Although bicycles are the chosen pictorial symbol, they convey emotional entanglements in the newest works of Timothy Curtis. Bikes, at least to me, equate freedom of movement, a way to get from place to place with a bit of ease, a pleasant breeze along the way. When done for sport, they channel speed and precision. For Temporary Decisions Inkblots and Bikes, the bikes seem to wrap around each other and get snarled by their own gears, no longer freewheeling, but hampered and stymied. It's a powerful body of work, reflecting Curtis' personal story and our current collective confinement

Last month, Arndt Art Agency, Berlin opened Timothy Curtis' European debut, presented in collaboration with Albertz Benda, New York and on view through October 15, 2020. If confinement is the feeling that those inkblots and bikes give off, it’s because there is personal history, and it is elegantly suggested in his work. “Serving an excessive term of twenty years parole and probation, I never feel quite comfortable or free," Curtis said this past summer. My requests to travel out of the USA to attend exhibitions in several different countries over the past four years—including Japan, Barcelona, Taiwan, South Korea and now Berlin, Germany—have been denied over and over again.”

That history, which we documented in our cover story with Curtis some years ago, saw Curtis spend time in prison while developing a particular visual language amidst that incarceration, But this reflection, and the blanket of COVID, as well as his probation status, makes this writer feel that these bikes are tightening up. There is a density to these works. Following a triumphant showing at Armory Show in early 2020, Curtis continues with Temporary Decisions. The bike chained to a pole, the cluster of bikes that appear as if in motion, almost seem to be crashing into one another. These metaphors for freedom and confined travel reflect into the more psychological works with the Rorschach-esque inkblot works. More subconscious works, and their simple black and white application within the classic Berlin space is quite stunning. 

Timothy Curtis is the rare artist to move from graffiti into painting in a way that is both reflective of his past but also pushing his own craft and personal experiences forward. These are also artworks that tell a broader story of America's prison industrial complex and how the anxiety of confinement stifles the men and women within this damaged system. Curtis has come a long way since his first solo show in Tokyo in 2017, and he is telling a story of America that is among the most bracing and original in contemporary art. —Evan Pricco