Mark Flood: Modern Art Helmet Row

In certain societies, cannibals ate their opponents to acquire knowledge. Maybe that’s why one of Mark Flood’s more notorious paintings is emblazoned with the phrase EAT HUMAN FLESH. Although none of the Texan’s thirteen recent works in his second London show, “American Buffet Upgrade,” offers such explicit statements as his eponymous 1989 painting, his endeavor still reeks of a kind of cannibalism. The exhibition included three types of paintings, mainly his well-known “lace paintings” and a series based on digital images; there was also a single triptych of “aged paintings,” which display corporate logos on highly cracked paint surfaces.