5/11/2007

Glenn Brown

53 comments:

Painter said...

Glenn Brown @
Gagosian
24th Street
NYC

hardpan said...

Black velvet anyone?

Sven said...

this show didnt do it for me. I liked one of the sculptures though. Seemed like this guy had potential in the very beginning then he dug his own grave. oh well.

hardpan said...

good counterpoint to clemente though-they both seem to be about seduction in the grand manner/ on the grand scale.
especially that large uncircumcised penis on the lower left... or is it a giant cocoon?

zipthwung said...

I prefer Ivan Albright's maximalism. RIP.

youth--less said...

Leave it to a Brit to rip the class system. Love it.

zipthwung said...

no part but the class party

milf-magic said...

Ooh Guvnah! Look, me knickers fell off me bum! Ta-ha-ha... Is anyone else getting tired of not-so-Great Britain? Non-stop titters about any jibe at a castrated royalty's expense... so interestinzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz... Who cares any more? The only thing worse than a bully (the U.S.) is the suck-up worm friend of the bully (England.) They actually still care about Posh Spice! From the Spice Girls! They think Michael Caine is sexy. Have you seen Michael Caine? He's hideous! By god it's enough already. Echh and they're bands! Have you gone back and listened to anything by Pulp lately? It's dreadful. As depressingly serious as the germans can be I'm glad the focus is on them and the chinese now for a little while. As for this painting, I like a good oval as much as the next person, but why would anyone want to paint a painting entirely with tromphe l'oeil paint marks? That's just bloody silly. And the image of an 18th c. aristocrat morphed and mutilated? Is that the same thing as a 21st c. Mrs. Robinson being twisted and bent into a rectangle? What exactly is painter trying to tell us? That there are a lot of male artists that have issues with their mothers? Join the club...

youth--less said...

well, Ok, if you had left offa Jarvis. But since you didnt, and you dont seem to enjoy the sillyness, yr a wanker

ever argued with a german? I havent but my brother always does. He says its great cuz you can go on and on and then all you have to say is hitler, and then you won.

But I like the german painting, and this Glenn Brown, but the Clemente bugs me

Sven said...

did you see the brown in person?

CAP said...

I agree with Cooky. Brown has run out of steam. It was always a bit of a party trick - the paint trompe l'oeil bit. The line in science fiction had more promise, but maybe he thought that wasn't clever enough.

milf-magic said...

yes yes but the medium darling, is what is silly whilst the corpulent knotty fleshpile of an Antoinette is rather quite serious looking... to me, that is. Now what about the other "bloke" Mr. Richard Patterson and his feathered brushstrokes? He's kind of fallen by the wayside while his buddy Glen has ripened into a delicious auction fruit. But I rather liked his 'Minatour' series if nothing else. But obviously the Clemente is far worse. I just always imagine him (Clemente) at a Royal dinner party in Brussels or Luxembourg wearing his artists' 'humble' browns and tans, all fake laughter, eyes darting around the room, fervently sizing up the patronage.

CAP said...

I think Patterson ended up in Texas for a while - long pause between shows, then back in London with stuff connecting isolated elements (collage?) with sort of CAD framework overlaid.
Ah... interesting transitional stage let's say.
The toy soldier thing definitely buried.
Again, slick technician bu you can rely on that stuff too much, get side tracked.
I have a technical question for those more expert in web matters:
I'm over at
http://www.haunchofvenison.com/en/index.php#page=zurich.exhibitions.2007.tony_cragg
and I'm wondering if I can extract a jpeg from the adobe flash player 9 presentation?
I imagine Painter might run into this problem at times?

PrettyPablum said...

This show
Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucked

None said...

{Old Guy - As far as I know, you can not extract an image from Flash. However, you can do a screen grab while the image you want is on the screen, and then paste the screen grab into whatever graphics program you wish.}

zipthwung said...

yeah old guy, I can help.

The easiest way is to take a screen shot and dump it into your favorite image manipulation program (Photoshop or GIMP
- (ALT>Print Screen or just print screen for the whole desktop) on a PC,

but I'm guessing you're on a mac.

In that case you can hit a combination of buttons and define an area and or print to a file
command + shift + 3 the whole screen
command + shift + 4 (mouse drag)

*********************************

The cool nerd way though is to use a flash ripper or "decompiler".

Even if the file is protected (to hide the actionscript) you should end up with a .fla file (from the .swf file with all the pictures in it (the library))

This is probably more than you want to deal with - i know I dont.

zipthwung said...

here

works in internet explorer - there are numerous sites now like this for downloading you tube (and other) movies - they are all flash based.

In any case you could "view source"
on the page, "find" the name of the swf file in the code and then "search" for it - it would be in your browser temp file folder somewhere.

Once you have the swf you need to decompile it.

Oh and the R/ Crumb show is nice 10 bucks says Saltz reviews it.

zipthwung said...

or use the html version

CAP said...

I'm pc actually, but this is all very helpful and have kept it.
Now maybe you could this Wulff in Sheep's clothing, she's got this problem drawing faces?

zipthwung said...

The tony craggs are fecund. I noticed the art fairs love them though. is that because they sell or because they are used as place holders for art?

Heres my list of rules:

2) 1) No more art complaining about art school

3) No more art complaining about the class system from within the class system

4) No more art that presumes to bite the hand that feeds but actually feeds the hand that bites.

5) No biting outside of the peer group

6) No peers

7) No art about how it sucks to be priviledged.

8) No art that pretends to be priviledged but is really aspiring to be priviledged.

9) No dreams

10) No hope

11) No belief

12) No faith

13) No thought

13) No thing

14) No lists

15) No self referential art

16) No visual art that is actually writing

17) No writing

CAP said...

Oh I forgot, this is your nihlist weekend.

Tatiana said...

oh zip you're a great big hipster aren't you?

Tatiana said...

and it's not like hipster's a dirty word. iy really and truly isn't.

zipthwung said...

Yeah Im a hipster - I hang out with a bevy of Karen O clones (glasses, bangs, boots, skirt) and argue whether to wear the converse or the pumas (converse were cool in 1955, 78, 92, 2k, and '05), and then some kid comes in wearing K-Swiss and its like, mooove over. So I take my ibook to the coffee shop and build a little sticky viral flash video before reading my issues of Believer and some Vice magazine-fashion dont dont dont. Im pure hateraide. then I have to leave because someone is talking about their upcoming show in europe with amy sedaris, Karen O, Dash Snow and some other names to awfull to repeat - so loud into the phone I wonder what concert they went to last night that I missed so I look in the Village Voice and sure enough i missed the Shazbot! Boiled Rotten Grungy Font Egg Fest down at the Sign of the Rainbow Unicorn White Supremacist Asian DJ Thrash bar with the boilermaker blue ribbon free tattoo bbq combo and mojitos all you can drink till midnight ladies drink free every other minute wet vomit t-shirt body shot spring break extravaganza. Oh and this painting is set as my wallpaper until I find another picture of karen O.

Anonymous said...

ah zip I didn't know i could mouse define grab you are a helpful hipster, and the last speed of a post was just right on, I laughed, I'm laughing. We get the same dealio over here but it's like a martial arts instructor nailing a real estate deal in Hong Kong perched at the Pink Cow nestling a colorful cocktail, alone. I got on Dash's mail list somehow, I figure one of the instructors gave it, which I appreciate. I get Dash, but this painting I'm kind of at a loss, so I'm all ears.

youth--less said...

I read a great description of hip--the Beat variety--the real thing. "An extreme aesthetic that shunned enthusiasm, scorned ambition and ridiculed achievement." So thats all you gotta do kids. Start today.

This painting is more Wendy O than Karen O--so more power!

CAP said...

Oh I wouldn’t say you were just ears, Concrete, anymore than I’d say Brown was just a hand.
The thing is, if you’re going to make a painting about trompe brushstrokes, as a way of maybe putting painting in inverted commas, and then mixing and matching it against famous pictures (his takes on Auerbach, Rembrandt, Fragonard or whoever) then pretty soon you are as impatient with the ‘brushstroke’ as you are with the choice of targets.
Let’s skip the history of the depicted brushstroke as painter’s guilt/embarrassment in the face of photography etc and just look at Brown’s choices. He is one slick technician, so slick his choices have trouble keeping up.
When he was just doing the anamorphic, monochrome Salvador Dali thing, it looked okay. Dali has this slightly off reputation, not exactly a fallen idol, but art history (The Cannon) is a little uncertain about his place. So Dali was not a bad target, if you’re going to mix and match. But obviously Brown couldn’t just rely on monochromes and anamorphics – that tended to make the thing about just that technology – so he was going to need a way of reworking pictures that did more, got down to the business of painting, and the trompe impasto stroke of mixed colors filled the bill. It comes loaded with ideas about expression and abstraction, is ripe for applying to unlikely targets.
It was text-book postmodernism for those that had waited for the textbook.
The trouble is the wider he applied it, the less convincing it looked as trick or treat. If you’re going to nail your colors to the mast of this kind of virtuosity, you’ve got to be ready to up the ante.
Why settle for just the big heavy brushstroke anymore? We want them all, the wash, glaze, sketch, outline, roller, palette knife, wipe, spray and stick on. If trompe is the name of the game then lets have it with all the anamorphic, monochrome and whatever filters make it trickiest. This makes the choice of targets a lot more interesting. How about a Cecily Brown in anamorphic, sliding into a Sue Williams on the side of a Rouault landscape with a Keith Haring mural in day glo?
But Brown is not going to push it, not because he couldn’t, but because deep down he doesn’t really believe in the whole thing anyway. It’s just a comfortable turn, and he can throw in the old rabbit/duck ambiguities (Did I hear someone say W-w-wittgenstein?) titillate with the seeming nipples (Goodness what a cheeky chappie he can be!). But we all know Glenn needs to take it easy after he’s worked his hand that hard.

CAP said...

Hope I didn’t overdo the eye-popping white suprematicist class war in the art schools of my mind, where only the Godless buy the ragged before they get ripped and there’s not enough mannerisms to go around but one good turn deserves an education in the sand of the rising Hun – cos I’m thinking of using that in a post sometime on another site where no one can find it.

zipthwung said...

Dude should look at Barnably Whitfield maybe. That stuff gives me the creeps like the Young Tourless fan club. Start one now.

Note to the hoi polloi - pointy toed shoes are out. Think hobnail boots. Did I just sew the seeds of doubt?

"But Brown is not going to push it, not because he couldn’t, but because deep down he doesn’t really believe in the whole thing anyway."

Kind of like Currin - isn't he bored dragging his money sacks to the bank yet? No, I guess not. lead us, oh masterfull brush master. You know you got IT - flaunt it. Your imagination is failing by most standards of true greatness. Thing big, think oily, think spills, think ship breaking with Ravi Shankar.

Im so going to yoga - got to get ready for Gung Fu class so I can sport a six pack at the air guitar contest/group food show Tibetan mime raffle against social minefields.

Perms for men.com

You can buy a rubber yoga mat at any drug store on Bedford. Now thats class - plus the chicks dig it. But mostly uptight NPR heads (class).

Note to self: quit going to art shows by or about
(nearly) dead people.

Sven said...

zip explain the Young Törless thing. Closeuup what says you regarding oldguys argument?

zipthwung said...

I had an english teacher who assigned the book - she was new, and I think she read about the book and ordered it - she didnt read it before hand you know?

I can sympathize, but if I was teaching HS english (or art history) Id have the text memorized.

So anyways the book has some sadomasochistic homoerotic boys school stuff later in the book, but I didn't read that far because it got pulled. I don't know who got that far.

The moral of the story is don't mess with the curriculum if you want to keep your job and isn't it easier to take it easy?

But where was I? Oh yeah, tromp l'oeil and the spanking fetish.

It occurs to me that, as I said with Currin's latest, that this sort of work amounts to the monkey trick of flinging feces at the zoo visitors.

What do you do when the asylum is ruled by the mentally ill?

hardpan said...

Old Guy, I see his references as more chosen for their kitsch and "decadence" factor. (Wasn't Dali seen as outre/kitsch not so very long ago?) However, accomplished he is, I don't see him as a postmodern stylistic shape-shifter as you prescribe. I see his take on the "depicted brushstroke" as ossification, "mummification"
heading more in the David Reed, Tomma Abts -sterile fetish brushstroke- vein, he's trying to resuscitate it with shock value content, but it's gasping for breath...

arebours said...

wendy o-saw her once,shaving cream on her tits-good times

seymourpansick said...

word has it that this particular work comes with a Home Depot three-speed ceiling fan.

note that some of his earlier work was quite nice.

a christian said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
youth--less said...

Was that an arguement? well you know me.

I never liked GB before when it was obvious pomo.

this I like because of the way it looks--the grotesquerie. The cross section-head cheese-octopus thing. Whats the title? The Aristocrats?

Im not that impatient. I know its uncool, but there's some thing I never get tired of.

zipthwung said...

oh c'mon and raise the level of discourse. Archimboldo looks bad in repro, but you know a real painting would have warmth and presence enough to temper even Gagosian's chill vaults.

On another note - If you were Gregory Crewdson, why wouldn't you make David Lynch style movies? I mean, sell in baby! I'll back you like a Bagdad whore!

youth--less said...

not in my job description--shit i have to look up anamorphic

Sven said...

ooh my fav topic.artists going into movies..funny how they always fuck up.Crewdson coulda killed the x-files, in fact did they use him for hbo ads or was someone cribbing?. Metro pictures seems to be a hotbed for artists making the switch;Cindy Sherman's horror movie sucked, but i still love her work.Longo has always been dry to me, but Johnny Mnemonic failed in a spectacular way(at least it had Ice t and a psychic dolphin). Only person who pulled it off was plate painter Schnabel i guess he should stick to it.
Charlie white might be good for something. old guy nice blog i wish it had pictures

poppy said...

I love the absurd, but have no time for it from someone who thinks it is dead,...because the absurd is alive and always will be...
this is as dead as my ding dong after slamming it in an art history book for hours on end....

zipthwung said...

context

is important - it will be interesting to see a curated collection as opposed to a furniture warehouse sale.

youth--less said...

Just sitting here drinking my mutthers day coffee listening to danzig--so your context is welcome.

Is this another fiona rae situation? I'm the only one that likes it? Thats OK. As Jarvis says --cunts are still running the world. Mommy wishes, huh?

poppy said...

motorhead, danzig, ... we all seem to agree on the same music for mothersday. How about BAdmotorfinger? Anyone still digging those tunes? I broke it out last night. I seem to have the same problem with this as I did with Lasker. Someday soon I'll have the same problem with myself no doubt. Someone mentioned he's a fine technician. well thats some pretty intricate swirling in the penis and sunday tits. I'm Lazy. I would want a tool for that and a circle machine for my laskers...

zipthwung said...

french curves

poppy said...

wow, that's got to be legal,..or I mean I hope so.

Nomi Lubin said...

That's hot.

CAP said...

Hey Cooky, - I had to sign this thing saying I wouldn't put anything on the blog that I didn't own. And if I did, I would be put to death, or forced to read back issues of Art Forum.
Seems dumb because who's going to set the corporate attorneys on someone who hasn't got enough to pay for their fees? It's the same with using music in little videos and that. Unless you make a lot of money out of the thing copyright and ownership never gets too interested.
But I’m true to my word.
Additionally, pasting pics into that crappy little column doesn't always do them justice - even less than they receive elsewhere! Or keep pace or place with the text, less you’re a hot shit web desirer or something.
I like what Hardpan says about GB: I buy the kitsch, devalued take - but this too begs ramping after a while - (how about Bernard Buffet? - molto mannerioso! Georges Rouault: cringe factor maximus!)
Never mind Mother's Day, this was Eurovision weekend! And I'm waiting for that Ukrainian entry to hit You Tube - probably has already.
Artists into movies is interesting and closer to home than I care to admit. Lynch still paints but you can tell the effort goes into the movies. Longo (as painter or film maker) never looked convincing to me, but I suppose there's an argument to be made for the early stuff.
But not here.
I agree with Seymourpansick - early GB was OK but then the ideas got carried away by virtuosity.
It’s never pretty watching someone you know morph into Donald Roller Wilson.
Maybe I'm too hard on the guy and after a lot of years he's allowed to mark time for the moment, really exhaust the thing before moving on.
Actually I'd like to try writing about him without invoking postmodernism, which always begs so many questions and I never like the answers.
Period styles are difficult but not off the table.
Could say a lot more about the position of an academic in these stakes, but I’m advised this could be litigious.
As for Currin – I don’t care if he makes a billion dollars, I enjoy him for what he is. If Dana is allowed to be girly then Johnny can goof some. True, you can’t help feeling he could do a lot more, and I bet all those German guys really shake in their boots when they check out his stuff, feel for a pulse in American culture.
But sometimes you don’t have to look heavy to be heavy.

zipthwung said...

You know in Conan and in Apocalypto, theres sort of the exact same scene where a head rolls down a pyramid. In on its hapless captives, in the other its Thulsa Doom, leader of the apocalptic cult of the people, Stygians I think - and we know who they are.

In the same way, I was allways into the bumbling German - and my pops was allways into the german engineering.

youth--less said...

In Beyond the Valley of the Dolls a head rolls down the stairs at the end, too. Moral of the story--nobody should be allowed to have too much pleasure, because they'll go too far, lose control and murder someone.

Im super surprised that more people dont like the wicked clever humor in this GB. It's a bloody riot. John Currin on the other hand is a guy who's pretending to be funny, but is about as amusing as a quip by George Bush.

youth--less said...

It's weird that OG thinks its OK to be telling an artist what to do next. Jerry and roberta do that too. It's awfully presumptuous. I think he picks his targets for maximum effect. Who knows who Bernard Buffet is anyway. hes a limp target.

Sven said...

nothig wrong with having a opinion

seymourpansick said...

Parody is a dangerous game...especially after a period of repetition when it evolves into a parody of one's own creative ventures.

youth--less said...

When you get down to self-parody...then you're a real artist. Self mockery is liberating, wot?