Blinky Palermo At David Zwirner: A Cezanne for the ’70s.

THE DAILY PIC: Blinky Palermo is one of the few artists who passes what I call the Cezanne Test: His art is endlessly confusing and challenging, without ever quite making clear how it is it confuses. Today’s Pic is titled Object with Spirit Level, made between 1969 and ‘73 and now in a show of Palermo’s work at David Zwirner in New York. It’s a work of almost abstract, nearly minimal art that also knows that, like all art, it has to live as a real object in the real world. That’s why it comes with a tool to ensure that it hangs on the horizontal. On the other hand, the functional bits of that level have been painted over, as though acknowledging that art always undermines the very practicalities it depends on. (© 2015 Blinky Palermo / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Germany; courtesy David Zwirner, New York/London)

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