More than any other artist of his time, Richard Jackson has focused his attention on the radical expansion of painting. The Schirn is presenting a selection of his “Rooms” for the first time in an exhibition.

The Amer­ican artist pushes the formal bound­aries of the picturesque and creates situ­a­tions, which link the appli­ca­tion of the paint through the use of machines to its proces­sual aspect. From February 6 to May 3, 2020, the Schirn Kunsthalle Frank­furt is assem­bling for the first time five of his alto­gether twelve char­ac­ter­istic “Rooms”—room instal­la­tions based on the prin­ciple of auto­mated painting.

Some are view­able from all sides, others only through windows or peep­holes. The exhi­bi­tion provides glimpses into Jackson’s “Rooms.” He combines crit­ical commen­tary on painting with social contexts, pairing this with provoca­tive wit and ambi­guity, as well as refer­ences to iconic works by artists such as Marcel Duchamp, Robert Rauschen­berg, and Jasper Johns.

Inside the rooms, comic-like figures, animals, or objects become the protag­o­nists in a unique process: air compres­sors and pumps cause rich colors to flow through tubes and funnels, through ears, mouths, and other body orifices, and spread them across the floor, walls, furnish­ings, and the protag­o­nists them­selves. The thematic rooms docu­ment a painting process that is detached from the artist and expands into the spatial. By the time visi­tors enter the space, it is all over. They become the inves­ti­ga­tors of the previous spec­tac­ular painting act, and voyeurs of bizarre scenarios. The proto­type of Jackson’s “Rooms” is the no longer preserved work “The Bedroom”, created as an exper­i­ment between 1976 and 1982. 

Richard Jackson, The Dining Room (Detail), 2006-2007, Cour­tesy the artist, Galerie Georges-Philippe & Nathalie Vallois, and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Guil­laume Grasset

The Schirn presents the later remake of the work “Bed Room” (2002). Jackson reduced the amount of furni­ture in the room, while the act of painting was now performed by the bed filled with paint. Elevated by a rotating lift, the bed distrib­uted it in a circle on the ceiling. Simi­larly, Jackson devel­oped “The Maid’s Room” (2006–07) as a result of an in-depth exam­i­na­tion of a work of art: Marcel Duchamp’s iconic piece “Étant donnés” (1946–66). In his rein­ter­pre­ta­tion, Jackson changed elemen­tary motifs. Never­the­less, Jackson retained the key aspect, namely, the voyeuristic and simul­ta­ne­ously restricted perspec­tive of the viewer through a peep­hole or narrow window gap onto the naked body of a woman with legs akimbo. Jackson’s work is a refer­ence to a tradi­tion of artistic repre­sen­ta­tion, whereby the female geni­tals serve as a metaphor for the plea­sure of looking as well as for creativity itself.

This aspect is echoed in “The Delivery Room” (2006–07), a warlike birthing scene with a woman giving birth. Around her we see babies, abdom­inal pros­theses, paint buckets, and also paint explo­sively dispersed throughout the room. A man uses his camera to film the event, which is trans­mitted to a monitor outside. It is only from there, or through a small round window, that viewers can get a glimpse of the action. The harrowing portrayal of the birth is also a refer­ence to the efforts of artistic creation. At the same time, in its comi­cally savage staging, it disman­tles a heroism of painterly creation that was cele­brated not least in Abstract Expres­sionism.

Richard Jackson, Cour­tesy Galerie Georges-Philippe & Nathalie Vallois, © Richard Jackson, Photo: Mari­anne le Metayer
Richard Jackson, The Delivery Room, 2007, Galerie Yvon Lambert, New York, 2006-2007

“The Dining Room” (2006–07) depicts another grotesque family portrait placed by Jackson in a room that can be viewed from all sides. On top of the dining table in the center, with his trousers lowered, the father squats and liter­ally vents his displea­sure. Colorful paint is spread across table, dishes, floor, and the rest of the family members who apathet­i­cally attend the scene. Paint runs through funnels and canis­ters into their heads, only to flow out again else­where and spread throughout the room. Above the table a chan­de­lier announces “HOME SWEET HOME” in flashing neon letters.

The setting of the instal­la­tion “The War Room” (2006–07) is a polit­ical battle­field. Figures of ducks, dressed in mili­tary uniforms and with breasts as eyes, stand in pairs facing one another around a globe and have splashed each other with paint; two further copu­lating figures are hiding inside it. The world map refers to a Map patented by Richard Buck­min­ster Fuller; with twenty equi­lat­eral trian­gles, it allows a propor­tion­ally correct repre­sen­ta­tion of the conti­nents. Jackson shows them peppered with minia­ture drilling rigs that ulti­mately expose the war scene as a battle for dwin­dling resources.

Richard Jackson, The Dining Room, 2006-2007, Cour­tesy the artist, Galerie Georges-Philippe & Nathalie Vallois, and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Guil­laume Grasset
Richard Jackson, The War Room, 2006-2007. Cour­tesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Instal­la­tion view, Richard Jackson: Acci­dents in Abstract Painting, the Armory, Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, 2012, Photo: Joshua White