Raymond Pettibon, the guru of grungy great works on paper, has a new series at Gladstone in Brussels through July 10. For someone whose output has sustained itself for decades within a fairly narrow range, it’s such a thrill to see the interest and variety in the work continue to increase. The fifteen or so dirty doggies in this show feature some staple symbols (Jesus, fighter planes, cloudy oceans, and text text text) but overall seem to be — as is typical of Pettibon at his best — chick-driven and philosophical.
     Meditations on sexual anxiety morph into poetic perambulations on semantic meaning and symbolic anxiety. How meaning is made in the brain and the relationship between words and images seem to form the basis of these explorations in ink, pen, and gouache. Slippery signifiers, another Pettibon staple, reproduce on the page as his pop culture-crammed psyche plays itself out. A small and self-referential sounding piece professes that he only wants “slow, calm drawing and daydreaming over a thing till it arranges itself”.
     An increased use of collage in this group makes things kind of hectic, the anxiety building with the thickness of the layered imagery. The raggedy torn edges of the paper, and his signature fraying brushtrokes that split as the brush empties itself of ink, keep them rough and ready, in the present, and never quite finished off. Distinctly un-dainty, his pieces seem to growl at you and like the grumpy cloud in one work, serve “to make the swell grow”.