English-born artist Rupert Goldsworthy has followed an eclectic path over the past two decades. Living mostly in Berlin or — as at present — New York, he’s spread his energies across writing, researching and curating, as well as his own art, and has run project spaces in both cities. There are clear continuities across all those activities, though: the history of political activism and AIDS; an interest in how different communities interrelate; and an ongoing investigation into how images are reused and what they stand for. His book, CONSUMING//TERROR: Images of the Baader-Meinhof (2010), for example, traces the visual history of the Red Army Faction (the West German terror group) and their logo. His last exhibition at Ritter/Zamet, in 2012, used image sources as diverse as medicine packaging, stickers from street art, and his own photographs of signs and monuments to juxtapose the old and new communities in the Neukölln area of Berlin.

Everything in Goldsworthy’s current show was made onsite during a month’s residency at the gallery. The floor dominates: it was undisguisedly hand-painted with typically North African tile-like patterns. Combined with the natural light filtering through the small gallery’s roof, Mosque Floor generates the atmosphere of a courtyard and makes for an environment that — true to his interdisciplinary form — provides the platform for events with guest artists, musicians and writers.

The images around the courtyard are predictably varied. The most striking and conventionally painted is Clone Moustache, a looming close-up of part of a face with bushy hair completely covering the mouth. That suggests secrecy or a failure of communication, as well as membership of the 1970’s Castro-clone scene, a culture driven by extreme promiscuity. Both aspects fit the text paintings Mineshaft Dress Code and The Coleherne, which adopt a painterly photographic halftone dot format, similar to Sigmar Polke’s, to depict a crowd outside a notorious 1970s London leather club. The text is a word-for-word enamel reproduction of the club’s amateurishly hand-written dress code notice, which Goldsworthy has blown up to the scale of a man’s body. New York’s Mineshaft was among the first sex clubs to be closed by the city during the AIDS crisis, and according to Goldsworthy, its dress rules were well known in gay lore. The list is fascinating, featuring as it does both what can be worn (biker leathers, western gear, uniforms) and what can’t (suits, rugby shirts, disco drag and, surprisingly, cologne or perfume).

If those three paintings suggest nostalgia for the pre-AIDS freedoms of the ‘70s, albeit tinged by what came later, then Anita and Brian takes us back a little further: in a red and black graphic style that imitates a printing process, we see Anita Pallenberg and Brian Jones in Nazi uniforms. That puts us in 1969, just before Jones was found dead in

his swimming pool. Finally, Bull appropriates an early 20th century cartoon about the plight of Armenians, then adds a painterly splatter of bloody color. Several copiously moustached men strive to push a bull off a cliff: impending disaster is now visibly present.

The overall effect is more allusive than systematic, but we might think not just about AIDS, but more generally about how one culture imitates or opposes another, or how visual representations help form cultural identities, or whether the various patterns of collapse referenced — not just the end of the pre-AIDS sex scenes, but the dissolution of Ottoman Turkey, the fall of the Third Reich, and the endpoint of Western colonialism suggested by the floor’s expansion of Islamic influence — have any commonalities.

All that makes for a fascinating and emotional installation. London is very different now, and as an ex-pat visiting his hometown this year after three decades abroad, Goldsworthy talks of finding a sad irony in the double erasure of its recent history: first the decimation of his generation by AIDS, and then gentrification. You do, though, need the background provided by Goldsworthy to pick that up, else all you get is disparate work with an aura of potential linkage. Other artists — de Chirico and Rauch, for example — make a virtue of frustrating our desire to make logical connections, but integrate their choices in a distinctive painterly language. Goldsworthy is a chameleon painter, choosing styles to match his sources. That may be thematically appropriate, but it does sacrifice that sense of the artist’s own visually coded world, which makes for more immediate appreciation.

The post Every Love Story is a Ghost Story: The Histories of Rupert Goldsworthy appeared first on artcritical.

SHARON MA What is your methodology for making an artwork?

RUPERT GOLDSWORTHY I like to highlight incongruity, juxtapose ideas that seem mutually exclusive. I think a lot about medium and scale and display and audience. Usually I start off with an object or a design that I find unique, it just turns me on, and I want to understand it more, so I reproduce it or I hybridize it in some way. That unlocks its mystery for me.

SHARON MA What drives you to make the work that you do?

RUPERT GOLDSWORTHY I can never paint something that doesn’t hypnotize me. My heart isn’t in it. When I make films or perform, it’s usually similar. A fascinating object or document starts me off. Maybe just a scrap in the street on a lamp-post or a line from a song, something ephemeral, something that has a beauty, a history, a poetry, a sadness to it– something elusive that I want to spotlight and commemorate.

SHARON MA You are always doing something or going somewhere. How do you manage multiple projects in different countries?

RUPERT GOLDSWORTHY I come from London, and have lived between NYC and Berlin since the late 1980s. All three cities have thriving art scenes. So I have slowly done a lot of projects between those places. I have family and work and friends there and I can earn a living in all three.

I only ever do one project at a time and I don’t juggle things. Patience is key.

SHARON MA Who are the contemporary artists you identify with, either through their personalities or artwork?

RUPERT GOLDSWORTHY I admire the mavericks and the succinct. I identify with the grassroots East Village artist-run galleries or early Soho artists more than this current moment.

Félix González-Torres was a brilliant, funny person to be around and studying with him remains inspiring. Warhol I never met but the work is great, plus he built a circle of people around him, he nurtured a scene, and created an open system, not a hierarchy. He didn’t seem a snob.

I find it hard to separate the personality from the work. The handling of the career is often as interesting to me as the work itself.  I’m interested in the idea of retaining one’s integrity both socially and artistically.

I like the subject matter of Bruce LaBruce and Johan Grimonprez and I know them personally a bit. I admire painters like Inka Essenhigh and Marilyn Minter.

I always think about the work of Hans Haacke and Art & Language because what they did remains better than what most people later have achieved in that field.

SHARON MA I read that you are also a curator, how do you come up with a theme for an exhibition?

RUPERT GOLDSWORTHY You have to find a topic that’s hot, a bit edgy, but also that you personally love and know a huge amount about. You have to extend the dialog.

SHARON MA What do you look for when choosing works to show?

RUPERT GOLDSWORTHY Because I began as an artist myself, I only like to show artists who can do something that I can’t do, usually technically or conceptually. That’s part of the exchange for me. I show their work because I am a fan. If I know I could make the work easily myself, I don’t want to show it.

SHARON MA What do you put out that is related to the exhibition, and how do you show it?

RUPERT GOLDSWORTHY These days I list in magazines and on facebook and make online PDF catalogs. I also write press releases and sometimes make printed catalogs.

SHARON MA I remember how you said that we should keep an eye on galleries that show works similar to our own, how does one approach a gallery, if at all?

RUPERT GOLDSWORTHY I would never suggest approaching a dealer cold, it’s better to dialog with an artist you meet who shows at the gallery and whose work you like.  Then follow up and ask them if they think their dealer or a curator might like it. I think if you are doing something good, people will find you. Artists define things: they are always the first to see a new good artist. Your peers create a critical mass.

SHARON MA As a working artist, what do you stress as key elements to being successful in the art world?

RUPERT GOLDSWORTHY Being generous and open to dialog and making yourself aware of what a lot of other emerging artists are doing. Also understanding marketing clearly.

Success in the art world is really about being a success on your own terms– being a compassionate person and acting with great personal integrity. Some of the best artists are great teachers, great community activists and/or doing amazing stuff that is not centered on any commercial/institutional-success paradigm. Being in the Whitney Biennial is clearly not the central thing, because that fame can be very fleeting. It’s more important that you make great work and really parent it into the world in a cool and ethical way.

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