this is one of the more interesting directions i've seen from him. I saw a show of his in LA 2 yrs ago that reeked. they were very all-over, santa-fe, glossy car-hood looking things. zoinks! but this has a figure/ground and some wierd stuff going on, not bad...
I kind of agree with anon 9:42, at least from this jpeg. It's that doodly, fantasy landscape thing, which can sometimes be so safe-feeling. Not that it has to be. . .
feh! pot plant in the back room of boones guy / arts & crafty / folksy granola shit... how the hell did Art in the market get so out of step with current conditions?
ok, not fair, (that was me)--i don't see it as being exactly like all the other drawing-based fantasy landscape stuff coming out--i see this particular piece as a more inventive and surprising take on that genre
It reminds me a little of Jon Polypchuk's work. . .interesting technique but the pathetic-aesthetic characters bug me.
What bothers me about a lot of this type of work---and by that I mean somewhat cute-sy, wistful, faux-naif designy-representational ptgs---is the sense of pathetic futility to it. Like a lot of the work at the Whitney, it seems to want to point to the conditions of the contemporary world but has no hope of doing anything about it. But I guess a sense of futility IS what many artists feel these days, about everything from the commerciality of the art world to suicide bombings in Iraq. So maybe it gets major points for being "of the moment." But I yearn for artists who don't shy away from big statements or emotions or questions, even if those aren't "contemporary" to some people. I'm bored of sweet symbologies that look good but mean little.
well i think that if a piece looks really, genuinely gorgeous (and i;m not saying this necessarily does)it, by definition, reaches some essential, real visceral emotion.
and i also think that it's not necessarily a sign of "giving up"m on things like Iraq--one could argue that it's denying any interest in the power-based value system that LEADS to the greedy, atavistic impulses that rule the present historical moment.
and i also think that it's not necessarily a sign of "giving up"m on things like Iraq--one could argue that it's denying any interest in the power-based value system that LEADS to the greedy, atavistic impulses that rule the present historical moment.
I would argue that such a position is ridiculous and unrealistic. Burying one's head in the sand is not a political---or apolitical act. It's just selfish.
However, that was NOT what I was getting at. . .I don't think there is a denial of the power-based value system in doodly art or in pathetic-feeling art. If there was, those artists wouldn't show it in galleries, which is the very system the artist would purport to deny. I suppose it could be a critique from within but that is not the same as denial.
Although I agree that looks can make one's knees weak, substance is also part of art-making. Otherwise it's just design. And as a professional designer as well as an artist (my day job is design), I assure you there is a huge difference.
I guess it just all seems a little self-indulgent and safe to me, this kind of work. That is certainly my biggest fear in the studio and the question I ask about my own work every day.
Quinacridone, well said, and I mostly agree with you. I do think, though, that almost any "kind" of art can transcend the limitations of its style and get somewhere meaningful. If one of these "fantasy/doodly/pretty" artists really dug in, they could make work that became ABOUT prettiness or fantasy, rather than just safe boring stuff. Matisse is a great older example, but what about Beatriz Milhahez' work (she shows at Cohan)? To me that's work about prettiness which rocks, although it's admittedly not so doodly. . . maybe a bad example. Hmmm. . . who's an interesting doodly artist? Hans Bellmer's drawings are doodly yet good and tough. . .
"I don't think there is a denial of the power-based value system in doodly art or in pathetic-feeling art. If there was, those artists wouldn't show it in galleries, which is the very system the artist would purport to deny."
Any kind of artist who wishes to spend most of their life MAKING art rather than, say, moving trucks around for some massive corporation has a reason to make a faustian deal with the gallery system. You can't accuse an artist of being obsessed with money or power because they are given a chance to be an artist all day and took it.
I ABSOLUTELY agree with you, JD. I wasn't trying to say all work of this kind is bad, and I personally LOVE art that can use humor, mood, color, and love fantasy landscapes. Examples of artists that utilize doodly elements but for me create something more profound and challenging include (off the top of my head) Jesse Bransford, Amy Sillman, Lisa Sanditz, Cy Twombly, Joanne Greenbaum, several people who show at Caren Golden, and some close friends.
I'm sure there are more but my brain is fried from seeing so much art this past weekend. . .
Quinacridone, great list of good doodly artists! I knew there were some. I think this kind of work is much in vogue right now (thanks a lot, Williamsburg and Bellwether), and I guess if there's that much of anything floating around, lots of it will be bad. Think of all those second, third, and fourth-rate ab-exer's. . .
Well, reading the other comments I want to make it clear that I was in NO WAY intimating that I accuse "an artist of being obsessed with money or power because they are given a chance to be an artist all day and took it." That has really nothing to do with what I am saying---which is that there are artists who choose to work completely outside of the gallery system or establishment, and that I think that constitutes a real denial of power structures. I don't think that art has to be political either---and I love the Beatles. I'm just saying that I sense a certain zeitgeist in the work I see at the moment, which is sort of sad and pathetic and powerless feeling, and it makes ME sad. I wish as artists we felt less powerless. And for the record, if someone gave me the chance to be an artist all day, I'd take it in a milisecond.
lemme put it this way--maybe Jay davis is saying--watching birds on the windowsill is more satisfying and worthwhile than owning a giant military logistics corporation and cutting it a deal to make a huge profit off invading iraq--and just because he makes this statement as a full-time artist it's not hypocritical.
i've never heard of this artist. it made me think of laura owens and a little bit david thorpe (is this all paint or are there some collage elements?). i really can't say anything else i guess, i haven't seen them, but i love reading what quinacridone has to say.
painter, i'm coming to nyc on the 22nd for a couple days, do you have any more homework?
Deitch Project Garden Party March 09 — April 29, 2006 18 Wooster Street, New York Has a Elizabeth Neel and Cecily Brown
Leo Koenig Tom Sanford 545 West 23rd Street
Edward Thorp Gallery Judith Linhares 210 Eleventh Ave NY, NY 10001
31GRAND Mike Cockrill 31 Grand St. Brooklyn, NY 11211
I am really happy about how this blog has taken off but I want to remind you to remember to talk about the paintings not personal stuff. I have figured out how to delete comments. If you must make a personal comment, you must use your name. Also don't imitate other commentors or artist. I want to keep this as unrestricted as possible, so please respect each other. Thanks.
there's an old art historical model where they show that there will be a person who comes along and kicks the door open to some radical shit, then other very good people come afterwards and make it prettier. i think jay davis is the second to fred tomaselli-- that last show was just tomaselli surfaces w/ tomaselli ideas, just without actual pot leaves. tomaselli is the inventor, jay davis is just the guy who made it again, but prettier.
tomaselli's pictures have a gravity-free, miro-like floating space and this painting has the combination of flatness and gravity characteristic of japanese ukiyo-e prints. also, tomaselli's pictures are compartmentalized in sections of equal-sized color--like a mosaic, while the organization of form in this is far more varied.
where is this image from painter? It doesn't look much like the jay davis stuff i've seen in the past... it is a little too much like dan kopp, e. caivano, l. sanditz and the other landscape noodlers... maybe it's a movement? 'Doodlscapism'?
The figures look primitive in a way, yet still really contemporary. I think its a thing now in pop culture to combine contemporary western city-life with far eastern art. Does anyone see any similarities to graffiti characters or am I imagining things?
I kept wondering- from the best of the best grad school critiques...if all previous art 'movements' have been disected, worked over, imitated and regurgitated- is this style or approach from Davis' work simply coming out of Suprematism or a type of Americana Marsden Hartleyism? Hmm. Granted, the LA painting look that is exemplified in Laura Owens work is intuitive...and J. Mehretu is intuitive...what I am getting at is the real mccoy of contemporary painting may just be the casualness to build space- not light ala Bonnard, but Suprematist space. Ok, I will kindly shut up after this incoherency.
the Stones you idiot! and M.Minter is Iggy Pop. Dibenedetto is the Byrds. Bas is of course Belle & Sebastian. Julie Mehretu is Moby. Charlotta Westergren is possibly... Blondie. or the Go Go's. Zak Smith is not Green Day according to him so maybe... Social Distortion. Inka Essenhigh is the Yeah Yeah Yeah's. Alison Fox is that last American Idol winner. and Brad Kahlhamer is Sonic Youth.
I feel like the main problem with this work is that in order to see any depth or complexity in it you really have to see several different pieces. I personally think that's a big problem--each piece should work on its own.
Now, a lot of people will disagree with this i'm sure and say that serial work and following an artist's work over time is fascinating, but when I walk up tyo a piece I want to enjoy it with out having to quickly look away to make sure it's really got something behind it.
"Not so much doodley but whimsical crafty geometric forms referencing nature"
Well this one certainly is--and most of his best work, but, like one of the earliest posters said already, his other stuff is just layered Lari Pittman style cutouts.
I really wonder if this investigation can go ANYWHERE--it seems like he just endlessly rearranges the elements int he same paintings over and over and not in an early-Frank-Stella-how-much-can-I-do-with -so-few-elements way.
I just saw the Ernesto Calvino show and that was exactly the problem. no one piece was exciting enough to ruminate on. You needed all of them to get the feeling. They were a little dry for my taste. This is much sweeter.
"The figures look primitive in a way, yet still really contemporary. I think its a thing now in pop culture to combine contemporary western city-life with far eastern art."
A lot of sconetemporary artists seem to be looking to the middle east--or claiming to, for obvious reasons. I think that's good because if they don't then we're just stuck with Shazia Sikhander whose work is totally derivative of the historical stuff from there rather than a new thing.
Yes, I was very dissapointed by the caviano show. I hadn't seen it in flesh before so I really wanted to understand. It was so impersonal. maybe a cosmology of the cosmos, but without warmth or humanity. There was one drawing of a giant humanoid that I liked best. Overall I didn't feel it.
Caivano seems to get in trouble in the nitty-gritty of his pictures--they have me until I look really close and then I see that he has a certain inflexibility which kills the "stream of consciousness feeling" on the other hand, these little birds have a lot of vitality--even if they're in kind of a dead formalist picture
Looking at all of his stuff, Davis' is obviously a formalist---he's counting on arrnaging and rearranging colors and shapes to make the paintings interesting. There isn't a lot else there. Nto saying that's automatically a bad thing--but, unlike the Suprematists, it's hard to make formalism seem real dangerous right now.
He always seems to do something extraneous and flowery and pointless in each picture--like that spray of "beams" or whatever in the top of this picture.
Yes, Caivano lost the fun of investigation. I don't know why I expect that from his pictures. Maybe it is the nature of works on paper? those sweet little doodly lines even seem labored.
disclaimer - spelling and grammar mean nothing to me, - skip over this if you find that problematic
more like oasis then the beetles or the stones. i have a really hard time seeing this painting as 'ground breaking' - i was at the opening at boones and i saw who was sitting in the back room 'pumping up' this guy there is a reel resentment now against second generation 'shock Art' - work which purposefully aims for 'out there' but comes off as 'trying to hard', and for good reason. a whimsical decorative painting will serve that utilitarian purpose for certain individuals but work that attempts to be subversive and fails fails on all levels. the art-worlds reaction to current conditions - war, etceteras etceteras seems to be pretty on par with that of the general populous. the 60's, 70's produced powerful art for powerfully expressive times where the risk factor was higher then the rent. the 80's saw the boom and fall of gluttonous consumerism ending in the crash of the market, awareness of the effects of drug addiction and Aids. the 90's gave way to moralizing and the rise of the academy which increasingly look daily to the corporate model - current conditions in both the Artworld and mainstream american society both seem to be simmering similar feelings of resentment and direst coupled with a fear of economic collapse.
i think it's dangerous to assume an artist is reacting to some big historical trend--art magazines and collectors do this all the time, but if you've ever been to art school you'll know that people tend to just make what they make. whether they get picked by the powers that be to be in a show is another thing altogether.
wow anon 4:29. That was an amazing synopsis of the times. I am totallly with you on your end remarks but I don't follow on the beginning. Is this supposed to be ground breaking? It seems too easy to swallow for that. What art do you see as groundbreaking now?
No, MFA students work out of the 'it' group of successful artists. Just look at the imitation Humes, Doigs, Issenhighs, Laskers, Rauchs, etc. Strategy is everything.
my point is that we are all a part of a big historical trend all the time like it or not
i don't think this is supposed to be ground breaking at all, i think there is a trend to veer away from heavy experimenting as it so often comes off as forced, i was also at the Brad Kahlhamer opening - for better or worse it was quite a good time and that did lead to spending enough time with the work that it did grow on me, (or at least the 'scull wall')
Maybe in grad school, where a samll group of students is selected by a group of teachers who are nearly by definiton low-level followers of some historic trend, but undergrads are all over the place. thank god
All that having been said, we live in a relatively pluralistic era in art--it's hard to see a kind of art that wasn't represented by at least one artist at the armory show.
"kind of art that wasn't represented by at least one artist at the armory show" - not much tech
forced experimentation - i guess, i am a bit on the wrong blog with this a bit most of the examples i come up with tend to be in other medium namely rehashed performance, second rate scatter Art i am not allowed to name call specifics and shows on here as anon - am i?
oh one more and i am out - there are 'gatekeepers' in every program be it Legal, Business or Art however in my estimation they often r forced to function more as barometers for 'who is most likely to succeed' (main factors being social and equity) then aficionados
it's true there's not much tech at the armory--but it's also fair to say technologically advanced art has by no means been forgotten by the current art world.
The acadmey hasowned the art world ever since everyone else stopped paying attention because they didn't get Jackson Pollock.
Critics seized on the opportunity to say that the public NEEEDED them to explain art and ever since then they've been in charge. Nowadays, most dealers and collectors will readily claim/admit that you need an academic background in art to understand most of what they're showing.
What do you mean by the academy? Are you talking about grad schools or the idea that eveyone is rising out of the same knowledge base due to internet, gallery domination etc?
I'm not a huge fan of Davis' work, but I like that he's mixing it up. He used to be more of a 'pop-formalist' in my opinion, but he's cracking that open and that's good. He's making 'smaller' art. I guess what was described by q.v. as pathetic aesthetic... Yes, we are all sympomatic of the times in which we live. These pluralistic times are good for all, but the ideas are a little spent, especially in painting, so people are forced to get off on other things. Most people just love the craft of painting and want to groove on that, and that's cool. I guess it's more fulfilling if you have a reason to make art - be it psychological, cultural, socital... whatever makes the viewer think 'wow, what he's doing is exactly how I'm living'. Too much craft just makes you think of what you have or don't have, which is depressing for most people.
I'd define the acadmey as the group of people who--when they discuss art--non-artworld people can't understand--the people who claim enjoying art requires specialized knowledge.
"Too much craft just makes you think of what you have or don't have, which is depressing for most people. " what?? I don't think Jay Davis is saying anything... nothing... that is why it is dull for me. No emotive quality even.
because he can't paint and most people can't paint so they empathize--but that's snarky i know but i couldn't resist--i just don't get why people like him at all
Richard Tuttle does not make me feel better about myself. John Currin does not either. I don't get the 'pathetic-aesthetic' thing...is that mumble jumble from a wordsmith-critic?
His paintstrokes look like he had a limp hand. The spare marks that gesture towards representation, but not quite. Kind of a sad son of Bonnard or those Italian Nabis painters.
Clarification: When I said "pathetic aesthetic" I was specifically referring to the figures in Jon Polypchuk's work. The JP figures are like the art equivalent of skinny white guys whining over bad jangly guitar playing---lots of feeling mopey and sorry for oneself and yes, pathetic. DEFINITELY NOT the Stones.
I liked what someone said about it meaning "cloyingly folksy."
I feel like the JP figures are meant to evoke sympathy for being so dejected and fragile and pathetic. The Jay Davis painting reminded me of JP's work because those bird-figures look so bedraggled and lifeless. Blech.
The bird-things don't look bedraggled to me, they look prim--like they're posing-maybe the droopy feathers under them might make them seem bedraggled but not to me. it's interesting how they have such a different affect from person to person. i'm not saying it makes the painting good--i just think that's interesting.
image-worship honestly i HATED the 99% of the 100010111110000111100 dot bomb corporate commission crap and was pleased to see that the culling had cut allot of the crapulous speculative overheated poo-fest, however a wake of half rate NJP was a little shameful, - but it shows you how it can all just go *poof* and we know what we see shown is not representative of what is being made most of the work i have called 2nd rate 'shock art' has not had much of a life and as far as i have noticed nor made it far, - which was a bit of my point, dealers who hit and miss with it off hand: kenny schachter when he was around, team, gavin, dietch and boone on a bad day - when i make the rounds this this weekend i will note names. it seemed a trend FAR more prevalent 2 years ago, - first topic that comes to mind were kids doing this really ruff "devil" shit. history is very important to me and how it shapes perception and context, however i was mapping them more based on things beyond the artists control (the artist can always give and take what they want from the system) but are forced to struggle with the economic and political. i deeply feel as nyc artists we are in a very very hard time rents are sky high there is so many spaces that there is very little focus and yet everything still feel homogenized and things are so commercial in the city in general it is hard to form communities. i feel we are in the hight of the "rise of the academy" MFA programs have ruled the past few years but i hear that is coming to an end. there is a very interesting article in the new yorker right now about the whitney, and what curators go thru and can you believe it another expansion with no substance which in my estimation is the problem to begin with. expansion for expansion sake. but is that the american way? is there "progress" in Art? Laylah Ali's Projects 75 was great, and i treasure my 2.00 book i disagree with the comparison however her work is very narrative and intent on communicating a message style is not necessarily substance
>>it's interesting how they have such a different affect from person to person
Yeah, I though the figure on the right was a rabbit!
And I don't really get the Tuymans reference. I see Owens's handling of space, I se de Balincourt -- But beside's LT's wan color palette, I don't know. Poor Tuymans. Seems to be blamed for whatever's wrong with the painting world. Let's let him paint in peace -- it might be more interesting rag on Owens' wan painting strategies -- or let's blame stripes -- especially the ones that radiate. And deer. And birds. What's the birds and deer these days?
Hmmm. From what I've read, the Whitney has been finanially sick for quite some time -- and has been long overdue for that expansion, and it would be a good thing to finally be able to pull up more of their collection from the basement.
-sad birds -sad deer -sad bunnies -loopy flowers -hexagons/honeycombs/molecule structures -anything that refers to or describes a teenager's bedroom -radiating stripes -porn imagery -electric guitars -Clifford Still-like vertical stripe-y patterns -bunch of loops hanging painted with a very thin brush or drawn -dots
It was all cliche before the art fairs, etc, but I saw so much of this stuff I can't even think about these things without getting queasy.
it's interesting, though, how this explosion in baby-boomer money has conincided with the pluralistic painting explosion (and the availability of such), which has itself coincided with the tremendous output of MFAs, etc etc. It should be a good thing, but I get the sense from this discussion is that there is some consensus that the bar has been greatly lowered...
Stripes and porn-- like in high renaissance, the checkered floors were an all too played-out device for easily achieving space remarkable space --
i love that list i am going to do a painting with all those things and i am going to be rich i tell you - RICH RICH RICH
i enjoy owens she has a creepiness that this does not,
generally the profit margin in terms of attendance does not fluctuate that dramatically with increased floor-space, it is a patrons ego dream & das whitney is talkin theater and education. my guess to be "competitive" with moma and the gugg. bigger museum = bigger bills and more pandering which these days to corporations = more general populace voice, but that is just a guess... read the article and then tell me what u think. the crux of the argument with the whitney bi even continuing in the face of abandoning the "american artist matter" thing is because it is important just because (not that i in anyway i don't love to go to it)
I loooooooooooooove Jay Davis--reminds me of breakfast in a house that has a breakfast nook. But I like Lari Pittman too. And Richard Tuttle. I like art that reminds me of breakfast.
it reminds me of breakfast AT a major museum cafeteria--maybe it's tasty, maybe not, but it's got no character and you can sense the good stuffs in some other room.
Yeah, I didn't finish the article -- merely skimmed it -- and so I am prone to believe you. Though I did lament the halting of the Corcoran expansion because it's such a great educational institution and it *did* the space for more art. Not that this applies to the Whitney.
the colors and the suppressed palette and the shapes of the vegetation remind me of the "It's A Small World" ride at Disneyland or world or whatever. supposedly whimsical but kind of faded and sad and following some alien formal logic.
There is no creepy in this for sure. There is brunch. But a nice, highly decisive kind of brunch. Kind of like how I would imagine it would be like to have brunch with Matisse. We'd spend the day cutting out paper and vinyl, while the war goes on in some far off place.
It really is a nice composition. Owens seems more accidental. I can't forgive that, personally.
populace it all means more populace... the inside is out? where is then center now? personally i love brunch i do Jager bombs with a bunch of my buddies... bruch is what u make it baby.
I can't forgive accidental when it's left there, unattended. That's what I think of, when I think of a lowering of the bar. Some Owens passages leave me feeling that. Some accidents can be highly controlled by a skilled artist... say... ahem. Tuymans.
I certainly think Owens is stronger than Davis...didn't she have a foot in the beginning of all this trendy stuff? And looking at her whole body of work, I tend to see some major issues developing (i.e. an opposition to the piling up shock-value in the art world, as well as pictorial innovation [or attempt of this]). I don't know Davis' work, judging by this work and by the Lari Pittmann comparisons, this work isn't any part of a deeper delving. It's just this cartoony, somewhat awkward, amiguous narrative.
seems almost pointless to ask--the image that represents this era's probably not a painting which is why painting's such a weird and interesting thing to do right now
i "feel" there is something in an owens... i "know" (i am told) there is something in Ali's, so the whitney says "american culture is not urgent enough to fill myself with" yet "i need to expand" Pittman? i don't see it
- side note, when is the last time anyone has been honestly "shocked" in a gallery or museum in nyc?
Awkward? Hmmm! Interesting. I do agree that Owens is more innovative pictorially. For some reason I don't connect this to any deeper delving on the part of Owens. (though I'd ordinarily apply this connection as a matter of course). I just see her as a well-tuned production machine. Perhaps I'll look more into this. Thanks.
shocked--i have never been shocked by art and probably would never have been even back in the days of early modernism--art's just not nearly as shocking as things that happen in a person's life that have actual life-altering consequences.
I don't think it's fair to judge something by whether it's shocking.
Owens plays with painterliness or doodliness (yes, doodles) and photographic space simultaneously (an example would be a paint blob with a painted shadow to make it pop off the canvas or blurred petal fragments in front of a crisp moon)sometimes. That's not really new; I've heard of people doing that in the 70's, but I suppose at least she's trying. Anyhow, I don't think the point is shock or not shock, rather a return to ideals of morality (or simply not a revulsion from them) that postmodern art for the most part made everyone forget about. I'm thinking about Hume's moral improvement and etc.
fair, one of my shoddy bookshelf's collapsed this morning and i literally got hit in the head by a Robert Hughes - shock. it didn't lower the bar. currin should re-visit the pasta moments, barney 2 i grow weary of the wives.
Oh, and i was going to say the Leipzig painters, but then that statement doesn't have any trace of irony in it.
We'll have to wait until irony finally leaves america before we really take the Leipzig painters seriously. And thus, they're not really representative of our age. They're still ahead of it, in my opinion.
I find it interesting that there is debate going on in the countryamong a large segment of the country about wheather God or the devil caused the hurricane in New Orleans. But ideas and questions like that do not show up in our painting. Not even alegoricly or satericly. No way. It is like painting is removed from all real life today.Why is that?
You seem to be a collector to me. You are interested in paintings. I do believe Currin will be remembered. I say this unflinchingly and without irony. If you want to live with a painting, I suggest Oehlen. He's way better than Owens, and deeper. Perhaps Oehlen will lead you to the Leipzig painters.
it was like that with ab. ex. - look at de kooning, pollock, and gorky. where are their world war II paintings? where are their anti-huac paintings?
i think the fact that painting, or art, isn't responsive to the world as, say, a newspaper is, makes it more intriguing, and lends a more realistic sense of how people feel during such times. the mere fact of tragedy existing doesn't presuppose that people will want to respond to it or think about it.
It's because other modes of cultural production deal with real life in a much more profound or at least popularly-affectinig way than do paintings. That is to say that there are better ways to mobilize opinion, action and political thought than painting a picture. This was not the case in 1900, but it is the case now.
what i am saying is artists are fucking subjected to it... trying to get by in the city? the mere "fact" of living in nyc (that is the topic right?) means alot right now... ALOT for us to be here. here with our hard won history.
and it is endlessly ironic to me that the (ouch buzz word) result was a booming conservitave market - sweet thx.
I like ribbons of love. That is why I like Oehlen. I like this piece more, now that I see the ribbons of love. I think we all need more ribbons of love.
That and my Pier One Import Chinese scroll that faded in the sun growing up....
So its fashionably nostalgic, yeah batik (I made a hand painted couch banner with fabric dye so I'm totally into that) Macrame, flower pressings... . I get a bit of macro-micro scale change Dandelion.
What's the colorspace on this jpg? I feel like its missing a few.
say what you will about currin, but before he started making his paintings there wasn't a trace of figuration around.. and painting was still considered a 'dead' artform. there was the kind of uproar about his work that any of us could only hope to produce.. and the main reason was that he actually challenged the status quo. thousands of young artists that make image-based work that is loosely narrative, humorous, or about any kind of 'drive' (libidinal or other) owe a ton to john currin. even today's trends, like gloppy goofy neoexpressive figuration, wouldn't be possible without the currin link in the chain. we'd all be making videos about social hybridization. i know saltz called him conservative, so everyone is on that bandwagon now.. but he did flip the paradigm.. and frankly that term 'conservative' when talking about painting is really problematic. all painting is at least partially an homage to some previous style or era. that's a fact jack. so borrowing from the 1980's is more radical than borrowing from the 1680's? it's just a different chapter in the same art history book. i call bullshit. just because there is an east village nostalgia at the moment, doesn't mean that the young artists doing that work are actually revolutionary. ab-ex is back now too.. now THAT is cutting edge.
I've never seen this painter but i love this painting! It kind of reminds me of Ernesto Caivano with Gaudi-style shards of color embedded. Gorgeous!
ReplyDeleteMe again, I just looked at some of his other work on-line and i like it much less--very Larry Pittman.
ReplyDeletethis is one of the more interesting directions i've seen from him. I saw a show of his in LA 2 yrs ago that reeked. they were very all-over, santa-fe, glossy car-hood looking things. zoinks! but this has a figure/ground and some wierd stuff going on, not bad...
ReplyDeleteHis work looks very generic. Like 100s of other artists right now.
ReplyDeleteI kind of agree with anon 9:42, at least from this jpeg. It's that doodly, fantasy landscape thing, which can sometimes be so safe-feeling. Not that it has to be. . .
ReplyDeletethe "birds" or whatever seem very sharp and inventive to me--like an old upi cartoon--and that brings it above some random ps1 doodly art for me
ReplyDeletewhats ps1 doodly art mean? i dont remember seeing any "doodles " there....
ReplyDeletefeh! pot plant in the back room of boones guy / arts & crafty / folksy granola shit... how the hell did Art in the market get so out of step with current conditions?
ReplyDeleteok, not fair, (that was me)--i don't see it as being exactly like all the other drawing-based fantasy landscape stuff coming out--i see this particular piece as a more inventive and surprising take on that genre
ReplyDeleteIt reminds me a little of Jon Polypchuk's work. . .interesting technique but the pathetic-aesthetic characters bug me.
ReplyDeleteWhat bothers me about a lot of this type of work---and by that I mean somewhat cute-sy, wistful, faux-naif designy-representational ptgs---is the sense of pathetic futility to it. Like a lot of the work at the Whitney, it seems to want to point to the conditions of the contemporary world but has no hope of doing anything about it. But I guess a sense of futility IS what many artists feel these days, about everything from the commerciality of the art world to suicide bombings in Iraq. So maybe it gets major points for being "of the moment." But I yearn for artists who don't shy away from big statements or emotions or questions, even if those aren't "contemporary" to some people. I'm bored of sweet symbologies that look good but mean little.
it has "that look" which is streaming out of grad schools everywhere. What makes this one different?
ReplyDeletewell i think that if a piece looks really, genuinely gorgeous (and i;m not saying this necessarily does)it, by definition, reaches some essential, real visceral emotion.
ReplyDeleteand i also think that it's not necessarily a sign of "giving up"m on things like Iraq--one could argue that it's denying any interest in the power-based value system that LEADS to the greedy, atavistic impulses that rule the present historical moment.
and i also think that it's not necessarily a sign of "giving up"m on things like Iraq--one could argue that it's denying any interest in the power-based value system that LEADS to the greedy, atavistic impulses that rule the present historical moment.
ReplyDeleteI would argue that such a position is ridiculous and unrealistic. Burying one's head in the sand is not a political---or apolitical act. It's just selfish.
However, that was NOT what I was getting at. . .I don't think there is a denial of the power-based value system in doodly art or in pathetic-feeling art. If there was, those artists wouldn't show it in galleries, which is the very system the artist would purport to deny. I suppose it could be a critique from within but that is not the same as denial.
Although I agree that looks can make one's knees weak, substance is also part of art-making. Otherwise it's just design. And as a professional designer as well as an artist (my day job is design), I assure you there is a huge difference.
I guess it just all seems a little self-indulgent and safe to me, this kind of work. That is certainly my biggest fear in the studio and the question I ask about my own work every day.
Yeah, it's pretty, but so what?
Quinacridone, well said, and I mostly agree with you. I do think, though, that almost any "kind" of art can transcend the limitations of its style and get somewhere meaningful. If one of these "fantasy/doodly/pretty" artists really dug in, they could make work that became ABOUT prettiness or fantasy, rather than just safe boring stuff. Matisse is a great older example, but what about Beatriz Milhahez' work (she shows at Cohan)? To me that's work about prettiness which rocks, although it's admittedly not so doodly. . . maybe a bad example. Hmmm. . . who's an interesting doodly artist? Hans Bellmer's drawings are doodly yet good and tough. . .
ReplyDelete"I don't think there is a denial of the power-based value system in doodly art or in pathetic-feeling art. If there was, those artists wouldn't show it in galleries, which is the very system the artist would purport to deny."
ReplyDeleteAny kind of artist who wishes to spend most of their life MAKING art rather than, say, moving trucks around for some massive corporation has a reason to make a faustian deal with the gallery system. You can't accuse an artist of being obsessed with money or power because they are given a chance to be an artist all day and took it.
I've got nothing to say but thats ok, hows your day been?
ReplyDeletezipthwung secretly just made a good point--were the Beatles irrelevant because SGt Pepper is full of whimsical goofy songs in the middle of a war?
ReplyDeletewhat;'s pathetic-ffeling about this painting?
ReplyDeletei mean, you can joke and say you think it's a pathetic piece, but i don't think it's trying to evoke patheticness.
I ABSOLUTELY agree with you, JD. I wasn't trying to say all work of this kind is bad, and I personally LOVE art that can use humor, mood, color, and love fantasy landscapes. Examples of artists that utilize doodly elements but for me create something more profound and challenging include (off the top of my head) Jesse Bransford, Amy Sillman, Lisa Sanditz, Cy Twombly, Joanne Greenbaum, several people who show at Caren Golden, and some close friends.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure there are more but my brain is fried from seeing so much art this past weekend. . .
i really dont get why everyone is so enamored by beatriz milhahez
ReplyDeleteQuinacridone, great list of good doodly artists! I knew there were some. I think this kind of work is much in vogue right now (thanks a lot, Williamsburg and Bellwether), and I guess if there's that much of anything floating around, lots of it will be bad. Think of all those second, third, and fourth-rate ab-exer's. . .
ReplyDeleteSGt Pepper were having a personal revolution
ReplyDeleteWell, reading the other comments I want to make it clear that I was in NO WAY intimating that I accuse "an artist of being obsessed with money or power because they are given a chance to be an artist all day and took it." That has really nothing to do with what I am saying---which is that there are artists who choose to work completely outside of the gallery system or establishment, and that I think that constitutes a real denial of power structures. I don't think that art has to be political either---and I love the Beatles. I'm just saying that I sense a certain zeitgeist in the work I see at the moment, which is sort of sad and pathetic and powerless feeling, and it makes ME sad. I wish as artists we felt less powerless. And for the record, if someone gave me the chance to be an artist all day, I'd take it in a milisecond.
ReplyDeletelemme put it this way--maybe Jay davis is saying--watching birds on the windowsill is more satisfying and worthwhile than owning a giant military logistics corporation and cutting it a deal to make a huge profit off invading iraq--and just because he makes this statement as a full-time artist it's not hypocritical.
ReplyDeletei've never heard of this artist. it made me think of laura owens and a little bit david thorpe (is this all paint or are there some collage elements?). i really can't say anything else i guess, i haven't seen them, but i love reading what quinacridone has to say.
ReplyDeletepainter, i'm coming to nyc on the 22nd for a couple days, do you have any more homework?
devendra banhart-esque
ReplyDeleteHomework
ReplyDeleteDeitch Project
Garden Party
March 09 — April 29, 2006
18 Wooster Street, New York
Has a Elizabeth Neel and Cecily Brown
Leo Koenig
Tom Sanford
545 West 23rd Street
Edward Thorp Gallery
Judith Linhares
210 Eleventh Ave
NY, NY 10001
31GRAND
Mike Cockrill
31 Grand St.
Brooklyn, NY 11211
I am really happy about how this blog has taken off but I want to remind you to remember to talk about the paintings not personal stuff. I have figured out how to delete comments. If you must make a personal comment, you must use your name. Also don't imitate other commentors or artist. I want to keep this as unrestricted as possible, so please respect each other.
Thanks.
what do you mean bypersonal?
ReplyDelete"jsy davis' work is bad" is a legitimate criticism
ReplyDelete"jay davis is a moron" is a personal remark
More artists who use doodly marks that I think are really interesting. . .and then I have to log off. . .
ReplyDeleteArturo Herrera (Sikkemma Jenkins)
Phillip Allen http://www.theapproach.co.uk/pallen.html
And this gallery I saw at one of the fairs seems to show nothing but that kind of thing in one form or another: http://galerie-schuster.de
Painter, thanks for that reminder we needed it.
ReplyDeletethere's an old art historical model where they show that there will be a person who comes along and kicks the door open to some radical shit, then other very good people come afterwards and make it prettier. i think jay davis is the second to fred tomaselli-- that last show was just tomaselli surfaces w/ tomaselli ideas, just without actual pot leaves. tomaselli is the inventor, jay davis is just the guy who made it again, but prettier.
ReplyDeletethis doesn't look like tomaselli at all
ReplyDeletetomaselli's pictures have a gravity-free, miro-like floating space and this painting has the combination of flatness and gravity characteristic of japanese ukiyo-e prints. also, tomaselli's pictures are compartmentalized in sections of equal-sized color--like a mosaic, while the organization of form in this is far more varied.
where is this image from painter? It doesn't look much like the jay davis stuff i've seen in the past...
ReplyDeleteit is a little too much like dan kopp, e. caivano, l. sanditz and the other landscape noodlers...
maybe it's a movement?
'Doodlscapism'?
i agree, gguy
ReplyDeleteBB,
ReplyDeleteI got it off the Shoshana Wayne gallery site. The Mary Boone site had much older work. I think this if from 2005.
The figures look primitive in a way, yet still really contemporary. I think its a thing now in pop culture to combine contemporary western city-life with far eastern art. Does anyone see any similarities to graffiti characters or am I imagining things?
ReplyDeletemakes sense to me
ReplyDelete(Cue endless detour in thread about whether the Stones were actually "from the street".)
ReplyDeleteNot so much doodley but whimsical crafty geometric forms referencing nature.
ReplyDeletewait... so is Jay Davis the Beatles or the Stones?
ReplyDeleteI kept wondering- from the best of the best grad school critiques...if all previous art 'movements' have been disected, worked over, imitated and regurgitated- is this style or approach from Davis' work simply coming out of Suprematism or a type of Americana Marsden Hartleyism? Hmm. Granted, the LA painting look that is exemplified in Laura Owens work is intuitive...and J. Mehretu is intuitive...what I am getting at is the real mccoy of contemporary painting may just be the casualness to build space- not light ala Bonnard, but Suprematist space. Ok, I will kindly shut up after this incoherency.
ReplyDeletethe Stones you idiot!
ReplyDeleteand M.Minter is Iggy Pop.
Dibenedetto is the Byrds.
Bas is of course Belle & Sebastian.
Julie Mehretu is Moby.
Charlotta Westergren is possibly... Blondie. or the Go Go's.
Zak Smith is not Green Day according to him so maybe... Social Distortion.
Inka Essenhigh is the Yeah Yeah Yeah's.
Alison Fox is that last American Idol winner.
and Brad Kahlhamer is Sonic Youth.
"Suprematism or a type of Americana Marsden Hartleyism? "
ReplyDeleteHuh?
yeah, Jay's the Beatles, sorry, got it...
ReplyDelete"Oh, and Zak Smith is Good Charlotte"
ReplyDeleteGOD--lay off the guy, jesus!
I feel like the main problem with this work is that in order to see any depth or complexity in it you really have to see several different pieces. I personally think that's a big problem--each piece should work on its own.
ReplyDeleteNow, a lot of people will disagree with this i'm sure and say that serial work and following an artist's work over time is fascinating, but when I walk up tyo a piece I want to enjoy it with out having to quickly look away to make sure it's really got something behind it.
"Not so much doodley but whimsical crafty geometric forms referencing nature"
ReplyDeleteWell this one certainly is--and most of his best work, but, like one of the earliest posters said already, his other stuff is just layered Lari Pittman style cutouts.
I really wonder if this investigation can go ANYWHERE--it seems like he just endlessly rearranges the elements int he same paintings over and over and not in an early-Frank-Stella-how-much-can-I-do-with -so-few-elements way.
The colors and shards remind me of Richard Tuttle.
ReplyDeleteI just saw the Ernesto Calvino show and that was exactly the problem. no one piece was exciting enough to ruminate on. You needed all of them to get the feeling. They were a little dry for my taste. This is much sweeter.
ReplyDelete"The figures look primitive in a way, yet still really contemporary. I think its a thing now in pop culture to combine contemporary western city-life with far eastern art."
ReplyDeleteA lot of sconetemporary artists seem to be looking to the middle east--or claiming to, for obvious reasons. I think that's good because if they don't then we're just stuck with Shazia Sikhander whose work is totally derivative of the historical stuff from there rather than a new thing.
Ernesto Caivano--with his interest in "alternative worlds" would probably be really excited that you kind of just confused him with Italo Calvino.
ReplyDeleteI feel like this is much more immediately appealing than Caviano but you can't look at it for very long.
ReplyDeleteI think the Caivano comparison is apt--but it also might just be ionspred by the fact they're both doing birds.
ReplyDeletethese are american indians in the unspoiled american landscape.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure this is really a fantasy painting as much as just a genre scene with a certain kind of lightness to it--like his other work.
ReplyDeletewhat's with the crinkly paper lines--who does he have take his slides?
ReplyDeleteRichard Tuttle meets QVC...not pure Tuttle. Anyhow, Suprematism from a point of view at spatial. Hartley from a point of view at touch.
ReplyDeleteEverything in this painting looks authentic to me except the wooden (?) thing at the bottom--the other technique os totally distracting.
ReplyDeleteI'm impressed--in other hands the abstract bird would just stick out like a sore thumb in an otherwise semi-realistic picture.
ReplyDeleteI like the Suprematist comparison--especially because you concentrate on the little clot of color at the bottom of the page.
ReplyDeleteYes, I was very dissapointed by the caviano show. I hadn't seen it in flesh before so I really wanted to understand. It was so impersonal. maybe a cosmology of the cosmos, but without warmth or humanity. There was one drawing of a giant humanoid that I liked best. Overall I didn't feel it.
ReplyDeletereminds me of Joseph hart.
ReplyDeleteCaivano seems to get in trouble in the nitty-gritty of his pictures--they have me until I look really close and then I see that he has a certain inflexibility which kills the "stream of consciousness feeling" on the other hand, these little birds have a lot of vitality--even if they're in kind of a dead formalist picture
ReplyDeleteDo you think all formalist pictures are dead?
ReplyDeleteThis picture strongly reesmbles Matisse's most minimal work--that kid 's head near the big window.
Looking at all of his stuff, Davis' is obviously a formalist---he's counting on arrnaging and rearranging colors and shapes to make the paintings interesting. There isn't a lot else there. Nto saying that's automatically a bad thing--but, unlike the Suprematists, it's hard to make formalism seem real dangerous right now.
ReplyDeleteHe always seems to do something extraneous and flowery and pointless in each picture--like that spray of "beams" or whatever in the top of this picture.
ReplyDeleteMaybe that's the point--it's Roccocco
ReplyDeleteMatisse person--do you know the name of the "kids head" painting?
ReplyDeleteIt's really not roccococcoccococ. not mannerist, either--but very mannered for sure.
ReplyDeletereminds me of the cartoon at the beginning of the Partridge Family
ReplyDeletethe colors are SO BAD--that gray makes me want to gouge my eyes out
ReplyDeleteMatisse piano lesson painting?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.abcgallery.com/M/matisse/matisse13.html
Ah--there it is--annoying pop-up though
ReplyDeleteNow THAT is a painting
ReplyDeletethey're both kind of dreary--not like i hate thme--like they have a sort of spent, gloomy feeling.
ReplyDelete3:19--you probably shouldn't look at it, it has a LOT of gray
ReplyDeleteI love the Partridge Family
ReplyDeleteYes, Caivano lost the fun of investigation. I don't know why I expect that from his pictures. Maybe it is the nature of works on paper? those sweet little doodly lines even seem labored.
ReplyDeleteThe pen Caivano uses is a pretty stiff instrument--one of thos super-fine pens that make it impossible to make anything other than a straight line.
ReplyDeleteI love the ocolors on this painting--they remind me of the colors in American-Indian drawings.
ReplyDeleteNative american drawings, whatever.
twittering machine
ReplyDeletedisclaimer - spelling and grammar mean nothing to me, - skip over this if you find that problematic
more like oasis then the beetles or the stones. i have a really hard time seeing this painting as 'ground breaking' - i was at the opening at boones and i saw who was sitting in the back room 'pumping up' this guy
there is a reel resentment now against second generation 'shock Art' - work which purposefully aims for 'out there' but comes off as 'trying to hard', and for good reason. a whimsical decorative painting will serve that utilitarian purpose for certain individuals but work that attempts to be subversive and fails fails on all levels.
the art-worlds reaction to current conditions - war, etceteras etceteras seems to be pretty on par with that of the general populous. the 60's, 70's produced powerful art for powerfully expressive times where the risk factor was higher then the rent. the 80's saw the boom and fall of gluttonous consumerism ending in the crash of the market, awareness of the effects of drug addiction and Aids. the 90's gave way to moralizing and the rise of the academy which increasingly look daily to the corporate model - current conditions in both the Artworld and mainstream american society both seem to be simmering similar feelings of resentment and direst coupled with a fear of economic collapse.
And Brad Kahlhamer had the opposite problem. His "free drawing" got repetitive and started looking bland.
ReplyDeletei think it's dangerous to assume an artist is reacting to some big historical trend--art magazines and collectors do this all the time, but if you've ever been to art school you'll know that people tend to just make what they make. whether they get picked by the powers that be to be in a show is another thing altogether.
ReplyDeletewow anon 4:29. That was an amazing synopsis of the times. I am totallly with you on your end remarks but I don't follow on the beginning. Is this supposed to be ground breaking? It seems too easy to swallow for that. What art do you see as groundbreaking now?
ReplyDelete4:32--
ReplyDeletei agree--it's like darwinism--any mutation can occur but the dealers are the selecting force that decide what gets to survive.
No, MFA students work out of the 'it' group of successful artists. Just look at the imitation Humes, Doigs, Issenhighs, Laskers, Rauchs, etc. Strategy is everything.
ReplyDeleteHow depressing, but totally in line with my experience. The profs are usually clueless and taking notes from art mags. The cycle continues.....
ReplyDeletemy point is that we are all a part of a big historical trend all the time like it or not
ReplyDeletei don't think this is supposed to be ground breaking at all, i think there is a trend to veer away from heavy experimenting as it so often comes off as forced, i was also at the Brad Kahlhamer opening - for better or worse it was quite a good time and that did lead to spending enough time with the work that it did grow on me, (or at least the 'scull wall')
Maybe in grad school, where a samll group of students is selected by a group of teachers who are nearly by definiton low-level followers of some historic trend, but undergrads are all over the place. thank god
ReplyDeleteexamples of forced experimenting? I can't think of any
ReplyDeleteAll that having been said, we live in a relatively pluralistic era in art--it's hard to see a kind of art that wasn't represented by at least one artist at the armory show.
ReplyDelete"kind of art that wasn't represented by at least one artist at the armory show" - not much tech
ReplyDeleteforced experimentation - i guess, i am a bit on the wrong blog with this a bit most of the examples i come up with tend to be in other medium namely rehashed performance, second rate scatter Art i am not allowed to name call specifics and shows on here as anon - am i?
oh one more and i am out - there are 'gatekeepers' in every program be it Legal, Business or Art however in my estimation they often r forced to function more as barometers for 'who is most likely to succeed' (main factors being social and equity) then aficionados
it's true there's not much tech at the armory--but it's also fair to say technologically advanced art has by no means been forgotten by the current art world.
ReplyDeleteI think you can name names if it is about work, but not if it is about personality, right?
ReplyDeleteThe acadmey hasowned the art world ever since everyone else stopped paying attention because they didn't get Jackson Pollock.
ReplyDeleteCritics seized on the opportunity to say that the public NEEEDED them to explain art and ever since then they've been in charge. Nowadays, most dealers and collectors will readily claim/admit that you need an academic background in art to understand most of what they're showing.
Totaly agree--There's no other medium where the acadmeic/critical voice has so much power--not even in literature.
ReplyDeleteOk, critics are evil opportunists--can we get back to criticizing Jay Davis for sport now??
ReplyDeleteWhat do you mean by the academy? Are you talking about grad schools or the idea that eveyone is rising out of the same knowledge base due to internet, gallery domination etc?
ReplyDeletei think it's important to be as aware of the forces around you as you can possibly be--if you're aaware of it then it ceases to have power over you.
ReplyDeleteI'm not a huge fan of Davis' work, but I like that he's mixing it up. He used to be more of a 'pop-formalist' in my opinion, but he's cracking that open and that's good. He's making 'smaller' art. I guess what was described by q.v. as pathetic aesthetic...
ReplyDeleteYes, we are all sympomatic of the times in which we live.
These pluralistic times are good for all, but the ideas are a little spent, especially in painting, so people are forced to get off on other things. Most people just love the craft of painting and want to groove on that, and that's cool. I guess it's more fulfilling if you have a reason to make art - be it psychological, cultural, socital... whatever makes the viewer think 'wow, what he's doing is exactly how I'm living'. Too much craft just makes you think of what you have or don't have, which is depressing for most people.
or it totally depresses you and you can't dream in your studio...
ReplyDeleteI'd define the acadmey as the group of people who--when they discuss art--non-artworld people can't understand--the people who claim enjoying art requires specialized knowledge.
ReplyDeleteCan somebody PLEASe explain to me why this artist is alleged to be doing the "pathetic-aesthetioc" thing?
ReplyDelete"Too much craft just makes you think of what you have or don't have, which is depressing for most people. "
ReplyDeletewhat?? I don't think Jay Davis is saying anything... nothing... that is why it is dull for me. No emotive quality even.
That is one weird quote about craft--though maybe it explains why people like Luc tuymans--he make sthem feel better about themselves.
ReplyDeletewhy? because his craft is so spartan? They feel like they are "in" on something?
ReplyDeletebecause he can't paint and most people can't paint so they empathize--but that's snarky i know but i couldn't resist--i just don't get why people like him at all
ReplyDeleteI think they like his because he is melancholic.
ReplyDeleteso is rembrandt but rembrandt melancholic and not the visual equivalent of licking a fungus
ReplyDeletemelancholy for the days when painters tried?
ReplyDeletei like to lick mushrooms
ReplyDeleteHA!
ReplyDeleteRichard Tuttle does not make me feel better about myself. John Currin does not either. I don't get the 'pathetic-aesthetic' thing...is that mumble jumble from a wordsmith-critic?
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure I agree that Jay Davis actually even displays a hell of a lot of craft--he's just tidy
ReplyDeleteI admit it. I like Tuymans. He makes me feel pathetic. Maybe pathetic aesthetic in the sense that it is cloyingly folksy
ReplyDeleteok--not an attack--but i am really interested--you like Tuymans because he makes you feel pathetic? can you explain?
ReplyDeleteHis paintstrokes look like he had a limp hand. The spare marks that gesture towards representation, but not quite. Kind of a sad son of Bonnard or those Italian Nabis painters.
ReplyDeleteReally I just like the loose quality and I loved that painting of Condolesa. Everything looks empty.
ReplyDeleteclearly you are telling the truth and clearly i will never understand--ok, Jay Davis...
ReplyDeleteLT is a little sappy, trying to look dignified, no?
ReplyDeletein a good way or a bad way?
ReplyDeleteThat isn't a compliment, I guess. I just think there is a lot more meaning there than someone like Jay Davis. His work strikes me as even emptier.
ReplyDelete"pathetic aesthetic"
ReplyDeleteUh oh.....I smell a song about to be born!
i don't know about that--jay davis is exactly as bad as LT but doesn't dress it up with faux-relevance
ReplyDeleteI love it.
ReplyDeleteIt's like ahart for the rich folks, so beige, like moldy Conde Naste
The figure/ground relationship reminds me a bit of Laylani Ali. Black figures, too.
ReplyDeleteLayla, not Laylani, I think?
ReplyDeleteyeah
ReplyDeleteClarification: When I said "pathetic aesthetic" I was specifically referring to the figures in Jon Polypchuk's work. The JP figures are like the art equivalent of skinny white guys whining over bad jangly guitar playing---lots of feeling mopey and sorry for oneself and yes, pathetic. DEFINITELY NOT the Stones.
ReplyDeleteI liked what someone said about it meaning "cloyingly folksy."
I feel like the JP figures are meant to evoke sympathy for being so dejected and fragile and pathetic. The Jay Davis painting reminded me of JP's work because those bird-figures look so bedraggled and lifeless. Blech.
The bird-things don't look bedraggled to me, they look prim--like they're posing-maybe the droopy feathers under them might make them seem bedraggled but not to me. it's interesting how they have such a different affect from person to person. i'm not saying it makes the painting good--i just think that's interesting.
ReplyDeleteimage-worship
ReplyDeletehonestly i HATED the 99% of the 100010111110000111100 dot bomb corporate commission crap and was pleased to see that the culling had cut allot of the crapulous speculative overheated poo-fest, however a wake of half rate NJP was a little shameful, - but it shows you how it can all just go *poof* and we know what we see shown is not representative of what is being made
most of the work i have called 2nd rate 'shock art' has not had much of a life and as far as i have noticed nor made it far, - which was a bit of my point, dealers who hit and miss with it off hand: kenny schachter when he was around, team, gavin, dietch and boone on a bad day - when i make the rounds this this weekend i will note names. it seemed a trend FAR more prevalent 2 years ago, - first topic that comes to mind were kids doing this really ruff "devil" shit.
history is very important to me and how it shapes perception and context, however i was mapping them more based on things beyond the artists control (the artist can always give and take what they want from the system) but are forced to struggle with the economic and political. i deeply feel as nyc artists we are in a very very hard time rents are sky high there is so many spaces that there is very little focus and yet everything still feel homogenized and things are so commercial in the city in general it is hard to form communities.
i feel we are in the hight of the "rise of the academy" MFA programs have ruled the past few years but i hear that is coming to an end. there is a very interesting article in the new yorker right now about the whitney, and what curators go thru and can you believe it another expansion with no substance which in my estimation is the problem to begin with. expansion for expansion sake. but is that the american way? is there "progress" in Art?
Laylah Ali's Projects 75 was great, and i treasure my 2.00 book i disagree with the comparison however her work is very narrative and intent on communicating a message
style is not necessarily substance
>>it's interesting how they have such a different affect from person to person
ReplyDeleteYeah, I though the figure on the right was a rabbit!
And I don't really get the Tuymans reference. I see Owens's handling of space, I se de Balincourt -- But beside's LT's wan color palette, I don't know. Poor Tuymans. Seems to be blamed for whatever's wrong with the painting world. Let's let him paint in peace -- it might be more interesting rag on Owens' wan painting strategies -- or let's blame stripes -- especially the ones that radiate. And deer. And birds. What's the birds and deer these days?
Hmmm. From what I've read, the Whitney has been finanially sick for quite some time -- and has been long overdue for that expansion, and it would be a good thing to finally be able to pull up more of their collection from the basement.
Things I never want to see in another painting:
ReplyDelete-sad birds
-sad deer
-sad bunnies
-loopy flowers
-hexagons/honeycombs/molecule structures
-anything that refers to or describes a teenager's bedroom
-radiating stripes
-porn imagery
-electric guitars
-Clifford Still-like vertical stripe-y patterns
-bunch of loops hanging painted with a very thin brush or drawn
-dots
It was all cliche before the art fairs, etc, but I saw so much of this stuff I can't even think about these things without getting queasy.
Too much fungus?
ReplyDeleteI heard hanging a leg helps.
"It's like ahart for the rich folks, so beige, like moldy Conde Naste"
ReplyDeleteit reminds me of some bigmiddle-aged collectors brooch
it's interesting, though, how this explosion in baby-boomer money has conincided with the pluralistic painting explosion (and the availability of such), which has itself coincided with the tremendous output of MFAs, etc etc. It should be a good thing, but I get the sense from this discussion is that there is some consensus that the bar has been greatly lowered...
ReplyDeleteStripes and porn-- like in high renaissance, the checkered floors were an all too played-out device for easily achieving space remarkable space --
Ka-chiing!
i love that list i am going to do a painting with all those things and i am going to be rich i tell you - RICH RICH RICH
ReplyDeletei enjoy owens she has a creepiness that this does not,
generally the profit margin in terms of attendance does not fluctuate that dramatically with increased floor-space, it is a patrons ego dream & das whitney is talkin theater and education. my guess to be "competitive" with moma and the gugg. bigger museum = bigger bills and more pandering which these days to corporations = more general populace voice, but that is just a guess... read the article and then tell me what u think. the crux of the argument with the whitney bi even continuing in the face of abandoning the "american artist matter" thing is because it is important just because (not that i in anyway i don't love to go to it)
as long as the whitney's still free one day a week it can never be that bad
ReplyDeleteI loooooooooooooove Jay Davis--reminds me of breakfast in a house that has a breakfast nook. But I like Lari Pittman too. And Richard Tuttle. I like art that reminds me of breakfast.
ReplyDeletei peg Davis more as a brunch artist, myself.
ReplyDeleteI hate brunch.
ok-so does that mean you think it's like bright and open and full of unknown possibilities?
ReplyDeleteit reminds me of breakfast AT a major museum cafeteria--maybe it's tasty, maybe not, but it's got no character and you can sense the good stuffs in some other room.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I didn't finish the article -- merely skimmed it -- and so I am prone to believe you. Though I did lament the halting of the Corcoran expansion because it's such a great educational institution and it *did* the space for more art. Not that this applies to the Whitney.
ReplyDeletethe colors and the suppressed palette and the shapes of the vegetation remind me of the "It's A Small World" ride at Disneyland or world or whatever. supposedly whimsical but kind of faded and sad and following some alien formal logic.
ReplyDeleteThere is no creepy in this for sure. There is brunch. But a nice, highly decisive kind of brunch. Kind of like how I would imagine it would be like to have brunch with Matisse. We'd spend the day cutting out paper and vinyl, while the war goes on in some far off place.
ReplyDeleteIt really is a nice composition. Owens seems more accidental. I can't forgive that, personally.
can't forgive on purpose or can't forgive accidental?
ReplyDeletepopulace it all means more populace... the inside is out? where is then center now? personally i love brunch i do
ReplyDeleteJager bombs with a bunch of my buddies... bruch is what u make it baby.
I can't forgive accidental when it's left there, unattended. That's what I think of, when I think of a lowering of the bar. Some Owens passages leave me feeling that. Some accidents can be highly controlled by a skilled artist... say... ahem. Tuymans.
ReplyDeleteI certainly think Owens is stronger than Davis...didn't she have a foot in the beginning of all this trendy stuff? And looking at her whole body of work, I tend to see some major issues developing (i.e. an opposition to the piling up shock-value in the art world, as well as pictorial innovation [or attempt of this]). I don't know Davis' work, judging by this work and by the Lari Pittmann comparisons, this work isn't any part of a deeper delving. It's just this cartoony, somewhat awkward, amiguous narrative.
ReplyDeleteWho is the painter most representative of our age? Who has captured this period and will be remembered for doing it?
ReplyDeletenobody's going to agree with anybody else on that question
ReplyDeleteseems almost pointless to ask--the image that represents this era's probably not a painting which is why painting's such a weird and interesting thing to do right now
ReplyDeletemight as well ask what batik design best represents our era
ReplyDeletei "feel" there is something in an owens... i "know" (i am told) there is something in Ali's,
ReplyDeleteso the whitney says "american culture is not urgent enough to fill myself with" yet "i need to expand"
Pittman? i don't see it
- side note, when is the last time anyone has been honestly "shocked" in a gallery or museum in nyc?
Awkward? Hmmm! Interesting.
ReplyDeleteI do agree that Owens is more innovative pictorially. For some reason I don't connect this to any deeper delving on the part of Owens. (though I'd ordinarily apply this connection as a matter of course). I just see her as a well-tuned production machine. Perhaps I'll look more into this. Thanks.
shocked--i have never been shocked by art and probably would never have been even back in the days of early modernism--art's just not nearly as shocking as things that happen in a person's life that have actual life-altering consequences.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it's fair to judge something by whether it's shocking.
>>Who is the painter most representative of our age? Who has captured this period and will be remembered for doing it?
ReplyDeleteAt this very very very very moment?
John Currin.
Owens plays with painterliness or doodliness (yes, doodles) and photographic space simultaneously (an example would be a paint blob with a painted shadow to make it pop off the canvas or blurred petal fragments in front of a crisp moon)sometimes. That's not really new; I've heard of people doing that in the 70's, but I suppose at least she's trying. Anyhow, I don't think the point is shock or not shock, rather a return to ideals of morality (or simply not a revulsion from them) that postmodern art for the most part made everyone forget about. I'm thinking about Hume's moral improvement and etc.
ReplyDeleteJohn Currin? Ew. Illustrative, illustrative. How about the Leipzig painters?
ReplyDeletehow about--all john currin does is represent the people who buy john currin paintings?
ReplyDeletefair, one of my shoddy bookshelf's collapsed this morning and i literally got hit in the head by a Robert Hughes - shock. it didn't lower the bar.
ReplyDeletecurrin should re-visit the pasta moments, barney 2 i grow weary of the wives.
>>how about--all john currin does is represent the people who buy john currin paintings?
ReplyDeleteyup!
Oh, and i was going to say the Leipzig painters,
ReplyDeletebut then that statement doesn't have any trace
of irony in it.
We'll have to wait until irony finally leaves
america before we really take the Leipzig
painters seriously. And thus, they're not
really representative of our age. They're
still ahead of it, in my opinion.
Though I exclude Rauch from the above statement.
I think John Currin is the perfect choice---slick but empty
ReplyDeletei get the feeling that any of these people representing the time i live in is kind of like george bush representing the place where i live.
ReplyDeleteLeipzig judgements aside - wtf does it have 2 do with the afront mentioned jpeg. jpeg?
ReplyDeleteroughly the conversation seems to have gone
ReplyDeletejay davis isn't deep
well then who is deep?
these people...
oh come on!
It doesn't. The conversation simply strayed off
ReplyDeleteinto a tangent. Yet I think this thill qualifies as
'a conversation on painting'.
Deepness? Is that what you want some insight on?
ReplyDeleteOh -- well then.....
Never the less someone will be remebered for this period 50 or 100 years from now.
ReplyDelete"the paintings at Mary Boone by Jay Davis were unimpressive except for their unfathomable prices."
ReplyDeleteoh that rich. oh wait when i google the artist i bring up articles with them in the left hand column
well they all have BORING surfaces in column
ya hit me deep..... u think it will be a painter Y?
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting that there is debate going on in the countryamong a large segment of the country about wheather God or the devil caused the hurricane in New Orleans. But ideas and questions like that do not show up in our painting. Not even alegoricly or satericly. No way. It is like painting is removed from all real life today.Why is that?
ReplyDeleteit will be a painter - jay davis!
ReplyDeleteAnon who seeks deepness --
ReplyDeleteYou seem to be a collector to me. You are
interested in paintings. I do believe Currin
will be remembered. I say this unflinchingly
and without irony. If you want to live with a
painting, I suggest Oehlen. He's way better
than Owens, and deeper. Perhaps Oehlen
will lead you to the Leipzig painters.
to anon 9:20 -
ReplyDeleteit was like that with ab. ex. - look at de kooning, pollock, and gorky. where are their world war II paintings? where are their anti-huac paintings?
i think the fact that painting, or art, isn't responsive to the world as, say, a newspaper is, makes it more intriguing, and lends a more realistic sense of how people feel during such times. the mere fact of tragedy existing doesn't presuppose that people will want to respond to it or think about it.
...kings road chealsea...
ReplyDeleteWhy is that anon?
ReplyDeleteIt's because other modes of cultural production deal with real life in a much more profound or at least popularly-affectinig way than do paintings. That is to say that there are better ways to mobilize opinion, action and political thought than painting a picture. This was not the case in 1900, but it is the case now.
what i am saying is artists are fucking subjected to it... trying to get by in the city? the mere "fact" of living in nyc (that is the topic right?) means alot right now... ALOT for us to be here. here with our hard won history.
ReplyDeleteand it is endlessly ironic to me that the (ouch buzz word) result was a booming conservitave market - sweet thx.
Hey collector, I suggest buying the above anon's paintings.
ReplyDeletethey have a ribbon between them--i think they're lovebirds
ReplyDeletei suggest that u buying the above anon's ny.
ReplyDeleteribbons = love? what is this a may pole of borring?
clearly there's some mushroom licking going on here
ReplyDeleteUh-oh -- you seem like the anon that like's to play with other people's mother's lamé. You're always bored.
ReplyDeleteI like ribbons of love. That is why I like Oehlen. I like this piece more, now that I see the ribbons of love. I think we all need more ribbons of love.
ok! licken aside - y does this look like some macrame re-play flower child - bs.
ReplyDeleter u experienced? isn't that they hole point of Art - new ashetics for an old thang?
It doesn't seem like that to me, anon.
ReplyDeleteWhere do you get macrame?
I can see lickin mushrooms & macrame with raedecker,
but not this.
This seems well formed, polite, well considered, etc.
It seems like a good painting.
i feel like i can trade it for 3 hits of acid and a chyristal at a rainbow gathering, east coast mfa ideolaism real 2 years ago.
ReplyDeletesorry, don't see it. good night.
ReplyDeleteformed, polite, well considered - are those "+" 2 u? in that case we may be diametrically apposed..
ReplyDeletei am on the wrong blog... sorry ya' all !!! nite.
I dont go by pluses or minuses.
ReplyDelete'Good' is not necessarily a plus nor a minus.
--nighty.
all is full of love
ReplyDeleteThe leaves of a money tree;
ReplyDeleteI was going to save them.
But they weren't money
And I was only four.
I don't liek beige.
http://www.tumbleweeds.com/
ReplyDeleteThat and my Pier One Import Chinese scroll that faded in the sun growing up....
So its fashionably nostalgic, yeah batik (I made a hand painted couch banner with fabric dye so I'm totally into that) Macrame, flower pressings... . I get a bit of macro-micro scale change Dandelion.
What's the colorspace on this jpg? I feel like its missing a few.
Too funny. Blame the the jpeg for lacking real qualities. Gotta wonder if Brice Marden was prescient to the idea of a gif.
ReplyDeletesay what you will about currin, but before he started making his paintings there wasn't a trace of figuration around.. and painting was still considered a 'dead' artform. there was the kind of uproar about his work that any of us could only hope to produce.. and the main reason was that he actually challenged the status quo. thousands of young artists that make image-based work that is loosely narrative, humorous, or about any kind of 'drive' (libidinal or other) owe a ton to john currin. even today's trends, like gloppy goofy neoexpressive figuration, wouldn't be possible without the currin link in the chain. we'd all be making videos about social hybridization. i know saltz called him conservative, so everyone is on that bandwagon now.. but he did flip the paradigm.. and frankly that term 'conservative' when talking about painting is really problematic. all painting is at least partially an homage to some previous style or era. that's a fact jack. so borrowing from the 1980's is more radical than borrowing from the 1680's? it's just a different chapter in the same art history book. i call bullshit. just because there is an east village nostalgia at the moment, doesn't mean that the young artists doing that work are actually revolutionary. ab-ex is back now too.. now THAT is cutting edge.
ReplyDeleteI really don't understand how some you can be so skeptical of painting and still be making them.
ReplyDeletei don't but i do make video about the system.
ReplyDeleteAll art does not need to be cutting edge it only needs to be good
ReplyDeleteChris Ofili will be remembered.
ReplyDeleteThanks to Rudy.