MARCO presents an exhibition by American painter David Salle, which includes a concise selection of his work from the early 1980s to present, showing prime examples of the artists’ work, as well as several resent works which have never before been exhibited.
By 1980, a new generation of American artist were receiving national and international attention. Such artists included Jean-Michel Basquiat, Eric Fischl, Keith Haring, Jeff Koons, Barbara Kruger, Robert Longo, Richard Prince, David Salle, Julian Schnabel and Cindy Sherman, among others. These artists tended to be divided into two areas: the Expressionists, which include Fischl, Basquiat and Schnabel, and artists appropriating existing images or artifacts. This group includes Robert Longo, Cindy Sherman, Haim Steinbach and David Salle.
Walter Hopps, curator of the exhibition, said that of all the artists working appropriating images or preexisting artifacts, David Salle has worked with great achievements with the widest variety of techniques: painting, drawing, printmaking, photography, sculpture, stage design and filming movies. "From Man Ray, no other American artist has produced such a variety of techniques. In the context of twentieth century art, I see as a imagist Salle (who used to express precise images). Imagist art is one of the three essential forms of art in this century realist, modernist and imagist.”
In his work, David Salle has extended beyond the visual boundaries than any of his contemporaries, which can be combined into a single work. Often it presents a wide variety of invented and appropriate images; these images come from sources such as the fine arts, both historical and modern, also of advertising language and popular.