Philip Guston exhibition in Hong Kong, narrated by his daughter, looks at his abstract and figurative works
‘Philip Guston: A Painter’s Forms, 1950-1979’ looks back on three decades of the late American abstract expressionist’s career and includes an audio guide narrated by his daughter Musa Mayer
Three cartoonish blood-spattered Ku Klux Klan figures cruise down the road smoking big cigars in Riding Around (1969), one of the images that greet visitors in a new exhibition at the Hauser & Wirth art gallery in Hong Kong’s Central district.
The show, “Philip Guston: A Painter’s Forms, 1950-1979”, introduces one of the main figures of American abstract expressionism through the use of an audio guide.
Narrated by Guston’s daughter Musa Mayer, who is also the curator of the exhibition, the recording takes visitors through the artist’s creative periods and the rich symbolism of his work, while offering hints of the painter’s daily life and tribulations.
As the audio explains, Riding Around belongs to a series of artworks in which Guston reckons with the violence and racial tensions that shook America during the 1960s. The chaotic events of that decade pushed the artist to abandon the abstract paintings that had helped him gain worldwide recognition.
“When the 1960s came along I was feeling split, schizophrenic … What kind of man am I, sitting at home, reading magazines, going into frustrated fury about everything – and then going into my studio to adjust a red to a blue?” said Guston, according to the guide.