{"id":9955,"date":"2019-01-09T08:57:54","date_gmt":"2019-01-09T13:57:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/?p=9955"},"modified":"2019-01-09T09:21:43","modified_gmt":"2019-01-09T14:21:43","slug":"tim-mccool-paints-our-marvelous-world-of-computers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/2019\/01\/09\/tim-mccool-paints-our-marvelous-world-of-computers\/","title":{"rendered":"Tim McCool Paints Our Marvelous World Of Computers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tim McCool\u2019s art has often been animated by a sardonic humor, like his greeting cards that read \u201cBest wishes, I guess,” but the Boston artist\u2019s new show isn\u2019t about punch lines in the way of some of his past projects. Instead in his new exhibition, McCool seems to be playing with a visual joke.<\/p>\n

Super-thin laptops in neat apartments are the subjects of Tim McCool<\/a>\u2019s\u00a0paintings in his exhibition \u201cWintermute,\u201d<\/a> on view at Flowering Rock, 460 C Harrison Ave., Boston, through Jan. 18. The\u00a0visual gag here seems to be a pun on the idea of flat screens. The joke is the flatness of paintings versus the three-dimensionality of what they depict, which in this case is flat laptops, floors, tasteful abstract paintings, flowered tablecloths, stained hardwood floors. At times, he contrasts them with thick gobs of surrounding paint that indicate blades of grass. The results are some of McCool\u2019s most formally complex artworks.<\/p>\n

\"Tim<\/a>
Tim McCool at his exhibition \u201cWintermute” at Flowering Rock, Boston.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You might recall that a\u00a0few years back, McCool was offering funny greeting cards that read: \u201cGreat job on the thing you did\u201d; \u201cCongrats or whatever\u201d; \u201cBest wishes, I guess.\u201d His 2017 exhibition at Montserrat College of Art in Beverly offered cartoony podiums to pose on to proclaim one\u2019s achievement of \u201cMost Best-est,\u201d \u201cPretty Good-est\u201d or \u201cOkay-est.” The computer paintings are more in the vein of the mural he painted in 2017\u00a0on the city of Boston\u2019s Finland Building at 774 Albany St. of a painting perched on an easel atop a rooftop depicting the sun rising over the hillside in the distance. It teased with its meta joke of a mural of a painting of a happy sunrise with the sunrise itself included.<\/p>\n

McCool, the ironic observer of contemporary life, is represented in this exhibition.\u00a0In laptop computers McCool has identified another one of those dazzling and ubiquitous, but, in the end, kind of dreary features of our future-present. So perhaps he’s again ruminating on disappointment, on the anticlimactic. And then the name of the exhibition happens to be the name of a character in William Gibson\u2019s landmark 1984 cyberpunk novel \u201cNeuromancer.\u201d \u201cWintermute\u201d is a nefarious artificial intelligence scheming to escape its human-imposed bounds.<\/p>\n

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If this is the kind of coverage of arts, cultures and activisms you appreciate, please support Wonderland by contributing to Wonderland on Patreon<\/a>. And sign up for our free, weekly newsletter<\/a> so that you don’t miss any of our reporting.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n
\"Tim<\/a>
Tim McCool’s “Digital Art Class,” acrylic on canvas, 2018.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Tim<\/a>
Tim McCool’s “Wintermute,” acrylic on canvas, 2018.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Tim<\/a>
Tim McCool’s “River St. Hallway,” acrylic on canvas, 2018.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Tim<\/a>
Tim McCool’s “Lady 3Jane,” acrylic on canvas, 2018.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Tim<\/a>
Tim McCool’s exhibition \u201cWintermute” at Flowering Rock, Boston, Jan. 4, 2019. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Tim<\/a>
Tim McCool’s exhibition \u201cWintermute” at Flowering Rock, Boston, Jan. 4, 2019. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tim McCool\u2019s art has often been animated by a sardonic humor, like his greeting cards that read \u201cBest wishes, I guess,” but the Boston artist\u2019s new show isn\u2019t about punch lines in the way of some of his past projects. Instead in his new exhibition, McCool seems to be playing with a visual joke. Super-thin […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9954,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100],"tags":[37,502],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9955"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9955"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9955\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9968,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9955\/revisions\/9968"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}