Ron Martin’s All in Ones are, in his words, hostile compositions, provoking viewers to “become more aggressive regarding their appreciation of a new idea.” The deconstructed canvases, reconfigured into wall-dependent sculptural paintings, project out from the wall, perforating the gallery space.
Martin disestablished the familiar conventions of a painting – flat, squared, parallel to the wall -, crumpling it up – creasing the canvas outward and collapsing into itself. Each All in One comprises multiple components, finished in white acrylic and black brushstrokes, connected to one another with the same hook-and-ring hardware that would hang a painting from a wall. The All in Ones “suggest to viewers that they have to keep pace with the changes that take place in the appearance of the structure of the work that they induce, self-reflexively.” (read Ron Martin’s 2011 artist statement)
Although the All in Ones can be considered Martin’s last paintings, they cannot be described as a final, summative representation of his explorations of painting. Martin’s paintings have consistently confronted themselves materially and conceptually, at once addressing and reflecting the artist’s intent, his physical interaction with the material, and the viewers’ relative perceptions of the final piece. Like conceptualists before him, Martin encourages viewers to consider whether a painting is aided by a historical perspective or distinguishes itself from the past through the emergence of a new idea. To what end does that idea carry the artwork? How do the limitations of material and the intangibility of idea collide?
“Ron Martin, Conceptualist” exhibits paintings from across his career that present contiguous concepts, demonstrating Martin’s decades-old ideas and decades-long investigations – that came to an end, rather than a conclusion, with the All in One series. The south gallery will house several All in Ones (2006-2012), and the north gallery will feature a 1970 World Painting and Excerpt From the Pages (1999), among other meta paintings.
