One of the leading postmodern painters of the last fifty years, David Salle’s art is one of juxtaposition, and his artistic “style” is the integration of disparate, contrasting styles. Since the 1980s, Salle has plucked compelling imagery from art history, print advertising and, most extensively, his own photographs. He uses this source material to create novel and provocative mis-en-scènes that he revitalizes in paint. Salle’s creative method is to react to certain “givens”; to enter into a visual call-and-response with them. This aspect of his work is akin to the way certain painters at mid-century, notably Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, incorporated found objects into their paintings; the American flag or bits of urban detritus were the “givens” to which…
