Informit article: Ruin value

Rick Amor’s Waiting (2016) presents us with an odd contradiction. While two men are clearly placed at the centre of the painting, as in other works by the artist, they seem at best marginally or incidentally its sujet: not only do the figures wear the the deindividualising business uniform of finance’s faceless soldiers but also we cannot identify their features. Meanwhile, their passivity is highlighted by the solid opulence of the neoclassical pillars that frame the window, through which we can observe the men from afar – firmitas in the Vitruvian triad. We suspect this architecture to be the true subject of the painting – a postanthropocentric move. It appears unshakeable, sturdy and eternal, stoically suffering both the wear of old age and the ridicule of the contemporary: in the corner right we see a sunbleached and banal graffito paling away. Waiting for what, then? – we ask. Although the structures are themselves human-made, they ultimately swallow and outlast their inhabitants.