The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum

Gerard Hemsworth: Hidden Agenda is the first solo museum exhibition in the United States of work by
British artist Gerard Hemsworth, currently professor of Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London. Hemsworth’s paintings have the familiarity of storybook pictures, but explore what he calls “the politics of representation.” His paintings are paradoxical: meticulously handcrafted so as to look as if they are not handmade at all. His imagery is drawn from the fanciful realm of childhood—picture books, comics, and toys—yet Hemsworth’s means of depiction cuts back to the heart of the Modernist painterly concern with flatness and the idea of the picture as an object. Produced on the occasion of Gerard Hemsworth’s exhibition at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in 2009, this catalogue features essays by Thomas Lawson and Suhail Malik, and a preface by Philippe Pirotte.