Warhol, Wool, Guyton Exhibition at Nahmad Contemporary Explores Reproduction and Abstraction

From November 2, 2016, to January 14, 2017, Nahmad Contemporary in New York City presented an exhibition featuring works by Andy Warhol, Christopher Wool, and Wade Guyton at 980 Madison Avenue. Warhol's 'Rorschach' paintings, which mimic Hermann Rorschach's inkblot tests, represent rare imagery the artist painted himself rather than adapting photographs. Christopher Wool's 'Minor Mishap (Black)' (2001) uses silkscreened ink splatter to evoke Abstract Expressionism's demise, while his 'Double Blue Nose' (2003) recalls Brice Marden and Robert Rauschenberg's erasure of Willem de Kooning. Wool's pixelated details update Roy Lichtenstein's Ben-Day dots for the digital era. Wade Guyton's untitled fireplace piece features white dots resembling ash and smeared red paint, and his blue X's reference Piet Mondrian's neoplasticism through technological reproduction. Warhol's 'Shadow' paintings, described as silkscreens mopped with paint, show impasto brushstrokes that hint at a renewed interest in manual traces. The exhibition's first room emphasized formal contrasts in a chromatic austerity, while the second room burst into color. Individual canvases held mysteries, such as Warhol's silkscreened crosses where white forms bleed and a faint line suggests a horizon, challenging the painting's flatness. Nearly all brushwork in the show appears reified through photographic or scanned reproduction, questioning autonomy and authority in painting.