Pattern and Degradation

Rob Pruitt has worked for 2 years and the result is for just one more day to be seen on 8200 square feet (760 square metres sounds too little) at Gavin Brown’s enterprise and Maccarone NYC. His exhibition Pattern and Degradation takes inspiration from the Amish tradition of Rumspringa, a Pennsylvania German term that directly translates to “running around.” During the Rumspringa, Amish adolescents are given the chance to temporarily explore the outside world before choosing to either return to the Amish lifestyle and be baptized, or leave their community forever. Folklore holds that this is a period when Amish youth engage in rebellious behavior, defying their culture’s strict prohibitions, and indulging in the excesses of mainstream American culture. That is fine, but ArtFagCity’s Paddy Johnson thinks otherwise – she doesn’t really see a resemblance between Rob’s art and the above described Amish traditions. See for yourself:

Rob Pruitt was born in 1964 in Washington, D.C., and has been exhibiting work internationally for the past 25 years. In 2009, in association with White Columns, Rob Pruitt conceived and presented his performance-based artwork “The First Annual Art Awards” at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. The second annual art awards will take place at Webster Hall in December 2010. Pruitt has been included in numerous exhibitions internationally including: “Pop Life,” Tate Modern (2010); “Mapping the Studio,” Palazzo Grassi (2009); “The Gold Standard,” PS1 Contemporary Art Center, New York (2006); “Seeing Double,” Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, PA (2005); “Following and to Be Followed” Consortium, Dijon, France (2003); Shanghai Biennale 2002, Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, China (2002) etc.

[IMAGES via art agenda and Terry’s Diary]