Now in Print | Paul P.

Greene Naftali / Maureen Paley / Gregory R. Miller & Co.

Hardcover
Color
160 Pages
10 x 7 1/4 inches

Paul P.’s work conflates memory, ecstasy, and loss, adolescence and decadence, ripe beauty and its inevitable rot.

— Vince Aletti

Paul P.’s art puts the viewer on intimate terms with the codes of queer representation, drawing on both what is explicit and what is hidden in plain sight. P. emerged in the early 2000s as a leading artist of his generation, forging what critic Johanna Fateman calls a "libidinal-conceptual practice" anchored in the archive. This self-titled monograph pairs his jewel-toned portraits with other recurring motifs: sculptures in the form of furniture, architectural abstractions, and atmospheric near-monochromes—some flecked with images of bats in flight, a potent symbol of transience and desire.

The book centers on the oils and watercolors of men for which P. is known, sourced from a cache of 1970s gay erotica. His figures channel the louche glamour of James McNeill Whistler or John Singer Sargent, but that desire is edged in doubt, with the impending AIDS crisis haunting P.’s appropriations beneath the surface. As acclaimed art historian Kenneth E. Silver writes in his accompanying essay, “it’s hard not to see his strikingly beautiful paintings of beautiful young men as redemptive, as well as carrying a subversive charge, whereby the sordidness of the porno industry and the tragedy of AIDS are sublimated and made transcendent."

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