In the Abstract. MassMOCA, North Adams, MA, US. 30 May 2017 – 9 April 2018.
From exhibition pamphlet: “Known for his teaching and writing as well as his art practice, Doug Ashford (b. 1958, Rabat, Morocco) was a member of the artists collaborative Group Material, whose projects in the 1980s and 90s were concerned with reimagining the exhIbition as a place for dialogue, social change, and public interaction. Over the last decade, Ashford has turned to painting, combining images sourced from the news with abstract forms and color that the artist proposes as a reservoir for individual and shared emotions. Ashford sees these communal sensations as an instrument for political change.
With his installation Many Readers of One Event (2012), Ashford presents a collection of geometric abstractions in tandem with photographs of people collapsing into one another. The images re-enact an original news photo featuring grieving parents collapsing into one another after the tragic death of their children. With his paintings, Ashford proposes a similar interaction or connection without a specific referent, and space beyond the prescribed images and ideologies that society presents to us.
In two new series of works on canvas, Ashford once again combines news clippings and other documents with abstract compositions ““ some of which suggest abstracted writing. Ashford creates pairs of images as if they mirror ““ or translate – one another. A new video animation, Bunker 2 (2017), intersperses news clippings dating between 1982 and 2016 with bands of changing color. The barrage of images and the rock music that accompanies them presents an overwhelming concurrence of fact and feeling. As the flow of images blend into one another, and the aesthetic connection to color allows intuition to take over, the work suggests the possibility that our emotions can resist the culture of publicity and reshape notions of progress.”
Curated by Susan Cross _(link)
Exhibition website:_(link)
Exhibition press release:_ (link)
