dibbity-dab

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"I’m skeptical of the current fad for (easily salable) nostalgic dibbity-dab abstract paintings" - Andrew Russeth

"Since the economy tanked, we have become so accustomed to seeing so many artists churn out insipid, derivative drivel that we cannot imagine things any other way. The lemming abstractionist movement (also commonly referred to as the Martha Stewart School of Provisional Painting) still seems to have inexplicable hegemony over most of the art world." - Irena Jurek

"There is an overabundance of nostalgic abstract painting in the world today. Many of these works are shown and garnering attention in Manhattan's Lower East Side, in close proximity to the gallery that shows Liz's work. The system of art is lubricated for nostalgia: The dealer can easily talk about these paintings because they look like older art, the collector "gets it" because it is something that he or she has seen before, the artist feels comfortable since it gives him or her a relationship to "history", and comparing contemporary art is a trusty crutch taught in MFA programs. The job of the artist is to question - not to be boringly complicit with - all of these structures." - Carter Mull

New Casualists

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hey i did not 'officially' post this article yet -

Abstract Painting: The New Casualists, by Sharon Butler, in The Brooklyn Rail.... or read it on Sharon's site because there are some good comments.

AND she made a follow-up post responding to all the feedback she's received. Someone actually wrote a letter to The Brooklyn Rail complaining I was included (!)... haha wow.

Anyone interested in Sharon's article, or Raphael Rubinstein's 2009 Provisional Painting article, might enjoy reading this 2006 Vittorio Colaizzi review of a show I had in Richmond -

"Emptiness and lack become activist refusal. This is not mannered 'bad painting', but a genuine absence of professional finesse, a subversion of the handsome, assured, and reassuring qualities of today's more manageable abstract painting"

PS- I looked at PaintersNYC to see which artists mentioned in the New Casualist article had been discussed on PaintersNYC, and what was said.... love to go back and look at that blog.

11/07/2005 Lauren Luloff
4/22/2006 Rob Nadeau
8/15/2006 Martin Bromirski
12/12/2006 Chris Martin
01/03/2007 Rebecca Morris
03/28/2007 Jered Sprecher
05/01/2008 Thomas Nozkowski

vagina gumtata

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kind of pathetic to see people getting ridiculously outraged over who was excluded sixty years ago while in the HERE AND NOW fawning over JS, who has written 18 single artist reviews/features on contemporary artists in the past two+ years, with only three of them on women (two on the same woman, abramovic).

marclay, marclay, baldessari, colen, abramovic, dumas, abramovic, powhida, tillmans, sehgal, orozco, koons, richter, fischer, riley, ray, abdessemed, kawara

and guess what i take full credit for the dumas review even happening.

i got not mentioned again

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hey i got not mentioned by JS in NYMag... again.

It's in the new Marlene Dumas review where he says - "I’ve been accused of being part of a "circle jerk" anti-Dumas cabal. A 2008 New York Times Magazine profile included a quote that called disapproving male critics (including me) part of “a sexist conspiracy.”". The circle-jerk mention is me from this post from five(!) years ago.

The other unnamed person he quoted above - from the NYTimes profile - is Nicole Eisenmann, who coincidentally is the person who comments as Corny after the old 'circle-jerk' post. I don't think I'm betraying any confidence saying that.. there was an article mentioning her blog at some point later.

Actually, I was quoted but not named in that NYTimes profile as well. Kind of cool(?), this stealth bibliography? This is like the third time I've been in NYMag but not. My previous unmention by JS in NYMag is here.

I'm glad he finally wrote a review of this artist he has been trashing for seventeen years. Too bad he couldn't do it without portraying himself as a victim. I looked at his Facebook thread on this review and it is beyond ironic that it goes on for 250 comments mostly hostile toward Dumas and then they suddenly switch to honoring JS for his ability to put up with on-line criticism.

Well anyways congrats to both me and JS because I gave him shit about not reviewing the Dumas show at MoMA (which got me 'defriended') and also for getting beat with two dead women by Schjeldahl haha and now he has finally written a Dumas review and has already reviewed two live women this year wow!

whitney galleries

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no way really? i love that building and those spaces!

"Its 1966 Marcel Breuer building has all the disadvantages of starchitecture and few if any of the rewards.
...
it stands out as relentlessly unforgiving to works of all styles and periods. If the stone floor doesn’t kill, the oppressive overhead concrete structure almost undoubtedly will.
...
The Whitney doesn’t just need more gallery space, it also needs great or even just good gallery space."

do people not like the Whitney galleries?

and she says that The New Museum is "oppressive in their lack of windows"... she must really hate the Canada space with it's awesome stone floor and no windows.

Schjeldahl Beats Saltz by Two Dead Women

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Nice article, except...

"I, for one, would rather see a tightly organized overview of Mr. Zucker’s work than Marlene Dumas’s warmed-over Expressionism, which was recently displayed in bulk at the Museum of Modern Art"

Strange sour note in an article that otherwise didn't have a bad thing to say about a single artist, and a lot of artists were named. What is up with them and Dumas? To borrow one of JS's shopworn phrases, it's as if she is living rent-free in their brains. Weird.

Schjeldahl Beats Saltz With Two Dead Women

I don't get how JS keeps up this appearance of being a champion of women. How many reviews dedicated to the solo show of a woman has he written in the past YEAR? One.... and it was Georgia O'Keefe. Talk about shut up or nut up. Even Schjeldahl, who also didn't review the solo show of a living woman in the past year, beat JS by two dead women.

The last show of a living female artist JS has dedicated a full review to was Pipilotti Rist at MoMA, published 12/28/08. What year is it now? Oh yeah, 2010.

Yes, it's 2010 now. 2009 was spent on Facebook calling out MoMA. I'm half-expecting the upcoming JS Whitney Biennial review to be half-about the half-representation of women... and fully expecting his Facebook commenters to give him 87 'Like's and 470 You Did It Jer!s.



Think how much more effective it might have been for them to write an open letter to Roberta Smith instead of Ann Temkin. Hah! Since 2/20/09, Roberta has written fifty-four 'Art in Review' pieces devoted to solo shows, with fifteen of those on women artists. In the past FIVE MONTHS there have been twenty-four such reviews... with only FOUR of them on the work of female artists. It's a groaner that none of those Facebook people says anything.

Herbert Vogel on the Cedar Bar, from the Herb and Dorothy documentary - "The Cedar Tavern was an extraordinary place for the artists to let their knowledge and anger out at the same time". It'd be nice if some old Cedar Bar regular would get on that Facebook page and go Lloyd Bentsen on it.

RELATED: eageageag on Yau and Saltz.

styles

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Just recently found out that Ethan Greenbaum has been producing an online arts journal for two years... called ***The Highlights***(!)... can't believe I never heard of it. Make sure to check out the archive!!


Dushko Petrovich at Rachel Uffner, July 2009; Dushko had two good paintings in a show curated by fellow painter Roger White. Dushko Petrovich and Roger White publish Paper Monument.

(can't find a website for Dushko's paintings... check out what I posted to flickr and I can update later with something better).

Nancy Smith, artloversnewyork. Nancy's show at Other Music has been extended through the end of September.

Loren Munk interview with Victoria Webb. It's good, read it! Loren Munk studio visit.

Joanne Mattera opening at Metaphor 9/18. Focused on painting.

random

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“Bruce Nauman, the Sam Shepherd of Contemporary Art” - Francesco Bonami. What are some other examples of this? I know I’ve read them but can’t recall any.

Peter Schjeldahl "motherfucker"! - in comments responding to Geoff Dyer.

retard roundup:
1. Chris Sharp, 2/11/08, for Flash Art - reviews Joe Bradley, Dan Colen responds in comments... discussed on anaba 11/10/08 and 1/05/09 (many great comments).
2. Charlie Finch, 12/11/08, for Artnet - on Marlene Dumas' retarded references.
3. Jerry Saltz, 1/09, for NYMag and Artnet - on going "full retard"
4. Chris Sharp again, 4/28/09, for ArtReview - staking his claim to the retard mantle, mentions Justin Lieberman, Joe Bradley, Dan Colen, Josh Smith.... Justin Lieberman responds in comments.

John Haber on Marlene Dumas, on Saltz' Facebook - "I'm gratified that so many people I like to read are so uniform in dumping on this utter garbage and leave it at that".
John Haber on Dumas, for Haber's Art Reviews.

Jerry Saltz on Marlene Dumas at MoMA

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"MoMA's dreary Marlene Dumas show establishes that she is a sensationalist with no original ideas about painting, color, or photography; she hasn't developed as an artist; is merely a later day Neo-Expresionist; is more connected to Andreas Serrano than to any painter." - Jerry Saltz on Marlene Dumas, on Facebook, 1/3/09.

WOW! That's it?? A facebook note after fifteen years of random sideswipes? Dude, she has a solo show on your home turf, at the freaking MoMA... this was really put-up or shut-up time.

Some great comments in response to the note -

"Well, Jerry, I have noticed that you've been complaining about her for years, is there a full review underway? If not it's time to let go of this thing with her..." - Joe Fyfe

"It appears you're simply writing "dreary" to avoid dealing with Dark." - Joy Garnett

"I find it fascinating how uniformly critics and New Yorkers (yeah, and me) have hated this show, even Peter Schjeldahl, who I'd have guesed would have found the personality to his liking" - John Haber

John Haber is wrong... Peter Schjeldahl reviewed the show positively. Roberta Smith did not hate the show either.

"I'm gratified that so many people I like to read are so uniform in dumping on this utter garbage and leave it at that" - John Haber... I mean John Hater!! haha.

Charlie Finch dumps, and even uses the word "retarded" to describe the show, apparently trying to glom some of the attention Chris Sharp got for his Joe Bradley review.

Joe Bradley

Joe Bradley, Schmagoo Paintings, at Canada - I saw it right after it had officially closed, but the stuff was still up... except one of the paintings was in Miami.







Two previous mentions of this show have generated (and continue to generate) a lot of good comments... so I'm re-posting them all together... if you want your "comment name" switched to "anonymous" here in this more open posting just e-mail me and I'll fix it.

First Post 11/10/08:
Chris Sharp on Joe Bradley, at Canada - "it doesn’t get much more retarded than this". Dan Colen responds at disjointed length in comments, Dan is seriously hung up on the word "chortle". Dan is OFFENDED, which is fairly hilarious.

Anonymous said...
looking at the pictures of the opening of joe bradly i couldnt help saaying to myself, this is the new boys club and it just frankly grossed me out. there are a lot of precendents to what joe bradley does, not all male, but i think the reviewer in frieze magasine was dead on correct, it is shit, and he will get away with it because he is a boy and will be taken seriously no matter what.
11/10/2008 7:45 AM

pb said...
ridiculous comment
11/10/2008 12:45 PM

Anonymous said...
If someone out there really likes Joe Bradley's work it would be great if you could enlighten us.EG
11/10/2008 1:48 PM

Nomi Lubin said...
I chortled through the comment til I started skipping paragraphs cause of their high boring to chortle ratio.I gotta say, though, something about the bar mitzvah did chortle me.
11/10/2008 2:47 PM

Anonymous said...
i thought the reviewer was right on too.
11/10/2008 2:54 PM

kelli said...
Thanks for the chortles.
11/10/2008 2:59 PM

Anonymous said...
i like the fact that a reviewer actually was critical in a time when if something gets reviewed its always at least 99% positive, so my hat is off to that reviewer for calling on this work as lame, which it is.
11/10/2008 3:46 PM

flacktard said...
Would it be retarded to say that Dan Colen is incoherent,and cannot spell for shit?
11/11/2008 12:33 PM

Kai said...
I thought colen's comments were really sweet and heartfelt. Fantastically ranty.
11/11/2008 11:47 PM

beebe said...
It's tempting to be insulted Bradley's work . . . but it's just too dumb to get insulted by. There is nothing there: no content, no intent, just dumbness. It's like watching a toddler smear his own feces on the wall. Sure we're all upset and disgusted by it--I mean, what would possess someone the behave in such a manner?--but the kid (Bradley in this case) just doesn't know any better.
11/17/2008 10:50 AM

Second Post 11/14/08:
...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).

vc said...
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.
11/14/2008 7:00 AM

Anonymous said...
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
11/14/2008 8:29 AM

kelli said...
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.
11/14/2008 3:24 PM

Anonymous said...
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.
11/14/2008 5:49 PM

vc said...
i likem a lot. they're classical. maybe a little too restrained, but pretty.
11/14/2008 9:41 PM

chris said...
'ready for prime time' as a perjorative? go culture of diminished expectations!
11/14/2008 9:55 PM

Anonymous said...
Bradley's painting are classical vc? Please define classical for me with reference to Bradley's Canada show.
11/14/2008 11:03 PM

vc said...
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.
11/15/2008 6:20 AM

Anonymous said...
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.
11/15/2008 10:24 AM

Anonymous said...
I don't know anything. You made good points vc.EG
11/15/2008 1:35 PM

Nomi Lubin said...
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.
11/15/2008 5:33 PM

dubz said...
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.
11/15/2008 7:34 PM

vc said...
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.
11/16/2008 12:27 PM

Gina B said...
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...
12/31/2008 11:22 AM

RELATED: Artloversnewyork photos from the opening. The Rothko Chapel. Seeing a crucifix at the Rothko Chapel. Matthew Fisher on Joe Bradley at Canada. Joe Bradley-curated "Peanut Gallery" at Journal Gallery. Jerry Saltz on Dan Colen and Nate Lowman at Maccarone.

JK Fake

JK Fake Myspace

I saw on James Kalm's latest youtube entry (the Rirkrit Tiravanija one) that some jokesters are going to openings impersonating him, and have even set up a Myspace account. That's my photo they used! It's a picture of Steve Kaplan (not James Kalm) giving my painting a double thumbs-up, at the opening for a show I was in at Dumbo Arts Center. 

I wonder if they are putting their videos on the internet somewhere... they might be funny. Maybe they do the bike thing even.

PLUS:

William Pym on Nate Lowman, for Artforum - 

"Nate Lowman, a pretty downtown totem seemingly welcomed as a royal at New Museum events, hovered outside, collecting his crew. 'Is this necessary?' he huffed petulantly, pointing at the growing crowd of fireman and cops improvising a solution to the three-alarm blaze around the corner..."

This is the same William Pym that got upset when I negatively compared the show of a friend of his to Nate L. and Dan Colen's last Maccarone show. I think we unintentionally started the biggest drama thread on the Philly artblog...  

MISC

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Chris Sharp on Joe Bradley, at Canada - "it doesn’t get much more retarded than this". Dan Colen responds at disjointed length in comments, Dan is seriously hung up on the word "chortle". Dan is OFFENDED, which is fairly hilarious.

RELATED: Artloversnewyork photos from the opening. The Rothko Chapel. Seeing a crucifix at the Rothko Chapel. Jerry Saltz on Dan Colen and Nate Lowman at Maccarone.


Hannelore Baron, Untitled, 1985, from s(election), at Gallery Schlesinger, through November 29th.

RELATED: the flag in art.

Cora Cohen, at Michael Steinberg, on Artcritical.

MORATORIUM EXTENSION ALERT!!! Roberta Smith on photography based painting - "as art formulas go, nothing beats paintings based on photographs".... "it is something of an art-world plague". JUST in Time! The Jerry Saltz call for a four-year moratorium on photography based painting expired this year! I can't wait for the Marlene Dumas reviews!

Hey, every Martha Rosler review starts out with the "conscious decision" made to place a quarter in the turnstile and enter the show... am I the only one that tried to push the thing without putting a quarter in? Guess what, you didn't need to put a quarter in to make the thing turn.

I thought that show was a snooze...

ATTENTION! Nick Kuszyk is not Banksy! Nick's nickers are in a twist... the photographer has posted a response including Nick's e-mail to him. What is the big deal/surprise that somebody publicly making public art might get photographed, especially if it is the art of an (over-rated) superstar, and especially if a big part of his schtick is his "anonymity". Duh, he is courting that attention.

(and i like street art)

MORE ON THE MYSTERIOUS and SENSITIVE NICK! -


THIS IS MY FAVORITE KUZSYK... CliCK HeRE!

Nick Kuszyk curated an awesome show at McCaig-Wells!


This is the kitchen of my friend and I got her hooked on Nick Kuszyk and now she is OUT OF CONTROL. this is only one side of the kitchen.


Nick + Kai!!!!

Jason Coates on Art of This Century

Jason Coates wrote a review of Art of This Century, my 2006 show at the Markel Building. The review was never published... UNTIL NOW!

I've added links to things -

Redefining the Center
Jason Coates

When discussing Martin Bromirski's one person show at Haigh Jamgochian's wonderfully out of place Markel Building in Richmond, VA, it is quite possible to focus only on the near-perfect matchup between the small group of paintings and the site. For starters, Jamgochian's office building- which resembles a gigantic flying saucer plopped down amid the car dealerships and strip malls on West Broad Street, has the same future-as-imagined-from-the-past quality that Bromirski's misty abstracts capture. Bromirski has a knack for redefining the center, often creating art venues where there were none. He's accomplished this with his popular art blog anaba.blogspot.com, his mock Art Basel at Stuffy's Sub Shop in Richmond, and now this show at what Bromirski deems the "Bizzarro Guggenheim". But equally as interesting is the way that the paintings ask you to imagine where they have been.

The handful of small paintings are hung in a circular lobby among an elevator entrance and vending machines. Yet, even in this modest setting, Bromirski's paintings appear unassuming- almost tailor made to blend into the space. It is this unassuming quality- bordering on sweetness and pathos- that sets this work apart from his earlier, grander paintings. Previously, Bromirski's large scale work would center around a tiny, barely recognizable figure dwarfed by it's surroundings . In the new body of work, the individual paintings become characters themselves, ready to be crammed into a suitcase like a stack of dog-eared postcards and rushed off to the next adventure.

The vocabulary in the paintings is limited: each containing one or more circular elements fixed atop a hazy backdrop. Many Japanese landscape drawings make use of the sun as a balancing device, acting like a free-floating punctuation mark above the picture plane. Bromirski focuses only on this sun-shape, doing away with the rest of the picture. The sun-shapes have various colors and moods. Some rub up against each another and appear to socialize, some seem quite and contemplative.

If Bromirski's work has always dealt, in some way or another, with accumulation of experience, the new paintings wear that experience on their skin. Often the sun-shapes are cut from the paintings, reveling the layers beneath. Bromirski uses colored sand and acrylic paint to build complex, pockmarked surfaces. The result is a nebulous environment that is both ethereal and terrestrial, like the surface of the moon. In my favorite work in the show, hung just to the right of a snack machine, Bromirski lovingly repairs a large gash formed at the center of the painting by weaving it back together and dousing it with silver paint. The care with which the painting is mended is visible, and makes one wonder how (or why) it got gashed in the first place.

In an art world where the more-is-more aesthetic has become so commonplace that it can't be called brash anymore, it is nice to see an off-the-beaten-path and understated show like Art of This Century. It is a show that stokes a desire to see more, rather than pounding the viewer over the head with everything within reach. While many artists confuse making a lot with saying a lot, Bromirski clearly knows better.

- THanKS, Jason!

PLUS: Vittorio Colaizzi's review of the same show... An Assault on Taste!!!


Haigh Jamgochian's Markel Building, Richmond VA.... FROM SPACE.

miscellaneous stuff noted

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Christopher Knight, on Marlene Dumas, for the LATimes - "The earliest painting dates from 1984, when Dumas, then 32, picked up a brush again after a five-year hiatus"

Another (female) artist who stopped for a while, and came back strong. Agnes Martin stopped for seven years, Emily Carr stopped for fifteen years.

I once attended a lecture at which Jerry Saltz advised if you don't work for a year, you are maybe a year better, but if you don't work for two maybe you are not an artist (that is not an exact quote).

Dorothy Spears, on Steven Parrino, for the NYTimes - "In eight years and five solo New York shows, his former dealer José Freire said, he sold only two of Mr. Parrino’s paintings, one for $9,000 and the other for $10,000"

I'm always curious how artists support themselves, especially those that are living in super-expensive NYC. What was Parrino doing for money?

RELATED: a job, PLUS... what is your job - anaba post asking artists about jobs, recent Winkleman post on jobs and something (in comments) about not supposed to be having one, somehow. Lost me.

Greg Allen pining for the supposed days when "an energetic young painter would declare his presence with a work three or six years in the making, not three months"... wtf?

Chris Ashley posted a Bruce Conner video in memory and tribute to the recently deceased artist, and the next day received a comment from his widow's lawyer requesting and demanding it's removal. Again, WTF. This is the artist who cobbled together films from other filmmaker's footage, right? The artist known for bucking expectations, rules, and regulated behavior?

I'm reading a Thomas Disch book - The M.D. - after learning of him (and his recent suicide) on Eric Gelber and Tom Moody's blogs... it's good. Tom Moody is great for book and movie recommendations.

rhizome-incorrect

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from Tom Moody's blog -

One of the favored analogies of the people on the Rhizome chatboards attacking current art on blogs and WIKIS is "using animated GIFs and default blog templates is like using acrylic paint and prestretched canvases!"

I use acrylic paint, prestretched canvases, and default blog templates. Whoah... short circuit.... against protocol...... getting weaker......

Marlene Dumas Tally Reaches Fever Pitch

Someone left an anonymous comment yesterday morning (thanks!) noting that anaba is mentioned in this week's NYTimes Magazine... a Deborah Solomon profile of Marlene Dumas -

"An art-world blog, Anaba, has taken to listing the names of Dumas’s supporters and detractors as if they were superdelegates charged with putting an artist into office. Are you pro-Dumas or anti-Dumas? “All of the anti-Dumasers are men,” the blog noted in 2005, in a reference to a group of influential critics that includes Jerry Saltz, the art critic for New York magazine, who has described Dumas’s work as 'flat-footed'."

Also noted in my posts, along with the gender split, is that most of those quoted who don't like Dumas are not artists. I'm not sure which posts Deborah Solomon read, but here are the most relevant -

1/5/06 - My ongoing monitoring of the critical response to the work of Marlene Dumas
10/30/05 - The Dumas Report
6/17/05 - Carol Vogel and Sarah Milroy come out for Marlene Dumas
6/1/05 - Jerry Saltz still doesn't like Marlene Dumas
5/12/05 - Marlene Dumas - 1994
5/11/05 - Richard Polsky really hates Marlene Dumas
3/28/05 - Marlene Dumas!

CURRENT TALLY -

PRO-DUMAS: Svetlana Alpers, Chris Ashley, David Cohen, Nicole Davis, Nicole Eisenman (in comments), Joy Garnett, Cynthia King (in comments) Sarah Milroy, George Rodart (in comments), Barry Schwabsky, Adrian Searle, Elisabeth Sussman, Richard Vine, Carol Vogel.

ANTI-DUMAS: Franklin Einspruch (in comments, and on his blog), Charlie Finch, Tyler Green, Jerry Saltz, Richard Polsky, Peter Schjeldahl.

Jerry Saltz has been consistent, but it has always been in throwaway lines, never an actual review, so I'm looking forward to reading his inevitable review of the upcoming MoMA show. I say inevitable because after that much glib dismissal he is going to have to put up or shut up. Hopefully Roberta Smith will also review that show.


Howard Dean and my mother are counting the superdelegate votes as they come in... I'm told a final decision will be reached in about a hundred years.

UPDATE: votes are poring in!
pro - Eva Lake, Amie Oliver

(not) on exhibition prints

Brian Appel interview with Richard Prince. Not sure when it was done, but it wasn't too long ago, because Prince references preparing for the Guggenheim show.

Appel twice expresses admiration - excerpts below- that Prince doesn't make and exhibit new prints of his old photographs. Prince doesn't say anything about the upcoming Guggenheim show's heavy use of exhibition prints.

Brian Appel - Richard, I’ve always loved the fact that your photographic editions were so small. The cowboy image from the 16th of May was from an edition of two. Traditionally, fine art photographers think nothing of going back to their negatives ten, twenty, thirty or even forty years after the original exposures are made and use photographic materials that are completely removed from the original technological conditions from which the initial images were created – in effect producing pictures that are divorced from their time frame...

When I look at your photo based artworks I always know that the image I am looking at is a print done in close proximity to the original exposure. Your ‘copy’ of someone else’s ‘original’ is in effect ‘authentically vintage’...

Richard Prince - This was a choice I made back in 1980. I was treating the photograph as an object. Always thinking about the way it was presented....

Brian Appel - I’m always cautious when I look at a fine art photographic print – trying to decipher whether it’s a ‘vintage’ or ‘printed later’ print. But with your work, the prints are always locked into the act of the original exposure and carry with them the appropriate color aging and patina of prints made at the time of their creation.

RELATED:
- my post on first noticing all of the exhibition prints at the museum.
- Isabelle Graw, Reconsidering Prince, Dec 2007 - she talks about the use of exhibition prints in the Guggenheim show, and says the Living Rooms prints of 1977 (and others?) were produced in an enlarged format for the Guggenheim show. The originals were 20x24 Ektacolor prints, each an edition of ten. I don't recall exactly what the Guggenheim displayed.
- Nancy Spector on the decision to use exhibition prints.

Eric Gelber on Kelli Williams

Kelli Williams, Wet Bar, 2007

I posted Kelli Williams' painting, along with work by some other Leo Koenig artists, after seeing it at the Armory Show last month. Eric Gelber contributed so many thoughtful comments on Kelli's painting, too much to leave buried in the comments box... so I'm re-posting them here.

MUST STRESS - this is a series of thoughtful comments on a jpeg, not a formal review. Eric did not see the work in person. Eric's initial response was to an anonymous commenter critical of the accuracy of Kelli's perspective.

There is no consistent perspectival moment if the composition is looked at as a whole. It would destroy the logic of the composition if the artist used one vanishing point to bring coherence to the whole. The artist wants to fragment and compartmentalize space. This increases the isolation of each figure and each action. It is like a tableau. Within each individual segment the local space makes sense, a field that immediately surrounds each figure. A figure sits on the edge of the pool, another one sits on a bar stool, another one is resting her hand on the edge of the bar. This compositional technique emphasizes the isolation of each figure. They are self contained monads, pleasuring and obsessively gorging themselves. It is a symbolic ode to masturbation and self indulgence.The artist is using a panoramic device. The separate little worlds the figures inhabit are interlocked to form an odd montage image.

Each figure in Kelli's painting is going through an internal process. The figures that are gorging themselves are perhaps meant to represent self destructive behavior or the compulsions/impractical rituals that plague individuals. The other figures are lost in their minds or bodies.

They writhe, stare into space. The bartender is the only figure that directly addresses the viewer and the rest of the figures do not acknowledge one another or the viewer. Figures are whole and fragmented. Some of them are asleep, one looks pregnant. They are practicing mysterious rituals.

The variety of poses suggest stages of life. There is a variety of mental states represented in this one painting. (The figures are wonderfully rendered.) They have a corpse like palor though and this again suggests death.

Also the one male figure in the painting is the bartender, the one who serves intoxicants, and he holds a trident like the Greek god Poseidon. Obviously this references pagan culture, but in the setting of a bar/contemporary swimming pool this is humorous, but also a clue as to what the artist wants to tell us about contemporary life.

The bar itself looks pixilated, like it is made from binary code on a computer monitor, and the painting does very interesting things with ideas of flatness and depth. There is no easy way to figure out the pictorial space.

Lingering thoughts about "Wet Bar":

Poseidon, and his underwater realm, is one of the subjects of this painting. The greenish figures are supposed to be underwater. The figure seated at the bar, with her bosom, shoulders, and head and neck above water give this away. Here lower half is submerged and most of her upper torso, which is flesh colored, is above the water line. So the watery depths represent the human unconscious, but interestingly, the figures above the water line are just as transfixed as the figures that are submerged in the water.

The strange entrail/snake like coils that come out of the vaginas of two of the figures are strange, ambiguous symbols. The woman who is suckling or drinking from the end of one of the umbilical cords/green ropes is either slowly becoming colored or her mid-section is evaporating. She comforts/pleasures herself by grasping a handful of her own hair. The idea that a woman's umbilical cord could be used for self nourishment is an interesting idea. The underwater flora and fauna and various sea creatures, rendered carefully and realistically is a very nice touch, as are the air bubbles floating towards the surface.

So there is the clear portrayal of two distinct realms, above and below water. The figures are lost in strange reveries. Poseidon addresses and identifies with the viewer (while sporting a small boner). But instead of ruling over the female figures he is serving them. Human ritual, human ecstasy, orgiastic pagan ceremonies, feminist recontextualization of female nudity and sexuality, human transformation. The female figures below the water have transformed into mermaids or are in the middle of doing so. After they become mermaids they fall into a coma like sleep. So the transformation from human to mythical half human/half animal creature is also a subject of this painting. What are the psychological implications of this transformation? The painting style and formal devices employed by the artist fully enhance the idea content of the painting.

I like the way the painting morphs and blends the textures of digital imagery and classic mosaics. It straddles the two really, which emphasizes your recontextualization of pagan and mythological imagery. One should also note the play on words in the title. A wet bar is a place in the home where you can mix drinks, and it usually contains a sink with running water. We all obviously know about vaginas and wetness. The painting is all about mixing realms, the real and the mythic, flatness and depth. It has great mystery and that is hard to find in contemporary work.

See all of Eric Gelber's reviews for Artcritical here.

Yale is the new RPI?

Yale dean Robert Storr wants to ban that undergraduate student from showing her work unless she will sign a "confession" stating it's all fiction.

Wow, she's pretty awesome to have made enemies with Robert Storr while still an undergrad. That's ridiculous that he would insist she sign some paper, or would ban the work. Yale is the new RPI?

Storr said in a written statement, "If I had known about this, I would not have permitted it to go forward...This is not an acceptable project in a community where the consequences go beyond the individual who initiates the project and may even endanger that individual."

- What does that mean? That an artist shouldn't make work that might have any consequences within a larger community? That an artist shouldn't risk offending anybody's sensibilities? I wonder what position Storr takes on the RPI/Bilal incident.

This is also making me think of Storr's affadavit for Christoph Buchel, in which he stated “In my view, under no circumstance should a work of art be shown to the public until the artist has determined that it is finished", written while presiding over the Venice Biennale showing a brand new Felix Gonzalez-Torres piece made (and sold) fifteen years after his death.

ps - i'm not mentioning the artist by name, or getting into the details of her project, because it's much less interesting to me than Yale/Storr's attempts to ban it, and the forced signing of confessions.

small abstract paintings

small abstract paintings...