It’s rare today to find a single painting posing as a solo exhibition. Or, maybe, what is truly rare is to find a painting capable of doing so. Thomas Eggerer’s Waterworld (2015), on view at Petzel, attempts the feat with nonchalance. It’s a three-metre-tall canvas filled from edge to edge with an expanse of ocean, divided by a foaming wave that flows at an oblique angle while a second, smaller wave trails from behind. Everywhere, the water is populated by wading figures that concentrate most densely in a horizontal band in the middle of the canvas’s upper half, growing scarcer at the very top and bottom. From this distance, the figures – their hands dangling in the water or touching their own bodies – appear to be identical: white, male, thin and brown-haired. A crowd of clones.
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