9/25/2006

Keegan McHargue

49 comments:

Painter said...

Keegan McHargue @
Metro Pictures Gallery
519 West 24th Street
New York NY 10011

poppy said...

this painter reminds me of that folksy naive sanfran artist from awhile back,
this seems ever so popular,..
like these characters are how to represent that genre with off centered composistions that go only so far and stop suddenly,
thats how i feel about that, there is a formula for it.. In this painting, Britney Spears searches for an identity..

poppy said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
zipthwung said...

The Hairy Who need to get more props. I mean Arrrrt prop.s

Fredericks and Freiser show comix as art. Is it Art? Like "Mixed Greens safe." Does it ad to the HISTORY? Is it IMPORTANT? No. Not really.

I like more polymorphous perversity more optastic-

keith haring made work for the public and work for the individual.

I think this is work for the public.

zipthwung said...

activision esthetic

poppy said...

went to metro pictures gallery
doesn't allow you to scroll through the
images. Didn't come across much else with same color sensibilities as this one. Must say about this though,
basically keep your color monochrome, use color like collage and keep it clean. still seems like a 1, 2, 3, to me.

zipthwung said...

keegan - dont lose your love of surrealism, its not worth it.

kelli said...

Video games and alchemy are both good source material. I can never get past the first level though. Not being snarky- the artists behind Final Fantasy were gifted.

dubz said...

i've wondered why so many west coasties make this same kind of stuff, but i don't really mind it. i'll take mine with a shag carpet and bread's greatest hits. jack hanley can flip the record and explain manifest destiny. low light.

no-where-man said...

15 the "the after party" or "rim job swim team", popped for me.

alowed for a little optical breathing space opening the same night as gimicky Ritchie

zipthwung said...

california gothic

Couples Records said...

why do painters use the visual language of sega/dos/activision and then leave out all the fun and violence and joy? why are they always so fucking sullen?

zipthwung said...

I think it has to do with midrashic hermenutics. That and a need for mythopoesis for marketing purposes.

Couples Records said...

rise from your grave

youth--less said...

why do painters use the visual language of sega/dos/activision and then leave out all the fun and violence and joy? why are they always so fucking sullen?

Because they are no longer kids?

youth--less said...

manifest destiny?! you guys are so provincial.

dubz said...

manifest destiny + provincial in the same sentence. that's worse than a broken wagon wheel every 1/4 mile. i'm turning back.

zipthwung said...

Im with the donner party.
Do I need a jacket?

commodore 64

Lode Runner.

youth--less said...

so anyway. I guess KMcH says these are figures on a stage--a theatrical experience. Which is in contrast to the last painter, who was also theatrical in a different (european)way.

I never got much joy out of video games, but for u who do...do you feel any spirituality associated with it? Or is it just a nostalgia club?

no-where-man said...

I went to this show and i didn't get "video game" anymore then from say a Klee.

poppy said...

This has none of the fun of video games,
where's burger time?
About the naive thing,
to be really naive i think you need to be missing some normal brain function like being manic or schizophrenic.
Has anyone seen the documentary called
The Devil and Daniel Johnston? Very interesting singer/artist that could be labled naive/outsider,... Although many might argue that his songs were genius so could they be called naive? He only ever seemed to give you the essence of the song..without all the fine tuning.. Spent some time in the NY area,... Have you heard?

no-where-man said...

Yes poppy, many punk groups admire his work.

interstingly he was on this tv show if you click on the video you can see a few songs, very cool... also to compare to the Billy Bob (linked from same page) - compare there "insider'/'outsider' status and style

zipthwung said...

I dont really care if these are inspired by video games or the khaballah. All I care about is what it does for me.

Most people are saying the same thing right? For example - whats the difference between the Catcher in the Rye and the Catcher and the Rye?

My taste runs to video games because then I get to use a keyboard while I look at art. Interactivity is awesome. The colors are more saturated too, because the image is shot onto the screen by a cathode ray!

I use my imagination, like a little play in my mind. I mean, everyone does that - its part of our common, (essentialist) human nature. Thats Rad!

zipthwung said...

Im reading Kulturmann, Udo. The History of Art History.
New York: Abaris, 1993.
ART N380.K8513 1993


FOund it on the street.

And Conceptual Art
A Critical Anthology
Edited by Alexander Alberro and Blake Stimson

Which is the textbook for some class I think...

Im also reading some back issues of the Weekly world news.

zipthwung said...

I was thinking about reading the Great Gatsby - never got around to it.

youth--less said...

If you call that "interactivity"

I'm not reading anything.I dont have an MFA. I'm a lot like Daniel Johnston, without the charm.

The difference between in & and --well which would you rather be? Id rather be in.

Painting--what have u done 4 me lately?

Sven said...

Daniel had a show at Clementine on 27th street recently and was in the Biennial. His work is pretty lame

no-where-man said...

reading: Capotes - Music for Chamelions and J.D.Chicago - Sweet Dreams contemp. art and complicity.

on looking....
"Only when you can encounter a certain emptiness in yourself could you ever think. Kant says the subject must approach the art object empty. It's not just empty...I don't even have a good reason to be here. Only I end up looking at this work and I don't know what's happening and because I don't know what's happening I've lost any authority to speak about the object - I have reached a point - and our point here is to say this is not a loss but this is productive: I have reached the point of incomprehension. No longer do I have some capricious remark to say about why I like this painting. It is that I am here and I am flooded with the fantasy that I am less than nothing here. I don't understand...You cannot have an aesthetic experience of an object unless and until you reach the point of incomprehension....Every time you are tempted to grasp the object through your understanding instead of being a triumph it should be a defeat.....Art belongs to the domain of the death drive...Because we never have our own vision we remain entirely indebted and damaged and damaged by others."

no-where-man said...

:) Rilke.

Quote was from Mark Cousins, my bad to leave it off.

zipthwung said...

"....Fate was kind to me. By forcing me to return to this world of poverty and insecurity, from which my father had risen in the course of his life, it removed the blinders of a narrow petty-bourgeois upbringing from my eyes. Only now did I learn to know humanity, learning to distinguish between empty appearances or brutal externals and the inner being.

Adolph "outsider" Hitler

poppy said...

thanks nwm and clement,
good reading.
stay strong.

cha said...

'figures on a stage- theatrical experience'....very different but a lot to look at, Jorg Immendorff e.g. on Saatchi Gallery website]

kelli said...

Thanks for all the book suggestions in the recent posts Kalm James and NoWhereMan. If art belongs to the death drive I think it's spokesperson is Lazarus not Thanatos. I used to have a job in Soho and met lots of art people. Irving Sandler was one of my favorites. Gentle, softspoken and always seemed a little sad. I won't say who wasn't nice.

Tatiana said...

zipthwung is into videogames?

no-where-man said...

Fragments of Modernity - David Frisby

heh - kj's, they should. doesn't keep me from smokeing either.

zipthwung said...

Its arguable that ancient peoples of San Francisco lacked the sophistication to create and use perspectival space.

It is well known that the pyramids were built by aliens, most of the worlds religions are degraded forms of Christianity, angels speak to me directly about what to draw, and I have the plans for a working UFO.

SOme people see the march of style from flat to perspective to post modern space as a narrative.

This is boring and involves the myth of linear progress.

Many video games use this shallow space, and I think the comparison here is apt, whether the artist is referencing assyrians, rural pensylvanians, train car graff, the bauyeux tapestry, or me.

Please help me block the rays.

zipthwung said...

KJ - How are ramelzee's auction prices?

On 27th street there seems to be a concentrated interest in the realm of - faux schizophrenic, faux naive. And Daniel Johnson who is fucked up I guess. Some good drawings but mostly shit. Youd have to be a fan.

Which is different than the slacker-stoner thing or the faux-punk thing.
Or the faux-conceptual thing. Or the self reflexivity to the point of post colonial nihilism thing.

Anxiety of influence, as harold Bloom says.

Keegan doesnt seem to have it, and thats probably why I hate his guts.

youth--less said...

SF space. Look at a Joan Brown from after the 70s sometime.

KMcH transformed his influences into something new. You just have to cook it down for a long time...Gumbo.

youth--less said...

http://www.mayacalendar.com/mayacalendar/imagen/librosbooks/popolvuhrecinos.gif

zipthwung said...

actually I think I cited the wrong book. But it did give me "anxiety of influence".

Keegan never had someone tell him his stuff was too self conscious. DOesn't he care? My god they are so mannered.

A painter prof fed me that line - I've been mulling it over for fifteen years or so. I still don't agree with him, but I have a kind of Kantian take on it now, surrounded by as hard shell of cynicism.

Indifference is better criticism, definitely. But I find I need to take that with a grain of salt too.

From what I read they didnt market the graff stuff well - you need an essay by thomas wolfe (he got 5 mil for the film rights to bonfire).

Bow wow wow.

zipthwung said...

swimming in it

youth--less said...

freaky deaky mel gibson--he hates war and jews:

...where he compared the American troop deployment in Iraq to the kind of human sacrifice depicted in his film, about ancient Mayans, according to The Hollywood Reporter.


http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/26/movies/25cnd-mel.html?ex=1159329600&en=3f55cc6a041c62bd&ei=5087%0A

youth--less said...

Graff had Norman Mailer:

http://www.photoeye.com/auctions/Img/1011/Large.jpg

youth--less said...

Graff had Norman Mailer:

http://www.photoeye.com/auctions/Img/1011/Large.jpg

kelli said...

I read an article about the depiction of Satan in his film as a sexually ambiguous figure with snakes slithering out from his skirt. Definately freaky. I think Mel has all sorts of demons in his closet. I'm still not clear on why Tom Cruise (harmless cult nutcase) took more shit than Mel ( hastening the apocolypse zealot). I guess we have just gotten used to Born Agains and forget that people who think the end is coming might be dangerous.

zipthwung said...

"Everything I said is contained in a single word-collectivism. And isn't that the god of our century? To act together. To think-together. To feel-together. To unite, to agree, to obey. To obey, to serve, to sacrifice. Divide and conquer-first. But then-unite and rule."

jpegCritic said...

iWorld.
Completely remastered.
Coming soon to a living-room near you.

SisterRye said...

It seems more influenced by tactile practices like quilt making, assemblage, or wooden sculpture than by iWorld or video games.

There's a lot of space in there, not deep perspectival space, but a different kind of non-flat space.

I like it, but I'm from SF. Does that make me evil or overly simplistic? No. I don't care about video-game influenced art, or faux primitive art, but I do like collage influenced things and flat and spare imagery that comes from a minimalist, formalist poetry influenced as much by color, edges, street art, and abstraction as by other representations of form and feeling.

zipthwung said...

Fractals man, triangles within triangles.