iPhone - Gamechange

by Gregg Chadwick 

 

Gregg Chadwick
The Station Agent (detail)
54"x54" oil on linen 2014
Private Collection, Los Angeles, California
Featured at the LA Art Show 2015 - LA Convention Center and illustrated in the catalog. January 14-18, 2015

In his biography of Apple cofounder Steve Jobs, biographer Walter Isaacson describes the unveiling of the iPhone on January 9, 2007 at Macworld in San Francisco:

"Every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything," Steve Jobs said. "Today we are introducing three revolutionary products," Jobs continued. "The first one is a widescreen iPod with touch controls. The second is a revolutionary mobile phone. The third is a breakthrough Internet communications device ... Are you getting it? These are not three separate devices, this is one device, and we are calling it the iPhone."

In my paintings, I have often depicted communication devices. From phone booths in Tokyo and New York City, to a glowing computer lighting my daughter Cassiel in our Santa Monica home - people interacting with machines intrigues me artistically. In my graduate show at NYU, a public phone stands sentinel on an urban night in my painting "Oak Knoll Sandwich". In my more recent artworks "iPhone Light"and "The Station Agent" figures look down at their glowing screens as they make their way through life. I remember riding the subway in Manhattan in the early 1980s and looking across the rail car at the rows of seated figures looking down avoiding an unwanted gaze. Now, with cell phones in hand the downward gaze is ubiquitous across the world. Since the unveiling of the iPhone in 2007, we carry in our pockets and bags a device that is phone, music player, and computer in one. Thanks to the developments spurred on by the iPhone we are connected and protected. It is the availability of video on our phones that allows us to keep track of the abuse of force by unruly cops and get off my lawn civil no-gooders. And we can celebrate life by recording and posting silly moments of connection on Tik Tok and IG Reels. For many of us, all of life has become a film as we listen to the soundtrack of our journey across time via the music library in our phone. And sometimes we have to join Lizzo and ask - "Where the hell is my phone?"

Gregg Chadwick
iPhone Light
6"x4" oil on zinc 2013
Julie Weiss Collection, Los Angeles, California

Gregg Chadwick
Oak Knoll Sandwich
72"x96" oil on linen 1986
Private Collection, New York City