Don Pollack
b. 1958, Chicago, IL
True Life Novelettes is the most recent addition to the bigger project; Crossing The Great Divide which is loosely a series of landscape and history projects I began in 2009. It explores among other things, current events and personal literary interests through the construction of book cover paintings. I use a variety of images juxtaposed with bylines and misplaced authors in order to create new meanings. I do fear that the arguments driving political discourse will soon become completely supplicated by popular memes. What should the new best sellers look like? Do I have enough time to read them? Underneath all this fanfare is it possible that the discussion will also be reduced to the display of personal artifacts of material culture? In the fashion section of today’s Times the headline reads, “Can you wear Dior to the Protest March?” (Enter my books.) I first start by writing columns and mixing up the authors with made-up titles (from films and books) and looking for strange connections to create a metaphorical tension. I then look for popular images and taglines in the news, print media, and the publishing business, and search for catchy phrases from film dialog. Then I combine everything into a new design layout to form a hybrid of ‘true life novelettes’ and modern classics. Climate change denial and alt/fake news declarations become great sources for topics in the overwhelming modern noise machine too grim to bare. I cancel my cable subscription. But what are the conditions for making a painting in a world saturated with images? While the representational, abstract, and technical concerns of painting collapse. [Excerpted from exhibition catalog]
