Modern Ruins, Transitivity and Moving Paintings

In his essay, “Painting Beside Itself,” David Joselit defines a critical dead end for painting- that it is still the most susceptible medium for being arrested from circulation in a network. He cites a way out in the form of “transitivity,” defining it as a form of translation where painting is entered into networks, submitting it to infinite dislocations, fragmentations, and degradations. In a time where painting as singular object has resurged, how are artists using social, digital and physical networks, to engage with ideas and forms outside of the formal tropes of painting? Within this dialogue, I will discuss how and why I began to animate my paintings, and what effect that has had on my practice, and the networks in which my paintings now exist. I will also explore themes central to my work, including modern ruins within the American landscape, and the ecological impacts of the social and political trajectory of the last half-century. Alongside ruins within the landscape, I will discuss the implications of a painting becoming a ruin, touching on notions of ephemerality within artworks, contingency over transcendency, and “art” that lies between multiple forms of media, unable to fully satisfy each alone.