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JACK GOLDSTEIN, Untitled, 1987

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Untitled, 1987
Acrylic and metallic pigment on canvas. 48 1/4 x 96 1/8 in. (122.6 x 244.2 cm). Signed, titled and dated "Jack Goldstein Untitled, 1987" on the reverse.

PROVENANCE Rosenthal Fine Art, Chicago
EXHIBITED Edinburgh, The Fruitmarket Gallery, Jack Goldstein, August 6 - September 25, 1988
LITERATURE J. Goldstein, ed., Jack Goldstein, Edinburgh, 1988, p. 38 (illustrated)

The present lot is an awe-inspiring canvas of Jack Goldstein's signature lush jewel-toned psychedelic imagery juxtaposed with flat painted silver circles. Our experience of the painting as a theatrical event is heightened by the black and fluorescent pink bands, cropping the image and functioning like a curtain or screen to unveil the spectacle within. Our gaze is refused any permanent focus, vacillating between the illustionistic depths of the supernova-like center of the painting and the silver circles which insist we remember the flat plane of the canvas, like a Godard film that briefly lets the viewer escape into the storyline and then jolts them out with a voiceover reminder that this is just a film.   "Time and again he portrays the spectacular instant, its gorgeous effects: intimidating thunderstorms, majestic views of interstellar space, the staggering effects of computer imaging, the utter silence of night flying. Before his pictures it is natural to remember the vivid and poignant scenes of J.W.M. Turner and Frederic E. Church, or James McNeill Whistler's Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket. It is natural, but rarely useful. Goldstein portrays the drama of split-second timing, the precipitous vision of the photograph and the video screen. It is his way to leave us without recourse to the narratives so necessary to the meaning of earlier art. Goldstein's art suspends time and our gaze precisely at the point where origins and endings blur beyond recognition," (R. Jones, Jack Goldstein: Recent Work, 1986-1987, New York, 1987, n.p.).

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