Exhibition

Paul McMahon. Pizza Boxes

9 Feb 2020 – 16 Mar 2020

Regular hours

Monday
12:00 – 17:00
by appointment
Saturday
12:00 – 17:00
by appointment

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321 Gallery

New York
New York, United States

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321 Gallery presents an exhibition of paintings on used pizza boxes by Pictures Generation artist Paul McMahon (b. 1950, San Diego, CA).

About

Pizza Boxes marks McMahon's second show at the gallery, following his 2015 exhibition: 44, which featured 44 works over 44 years.

Since 2018, McMahon has been using marker and acrylic on discarded pizza boxes found in and around Woodstock, NY, painting over and between the lines of quaint dining and landscape scenes pre-printed on the surfaces of the cardboard boxes. While the boxes are recognizable mass produced items, when collected and arranged typologically, the diversity in print design becomes clear, raising questions about regional pizza box distributors, how imagery is used in packaging design, the convergence of high and low art, and pizza, which everyone has an opinion about.

McMahon was deeply involved in the downtown scene of fellow Pictures Generation artists such as Barbara Kruger, Sherrie Levine, Richard Prince, and Cindy Sherman, and his most recognizable artworks, which were included in a 2009 Pictures Generations show at the NY Met, are his pastels on newspapers and text on postcards from the Nixon era. In the late 1980s, McMahon removed ads and PSAs from the NYC subway, carefully obscured the text with paint (in a pre-Photoshop gesture) to reveal a pure image, and returned the ads to their original contexts. Performative and punk, actions such as these are the most similar to McMahon’s current work on pizza boxes. By filling in spaces with colored marker, merging elements of the image with similar colors, and painting over text, McMahon alters the scenes to create unique landscapes that feel familiar yet disconcerting, such as Rome’s Coliseum being flooded, a town enveloped by an apocalyptic sky, or a charming cafe scene with an unfurled Russian flag.

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Exhibiting artistsToggle

Paul MCmahon

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