Patrick Hamilton
Produced for the 26th São Paulo Biennial in 2004, Patrick Hamilton’s series, Perfect and Imperfect Tools combine the ideas of landscape, consumer goods, and techniques linked to advertising photography. The original idea behind the series was to create product-photo type images (derived from the photo-objectivist style created by German photographer Albert-Ranger-Patzsch in the 1930s) while using modern hand tools. The resulting works allude to the clashing differences between consumer goods and aesthetic objects, but also between work and leisure. Today, these same images still speak to the image confusion that characterizes the third decade of the new century—where we actively conflate advertising and violence, cosmetics and power, commercial postcards and documentary photography—but in a way that is nearly impossible to divorce from the COVID-19 pandemic.
— CVF, USFCAM
“The COVID-19 pandemic has trashed the ideas of postmodern philosophers who theorized the end of experience. From where I live in Madrid, these have been months full of all kinds of experiences and traumas that I hope will make us rethink the obstinate and shortsighted road we were on. Personally, the pandemic has confirmed a number of ideas I had with respect to trying to achieve a more thoughtful and sustainable way of life both professionally and in my everyday existence. I’ve been fed up for a while with the vanity and frivolity of the art world and hope that the virus washes away most of it.
“More personally still, the pandemic took the life of my great friend and mentor Guillermo Machuca, who was just 59 years old. An art historian and stellar art critic, he left a profound legacy for the visual arts in Chile and Latin America. A 20th century character, Machuca couldn’t deal with the ‘new normal’; it gave him hives. In tribute to my friend, I visited the Reina Sofia recently to revisit some of the artworks I first learned about when I was his student at art school. When we got to the museum’s most important painting, Picasso’s Guernica, a strange thing happened. My wife and I and two museum guards spent ten full minutes alone in the gallery studying the canvas. It was a remarkable experience being able to discover new details in the painting, small drips and brushstrokes, which I had previously ignored. I hope our ‘new normal’ allows us to reconsider these sort of experiences, what we think we know, so we can appreciate the marvels that live and thrive, right there, just in front of our noses.”
— Patrick Hamilton
Artist Patrick Hamilton.
About Patrick Hamilton
(Leuven, Belgium, 1974)
He currently lives and works between Madrid, Spain, and Santiago, Chile.
Through languages such as design, art and advertising, Patrick Hamilton uses the most diverse visual resources—from painting to urban intervention, through photography, object and installation—to focus his reflections on the analysis of the tensions that occur between advertising and violence, work and leisure, cosmetics and power. Hamilton was the 2007 recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship and his work has been shown in Latin America, the United States and Europe in institutions such as Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid, Spain); Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (Lisbon, Portugal); Wifredo Lam Contemporary Art Center (Havana, Cuba); The Bronx Museum of the Arts (New York); Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle (Warsaw, Poland); Emergency Pavilion @ 55th Venice Biennale; 10th and 8th Havana Biennial and the 26th São Paulo Biennial.
Artist website: patrickhamilton.cl
Gallery website: casadosantapau.com
Artist Instagram: @patrickhamiltonchile