John Henderson: JOHN

John Henderson solo exhibition at Peep-Hole displays a selection of works that call into question the notions of authorship, originality and reproducibility. The show, that inaugurates the new venue of the Milan based art space at Fonderia Artistica Battaglia, is developed in a close relation with the gallery space according to a symmetry/discontinuity logic within the artworks exhibited.

The first work on display, the video “No title”, records the artist’s destruction of some of his cast-metal paintings. The video represents a key to interpret Henderson’s creative practice, because it embodies a trace of some artworks (the cast-metal paintings), which in turn are produced as cast replicas of some original paintings already demolished by the artist.

The exhibition continues with “Hybrids”, a selection of cast-metal paintings composed by bronze and brass. The seam line between the parts creates two halves that reminds Barnett Newman’s zips and, at the same time, multiplies the unicity of their originals. Another reflection on the reproducibility of the artwork arises from “Recasts”, a series of grid paintings that imitates the metal surface of the cast-paintings, in a sort of almost-industrial parody. Some photographs and painted-over photographs complete the show: “Flowers” not only depict but also alter some paintings’ images through the technological medium, therefore adding a new dimension to the constructed nature of the artwork. Variations, translations, reconfigurations, every work exhibited is tied with a precedent gesture, is a digressive never-ending process of certified copies.