Annotated Artwork: Ripping and Shredding the Art Market

Ron Rocheleau, the one-man editing machine behind the mid-nineties Public Access hit Concrete TV, is back with a solo debut at Chelsea’s Cristinerose. After a thirteen-year hiatus from galleries, Concrete Ron has abandoned the crash footage, porn tapes, and B-movie clips of his TV days. Now he’s obsessively deconstructing more than ten years of auction catalogues from Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Phillips de Pury. His collages document and mock the go-go art market with crude and fanciful wit. “When the Sotheby’s/Christie’s scandal went down a few years ago, they kept saying that auction houses just act as a conduit between seller and buyer,� rants Rocheleau. “But they curate, aestheticize, create a historical context, give it a face. It all influences the artist. It’s like an IKEA catalogue: If they could, they’d sell the model.� Rocheleau explained one of his pieces to Rachel Wolff.

“Untitled (Popples),� (2006) Photo: Courtesy of Christinerose