Vitamin P2: New Perspectives in Painting

"The Vitamin series, which covers drawing and painting, ceramics and textiles and other approaches, is a great series. I love the format. There are many books that want to take on painting, which is a very visible and collectible medium, but few do so as consistently as the Vitamin P series. It is particularly appealing to approach painting in this manner, an ongoing series with a great selection of artists overseen by the art critic Barry Schwabsky. These are artists regarded very highly across a range of art world practitioners, not all as famous as Chuck Close or Marlene Dumas, but nonetheless consistently regarded as important painters of their generation, roughly from the 1970s onwards. This is a useful way to sketch a relevant landscape of painters. Many, particularly those featured in P2, are within the selected field of research for Contemporary Art Issue – painters such as Teodora Axente , François Bard , Michaël Borremans, Y. Z. Kami , Justin Mortimer to name just a few. As you turn the pages, even without being able to put your finger on what it is precisely that connects them all, there is an unmistakeable continuity here, one has the distinct feeling that you can see connections between what’s happening, what individual artists are doing, even if they are not part of a defined movement. The author doesn’t steer or push you towards this or that interpretation, what the artworks are about, etc, but you can see it unfold throughout the pages. It’s a terrific survey of the state of the art in painting at the moment, without resorting to labelling stuff. Rather than the artificial imposition of labels or categories, the developments in painting emerge organically, which, after all, is how art develops. I really value the editorial approach, which involved dozens of international critics and artists and curators who nominated the list of 115 artists represented here, almost like a peer-reviewed assembly of artists that are regarded as in some way innovative or original in their approach to painting. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . It’s no surprise that when you go through this selection every artist is relevant for art today. The choices are not arbitrary. This is a real catalogue raisonné , a reasoned selection of new influences in painting. Vitamin P2 is really a standout for me, the second volume in the series, for the collection of artists which really fits the selected field of research of Contemporary Art Issue and this wave of new European painting or new figurative painting that we are exploring. I say ‘European’, but I don’t think today, in a globalised world, we can sensibly talk about global trends, have Europe stand in for global culture, or even talk about a homogenous Europe. There are so many interesting local variants even on seemingly similar trends. Take for example the New Leipzig School or the Eastern European scene and so on. Nonetheless, in a globalised world, we’re all connected and influenced at a rate and velocity which has never been seen before. Perhaps it’s too early to describe ‘new European painting’ as a movement, but nonetheless what I discern is a lineage from Richter and Sigmar Polke , followed by Luc Tuymans and Dumas to the likes of Borremans, Neo Rauch and Peter Doig as a third generation. Now I feel there is another generation coming with the likes of Adrian Ghenie, Alexander Tinei and Justin Mortimer to name a few. P2 captures some of the spirit of this new figurative painting today."