This document provides background information on an exhibition at Tate Modern titled "Painting After Technology". The exhibition brings together paintings from the last decade that reflect on mark-making in a period of radical technological change. Many of the artists negotiate a world where screens affect attention and scale. They work within or against traditions like Abstract Expressionism. The exhibition includes works by Sigmar Polke, Albert Oehlen, Tomma Abts, Christopher Wool, Amy Sillman, Charline von Heyl, Laura Owens, and Jacqueline Humphries. It is curated by Mark Godfrey to explore conversations around painting and technology being pursued by artists in New York, Los Angeles, and Germany.

1. Making Traces
MAKING TRACESat Tate Modern (Beyond Mark Rothko)

2. Questions to think about…
What role does technology play in the production of an art work?
What does it mean to go to a museum?
What are you going to look at? What are you looking for?
What will you allow your experience to be?
What kind of attention do you bring to the experience of looking at a
painting/work of art?
How is the experience of a work of art made different to that of an
electronic screen experience?

3. Albert Oehlen, Loa 2007, Acrylic paint, oil paint, collage, ink on canvas. 170.2 x 310.2 x 4.1 cm
PAINTING AFTER TECHNOLOGY
at Tate Modern

4. This display brings together a selection of paintings from the last decade or so, reflecting
on the process of mark-making in a period of radical technological change.
Digital technology has transformed the ways in which images are created, copied, altered
and distributed. Tools such as photocopiers and scanners, iPads and Photoshop have
provided painters with a range of new possibilities. Rather than simply celebrating such
technologies, however, the artists in this room are often interested in the errors, glitches
and misregistrations that can result from them.
Painters today negotiate a world where the spread of advertising screens in public and
private spaces, and the ubiquitous glow of hand-held communication devices, affects our
sense of scale and our attention span. Accustomed to receiving information in the stacked
windows on a computer or tablet screen, how might we appreciate the layers of materials
on a painting?
Many of these artists are also concerned with working within or against the established
traditions of abstraction. Abstract Expressionism was often associated with the heroic
male painter, each brush-stroke supposedly a trace of his emotions. How might gestural
painting be pursued when this narrative is distrusted? A number of women artists are
asking new questions about the gesture. If gestures were usually assigned to an
expressive artist, can a gesture be faked, or non-assignable? Artists also ask what other
models of abstract painting can be retrieved, and look back over the history of painting to
rediscover mark-making processes that may be associated with artists out of fashion.
Many of the artists in this display know each other well, and the selection of work reflects
one of the urgent conversations around painting today, mainly being pursued in New York,
Los Angeles, and the Rhineland.
Curated by Mark Godfrey

5. Painting After Technology - Tate Modern
Sigmar Polke, Albert Oehlen, Tomma Abts, Christopher Wool, Amy Sillman,
Charline von Heyl, Laura Owens, Jacqueline Humphries.
Mark Godfrey works on exhibitions, acquisitions and displays. He has curated
major exhibitions of work by American, German, British, Mexican and Italian
artists, including Roni Horn a.k.a. Roni Horn (2009); Francis Alys: A Story of
Deception (2010); Gerhard Richter: Panorama (2011); Alighiero Boetti: Game Plan
(2012); Richard Hamilton(2014) and Alibis: Sigmar Polke 1963–2010 (2014). He has
worked on many of the displays in the Energy and Process wing at Tate Modern
and on displays of video installations by Omer Fast and Beryl Korot. Mark Godfrey
has been involved in the acquisition of major works by European artists such as
Gerhard Richter, Emilio Prini, Pino Pascali and Sigmar Polke and is the Curator for
the North American Acquisitions Committee, a group of forty to fifty patrons
helping Tate to acquire work by American and Canadian artists.
Mark Godfrey’s research concerns art post-1945. His PhD and book Abstraction
and the Holocaust (2007) looked at the relationship between American abstraction
and Holocaust memory, a subject he has pursued further in recent essays on the
German artists Gerhard Richter and Sigmar Polke. Abstraction remains an area of
research for Mark Godfrey, and current interests concern the arguments made
around abstraction in the civil rights era and the relationship of contemporary
abstract painting to changes in technology. Alongside this, Mark Godfrey is
interested in debates surrounding photography, film and video after conceptual
art. This has led to extensive writing and curatorial projects on and with artists
such as Christopher Williams, R.H. Quaytman, Zoe Leonard, Francis Alÿs, James
Welling, Simon Starling, Fischli & Weiss, Tacita Dean, Matthew Buckingham,
Sharon Lockhart and Frances Stark.
Mark Godfrey
Senior Curator,
International Art
(Europe and Americas)
Mark Godfrey
Senior Curator,
International Art
(Europe and Americas)

6. Sigmar Polke
Sigmar Polke: Alibis at Tate Modern
TateShots: Sigmar Polke
MoMA exhibits; Sigmar Polke confuses; A critical
look at a survey of Sigmar Polke

7. Albert Oehlen
theartVIEw – ALBERT OEHLEN at mumok
ALBERT OEHLEN: New Paintings at Gagosian
Beverly Hills
Turquoise Boy Albert OehlenAlbert Oehlen

8. Tomma Abts
Turner Prize Artist's Talk: Tomma Abts
Tomma Abts wins the Turner Prize
Tomma Abts- Gustav Mahler

9. Christopher Wool
Guggenheim Christopher Wool Symposium -
PTG: Abstraction since 1980
The first 30 minutes is about Wool
Christopher Wool. Porto – Köln
Christopher Wool at Luhring Augustine, New
York (May 2008)
Christopher Wool - Crosstown Crosstown, artist
talk at DCA.flv *****

10. Amy Sillman
Seminars with Artists: Amy Sillman - Colour As
Material
Studio Visit: Amy Sillman
Art World Favorite Amy Sillman's First-Ever
Retrospective At The ICA

11. Charline von Heyl
TateShots: Charline von Heyl at Tate Liverpool
Charline von Heyl: The Carefree Things (2014)
Charline Von Heyl - Now or Else

12. Laura Owens
Laura Owens - 12 Paintings at 356 S. Mission
Road - The Artist's Studio - MOCAtv
Laura Owens LA Studio Tour – YouTube
Laura Owens at Crown Point Press, 2011
UCLA Department of Art Lectures: Laura
Owens*****

13. Wade Guyton
Wade Guyton, Untitled, 2008
Vlog: Wade Guyton OS
Wade Guyton Interview
A.P. Wade Guyton