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Smear Campaign

Rachel Withers

Carter’s paintings, particularly his most recent works, operate instead by draining sensation from the mass-media text. The word-combinations are markedly non-poetic, unglamorous, sometimes faintly absurd, but mostly practically null: “Outdoors Hot Computer”; “United Free Trader”; “Adultery Top Car” or “Windows Home Thrill”. The libidinal dimension of media consumption is left to the viewer’s (almost certainly well-trained) imagination; banality and repetition is emphasised; whatever the news headlines, it’ll be business as usual for corporate capitalism.