The visual language of hypocrisy: Julia Wachtel confronts the "widening gulf" at von ammon

von ammon announced the opening of and, a solo exhibition by New York based artist Julia Wachtel. This is Wachtel’s third exhibition with the gallery. In the press release for Wachtel’s previous solo show with the gallery was a brief aside about hypocrisy; it makes sense that Wachtel, whose distinct style serves to dissect and analyze media and culture images, would use her third show with the gallery to focus intensely—and thus expand—on this theme, by way of an aggressively concise installation of just two panoramic paintings. Among the multiple modern definitions of hypocrisy is dissembling: Wachtel’s paintings are, literally speaking, usually made of several separate but conjoined canvases—metaphorically speaking, they are always, somehow, about disguising or concealing one’s own true motives or feelings under a thin membrane