Although photography-based collages by Joe Rudko are aggressively analog as objects, they reference the inherent pixelated optics of the digital world. Each unique piece is physically made of thousands of randomly accumulated, painstakingly spliced and intuitively reassembled photographs in an archive spanning 100 years of vernacular, estate, personal, and sundry sources. In this way, Rudko’s pieces act as archives themselves, despite being rather coy with complete information and context.
Joe Rudko, Red Scrap, 2021, Found photographs on paper
In the ten large-scale works included in Untitled Colors Rudko’s organizing principle is color; the photos are monochromatically sorted and gesturally woven/mosaiced into loose grids and sweeps of gradated palettes. The patterns and apparent surface inflections comport with the energy of abstract painting. But as soon as you get closer — like zooming in with your body — the surviving details of the images spring to life. Contemplating the works is like seeing actual footage of memory at work. Pets, gardens, cars, flowers, architecture, food, gatherings, fires, snowfall, desert, blue skies, cloudy skies, ocean waves, city lights — just like the internet, it’s all in there somewhere.
Joe Rudko, Violet (detail), 2021, Found photographs on paper
Joe Rudko, Orange (detail), 2021, Found photographs on paper
It’s intriguing that in the absence of a narrative content for each image, other stories manifest themselves. The performative aspect of Rudko’s process invites the imagination to consider the warehouse of snapshots and the obsessive patience of the sorting, cutting, and assembly of so many pieces that range from small to sliver. But the colors themselves — sexy red lines, steely expanses of cool silver, flickering black like a world of candlelight, soaring blues, fertile green, ice queen white, ember-glowing orange — also spark stories. The emotions ignited by the personality of each color field, belong equally to the artist and to the viewer, and as art does at its best, expressing what is both private and shared.
Von Lintel Gallery
October 30 – December 18, 2021
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