2/15/2008

Juan Usle


194 comments:

Painter said...

Juan Usle @
Cheim and Read
547 West 25th Street
New York, NY 10001

zipthwung said...

I feel like if painting asks questions, then these fail the rhetorical test.

If we are to applaud the phenomenological humanity, like say, a Hodgkin, a Mary Heilman, or a stroke quoter like Marden Reed or Row, well then we have to discriminate. Because Cheim and Reed is a big gallery that sells work for a lot of money.

What are you buying into here? The artists masterfull use of scraping tool to push the paint around? Liquidity abroad in a financial instrument? How much does this institutional kitsch go for?

I see many artists, who, making something so simple, so open to ridicule, make the critic appear apopleptic in uttering the slightest doubt. And yet, like Charlie brown, I kick and fall.

I don't have kids, but if I did, they could do this. I'd show them how and then we could make cookies.

The nihilism inherent in these gestures lies in their refusal to make good, to consumate, to be anything other than a mirror - the obsidian mirror of the sacrificial knife oozing gore upon the white fatted canvas. Yet where is the fat?

Iconic abstraction is if not an abomination, an anachronism. Let their eyelids be glued shut with seed and honey, and let the birds peck them open again to see forever the true cruelty inherent in such selfish empty and inane activity.

Thats my take anyways. I'm open for another point of view.

CAP said...

The technique does seem a bit of a gimmick.

CAP said...

Then again the technique made me think about splinters.

And that's a good thing, isn't it?

zipthwung said...

1,000 gallons of hydrazine vaporized. SOunds like a conceptual art joke right?

Satellites gone
Up to the skies
Thing like that drive me
Out of my mind

I watched it for a little while
I love to watch things on tv

Satellite of love
Satellite of love
Satellite of love
Satellite of

Satellite of love
Satellite of love
Satellite of love
Satellite of love
Satellite of love
Satellite of love

zipthwung said...

120 gallons actually. Oh but blow it up!

youth--less said...

I poisoned myself with beer and chocolate last night.

But re; this painting, me thinks you are refusing the love that's given. So who's selfish?

Wendy White is a dirty girl. love her. This Juan is a bit too refined. But selfish? Come on. Who isnt? Is it right or wrong to be selfish? You'll never know...

Gesture is the gift that keeps giving

zipthwung said...

hey its abstract I can read into it, and I'm trained by years of study and visual accumen. I am nothing if not refined. Still, the refined lack of refinenment rubs me the wrong way at this juncture. I;m not on board.

In the same way that collage is being puped as the new deal, I don't get it. People never heard of Hanna Hoch?

Show me something new or don;t but don;t tell me Creamy peanut butter never existed before like now. No. Give me a reason for your visual metaphor. Give em a direction or tell me I'm going nowhere. I think this is maladaptive, and I fully expect the seagulls to feast on it's bloated corpse.

Love will tear you apart. But not me.

youth--less said...

In the past 50 years of monitoring space, 17,000 manmade objects have re-entered the Earth's atmosphere.

Did someone say this painting was new? I didnt read the press release. C+R doesnt trade on the new much do they?

Creamy peanut butter is different now, in many ways, or is it my tongue?

None said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

They look great in installation view.

Idon'tbathe said...

when you walked through the parking lot of dispare into the halls of the absurd buy your self a twelve pack of cheap beer and drink it up and don;t forget about your uncle
let them eat the peanuts out of there own cacka

l

CAP said...

Those installation views!

What is it with galleries and their installation views?

Are they some sort of orientation test (put these together correctly and know the whole room(s)?

OK they tell us the paintings are small - DUH - so do dimensions given along with title and date.

Are we meant to admire the polished floors and clean walls? Sounds desperate to me. When you've no confidence in the works - look elsewhere and whistle.

CAP said...

Well OK they appeal to the curator in our souls - Note the deft placement and daring lighting scheme!

And... and... they're all at eye-level this season!

C&R can be so edgy.

CAP said...

Juan Uslé
CADA VEZ MAS CERCA, 2006-07
Vinyl, dispersion and dry pigment on canvas
24 x 18 inches
61 x 45.7 centimeters
CR# US.14109

youth--less said...

ah i was drinkin expensive belgian beer, and tampin the dirt down on my uncle's grave--a rite bastard

zipthwung said...

my pops found out hes not immortal.

Hey but the palette on some of the other paintings is nice. Funny how color choice or tonality or saturation or white balance can change the way you see things - rose colored or clear glass, I'll usually go with ambervision, or blue blockers, I like the yellow - they say your eyes go a bit yellow with age - so the massive hemorage you see in the morning is not the red you see at night. Smooth sailing though I guess.

Teddy sniffing glue he was 12 years old
Fell from the roof on east two-nine
Cathy was 11 when she pulled the plug
On 26 reds and a bottle of wine
Bobby got leukemia, 14 years old
He looked like 65 when he died
He was a friend of mine

Refrain:
Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died

G-berg and georgie let their gimmicks go rotten
So they died of hepatitis in upper manhattan
Sly in vietnam took a bullet in the head
Bobby od’d on drano on the night that he was wed
They were two more friends of mine
Two more friends that died / I miss ’em--they died

Repeat refrain

Mary took a dry dive from a hotel room
Bobby hung himself from a cell in the tombs
Judy jumped in front of a subway train
Eddie got slit in the jugular vein
And eddie, I miss you more than all the others,
And I salute you brother/ this song is for you my brother

Repeat refrain

Herbie pushed tony from the boys’ club roof
Tony thought that his rage was just some goof
But herbie sure gave tony some bitchen proof
"hey," herbie said, "tony, can you fly? "
But tony couldn’t fly . . . tony died

Repeat refrain:

Brian got busted on a narco rap
He beat the rap by rattin’ on some bikers
He said, hey, I know it’s dangerous,
But it sure beats riker’s
But the next day he got offed
By the very same bikers

Repeat refrain; repeat song to eddie

Anonymous said...

Cap, I think it has something to do with how something sits in space, in actual space, that a jpeg of the work without the surrounding stuff and us in that, plays havoc with the merit and demerit -- is, at the best of times, hard to get [ Not saying that a whole bunch of work functions this way or even considers this]. The actual participatory aspect is something altogether different. We are there. We hardly need a horse whip to convince us of this. Anyone got a horsewhip?
While I'm always a player in the obese/petite distinction-- which is better the loose-founded or the tightly structured, it's probably a good idea to physically see, or physically respond to, the physically. Can't be there? There are other ways to gauge this.
You have to gauge whether the parts and the color and the mark making is communicating on some arbitrarily design level or as motif, or as high ingenuity, or is manufactured pronto-spatio, or even stuck in the groove -- or, in this case, provides something else--is responsive, evident though not self-referential, is articulate, is vocal in a wider resonate range.
I get there is something going on that is larger than the control.
And I suggest this is not about some idea of systematized 'partiality' of grouping like nodes in the expanded field. This work experiences us in one of the more traditional fields, which we have almost through bad luck or happenstance, forgot, or neglected.

Idon'tbathe said...

fuckin if your g0nna do refined ; jason martin why not make a custom brush thing or whatever too that way you can get the thing done in one fell swoop/ stroke thing and stuff

Cool-ass Al, he got a badge from the neighborhood yo

Fly police car, the ninety-two mod-el.. now check it out

Now Al used to rob, used to smoke, used to steal

and he rolled a mean game of dice

A factor boostin he was nice as he proved on the daily tip

at Macy's, he and this kid up in Lacy's

Throw his head to blow when he turned into a Fed

I seen him, one day, I tried to get inside his head

There's two fit ill, glock cops, with passion

Black shoes fit, like they was made, from ashes

Another brother, a sister or somebody's pops

And when I see Al, he never stops

unless it's to make an arrest

He can't kick it, unless he writes a ticket

He got a nasty way, attitude everyday

It makes me kinda mad cause I really can't hit him

But brothers scheamin to get him

(Shoot 'im inna de busta bumba claat)

At any level the worst devil is a black one

And if you see one you gots to attack 'um

One day, I had the cell lit, up on Lewis Park

Cool Al appears, backs up, fresh Clarks

It's a hot day black, and the sun's beamin down

but I gotta get on the ground?

You're, sworn to whitey, do you think that you're mighty?

You take the honor of bein the black Bull Carter

It's a shame cause use done out your righteous name

for a little rank and more fame

You're whole style is chump, you forgot to use the pump

so instead of warnin brothers, better hide and take the picture

You know the brothers wanna hit ya

("Gimme a gat I'm bout to smoke this motherfucker!")

So carry your gun, especially off duty

Don't forget that there's a price on the booty

Hidin upstate won't make you safe

By the way, are you of Christian faith?

Then prepare to meet your Mystery, become a place in history

Force come shot down with some brothers from Uptown

And if we're not totally through

Then you'll be left black and blue

Michael Cross said...

"...This work experiences us..."

Concrete might have hit on something about galleries in the 21st century. That is, we are there for the art; not to see the art, but for the art to have the experience of our being there in its hallowed presence. "You must be this worthy to enter."

Anonymous said...

cross, I was meaning more this way...
I just googled a few keys words i had in mind and this popped up, probably a student, 1st year BIology, would of completed by now.

I've read that very few atoms either escape or enter Earth's atmosphere, and when they do, they're usually hydrogen atoms. This means that in the history of the Earth, everything that has existed has been made out of the same atoms. It's amazing to think that the atoms in my body could once have been parts of rock, air, or dinosaurs. It's incredible that we're made up of the same components as everything else on Earth. In another way, though, it does seem to explain why we have the same atoms and molecules as rocks, air, and dinosaurs...

Sven said...

Erik Parker decamped to Boesky? and now w white is at Koenig? kelli whats the scoop if there is any?

zipthwung said...

stoner switch?

zipthwung said...

anyone remember some dude that painted by throwing paint in front of a jet engine?

Maybe it was this dude.

4:49 is the key moment.

Dumbpainter said...

With the world heading into an abyss of water, war and ...

I'll take a free dose of aesthetics. Let's save the criticism for real things. Painting is for your eyes. Long live eyes.

Anonymous said...

Long live eyes.
Eyes are good. However we have also gone through stages that suggest that our eyes were not enough. And when we returned to the eye was it all that we should return to?
When I take pleasure in some thing, or image I know I'm not receiving this pleasure solely from the eyes. I figure we have a whole body, and that that wholeness is only part of another wholeness, or somethingness, just to pull it away from some diatribe.
My bet, is, in blessing the eyes as the sacred site of bi-ocular organization as sole register into the aesthetics, we are, in actual fact, closing off, rendering us useless in the sky without a parachute.
Keeping all things open...
probably Usle would have more to say and comment on this.

surfkook said...

It's abstract painting. What do you want? How is it different from Bill Jensen or Tom Nozkowski. In the end it's going after the same thing.

We'll see if Boesky picks up Parker....the drawings look cool though.

zipthwung said...

Parker smokes too much weed, man, or makes you think he smokes too much weed, man, and this dude smokes something, though it looks more coked up than stoned - my guess is cigarettes and coffee or maybe herbal tea and decongestants. I dunno, maybe some white wine right? Like a good chardonnay. Not opposed to that but a bit limiting. Like you can;t go sweeter but maybe you could go with sake by way of Peru.

Nozkowsi is a blend - you can get some nice wines, still looks dated like looking at gardiner's art through the ages and wondering if suck up artists like Carol Bove and Daniel Day jackson will ever get over her macrame roots. I honestly don;t like bric a brac art, but its ok if you do. And its all bric a brac if you think about it.

Jensen requires a leap of faith and a bottle of Mad Dog 20/20 kiwi lime to really go. I can dig it though - some people still cover Jimi Hendrix and pine for the good old days.

Make you want to collect liquids.

zipthwung said...

I mean really acid, shrooms and pot, but don;t do it because A) its expensive and B) the drugs arent intrinsic they are extrinsic, and c) you have to "activate" the surface which is hard work and hard work is what it's all about.

zipthwung said...

In 1969, while the doves were flying in her studio, Bradshaw cast a broken egg-shell in bronze. This was the predecessor of a number of later eggshell works (The Nothing, series)-castings in bronze, silver and gold. Always the eggs are broken; the birds have flown the coop. The shards of shells mark the itinerary of their births and point to their ephemerality. Emptiness lies inside the broken shells like a question mark.

surfkook said...

Sure Usle is light, Jensen surface work, and Nozkowski archaeology, but that type of retrograde abstraction all skirts the same issue. I'm not down on it, just stating as I see it.

zipthwung said...

I can;t consider this work without considering the audience - partially because its out of my reach financially so i've never experienced it in private. I can say that about a lot of work. How different would it look on my own wall, maybe with a few nautical maps and a sun drenched ocean view of the Pacific? I would hate myself, and at the same time, feel carefree like a gauzy curtain blowing in a warm fragrant breeze.

Not my life, nor my aspiration. How can it be? I like shots of single malt scotch, hoppy pilsners and tart margueritas. Pinot noir's with rounded tannins and plummy depths. Chocolate coated cabs with poisonous footnotes, shots of espresso leavened with citrus, white wines with legs that run down the glass like rain off the windshield wipers inside a dusty black Cadillac.

Save the wine coolers for the co eds.

What was the issue?

youth--less said...

its going after the same thing
it's skirting the same issue

can u elaborate i am interested

CAP said...

'Skirting' is definitely one the things Uslé’s painting do.

I can almost hear the couturiers and textile designers purring

“Juan DAHHLING, what for you waiting?”

And that's a good thing too, isn't it?

Anonymous said...

I couldn't get this skirting so looked it up, but still don't get it because this artist is Spanish, right?
Cap, thanks for the heads up anyways!

Jack told he was skirting with disaster

THE kilt designer who created Jack McConnell’s infamous pinstripe "skirt" today revealed that he had warned the First Minister against wearing the outfit which led to him being widely ridiculed.
Edinburgh-based Howie Nicholsby said he advised Mr McConnell against wearing a white Jacobite shirt with the modern kilt when he appeared at Tartan Day celebrations in New York last year.

As far as zip's post goes, he's so romantic And i for one would love to be a dribble on zip's windscreen.

zipthwung said...

thats what I like about you

CAP said...

The textile thing is definitely there, Marines. The way that scraper tool or whatever distributes the color looks like tucks or crimping. The row of thumbnails on the website made me think of medal ribbons as well, in other places crepe paper. And it’s not just light or lite, summery or summary, but thin, loose, laid out and just hanging.

I say that’s partly what they’re about. It’s about putting it on, sparingly, those fresh clean colors, stringently, simple stripes in sequence, everything looking brighter for it – even the big gray one. It’s what you do to cheer yourself up, or others, when you need to, it’s dressing at its biggest, cheapest, briefest, flattest, but making it last where you can, spreading it out, pushing it for… a festive look. Yeah. Switching things around, stitching things together, seeing where that gets you.

It’s kind of frivolous but sometimes a trouble forgotten is a trouble forgotten and for a while at a glance by the end against the light in the back of your mind you’ve drawn up strokes not quite measured and a little wandered but the tool has consistency even when the hand does not and the hand’s adventure is what makes the tool so telling.

So is there any great value in each color spread to width of tool, persisted with at wavering length? In drawing the line out between the mechanical and manual? Are we scraping the bottom of the barrel or stretching a point? Color is sometimes clothing enough to conceal the bad mood or bored mood, the painter of a different stripe at home to all who live by-lines. The thinnest coat is enough to show your newest colors, hide your deepest fears.

Is it a little thing or a big thing when you feel different because you look different, although all you’ve done is shuffle the glad rags and the sad tags, put this against that now, with the sureness and surprise of a new instrument?

None said...
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Carl James Ferrero said...

This is the worst artblog on earth.

Michael Cross said...

..and we are proud to be posting here...

surfkook said...

Since the invention of abstraction, and this is debatable, but take Whistler, Pinkham Ryder into Kandinsky, Dove, Ab-Ex, seems to me about attemptimg something beyond language, ie. transcendence, or skirting the idea of void. A lot of abstraction comes from nature, landscape, (Whistler, PR, Kandinsky, Dove, Pollock) The idea of beauty is integral to ideas of transcendence, whether it is decorative beauty (Usle) or ugly beauty (Twombly). To me Usle relates to music and decorative beauty. I think decorative beauty is a newer manifestation because late capitalism has made Western lives so comfortable, in comparison to say tragic beauty of Rothko's time.

Abstraction in general skirts issues relating to the real world as lived everyday, that's why Guston went back to figuration. I'm simplifying, but that is the gist of it.

CJF you posted to this blog so who's the fool?

None said...
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zipthwung said...

Further it should be noted that Joe was freezing to death on the end of the rope, and would not have lasted much longer. Cutting the rope not only freed Simon to seek shelter from the storm, but dropped Joe down to a sheltered spot where he too could survive the weather. Had the two fallen while roped together, it is possible that Joe would still have survived, but it is very unlikey that Simon would have. As it was, Simon climbed down to base camp and met up with their traveling companion, Richard. Simon and Richard lingered for a few days in base camp while Simon regained strength and his own injuries healed. When Joe crawled into camp in the middle of the night, they were in fact intending to leave in the morning. Had Simon not returned to base camp ahead of Joe, Richard probably would have left well before Joe managed to crawl out of the crevasse and down to camp. Without anyone to help him out of the mountains, Joe would have died there. Thus, by cutting the rope Simon actually saved Joe's life.

zipthwung said...

While Squeegee men are a feature of life in many cities around the world, the phenomenon first became prevalent in New York City in the 1980s. The usual procedure would involve groups of squeegee men surrounding cars stopped in traffic. Although some were merely providing a service, in other cases the windshield-washing would be carried out without asking, often perfunctory in nature, and followed by demands for payment. Upon his election, mayor Rudy Giuliani famously embarked on a crusade against squeegee men as part of his quality-of-life campaign, claiming that their near-ubiquitous presence created an environment of disorder that encouraged more serious crime to flourish. Squeegee men disappeared from city streets during Giuliani's mayoralty and have yet to reappear in significant numbers. However, there is some dispute over whether Giuliani was responsible for this.[1]

CAP said...

Squeegees scrape the surface, however, loaded, even with a rubber blade.

At least when I use them.

Incidentally, I see there’s a work titled Closing Time in the show as well.

Yes.

Salute an artist unafraid to take on even the darkest of themes!

Carla, another round.

None said...
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surfkook said...

Skirts the everyday. To me the idea of something "spiritual" or "transcendent" surrounds the void and this is what I would argue most non-representational painters are trying to get at, despite rhetorical statements to the contrary.

Michael Cross said...

The resemblance of this work to an overhead view of Cristo's "skirted" islands makes me continue to misread Usle's name as "Isle".

Abstraction is not 'about' the real world, rather it is a part of it by its materiality. When depictions and perceptions of the natural world intrude into painting, the painting process drifts further from the real and becomes more conceptual than abstraction. Guston's figurative work was an improvement for him, not because he abandoned abstraction, but because he abandoned idea-based abstraction (pseudo-ab) in favor of figurative work that deals openly and honestly with his ideas and concepts of the world around him.

None said...
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youth--less said...

Abstraction I think tries to connect the inner and outer life with visual language.

Transcendence, I dont think of it as skirting the void, but as a moment when the part sees itself as the whole, a moment of unity. Usually very short but quite illuminating.

Guston went back to figuration, I think, becasue he wanted to make more direct political points. & he did, with the free hand that he had learned from painting abstractly for so long. So he put together politics and freedom-so reichian...

youth--less said...
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surfkook said...
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surfkook said...
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surfkook said...
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surfkook said...
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surfkook said...
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surfkook said...

My previous takes on Usle have been definitely decorative sensuousness and also an awkward "ugly" gestural thing. Some paintings are very layered and become a bit muddy or gross, at least in the past, and this saves them from total decoration, but I'm not sure if it still equals a type of abstraction that I find compelling enough.

CAP said...

QQ – The technical stuff is always worth taking some trouble with, if you’re a painter.

Although I haven’t seen this work for real I’d be surprised if a brush were all that was at work here because of the closeness of the fluctuations in the paint and the evenness to the edge or width of the ‘stroke’. To get these differences in distribution by a brush would require pressing it harder against the surface intermittently, but in my experience the bristles then fan out, making the width of stroke fluctuate as well. Also, this kind of fluctuation can’t be achieved as closely as the example, without reducing the bristles to a pretty radical stubble, rendering it much less effective then for introducing paint to the surface.

But I could be wrong, maybe there’s a way of using really long bristles to lay the paint on, and then building up the ferrule somehow to give you the means of interrupting it rapidly, but to do that you’d have to be pushing the brush stroke rather than pulling it, and that again would tend to disperse the bristles and make an even width of stroke difficult, to say the least.

Whether the artist brushed on the paint first and then redistributed it with some kind of scraper or pusher – rubber, wood or just thick card – all would maintain the marked evenness to the width of the stripes and the slight rim or build-up of paint there – noticeable here in the blue passages.

In other works like Sin desenlace (2007) it seems to me clear that the artist not only scraped paint right off the surface, (supporting a scraper of some kind) revealing the white undercoat, but that the surface was in all likelihood sealed first, to prevent absorption of the top coat to some extent, and facilitate the pushing or scraping around. Could be white shellac, could be PVA, at this stage we’ll wait for forensic. But it’s this resistance in the surface that allows the paint to just sit there, as much as any special consistency in pigment and solution.

Of course, when you do that, there’ll be questions of bonding and stability to the top coat, and I know some of the boys back in the lab will be shaking their heads – but for Ustlé the big pay-off looks like the ability to then drag bits right off, even when ‘set’ or apparently dried.

Be interesting to know whether Sin desenlace is a recent or early work in the current series, as it’s the one with the most complex series of layers and what looks like various tools at work.

Anonymous said...

Surf-Kook,

Often 'being' accused of as one who is totally off the prepositional track, I find it hard to grasp this 'surrounding the void'.
Are you talking circumnavigating it, as columbus did, or is it meant to simply imply that the throwing out of a lasso, and pulling it in, even wit the few clever twists, and some unexpected tangles, all you are ever going to get is this pink poodle that was the original shape of a balloon?

In the movie, The Hunt For The Pink Poodle Balloon, Patrick Sloan, who plays Jay, an unsettled youth showing signs of wear and tear, goes out past his boundary of a block to discover a completely different world than the one he had been living in. There are many twists and turns as the movie progresses. But to cut a long story short, Sloan discovers that there is no void, nor is a stick of gum flat [actually he discovers the gum thing early on in the movie]. By the end of the movie, Jay not only succeeds in bridging the gaps between the different blocks each with their own classes, rituals, government with their impractical polices, he brings them together. They remain self-governing, though, well i wont give the best part away. Let's just say 'they connect' and from this time on 'are connected'.
When viewed from a distance THESE NEW PULSATING BLOCKS form this great giant twisted poodle, SQUEEKING AS IT REINVENTS.

The final scene has Jay and his friend, Sparrow, up on some far off hill looking out watching the changing color and configuration of the seasons, which later would be known as 'the original state'. That's right, the original 'Giant Pink Poodle Balloon'.

Pretty cool!

CAP said...

I don’t know why I spelt Uslé with a t in the above.

Maybe it was time for tea.

surfkook said...

When I say "surrounding the void" I mean a generalized philosophy or spirituality concerned with existential "being". Most individual belief systems are hodgepodged together and don't really prescribe to a specific tradition, hence a less defined or more generalized philosophy with certain bents.

arebours said...

my ferret is in my slipper-my dreams have died-whatever-cannot get a job as cake decorator-read richard yates-he knew everyone,botormoat-greenteeth

Mark Barry said...

Somewhat paint swatch/color test. I liked a few of them. The large black pieces were the strongest.

youth--less said...

Most individual belief systems are hodgepodged together and don't really prescribe to a specific tradition, hence a less defined or more generalized philosophy with certain bents.

Unknown said...

zipthwung said: "I don't have kids, but if I did, they could do this. I'd show them how and then we could make cookies."

i could teach my kids how to make this. But that wouldn't mean that my kids were as good as Mondrian, would it?

Let's stop trying to pretend that we know what we're talking about, and start thinking rationally for once.

CAP said...

Sheesh.

zipthwung said...

good point jen but Im pretty bored with the synecdoche qua the synecdoche, or order for the sake of order too a parent the kid wins for pure energy cant touch it it goes on the refrigerator which is where everyone will see it and it will be framed by the only patch of white in the house or avocado or surgical steel depends on the refrigerator think about the midnight snack experience and how an objet d'art can really activate the refrigerator space like a paper cut to an eyelid what are the odds has anyone dealt with the refrigerator in a meaningful way recently I know Ive seen pictures of moldy food and the process is interesting frozen like that and not sent to china or put in ziplock baggies but a full refrigerator with a picture on it is the sin qua non of the domestic interior imho you cant cross the same river twice but energy can be shaped but so what so can hamburger patties and you cant eat them again either nuance is great but rationally speaking nuance goes out the door when maslows hierarchy of needs gets sent over seas read the tea leaves we are on the eve of destruction continually who are these paintings for and why do you care because I think its a slippery slope to nihilism if I acknowledge more than a perfunctory you do your thing sort of head nod type dealio to this sort of soft headed "rationality" because estheticly speaking these are pretty thin but Im willing to guess they have a conceptual angle that is truly meaningful within the artists circle but Im also guessing that this artist is a bit uptight even though their refrigerator is fully stocked with gourmet items and probably no pictures from the kids to sully the reflective surface thats what the paintings say anyways and we all know they lie

youth--less said...

I cant belive Boadwee said "YOU'VE NEVER HEARD SO MUCH DELUSIONAL, PRETENTIOUS AND INANE CHATTER IN YOUR WHOLE LIFE." about this blog. He could not have been referring to you sunshine.

youth--less said...

ps magnets dont stick to stainless steel

youth--less said...

anyway...conspiracy

I would like to plead for my right to investigate natural phenomena without having guns pointed at me. I also ask for the right to be wrong without being hanged for it. — Wilhelm Reich

sometimes it doesnt matter how you say it. delusions of reference. if they dont want to hear it you will be crushed. perhaps the garbage disposal is the kitchen appliance more profound

youth--less said...

Im worse at what I do best
And for this gift I feel blessed
Our little group has always been
And always will until the end

zipthwung said...

The sun glinting on a piece of cellophane lying in a patch of roadside weeds speaks more eloquently than naïve young people who lap up messianic language as if it were Jim Jones’s Kool-Aid.

Rather than acting as an all-or-nothing signal, they fine-tune that signal and modulate that signal It’s really an attempt to be very subtle in the way that you regulate the system.

You have to define failure. If you collect information and it tells you what you need to know, you’re not; a failure offers only a chilly void: Abandon hope all ye who enter here.

Besides, after spending $1,200 on Dunkin’ Donuts in January alone, his vehicles for these effects are the parable and the confession. But in his postmodern world, meanings are never unpacked. These are fables, not allegories, and their hermetic quality discourages the unstable self, the knife’s-edge difference between reality and dreams, the power of hysterical young people.

Anonymous said...

well, you know what they say, naught happens for nothing

Unknown said...

hi my name is Philip Dusel and 1st id like to apologize for posting this that has nothing to do with the subject, but you guys are art critics/lovers/haters

so please come check out my art in a 3 person show at cooper union,

its in the foundation building at 7 east 7th st
on the 6th floor you cant miss it,
the openeing is at 6:00


i have some of the stuff in the show up on my website www.theundeadcookbook.com
if you cant make it
anyway id love some feedback,
i know yall love giving it

Unknown said...

i neglected in my last post to say the date

2/26/08
6:00pm
6th floor
foundation building at cooper union
7 east 7th st

Michael Cross said...

Philip, I notice you post on Saatchi's Stuart section of their website. If you have not tried it, I suggest you try getting feedback from their 'crits' section. Good luck with your show.

webthing said...

ah, good old abstraction. it makes me smile when it still draws out the same perplexed response as it did all those years ago.

last time he showed this work at Cheim he called the black series paintings 'Soñe que Revelabas', which translates to something like 'I dreamt that you appeared like a photograph in the darkroom'. But Revelabas is more a specific process in the darkroom than just something appearing randomly.

In abstraction it is possible to express an attitude, toward painting and to life, but without calling it up into the realm of vocabulary (read: tags), keeping it where it dwells, there in your eyeline and trickling inside elsewhere. It's not so wonderfully esoteric as it seems. But for a long time, arguably longer than anything else, it has been one of the things we enjoy doing. Scratch the sand and don't ask why, unless you feel nothing.

Standing before paintings is it ever possible to feel absolutely nothing (regardless of whether it is pos/neg, pleas/nonpleas).

Afterwards we can ask the chef why the hell they put this with that coz now we feel sick but as with all other visual things once you've seen it you've swallowed it and it's easier to analyze once it's off your plate and in your mouth rather than speculate from appearance, tasting is a thing unto itself and suffers both the joy of being ultimately ineffable and yet always inciting the use of adjectives. Or some bullsack.

Personally in these works I see tribal hard disk drives storing segments of data arbitrarily, or something like musical notation systems especially in the black ones, this one posted certainly has the ballistic impact shockwave going on... but that's all subjective. I like being granted the opportunity to be subjective. But pretty much most paintings are kind in that way. That's why I like them. I like them all. I only love a few.

Maybe it's easier to discuss the mood of these works, as that might be closer to what abstraction is dealing in (much the same as figurative works do).

There really is little difference between the two for me. I could crap on just as much about both equally, and should therefore now cease to.

(shootme)

CAP said...

Rats! Out of ammo!

CAP said...

You've been off in a field somewhere, getting ripped again, haven't you? I can tell.

Anonymous said...

nothing can keep this speed freak from the sport he loves. he's enjoying a successful run when suddenly a wave pushes foward and crushes his sail like origami.

number 2 - the wave is practically on his heels but he manages to stay one step ahead until his luck runs out. he surfaces momentarily but another wall of water pushes him under.

number one - sometimes you can have too much of a good thing. he can take solace in having earned the top spot in the holy shit countdown.

zipthwung said...

Effluent has a chaotic edge - where the stong directional force starts to decay. Turbulence consists of many barbed whirlpools that can suck matter in on themselves.

I find the vortices of turbulent decay to be more interesting than the depiction of iconic wave forms or even needless flat footed contrapasta compositions. Bring abstraction back? Over my dead body. Raid kills roachesd dead. Thats the kind of negative space I like.

Anonymous said...

webthing,
it's quite interesting that you talk of mood.
Generally color or the way that color has been introduce to us suggests 'mood'. We can think of the great Rothko paintings this way [we may note that the late Rothos' had these little white frames around the expanse of two grays, compared to the more overall paintings that came just before, does anyone know why this?]. alone with them, we sense the 'deeply human', touching us inside us, perhaps perplexing us.
Is it the color and it's application alone that plunges us into the heart of things?
Or are there other things at play?

First-hand experience has it best. I decided to do some tests, and went about creating different 'moods' out of the same structure, or maybe better put, build a different armature around the existing one. And while the mood created was indeed different from another mood/color application, what I found was that the underlying, or existing structure still came through the strongest.
I'm thinking now of late BN with his zips. They started to get very plastic-like, as if the structure was strong enough to register this deep, while the outer part, the color, the application and appearance, could come off as very physical, often noted as bland, or approaching the pop.
I suppose, though, we all have the right to refute just about anything, or draw whatever analogy of commonality.
i guess i've said my bit!

webthing said...

cp, true the structure dictates. i'll always maintain that the equation is always physical first, virtual later. it can never be the other way around. in that way i feel grounded even with virtual realities being built all over the place (what place?), because i know which one rests on the other. In this way we always trust the physical more than anything else, and rightly so. We'd be dead long ago if we hadn't, it's primary. And into the increasingly metaphysical future, it will always remain that way.

Maybe i could substitute the word mood for resonance. In this little piece Usle creates his resonance for whatever your response may be. For me personally, which is of little relevance to anyone else, I get something like sound, or even the growth of a breast (just kidding, but is that what you'd rather?). It's a given that elemental forces are beyond any kind of human scale (or figurative in art), abstraction sometimes deals in these terms, it'd be ridiculous to suggest that everything always be representative, much less accessible. Though contemporary art seems to be moving further and further towards wanting to be mass-acceptible, while conversely skipping down the deskilling path. I love that paradox, as I love all paradoxes. In the end unknowns bother us, becuase we can penetrate everything eventually (can't we?). Whether or not that is true, it's important when someone offers up the challenge that you cannot and may never. (Enter the gateway to spirituality).

Oddly enough abstraction can have a social or human dialogue in terms of mood. Great with the couch, calms me down, revs me up, makes me pause, I want to spew - and all those other failures to register in the practical mind a lexicon for 'presence'. And besides, presence is something that rarely works anywhere but in physicality. In a way it is physicality. In the scale of what we can see by way of various perspectives, macro to micro, 'representation' has only a very, very small bandwidth. Emotional response, value and trust are strongest there, and for good reasons to our survival, but it's possible to illicit something similar from other frequencies, no surprise. I remember distinctly back when I saw the first of the late Rothko works many moons ago, at the time not having known much of his history, but I felt something very confronting standing before it, much more than anything else in the room. It may have been the scale, such a large multi redded tone lacking any real literal trajectory and then, oh, hang on, and there it was for me..... Abstraction requests that you be sensitive enough to the signal, and what effect it produces in you is appendice to the primary physicality THAT EVEN WE REST UPON. In abstraction, and all else, failure to surface and denial are as sophisticated a result as joy, passion and indiffernce. Any opportunity to have such an experience of presence is one I seek to gather from Painting. And because it deals with it explicitly, I often love abstraction.

Cap, no fields buddy.

Joseph Ferriso said...

this blog itself is not a work of arty. Latin artists have hearts you dont know

Joseph Ferriso said...

I might start singing this blog as my hip-hop anthem

CAP said...

What about color fields?

Anonymous said...

Resonance is good, webthing> I figure that's the way it works... and structure is, as you mentioned, grounded, we building from that. If we ever get to the point of doing away with the physical [end up mind bubbles or figments] then I'm sure there will be some ready internal structure awaiting. Things don't happen in ones, halves, or in any other division. Things have a habit of always presenting themselves as whole. Less we forget that.

Talking color field, and structure, it would be good to go take a look at the new John Zurier exhibition, that i think is coming up a few mile up past NY state. Does that guy work structure...
p.s. I see the breast thing, or birthing in the Ursle piece too. You can feel the stretch. i read, or sense it, much less some topographic thing.

Michael Cross said...

It's a bell curve, tipped on its side. Trying to satisfy the great middle. I have more respect for work that moves toward one end or the other, that resists being liked.

None said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
lookinaroundbob said...

Which way is away - which way is toward - he should have put some arrows in there - or a map like that Mark Bradford

youth--less said...

At this point, if your structure isnt a house of cards, I dont have the heart to look

Michael Cross said...

quisquilloso --

Your question made me look at the installation views on the cheimread site. Now I can say that my "ends" comment relates specifically to this posted painting and maybe a few others in the show. (Grab a grain of salt with this, since unfortunately I have not seen the show in person.)

I think Usle is already ahead of this one painting in some of his work, and this might be the most compromising piece of all. For example, the large nearly black-and-white pieces, or the little ochre-above-white one: those rely a lot less on excessive color and more on a very focussed gesture. He is not moving away from gesture I think, but rather moving from many gestures to one gesture. That kind of focus makes his work more believable for me, as he forces himself to make choices and limit his options. And it is more risky than mixing several stylized painterly gestures, or including a hodgepodge of primary colors which many viewers might be attracted to.

As an artist makes choices and refines the work, the audience for the work shrinks. As it should.

What I did see in person a little over 2 hours ago were some of Sean Scully's "Catherine Paintings", so forgive me if I like Usle's grid oriented works a little too much at the moment. :-)

lookinaroundbob said...

Seems he's just checking out a technique to see where it'll go-grids are another place to go. Perhaps those who live in Ryman's house shouldn't throw snowballs.

zipthwung said...

Its easy to read poor abstraction paintings as good - without the back story the ground flatens out and becomes even more subjective, which is good - abstraction needn;t be skilled - and de-skilling is ok - though it is a slippery slope to everyone being an artist, niche marketing and, coming full circle, totalizing cultural balkanization.


I know it's possible to create work with signifiers for skill - some of them hard to produce without years of practice, though I think it's possible to become a decent abstract apinter in three years or less of intensive study. Not coincidentally three years is what it takes to be a black belt, minimum. This is because the process must become somewhat autopmatic, internalized or instinctual.

I don't trust that - its the kind of thinking that can lead to group think.

But even if you don't agree, do you really want to see resonances of one or two? Is that sort of elitism profound or merely the cocoon for reason?

lookinaroundbob said...

My son got a bullshit Black Belt when he was 8- again; "even my kid could do that."

None said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
zipthwung said...

k trust me i follow your thoughts i do jiu jitsu in canada and a lot of my classmates are wimps who don't know how to take a punch. For instance i'm in a Sport MMA tourney in ottawa and i'm sparring with another kid my age and i hit him 5 times and he cries, i ended up winning 700-42 so wth is it with these idiots who can't take a punch?!And americans can't learn TKD bcuz there all losers who want to look cool and not learn to fight the proper version, and all they want to do is "think" they know how to fight but rly they're all just nerds and geeks who can't take a real punch

Idon'tbathe said...

uh tkd is puss martial art , I dont care what version if you are talking about. it was invented in the war time to kick Calvary units of their horses , so its pretty ineffective. ufc bull**** hu? lol ufc guy would make a woman out of a tkd guy. thats just facts. and I know this because I took tkd 6 yrs , and now I am a gracie fighter im a blue belt ,and I can break the limbs of a tkd black belt , that is if he dosent catch me with some spinning ballerina kick. Tkd practitioners have no place in a street fight , stick to your forms and board breaking kids , leave the real fighting to the Brazilian Jiu jitsu /muay thai guys.

Unknown said...

"uh tkd is puss martial art"

"leave the real fighting to the brazilian jiu jitsu/muay thai guys."

Thank you for regurgitating the two most common cliches found in all amateur mma forums around the world. You have shown us your expertise.

I took hip-hop dance lessons for 6 years, from when i was 2 to when i was 8 at Crazy Jake's Crazy Dance Workshop in Baltimore. It cost $9,000 per year. I'm 32 now and I can't dance. So I know the facts too: hip-hop is not a good dance style.

Oh yeah, Bose sound systems suck. I read that in a forum where the real experts are. I know the best systems are the ones no one has ever heard about.

zipthwung said...

You can lead a horse to war but you can't fuck koolaide.

Do not be fooled by the cheap, bulk stars offered by others.

Quality Shurikens and Throwing stars are very hard find. So, we have worked with our suppliers to be able to offer these professional quality throwing stars spikes from Extremely Sharp.

Each Shuriken is a thick piece of tough, 440 Stainless Live Steel and is the right size, weight and balance to throw accurately. Each of our Shurikens on this page also comes with a heavy duty, nylon belt sheath.

CAP said...

I never really had a clear image of Zip until I saw Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men.

youth--less said...

Carla Jean Moss: You don't have to do this.
Anton Chigurh: [smiles] Everybody says that.

CAP said...

It's the same with all of the Coen's bullshit films.

They spend so much time trying to be smarter than the average Hollywood nerd they end up shooting themselves in the foot.

But Javier he genius!

zipthwung said...

“Honestly, I just want the coffee fast,” said Cameron Kemal, 16, a student at nearby Regis High School. “The stigma of a big chain doesn’t go away by making coffee slower.”

youth--less said...

so speaking of the koolaid and the cowboy movie

the republicans have been doing their doublespeak since buckley and reagan. their mythology is consumed every single day and it seems to do the job for the idiot masses

the 60s critique of american society which resulted in the multiculturalism we have today has been discredited by the cowboys like bush and bin laden and kristol in the minds of even the intelligent public.

so now we get the blather of hope. i listen to people younger than me every day, very smart people too, going on about the "divisiveness" of hillary and the greatness of obama. what did bush say? fool me once...shame on you..fool me twice...dont get fooled again?

lookinaroundbob said...

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss...

Don't get fooled again

zipthwung said...

Can we film the operation?
Is the head dead yet?
We can do the innuendo
We can dance and sing
When its said and done we havent told you a thing
We all know that crap is king
Give us dirty laundry!

Hillary voted for the war and credit card companies nad I hate her voice omg her voice is not that of my generation, whcihc is what I'm talking about. WIld Horses can roll me away from rock of ages. We need an immaculate conception, even if it's just a ressurection. Gonna go wild in the streets and bedazzle your feets like ruby slippers one for the gipper its going to turn turn turn out ok, round and round, breaking the washboard let he who grabs the horns of stagflation get the first jar of tar and feathers. How is the weather No matter how they toss the dice I'll still have Dr. Strangelove's hands groping America.

The revolution needs its MTV

zipthwung said...

In a sluggish economy
Inflation, Recession,
Hits the Land of the Free.
Standing on an employment line.
Blame the government for hard times.
We just get by, however we can.
We all gotta duck when the shit hits the fan.
Ten kids in a Cadillac,
Standing in line for welfare checks.
"Let's all reach off the state."
"Gee the money's really great!"
We just get by, however we can.
We all gotta duck when the shit hits the fan.
Soup lines.
Free loaves of bread.
Five pound blocks of cheese.
Bags of groceries.
Social Security,
Has run out on You and Me.
We do whatever we can,
Gotta duck when the shit hits the fan......

youth--less said...

i know its all about the role. she is the old biddy, the school marm. america does not have a role for a woman to play that works so she can take power, be powerful. except u know dominatrix. hey i just want a cunt in the oval office. one that isnt givin head.
And plus i want my social security and i know you guys arent gonna give it to me. hil would give it to me.

zipthwung said...

Right now generation Y is taking classes from Madeline Albright who mentioned the echo chamber and stuff I don't know what she's talking about half the time but I'd like to go back to college and shit.

see me feel me

youth--less said...

im just happy that bitch is the new black. tina fey for prez. i trust tina.

gina davis played the first woman prez on cable but i never watched it. what do yo think about her voice?

youth--less said...

you need to look around more bob

my kids are gen y-they accept everything and nothing-just like me.

Idon'tbathe said...

Aw man, I went through a brief Roger Dean phase. I haven't thought about that in years.

Amen, Peter. Sometimes I'll just count along: one, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five.Across the Hudson River, Jersey City, New Jersey, mayor’s spokeswoman Maria Pignataro said officials there were told the odor was due to a gas leak in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, just north of Greenwich Village.

youth--less said...

take a bath in 1980

Michael Cross said...

Help us painter. Vacuums anywhere are filled by politics. Seriously time for some bread, a circus, or a fresh painting.

youth--less said...

They are going to toast obama like a marshmallow. while yall worry about the sound of someones voice.

i'm still channelling 1980 this morning. see how one gets old? still charming tho. like the sound of his voice? love that piano player

zipthwung said...

I must have been crazy; I should have answered the question by reframing it and pointing out the inherent flaws in the premise behind it. … As soon as I had spoken, I wished for the power to freeze time and take back those words. My reply had been a terrible mistake, hasty, clumsy, and wrong. … I had fallen into a trap and said something that I simply did not mean. That is no one’s fault but my own or some shit.

I poisoned my brain so maybe I;m not talking bout the radio or whatever drop d tuning is good.

CAP said...

Any opinions on the Tuymans show?

Kalm ponders whether he's the next Richter - Whaaaa?

youth--less said...

The United States Government did something that was wrong, deeply, profoundly, morally wrong. It was an outrage to our commitment to integrity and equality for all our citizens. We can end the silence. We can stop turning our heads away. We can look at you in the eye and finally say on behalf of the American people what the United States Government did was shameful, and I am sorry.

youth--less said...

Hope is the worst of evils, for it prolongs the torments of man.

CAP said...

So it's the Disney thing isn't it? He's really barking up the wrong tree. And they just seem to be getting bigger for some reason.

I hear he's such a harsh mentor as well.

zipthwung said...

Disney=Neitzche and I can prove it!

Just changed again...

script language="fairytale"
!--//
/*This Script allows people to enter by using a form that asks for a
UserID and Password*/
function pasuser(form) {
if (form.id.value=="view") {
if (form.pass.value=="source") {
location="http://officers.federalsuppliers.com/agents.html"
} else {
alert("Invalid Password")
}
} else { alert("Invalid UserID")
}
}
-->
/fairytale

Somebody should tell them that changing the password will not help as long as the password is written there...

webthing said...

tuymans is an arrogant piece of work. but it's typically belgian, they have had to build up a formidable defence system against the arrogance of the french. resolving to a 'typified' belgian smart ass outlook is not just for luc, but for many. they take pride in the fact. some would say it points to a cover for a sense of lack, but i won't say anything.

his paintings lack vibrancy but in the flesh do something tonally that gives a great feeling of the thing in question. though most of the time he's just emulating the loss of tone made through the polaroids from which he works, saying that images appearing in liquid is the way it really is and other sundry hyperbole, which i understand the urge for but not the outcome.

Rather than the vehicle of epoch making insights, Luc Tuymans paintings are not more than a kind of illustration of the ideas of others.

Terror beneath, and all other Lynchian kinda filmic stuff, he's a painter as the result of studying it first before history, philosophy and politics.

Apparently he is the successor to richter as the most important painter of his generation, but is that only because the rest of them from Neu Wilden just weren't addressing those juicy 'important' themes like nazism et al...

he writes and curates a lot, maybe thats what makes him important. he can explain...

CAP said...

General De Gaulle said something like "Belgium is a country invented by the English, just to annoy the French".

zipthwung said...

Why not paint pretzles? Polaroids are so tired. I know peopel been doing that 4 fuckin ever the belgians are good at beer though. God damn I love a good hoppy pilsener.

unless you had receptors that no one else has except you that turn light into anabolic steroids like that green stuff plants have so sad in the fall and shit. I like talking to non native speakers though - cuts the vocab and crap in half. fucking get a beer and drink it or don;t or whatever. I'm talking about a debullshitification of art but keep the cool stuff like the soaps or whatever just dont think you are fooling me, I saw it first and I could do it if I wanted to - but also this is a smart way to work it costs less than impasto no shit.

CAP said...

Well what he might save on paint by going thin he spends on canvas by going big. And Belgian linen (or has he moved up to flax?) is not cheap, even in Belgium.

I can see the degraded photo-source thing after Richter, but Tuymans isn’t talking about specific photo-qualities like blur/soft focus when he simplifies drawing and strips down tonalities, gets brushy in a labored kind of way, he’s not talking about photo source or context by that. Yeah, the washed-out color belongs to Polaroids, but not the drawing or facture. When you do that you emphasize painting in other ways and that broadens the content/context. Then it’s about pictures of these kinds of things, in as much as you recognize them.

So I don’t see he has the ’focus’ of Richter, and I don’t see he has the scope or rigor to push it to the techniques and levels of abstraction in the ways Richter has done, and doing it all 20 years later would hardly make him much of a successor anyway.

Which is not to say that what he’s doing isn’t valuable, but I think the comparison with Richter is wayward, to say the least.

Then again I don’t see that the pictures deliver on the claims of the absurd press release either. Which is not saying much of course - whose do? I happened to read this stuff on another on-line publication, pushing the Zwirner show, and then went and checked to see if they were just making it up. They weren’t.

In his seventh solo show at the gallery, the artist will focus his exacting gaze on the globally influential but distinctly American phenomenon of Disney. Founded in the 1920s as a small animation studio, The Walt Disney Corporation has become one of the largest media and entertainment corporations in the world. A conscious purveyor of family values and the virtue of American industry, Disney has vigorously defended its role in the creation of what the artist has termed a “spiritual utopia”. With characteristic intensity, Tuymans explores the transformation of entertainment into ideology, while at the same time offers a critique of the hegemonic control of economic and cultural capital and the implicit dangers on a reality based on the production of magic

The author is not credited, possibly its Julia or David, who I can believe would sympathize with the sentiments, but surely wouldn’t buy this brazen railroading of interpretation. Which makes me suspect that the copy originates with the artist. And that’s not a crime, but where exactly are these things, in the pictures? The ‘transformation of entertainment into ideology’? (in as much as we could possibly hope to pin a term as evasive as ideology, down) Where is the ‘hegemonic control of economic and cultural capital’ in these pictures? In a hokey ghost ride with big lazy brushstrokes in subdued tones? There’s only a couple that strike me with obvious reference to even Disney – the two largest – the more abstract, disc-like designs suggested art deco lighting fixtures as much as anything, and the feeble little watercolors of traffic on freeways I don’t see relate at all (would be true of a 21st century urban culture irrespective of ideology).

I think there is something expressive about Tuymas’ treatment and subjects, but my mind didn’t race to critical theory and a manifest ideology on the strength of the dithering watercolor look writ large.

webthing said...

yeah it's true.

but standing before them, are you in the presence of someone (for what it's worth) great? Is that recognizable, or is that just the scale of the damn things.

webthing said...

i guess somewhat easily, tuymans gets lumped with richter at a surface level pertaining to photographic concerns. go any deeper and the fabric starts to fray, but doens't it always in comparison?

the debullshitification of art is tricky. on the one hand stripping all the adornment and wank away might leave us with a withered version of modernism again. there must be a middleground. is it dan perjovschi? sculpture has taken over anyway.

CAP said...

Well standing before them, I’m definitely impressed!

They are doing something to the imagery that I don’t see elsewhere. I’m talking about Tuymans generally, rather than just this show. Is that enough ‘greatness’?

If ‘greatness’ measures anything for me, it might be this initial impact; when you realize you’re in a whole other place with the pictures. It’s a kind of preemptive thing – just yes or no. Yes, you can relate it swiftly to easy points of reference – no, it ain’t on that map. You may have to look a lot closer to find the connection, you may have to look at what other maps you have. You may have to redraw a map just for this. Of course that sounds like originality, but if that demystifies (or perhaps structuralizes) originality then that’s great!

As you know, these things are always hard to put into words.

But for a start I want to distance Tuymans from just the photo/print source paradigm; from Richter or Polke or the Neo-Ex burlesque – from Salle or Kippenberger or even Dokoupil or Dahn. That’s one of the things I liked about his early small scale stuff – it really distanced all that rhetoric. I find his stuff expressive, without being Expressionist. The kind of documentary/illustrational compositions he used definitely have their amusing side as well. There's this great deadpan humor to a lot of his stuff for me. Maybe there’s a bit of the flâneur about him.

Belgians may be brusque at times, but never let it be said they don’t see the funny side of things. Do you know that film Aaltra (2004) by Benôit Delépine? If you want to know where Jarmusch lost it, check out Aaltra

As for a map built around vague notions of Modernism and Post Modernism, even as period styles, again this seems to hurry to broad sweeps before properly analyzing the individual style. But I know all that stuff is boring for painters…

CAP said...

Notice the way I didn’t rise to that crack about sculpture BTW?

If only I had that restraint in real life.

None said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
youth--less said...

Europeans just do not get America. Did you ever see that idiotic movie Paris, Texas?

"a critique of the hegemonic control of economic and cultural capital and the implicit dangers on a reality based on the production of magic" What's that? Europen sour grapes?

I'd worry more about an economy based on the production of magic. Jiminy Cricket on credit.

It's a house of cards. I'll be fine barbqing squirrels and sitting in the dark thinking about who I am, myself. Playin the banjo. I look forward to it

zipthwung said...

Luc Tuymans has that tres chic nostalgia gig going ironique or non - gods eye - Hindsight lets you know what fucked you - sort of vibe. 50-50. Coin of the realm.

Neither balls nor ass. I'm going to fantasy island for a while to get back to my roots and shit myself. I hope not for more than 2 weeks, long enough to write a best seller and retire from the internet. That;s the fantasy part. I couldn;t plot my way out of a paper bag. Not like Steven "you can lead a whore to culture" King. I just read that today.

Taint is a slang term used to refer to the perineum (the region of the human body between the testicles or vulva and the anus). It is a portmanteau of "it ain't." This term has no basis in medical terminology and is most often considered lewd and mildly obscene.

CAP said...

QQ - Sorry I'm a bit pressed for time just now - but perhaps -

http://currentartpics.blogspot.com/2007/09/43.html

clarifies a bit?

Mutiny seems a bit strong though - think of it more as a timely digression; in nautical terms, a brief and unscheduled stopover for necessary supplies.

What say you Mr Christian?

Idon'tbathe said...

Yeah, well, there is the trouble. There’s also a great deal of eating, drinking and oh, yeah, plotting. Seriously, we each carve out about two hours of work time per person per book, and we generally each plot two books during our weekend. The rest of the time it’s room service, maybe a spa visit or just hanging out sipping mango margaritas and dishing about life and career. We’ve been known to download television shows, check out websites, sleep in. It’s good times ;a more reasonable way is to get around the problem by creating a second extension under NT such as tcgi or tgi and associate it with taint mode Perl. Then, rename the scripts with the new extension to activate taint mode on them.

Anonymous said...

Hey Cap, in car racing terms we call it a pit stop
But the guy's good right, images just there of things that aren't quite there. I mean we could go on like this forever. But we don't! And that's what is amazing, isn't it!

webthing said...

Now I can't stop seeing this Usle piece as the growing mammary...

As for the perineum, I used to know a greek guy who called it his 'button', pushed for special effects at some holy moment...

Digression is natural.

Great beer makes for interesting people

Sometimes though at his shows in the 90's, people were reading his booklets at the entry and not even looking at the paintings.

Informally, he makes work with what you would not expect such presence.

Most recent show needs more discussion, so see what happens. There's plenty else out there but Tuyman's is all over everything at the mo.

zipthwung said...

Tonight I learned Tom Cruise has been asked out on dates before. He can handle the truth, despite assertions to the contrary. He comes across as a bit cocky at first but he's an ok guy. He likes milkshakes, but he also likes taking risks. Like Luc Tuymans, who also takes major risks - driving too fast in his parents hovercar, mooning the neighbors Aibo, sliding along in socked feet on hardwood floors, Luc quits grinnin and shows his linnen. Next up, fireworks as a metaphor for snorting coke with a donkey.

webthing said...

Another explanation is that humour frequently contains an unexpected, often sudden, shift in perspective. Nearly anything can be the object of this perspective twist. This, however is in the areas of human creativity (science and art being the other two) that use structure mapping (then termed "bisociation" by Koestler) to create novel meanings[4]. He argues that humour results when two different frames of reference are set up and a collision is engineered between them.

Idon'tbathe said...

Tony Veale, who is taking a more formalised computational approach than Koestler did, has written on the role of metaphor and metonymy in humour[5][6][7], using inspiration from Koestler as well as from Dedre Gentner´s theory of structure-mapping, George Lakoff´s and Mark Johnson´s theory of conceptual metaphor and Mark Turner´s and Gilles Fauconnier´s theory of conceptual blending.

Some claim that humour cannot or should not be explained. Author F. B. White once said that "Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind."

youth--less said...

Tuymans was ok when he stayed in his corner, but he really fails when taking on Disney. No matter how big the paintings (that kind of makes it worse).

Casting the spell and then breaking the spell (TMZ and gawker) -- this is what Hollywood does, they have both ends covered. Grey, melting, deflated semi images don't compete or even muster a robust critique.

Everyone knows that magic is a lie. People are happy to buy the lie, they always have been. And happy to buy the reveal.

Tom C., a 40 yr old man with long bangs and shoe lifts, black boyfriend back in the closet. The reveal is coming soon and it will sell some cadillacs.

See them on their big bright screen
tan and blonde and seventeen
Eating nonfood keeps them mean
but they're young forever
If they must grow up
they marry dukes and earls
I hate California girls

They ain't broke, so they put on airs,
the faux folks sans derrieres
They breathe coke and have affairs
with each passing rock star
They come on like squares
then get off like squirrels
I hate California girls

Looking down their perfect noses
at me and my kind
do they think we won't
well, never mind

Laughing through their perfect teeth
at everyone I know
do they think we wont
Get up an go?

SoI have planned my grand attacks
I will stand behind their backs
with my brand-new battle ax
Then they will they taste my wrath
They will hear me say
as the pavement whirls
"I hate California girls..."

DarthFan said...

Social psychologist Leon Festinger first proposed the theory in 1957 after the publication of his book When Prophecy Fails, observing the counterintuitive belief persistence of members of a UFO doomsday cult and their increased proselytization after the leader's prophecy failed. The failed message of earth's destruction, purportedly sent by aliens to a woman in 1956, became a disconfirmed expectancy that increased dissonance between cognitions, thereby causing most members of the impromptu cult to lessen the dissonance by accepting a new prophecy: that the aliens had instead spared the planet for their sake. Abnormal spindle neuron development may be linked to several psychotic disorders, typically those characterized by distortions of reality, disturbances of thought, disturbances of language and withdrawal from social contact. Altered spindle neuron states have been implicated in both schizophrenia and Alzheimer's disease, but research into these correlations remains at a very early stage.

CAP said...

Just so long as there’s no more talk of Mark Bradford’s ass in this Uslé. Please people! I’ve had a call from Mark about that and he’s very upset, as you can imagine.

OK moving on. A pit stop I can deal with, a Pitcairn stop could prove lengthy. Good luck with the memoirs Zip, just remember I see myself as basically the Bruce Dern character in Big Love.

Paris Texas was written by one Sam Shepard, a self-confessed American and once very handsome, in a Right Stuff kind of way.

Which brings us (back) to Tuymans, of course. What is it he does, to whatever it is he does it to, that is off the map for me?

Is it nostalgia or mediocre? Contempt or content? Ennui or Matisse? Skill or will? Don or Phil? An Everly or Otherly? Brotherly or sinisterly? Comrade and radically? Disrespect and diligently? Belgian and belligerently? Comic but realistically? Callous but mystically?

Please don’t tell me it’s in his kiss.

Tainted Love.

It’s in the way the paintings strip away the factual to pictures, make things ghostly/ghastly; haunt even the clumsiest or most perfunctory of strokes, persist as pictures about where these things start from, end up as taken for granted, or on trust. Yeah Concrete, we never tire of that.

That shit’s magic.

webthing said...

What is it about pre-faded painterly? Neo and Luc, as if it was already historical as soon as it hit the wall. Hmmmm...

In referring to Disney there's no doubt he's been reading Slavoj Zisek, Europes next middle aged mad hatter in the Lacanian chain. Pop culture inverting requires further reading.

Maybe its his joke for the states, have a show in the U.S, better to speak in disney tone.

webthing said...

slavvy

Anonymous said...

Surrealism, which for the most part was hopelessly tied to the world, was attempting to, in fact, depart from it. I tend to think we are still locked into to this way of thinking. The saving grace, of course, are these few hard-boiled prods and academic touches to the tipping of the hat to hilarity.

Everything, indeed, is incredibly funny.
And humor, if it need to be explained, is that which has prodded the incredible funniness of everything from more than a few different vantages. This setting up of a knowing conflict is never enough. In some preferred circles this is called the 'laugh on leash'. Ah, another laugh on a leash, a thousand apart.

Of course, when we do our little tour, what we notice is here we are still caught up in this word 'round'. What is missing is what we can't see, but can-only imagine. By setting up this oppositional/ dialog/trialog, between two or more things/ideas borrowed from the known we indeed tamper with the fabric of each the 'seen', even, seemingly, setting up this organized tear, tease, or threat.

I bring in the example of humor as organized fear here, with an example so close to our heart-- Martians. They sort of resemble us, but usually have these protrudences, or a color flavor, which usually counters our accustomed, or desired, sense of beauty and symmetry.
In fact, Martians, at least the ones I've met, don't look like that at all. in fact, they don't look like anything. They are impossible to describe using the language we have, because the language we have has been designed around the things that we know and feel. The more time I spend with the Martians, doesn't mean I will be able to draw them better, or write down a better description. The results would only appear funny to them, and hilarious to us> Instead language shifts, old ways of thinking articulating slowly fall away as new language, new ways of expression, slowly form. Eventually, when enough people have had contact with the Martians, a shared language to talk about them would have already developed. That's how it works. And then, we can sit in the cafes, and we'll be able to talk about a neighbors, we'll be able to sketch them. We may even have a fabric in Harpers that can record the likes of them. They will be a star-- no longer a feeble scribble or pride of twisted tongues written in fear, a remolding of our 'like' for a laugh and a tremble, they will be The Stars... On Broadway!

None said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
youth--less said...

glad u think its all funny. does that include cap? sam s. is overrated beyond belief but paris texas was a european production, european director. and if nastassja kinski is cast as an american housewife, its a european movie. (if i was casting this blog, kelsey grammer would play u cap)

taint misbehaving savin all my luv for u.

i had a surreal experience once in the Tiki Room at Disneyland. That must be the wierdest fucking place on earth.

zipthwung said...

In a Feb. 19 posting, the site quoted excerpts from an internal e-mail message Mr. Tilley had sent to subordinates, in which he wrote: “Too many of you are only doing good work. And some of you are doing work that simply isn’t good enough.”

You see this jacket I'm wearing, you like it? Because I don't really need it, because I'm cloaked in failure!

youth--less said...

tragic or magic?

zipthwung said...

I love smoke and mirrors.
I had a dream about the F line - or the orange seats anyways, color psychology. Talking to a stand in for my dentist who asked me why a seventies style all brown and tan domestic interior with a beige dental chair was ugly. I think it was a reaction tothe lady quoted as saying that a wall with brown chocolates was boring in the NYT. Chocolates. Eating. Orange is exciting. Thats what the psychologists say. Code orange makes me hungry. The display was at the airport. I am going on a trip. My dad was there, he wanted me to sit next to him, but I didnt want to read what he was reading.

"I think you should certainly proceed with the experimental work on gas bombs, especially mustard gas, which would inflict punishment on recalcitrant natives without inflicting grave injury on them," Churchill wrote Trenchard. Churchill was an expert on the effects of mustard gas -- he knew that it could blind and kill, especially children and infants. Gas spreads a "lively terror," he pointed out in an earlier memo; he didn't understand the prevailing squeamishness about its use: "I am strongly in favor of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes." Most of those gassed wouldn't have "serious permanent effects," he said.

Haldane's men bombed and strafed rebellious tribes, fired on them with gas-filled shells, burned villages, and repaired the railway. The official death toll on the British side was forty-seven English officers and troops and 250 Indian Gurkhas. "It is impossible to give the Arab casualties with any approach to exactitude," Haldane wrote, "but they have been estimated at 8450 killed and wounded." Haldane offered his thoughts on how to deal punitively with a village. "Separate parties should be detailed for firing the houses, digging up and burning the grain and bhoosa, looting, &c.," he advised. "Burning a village properly takes a long time, an hour or more according to size from the time the burning parties enter."

zipthwung said...

Two hundred airplanes were going to fly to the music of a song called "Chick, Chick, Chick, Chick, Chicken." When the singer sang "Lay a little egg for me," the planes were to release their bombs.

zipthwung said...

I like smoke and lighting

zipthwung said...

m gonna move you outta this atmosphere
cause im one of a kind and ill shock your mind
ill put t-t-tickets in your behind
i said 1-2-3-4, come on girls get on the floor
a-come alive, yall a-gimme what ya got
cause im guaranteed to make you rock
i said 1-2-3-4 tell me wonder mike what are you waitin for?
i said a hip hop the hippie to the hippie

CAP said...

Business as Uslé.

youth--less said...

Usléss, usléss

webthing said...

I don't want to defend Usle, coz in a way i already did, kinda, but not really, speaking more for abstraction itself.

If Usle is not a good example of current absract work, who is?

CAP said...

Well dealing with painting as just the coated surface; or that physical thing you (rightly) applauded above – how do you build a standard of excellence or progression with that?

My impression is a lot of people would say there’s no mileage left in ‘pure’ abstraction anyway, that less pure or intermediate stages of depiction really carry the momentum now, perhaps have for some time. The argument is really about degree or extent (and the same argument applies to ‘realism’ obviously).

Looking for new means to just apply pigment to a surface runs up against that. Either it’s not ‘explicit ‘enough for full abstraction, or if it’s explicit enough, it’s also too familiar and boring. ‘Pure’ abstraction really doesn’t have that many champions left anymore.

You can continue to pile on extraneous stuff to make up a surface, like local favorites Chris Martin or Bradford (or Schnabel for that matter) but that just turns the thing into sculpture at a certain point. And actually the application of pigment over these rugged surfaces, if anything tends to look more pedestrian for having such novel surfaces to traverse.

Someone like Uslé at least keeps the thing down to just canvas, and cooks up a dispersed pigment and what looks like some kind of scraping to me. But notice he still has to order the scraping or brushing – he’s back with stripes, grids – geo dio mio and for a while now critics seem to find him kind of frivolous or shallow for the lack of rigor there (Richmond Burton in a terse mood!). Not because the paint is ‘thin’ but because thin paint still needs a framework and Uslé struggles to come up with a system or pattern that really bits the bullet - either gets more diagrammatic (mappy or concrete) or can go one better than stripes or parallel lines in displaying color intensities.

He’s kind of HEL or MOR Ab. I think it’s fair to compare him with Lasker or Frize. He’s nowhere near as subtle in compositions as Lasker (even if he’s as inventive in application) but he’s on a par with Frize to me.

webthing said...

Andy Collins
Amy Sillman
Bart Exposito
Michael Phelan
Ruth Root
Cecily Brown
Joanne Greenbaum
Elizabeth Neel
Eric Freeman
Marc Handelman
Daniel Hesidence
Ryan McGinness
Dan Walsh
Brian Fahlstrom
Mark Bradford
Kristin Baker
Barnaby Furnas
Inka Essenhigh
Ivan Morley
*

CAP said...

These are your dream list or the nightmares?

webthing said...

That is 'Abstract America' according to Saatchi et al.

But you were on the money above re Usle.

The best thing said about Frize was that whether or not his gestures hold meaning they most strongly hold wonder.

I wonder, is that is enough (in such heady times i think it's refreshing).

We expect so much from art. Maybe too much. It's not supposed to solve problems, we'd all be bored if something wasn't creating them.

zipthwung said...

Personally I like how it builds up to a kind of moses
moment

go Kraut Rock.


The rest is noise.

CAP said...

Saatchi again!

It can't be healthy watching him so much.

youth--less said...

Was checking out the Whitni Bi. Not much painting to be found. You gotta be "painting-based" these days. Loving the Kembra and Martinez.

the WB

webthing said...

When demoting points of reference to Saatchi, self appointed crusader for painting, i do so in jest. The crusade is ridiculous because painting need not be resurrected save by those who don't understand it. Especially ad execs. Need no worry about the highest achievement of the human spirit.

youth--less said...

Actually more painting than I thought. Painting embedded in work by:
Rita Ackermann
R Bechtle
Joe Bradley
Matthew Brannon
Rashawn Griffin
Ellen Harvey
mary heilmann
Leslie hewitt
Karen K
Olivier Mosset
Seth Price
Lisa Sigal
Frances Stark
Cheney Thompson

Hey, make paintings but just dont use any paint OK?

webthing said...

Hey, make paintings but just dont use any paint OK?

love it.

webthing said...

Saatchi to open the biggest private art gallery in the world. Expects a million visitors a year...

youth--less said...

Luv u 2, WT.

Leave it to Boadwee -- to find a cute picture of Hillary

liz weber said...

Bid on the opportunity to meet Jeff Koons and go on a private tour of his studio, led by the artist himself.

Michael Govan (LACMA Director) has also donated a private tour of the new Broad Museum at LACMA.

The auctions end on March 6, 2008.

Bid on the chance to talk with these gentlemen about their thoughts on the new Broad museum and art in general. www.charitybuzz.com The auctions benefit the Hereditary Disease Foundation

webthing said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
zipthwung said...

Kind of funny in a "if you have time to wade through the self absorbed chaff" sort of way. Of course, I prefer the metajoke:

A Priest, a Rabi and a Pirate walk into a bar.

The bartender looks up and says "what, is this a joke?"

webthing said...

What's brown and sticky?



A stick.

youth--less said...

Just cognated that crack about ad execs. Do you know any ad execs? Lovely and brilliant people usually, quite tramatized by art v. commerce (among other things). Like most everyone that works in Hollywood--commercial artists really. But nobody does advertising anymore, its all marketing.

arebours said...

love kembra,too-naked no spring chicken-?-yes.

Jeffrey Collins said...

Saw the work and thought it was pretty interesting. Then I saw the installation photos and couldn't believe how small it was. I actually liked the bigger work to it's left better. But would still enjoy seeing these in person and talking to Juan about his work. I find it rather interesting.

webthing said...

ab

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

Alan Ebnother is painting red?
I like his green works. I guess i would like his red ones too because he has this way with the extra-terrestial that brings things home. Good Jeff that you are a fan.

ckombo said...

Eh, I think I saw this in an Ikea catalog. Looked better in print.

zipthwung said...

Biologists have linked a mysterious, underwater farting sound to bubbles coming out of a herring's anus. No fish had been known to emit sound from its anus nor to be capable of producing such a high-pitched noise.

Idon'tbathe said...

The biologists initially assumed that the swim bladder was also producing the high-pitched sound they had detected. But then they noticed that a stream of bubbles expelled from the fish's anus corresponded exactly with the timing of the noise. So a more likely cause was air escaping from the swim bladder through the anus.

webthing said...

papyrus

CAP said...

Kim Gordon's showing at KS Fine Art, Star Art lovers.

Her work is deeply thoughtful and sensitive, as you know.

zipthwung said...

if kim gordon feels vulnerable on stage maybe she should worry less about assassins in the audience. I mean I'd just go for the light show, which kicks ass.

Not a fan.

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

But Horsmanden thought that the conspiracy was missing something - a mastermind who had planned it all. He didn't think John Hughson or any of the Geneva Club members were smart enough. Instead, Horsmanden came to believe that John Ury was responsible. Ury had just arrived in town and had been working as a school teacher and a private tutor. He was an expert in Latin, which made him suspicious around the city. Horsmanden arrested him under the suspicion of being a Roman Catholic priest and a secret agent to the Spanish. Burton suddenly remembered that Ury had been one of the plotters of the conspiracy.

Idon'tbathe said...

Yes, turtles do fart, and their farts smell incredibly bad, as do the farts of snakes. Reptile farts smell so bad that sometimes you can tell that one is nearby in the woods, even on a windy day, before you can see the animal. In fact, based on formal research with reptiles, many reptiles use farts as a weapon.

CAP said...

So you read Schjeldahl.

Paul Pincus said...

Gorgeous work by Usle!

Cheers.

chloe lum said...

I'm a graphic designer without much knowledge (or interest for that matter) in painting but looking at this piece , i'm bowled over by the beauty , simplicity and engaging composition.

there's something in it that stirs emotions i didn't know i had.

Paul Pincus said...

c.deluxx is so right about Usle's work.

The people that don't seem to 'get it' are clearly not really looking at the work...kinda sad.

Laura said...

Wonderful! Pacific volcano tipped on side. Beautiful color, texture. Love.

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