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Wordplay and Gritty Street Photos Highlighted in New Guggenheim Show

By Victoria Bekiempis | September 12, 2013 11:54am
 An exhibition featuring Christopher Wool's work will be on display at the Guggenheim Museum,   1071 Fifth Ave. at East 93rd Street,   starting Oct. 25, 2013.
Christopher Wool Exhibition at the Guggenheim
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UPPER EAST SIDE — It's wordplay with paint.

Christopher Wool, a modern artist well known for his word art paintings, will be featured in a show at the Guggenheim Museum, 1071 Fifth Ave., starting Oct. 25.

The retrospective will feature about 90 of Wool's works, including both his better-known paintings and lesser-known photography, Guggenheim officials said. 

One of Wool's most famous pieces, "Apocalypse Now," is a 1988 work on aluminum that reads: "SELL THE HOUSE SELL THE CAR SELL THE KIDS." That piece will be on display, along with "Trouble," a 1989 acrylic and enamel painting on aluminum which features the text "TRBL."

The exhibit will also include photos from Wool's mid-1990s series "East Broadway Breakdown," in which the artist chronicled living near "seedy, marginal members of society," curator Katherine Brinson explained.

Brinson added that the retrospective is important because it explores Wool's interest in photos — as well as showing the deeper meaning behind Wool's art which has inspired many young artists, she said.

"The urban grittiness comes through the work despite abstraction," she said. "You get this porous relationship between everyday life and abstraction. And he's constantly updating his exploration of abstraction."

The Christopher Wool retrospective will be shown through Jan. 22.