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Monday, March 02, 2009

Melissa Meyer


Melissa Meyer, at Lennon Weinberg, through March 21st.

Melissa Meyer.
Posted by Martin at 3:00 AM
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19 comments:

Anonymous said...

i used to like her until my fried told me i was wrong to like her and now i feel conflicted. can you help me?

3/02/2009 9:19 AM
Martin said...

yes. i think you should like her.

why did your friend say that?

3/02/2009 1:41 PM
Anonymous said...

it was kind of a quick dismissal. maybe he thought it was too easy or too formulaic?

3/02/2009 2:14 PM
Nomi Lubin said...

"You are wrong to like her." My goodness.

Oh, wait. That has internet ambiguity: What is "wrong" is to tell a person he or she is wrong to like someone. OK, maybe with rare exception, ha. But, really. It is not wrong to state how one feels, but to tell another how they should feel, stymies the endeavor of experiencing art.

3/02/2009 2:27 PM
Martin said...

being easy and looking easy are not the same... and anyways, neither "being easy" nor "looking easy" are negatives for me.

formulaic... it's hard to think of many artists who couldn't be accused of being formulaic. that is not necessarily a negative either... although i definitely can see how it can be.

3/02/2009 3:41 PM
Anonymous said...

I like her, and since we can't retrieve the original argument, are there any other reasons not to like her?

3/02/2009 3:44 PM
Nomi Lubin said...

There are absolutely no reasons not to like her. Anyone who thinks there are is wrong.

vc, you're such a good teachika. I don't know if that's a real word. I think it's a Yiddish bastardization? Someone born to teach, anyway.

The easy, or too easy quality is one of those endless elusive qualities that seems to depend so much on subjectivity.

But I have to say more or else I'll be mistaken for a dirty relativist.

What one could fairly call "easiness" in Melissa Meyer's work is saved by structure, discipline, awareness of and respect for the constraints of making a picture.

3/02/2009 4:24 PM
Neanderthals Destroyed Atlantis said...
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3/02/2009 4:50 PM
Neanderthals Destroyed Atlantis said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
3/02/2009 4:51 PM
Anonymous said...

what about bradley walker tomlin?

3/02/2009 6:53 PM
Anonymous said...

Man i wish icould see this show. Not only are they light and fresh and easy-appearing in a way that reminds us how not-easy it is to get that quality, but that lightness is in fact polemical and critical.
It is a resounding "no" to cleverness. Joe Bradley it ain't (but I like him too. . .)
Meyer shows how "just" painting, just finding beauty and joy in color and motion and layering and structure, is in itself fraught with incredible difficulty and endless questions of personal decisions and tendencies.
And I have never read a word by or about her, but this "just" painting is a vibe I get from them.
She has a language, but she is not coralled by it.

3/02/2009 7:21 PM
Neanderthals Destroyed Atlantis said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
3/02/2009 10:19 PM
zipthwung said...

well hell if you like heilman and that ilk then this is right up your alley.

I like to see a bit more fussiness - worked surface and all that.

How can you justify buying a representation of a graffiti tag, even if it is repeated again and again like a time stamp?

maybe this work is too miami.

3/02/2009 11:58 PM
Anonymous said...

ha! i knew someone was out there. I think lack of "fusiness" or "worked surface" is a better way to phrase it than "too easy," "it" being the quality that I can imagine would leave some unsatisfied.

Thanks, eageageag, and you are right i intended no self-connection, but I guess it stands to reason.

I do not, however, see the Heilmann or grafitti connection. Well, I do see them, in that I can imagine how someone else might see them, but it doesn't diminish them for me.
thanks, eageageag, and you are right i intended no self-connection, but I guess it stands to reason.

3/03/2009 7:00 AM
Nomi Lubin said...

I don't understand preferring a worked surface or fussiness. Or preferring the opposite. That makes no sense to me.

3/03/2009 1:14 PM
zipthwung said...

No sense or you just refuse to think along those lines?

TObey makes sense to me. Motherwell makes sense to me. David Reed, Rowe, Calligraphy absolutely makes sense to me.

SO HEilman makes sense to me. hodgkin

makes sense to me.


Hit it and quit.

I just see it.

Who cares how long or short your stroke is?

Dot ash dot dot dash.

Rythm and hues.

Your refusal to see that basic line is merely contrarian.

Now if you said, hey, this is writing, not paint strokes, I could go with that scribbler dude Twombly, or Basquiat, who's handwriting is atrocious, as many males refuse to learn to dot their I's with smiley faces.

But is it any different?

Why this kind of tepid graffito lyricism appeals to people is beyond me. We live in troubled times, which call for expressionistic straight right Krag Mata jabs, not outdated Crane style Kung Fu sillyness.

Next we'll be sending WEndy WHite to Valhalla for riffing on Hodgkin. WTF.

oh but the quality of the line is different. WHo cares. Drop and give me twenty.

3/03/2009 4:10 PM
zipthwung said...

I mean fussiness is a state of mind, not an obligation, or even a style, necessarily. I agree if thats what you mean.

A neat freak can be fussy while appearing serene.

Forced lyricism.

A fussbudget can appear scattershot while attempting to nail a target.

Faked frenetic.

I find people who consume this kind of lyrical abstraction (late "dekooning" anyone?) often neglect the other states - mine for instance - finding it distastefull and rotten like a bad seed.

And the difference between the artists I mentioned and everyone else - say guston before he chickened out, or on the sedately figurative end - Will Cotton or Hilary Harkness - or more expressionistic maybe we go to the sensibility for the germans or their ilk - Jonathan Meese can be fussy without being fustian.

3/03/2009 4:35 PM
zipthwung said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
3/03/2009 4:37 PM
Anonymous said...

I like Melissa Meyer's work and nobody told me to or not to. I like it all by myself.

However unintentionally, Petronius Arbiter's comment points to a larger issue--how easy it is to be influenced by others' opinions about art despite the subjective nature of the viewing experience. I try not to read reviews, criticisms, etc. until after I see a show, or only if I can't see it in person. Same with films.

We can so easily be swayed...

signed, a painter

11/15/2009 2:43 PM

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