Mindy Solomon is pleased to showcase the works of Mark Flood and Sam Jablon in Dirty Words – an exhibition curated by Bill Arning Exhibitions.
Dirty Words is an exhibition of two very different painters’s work from different decades that nonetheless share the strategy of using words on canvas as blunt instruments to both abuse and delight viewers in equal measure. Mark Flood shows his art historically revered yet under exhibited museum/ gallery works from the early 90’in which official communications from art institutions are mutely replicated. These masterworks are displayed in concert with Sam Jablon’s newly minted luxuriously painted text based paintings. Bill Arning, who in his museum years organized the first major Mark Flood survey entitled “Gratest Hits” and the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston in 2016 will balance the two mavericks in one space.
Mark Flood cultivates the persona of a bad boy, priding himself on an aesthetic forged in punk rock then transplanted whole to the world of art. But in fact he is as far from a nihilist as possible manifesting the faith of an enraptured true believer in art and artists. That faith is evident both in his crucial work from the 90s in which he looked critically at the institutions of the art world and in his passion for finding, supporting and aligning himself with the next generation of significant art makers like Sam Jablon.
