8/14/2006

Zachary Wollard

30 comments:

flesheater99 said...

Dear Mom and Dad,

I use drugs.

Love,
Your Son.

----------------------------------

Dear Son,

It's OK.
We like this painting too.

Love,
Mom and Dad

operation enduring artist said...

are drugs enough?

poppy said...

kelli-
nice comment 2 posts back, about the masters house/ using his tools- I agree with that for sure.
Its funny how quick trendy art kids will dump on others for spending time with some older traditions, (in my experience.) it doesn't make sense.. Plus they want to come out of 4 years of school looking like geniuses and hip to the now - enough ragging my friends, it could lead to much rambling..
Dr. Lakra i like..I'm also curious what was said about Angela.. haven't read any posts yet.. good technique to use if you don't know how to draw, haven't seen any other work by her but thats what i do when i run into problems.. i cover everything up with leaves..that is one beast of a tit..what is the left bulge beside the mega tit?
As for elephants, i find very flat which is too bad. I would like to see some volume here esp. if they can shoot lazers from their eyeballs, what gives? anyone else find this too monochrome? Does anyone find that alot painters paint this way by default and not by choice?

kelli said...

More is more. I know this artist in passing and a lot goes into his work. He used to be a writer and I think they are supposed to be novelistic or cinematic rather than the single image and single idea paintings are usually based on. I don't think it is a standard linear narrative either.

kelli said...

Vita Virginia told me you really satisfy.
God, I'm sorry I couldn't help myself. Giggling in my own vat of cheese. So ashamed.

kelli said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
poppy said...

vita, how long could you stand to look at this? Use this as my deciding factor sometimes.
Cut the pretense from artspeak in general and its fine and dandy, too often it feels like an elephant is frying my brain with lazers when i hear it.. when you can take it to street level it's far more satisfying..

zipthwung said...

Im into hedge mazes, the Taj mahal, baselisks, skeet shooting, pixel parks, the writings of Eric Blair, Rudyard Kipling...

I agree witht he formal criticisms.

This painting would be better if it was better.

zipthwung said...

But the lazer vision rocks.

zipthwung said...

great snakes!

enough with the harpies!

TOMPAC said...

Having seen wollard’s last NY exhibition and a few paintings since (most recently at some simon watson/campari event on west broadway in may) i have been impressed by the development of the work and have really come to like the paintings. I think it is hard to make technical judgments (i.e. painted well or not) from a small jpeg, and if this one is much like the painting i saw in may, it is probably pretty well put together- the construction of the paintings I have seen recently remind me of kerry james marshal (who i dig). anyway i like the imagery in this one - seems like some sort of synthetic cosmopolitanism - it think it is timely.

operation enduring artist said...

chico: i think its more like,

1st reaction: mmmm....whatever
2nd: why the hell are there lazers?


lazers are irrelevant, arbitrary and pointless...they are the new yeti.

TOMPAC said...

sorry - i think it is timely

no-where-man said...

hum... deck.

the random squares "Art" it up.

poppy said...

good someone mentioned the random squares everywhere... to represent the future and whatnot? like which is it?

a quick comment about being able to judge or not.. you can still tell many things from a jpeg- like how voluminous or flat something is. works against this painting in judging quality.
zip put up carravagios medusa and i see that the colors are completely off and the volume and skill are completely evident.. I was hoping someone might be able to explain, that knows this painter, why is it so flat and boring?

kelli said...

Poppy I don't know him well but these do look good in person. The detail is more evident and bright color always slides worse than tone. A lot of contemporary paintings that look good in person slide badly and vise versa. Things that rely on detail, complexity or flat color as opposed to volumetric depth reproduce badly.

jeff said...

yikes!!!

Anonymous said...

Can you imagine the mind that thinks graphic/formal squares combined with a convoy of elephants combined with elements of hi and lo paint handling, combined with hard edged zip like lasers, combined with a narrative element...a narrative element ripped from..who knows cares. uuuuugggghhh. and again....it's well done and mildly sophisticated...shit I'll take a Schnabel Olatz painting on my wall before this preppyness. The art world has become Steely Dan ...it's disgusting.

David Page Coffin said...

This one reminded me of an old Van Morrison cover, and of A.M. Klarwein: snapshots from a R’n’R “fever dream.” (Steely Dan, indeed!)
But the ones at www.massimoaudiello.com seemed much more in the “now...” (What’s the ’06 equivalent? Or is it still Steely Dan?)

“why is it so flat and boring”
Surely this is “ironic”?

flesheater99 said...

OK Wait a goddam fucking minute,millerhuggins.

Not in defense of this painting (b/c it's "interesting and fun" at best) but in defense of Steely Dan and anyone with taste enough in their mouth to recognize quality when they see/hear it-->the "art world" that we know is not now nor likely to ever be worthy of a compliment as high as "becoming Steely Dan."

For the present scene to ascend to a level of Dan-ness it would take

1. A pallete of far greater color specificity
2. A story painted with broader strokes
3. Self-conscious consienceless-ness...enough to tell you a story with JUST ENOUGH LACK OF DETAIL so you get lost in it's possibilities.
4. An economy of devices.
5. A richness of texture.
6. A daring to make something that doesn't sound/look like what is already so very out there.
7. Double-Zero-irony...which of course is ironic in it's sincerity.
8. sax & synth interludes
and most importantly
9. The Cuervo Gold AND the Fine Columbian.



So why don't you stick that forked-tongue back into its tone-def head and make tonight a wonderful thing.

Ingrates.


Sincerely,
Deacon Blue

ps Big Ups to Roger Dean.

zipthwung said...

yeah, and what about budgie?

flesheater99 said...

Is that a Jimmy Buffet reference?

zipthwung said...

Roger dean man!

You could say its too sci fi, but its trippy, and thats good.

poppy said...

i know some things dont translate,
i'm still not a fan all the same..
i was curious what it would take for me to like this.. kinda like the other one someone posted.

Anonymous said...

Quality...bed sheets, Quality paper towels, Quality health insurance, Quality education and now Quality painting...just lovely. I don't care necessarily about "quality", nor do I necessarily care about emotional honesty...art works have qualities not quality anyway.

zipthwung said...

Now, as the first step of the crystallization process, he saw that when Quality is kept undefined by definition, the entire field called esthetics is wiped out -- completely disenfranchised -- kaput. By refusing to define Quality he had placed it entirely outside the analytic process. If you can't define Quality, there's no way you can subordinate it to any intellectual rule. The estheticians can have nothing more to say. Their whole field, definition of Quality, is gone.

Anonymous said...

Yup.

Let the filthy academics stew in their Steely Dan and make recipes for mediocrity.

flesheater99 said...

Yes, well that's bold and noble of you but I suggest cross-referencing your comparisons b4 you get all apples to oranges.

Anonymous said...

Didn't mean to imply academia on anyone other than the Bard College boys of Steely Dan. They are a good bit academic, right?...I'm pretty sure Steely Dan was tenured..sounded that way at least.

flesheater99 said...

The "tenured" sounds of Kid Charlemange. -Love it

Donald Fagen was certainly schooled*. Savvy to point of being smug. But bitter enough to realize that there's more "experience" to be gleaned from a bar-room floor and the skirts that stand atop them than on the finely manicured lacrosse pitch @ the Iviest of Leagues.

Yet another reason why "I'm Never Going Back to My Old Schooooool~"



*I know I know...add Michael McDonald to the mix and all bets are off. It worked and that's what counts. Somethings are better left un-examined.