we understand it within a neo-expressionist, even abstract-expressionist context. These paintings push against boundaries, defying categorization which inevitably asks—how is “expertise” leveraged within these realms of contemporary art? Curator: It is fascinating how these gestural marks are canonized. There's a suggestion of figuration in the abstract form too. Do you think it represents an attempt to break from traditional painting? Editor: It's compelling. I sense a resistance, possibly towards representational constraint or some notion of imposed artistic standards. But this resistance—isn't it often absorbed into, and thus becomes part of, what art history legitimizes and profits from? Curator: Exactly! Perhaps it is these layers of contextual awareness we project and share within social spheres that offer a unique value for audiences when processing such material considerations? Editor: So well observed. By examining the social circumstances of the piece, the dialogue of power at play between production and presentation, the historical significance begins to solidify.