JOHN MILLER – HERE IN THE REAL WORLD
2015-01-19Miller exhibits his game show paintings (begun in 1998) and two series of relief portrait paintings: reality tv personalities (started 2009) and the more recent pedestrian paintings (started 2013), which are presented as a frieze of figures in the gallery’s first room. Additionally, Miller presents a wallpaper mural and a digital animation made with longtime collaborator Takuji Kogo under the name Robot.
In each series of paintings Miller selects images of people in supposedly uncontrived poses and paints them in a realist manner. Like the wallpaper mural, the pedestrian paintings use images from the Middle of the Day series, an ongoing project he began in 1994 in which he takes a photograph everyday between 12pm and 2pm. These images of unwittingly photographed pedestrians reflect what clothing, hairstyle, and other personal articles communicate in what Miller refers to as the “presentation of self” that occurs in public space. Where the pedestrian paintings depict public groups, Miller’s reality tv paintings focus on the ostensibly private or intimate moments in which cast members, usually alone, breakdown and cry in front of the camera and in turn the show’s audience. Precursors to this series, Miller’s game show paintings anticipated the packaging of real life that emerged with the ascendancy of reality tv and social media. These paintings present either the impossibly jubilant contestants or the stage sets for popular shows such as The Price is Right and Let’s Make a Deal.
Exhibition runs through to February 14th, 2015
Metro Pictures
519 West 24th Street
New York
NY 10011
