John's Loft
Alex Katz American
Not on view
Forgoing all sense of unity, harmony, and resolution, John’s Loft is a riot of incongruous scales and perspectives. Nothing coheres—neither the figures, some of them significantly cropped, nor the panels on which they have been rendered. Illogically, the left side of the figure’s face at the far right has been relocated far to the left. The multiplication of sitters and points of view suggests not only a mobile viewer, someone browsing the same party as the painted figures, catching glimpses behind, across, and in between other guests, but the passage of time as well. In this respect, Katz’s painting performs like a film or a series of photographs, capturing snapshots of otherwise fleeting moments. John’s Loft has been stripped of all contextual detail, including the location referred to in the title: the home of poet John Ashbery.
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