Paint, Unpaint

2014 - Film & Video (Film & Video)

1:34 minutes

Kota Ezawa

location: San Francisco, California
year born: 1969
gender: male
nationality: German
home town: Cologne, Germany

Paint and Unpaint is an animation by Kota Ezawa based on a scene from a popular 1951 film by Hans Namuth featuring Jackson Pollock. At first glance, due to the oversimplified silhouettes Ezawa employs, the connection between his animation and Namuth’s film may not be obvious. However, when seen side by side, Ezawa’s piece is a faithful reproduction of the scene—up until a point in which his sequence begins playing in reverse, effectively unpainting every brushstroke. The scene in Namuth’s film is remembered by many for its experimental nature: with the camera pointed towards the sky, Pollock paints onto a sheet of glass as Namuth films the process from the opposite side. Through this unique viewpoint, what results is a filmic device that effectively conveyed Pollock’s process of “action painting” to wide audiences. As Ezawa gives this iconic scene a new life as a digital animation, he adds an additional layer of separation from the original source of focus, which is Pollock’s paint. Ezawa’s choice to reference Namuth relates to his ongoing investigation of the symbolic power of images in the mainstream. Allegedly, Namuth was more interested in the image of Pollock than his actual work, and as the author of several photographs and the 1951 film, his own role as image-maker was essential in conveying Pollock’s process to audiences and contributing to his fame. As much as the original film is about Pollock, Ezawa’s retake is constructed around Namuth’s representation of the iconic artist, and the degree to which it was responsible for constructing his identity in our social imaginary.


Kota Ezawa borrows images from the news, art history, and pop culture and turns them into cartoon-like stories. He produces flat and two-dimensional imagery via his light-boxes, works on paper, and animations. These works are often inspired by important moments in history, such as the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln, the O.J. Simpson trial, and media coverage of former National Football League (NFL) player Colin Kaepernick kneeling during the national anthem as a symbol of protest. Ezawa’s animations, which he describes as “moving paintings,” make use of a labor-intensive technique that requires the artist to recreate each frame with close attention, producing hundreds of illustrations via digital drawing and animation software. He is best known for a signature style that embraces vibrant colors and simple forms, stripping detail from images to leave only essential attributes and environments. This reductive technique does not diminish the power of the image, as it turns to the familiar historical or cultural context to fill any gaps left by the artist’s erasures. However, the gesture also invites viewers to think about how these erasures might destabilize the reliability of public memories, highlighting the faulty process of collective remembering and what it tends to overlook.


Colors:



Related works featuring themes of: » Animation, » Appropriation Art, » Art and Technology, » Collage, » German

RMB City: A Second Life City Planning 04
© » KADIST

Cao Fei

2007

Since 2007, Cao Fei has radically focused her work on Second Life, an online space that virtually mimics “the real world” and includes everything from the expression of ideas to economic investment...

La Town
© » KADIST

Cao Fei

2014

Cao Fei’s video La Town, 2014 depicts a mythical metropolis that has been destroyed by unknown forces...

Made in Heaven
© » KADIST

Mark Leckey

2004

In Made In Heaven , we are face to face with a sculptural apparition, a divine visitation in the artist’s studio...

I can’t believe we are still protesting
© » KADIST

Wong Wai Yin

2021

Drawn from the widely circulated images of protests around the world in support of women rights and racial equality, the phrase I can’t believe we are still protesting is both the title of Wong Wai Yin’s photographic series and a reference to similar messages seen on protest signages...

Eight
© » KADIST

Ulla von Brandenburg

2007

Eight opens with a close up of a painting by Hubert Robert of the Chateau de Chamarande where the film was shot...

I can’t believe we are still protesting
© » KADIST

Wong Wai Yin

2021

Drawn from the widely circulated images of protests around the world in support of women rights and racial equality, the phrase I can’t believe we are still protesting is both the title of Wong Wai Yin’s photographic series and a reference to similar messages seen on protest signages...

Beyond Geography
© » KADIST

Li Ran

2012

In his video work Beyond Geography , Li dramatizes the role of the artist-as-imitator to the point of sheer parody...

SpringValle_ber_girls
© » KADIST

Petra Cortright

2012

In the flash animation SpringValle_ber_girls , Petra Cortright collages together surreal scenes out of unnaturally idyllic desktop screensavers with equally unreal computer-generated women that pop in and out of the landscape...

I can’t believe we are still protesting
© » KADIST

Wong Wai Yin

2021

Drawn from the widely circulated images of protests around the world in support of women rights and racial equality, the phrase I can’t believe we are still protesting is both the title of Wong Wai Yin’s photographic series and a reference to similar messages seen on protest signages...

21 Ke (21 Grams)
© » KADIST

Sun Xun

2010

Sun’s animated film 21 Ke (21 Grams) is based on the 1907 research by the American physician Dr...

Untitled
© » KADIST

Martin Kippenberger

1989

Untitled is a work on paper by Martin Kippenberger comprised of several seemingly disparate elements: cut-out images of a group of dancers, a japanese ceramic vase, and a pair of legs, are all combined with gestural, hand-drawn traces and additional elements such as a candy wrapper from a hotel in Monte Carlo and a statistical form from a federal government office in Wiesbaden, Germany...

Retired pilar
© » KADIST

Jin Shan

2010

Retired Pillar represents the death and deterioration of legacy of colonial Shanghai...

Untitled (Shuffle)
© » KADIST

Wallace Berman

1969

While Untitled (Shuffle) presents the same formal characteristics as the rest of Berman’s verifax collages, this constellation of specific images inside the radio’s frames—the Star of David, Hebrew characters, biblical animals—have Jewish symbolism and attest to the artist’s lasting obsession with the kabala...

Tribute to Inside Looking Out - For the male artists along my way
© » KADIST

Wong Wai Yin

2008

In this work the artist stages a humorously violent “intervention” against male-dominated cultures of art production in present-day China...

Memorial for intersection #2
© » KADIST

Amalia Pica

2013

Memorial for intersections #2 (2013) is a minimalist, black metallic structure that contains the brightly colored translucent circles, triangles, rectangles, and squares that originally were presented in Pica’s performance work A ? B ? C (2013)...

The Possibility of the Half
© » KADIST

Minouk Lim

2012

The Possibility of the Half by Minouk Lim is a two-channel video projection that begins with a mirror image of a weeping woman kneeling on the ground...

Ink Diary
© » KADIST

Chen Shaoxiong

2006

After engaging primarily with video and photography for more than a decade, Chen turned to painting to explore the issue of urban change and memories—both personal and collective...

Portrait: Cover and Clean
© » KADIST

Qiu Anxiong

2011

A Portrait: Covering and Cleaning is an installation of six black-and-white video projections...

Collective Memories: Beijing Hotel
© » KADIST

Chen Shaoxiong

2007

After engaging primarily with video and photography for more than a decade, Chen turned to painting to explore the issue of urban change and memories—both personal and collective...

Person with Pillow: Desire, Lust, Fate
© » KADIST

John Baldessari

1991

The voids in Baldessari’s painted photographs are simultaneously positive and negative spaces, both additive and subtractive...