Vincent Desderio – Sleep

I am really excited about Sleep. A picture that I really think that I understand–how it plays with past painting, how it move painting in some direction. The creativity and the precision. The very real desire to intend something.

The book I have includes an excellent article on the painting, that stresses the linguistic effort that Desderio goes through to make paintings into something–the progress of his art, the unfinished aspect of this painting–all sorts of good stuf.

I have been talking a lot about his painting of his son, in which he attempts to magically make his son healthy by using art as wish fulfillment, or something. He paints his son, healthy, stepping from the canvas–I do not know if this helped the kid, but I do know that it helped Desderio. I am not sure how to measure if it helped the kid since all this may be interrelated. Something very interesting is going on.

Sleep, on the other hand, does not appear to be wish fulfillment–I do not get the desire to sleep from the painting, nor do I see a celebration of sleep. The genocidal nature of sleep is there, clearly, the AIDS metaphor is also very alive in the painting. But most importantly, the notion that sleep can be captured in a painting, without reference to Dream seems to me to be most of the point.

I will try to get to see some of this guys art as soon as possible.