Do What You Love and Never Work a Day in Your Life
Apartment 13 Gallery
Dec 16 - Jan 10, 2023
Providence, RI
Gunner Dongieux’s solo exhibition at Apartment 13 Gallery consists entirely of commissioned paintings.
Baby Yoda peeks out from behind the legs of two newlyweds. Around them, a crowd fades into colorful
abstraction. Across the apartment, a client’s face replaces Farrah Fawcett’s. Another head floats,
superimposed over a flashy city, Miami, maybe Vegas. To the right, the Mississippi river is painted in the
vibrant style of Picasso’s The Fourteenth of July. Each celebratory scene, however alien to us, means
something to someone else.
When preparing for an exhibition, artists who make a living from their work find themselves
capitulating to market demand, compromising their ‘authentic vision’ in the process. Dongieux, In
outsourcing all thematic and compositional decisions to his clients bypasses this problem completely. He
doesn’t see himself in his work; he paints someone else’s engagement photo. By reappropriating and
exhibiting his alienated labor, Gunner annihilates the usual distinction and hierarchy between
commissioned paintings and fine art that purports to be autonomous from market forces. A new kind of
self-portrait emerges, one constituted in the relations of exchange.
For Gunner, the work’s commodity status is not a death sentence. While even the most “successful”
artist may never be free from market rationality, the commodification of the artwork and the artists’
corresponding debasement under capitalism also enables the artist to live a life liberated from wage labor. For the last six months, Gunner subsisted exclusively off of the money from these commissioned works. The income allowed him to paint on his own schedule. During this time the artist also made I guess the money changed me, which features Dongieux rapping Drake’s 2013 album Nothing Was The Same in its entirety. The album, permeating the exhibition space, becomes connective tissue between the commissioned works and the lifestyle they enabled. In asking us to pay attention to the financial structures underlying cultural production, Dongieux fearlessly reveals the painting’s commodification as pharmakon : poison and remedy. It’s a cheeky gesture. And it may just pay off: as the artist won’t hesitate to remind us, it’s a sold-out show.
- Liam Murray