7/10/2007

Jenny Saville

73 comments:

Painter said...

Jenny Saville @
Gagosian Gallery
555 West 24th Street
New York, NY 10011

amy boras said...

it's nice to finally feel the paint in something.

zipthwung said...

i think this stuff is glib. Glibly painted and also, glibly stated.

The Fat Sow.

The paint looks like it is applied thin and then spread with a stick, so you get these crisp edges that appear somewhat random, or "painted" as the paint runs out - but not scumbled around the edges, which I hate.

But I also dislike the glibness of the unscumbled edge. EVERY EDGE. Its like a signifier for mastery, when in reality its more about care than skill.

But what that style or technique reminds me of more than anything is the impressionistic scumbled and palette knifed space ships popular in the seventies and eighties - not because they are the same but because those were blue, and this is so pink. And also because of the adherence to the technique - see how I am like picasso, masterfully stroking my way to the impression of a space station above a cloudy planet....

Let me draw you a picture. Heres a fat sow. Do I have to make a poster for you?

Painter said...

I forgot to say this is a group show.

Sven said...

somebody jumped the shark. jesus h christ

arebours said...

Has a "precocious"young student feel-

youth--less said...

Painter, my painter, you are a fantastic wit. What would we do without you!

Now they scream for the blur and scurry to the shade of aesthetic distance.

It's not just a fat sow, it's a butchered pregnant fat sow--made of endless tiny knife cuts that add up to one uglyy reality. Ouch.

Unknown said...

"feel the paint"...what does that mean?

webthing said...

it is more grotesque than ugly, the macabre beauty of such things (ie. redolent of the same gaze that withholds beauty) is as much a device as beauty itself whether feigned or inherent. nice to see these two works side by side though. i once met a surgeon overseas who told me a cesarean operation that involved some kind of hot stitching burnt flesh a little which smelt like pork....ewww. are there more reasons to the religious non eating of pork than we know? sorry thats just what this image says to me. (obey the pig)

zipthwung said...

step into my office

and I'll tell you what you need to say.

Unknown said...

"Although sharing a similar affinity for the monumental, Jenny Saville's paintings of grotesques exploit the organic qualities of paint that compose her semi-abstract corporeal figures, in this instance a slaughtered pig. Marked by broad, messy brushstrokes, Suspension is firmly rooted in the physical world of blood and decay." This is from the gallery's website.

I don't know...I feel as though this road has been taken too many times before and honestly done much better (i.e. Skinned Rabbit, 1972 by Antonio Lopez Garcia). I don't "feel the paint", btw still trying to figure out what that means...

At least Lucien Freud adds color to acheive the tones of flesh. I just feel it is a shock value piece and its scale adds to that shock.

...I don't "feel" anything when I look at this.

Unknown said...

Zip that, to me, is more grotesque then this painting can ever hope to be...

zipthwung said...

Feeling the paint means exactly what it says. There's also tasting the paint (Van gogh) hearing the paint (kandinski) and seeing the paint (albers). Not sure who's doing ESP on paint. Smelling the paint is not recomended as the solvents will give you mood swings.

Who wants to be a ziggy piggy?

"Pigs are omnivores, which means that they consume both plants and small animals. Pigs will scavenge and have been known to eat any kind of food, including dead insects, worms, tree bark, rotting carcasses, excreta (including their own), garbage, and other pigs. In the wild, they are foraging animals, primarily eating leaves and grasses, roots, fruits and flowers. Occasionally, in captivity, pigs may eat their own young, often if they become severely stressed."

youth--less said...

Comments so far--Thats a lot of content for something thats supposed to be so glib.

Anatomy of fear?

When I was a kid my orthodontist had this mexican poster of a bullfighter on the wall of his torture room/office. Same splattery knife/paint style as this and the space ship style refered to. Dr. didnt look like a pig tho. He was japanese.

Dumbpainter said...

in skateboarding- doing something switch or fakie usually meant that it didn't look as good, but that it was much tougher to pull off.

Is Saville just doing fakies here?

Nomi Lubin said...

zipthwung said...

i think this stuff is glib. Glibly painted and also, glibly stated.

I agree.

James said...

more like Jenny Sucksville

Unknown said...

what is the year of the painting?--looks similar to one in her last solo show @ Gagosian (3 years ago). the other one was a head and super "guston-ey"

James said...

I would like to see her paint some flowers, or Kate Moss, just to prove that the subject matter is more than abject autopsies.

no-where-man said...

JENNY SAVILLE Suspension, 2002-2003

this show includes work by: Tom Friedman, Douglas Gordon, Damien Hirst, Mike Kelley, Jenny Saville, Alec Soth, and Franz West

reads to me as primary/secondary - -life/death thing.

zipthwung said...

wonder what shes doing RIGHT NOW. I hope she tests her work on animals before subjecting us to the vivisecting scalpel of her brutal gaze.

Unknown said...

Right Now
There's no tomorrow
Right Now
Means everything...

...until you're 37 years old and tomorrow actually does show up and you blew your proverbial load.

youth--less said...

how'd you know how old zip is?

arebours said...

she has a grand and decaying palazzo in palermo-apparently spends ALL her time painting

Keith said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Keith said...

I've never really made my mind up about Jenny Saville - on the one hand I've always been seduced by her painterliness - they are succulent and emotive, but I've always found her subject matter - or at least her interpretation of that subject to be somewhat contrived and obvious. This series is no exception. They are delicious paintings - they caught my eye immediately and suckered me in just like every other one of her works - but then I'm left feeling used, and duped, how could I have been so foolish to have spent such emotional energy on something so shallow? I feel so dirty at allowing myself to be beguiled by what are in essence beautiful 'pictures' and nothing more.

A.Painter said...

I'm sure Scaaatchii thinks he found the perfect female Freud/Bacon combo

Ryan Hancock said...

Saville seems related to Sargent to me, in that both have enough talent to paint with facility, felicity, or glibness, but the overall effect is thin because neither seems to have any struggle with why to ever do one thing rather than one other thing.. Compare those two slick (or glib, or whatever) paint handlers with someone like Morandi, who also at times moved paint around quickly, but in my opinion is more directly overwhelming in 9x12 inches than these massive paintings. Also I'll say that is just my opinion based on looking at the paintings... I don't know any bio about Saville or Sargent.

A.Painter said...

Morandis paintings are all in the gaps...and wasn't John Singer Sargent Jack the Ripper

milf-magic said...

keith mayerson? you have nifty paintings man. better than pig-killer's...

Unknown said...

Keith, I think (and this only my humble opinion) she felt, or feels that she must be "edgy". I agree with you that they are shallow; I think that is because she forces the "edgy-ness" and is not being true on the canvas.

I had a professor that always said that you can not hide the truth in your work.

I think that applies here.

getreal said...

Right on Ryan

Annie said...

Ursula's Dad:

I thought switch meant opposite direction and fakie meant backwards and opposite direction

I like the idea of painting switch and fakie quite a bit and am still trying to figure out how that could be done but I don't think she's doing it

this seems like an ollie you try to convince your friends was an impossible.

CAP said...

At 115 X 178” Suspension is way overstated and although I haven’t actually seen it, I’m betting that what looks standard broad modelling (in my day we called this ‘blocking out’) will not just look thin or glib but kind of desperate and embarrassing. And I don’t think that is what the painting is expressing – it’s what the painting is failing to express.
This is an artist that has pretty much run out of things to say and is hightailing it back into ‘tradition’ (in both style and subject) without quite knowing how to get there.
It’s not pretty and trying to hide behind a sow’s carcass just isn’t doing it.
I suppose the kindest thing I can say is that this is what happens when you pluck someone out of art school, rocket them to stardom, and then stand back and say, what are you going to do next?
She’s not the first ‘prodigy’ to struggle to age gracefully, or for the work to decline abruptly and leave backers scratching around for kind things to say. It’s going to be fun watching the critics tiptoe around this.

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

She expresses loathing so well. I'd compare her to Yuskavage.

zipthwung said...

indeedy. Yusakvage. Well that would make it a bit ironic right? I mean shes not really an art student....actually I'll give her credit for being able to change if she wants to but I dont think thats necessary, unless she wants me to like her more. But I blew my wad into the void like a bad cork.

Actually Im really excited by web 2.0, what with content being separated from code - its going to be so dynamic - sort of like a terrarium. Bring on Skynet!!!

zipthwung said...

oh and didnt people criticize Bacon as being too rock and roll and obvious? But look at HIS prices. He really was tortured though. I wear a hairshirt, but only when I'm playing video games.

CAP said...

The only thing Saville loathes is that she can't eat this painting - all by herself of course!
Yeah all that paint spread on like cream cheese, chocolate and mayo - mouth-watering when you're in an oral mood.
She might want to talk to Will Cotton about technique on a grand scale.

CAP said...

Actually this is the second PNYC post on Saville.
The wall of nudes was better, though I think not much older.
Is Painter a big fan or just trying to nudge us on body issues after we failed to raise them over Skateniks Say No to Geo?

Anonymous said...

you know it does look like a Guston from here, except for the lines, and here the marks aren't hooking in to each other when they depart the body, the body paint marks kind of splashing over a bit, this way there is no where else to turn but to Bacon. Like it or not Saville does speak many languages, I wonder how she'd go at just a landscape or something like that. For figures, she's one of the best.

youth--less said...

im always in an oral mood...

CAP said...

I don't see Bacon here at all, even as an option.
Maybe Euan Uglow supersized - all that stodgy modelling and drawing, fatally inflated.
The landscape or still life idea I think would be a bit of a stretch - but she could start by providing the figures with a bit more of a setting, maybe pushing them a bit further back into the picture.

no-where-man said...

summer shows in a show where so many galleries close, oft to rely on a group dynamic.

Anonymous said...

Bacon had problems early on filling in the backgrounds. Saville's idea of 'as much body as the borders will take' is interesting for maybe similar reasons, I don't know. Saville is pushing us out of the picture whereas Bacon would draw you in to the horrors. Anyway better than comparing LY all the time, what? 'Going about the houses', I learnt that phrase a while ago, hope it's right!

Nomi Lubin said...

Ryan said...

Saville seems related to Sargent to me, in that both have enough talent to paint with facility, felicity, or glibness, but the overall effect is thin because neither seems to have any struggle with why to ever do one thing rather than one other thing.. Compare those two slick (or glib, or whatever) paint handlers with someone like Morandi, who also at times moved paint around quickly, but in my opinion is more directly overwhelming in 9x12 inches than these massive paintings.

Holy Cow, Ryan. I swear you stole this right out of my brain. Not the Morandi part, (which I completely agree with), but the Sargent comparison. I was just about to write that when I saw your comment.

Nomi Lubin said...

Old Guy -- Uglow, stodgy modelling and drawing? Naw, say it ain't so.

I love Uglow.

CAP said...

Let there be love Nomi

waste said...

It seems like people don't know how to look at figurative paintings anymore.

Unknown said...

What do you mean by that Waste?

Anonymous said...

I read plenty of people are pulling from their satchel. I prefer that because it's honest and reasonably easy to pick which bag of collections they are coming from. I enjoy personal takes. But waste, please go ahead, read, no pressure, your take on why these posts don't come up to a standard. You have the platform.

webthing said...

Sorry, but the Bacon / Pig thing is making me laugh, could Saville be, er, that funny? Not sure if i can entirely see Bacon though (tee hee). On Uglow, I used to see a life model of his, when he passed away she still had the small x's on her body from his reference, so she got them tattooed.

zipthwung said...

when worlds collide

zipthwung said...

you knowe it is nice to see an artist who can draw - Does dana schutz ever do anything other than cartoons? Not that she shouldn't but that's what gets me.

zipthwung said...

oh and houdini - let you in on a little secret - art IS easy. Don't let them tell you different - and art can be cheap, too. Just look in the dumpsters of oblivion and the trash piles of destiny.

Ryan Hancock said...

I wonder how much her paintings depend on exterior context for a lasting effect.. after the wow that's big and well made effect dwindles. I don't think she is only trying to paint the figure as structural form, but instead is combining this with the post DeKooning way of painting the human condition as represented by the (dis)figure and the real brush at the end of a real human arm. In her work though, there is no spatial interaction.. the body is on a ledge of some sort, shoved right up in your face.. it's space is your space, which is currently (in history) filled with bodies being added to and subtracted from.. "mutilated" from the inside in a desire to be "other", or from the outside (genital mutilation) by someone else's desire for you to be other. How much do her paintings rely on this environment, and does that matter in 100 yrs? Also I don't see her relating to Bacon, because his paintings are non-illustrative and artificial, to borrow his terms. They create their own environment, and it doesn't include me, that I can tell anyway.

seymourpansick said...

sir ryan

you have a dangerous eye that discerns nuances that quietly sweep by the posters on this board.

Nomi Lubin said...

On Uglow, I used to see a life model of his, when he passed away she still had the small x's on her body from his reference, so she got them tattooed.

Wow.

zipthwung said...

i have nuance tatooed around my sphincter.

Tatiana said...

I got to this discussion too late, but suffice to say I didn't like how it went.
Oh well. Too bad for all the rest of it, the supposed glib-ness etcetera, but I surely dig Jenny Saville. This is one of her more obvious paintings, true, but it's obvious on a superficial level (blah blah).
Yeah, yeah, Bacon, Freud, those are references, but hell, what about DeKooning? Get up close and then see whose brush mark she's quoting.
Plus those boys never painted something this big, grandiose.

But I agree I'd like to see her get some new subject matter under her belt. Geeze. But in person her painting never fail to excite the hell out of me. Yes, there's something to be said for their prescence?

amy boras said...

apple sugar rhinestones.

Steppen Wolf said...

I was at the Gagosian this afternoon (they sure have some assistants there who think it is disdainful to make eye contact with you at the front)... to see Jenny Saville's painting. The largeness of the painting captures you, you notice so many things that are not very well depicted in the awfully small jpeg’s that we see on the web. The handling of paint and the shades of red used to depict shadows is super. The work itself does not seem to infuse the desired emotional effect on you, but the size compensates for the same. Huge wide swaths of cadmium red, with some under-painting using flesh tones make up the most part of the painting. Even if the desired emotional aspect was lacking, something about the painting sticks with you even after you walk out the gallery… It was not the lack of the head or the fact that the pig had more nipples on one side than the other.
Maybe it was that the pig was slashed and then left on a table while Jenny saw the whole thing squished spatially in perspective.
A dead pig would not be so red though…

Tatiana said...

Thanks, Sunil. Saville makes me wax poetic about the beautiful beautiful paint.
I made a trip to the Brooklyn museum JUST to see the two Savilles they had in their "global feminism" show there. That says something, right? I would travel even larger distances to see these in person.
I just can't too cynical about these. They are so damn impressive / impactful.

Mark Barry said...

Indeed a fine painter, very bold. I have to admit I get nauseous when I view them.

seymourpansick said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
seymourpansick said...

What we are seeing here is a poor representation of her work. Check out the one below. There is no question she's a monster talent. She needs to expand her niche, however, as others have pointed out, but that will happen with time.
People who wish to typecast her as either a Bacon or Freud have not stood four inches from her cavases. She paints like Saville.

http://traumwerk.stanford.edu:3455/ChristineFinn/21

zipthwung said...

i got up close and personal with this painting but i'm not impressed with the scale - in fact thats probably the least impressive thing to me - as they say, if you can't go good go big. Red.

Chewing gum is what makes me all hot an bothered - and whatever varnish on these things - kills it deader than glass on the mona lisa.

Painting with a palette knife is fine - but really either pare it down to the minimal, or give me more, I like to see sweat.

Meat is fine as subject matter - but in the end its DOA. What am I supposed to do after the first five seconds?

zipthwung said...

that outstretched hoof looks better in repro.

Unknown said...

Jenny rocks the house!
Don't let your jealousies rule you..

zipthwung said...

Gerge W. Bush rocks the house! Dont let your jealousies rule you!!!!!

Unknown said...

Would be nice if tere were a way to block out certain posters comments

mutton said...

Also late to the conversation, but Old Guy,
" a painter who's run out of things to say" talk about fear mongering. Every artist suffers the idea that one day they may run out of things to say. It's bullshit. Clever art and art that's married to you "getting it" (or not getting it as the case may be) is insecure and can be one dimensional. With Saville we witness a coming of age that includes pubescent ugliness and moments of truth. There's generosity in this pageant.

CAP said...

http://www.currentartpics.com/jenny-saville/