After Asher Durand, The Solitary Oak (The Old Oak), 1844, NY Historical Society
Ken Aptekar toys with paintings 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 meaning something only when you start talking back to them. Aptekar’s work turns this conviction into paintings on wood panels over which he bolts glass sandblasted with text.