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Greg Allen is Behind @TheRealHennessy Twitter Paintings and They’re Great

Greg Allen is Behind @TheRealHennessy Twitter Paintings and They’re Great

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So I discovered the @TheRealHennessy Twitter paintings today by Greg Allen (@gregorg on Twitter). At first I thought the paintings were made by Jayson Musson, the man behind the twitter account @therealhennessy.  Then after a brief twitter exchange (which was of course quite funny, so I’m posting it here) I realized, I was wrong. These paintings are the work of Greg, who has simply appropriated his buddy’s tweets.

I find this work brilliant on many levels. And I expect others to have the critique that it’s not real painting, it’s not really his work, it’s feeding off his friend’s art cred, blah blah blah. Whatever. This work is funny and abstract. I’m sold.

More formal musing on the art from greg.org here:

The series of monochrome tweet paintings, of which @TheRealHennessy Tweets, Moby is an outstanding example, presents the viewer with a strangely puzzling juxtaposition of a minimalist canvas and painted words. Although this can be interpreted as a reference to postmodern linguistic theory, the work also points to two quintessentially American features: hard-edge abstraction and popular humor. Cleverly subverting the clean and serious language of abstract painting, the tweets amalgamation of low and high culture characterizes @TheRealHennessy Tweet’s most iconic work.

This intelligent fusion of conceptual strategies with popular cultural references, which has been the driving force throughout @TheRealHennessy Tweet’s influential practice, is perfectly merged in @TheRealHennessy Tweets, Moby. Wittingly parodying the uncomplicated jokes from vernacular literature, the artist has found a way of incorporating a difficult subject-matter – humor – into a deeply serious artistic practice.

AND THIS IS MY FAVORITE PART OF IT ALL: “The first painting is available for $1,800. Please tweet, DM, or email for further information.” – Greg Allen.

Ayana Evans @yana_handbags on Twitter.

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