The Artsy Vanguard 2019: McArthur Binion
McArthur Binion by Pasquate Abbattista. Courtesy of the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, and Seoul.
McArthur Binion, Rutabaga: In the Sky, 1978-1979. Courtesy of the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, and Seoul.
McArthur Binion’s work beckons you to get closer. From afar, his canvases look like painted, gridded abstractions, while suggesting hanging, knitted tapestries. Walk towards one, though, and each individual cell takes on a distinct texture, with subtle color variations throughout the composition. Binion’s works are made of paper, crayon, laser-printed images, and oil paint sticks; he builds them from personal documents, including copies of his birth certificate and pages from his address book. His oeuvre might be seen as a body of abstracted self-portraits, rendered with data.
Nearly 50 years into his career, Binion’s momentum is only building. His work is included in major American institutions, including the Met and the Whitney, and he now shows with three galleries: Lehmann Maupin, Massimo De Carlo, and Richard Gray Gallery. In 2020, he’ll have a solo show in his home state, at the Mississippi Museum of Art.
McArthur Binion, DNA: Study: Zero, 2014. Courtesy of the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, and Seoul.
McArthur Binion, Hand:Work, 2017. Courtesy of the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, and Seoul.
In 2018, Binion was fêted with a presentation at the Cranbrook Art Museum. It was a homecoming of sorts—the artist received his MFA from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1973. “His work can be written into various art-historical trajectories ranging from abstraction to identity politics, yet it defies any singular classification,” said Laura Mott, senior curator of contemporary art and design at the Cranbrook Art Museum. “McArthur deserves this moment of our collective fascination.”
