Last night at the Independent, a luscious purple painting by Robert Elfgen caught our eye in Sprüth Magers’ section. Dated 2012, its titled das kritisierte bild, which translates from the German to something like “criticized the picture.” Despite its title, this is no academic exercise. Mr. Elfgen actually shot the fabric painting with an arrow. But he is not the only contemporary artist interested in archery. Egan Frantz recently created a piece by shooting an arrow from Brooklyn’s Clearing gallery to a nearby billboard. That one is titled Clearly Addressed. Is a modest bow-and-arrow boomlet rising? While we’d need one more recent work to call it a trend (readers, please do share works in the comments section below), we thought we’d take a look at the modern history of arrow art. Click the slide show above for a brief guide to the subject.
