We were mentioning the whole skulls and skeletons thing before. It is an easy way to add darkness or morbidity and an art historical reference to a painting while still being ironic because of the lowbrow heavy metal connotations. I'm guilty too- I put some tiny fetal skulls carved into a cliffside. It's hard to resist. Deer and cute girly stuff also are crack cocaine for some.
Some symbols (skulls, rainbows) are so explicit that they are nearly equivalent to using text in a painting. But these overused (or, as Kelli said 'easy') references don't add much to the painting, and they can actually stop us from looking deeper. Sublime-ish, morbid-ish, hopeful-ish. Keeping the 'ish' out of painting makes the artist work harder but can actually produce something more real and valuable.
Re: fashon/design/illustration and fine art. Obviously, those who work in the commercial art world have been looking at contemporary art for a long time now. And nicking techniques and subject matter. Thats zeitgeist yno. It's now a 2 way street.
Art directors and such will go on things called "Inspiration trips" that their companies pay for. Sweet.
There are even consultancies now that go out and gather this material for companies to keep them up to date w trends in contemporary art. You dont even get to go out on the expense account :( Powerpoint presentation quarterly. The kinda shocking thing is that some galleries participate in this-- allowing their artists images to be used. Do they get paid? Does the artist have to approve? I dont kno.
THese allways remind me of pat the bunny - and I mean that in a good way. Texture.
This also reminds me of Nigel cooke.
I wonder about the skulls - I dont think anyone cares if skulls are overused other than eye fatigue. I love skulls. No one wears that one - name that artist.
But it does seem like easy content, something I am opposed to on moral grounds. Make your own skull, dont resort to the cartoon one. THis isnt thundar the barbarian land.
And finally, what does it mean, this existential landscape business?
I'm a walking nightmare, an arsenal of doom I kill conversation as I walk into the room I'm a three line whip, I'm the sort of thing they ban I'm a walking disaster, I'm a demolition man
Roebling Hall's gotta try a lil harder on the release: "Erik Benson’s paintings describe, through both narrative and formal means, apsychogeography of placelessness that is as irremediably American as the strip mall, as expressively sober as the paintings of Edward Hopper, and as vertiginously drawn toward the Thanatos below the veneer of American optimism as the latest newspaper headline."
Except for the skulls, I dont even really actively dislike this painting, so no hard feelings Erik. The other painting on the site is better, I think.
Artists keenly observe and then translate these observations into gut wrenchingly sublime and uncanny institutional critiques.
2) As an insider in the art world do you feel keenly critiqued by this painting.
3) As a citizen of the New York, do you feel the poignancy of this painting?
I dont. But that doesnt mean you cant. Indeed, were I a painter of skulls and rainbows, I might sneer at the opportunism of Erik Benson. What balls. What gives him the right? I was doing skulls and rainbows since last October. Magazine that is.
I dont think theres anything wrong with appropriating what you like. In a way this is better than much contemporary pop art. Why shouldn't the art world canibalize itself.
Hey I really like this painting. I looked at his site too. This is a show I will check out. I don't know how successful the people are on here I think it really varies but none the less they could with hold useless and sometimes cruel comments but when you put your work out there, you are putting it out there.
I dont think i was being cruel or useless. I think I raised some good constructive points. Give this artist the benefit of the doubt, but dont go easy, because easy is not what NY is about. Ny is about pain and Calvinistic cocaine abuse.
The statement is gawdawful. I know its supposed to be funny, but its out there, and out there its not treated as funny. I guess Joan Didion wasnt available?
successful is most likely a relative term - so are the chances that most people that talk about Art make it.
but what is the rainbow a stand in for beyond the visual - "the covenant God made with man not to destroy the world in such a way again"?, a media company? - gay pride? - one of my gay coworkers refueses to go to pride because he hates the flag so much "looks like something a dyke from santa fe came up with" ? - a happier place Where "bluebirds sing"? - Great Ridgepole, uniting yang and yin.? - the Pot of Gold?
Rainbow are we being cruel? It bothers Painter when people do that. I like this painting. The fact that a lot of people use an image might make it more interesting not less. Still I think maybe the way somebody like Paul Thek used bones and skulls was more specific to the work's meaning and less of a motif.
I don't know much about this painting except it is the same color as the day outside on this end of a typhoon day.
At koenig, I noticed kelli Williams, is that you kelli? if so, wow, the work is cool--plays with your head a bit, but very powerful! Thanks cooky, I'm just always walking round in the dark--comes with distance.
Hi Brent, that's me. RainbowandSkull brought up a good point. Maybe some criticism is not constructive. Artists are a family after all, maybe a dysfunctional one.
i don't like anything about this, the rainbows and skulls just distract from how bad it would be without them. maybe that is something to do... if you are making a bad painting add some rainbows and skulls to absorb all the negative attention.
what is the technique? he pours paint onto glass, cuts out shapes with an x-acto, and collages them?
i like the thought of the process, the pulling and peeling of a sticky skin of paint off the glass, more than the banal images that are produced. it seems too sensual (the initial painting and pouring onto glass) and visceral a process to be in service to clichés and notions of distance.
"And so I urge you, go after experience rather than knowledge. On account of pride, knowledge may often deceive you, but this gentle, loving affection will not deceive you. Knowledge tends to breed conceit, but love builds. Knowledge is full of labor, but love, full of rest".
i am very grateful for the anonymous criticism that i received on this blog - stuff about how it would look good on fabric - maybe not meant as a compliment but something i would like to do actually - and someone else who didn't like the painting said it was like easter eggs that didn't get found until halloween. yes... that was a good one... i liked it and keep thinking of it.
gazinia - wow! that was a long time ago! thanks, whoever you are... i can't remember all the people you might be.
rentboy, "Nigel cook's use is much better and excution way beyond this work.
You sound like a student.
Nigel cooke has ok chops but nothing thats "way beyond" this work. Get a grip. Hyperbolic statements like that make you seem ignorant of the first tenent of art - thou shalt not be fooled by crapsmanship.
WHy is the so called lack of craft a problem, anyways?
Well certainly ideas are as important as the execution. Platonic solids cant exist without material though, and neither can the Tao manifest itself. Am I leaving anything out?
Nigel Cooke is good at blending. SO are Koons assistants. So is Rosenquist. Blendeing. Like when you smudged your pencil in high school to get a gradient. A full tonal range.
On the other end of the spectrum is unblended paint - singular strokes as from a mixed palette.
Erik Benson @
ReplyDeleteROEBLING HALL
606 WEST 26TH STRRET
NY 10001
New York, NY
New York
the skulls really do a lot for me
ReplyDeleteWe were mentioning the whole skulls and skeletons thing before. It is an easy way to add darkness or morbidity and an art historical reference to a painting while still being ironic because of the lowbrow heavy metal connotations. I'm guilty too- I put some tiny fetal skulls carved into a cliffside. It's hard to resist. Deer and cute girly stuff also are crack cocaine for some.
ReplyDeleteSome symbols (skulls, rainbows) are so explicit that they are nearly equivalent to using text in a painting. But these overused (or, as Kelli said 'easy') references don't add much to the painting, and they can actually stop us from looking deeper. Sublime-ish, morbid-ish, hopeful-ish. Keeping the 'ish' out of painting makes the artist work harder but can actually produce something more real and valuable.
ReplyDeletey are there so many songs about rainbows.
ReplyDeletei am going to suggest a huge cliche 4 a cliche and that in our current political environment these signs/symbols hold a particular resonance.
whitney & bobby are getting a divorce. we need more paintings like the marriage of whitney and bobby. i really liked those 2.
ReplyDeleteI love it when the ny times fashion section is one step ahead of contemporary art
ReplyDeleteboiinggg
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/27/fashion/27SKULLS.html?ex=1311652800&en=93a734fe9f495302&ei=5090
kelli stop upstaging the show at koenig with your work in the back room
I like that technique when Joyce Kim does it.
ReplyDeletehttp://painternyc.blogspot.com/2006/01/joyce-kim.html
It kind of reminds me of Colorforms, the old kids toy. Like a DIY Colorforms
Re: fashon/design/illustration and fine art. Obviously, those who work in the commercial art world have been looking at contemporary art for a long time now. And nicking techniques and subject matter. Thats zeitgeist yno. It's now a 2 way street.
ReplyDeleteArt directors and such will go on things called "Inspiration trips" that their companies pay for. Sweet.
There are even consultancies now that go out and gather this material for companies to keep them up to date w trends in contemporary art. You dont even get to go out on the expense account :( Powerpoint presentation quarterly. The kinda shocking thing is that some galleries participate in this-- allowing their artists images to be used. Do they get paid? Does the artist have to approve? I dont kno.
THese allways remind me of pat the bunny - and I mean that in a good way. Texture.
ReplyDeleteThis also reminds me of Nigel cooke.
I wonder about the skulls - I dont think anyone cares if skulls are overused other than eye fatigue. I love skulls. No one wears that one - name that artist.
But it does seem like easy content, something I am opposed to on moral grounds. Make your own skull, dont resort to the cartoon one. THis isnt thundar the barbarian land.
And finally, what does it mean, this existential landscape business?
I'm a walking nightmare, an arsenal of doom
I kill conversation as I walk into the room
I'm a three line whip, I'm the sort of thing they ban
I'm a walking disaster,
I'm a demolition man
Roebling Hall's gotta try a lil harder on the release:
ReplyDelete"Erik Benson’s paintings describe, through both narrative and formal means, apsychogeography of placelessness that is as irremediably American as the strip mall, as expressively sober as the paintings of Edward Hopper, and as vertiginously drawn toward the Thanatos below the veneer of American optimism as the latest newspaper headline."
Except for the skulls, I dont even really actively dislike this painting, so no hard feelings Erik. The other painting on the site is better, I think.
True or false:
ReplyDeleteArtists keenly observe and then translate these observations into gut wrenchingly sublime and uncanny institutional critiques.
2) As an insider in the art world do you feel keenly critiqued by this painting.
3) As a citizen of the New York, do you feel the poignancy of this painting?
I dont. But that doesnt mean you cant. Indeed, were I a painter of skulls and rainbows, I might sneer at the opportunism of Erik Benson. What balls. What gives him the right? I was doing skulls and rainbows since last October. Magazine that is.
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/octo.2006.117.1.3">here
Anyone know a quick way to get access to this online?
I lost my student ID.
More skulls coming to Cheim Reed
ReplyDeletehttp://www.artdaily.com/section/news/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=17401
I dont think theres anything wrong with appropriating what you like. In a way this is better than much contemporary pop art. Why shouldn't the art world canibalize itself.
ReplyDeleteSave me some ribs.
Skull and Rainbow is my name. I like those elements in art not to interested if it is tredy or not. Deers are nice too. If it is done well.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteHey I really like this painting. I looked at his site too. This is a show I will check out.
ReplyDeleteI don't know how successful the people are on here I think it really varies but none the less they could with hold useless and sometimes cruel comments but when you put your work out there, you are putting it out there.
I dont think i was being cruel or useless. I think I raised some good constructive points. Give this artist the benefit of the doubt, but dont go easy, because easy is not what NY is about. Ny is about pain and Calvinistic cocaine abuse.
ReplyDeleteThe statement is gawdawful. I know its supposed to be funny, but its out there, and out there its not treated as funny. I guess Joan Didion wasnt available?
I got no questions
ReplyDeleteI got all answers
I give no reasons I got no time
I live in splendour
I'll die in chaos
I'd love to stay but I got no time
like a rainbow in the dark
ReplyDeleteu fill in the lyric
this also reminds me a bit of
ReplyDeletealexis rockman
and
albert spier
but everything reminds me of albert spier.
"I've always been mad, I know I've been mad, like the
ReplyDeletemost of us...very hard to explain why you're mad, even
if you're not mad..."
successful is most likely a
ReplyDeleterelative term - so are the chances that most people that talk about Art make it.
but what is the rainbow a stand in for beyond the visual - "the covenant God made with man not to destroy the world in such a way again"?, a media company? - gay pride? - one of my gay coworkers refueses to go to pride because he hates the flag so much "looks like something a dyke from santa fe came up with" ? - a happier place Where "bluebirds sing"? - Great Ridgepole, uniting yang and yin.? - the Pot of Gold?
Rainbow are we being cruel? It bothers Painter when people do that. I like this painting. The fact that a lot of people use an image might make it more interesting not less. Still I think maybe the way somebody like Paul Thek used bones and skulls was more specific to the work's meaning and less of a motif.
ReplyDeletewhat is a motif?
ReplyDelete". . . truffles of truth created, as ancients surmised, during storm, in the instant of lightning blast. . . "
and then deep fried.
I made sweet potato fries - anyone know how to make them crispier?
hotter oil
ReplyDeleteI don't know much about this painting except it is the same color as the day outside on this end of a typhoon day.
ReplyDeleteAt koenig, I noticed kelli Williams, is that you kelli? if so, wow, the work is cool--plays with your head a bit, but very powerful! Thanks cooky, I'm just always walking round in the dark--comes with distance.
Hi Brent, that's me. RainbowandSkull brought up a good point. Maybe some criticism is not constructive. Artists are a family after all, maybe a dysfunctional one.
ReplyDeleteMost criticism is about control, I find.
ReplyDeleteWhen people look at my work, I like to ask: what do you see, and how does it make you feel? I get good information from that.
it is true.. i think i hit every opening in c-sea tonight the best and your on the best apporch.
ReplyDeletehome recipes.
i mean - y bother
the kids, the work.
you have it all down, the art, it not so much matters
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeletei don't like anything about this, the rainbows and skulls just distract from how bad it would be without them. maybe that is something to do... if you are making a bad painting add some rainbows and skulls to absorb all the negative attention.
ReplyDeletewhat is the technique? he pours paint onto glass, cuts out shapes with an x-acto, and collages them?
i like the thought of the process, the pulling and peeling of a sticky skin of paint off the glass, more than the banal images that are produced. it seems too sensual (the initial painting and pouring onto glass) and visceral a process to be in service to clichés and notions of distance.
"And so I urge you, go after experience rather than knowledge. On account of pride, knowledge may often deceive you, but this gentle, loving affection will not deceive you. Knowledge tends to breed conceit, but love builds. Knowledge is full of labor, but love, full of rest".
ReplyDeleteI thought that was subversive.
I yam what I yam.
Thanks for the cooking advice.
i am very grateful for the anonymous criticism that i received on this blog - stuff about how it would look good on fabric - maybe not meant as a compliment but something i would like to do actually - and someone else who didn't like the painting said it was like easter eggs that didn't get found until halloween. yes... that was a good one... i liked it and keep thinking of it.
ReplyDeletegazinia - wow! that was a long time ago! thanks, whoever you are... i can't remember all the people you might be.
rentboy,
ReplyDelete"Nigel cook's use is much better and excution way beyond this work.
You sound like a student.
Nigel cooke has ok chops but nothing thats "way beyond" this work. Get a grip. Hyperbolic statements like that make you seem ignorant of the first tenent of art - thou shalt not be fooled by crapsmanship.
WHy is the so called lack of craft a problem, anyways?
DId the show sell?
ReplyDeleteboom
ReplyDeleteWell certainly ideas are as important as the execution. Platonic solids cant exist without material though, and neither can the Tao manifest itself. Am I leaving anything out?
ReplyDeleteNigel Cooke is good at blending. SO are Koons assistants. So is Rosenquist. Blendeing. Like when you smudged your pencil in high school to get a gradient. A full tonal range.
On the other end of the spectrum is unblended paint - singular strokes as from a mixed palette.
Apples and oranges.
We are all students. But I get an A.