A brand new Geoff McFetridge exhibition seems like a glance into the present American psyche. It is each emotional and nameless, introspective and outward-looking. There are not any faces but it surely may well be anyone. One of the most issues I’ve beloved about chatting with Geoff through the years is the cautious attention of concepts and absolutely the abolishment of concepts all in combination. It makes the works common. Geoff instructed me final yr, “…there may be a side of it that is inside of any piece of labor, that you’ll be able to form of embolden with sincerity or with one thing that is going past concepts.” Past concepts to make one thing really feel very actual and undying. It isn’t an easy job, however Geoff could make it seem so.
Within the works for Rust Drinkers, his latest display at Louis Buhl in Detroit, Geoff is certainly shopping on the automotive as a automobile however the automotive as an concept that cannot be comprehending and does no longer desire a literal rationalization. The auto as reverse of an concept of the auto, to be able to discuss. The employees are there, the auto is romantic, nostalgic, exertions, a gathering position, an break out. And on the middle, there are folks, no longer recognized as any person however a reminiscence or only a determine to occupy an concept. Or in some instances, as Geoff loves to mention, past an concept. —Evan Pricco