The Everything Generation 👀🔥💜🌈
In an era that is post-pop, post-modern, and just about post-everything else, it's increasingly difficult to discern what it is that I like about an artwork. Maybe I enjoy this imagery because it reminds me of this thing I've seen 1000 times before. Does that make it derivative? Or does the fact that it stood out to me in a lineup of 1000 examples make it even more profound? Stefan Meier’s solo exhibition "Everything In Five Minutes" revels in this notion of abundance where both the banal and euphoric can exist in tandem. Where this one thing reminds you of that other idea that you heard a while back, at this party with so-and-so, who watched that show you liked in the 12th grade, or was it college? I can't remember. All that I can recall is the vibe.
These works don't try to convince you of anything. They have no agenda. They just remind you of a good time. The things in life worth writing down. From colloquial phrases that offer limited context to raging bulls that seemingly fall through space, these paintings act as idiosyncratic documentation of a cultural past that's inextricably stuck in the present -- Much like the people viewing them.
Towards a definitive statements on the coming trends in menswear and accessories (a) 'Together let us explore the stars', 1962, Tate © The Estate of Richard Hamilton
Compositionally the work is sporadic, in a Jean Michel Basquiat sort of way. However, this selective curation of graphic imagery takes me back to the early origins of Pop. When artists like Richard Hamilton & Rauschenberg used collage to grapple with the cultural proliferation of broadcast programming and the advent of color TV. A time when painting had transformed in rapid succession from realism to impressionism to abstraction and then collage & conceptualism. How do we deal with an environment that becomes increasingly nuanced and interconnected? Is there a way to convey what words can not? Perhaps this type of painting is less about realism and more about the emotion that arises from a well-assorted group of visual signifiers—an art of empathy where the reorganization of nostalgia defines "creation." As Steve Jobs once said, "everything is a remix."
This radical departure from abstraction and formalism was paramount in the mid to late '50s and '60s as neo-dada & pop rose to prominence in the West. Such artworks focused on deconstructing Eurocentric traditions while rethinking the notion of an indexical mark. We see this energy in historical works like Automobile Tire Print by Robert Rauschenberg, where the banal gesture of driving down a road is captured and displayed with the same intent as an oil painting that hangs in the Louver. So what makes the viewing of work like the Mona Lisa a more coveted experience than chilling with your friends to watch Lisa Simpson?… Maybe nothing, that was the point.
View of Robert Rauschenberg’s Automobile Tire Print (1953) showing an alternate installation format with the ends of the work gathered on scrolls, ca. 1960. Photo: Bevan Davies
The contemporary world is hard and often problematic to define. I think this shift from early century Abstract Expressionism (which focused largely on the internal struggles of overcoming WW2) to the abundantly accessible collaged imagery associated with familiar works of the 1960s, represents a mode of aesthetics where individualism had traded itself in for the collective. Art-for-art-sake reemerges as art-for-viewer-sake. Art that can now speak to the chronology of our shared journey as its influenced by the technologies and social innuendos we use to communicate.
James Rosenquist, F-111, 1964–65, installation view as seen in “From the Collection: 1960–1969” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
When I first met Stefan in late 2021 at his downtown LA studio, it wasn't because I had an essay or exhibition in mind. It was because about a week prior, I had purchased my first NFT. It was a jpeg of a rather charming looking heart drawn by Mr. Meier’s himself. A doodle that felt reminiscent of a character he drew on a pair of pants, as part of this apparel collab that was posted to Instagram. I don't know when it happened or what I identify with most, but his art, whether on clothing, a gallery wall, or my phone's crypto wallet, conveys a sense of experience. A more complete way of viewing and connecting with creativity that pushes the whole conversation forward. It's a vibe.
Just as artistic predecessors in the mid-1900s ditched rabbit skin glue & oil paints to embrace overlapping silkscreen prints, found imagery, and video performance, we find these "Everything Paintings" embody a similar pioneering spirit. Where more is more, and the maximalist way in which they are consumed through Web 3, the physical world, or the metaverse, makes them omnipresent. Work that generates overarching energy capable of provoking our most explorative and sentimental selves.
As we redefine how we create and move between mediums, we tend to pull from what we know. Throw bits of our past into whatever substrate is indicative of our future and wait for the sublime to emerge. Whether looking to historical artists like James Rosenquist, who depicted contemporary technicolor imagery in galleries, to Stefan Meier, who's using AI to randomize drawings that in the end appear on an NFT marketplace, the approach feels familiar. It's a way of dealing with the new by recording fragments from an endlessly large lexicon of shared historical experiences. A tradition that, for the last century or so, has been largely tied to the advent & innovation of media and digital communications. This kind of art-making serves as a breathing visual archive where each piece’s function is merely to express what linear language can not.
There’s a natural progression when facing heightened exposure to stimuli, that we tend to pull more and more of that environment into the way we express ourselves & compose imagery. Not too dissimilar from the thinking behind those mid-century creators. Only now, we’ve progressed to a world where the language of painting can extend to the dialects of fashion, music, marketing, & architecture. Thus building a creative future where the tradition of representation is less of a definitive statement and more a vessel that reflects the author's most identifiable beliefs and communal wishes. A design-driven experience that you can hang on your wall, rock on your jeans, or share as an NFT. Art that no longer is produced and collected for the "me’s" but instead shared and celebrated by the "we’s."
Detail of artwork by Stefan Meier from his gallery solo exhibition at Over the Influence, Los Angeles
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