Adam Mysock
Foreseeing Nothing
2016

Name: Foreseeing Nothing
Brand: Adam Mysock
Price: 12500 USD
Availability: InStock

About the Item

(after: Henry Fawcett; Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett by Ford Made Brown, 1872) Framed: 8.50h x 10w in On November 7th, 2016, it seemed as if everyone knew how the U.S. presidential election would conclude, particularly our major media outlets. On the morning of November 9th, 2016, it was clear that no one had known what they had been talking about. We’d spent so much time living in a world defined by largely reliable focus groups, polls, and surveys that we’d become convinced that we could idly predict the future. Our news sources became complacent in their analysis of human behavior, and we followed along. It became the blind leading the blind. But what truly struck me was that we seemed surprised to discover our inability to foresee the future, to discover that we aren’t omniscient. Here—in the tradition of other paintings depicting the parable of the blind leading the blind—I’ve presented a row of men pointing us in a specific direction. An isolated portrait of blind, British academic, economist, and statesman Sir Henry Fawcett is repeated four times* as a visualization of our election’s timeline. For the majority of the painting (which was completed before the election), Fawcett (who became a noted social and political leader in England during the reign of Queen Victoria despite his disability) is seen pointing us toward his left. However, just before the work’s conclusion (the rightmost quarter, completed after the election), he turns and abruptly shoves the viewer’s gaze to his right. Just as so many news outlets encouraged our attention (and hope) to the Left, Democratic candidate for a majority of the general election, after November 8th—we were all forced to attend to an unanticipated Right. *The presence of four repetitions is a nod to the four-year term of the presidency. ABOUT THE ARTIST Adam Mysock was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1983 - the son of an elementary school English teacher and a lab technician who specializes in the manufacturing of pigments. On account of a steady stream of folk tales from his mother, his father's vividly dyed work clothes, and a solid Midwestern work ethic, he developed an interest in painting and drawing all things Americana from a very early age. Mysock earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Painting and Art History by 2004 from Tulane University. He then received an MFA from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. After his studies, he became the mural coordinator for the City of Cincinnati's MuralWorks mural program and worked as an adjunct drawing professor at Sinclair Community College in Dayton. In the summer of 2008, Mysock became a Professor of Practice at Tulane University where he currently teaches and maintains a studio. Mysock's work has been exhibited in Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois, Georgia, Mississippi and Louisiana and is in private collections across the US, including those of Thomas Coleman and Michael Wilkinson. He was a 2009 jury winner in the annual No Dead Artists juried exhibition. On August 4th, 2012 he was awarded first prize “Best in Show” in the Ogden Museum’s Louisiana Contemporary Annual Juried Exhibition. Mysock exhibited at Pulse Miami Art Fair in December 2012 with Jonathan Ferrara Gallery and he was selected for the 2013 Edition of New American Paintings. Mysock was exhibited in a solo project booth at the VOLTA9 Art Fair in Basel, Switzerland where he was acquired by the SØR Rusche Collection. In 2016, Mysock’s work was featured in a Baroque and Contemporary group exhibition from the SØR Rusche Collection, Oelde/Berlin at Kunsthalle Jesuitenkirche as well as in a solo exhibition entitled When Everything Was Wonderful Tomorrow at Galerie Andreas Binder in Munich, Germany. His work was also featured in EXCHANGE, an international exhibition at Galerie Jochen Hempel, Berlin. Furthermore, Mysock was recently selected as one of two recipients of the fifth Manifest Artist Residency (MAR) Award upon his return to his hometown. Mysock currently lives and works in Cincinatti, Ohio. I’m a revisionist history painter. Rather than rewrite the narrative of the past to justify an ideology, I repaint yesterday’s imagery in order to rationalize our present circumstances. Mysock says of his work, Telling stories is a part of human nature; it’s how we relate to one another. The stories we have in common help us create sincere connections to our neighbors and our surroundings. What’s more, storytelling – for better or worse – typically involves hyperbole. We tend to exaggerate; we tend to lie. Generally, we believe we control our narrative embellishments. What gets exaggerated from one telling to another gets exaggerated to challenge our listeners. What gets repeated gets repeated because it resonates with them. What gets omitted gets left out because it’s lost its meaning. We actively use embellishment to keep our audiences engaged. Given enough distance, however, sources and accuracy fade out and substitutions become the new norms. Quietly, time redefines what is truth and what is fiction. As a painter, I’m preoccupied by the undeniable role that the image plays in creating this acceptance of the fictional. A painting has the authority to make the intangible concrete, and a series of them has the ability to authenticate a fabrication in our collective memory. When I begin a piece, I typically start with preexisting images, artifacts from this collective remembrance. I look for images that shape my pictorial consciousness, that are hard to question because when I first saw them they were presented as the truth. They have to capture my imagination and they have to feel largely descriptive of a greater story. From them, I’m given my task – I have to “disrepair” them. I have to consolidate an earlier world of historical and cultural visual-fact with an evolving understanding of subtlety and gradation. I find that the discrepancies I discover between the absolute and the nuanced inspire me most. The resultant work is largely about storytelling, the ownership and authorship of our culture’s visual narratives, and the parallels between those tales. It’s meant to challenge the truth of “source” and the source of truth. After all, as Franz Kafka once wrote, "It is hard to tell the truth, for although there 'is' one, it is alive and constantly changes its face.

Creator:

Adam Mysock (1983, American)

Creation Year:

2016

Dimensions:

Height: 6.5 in (16.51 cm)Width: 8 in (20.32 cm)

Medium:

Panel,Acrylic

Movement & Style:

Contemporary

Period:

2010-