Due to the fact that I’m leaving town tomorrow to install a show I curated for corporate America, I’m not going to have that much time to update AFC. As such, posting will be decidedly sparse around here until Tuesday.
Meanwhile, if you feel like ruminating on the latest Jeffrey Deitch quotable (the dealer is a pr machine) check out Looking Around’s recount of a lunch time panel discussion at the New York Public Library this past Monday. Blogger Richard Lacayo provides a great account of a forum Deitch shares with panelists Lisa Phillips, Director of the New Museum of Contemporary Art in Manhattan; and Roberta Smith, deputy art critic of the New York Times. There were a few enjoyable sentiments recounted, but for once in my life, I’m going to quote someone other than the ubiquitous dealer, opting instead for Looking Around’s summation of Smith’s take on the market, which “rains down money on a few very young artists, “a market-driven WPA.”” Lacayo continues his account saying, “She took the realist position, skeptical of the market but resigned to it. “The art market is just one more form of opinion, a gross, inarticulate form of opinion.””
Christopher Lowry Johnson (Left), Julie Evens (Right)
Images copyright Winkleman and Julie Saul Gallery respectively
And on that note, for those who’d rather discuss art James Wagner has a nice review of Christopher Lowry Johnson at Winkleman. I liked the paintings too, but find myself suspicious of their beauty. I don’t like paintings that too overtly look like something you should buy, and these works certainly walk that line even with their political content. Of course you don’t have to go far to find an example of art that actually crosses said line, as Julie Saul gallery has a number of cliche paintings by Julie Evans currently on display. In line with the problems of kitschy art, these works suffer from predictability and formulaic approach. Circles, patterning and floral shapes are to Julie Evans what the fan brush is to Bob Ross: a safe method of achieving a pleasing result. These elements too easily fall into pretty arrangements defined by the square format of the surface, turning beauty into something of a bore. Additionally, the work is easily the most girl centric I’ve seen in Chelsea this month, an attribute I’m very wary of as highly gendered art tends to indicate that the artist’s experimentation happens within a fairly narrowly defined field.
Note: Inexplicably scads of positive write-ups for Evans show abound on the web, including one from Ed Winkleman himself. The artist has a number of these links on her blog, though there are more out there than she’s listed.
{ 10 comments }
Evans is a nice person and that might explain some of the groovy good vibes coming her way. The paintings could be tougher, that’s for sure. After Pop Art, painting should have lost that fussed over surface and delicate layering but that hasn’t stopped Evans and Beatriz Milhazes and countless others from doing this type of work.
And by tougher I don’t mean more macho but more self-critical. “OK I painted a circle but what’s interesting about it? Does it need more circles around it or maybe some contrast?”
Evans is a nice person and that might explain some of the groovy good vibes coming her way. The paintings could be tougher, that’s for sure. After Pop Art, painting should have lost that fussed over surface and delicate layering but that hasn’t stopped Evans and Beatriz Milhazes and countless others from doing this type of work.
And by tougher I don’t mean more macho but more self-critical. “OK I painted a circle but what’s interesting about it? Does it need more circles around it or maybe some contrast?”
Evans is a nice person and that might explain some of the groovy good vibes coming her way. The paintings could be tougher, that’s for sure. After Pop Art, painting should have lost that fussed over surface and delicate layering but that hasn’t stopped Evans and Beatriz Milhazes and countless others from doing this type of work.
And by tougher I don’t mean more macho but more self-critical. “OK I painted a circle but what’s interesting about it? Does it need more circles around it or maybe some contrast?”
Most of the work in the show has sold, which isn’t necessarily an indication that the artist won’t then ask these kinds of questions, but it does tend to make people a little less inclined. Artistic growth shouldn’t cost anyone any money, though I’ve noticed it doesn’t always work out that way.
Most of the work in the show has sold, which isn’t necessarily an indication that the artist won’t then ask these kinds of questions, but it does tend to make people a little less inclined. Artistic growth shouldn’t cost anyone any money, though I’ve noticed it doesn’t always work out that way.
After seeing this post & visiting Julie’s site and Winkleman’s blog, and then going out to the gallery to actually see the work, I wonder about some of Paddy’s comments. I see what you’re saying & seeing, but I take issue with the easy dismissal of work which is ‘decorative’ in any way as being kitsch and girly. I was surprised, as are most viewers, I suspect, at the small scale and delicate nature of these works. Artwork which employs patterning and ornamental language by nature *is* repetitive, the question is: what is the broader language and history being explored here, where crafty ‘fine’ art intersects popular culture (Milhazes’ references to Tropicalia; Ryan McGinness’ permutations of graphic signage and Renaissance motifs; Bridget Riley’s OpArt stripes, et al; I could go on & on). In any case I like the way so-called ‘women artists’ have re-occupied the field of craft-art in surprising & heroic ways, take Cal Lane for instance.
But the real topic here (as everywhere) is the issue of the gravity of the marketplace bending the artist’s production methods; well, OK. I think it’s interesting how, especially since the 80s in this country, Art had to constantly defend itself and its viability as an occupation under right-wing assaults on the art world’s social values. So the market during this period inflates and keeps inflating, and Art ‘proves itself’ within capitalist rhetoric. The backlash against this is quite vitriolic from within the arts community, for reasons I’m not clear on, although I am puzzled by the fame of certain young, mediocre artists.
So in this case, if Julie is making work she likes, and which sells, thank God she is at least doing *something*, as opposed to some other, unnamed, do-nothing Art Stars of my generation. In this culture and age of ugliness, banality & crassness it is possible that making a simple, beautiful, inspirational thing is in itself a political act.
After seeing this post & visiting Julie’s site and Winkleman’s blog, and then going out to the gallery to actually see the work, I wonder about some of Paddy’s comments. I see what you’re saying & seeing, but I take issue with the easy dismissal of work which is ‘decorative’ in any way as being kitsch and girly. I was surprised, as are most viewers, I suspect, at the small scale and delicate nature of these works. Artwork which employs patterning and ornamental language by nature *is* repetitive, the question is: what is the broader language and history being explored here, where crafty ‘fine’ art intersects popular culture (Milhazes’ references to Tropicalia; Ryan McGinness’ permutations of graphic signage and Renaissance motifs; Bridget Riley’s OpArt stripes, et al; I could go on & on). In any case I like the way so-called ‘women artists’ have re-occupied the field of craft-art in surprising & heroic ways, take Cal Lane for instance.
But the real topic here (as everywhere) is the issue of the gravity of the marketplace bending the artist’s production methods; well, OK. I think it’s interesting how, especially since the 80s in this country, Art had to constantly defend itself and its viability as an occupation under right-wing assaults on the art world’s social values. So the market during this period inflates and keeps inflating, and Art ‘proves itself’ within capitalist rhetoric. The backlash against this is quite vitriolic from within the arts community, for reasons I’m not clear on, although I am puzzled by the fame of certain young, mediocre artists.
So in this case, if Julie is making work she likes, and which sells, thank God she is at least doing *something*, as opposed to some other, unnamed, do-nothing Art Stars of my generation. In this culture and age of ugliness, banality & crassness it is possible that making a simple, beautiful, inspirational thing is in itself a political act.
I didn’t finish this thought clearly, “Art had to constantly defend itself and its viability”…
What I meant to express was that as government funding was slashed, the NEA stopped giving personal grants, and artists of my generation were told that the ‘art for art’s sake’ gravy train was over, and their works would have to prove themselves in the market. Simultaneously, a highly speculative and well-financed art market emerged around the say-so of a ridiculously small number of cultural gate-keepers. There were always ‘Art Stars’, but what fed the cult-of-personality phenomena was in fact the success of conceptually driven practices that arose in the 50s and 60s in the US. The act of creating a singular, closed ‘art object’ became besides the point, in a way.
So, the way I see it, the environment of art creation, exhibition and purchase that we are currently in is following exactly the trajectory that the art world has charted for itself since the 60s, and crystallized during the 80s & 90s due to the social & economic context of culture-at-large. Artists are, for better or worse, products & participants of the fabric of the culture they are educated in and operate in…
I didn’t finish this thought clearly, “Art had to constantly defend itself and its viability”…
What I meant to express was that as government funding was slashed, the NEA stopped giving personal grants, and artists of my generation were told that the ‘art for art’s sake’ gravy train was over, and their works would have to prove themselves in the market. Simultaneously, a highly speculative and well-financed art market emerged around the say-so of a ridiculously small number of cultural gate-keepers. There were always ‘Art Stars’, but what fed the cult-of-personality phenomena was in fact the success of conceptually driven practices that arose in the 50s and 60s in the US. The act of creating a singular, closed ‘art object’ became besides the point, in a way.
So, the way I see it, the environment of art creation, exhibition and purchase that we are currently in is following exactly the trajectory that the art world has charted for itself since the 60s, and crystallized during the 80s & 90s due to the social & economic context of culture-at-large. Artists are, for better or worse, products & participants of the fabric of the culture they are educated in and operate in…
I didn’t finish this thought clearly, “Art had to constantly defend itself and its viability”…
What I meant to express was that as government funding was slashed, the NEA stopped giving personal grants, and artists of my generation were told that the ‘art for art’s sake’ gravy train was over, and their works would have to prove themselves in the market. Simultaneously, a highly speculative and well-financed art market emerged around the say-so of a ridiculously small number of cultural gate-keepers. There were always ‘Art Stars’, but what fed the cult-of-personality phenomena was in fact the success of conceptually driven practices that arose in the 50s and 60s in the US. The act of creating a singular, closed ‘art object’ became besides the point, in a way.
So, the way I see it, the environment of art creation, exhibition and purchase that we are currently in is following exactly the trajectory that the art world has charted for itself since the 60s, and crystallized during the 80s & 90s due to the social & economic context of culture-at-large. Artists are, for better or worse, products & participants of the fabric of the culture they are educated in and operate in…
Comments on this entry are closed.