Wade Guyton is an American contemporary artist whose practice brings painting into the 21st century through his use of technology, such as inkjet printers and scanners. Using such modern-day technology he creates large canvases that turn technical glitches into breathtaking minimalist paintings.
Read MoreGuyton was born in Hammond, Indiana to a steelworker and stay-at-home mother, and grew up in Lake City, Tennessee. As a child, Guyton ironically hated drawing, to the point where his stepfather would do Guyton's school art projects for him. He first became interested in art and critical theory as a student at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where he also met future collaborator Kelley Walker.
He graduated in 1995 and relocated to New York in the following year for art school at Hunter College. There, he studied under celebrated minimalist sculptor Robert Morris. Guyton became totally immersed in the New York art world upon his move, working first as a guard and then in the cafe at the Dia Art Foundation alongside other emerging artists for seven years.
Wade Guyton's dislike of drawing prompted him to turn to the digital, using his computer, scanner, and printer to experiment on old art and design books, beginning in 2002. Despite this novel technique, Guyton terms his artworks as 'paintings'. In critic Peter Schjeldahl's review of the 2012 Wade Guyton OS survey exhibition, he notes that Guyton's works 'evoke the noble rawness of a Pollock or a Rothko.'
Guyton's artworks emerge from running linen canvases through inkjet printers, embracing the glitches and inconsistencies that naturally form even when creating via machine. These imperfections render each work unique, although various motifs recur throughout his oeuvre: geometric stripes and circles, the colour black, flames, the letters 'U' and 'X', and even a twisted Marcel Breuer chair. Later works have incorporated newer but still common technology such as screenshots and camera phone snapshots.
Since 2004, Wade Guyton has collaborated with longtime friend and fellow New York artist Kelley Walker. Their practice builds on both artists' methods of printing and scanning, appropriating images rooted in consumption and advertising such as sliced fruit and polka dots. These layered, repetitive images are then printed on three-dimensional objects such as tables, mattresses, and paint cans. Unlike Guyton's canvases, which tend to be minimalist in colour, these sculptural works are bright and saturated, echoing the overstimulation of consumer culture.
Wade Guyton has been awarded the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Art (2014); the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award (2004); the Socrates Sculpture Park Emerging Artist Grant (2003); the Artists Space Independent Projects Grant (2002); and the Delfina Studio Trust Residency (2000).
Guyton has enjoyed major mid-career solo shows at some of the world's most important institutions, including at the Museum Ludwig, Cologne; the Serpentine Gallery, London; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Other notable projects include the 2019 'X Poster' series to fundraise for the artist book non-profit organisation Printed Matter.
Select solo exhibitions include Zwei Dekaden MCMXCIX—MMXIX, Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2019); New York Atelier, Abridged, Serpentine Gallery, London (2017); Wade Guyton, MAMCO, Geneva (2016); Wade Guyton, Kunsthalle Zurich (2013); Wade Guyton OS, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2012); Zeichnungen für ein kleines Zimmer, Secession, Vienna (2011); and Zeichnungen für ein großes Bild, Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2010).
Select group exhibitions include Stop Painting, An Exhibition by Peter Fischli, Fondazione Prada, Venice (2021); America is Hard to See, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2015); Abstract Generation: Now in Print, Museum of Modern Art, New York (2013); Making Worlds (Guyton\Walker), 53rd Venice Biennale (2009); and Uncertain States of America (Guyton\Walker), Serpentine Gallery, London; Reykjavik Art Museum; and The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson (2006).
Guyton's work is included in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago; Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), Chicago; Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles; Dallas Museum of Art; Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York; Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco (SFMOMA); Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain (MAMCO), Geneva; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and Kunsthaus Zurich.
Wade Guyton's digital experimentation has certainly yielded positive results. His paintings have sold for record prices at Christie's auctions, with Untitled (Fire, Red/Black U) (2005) selling for $3.525 million in 2014. However, the artist's displeasure with the exorbitant prices should be noted; he tried to lessen the value of his artworks by posting pictures of himself printing copies of the work on Instagram the week before the auction.
Wade Guyton is represented by Petzel and Galerie Chantal Crousel.
Guyton's Instagram can be found here.
Rachel Kubrick | Ocula | 2021
