To imagine that art can float autonomously above the immediate and broader contexts in which it is embedded – remote from the pedestrian grime of social and political life – is akin to insisting that humanity’s darkest moments – Shark Island, Auschwitz, Srebrenica, Darfur, Bucha, Gaza – can be understood independently of the historical events that preceded and have followed them. Even the most primary of colours and elementary of shapes have time and time again been soiled by context – acquiring inerasable patinas of power, violence, hope or resistance. Seeking to liberate a yellow star, a red triangle, a black square or a pink triangle from the burden of history, is as futile as trying to cut a river or a sea from its surrounding geography – ahistorical pursuits grounded in either ignorance or folly. The inextricable entanglement of the aesthetic and the political is most nakedly demonstrated by national flags, visual manifestos that anchor state ideology via the proximity of colour and form.
Implicated colours is an appropriative homage. The series takes its cue both from Félix González-Torres’ Forbidden Colors (a work consisting of four monochrome panels painted in green, red, black and white) and from the artist statement that González-Torres published parallel to exhibiting Forbidden Colors in 1988. His full statement can be retrieved online via the website of The Félix González-Torres Foundation.
