3/29/2006

Yi Chen

47 comments:

Anonymous said...

If this guy didn't have such a great 'hand' I'd think he were a hack. It adopts the plasticity of the fashion-plates and the vain; along with the Mr. Potato Head victim-hood of hipsters. He makes the models look retarded. I’m not sure what side of the fence Yi is on as he doesn’t seem to have any other approach other than making goofy faces (which I love but don’t respect).

JD said...

I need to see these in person. Painter, do you know if there there collaged elements in these? I like the disparate quality of the facial features, and the herky-jerky pieced together look of some of the images on the Boesky site. But I worry that they're a bit too tasteful looking, especially color-wise. They have the feel of a color-aid design project. I feel like I want them to be more distressing to look at.

Anonymous said...

I agree JD. they lack edge.

Anonymous said...

Boesky lacks edge.

Anonymous said...

lacks is prob. the wrong word. clearly it is not what she is going for - she is the Sand Grinder of edge.

Anonymous said...

I love it!

zipthwung said...

If you LOVE IT, why dont you mary it? BONANZA!

Boesky makes tame seem like a noun.

JD said...

Haha, Zipthwung, good point about the big eyes. Who's the British painter who shows at Feigen, who paints little big-eyed girls with cats?

Anonymous said...

it's so simple I don't get it.

Anonymous said...

jd, you rule. i dig your comments

Anonymous said...

this is schmaltzy - even for Boesky. I like Barnaby Furnas...
there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason as to why this guy sometimes goes flat, sometimes goes with modeling, sometimes with collage, different levels of abstraction in the figures... and with a super-nondescript image. Doesn't do anything for me.

Anonymous said...

wonder what they are looking at

Anonymous said...

They look like student assignments.

zipthwung said...

I went to art school, yes I did

Now peel me a grape.

Anonymous said...

really been scraping the bottom of the barrel lately
what's next, a professor mouth drawing?

JD said...

That painter of big-eyed girls at Feigen is Nicky Hoberman.

Anonymous said...

im a gonna paint me a enormous eyes,or one really micro and the other macro-how cool will THAT be,ed pashke?

Anonymous said...

I be for skin.

operation enduring artist said...

a question for everyone: are these illustrations? i feel like ive seen VERY similar work in Rolling Stone magazine. i get the feeling that this work looks better in reproduction than it does in person...what do you all feel the difference between an 'illustration' and a pice of 'art' is?

Anonymous said...

yeah. this is what all the kids in the illustration dept. at SVA are doing... freelancing for the NYer. all about style, absolutely no content.

Anonymous said...

Normally I don't have a problem with "fine" artists quoting from illustrators but this is way too far.
http://joesorren.com/archivenew/index09.html

Anonymous said...

I really would like to milk Zak Smith's wanker with my sloppy snatch.

Anonymous said...

Painter - i am sure there are many good painters living in nyc that AREN'T exhibiting, would you consider showing some of them? the market is getting depressing.

i saw this show... very very very briefly.

p.s. - remember that dream you told me about? it didn't come true, but your encouragement was sweet.

JD said...

Martin, that's a great idea. There are indeed so many excellent artists who show seldom or not at all, or who do show but their work is sort of ignored. I do think it's important to comment on artists who are big right now, and some of them are great, but depressingly, many of them are more trendy than really interesting. It's encouraging that so many of us on this blog seem to recognise these artists when they are posted, and it would be interesting to see who Painter might come up with to counter that trendiness. We could also brainstorm here. . .

Robert Bordo
David Humphrey
Elena Sisto
Carrie Moyer
Nancy Friedemann
Susanna Coffey
Anoka Faruqee
Catherine Murphy
Jeffrey Saldinger
Charley Friedman

Anonymous said...

or you could realize what a blowhard you sound like

Anonymous said...

GIMME A BREAK COFFEY SUCKSSSSSSSSSS

Anonymous said...

i really like your comments and your attitude JD. especially love seeing artist's artists like
andrew spence
gregory green
marilyn lerner
getting some attention here!

Anonymous said...

Yes anon 4:04, I am a hot young one and I get really wet down there. Lets get it going.

Anonymous said...

These comments are disappointing.

This work is very identifiable and does have a painterly quality in person. I haven't seen much of his work in person but at art fairs it always catches my eye.

Can we try and be more constructive. I love to look at this blog but then the comments feel dirty and wrong. The artist do read this as we see them come on time to time.

Painter I would suggest you delete comments that lack the quality of your blog.

Anonymous said...

this painting is dissappointing. so whats your bar of quality?
Zak Sabbath? you don't find that compelling at all?

operation enduring artist said...

constructive. i think chen is very talented. period. however i would be much more interested in seeing him put his talent to addressing some social/political issues not just banal images of made up human-like people.

Anonymous said...

How much art addressing social/political issues does it take to change a light bulb?

NONE! Art addressing social/political issues never changes anything.

Anonymous said...

ughh no wonder lisa yuskavage quit boesky saying that the program there was nowhere. this is kinda nowhere. i looked at the images on line though and i have to say one thing, they're similar to the visual strategy of scott taylor ( cobbling things together w/ wrong scale and surrealist juxtaposition) but WAAAAAYYYYY better than that to look at. yah they DO look like nicky hoberman as someone said. ew.

zipthwung said...

Art can change people. people are change, when you're a changer....

Haven't you ever made work that subverts the symbolism of the opposition?

Yeah, I didn't think so.

Anonymous said...

there's a very big difference between mocking or altering some symbol and actually changing the lives of real people via this activity.

jpegCritic said...

Yi Chen can afford to push further on his articulation of the constructed human. It would be well worth it if he did. It would be well worth moving away from a nice benetton (great colors, neutral politics, globalization-Positive) aesthetic and more toward what Mary Shelley intuited.

Mixing races and ethnicities may NOT make for a pretty, well-designed picture. Through religion and politics into the mess, you get a pretty fucked-up but richly complicated picture to say the least.

The U.S. aids in the construction of frankenstein's every day -- and I'm not talking within the US -- it is almost a national policy -- or should I say national security policy... What about this kind portrait? What kind of horror, and what kind of beauty?

Is there any impotant kind of visualization of globalization that escapes the utopia of tastful benetton color schemes that emptily lobbies this rather empty-empty-empty signifier we call 'democracy'. In Chen, I see a beauty that is rather empty - perhaps because they are a little too tasteful and buyable -- It lobbies for a popular buy-in, and it seems to say shit about what this work may 'want' to explore.

Perhaps Chen has a different outlook, perhaps less bleak. -- I would like to feel an opinion in his paintings. I don't yet, but perhaps I will someday.

jpegCritic said...

But perhaps for Chen...
Globalization IS about popular buy-in.
Dunno.

Anonymous said...

not this one perhaps, but there are Artworks that have changed the course of my life. i do beleve in social movements.

Anonymous said...

coincidence?

Anonymous said...

Yes! Billy 8:11 has it right. Painter, please, please censor us.

Stelios Argiros said...

Looks like Elizabeth Peyton and Francis Bacon's disgruntled love children. I've lost my appetite...
Barnaby Furnas and Sue De Beer, who's work I like, are in the same gallery?!?..

Boesky has a seriously weird crew...

Anonymous said...

Painter, you have a lot of power and you might not even know it.

I went to this show today because you had posted this.

This paintings stink. Sorry to the arist if you're reading this, you might want to stop (reading that is, painting is another thing)

This is such a tired academic practice. Make a collage, copy the collage. this is nothting more than a pastiche of academic figuration thrown in to a flat collage of an environment. Know wonder Yusakaitch left Boesky (too much attention to Furnas as well)

To the artist, try to paint the WHOLE figure, in a whole fictive environment. Look at Yuskavitch, and her husband Levenstien. Look at Kauper.

Look at Ingres.

You're young, you can change, and grow.

Painter, why the Brown post, she doesn't have a show up. Isn't there anyone else with work up we can discuss.

Talking around a Jpeg is really pointless. It's great if it directs one to a show. Other wise it's pointless.

Anonymous said...

Why is snickers unable to register dislike without being pointlessly condescending?

It's incredibly immature.

zipthwung said...

Snickers, you have a lot of power and you might not even know it.

I read your post because you posted.

This post stinks. You might want to stop (reading that is, painting is another thing)

This is such a tired academic practice. Make a point, repeat the point. this is nothting more than a pastiche of academic critique thrown in to a flat conversational aside. Know wonder Anonymous left a doodoo.

To the writer, try to make the WHOLE point, in a whole fictive environment. Read Jerry Saltz, and her husband Roberta. Read the posts above..

Look at yourself.

You're anonymous, you can change, and grow.


Talking about the limitations of a Jpeg is really pointless. Its been done a lot here. It's great if it directs one to a show where paintings can be bought for a reasonable price. Other wise it's pointless.

In conclusion, pointless.

Anonymous said...

Zip,

touche´ yeah sorry about the tone. it was a little didactic on my part, an outburst.

I deserved a bubble bursting.

Houdini said...

It is what it is. Fashion-illustration. Funny to look at for a few seconds, but leaves you dry.

ill2 said...

instead of knocking this in any way why cant we just enjoy how asthetically pleasing it is. i enjoy this artists work alot .and just cause it is aesthetically pleasing that is not all it is, use your brains and make decisions for yourself don let anyone decide for you. and i think you all are being harsh fuck head critics. well most of you..im just a student. ilustration rock on.!