Eric Fischl made his reputation in the 1980s with large-scale figurative oil paintings depicting ambiguous, erotically charged scenarios set in the American suburbs. Since that time his practice has developed, although his focus remains on representations of the human figure, depicted singly, as in his sculptural work and watercolours, or in complex groupings, as in this new body of paintings.

His new series “Art Fair Painitings” is now on show at Victoria Miro Gallery, London. It takes as its subject the contemporary art market. The paintings depict art fairs and gallery openings, and feature intricate compositions where people and artworks are layered in sophisticated arrangements of form and colour.

Fischl has always been a keen observer of the relationships between people, and between people and their surroundings. These paintings demonstrate the artist’s acute observation of body language and the small details that reflect social relationships, particularly in the heady environment of the art fair, with its charged atmosphere of money and taste, financial and cultural capital.

Art fairs are notoriously busy, and these paintings give a sense of the energy and bustle as visitors move amongst the stands, apparently giving as much attention to each other – and to their mobile phones – as to the artworks on display. In these images, rather than acting as a backdrop to the human activity, the artworks function as characters in the scene, silent witnesses to the drama unfolding around them. Fischl has described this effect:

“The space in these paintings is collapsed, cluttered, irrational and aggressive. Those depicted in the scenes seem oblivious to the mania of their condition…. What I’ve discovered as I moved into this work is the essentially abstract nature of the art fair spaces. They are nearly cubistic in their flatness and their jarring collaged constructions.

You see a booth and through it another and through it another, each booth showing works that have their own, often contrasting, spatial illusions. For a painter, it is a rich environment to try and capture. Layers of consciousness on top of layers of cross-purposes. I am falling in love with it. Not because it is the proper place for art but because it is such a rich environment to make art about”.

ART FAIR PAINTINGS
ERIC FISCHL
VICTORIA MIRO GALLERY
LONDON, UK
Through 19 December 2024

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