2016
At the age of thirty, the London-based artist has been a market phenom for several years, but he may feel that he still has something to prove. In his second solo in New York, Murillo comes on like a house afire with big, heavily stitched, messy but strangely elegant paintings that feature fugitive antique images, including one of a marching band; many handmade books of furiously scribbled drawings and personal snapshots; and an immense installation. The latter, entitled "A Futile Mercantile Disposition," deploys steel and PVC pipe in frameworks supporting metal shelves or bunks, draped with swatches of black-painted canvas and linen. There are hints of social animus. But Murillo's chief motive seems to be art about art, with a debt to the Germans. Imagine a mashup of Beuys, Polke, and Kiefer, spun by a d.j. who is high on something.