City Limits (painting) explained

City Limits is a 1969 painting by Phillip Guston, part of his “hoods” series of representational works. These paintings depicted cartoonish versions of Klansmen engaged in various mundane activities.^[1] While other works in this series (i.e. The Studio) featured the artist himself under the guise of a KKK member, City Limits provides a more straightforward depiction.^[2] The child-like presentation has been described as enabling “a simple account of the simple-mindedness of violence.”^[3] It is influenced by his early work with Mexican Muralists^[4] and was part of his polarizing abandonment of Abstract Expressionism as a genre at his 1970 Marlborough Gallery exhibition.^[5] It is featured in Philip Guston Now, a traveling retrospective that generated controversy when it was postponed in 2020.^[6]

Notes and References

1. Web site: Meyer . Lily . 2022-05-24 . Don’t Look Away From Philip Guston’s Cartoonish Paintings of Klansmen . 2023-07-16 . The Atlantic . en.
2. Web site: Philip Guston. City Limits. 1969 MoMA . 2023-07-16 . The Museum of Modern Art . en.
3. News: Emelife . Aindrea . 2020-09-28 . Philip Guston's KKK images force us to stare evil in the face – we need art like this . en-GB . The Guardian . 2023-07-16 . 0261-3077.
4. News: Schwabsky . Barry . 2022-07-28 . Philip Guston's Philosophy of Doubt . en-US . 2023-07-16 . 0027-8378.
5. Web site: Greenberger . Alex . 2020-09-30 . Philip Guston’s KKK Paintings: Why an Abstract Painter Returned to Figuration to Confront Racism . 2023-07-16 . ARTnews.com . en-US.
6. Web site: Holland . Oscar . 2020-10-01 . Artists slam decision to postpone exhibition of Philip Guston's KKK paintings . 2023-07-16 . CNN . en.