Thaddeus Strode
Subtitle: Absolutes and Nothings (Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum-Contemporary Projects)
Contributors: Benjamin Weissman (Contributor)
Publisher: Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum; Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, Washington University in St. Louis; Distributed by the University of Chicago Press
Published: February 15, 2008
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 80
ISBN-13: 9780936316246
Subjects: American - General; Collections, Catalogs, Exhibitions - General; Art / History / American; Art; Art & Art Instruction
Description: Thaddeus Strode's vibrant large-scale paintings are universes unto themselves: wild mash-ups of California surf and skateboard culture, Zen philosophy, rock music, literature, film, and comic books. "Absolutes and Nothings" marks the artist's first major museum show, presented as part of the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum's "Contemporary Projects" series.Strode's images draw on a wealth of motifs inspired by a broad range of sources in popular culture, freely combined with the artist's own creations. The strength and visual pleasure of Strode's aesthetic come from his self-reflexive combination of painterly styles and incongruous elements, in which enigmatic texts, phantoms, monsters, and castaways play off one another to produce cryptic - and captivating - fantasies. Including over two dozen full-color images of works from 2001 to the present, as well as essays by Sabine Eckmann, Meredith Malone, and Benjamin Weissman, "Absolutes and Nothings" is a fascinating premier monograph from one of our most vital and exciting contemporary visual artists.