Wow, another dismissive Marlene Dumas slam by Jerry Saltz -
"the below-average overhyped painter Marlene Dumas"
This follows "the second-rate Marlene Dumas" here (Artnet, 5/30/05), and "the flat-footed ways they're painted leave me completely cold" in a very brief mention of her work here (Art in America, 10/1994).
What is with these side-swipes? Has he ever actually reviewed any of her shows?
I saw Jerry Saltz in Miami when I was sitting outside of Scope. He very quickly came down the street (to my left) and went into the Scope hotel, was in there for maybe half an hour, then came back out and walked/ran on his cellphone down toward the beach. He was like the uber-epitome of the adrenaline-addled spectator he talks about here discussing art fairs -
"adrenaline-addled spectacles for a kind of buying and selling where intimacy, conviction, patience, and focused looking, not to mention looking again, are essentially nonexistent"
Maybe that was some kind of family-emergency phone call or something but if I hadn't known it was him I'd have thought he was some rabid collector, certainly not an art critic. I wouldn't call Saltz a "below-average" art critic, only because the bar is sooo fucking low, but except for his glib dislike of Dumas he is wildly inconsistent with his denouncing, celebrating same, denouncing, celebrating same. He is easy to read but tiresome.
Charlie Finch, Tyler Green, Richard Polsky, Jerry Saltz - four guys that aren't artists and don't like the work of Marlene Dumas.
Nicole Davis, Nicole Eisenmann, Joy Garnett, Cynthia King, Sarah Milroy, Adrian Searle, Barry Schwabsky, Richard Vine, Carol Vogel - some people that like Marlene Dumas.
Previous posts with some good Marlene Dumas comments here and here.
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3 comments:
gender bias, for sure. nobody talks about the "paint thinness" in a luc tuymans for example,and when a mediocre male artists work command millions, nobody bats an eye. sorry folks, its all about bias bias bias. but WHEN will it stop?????? we see it all day everyday day in the art world, and even when people of prominence mention gender bias, nobody still does anything. There are a lot of great artists, women and men, a lot of women who are not given the time of day in comparison to their male peers, women who show in galleries, etc. have careers etc. but still are considered "nothing".
Bill - Thanks for the David Cohen link.
Maybe it is gender bias, I don't know, if anything it looks like some weird Artnet clique thing.
Here is a good new blog by an angry woman artist, she is reporting all the possible gender bias stuff -
http://anonymousfemaleartist.blogspot.com/
Why be anonymous though?
Yeah, I know. To be anonymous is kind of sneaky - but you see, my day job is a conflict of interests - and I'd surely get fired for the shit I say about the state of the art world. I chalk it up to being female that I even have to work AT ALL... I should be gov't-subsidized and working in the studio full-time.
Final thought: (and please don't take offense)... I think Marlene Dumas is TOTALLY OVERRATED.
Love ya though
Edna
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