R. H. Quaytman

Quaytman conceived of Distracting Distance, Chapter 16 (K8 Hardy) specifically for the 2010 Whitney Biennial, deriving the compositional starting point from the Museum’s former building and permanent collection. The chapter’s central motif, the trapezoidal windows designed for the building by architect Marcel Breuer, recurs in several of the twenty-nine total panels. In addition, Quaytman restaged the Whitney’s Edward Hopper painting Woman in the Sun (1961), a canvas that features a nude figure standing in front of a bedroom window. Quaytman photographed fellow artist K8 Hardy in front of Breuer’s angular design, positioned in the profile pose assumed by the model in Hopper’s work. The resulting silkscreened images appear on several of the panels. “My idea,” Quaytman has explained, “was to set up a series of reflections between the viewer, the space and history of the Whitney, and American painting.” Each exhibition offers an opportunity for Quaytman to contribute a new chapter to an ongoing archive, a “book” that the artist has resolved to “continue without end.”