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Lot Essay
Defiantly confronting the viewer with full force, the message rendered across Christopher Wool's Untitled is the ultimate anarchic statement of his striking output. Combining raw language and materials from the streets, Wool drags the grit of the post-punk urban abyss into the rarified history of fine art. Like many artists of his generation, Wool’s work is governed by mass media and a kaleidoscopic world of appropriation, resulting in a dynamic interplay of borrowed imagery and layered meanings that challenge his audience to navigate a maze of cultural references. His Word paintings unfold as a palimpsest of language, urbanity, and form — blending spoken, phonetic, poetic, and everyday expressions. Alluding to the phrase “helter skelter,” a term synonymous with chaos and disorder, Untitled’s HELTER HELTER swiftly navigates across a vast plain of cultural boundaries — from The Beatles’ jubilant song, to the cult teachings of Charles Manson, to MoCA Los Angeles’ heralded survey of Contemporary art in the 1990s.
One of the rawest rock ‘n’ roll tracks within The Beatles catalog, Helter Skelter was born out of Paul McCartney’s deliberate attempt to create a song as loud and unrefined as possible. Akin to Wool’s own method of cultural appropriation, McCartney borrowed the title of Helter Skelter from a spiraling fairground ride where revelers would climb a tower and slide down the exterior. The ride became a metaphor in McCartney’s mind, symbolizing a descent from the heights of success — “the rise and fall of the Roman Empire,” as McCartney described it (P. McCartney, quoted in B. Miles, Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now, New York, 1998). Noted for both its “proto-metal roar” and “unique textures,” the 23rd track from The Beatles eponymous LP — more affectionately known as The White Album — is often credited by music historians to be a key influence on the development of heavy metal.
This playful yet foreboding metaphor took on a different meaning when Manson adopted the song as an anthem for his apocalyptic vision, twisting its message to fit his own radical ideology of revolution and violence. McCartney later reflected on the term's sinister transformation, stating, “You could have thought of it as a rather cute title but it’s since taken on all sorts of ominous overtones because Manson picked it up as an anthem, and since then quite a few punk bands have done it because it is a raunchy rocker” (Ibid.). This unsettling shift in meaning likely intrigued Wool, aligning with his interest in language's fluidity and the subversion of seemingly straightforward phrases — a theme explored in other works like Apocalypse Now (1988) and The Show is Over (1990).
Untitled crackles with inherent contradictions, balancing anarchic undertones with a meticulously choreographed execution. While the painting’s subject evokes a sense of impending doom, its formal composition remains strikingly controlled: columns of stenciled letters align with sharp precision, the central “E” acting as a visual anchor flanked by rhythmic patterns of “HTHT” and “LRLR” on either side. This tension between order and disorder mirrors the paradox at the core of Wool’s practice. As with Untitled his Word paintings often reverberated with layered meanings, their impact heightened by an anti-literal approach to language. Rather than presenting words as cohesive units, Wool dissects them into isolated letters, scattering them across a pictorial grid. This fragmentation destabilizes the clarity of language, transforming familiar words into visual puzzles — a bold reminder of language’s inherent instability and the slippery nature of meaning.
Wool’s paintings are especially revelatory given the art historical landscape from which they emerged. When he began his word paintings in 1981, Wool was knowingly rebelling against the prevailing artistic current. That same year, influential art critic and historian Douglas Crimp published his now-famous essay, The End of Painting, declaring the medium obsolete. Wool embraced the so-called impossibility of painting, pushing its boundaries by seeking inspiration beyond the traditional art world — in the raw, unfiltered language of the streets. Untitled captures this tension, its disjointed phrases and brutalist typography balancing between structure and anarchy. By stripping words of their context, Wool reduces language to stark, surreal fragments that resonate with unsettling intensity. Like a shout in the dark or a message scrawled in haste, his work challenges us to extract meaning from the chaos — or simply to stand before it, uncertain and uneasy.
One of the rawest rock ‘n’ roll tracks within The Beatles catalog, Helter Skelter was born out of Paul McCartney’s deliberate attempt to create a song as loud and unrefined as possible. Akin to Wool’s own method of cultural appropriation, McCartney borrowed the title of Helter Skelter from a spiraling fairground ride where revelers would climb a tower and slide down the exterior. The ride became a metaphor in McCartney’s mind, symbolizing a descent from the heights of success — “the rise and fall of the Roman Empire,” as McCartney described it (P. McCartney, quoted in B. Miles, Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now, New York, 1998). Noted for both its “proto-metal roar” and “unique textures,” the 23rd track from The Beatles eponymous LP — more affectionately known as The White Album — is often credited by music historians to be a key influence on the development of heavy metal.
This playful yet foreboding metaphor took on a different meaning when Manson adopted the song as an anthem for his apocalyptic vision, twisting its message to fit his own radical ideology of revolution and violence. McCartney later reflected on the term's sinister transformation, stating, “You could have thought of it as a rather cute title but it’s since taken on all sorts of ominous overtones because Manson picked it up as an anthem, and since then quite a few punk bands have done it because it is a raunchy rocker” (Ibid.). This unsettling shift in meaning likely intrigued Wool, aligning with his interest in language's fluidity and the subversion of seemingly straightforward phrases — a theme explored in other works like Apocalypse Now (1988) and The Show is Over (1990).
Untitled crackles with inherent contradictions, balancing anarchic undertones with a meticulously choreographed execution. While the painting’s subject evokes a sense of impending doom, its formal composition remains strikingly controlled: columns of stenciled letters align with sharp precision, the central “E” acting as a visual anchor flanked by rhythmic patterns of “HTHT” and “LRLR” on either side. This tension between order and disorder mirrors the paradox at the core of Wool’s practice. As with Untitled his Word paintings often reverberated with layered meanings, their impact heightened by an anti-literal approach to language. Rather than presenting words as cohesive units, Wool dissects them into isolated letters, scattering them across a pictorial grid. This fragmentation destabilizes the clarity of language, transforming familiar words into visual puzzles — a bold reminder of language’s inherent instability and the slippery nature of meaning.
Wool’s paintings are especially revelatory given the art historical landscape from which they emerged. When he began his word paintings in 1981, Wool was knowingly rebelling against the prevailing artistic current. That same year, influential art critic and historian Douglas Crimp published his now-famous essay, The End of Painting, declaring the medium obsolete. Wool embraced the so-called impossibility of painting, pushing its boundaries by seeking inspiration beyond the traditional art world — in the raw, unfiltered language of the streets. Untitled captures this tension, its disjointed phrases and brutalist typography balancing between structure and anarchy. By stripping words of their context, Wool reduces language to stark, surreal fragments that resonate with unsettling intensity. Like a shout in the dark or a message scrawled in haste, his work challenges us to extract meaning from the chaos — or simply to stand before it, uncertain and uneasy.