Conservatism kills

Conservatism kills

2022
Ash, graphite powder and primers on linen canvas
41 × 75 × 24 cm
RT4A2212
Courtesy of the artist


Conservatism kills joins three commercial canvases, sold pre-stretched and pre-primed for hobbyists and weekend painters. It borrows the style of the compulsory warnings on cigarette packets: a spin on the notorious ‘Smoking Kills’, turned against a more pervasive and arguably more dangerous mindset.

Once joined, the canvases received several coats of primer, of five different kinds. The lettering is made of cigarette ash and graphite powder mixed with a transparent acrylic medium that binds the pigments to the painting.

The triptych, an emblem of classical art, is set against the statement ‘conservatism kills’. The restrained black and white and the Helvetica typeface, everywhere now but once rare in typesetting and so a sign of culture in the second half of the twentieth century, underline a conservative standardisation disguised as elegance.


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