Tyrrell Winston: Poems to Detroit

Poems to Detroit are the first series of Punishment Paintings Tyrrell completed in his new studio in Detroit. The Punishment Paintings are derived from autograph culture and the signatory’s repetitive act of signing and distributing their signature again and again. Signatures are an identifying personal act of authentication usually saved for legal documents and intimate notes, but are presented here as forgeries that exemplify the exploitation of fame and infamy. Athletes, artists, and celebrities are the subjects of adoration at the height of their career, but endure harsh punishment at the hands of critics, society, and fans when they misstep or fail to live up to the expectations of their previous success. Winston appropriates signatures of athletes who have had their reputations contaminated through actions within their personal and professional lives. The repetition of these signatures speaks to the thousands of times over they have been asked to sign autographs, and questions whether the value in that act is compromised by behaviors external to their performance or by the sheer number of signatures that exist in the world.

These works are reminiscent of John Baldessari’s I Will Not Make Any More Boring Art (1971), where the artist asked students at the Nova Scotia College of Art to write the words repeated on the gallery wall (“like punishment”, Baldessari had said). The artist gave minimal instructions from thousands of miles away and was not present to supervise, raising questions around authorship and the role of the artist.

By using erasure techniques in some of these works Winston addresses how stardom can transform and fade. Manipulating the signature into an almost illegible mark the familiarity inherent to the celebrity autograph becomes abstruse.

With his Punishment Paintings, Winston examines ideas of inherent and designated value. Not only is there a value placed on the cultural influence of celebrities, but Winston creates commentary around our obsession of assigning value to immaterial objects. The artist scrutinizes the process of repetitive signing to question how celebrity identities shift based on media and public perspectives even around actions in their private lives. Through this exploration, Winston questions the appropriateness of these processes and the expectations of perfection with regards to celebritism. This parallels the liberties taken when attempting to assign or withdraw values of artwork and the process of making, throughout the life of artists and their work.