DNA:Orange:Work
MASSIMODECARLO Pièce Unique is pleased to present DNA:Orange:Work, McArthur Binion’s first solo project in Paris. This large scale abstract paper work on wood, from his 2020 DNA:Work series, investigates the nature and limits of the minimalist grid to construct a profoundly personal narrative.
The work’s geometric pattern is blended with paper fragments from the artist’s phone book and other personal documents, arranged rhythmically on the board. The composition that emerges from the layering of the paper’s grids with the grid created by the oil paint stick, both amplifies and negates the grid, offering a reflection on the definition of minimalism, which can be highly personal, and misleadingly simple.
Since the 1970’s, McArthur Binion has sought to challenge the very nature of minimalism, and has done so through his personal philosophy, merging the pictorial grid with archival belongings such as personal family photographs, phone books or found documents from the history of the Afro-American community.
Binion’s reduced combination of colors and forms exudes formal mastery, and carries multiple layers of meaning- beginning with his search for the legacy of modernist abstract painting in relation to the wider context of human society needing to leave traces of itself behind, and the impulse to project itself towards the future.
McArthur Binion’s work is resolutely political albeit subtle. Curator Lowery Stokes Sims described Binion’s DNA series as addressing ‘notions of self-awareness and self-discovery, a conscious reflection on himself and on the historical discourse he has contributed to’.
The Artist
McArthur Binion (b. 1946, Macon, Georgia) lives and works in Chicago, Illinois.
Since the 1970’s, he has sought an alternative to minimalist art, through his personal philosophy of the pictorial grids fused with his archival belongings, such as the pages of his phone books, personal family photographs, or found documents from the history of the Afro-American community. Binion’s reduced combination of colors and forms enclose not only formal mastery but also layers of meaning, beginning with his search for modernist abstract painting’s legacy in relation to a wider context, that of the need of human society to leave traces of itself and, at the same time, to project itself into the future.
McArthur Binion’s work is strongly political, although very subtle. In fact, curator Lowery Stokes Sims once described Binion’s DNA series as ‘notions of selfa wareness and self- discovery, a conscious reflection on himself and to the historical discourse he has contributed to’. McArthur Binion’s 40-year career has been a continual investigation of abstract painting. The artist distinctive insertion of narrative and personal history and his emphasis on content differentiates his work from a more traditional minimalist practice. Binion’s works have been prominently included in the 57th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, VIVA ARTE VIVA, curated by Christine Macel.
Binion’s work is featured in several public and private collections including the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, DC; Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills; Detroit Institute of Art, Detroit; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; Kemper Museum of Art, Kansas City; Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson; New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans; Strauss Family Collection, Santa Fe; Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo.