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...because the artist doesn’t call on painterly competence, the work stands out in a gallery scene that has, overall, the ready-for-prime-time surface sheen of an M.F.A. show - Holland Cotter
- Aaron Namenwirth doesn't know what to say.
- Matt Connors doesn't know what to say.
- Chris Sharp says retarded.
- Dictionary Colen recalls Rothko (in the comments after Sharp's review).
- more comments.
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23 comments:
I think Cotter really nailed it here regarding the flavor of painting shows in general. I'm tired of competently opulent paint handling without any adventure (Logan Grider comes to mind) . Missed the Bradley on my NY visit last weekend and I'm sorry. I'm not sure I would say they are completely without painterly competence, though. It's hard to obtain and just as hard to get rid of, and it includes not only gooping and glazing but also judgement. I do wish I'd seen the show so I could be as troubled as others.
I did not see this show in person. However, if I did stumble upon it during my art centered wanderings, I would have done a quick about face and exited Canada without signing the guest book. This would have been my review. In my mind, art is like any experience that takes up one's precious time. There is so much out there and one must be choosey. Negative reviews are not a waste of time, for the person who writes them and the people who read them, and I truly wish more of them would appear in the print media, but positive reviews will always be much more prevalent because of a number of different factors. Writers can write about anything. There are no limitations. They can write a scholarly essay on or a glowing review of a pile of dog shit with a toy lightsaber stuck in it. They can wax poetic over some old painting. For me, the work of art, made using whatever media, must have some sort of lasting value in my mind. If the work of art can't travel through time in my mind, become a lasting memory which modifies other memories and becomes something else altogether through the creative processes of forgetting and remembering, then what is the effing point?
EG
For myself there are just people who have done this exact same thing in a more soulful and poetic way (Tom Meecham: early work). The humor is more Bill & Ted than witty to me. Every gesture or style has its own academy so comparisons to similar work are always present. I'm not sure anything can escape painting tradition because everything has been done. And in this case it's been done better.
The Rothko comparison baffles me in terms of form, intent and ambition.
i saw this show, i was insulted by it, it looked slapdash and not interesting in the way a lot of "slacker" painting can look, so soulless, even cynical and bratty. rothko i think not. does he actually think he is getting away with something, or is it all a joke, ditto a show i walked into last night, aaron young, you have got to be kidding. what is this new or old/new trend of bad boy abstract art that is about doing nothing? mind you i am not a fogie.
i likem a lot. they're classical. maybe a little too restrained, but pretty.
'ready for prime time' as a perjorative? go culture of diminished expectations!
Bradley's painting are classical vc? Please define classical for me with reference to Bradley's Canada show.
Classical in the broadest and not necessariy historically accurate sense -- restrained and economical to the point of being haughty, but not without turmoil.
Also it was a provocation, of course.
Thinking about this half asleep last night I might have understood the Rothko comparison as a sense of uncompromising near-emptiness, and I get the impression that that is how Rothko's work looked to many in the 50s -- empty. I am also convinced that Bradley is serious and not just a huckster. Not on the same level as Rothko, but ask someone unfamiliar with art about Rothko and you will get a similar reaction to what some are saying about Bradley. Of course visceral shock and outrage are not the end of the aesthetic experience, but it's worth contemplating.
I'll still take Rothko any day over Bradley. Hey while we're making ridiculous comparisons, can I bring up Matisse?
And as to that commenter over on the Frieze site getting upset about reference to such an "obscure" painter as Martin Barre, I'd rather be reminded of how little I know instead of how much I know.
p.s. too much digital ink spilled by me.
I think these are fun. they make me happy. maybe a little guilty.
If there were thousands of painters during Rothko's times, who exhibited painterly hovering rectangles would Rothko have been nearly as shocking to the public as he was? No. How many works of two dimensional visual art have we seen in the past few decades that are reminiscent of Bradley's stuff in the Canada exhibition? So I do not find the specific comparison you are making compelling. If you look up the term "classical simplicity" on google the first several hits will be for plumbing, lighting, and home decor companies. The term "classical" is as good as useless.
I don't know anything. You made good points vc.
EG
This is fascinating. Retarded or fun guilty-happy? I don't know; haven't seen them. Though, from the pictures, for me, they are both. The scale, however, I think pushes them over into annoyingland. What's endearing on a small piece of paper is annoying on a large canvas. (Yeah, I know these are "medium" canvases. To me they are large.) But, this is part of it all, of course. Wouldn't be talking about them if they were on 3" x 5" pieces of paper.
what's weird to me is that i thought ironic hipster "dumb" painting was over... like, completely passé... isn't it? so it's surprising that these shows keep cropping up. seems to me that the good artists who made work like this have long moved on.
I'm so sick of ironic hipster that I see it even where it isn't, so it surprises me that I don't see it here, especially when I saw it in his Whitney paintings.
I really like the word "Dumb," but not when it describes hipster irony in the way that Dubz uses it, To me dumb can also mean courageous and abrupt, but not necessarily unfinished. Ellsworth Kelly is dumb, and his releif paintings of the last few years are urgent in a way that I can't describe. Maybe art is dumb that make me dumb.
But words (like "classical," by the way) are very slippery, and they work best when they are read with imagination.
Another word that is overused by art critics: Byzantine. Boy is that one annoying, especially when all they are saying is "busy". I guess my litmus test for word use is this: if I have no clue what the writer means when they use a specific term or phrase, but they act as if no further explanation is needed, then I get annoyed. But again, who gives a crap.
EG
The supermarket was so Byzantine today. Oh, and your phone was Byzantine when I tried to call you earlier.
You mean like that?
Barnaby Byzantine
That is funny Nomi. I really like the collages you are posting on your blog.
I should have said that critics and journalists use the term
B(b)yzantine when all they mean to say is complicated.
Here is an example:
"The federal government will now have to oversee and manage a bailout of enormous magnitude involving complex mortgage-backed securities so byzantine in their structure that even Wall Street experts cannot appraise their value."
"While Federal student loans and grants have opened doors to learning for untold numbers of low and middle-income students, tbe overall financial aid system, with its daunting forms and confused rationales, is nothing less than Byzantine."
I think the same thing happens when the term classical is used. Many words can be added to this list.
EG
That is funny Nomi. I really like the collages you are posting on your blog.
Hey, thank you!
And I was only being silly. I agree with you. If Byzantine is only used to mean busy or complicated, then there's no word left to describe art that actually looks Byzantine.
Though . .. I suppose one could argue for the evolution of language and all that. Even in your examples, it means something more that complicated (unnecessarily extremely complicated, maybe?). But I wouldn't. I'm a reactionary.
Your paintings are great too Nomi. I have checked them out a few times in the past.
Thanks. That means a lot right now. Well, always, but especially at this moment. Thank you.
Nomi hangs out in some awesome gothicesque woods.
Ha. That's my mom's backyard in New Haven, CT. I did paint those arching trees over and over, didn't I.
I think Chris Sharp is right on, whether you like it or not, you feel like a fool. At the same time, I feel Joe Bradley has something, I just wish it could be discussed on its own merits...impossible, I guess.
I thought his piece, 'Fisherman' (I think it was called, white vertical rectangle on yellow horizontal rectangle) from the Whitney Biennial was pretty awesome, as was another one, 'bread,' which I saw somewhere(?) An abstraction of the object referring back to the object. Like the Mary Heilman, 'Guitar' Clear, simple, minimal, pretty genius. I find it interesting in terms of discussions of abstraction versus representation. An abstraction that has no desire to separate from its original identity.
I feel like his new pieces have that same pared down feeling, but are approaching from another angle. They scream 'I am making anti-heroic paintings' (except for the scale) but that's why I don't think they can be about that. Too one note and done. Although, having said that, I can't think of anyone who anti-ed quite as much in every area, no skill, no paint, badly stretched, unprimed canvas...
In any case, they are paintings without paint, like his earlier pieces with fabric, and add insult to injury by using only grease to make a one-shot mark. He's definitely over paint, but I think that's secondary. It seems like he's more interested in form and language and how we 'read' a painting.
Where his old pieces stopped when you got it, oh it's bread, oh it's a fisherman, with these once you see the simple (skill-less) stick figure, you have more questions. Who? The number 23 signifies what? Okay, the cross seems obvious and very specific...but they still bring up more questions than his earlier pieces. While his earlier pieces stopped with this is a loaf of bread and this is a fisherman, now they ask, why a person? Why a cross?
Maybe someone said this, but with the earlier ones, you had a sense of self-satisfaction for being in on the joke. The new ones definitely make you feel like you're not getting an inside joke...
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