Thomas Broomé | Pieces of Andy
We are pleased to present Thomas Broomé’s fourth exhibition in the gallery, Pieces of Andy. A presentation in the inner room of the gallery that displays the artist’s versatility and curiosity for new materials.
The title Pieces of Andy partly refers to an auction at Sotheby’s, New York in 1988, where parts of Andy Warhol’s estate was sold. Warhol was a manic collector and over 10,000 items from his home were for sale: precious objects and works of art from his lavish suites but also more mundane things that were stacked in the cluttered back rooms of his building. In Broomé’s paintings – where he continues to develop his mystery writing with scenes made up from lettering and thin lines – we are invited to Warhol’s most private rooms. They describe an individual person but also forebodes a new era that we now experience.
Broomé has also been interested in Warhol’s collection of 175 ceramic cookie jars. Warhol loved them and often rewarded himself with a cookie when he had worked on a piece of art. For him the cookies were a childish but vital consolation and reward. A cookie as instant satisfaction and comfort. Broomé has made a sculpture in wood (The Painted Face) almost identical to one of Warhol’s favorite jars. Painted in pastel colors and with an almost Disney-like expression, something playful and pleasurable stands out in its appearance. But the back of the sculpture is left unfinished and exposes both the sculpture’s construction and distressing emptiness. The cookies have been replaced by stones.
Broomé uses Warhol’s insatiable desire for gadgets, sweets and stimuli to examine current issues surrounding the complexities of self-confirmation and comforting. As in Warhol’s artistic production, it also undertakes issues of consumption, authenticity and meaningfulness. What is valuable to us, what do we choose to save from our daily overdose of impressions and images? In the video loop The World - The Sun, we see how a moth is drawn to the artificial light of a light bulb. It bounces against the burning lamp over and over again but can not keep itself away. Can we ever be satisfied or even decrease our hunger? Do we not want yet another cookie?
