Walter Robinson's Retrospective at Moore College of Art Explores Consumer Desire Through Painting

Walter Robinson's first traveling retrospective, "Walter Robinson: Paintings and Other Indulgences," was curated by Barry Blinderman and ran from January 23 to March 12, 2016 at Moore College of Art in Philadelphia. The exhibition featured works spanning several decades that appropriate commercial imagery from advertising circulars, mail-order catalogs, pulp novel covers, and food photography. Robinson, who previously served as editor at Artnet magazine for 16 years, returned to painting full-time after its dissolution. His paintings transform source material like Lands' End catalogs, Budweiser logos, and paperback illustrations into loose, impressionistic canvases that question the stability of commercial representations. Works such as "Oriental Beef" (1994), "Big Mac" (2008), "Amy's Veggie Burger" (2012), and "Honey" (2014) recontextualize consumer products, while pulp novel adaptations like "Something of Value" (1986) and "Society Nurse" (2011) archive melodramatic imagery. The show originated at University Galleries of Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois, where Blinderman served as director. Robinson's approach differs from other appropriators by presenting commodity transformations without fanfare, allowing viewers to draw their own conclusions about desire and representation in American consumer culture.