Oceans Apart, Salford, UK

7 March – 3 April 2020

The second stage in this curated exhibition features over 53 contemporary artists who have created new artworks in response to a postcard version of Velázquez’s masterpiece, Las Meninas, originally shown at General Practice in Lincoln, with new additions for this venue.

Enough is Definitely Enough presents a wide variety of artistic responses to the Spanish painter’s masterpiece—arguably the most widely interpreted painting in art history.

Andrew Pepper has produced an adapted postcard that removes the back of the large canvas (on the left of the painting) and replaces it with a reflection hologram displaying a space recorded in the past. 

Postcard detail.

Art Historian Daniel Arasse reflected many people’s view that everything, or perhaps even nothing, has been said about Las Meninas -“what’s the difference, enough is definitely enough!”.

The artists in the exhibition build upon previous interpretations by renowned artists such as Pablo Picasso, Richard Hamilton, Francisco Goya and Eve Sussman. Artists have long been actively influenced by the centuries old painting by Velázquez; with their responses, in turn, offering influence back to Las Meninas to enable new readings. With the artworks made for ‘Enough is Definitely Enough’ there is potential for new relationships with Velasquez’s original painting to open up.

The exhibition is curated by Andrew Bracey and forms part of his PhD research at the University of Lincoln. He is exploring how contemporary artists have used and appropriated existing paintings by other artists, through a position of using the metaphor of the parasite and symbiosis in connection with painting.