8/16/2006

Larry Poons

48 comments:

Mark Barry said...

There is life after illusion.

Sven said...

I hope this one is old school

kelli said...

I have no real idea why but always liked him. Ratty and hairy.

sloth said...

Kind of amazing how current these look. He's like an old rocker who kept plugging away, meanwhile Giles Lyon and Steve DiBenedetto came along, singing the same tune.

Martin said...

this is five years old.

sloth said...

Yah, I got that. Not easy to keep it up when you're 70, but whoops, there it is. Compatriot from Tokyo. He survived a near-death brush with Kandinsky and came out smelling like daisies.

youth--less said...

Love Larry. I've wanted to put his work up on my blog for ages, but I couldn't choose just one. Where Martin B. & Frankenthaler give the formal a bad name, these give you a reason for living.

And I need one today.

Michael Cross said...

Awright! Go Larry!

arebours said...

bring on the rat take away the sugar

zipthwung said...

I like anchovies

no-where-man said...

my cones are going crazy!

jeff said...

Poons came to our grad program to do crits.

He critisized peoples work without any pretense, and was very funny and over the top.

He called an ass an ass so to speak.

If your work was lacking he called you on it. He used a lot of humor to get his point across. He was hard as tack and took no prisioners.

Unlike some other artist who would leave people in tears for no reason other than using their power and ego to insult.

Sven said...

How is this current? I guess I can see a Benidetto connection but all this has me thinking of (besides Dominoe's) is those boring french painters from the 50s that were second generation abexers. can't think of any of their names, this Poussette Dart is kind of what I'm thinking of

I dont really like either but why would you rag on Frankenthaler but like this?

youth--less said...

If you can't see the difference, I can't make you see it.

I'll just say this. Larrys work seem searching and inventive. I liked HF when I first encountered it, but over time it became repetitive.

zipthwung said...

Because frankenthaler went to Bennington and shamelessly shilled for Rolex when her whole dealio is religious abstraction. Shes a girly girl too. Duh.

zipthwung said...

whirly art

is what Hofstadter call his doodles. And he's smart, too.

kelli said...

Cooky I guess these appeal to me more than Frankenthaler because where she was corporate and mannered these are frantic and I can't totally get a grip on them. Even his early stuff with the dots was stranger than it should have been. I kind of feel the same way about Polke and Klee. I was thinking before about the limitations of strategy. He seems to be operating on a level beyond his obvious strategy. I can't totally articulate it which might be part of the appeal.

sloth said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
sloth said...

Pousette-Dart was from Minnesota & was solidly first-generation American ab-ex, btw.

David Page Coffin said...

“He seems to be operating on a level beyond his obvious strategy. I can't totally articulate it which might be part of the appeal.”

Wow.

Can I borrow this, kelli? I’m working on this Statement of Purpose right now, for, like, my whole life, and this pretty much nails it... thanx.

seriously. (...And the Klee thing, too)

zipthwung said...

The Reality of Karel Appel, a film by Dutch director Jan Vrijman and music by Dizzy Gillespie and Karel Appel was released in 1961


This is a great movie and epitomizes good marketing to people in search of meaning but who dont have time. I laughed every time they showed it in painting class.

If you can't explain yourself dont expect other people to get you. Do you get me? Me neither. Say what you mean and mean what you say. Humpty Dumpty.

kelli said...

David you want to borrow my doofy admission that some things leave me clueless and I kind of like it? I'm drooling and trying to regain motor control. I hope the people who read your artist's statement are baked.
Cooky you kind of mean people like Antoni Tapies right? I could see that.

Sven said...

i really cant remember their names. There are a whole bunch of artists who are like 2nd rate de staels, status wise, but much more known in Europe. I dont have the book with all of them with me now so I'm just babblin sorry

zipthwung said...

take the quizz!

David Page Coffin said...

OK, I’ll just hold it to my chest, but really, not everybody I meet would rather talk about art, no matter how obscurely, than breathe it. And I thought it was considerably more... “comprehensive“? “open-ended”? than, say, Kandinsky's guidelines: "Lend your ears to music, open your eyes to painting, and… stop thinking! Just ask yourself whether the work has enabled you to 'walk about' into a hitherto unknown world. If the answer is yes, what more do you want?"

sloth said...

Interesting. I don't see Tapies in relation to Poons, really. He came to abstraction through surrealism & dada. I see Poons more as a descendent of Kandinsky, painting music & synaesthesia, that kind of thing.

sloth said...

Okay, thanks David Coffin, you said it better than me.

kelli said...

Mothra doesn't he come out of Op Art? Which is really strange right and even his early Op Art paintings were a lot better than his contemporaries, trippier and with more depth.
I'm seeing Tapies with this image because of the ugly clunkiness and semirepresentational marks.

sloth said...

Hmm, Vita, that name does ring a bell. His work sits well with me, too.

zipthwung said...

Synesthesia is interesting because people come up with it on their own - in the same way that you can figure out that a volmetric material like water can appear to be less or more depending on the shape it's poured into.

Hoffstadter I think came up with synesthesia on his own - i think its innate - part of the language ability that extends to other animals, apparently. Caw caw caw...

Organizing your thoughts is what people like - ordered and coherent. Corporations like easy categories and efficient systems. I do to.

sloth said...

Poons' earlier work was definitely minimal/op, and yes he seems to be really good at whatever style he puts his hand to. Kandinsky had his hard-edge period, too, now that you mention it.

sloth said...

But I was referring more to the recent work, e.g., the painting posted here.

sloth said...
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sloth said...

Veni, Veni, Vita. Even a wunderkind has an off-day once in awhile, leibling.

zipthwung said...

pollock

pollock

This is nice But I dont like the frame.

How about gene davis?

zipthwung said...

ring a ding dong it.

sloth said...

How about that Geena Davis? Loved her in Commander-in-Chief.

Nice Pollocks, zip. Another surrealist who went the ab-ex route. I smell School of Paris.

zipthwung said...

I liked her in the long kiss goodnight. Deer in the headlights.

Check out this dude

sloth said...

zip, is that you?!?!!?

zipthwung said...

this is me

just kidding

Im the one on the right

hrere I am younger on the left

heres my album

heres a friend of mine

Mark Barry said...

zip, your very funny, where did you find those pictures. Heraldo went for the broken plates...
Painter, thanks for this one, age/wisdom has beauty and relevence.

no-where-man said...

Did he really have a house where poets would read with toilet seats around there necks, and they would "try to drive away there audeince"? what colour is your nihilism.


"Nothing's gonna rehabilitate me!
"I'll be the same tomorrow and the same next week!"
Then he actually swept my feet with his broom.

zipthwung said...

pablum puking maggots!

kostabi was on that show.

kelli said...

Vita if we have a new Bloomsbury can anyone convince Alan Cumming to visit. He won't even need to wear a toilet seat.
I'm still trying to figure out why Poons was better than other Op Art and I don't know if synasthesia is the reason.. Bridget Riley was good because her work was so perfect.

Anonymous said...

Poons, in these full on paintings, had this thing about forcing issues, most of them structural, of many which we would consider incongruent--employing different talk to activate and give depth to a stretched canvas--very different from say a cooled down Lasker approach.
You can pick parts to pieces in Poons. I have done so in the past. But what good does that do?

Couple of little balls up there in the right:)

Altogether not talking the same ball game as the previous post.

BR's late work is about slowing things down. Her earlier words didn't have much to do with the structure of the painting premise and its limits, though were beautifully crafted. I still like all--each artist, time, location, and period. Altogether Just about focusing / and a refocusing on different things.

kelli said...

Zip you are invited but don't bring Kinkade. Nobody wants him pissing on the animatronic creatures.

zipthwung said...

Thanks, can I bring Wan Ko Yee ?

kelli said...

Yes if he is willing to wear the toilet seat. Nobody else is up for it.