it's been widely remarked upon that certain early peter saul paintings, like the above untitled one from 1962, noticeably prefigure elements of philip guston's work after his return to figuration at the end of the decade. but i've seen no explanation for the fact that this here painting exactly charts the mechanics behind the postponement of a guston exhibition in 2020. well?
anyway, here's the catalog to that postponed guston exhibition. you don't need it, the images are muddy. conceptionally, it's mildly disappointing: the thing is called "philip guston now," and yet that "now" is merely ten artist statements on why they dig philip guston. the rest is more or less a chronological walk thru his work. so far so pretty unremarkable, but then indeed something seems to be missing: while the 1930s depictions of clansmen are discussed, the hoods from after guston's return to figuration are not really talked about in the curators' essays at all. they figure in a couple of artist statements, where glenn ligon calls them woke, which they may very well be ... still it's obvious that the exhibition makers did not think of this as a relevant topic (while there's an (i'm sure very good but as of yet unread by me) essay on the work's jewishness) ... it might have been simpler to just commission another essay than to postpone the exhibition for four years ... but clearly this catalog hasn't done its homework.
