(above) Portrait of the Artist, 2010, (detail) oil/wood panel, sandblasted glass, bolts, four 30″ x 30″ panels (overall 60″ x 60″), Collection: Joe & Wanda Corn  VIEW ENTIRE IMAGE

Ken Aptekar toys with masterpieces from the past by using the history of art as his playground. He time-travels old paintings into the present by his sly repainting joined to his witty, disarming and intimate texts. Here’s the idea: Paintings are nothing on their own, they start to mean something only when you talk back to them. Aptekar’s work turns this conviction into paintings on wood panels over which he bolts glass sandblasted with text.

Ken Aptekar, Breaking News/Flash Info, Pen mightier than Sword, 2019, 80cm x 80cm, archival inkjet print on Epson Hot Press Bright, ed. 1/20, part of portfolio of 11 prints published by the artist and the Bibliotheque Bussy-Rabutin, Autun, France
After L’Encyclopedie, Diderot and D’Alembert