For his latest exhibition at Pace Gallery, conceptual British artist Keith Tyson plucked 52 images from the backs of playing cards—including the Twitter logo and a 1950s pinup girl—and transformed them into paintings. “The back of a card, normally, doesn’t represent anything,” said Tyson, who is also a card collector. “When you put 52 of them together from different decks from the last 200 years, they really begin to zing.”
Tyson, a former card shark himself, famously won more money betting he would win the Turner Prize in 2002 than he ended up receiving in actual prize money. The Observer caught up with Tyson and gallery director Marc Glimcher at the opening of the exhibition to find out why the back of a playing card might be more interesting than the front. 52 Variables closes Feb. 4.
Keith Tyson @ Pace Gallery from The New York Observer on Vimeo.
Produced by Amir Shoucri, Elyse Mickalonis, and Julia Halperin
