Exhibitions

Venue: Sunderland Contemporary Art Gallery, Sunderland

Dates: 17th September–13th November 2004

Luke Caulfield, Lali Chetwynd, Zoe Mendelson, Alan Michael, Daniel Sinsel, Markus Vater, Richard Wathen

‘If being modern means up-to-date, then at numerous times in the course of Modern art’s evolution the ‘latest thing’ was to look back. This was true for Picasso in 1915, when he began to pastiche the style of the great academic painter Ingres, and it was true again in the 1980s, when contemporary artists such as David sale started to appropriate images from the old masters.’ Glenn D Lowry, Director, MoMA New York

‘Year Zero’ brings together a new generation of painters who draw upon historical imagery and idioms to speak about the present. The artists revitalise the tradition of Modern painting that runs through Picasso, Picabia and David Salle, which, in response to the endless proliferation of images characterising the modern world, resignifies that which is outmoded, forgotten, archaic, or arcane. In contrast to the tradition in modern painting which attempts to create of a pictorial ‘ground zero’, which runs through Malevich, Robert Ryman and Frank Stella, the artists here plunder the world of images from the past and present to create new narratives about the role of art and its place in the world.