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David Kramer
"Architecture Joke" Conceptual Text Based Painting

2019

About the Item

This conceptual text based painting by New York artist, David Kramer, combines stylized painting of the FBI Building in Washington DC and the bold text: BRUTAL. An architecture joke, the subtitle reads: "Quasi-Political Architecture Joke (for James Comey.). The J Edgar Hoover building is a low-rise office building located at 935 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., in the United States. It is the headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and is considered to be in the brutalist style of architecture. A child of the 1970s, David Kramer pulls from that formative decade, re-crafting its lifestyle advertisements and distinctive interior design into paintings, drawings, and installations both nostalgic and ironic. His compositions resemble the advertisements that, as he claims (with the tongue-in-cheek humor that shapes his output), modeled his future: “I felt certain that my future would look a lot like what I was looking at in those ads. […] I am still hoping to grow up and get my hands on those things.” Text is central to Kramer’s work. He overlays what he calls “one-liners” onto his images, revealing the falsity of the idealized vision they present and the disillusionment of adulthood. In his latest body of work Kramer tackles inequity and disaffection using biting humor and satirical wit. “Tired Jokes” is anything but tired. While Kramer’s style may often borrow heavily from bygone eras, in this show Kramer turns the lens of his “Americana” onto America itself. Front Room first became involved with David Kramer in 2004, when we featured him in the exhibition “Sellout” at Voorkamer gallery in Lier, Belgium (which coincidentally means “Front Room in Dutch). He has exhibited internationally. His work is in the collection of the Pompidou Museum and Museum London, Ontario, and he has screened his videos and performed at the Whitney Museum of American Art and The Brooklyn Museum of Art, Pompidou Museum, and many other institutions and galleries.
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