Pei-Ming is OK - large drooly oils but tight watercolors... I left feeling not too sure if I should be impressed or analyze the paintings further for traces of an OCD. Definitely better than some of the other offerings around Chelsea.
You know this work isn't any better than the average sunday watercolorist, were they to have the hubris to work large and in charge.
Heres what you do:
1) Get some good watercolor paper - meduim tooth. Pre-saok it and stretch it out using a large sponge and whatever (you could tape it using brown packing tape until it dries).
2) Tack the dried stretched paper to a wall and lightly trace a projected image (money, skulls) onto the surface) using a pgrahite pencil (mechanical will do).
3 Use miskit or tape to mask off the areas that you want to remain white, or to controll your layering (optional).
4) apply paint in thin washed to a full wet surface (wet insures you dont get dark edges to your washes.
5) Apply paint in layers, masking and wetting to create a sense of gesture and chance.
6) Get a show at Zwirner.
Yeah, printing money. That's the ticket.
Aside from the extreme soul sucking banality of the work - total lack of imagination - for example -
well get one for behind the desk!!!! Its not so intesting that your executive aura will be occulted while dressing down your subordinates.
The best I can do from - http://www.davidzwirner.com/exhibitions/134/ - is presume the work is about that old bandwagon ‘cultural/individual identity’. In the 6/6 slide, an installation view, you can see this one belongs to a suite or series of heads doubled in a single picture, varied with technique – the same or similar person depending on technique, variation on expression, dressing. This may have something to do with Chinese artists adapting/adopting western techniques, seeing Warhol/Close on their terms – seeing themselves on those terms. I admit my first impression was how mismatched the technique and heads were – a bit like student work where the student is intent on demonstrating mastery at the expense of content or subject. But looking at the show as a whole I sense it’s a bit more sophisticated than that – but I can’t really connect with it either – big staring heads get a bit oppressive after a while, even when handled with impeccable brush technique (Borremans comes to mind – another Zwirner artist) deft monochromes etc. I’d be interested to know Zwirner’s reasons for choosing Yan Pei-Ming.
I have yet to come across one of these hot shot chinese painters worth the hype. That price point doesn't suprise at all these days. There will be a correction, and its going to be sweet when it happens.
15 comments:
Yan Pei-Ming
David Zwirner
519 West 19th Street
NYC
The series of money drawings says it all.
Pei-Ming is OK - large drooly oils but tight watercolors... I left feeling not too sure if I should be impressed or analyze the paintings further for traces of an OCD. Definitely better than some of the other offerings around Chelsea.
where's the heart?
You know this work isn't any better than the average sunday watercolorist, were they to have the hubris to work large and in charge.
Heres what you do:
1) Get some good watercolor paper - meduim tooth. Pre-saok it and stretch it out using a large sponge and whatever (you could tape it using brown packing tape until it dries).
2) Tack the dried stretched paper to a wall and lightly trace a projected image (money, skulls) onto the surface) using a pgrahite pencil (mechanical will do).
3 Use miskit or tape to mask off the areas that you want to remain white, or to controll your layering (optional).
4) apply paint in thin washed to a full wet surface (wet insures you dont get dark edges to your washes.
5) Apply paint in layers, masking and wetting to create a sense of gesture and chance.
6) Get a show at Zwirner.
Yeah, printing money. That's the ticket.
Aside from the extreme soul sucking banality of the work - total lack of imagination - for example -
well get one for behind the desk!!!! Its not so intesting that your executive aura will be occulted while dressing down your subordinates.
The best I can do from - http://www.davidzwirner.com/exhibitions/134/ - is presume the work is about that old bandwagon ‘cultural/individual identity’.
In the 6/6 slide, an installation view, you can see this one belongs to a suite or series of heads doubled in a single picture, varied with technique – the same or similar person depending on technique, variation on expression, dressing.
This may have something to do with Chinese artists adapting/adopting western techniques, seeing Warhol/Close on their terms – seeing themselves on those terms. I admit my first impression was how mismatched the technique and heads were – a bit like student work where the student is intent on demonstrating mastery at the expense of content or subject. But looking at the show as a whole I sense it’s a bit more sophisticated than that – but I can’t really connect with it either – big staring heads get a bit oppressive after a while, even when handled with impeccable brush technique (Borremans comes to mind – another Zwirner artist) deft monochromes etc.
I’d be interested to know Zwirner’s reasons for choosing Yan Pei-Ming.
You should see the auction prices for the 10' square portarits. Something in the range of $450,000 in China.
That's USD not Yuan
...yuan...
I have yet to come across one of these hot shot chinese painters worth the hype. That price point doesn't suprise at all these days. There will be a correction, and its going to be sweet when it happens.
I saw Wei Dong and he was good. Very different from the run of the mill Oriental art that has been coming down the pike of late...
Yes and 'thousand points of light' was right about the correction...
I think the market for Chinese art in new york right now is huge.this might be a way for zwirner to make some cold $ during the lazy summer months.
good leon, you get a gold star.
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