6/21/2007

Emi Avora

38 comments:

Painter said...

Emi Avora @
Greenberg Van Doren
730 Fifth Avenue, 7th Floor
New York, New York 10019

Seth Adelsberger said...

bad bad rosson crowe knock off. do we need more interiors of rooms with chandeliers? in monochrome?

Michael Cross said...

I tried to look at the gallery's website to see more of her paintings, but that website is a virtual trainwreck.

So... all I can say is this is not a compelling image. I doubt that I would like the painting itself, but who knows. Hits me as a little like Rauch, but not even boring. I wish painters would stop telling stories that only they themselves care about, and paint something the rest of us can become involved with. And the horse you road in on! hrrrumph.

youth--less said...

hey I love decadence and a rebours and all that--but how come these paintings are so tight & dull? They say they are about decadence, but don't show it.

The sculptures in the same show are way better.

pinkandlacepony said...

Artist should most definitely paint what they care about. It is his experience. It is his painting. Work that is personal is the hardest to make well.
I don't see the Rosson Crow I think these are more about architecture hers are wilder and scarier.

Thousand Points of Light said...

GVD takes young artists and turns them into old artists overnight.

The RC comparison makes sense on the surface, but two very diff. pedigrees, and two different purposes. One seeks to transgress, other to embellish.

Victorian spaces don't exist in junkspace, except as simulation. if you aren't going to take that on, you're spinning your wheels.

Dumbpainter said...

the lawfirm gallery strikes out again.

None said...
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Thousand Points of Light said...

QQ:

Here's a/the link to Koolhaas' classic Junkspace theory/essay:

http://www.btgjapan.org/catalysts/rem.html

zipthwung said...

junk space is a harsh realm!

I was watching Ovation (the channel) for about sixteen hours last night.

Chuck Close was explaining that inside that warm fuzzy exterior is another warm fuzzy exterior, and so on, ad infinitum.

I was impressed he had the courage to evolve from a posturing macho ambitious young photorealist painter into a posturing sophisticated successfull old conservative impressionistic portrait painter.

In this case - the "junk victorian" (gotholescence?) TPL points to - like the arbitrary plastic shit you settle for when you can't afford the real deal but can't face the idea of living within your means and therefore buy into an ersatz commodified version (if you make lots of money this is Camp, if not, its Kitsch)

Building up forms with collections of lines vs. the polar oposite: blending.

But this painter isn't paralyzed or on botox right? No bad Fugu sashimi? No curare darts in the colonies?

Put some goddamn figures in there for fucks sake!

None said...
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anthony said...

I like the Huysmans reference, it makes me like the paintings a little more. Without it the monochromatic indulgence doesn't work for me. For decadent architectural flings I prefer the Winchester house-- Fill up your space with junk.
But, also, I don't go for decadent.

youth--less said...

people who think that clutter is decadent...are so so sad.

anyone have a junkinyrtrunk theory?

anthony said...

Excuse my butting in. I've been listening to the conversation for a while, and decided to pipe up.

None said...
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Sven said...

i appreciate that u appreciate that

zipthwung said...

How much junk is in the trunk?

I too am fond of the WInchester Mansion - though it was a tourist trap. Not much to see in San Jose I guess. Theres not much to see in San Jose....To see in San Jose....Well not around where I was. Which it was a wedding. I hate weddings. People were kind of uptight at that wedding in San Jose. Come to thing of it, it was all pretty uptight from the getgo.

But if you were going whole hog, you might rent this place FOR the wedding, and the reception, and Satan would be there with a jolly old sack of blow and shit, it would be fun for once, enchanted and enthralled in a house of rented grandeur.

Which is to say, its about geneology, which a kind of taxonomy, which is a way to see the where you are in relation to the emporer.

Notice how all the grand spaces in America are public? Why is there no monumental public jacuzzi, a rememberance of the Bataan death March? Its not the heat its the humidity.

Monuments - Got off on a tagent, but I guess thats why I like art.

anthony said...

The Winchester Mansion and the lavish rooms of Against Nature are both examples of unpruned lavishness driven by private obsession whereas public spaces (Candida Hofer likes to record) are more monumental, or are you saying these are two sides of the same coin? Collective versus private.

Do prefer your photographs of monuments to stand alone, or with friends, family or strangers in front?

CAP said...

Hey what happened to the woods? I was still out there communing with nature, man, nearly at Nietsche and having one Welliver time and the next thing you know I’m in a set design for Casino Royale!
Still, there doesn’t seem to be anyone around here either so I guess it’s about communing with architecture now, which is maybe not so different really, if solitude is top and you’re highbrow enough.

I too have struggled with GVD’s flawed site, have no idea of title, date, size or medium
– maybe I could get a job at the NYT?

So what’s the deal here? Talluto works from photos to make sure her feelings don’t get out of hand, Avora shoots for decadence to make sure there’s room for even the most feeble of sentiments.
Wow if these two ever meet they’ll probably explode!

Why isn’t Talluto’s take on photos and wilderness just a more advanced version of Photo-realism and Romanticism? Or Avora’s sketch just a caricature of civilization, and an advance on Neo-Expressionism?
I say because qualities displayed seem too banal or minor in light of tradition, to be worth displaying, or too vague or elusive to be effectively displayed. The Talluto is too much like a photo to give her room to paint, or not enough like a photo, to give her something to paint about. There is a technical and a perceptual factor involved. The Avora is too vague as architecture to give all those big white strokes much purchase – white strokes alone too dull a tool to inscribe decadence, or much more than petulance.
They either shoot for too much with too little resources or lavish ample resources on too little of their object.

But tomorrow I may feel differently.

surfkook said...

It looks like the interior is inverted, but that doesn't save it from the realm of ugly...or Mark Tansey

None said...
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zipthwung said...

In the old days it was ok to be obsessive and selfish. Even the Carnegie Libraries were selfish and extravagant wastes of public time and space. Thats why they tore most of them down.

So we tear them down. The preservationists think we need something grand and historical, but we don't. Grandeur is for the rich - something to attract tourists, and they might as well stay home and watch Tivo. TV no more decadent than spending hours looking at egyptian tchotchkies at the Met (which may be interesting but in my experience does not make you a better person).

The only argument I can think of is that spaces need to have gravitational pull so that the despair of the everyday is quelled by a sense of possibility. I COULD go to the Met or I could slit my wrists.

The winchester mansion is fun to tour (more fun than my relatives) - I enjoy victorian architecture and exploring - Emi has a bit of that in some of the work, though the trip is ruined by the mannered monochromatic vintage Homes and Gardens paint handling (rosson Crow has more of the painterly thing+cinematic/symbolic references). Just give me the hedonistic pleasures of space, man. Stop dumping me out at the new jersey turnpike with all the othe rback issues. I dont need my self reflexivity heightened by some nostalgic surface bullshit. I got enough introspection and self consciousness to fill a bathtub.

Serra at moma has it, although he claims its all about obdurate this and no its not a fucking boat.

But it is, isnt it? Its some sort of oedipal passion play relating to his father. Or not, I dont know.

Grand spaces are best kept to oneself though,

For example, if you walk into a cave and then turn around to go back, only to discover to your horror, that your entrance was just one among many undifferentiated tunnels.

Wouldnt it RUIN it if there was a person in every tunnel?

Mazes and stuff. But thats pretty low brow in a way - like dont step off the carpet runner or you'll see the union dudes smoking in the back lot.

Who manicures the Winchester mansion's lawn?

But its a private obsession, or rather a way to keep all those workers working instead of being alone in a mansion haunted by gunshot victims.

Its really about isolation. But I don't look for that in art, I look for de-centering experience.

SO when I see a monument I want to see the context. Bird droppings, for example (you could have an inset enlargement) or yeah, people.

But not my people, because they are too familiar. Mimes. I like my monuments with mimes.

CAP said...

Thanks QQ.
Somewhere in my soul there is an art historian filing all that stuff.
When I'm dragged before the International Commission on Art Blogging Crimes at The Hague, I don't want to be vague.

amber said...

my thoughts on this are----------------
chromatic colors here is definetly an attribute it works in disaccordance with kaotic environment I love the movement it makes me feel like gamblin gamblin gamblin the night away

Steppen Wolf said...

Zipthwung,
I have not heard Chuck described that way before...
"posturing macho ambitious young photorealist painter into a posturing sophisticated successfull old conservative impressionistic portrait painter"
Nice...

Sven said...

yeah that chuck synposis is beautiful; you can be a dick but you got a lot of spot-ons. When's the greatest hits gonna come out?
ps i heard painter's next two posts are Nozkowski and Raoul De Keyser (in VENICE)

zipthwung said...

I like Ovation, I even like their Ionic column logo.

Why don't they expand their brand?

Is this from a film still or an add for home theater drapes?

zipthwung said...

(“Avoid predictable and dull chronological history of bridge building,” reads one sketchbook note to self.)

david macaullay

Coincidence? I think not.

CAP said...

When you start leaving notes to yourself – and then reading them – you’re already turning into Travis Bickle – taxidriver/painter.

Still, Bob Moskowitz was a taxi driver for years.

Chuck C always creeps me out – he’s gotta be the Hannibal Lecter of portraiture.

zipthwung said...

Travis Bickle or Rupert Pupkin.

Hannibal Lecter or Dr. Evil. I read him and Carroll Dunham are considered to be power brokers by some people. I don't see that power stuff though, I'm blinded by the light and the heat and all that. What does it all mean I don't know.

poppy said...

i don't think i could look at this for any length of time, i realize to keep this in the realm of surreal or whatever shes trying to achieve, its flattened ,tipped up, with this palette,..she doesn't want space, ok, but mix it up with the color mixing or something...even just lookin at a jackson polluck for 5 minutes would help this person...

poppy said...

In amy's painting below, there should be a swing and a good upskirt..

webthing said...

Abandon All Criteria
Abandon All Criteria
Abandon All Criteria
Abandon All Criteria
Abandon All Criteria
Abandon All Criteria
Abandon All Criteria
Abandon All Criteria

I often wonder.

zipthwung said...

ok so one reason I liked the Close man was he made a full body like Jenny Saville without the blemishes or lense distortion.

He said people went for the sex parts like flies on shit - thats why he went for big dumb heads.

But people were posting the eye movement breakdown for artists and non-artists on images, and most everyone fixates on the same shit, though artists and asians supposedly see the whole picture, where non artists and jingoistic americans go for the sex parts.

So my point being is that people are more interesting to look at for long periods of time, and that if there are no people it would be necessary to invent them.

Fiat Lux.

zipthwung said...

Also,

What is everyone doing after the orgy?

youth--less said...

basking in the afterglow, have a cigarette, maybe see that guy maddin film if it's still here

CAP said...

Aaron detected a Toulouse Lautrec influence in the Burkhart. I'm surprised he hasn't done the same for Avora. Could maybe do with a bit more arabesque, but what with the Huysmans reference, the strokes run at least as well as the colour in a Burkhart boudoir.
And what is this pit we're staring into, Brad?

Dimitri said...

looks kind of hot to me