Lot Essay
Wool began using words as imagery in his paintings in 1987, following in the tradition of artists ranging from Pablo Picasso to Jean-Michel Basquiat. "His interest in working with words was first manifested in concrete poems, as well as in titles for abstract paintings. Having seen a brand new, white truck with the words 'SEX LUV' handpainted on the side, he started to work with compositions derived from stenciled words, the first a small drawing alternating the words 'sex' and 'luv' in a stacked composition. The first painting was a play on the words 'trojan horse,' dropping the 'a' in trojan and the 'e' in horse. The first so-called 'word' paintings focused on words or expressions with multiple meanings, particularly as they are broken up in composition, repeated, or modified or abbreviated through the deletion of letters . . . and longer texts drawn from expressions originating in popular culture, . . . The origins or initial contexts of the texts that Wool used were less important then the possibility of opening them up through composition and their conversion into paintings. Wool extended his interest in layering imagery in the roller paintings to layering meaning in the word paintings through the selection of words or texts that are both common and open-ended. In a group of four-letter word paintings Wool portrays such words . . . by stacking the letters two over two" (Goldstein, Ann, Christopher Wool, Los Angeles, 1998, p. 259-260). The large size of the present piece shouts "Fool" at the viewer with bold black letters on 9 x 6 feet of metal; it also corresponds to the letters in the artist's name "Wool", simultaneously poking fun at the gallery visitor and creating a humorous self-portrait.