Value Paintings
Value Paintings by Josh Hash focus on the formal qualities of language and modernist traditions within Western painting. This artwork series depicts proletariat-facing marketing verbiage and euphemism as formalized abstraction. The artist pulls inspiration from the practices of concrete poets as well as contemporary text painters like Mel Bochner, Jenny Holzer, & Ed Ruscha.
These works are branded with contemporary sales slogans that serve as signifiers that point to the sometimes enigmatic distinctions between art, design, & commerce. From phrases like “Buy One Get One Free” to “0 Down,” this exhibition concocts an allegorical portrait of creative production at a time when art is increasingly commodified and sensationalized as luxury objects – and artists as retail brands.
About:
I’ve always been interested in the relationships between language, and its visual representations. Having focused primarily on text as a point of inspiration in my work, “Value Paintings” are made to examine institutional modes of classification and public accessibility. The compositions of banal retail verbiage and colloquial phrases play to art-historical signifiers ranging from hard-edged-abstraction, to conceptual sculpture, and concrete poetry.
Often made with a sense of sardonic wit, I try to contrasts austere surface materials with ready-made language from small-business advertising and retail outlets. A juxtaposition that both examines the monolithic rituals around western art production and arts’ inherent function in the broader social context.
Phrases like “Buy One Get One Free,” “Clearance,” and “0 Down” reveal a pervasive candor aimed squarely at a proletariat audience to affirm the general public’s role in artistic discourse and canonization.
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