Rob Gruen

“A Flair for the Obvious”, acrylic on canvas, 8’ x 15’

Artist Statement:

“A Flair for the Obvious”, 8’ x 15’ acrylic on canvas, is unreliable visual art, in two parts—the painting and accompanying digital photo.

In prose, we've grown accustom to (and actually enjoy) the unreliable narrator. But whatever happened to unreliable visual art? When can unreliability be more than just a forgery? Can unreliable art be newly discovered, albeit with a dodgy provenance? A provenance by inference, or no provenance at all.

The uninformed spectator may suspect it's false but enjoy it anyway, like a novel in which the narrator loses credibility—not because he’s poorly written; rather, he’s flaky by design, but entertaining all the same.

Maybe my painting, “A Flair for the Obvious”, benefits from its unreliability—as it implies circa through proximity to Picasso. You be the judge.

Rob Gruen is an unproduced playwright and media consultant who lives in New York with his wife and apartment renovation.