Guyton Walker Serve Creative Juices

Photo courtesy of Greene Naftali Gallery

Wade Guyton and Kelley Walker, the two artists who make up the artistic tag-team Guyton/Walker, can finally take a vacation. In the last month alone, they decorated the prime entry space of one of the pavilions at the Venice Biennale, opened a show at Air de Paris Gallery, and, as of last night, extended their international tour to Greene Naftali Gallery in Chelsea. Neither Guyton nor Walker looked like they were out of creative juice, silkscreening and inkjetting on every raw material from sheets of dryboard that lined the walls and paint-can labels spread sporatically along the floor all the way to actual tables and benches (some even installed sideways on a wall to float in mid-air). Altogether, they packed Carol Greene’s rooms with so much manic visual pop in such gravity free form, the frenetic patterning and obsessive fruit motif made up for the evening thunderstorms. While coconuts were a heavy visual reference in the twosome’s early silkscreens and inkjet paintings as well as their coconut chandeliers (there is one chandelier here dipped in white paint), they’ve extended their reaches through the fruit bowl—blowing up lime slices and slapping peeled bananas on checkerboard patterns and Jam-shorts-colored graphic fields. But perhaps everyone’s favorite opening element were the complimentary glass cups for the margaritas that were served, which were printed with a checkerboard patterning. At least I, and everyone else who slipped them into their bag, think they were complimentary. In any case, I have half of a GuytonWalker glasses set now in my kitchen. So Carol, if you have three left over, I’d love them for my collection.