4/19/2006

José Lerma

12 comments:

Painter said...

José Lerma
@ Andrea Rosen
525 West 24th St.

zipthwung said...

existential


I tried putting that mess INSIDE the figure.

Less messy.

Max said...

Awesome! Jose was a grad student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison when I was an undergrad there. I'm really happy to see him getting up on Painternyc. He is a great painter who seems to have gone through a lot of changes since I had last seen his work about 5 years ago back in Wisconsin:

His Website

I love the way he allows himself to draw with the paint. That jungle of madness surrounding the figure is loaded with little creatures and plant life, yet occupies a self consciously imagined space due to its sketch makeup. It reads less as an actual forest than as some sort of "heart of darkness" metaphor for some sort of viscous chaos out there. That part of the work is very interesting in contrast to the thick mass of those Giacometti style legs. In many of Jose’s works, the physical world seems to reside primarily in the corporality of the body, leaving only uncertainty in the figure's experience of the outside world. Jose always seemed to be interested in inspecting the way the world twists and distorts these goofy anatomical bits and pieces of people, and that interest seems to have carried through to his current work. I will defiantly make a point to go see this show in the coming days.

no-where-man said...

My esteemed coworker and eye were just yesterday discussing a lecture at MoMA on the Giacometti Show at MoMA (I was an intern there at the time) she compared George Bateille’s Story of the Eye and Skull fucking to Point to the Eye. It blew my mind. Hit this opening as well, works a bit like a Giacometti with the desire on the outside – illustrated if you will but not illustrative – rather then embodied as the desire object.

Sven said...

this work looks so much better in jpeg, kinda sue williams-ish in parts. In person it is soo underwhelming and that giacometti dude reference is weak.

Shit in the back looked way better.

Cmon,.. guy got outclassed by Beck's gramps^-^

rainbowandskull said...

I love this show. All the best elements of painting. Great drawing, cartooning, slap dashing, big, sophisticated and funny.

Edna said...

I disagree. All the comments about posturing, etc. pointed at people like Amy Sillman, and Lerma gets away with this (totally hipster and affected) show?

PUH-lease. And It's not because he's a dude.

rainbowandskull said...

Edna are you saying Sillman and Lerma are totally hipster and affected?
I think they are doing similar things, with drawing and figures, right?
Do you think Lerma is getting away with it more than Sillman. I am slow so please explain.

zipthwung said...

I could say something like :

the existential giacomeetti figure cuts a scar into the drawn surface, diving the space into three, like a mercedes sybol, only without the containing circle.

Mad Magazine like scrawilings dribble aimlessly to form a textured ground.

yeah, thats what this painting is about - the figure - iconic and the ground, not so

iconic

I can dig that.

But the execution - mannered and redolent with art posturing.

Al hanson is iconic, but humbly so.

Nice pairing.

These paintings are too big for my house though.

Who are they for? Corporate spouse buyers with allowances?

Heroic is dumb, but not necessarily stupid.

Plus I saw someone else do the same thing. Someone else too.

Bitch.

zipthwung said...

Scab, I meant scab.

zipthwung said...

I'm breaking new wind....

The paintings are bigger than people sized.

operation enduring artist said...

ok, everyone stand up. now stretch out your arms...good. if a painting is bigger than that it is bad, it is too big, it is relying on the wrong things. in short, a work that big is TOO big for the mind to wrap itself around and should be split in two.