How Many Lightbulbs Does it Take to Change a Painting

The 800 pound gorilla in Halle’s article and Sillman’s pamphlet isn’t painting dying because of Nixon-era conceptualism–it’s that painters are fighting a defensive action against encroaching cyber-everything-culture. Painting is dying all over again now because to do it you either have to ignore how the world is changing or rail defensively against it. “This is still the best medium to…” blah blah. The New York gallery scene is among the tightest circles of covered wagons, defending a practice that becomes less and less relevant to anything. This isn’t to say that there aren’t still nice paintings being made. We continue to enjoy foot racing even though there are faster ways to get places. That Sillman is a pasticheur of other’s styles is additional proof that there’s nothing left but to recycle old tropes.

The 800 pound gorilla in Halle’s article and Sillman’s pamphlet isn’t painting dying because of Nixon-era conceptualism–it’s that painters are fighting a defensive action against encroaching cyber-everything-culture. Painting is dying all over again now because to do it you either have to ignore how the world is changing or rail defensively against it. “This is still the best medium to…” blah blah. The New York gallery scene is among the tightest circles of covered wagons, defending a practice that becomes less and less relevant to anything. This isn’t to say that there aren’t still nice paintings being made. We continue to enjoy foot racing even though there are faster ways to get places. That Sillman is a pasticheur of other’s styles is additional proof that there’s nothing left but to recycle old tropes.

I tend to agree with this thought, depressing as it is.

I tend to agree with this thought, depressing as it is.

I look at it in a hopeful way–that we take what we learned from painting and…move…on.

I look at it in a hopeful way–that we take what we learned from painting and…move…on.

Why did the conceptualist start painting…she thought it was a good idea

Why did the conceptualist start painting…she thought it was a good idea

Sillman is badass. I perhaps agree with Tom. But is it mostly investors, writers, business persons who are concerned with alive vs. dead argumentation? Do good painters or media artists really give a damn either way? Did decades of jazz critique teach us anything in this department? I have nothing but jealousy for painters who have avoided technology in their work. And nothing but admiration for those that haven’t.

Sillman is badass. I perhaps agree with Tom. But is it mostly investors, writers, business persons who are concerned with alive vs. dead argumentation? Do good painters or media artists really give a damn either way? Did decades of jazz critique teach us anything in this department? I have nothing but jealousy for painters who have avoided technology in their work. And nothing but admiration for those that haven’t.

@tom moody and art fag city

i pretty much disagree. i think painting might seem like its dying, because there are less painters willing to take a defensive stance against some of the ills of modernism. the emptying out of meaning from every mark and reducing the these “old tropes” into just being pastiche, instead of utilizing them to input meaning back into art or whatever they are making. painting and sculpture have kind of exhausted the concept of the singularization of form as content as the way forward. and i think this goes for sculpture and time based media as well. so we are left with a bunch of (i am speaking of the majority of art, not the exceptions or amy sillman specifically) half baked lazy art. which i guess is ok, because a lot of people enjoy it.

i do think you have a point about the “cyber-everything-culture” and that its changing things, but i think that may increase the value (this is probably the wrong word) of more static forms of art. the more i am involved with computer or tv screens, the more i want to look away. kinda the reverse of what benjamin’s ideas of the aura. … maybe. but i must admit, i see more art from my computer than i do in person.

and when you say move on, what exactly would you want EVERYONE to move on too? and why? don’t get me wrong i want more of everything, but i hardly see any reason that any other form of art is any more or less relevant. are animated gifs going to teach me how to see again? i don’t mean this as an attack, i am a fan of some of the internet work out there…but really video games and things like “second life” seem to be more invested than the majority of the stuff out there.

ok. i ranted enough, but i am a little tired of the whole “x” is dead or dying conversation. let move on from that…

@tom moody and art fag city

i pretty much disagree. i think painting might seem like its dying, because there are less painters willing to take a defensive stance against some of the ills of modernism. the emptying out of meaning from every mark and reducing the these “old tropes” into just being pastiche, instead of utilizing them to input meaning back into art or whatever they are making. painting and sculpture have kind of exhausted the concept of the singularization of form as content as the way forward. and i think this goes for sculpture and time based media as well. so we are left with a bunch of (i am speaking of the majority of art, not the exceptions or amy sillman specifically) half baked lazy art. which i guess is ok, because a lot of people enjoy it.

i do think you have a point about the “cyber-everything-culture” and that its changing things, but i think that may increase the value (this is probably the wrong word) of more static forms of art. the more i am involved with computer or tv screens, the more i want to look away. kinda the reverse of what benjamin’s ideas of the aura. … maybe. but i must admit, i see more art from my computer than i do in person.

and when you say move on, what exactly would you want EVERYONE to move on too? and why? don’t get me wrong i want more of everything, but i hardly see any reason that any other form of art is any more or less relevant. are animated gifs going to teach me how to see again? i don’t mean this as an attack, i am a fan of some of the internet work out there…but really video games and things like “second life” seem to be more invested than the majority of the stuff out there.

ok. i ranted enough, but i am a little tired of the whole “x” is dead or dying conversation. let move on from that…

Wait, wasn’t photography suppose to kill painting like over a hundred years ago? Video was then supposed to kill it sometime later in the last century and then Donald Judd and assorted Conceptual artist were suppose to have trampled on it’s corpse sometime after that…But then great paintings kept on happening anyway and painting continued to absorb from its challenges and redefine itself.
Personally I believe photography and video have more of a challenge being set against them by our current technological/digital age then painting. I think painting’s physical limitations, human touch and historical baggage continue to be it’s great assets and, like JJ, I feel that our increase in technology will only make the static image more relevant, not less so. Painting is ultimately more populist then most contemporary art, which of course really pisses elitists off and I suspect is one of the main sources of the continual grudge against it.
At this point one could just easily say that everything is played out in conceptual work as well, yet very few would suggest conceptual art is dead. But painting is always the perennial victim in this debate despite how clichéd an argument it is. Can’t we finally stop saying painting is dead every 5 years? Can conceptual art get a chance to be dead for a while??

Wait, wasn’t photography suppose to kill painting like over a hundred years ago? Video was then supposed to kill it sometime later in the last century and then Donald Judd and assorted Conceptual artist were suppose to have trampled on it’s corpse sometime after that…But then great paintings kept on happening anyway and painting continued to absorb from its challenges and redefine itself.
Personally I believe photography and video have more of a challenge being set against them by our current technological/digital age then painting. I think painting’s physical limitations, human touch and historical baggage continue to be it’s great assets and, like JJ, I feel that our increase in technology will only make the static image more relevant, not less so. Painting is ultimately more populist then most contemporary art, which of course really pisses elitists off and I suspect is one of the main sources of the continual grudge against it.
At this point one could just easily say that everything is played out in conceptual work as well, yet very few would suggest conceptual art is dead. But painting is always the perennial victim in this debate despite how clichéd an argument it is. Can’t we finally stop saying painting is dead every 5 years? Can conceptual art get a chance to be dead for a while??

jj, I didn’t initiate the painting is dead conversation, but was noting that there is a more current reason for painting to be dead than the success (or not) of the conceptualist critique from 40 years ago. Painting does seem like an almost willfully archaic form, and its top practitioners are mostly repeating old tricks. You either recycle other painters as Sillman does (Guston, your Matta is on the phone) or invent some studio trick involving varnish drying times or special brushes that you keep as a closely guarded trade secret. Artists don’t have to live in their own time, but you’d think there would be more curiosity about the new tools, content, and problems-to-solve presented by omnipresent technology.

jj, I didn’t initiate the painting is dead conversation, but was noting that there is a more current reason for painting to be dead than the success (or not) of the conceptualist critique from 40 years ago. Painting does seem like an almost willfully archaic form, and its top practitioners are mostly repeating old tricks. You either recycle other painters as Sillman does (Guston, your Matta is on the phone) or invent some studio trick involving varnish drying times or special brushes that you keep as a closely guarded trade secret. Artists don’t have to live in their own time, but you’d think there would be more curiosity about the new tools, content, and problems-to-solve presented by omnipresent technology.

In the era where more and more of the world’s population is using up the surface resources of the earth to produce the faster and the cheaper, and the better, and where there are fewer and fewer who value practices such as reducing our carbon footprint, slowing global warming, extending health care to all, choosing slow food, composting organic matter, and recycling rather than replacing useful products, it is confirming that there are still those in the privileged world of painting that make what can be simply be sensed as a relevance of meaning in the “recycling of old tropes”. If one identifies with the “fewer” camp in the real world, then why take the position of the “more” camp in the art world? I for one had rather plant the seed, watch the plant grow, harvest, prepare and eat the food that then allows me to walk than to own and pay for the gas and tires in order to drive a Bugatti. Although the Bugatti is a exceptionally nice car and it would be enjoyable to drive, as a painter it is insulting that painting at is best is seen as “enjoyable” and “nice”.

In the era where more and more of the world’s population is using up the surface resources of the earth to produce the faster and the cheaper, and the better, and where there are fewer and fewer who value practices such as reducing our carbon footprint, slowing global warming, extending health care to all, choosing slow food, composting organic matter, and recycling rather than replacing useful products, it is confirming that there are still those in the privileged world of painting that make what can be simply be sensed as a relevance of meaning in the “recycling of old tropes”. If one identifies with the “fewer” camp in the real world, then why take the position of the “more” camp in the art world? I for one had rather plant the seed, watch the plant grow, harvest, prepare and eat the food that then allows me to walk than to own and pay for the gas and tires in order to drive a Bugatti. Although the Bugatti is a exceptionally nice car and it would be enjoyable to drive, as a painter it is insulting that painting at is best is seen as “enjoyable” and “nice”.

The is-it-purely-retinal question potentially raised by these paintings (that I have not seen) has direct relevance for digital media (or cyber-culture or whatever you want to call it). It’s kind of historically ironic that opticality got reified in the modernist painting discourse, and now it’s painting that’s supposedly dragging us back into integrated embodied experience. But even when we’re looking at a screen we’re sitting on our ass and digesting our lunch. What’s cool about being in a “post-medium” era means that there is more potential for aesthetic cross-talk between media. History makes communication interesting and rich, and doesn’t have to be a limiting factor on contemporary aesthetic possibilities for any medium.

The is-it-purely-retinal question potentially raised by these paintings (that I have not seen) has direct relevance for digital media (or cyber-culture or whatever you want to call it). It’s kind of historically ironic that opticality got reified in the modernist painting discourse, and now it’s painting that’s supposedly dragging us back into integrated embodied experience. But even when we’re looking at a screen we’re sitting on our ass and digesting our lunch. What’s cool about being in a “post-medium” era means that there is more potential for aesthetic cross-talk between media. History makes communication interesting and rich, and doesn’t have to be a limiting factor on contemporary aesthetic possibilities for any medium.

art=personal expression. art expression can be made with any medium the artist so chooses in order to provoke a response or stimulate a thought. You can knit, paint, dance, make noise, or shoot a video as the vehicle for which to express what you have to say. Whether you decide that making a cave painting or a 3D computer animation is up to you. somehow taking it upon oneself and declaring any form of expression dead seems ridiculous, and therefore individuals who declare paintings death clearly have some sort of political/financial/personal ax to grind. Perhaps they tried their hand at painting and it was difficult for them, and they like their lives to be easier…

i think it’s great that technology allows for new forms of expression, but its unwise to condescend the pre-existing methods as suddenly dead. i hate that Ford motors had all the trolley tracks paved over, i think it negatively affected urban living.
It takes longer and is more difficult to roast a striped bass with potatoes and black olives than it is to boil a hotdog but I’d prefer the bass.

I’d agree that most painting today (as well as most art in general) sucks. But it’s a problem with the artist/person/society, not the medium.

art=personal expression. art expression can be made with any medium the artist so chooses in order to provoke a response or stimulate a thought. You can knit, paint, dance, make noise, or shoot a video as the vehicle for which to express what you have to say. Whether you decide that making a cave painting or a 3D computer animation is up to you. somehow taking it upon oneself and declaring any form of expression dead seems ridiculous, and therefore individuals who declare paintings death clearly have some sort of political/financial/personal ax to grind. Perhaps they tried their hand at painting and it was difficult for them, and they like their lives to be easier…

i think it’s great that technology allows for new forms of expression, but its unwise to condescend the pre-existing methods as suddenly dead. i hate that Ford motors had all the trolley tracks paved over, i think it negatively affected urban living.
It takes longer and is more difficult to roast a striped bass with potatoes and black olives than it is to boil a hotdog but I’d prefer the bass.

I’d agree that most painting today (as well as most art in general) sucks. But it’s a problem with the artist/person/society, not the medium.

Painting naturally references its own history in more specific ways then some other mediums. To some that may appear to be “willfully archaic” to others that is just a set of interesting constraints to work with and build upon or possibly try to subvert. I don’t think there is anything un-contemporary about referencing the past in making new art. Why shouldn’t we engage the past as well as the present?
I would add that I am excited about new art made with new technology but I fail to see how it is and either-or situation. I think painting can exist alongside it and be in dialogue with it.

Painting naturally references its own history in more specific ways then some other mediums. To some that may appear to be “willfully archaic” to others that is just a set of interesting constraints to work with and build upon or possibly try to subvert. I don’t think there is anything un-contemporary about referencing the past in making new art. Why shouldn’t we engage the past as well as the present?
I would add that I am excited about new art made with new technology but I fail to see how it is and either-or situation. I think painting can exist alongside it and be in dialogue with it.

If anybody’s up for reading something from October (yeah, I know), this essay by David Joselit (PDF) is pretty interesting — more interesting, certainly, than simplistic painting-isn’t-dead vs. “it’s a bright, shiny new cyberworld, get with it” debates:

http://www.reenaspaulings.com/images3/0911djoselit.pdf

The idea of “transitive painting” seems useful.

If anybody’s up for reading something from October (yeah, I know), this essay by David Joselit (PDF) is pretty interesting — more interesting, certainly, than simplistic painting-isn’t-dead vs. “it’s a bright, shiny new cyberworld, get with it” debates:

http://www.reenaspaulings.com/images3/0911djoselit.pdf

The idea of “transitive painting” seems useful.

Consider this the subject of Monday’s post.

Consider this the subject of Monday’s post.

SS, no one mentioned a bright shiny cyberworld–you are just being snide. Discussing “transitive painting” will be a challenge–who’s going to say that Koether, Sillman, et al aren’t transitive?

SS, no one mentioned a bright shiny cyberworld–you are just being snide. Discussing “transitive painting” will be a challenge–who’s going to say that Koether, Sillman, et al aren’t transitive?

What I got from Halle’s review is that, despite painting’s “obsolescence” (citing Sikkema’s press release for the show), Sillman makes a strong case for its fundamental synthesis of and engagement with the physical/sensory (“tactility”) and the “philosophical”:

“Sillman clearly means to stake a claim for painting’s primacy in the 21st century by arguing that its tactility is precisely what makes it the most philosophical of mediums.” (Halle)

This isn’t to say that this, too, won’t/can’t be absorbed by “cyber-everything-culture” (CEC), although the sheer (mere?) physical-ness of painting seems to naturally resist and be at odds with the comparatively flat interfaces of CEC. On the other hand, CEC makes painting’s attempts at manifesting CEC-type inter-connectivity appear, comparatively, ham-fisted.

It’s problematic at best to put painting & CEC into such direct comparison and competition with one another. Yes, painting is perhaps as useless and obsolete as philosophy in an increasingly CEC context. In a way, if you substitute “painters” with “poets,” Heidegger’s re-presentation of Holderlin’s query “(W)hat are poets for in a destitute time?” becomes a great place to start.

What I got from Halle’s review is that, despite painting’s “obsolescence” (citing Sikkema’s press release for the show), Sillman makes a strong case for its fundamental synthesis of and engagement with the physical/sensory (“tactility”) and the “philosophical”:

“Sillman clearly means to stake a claim for painting’s primacy in the 21st century by arguing that its tactility is precisely what makes it the most philosophical of mediums.” (Halle)

This isn’t to say that this, too, won’t/can’t be absorbed by “cyber-everything-culture” (CEC), although the sheer (mere?) physical-ness of painting seems to naturally resist and be at odds with the comparatively flat interfaces of CEC. On the other hand, CEC makes painting’s attempts at manifesting CEC-type inter-connectivity appear, comparatively, ham-fisted.

It’s problematic at best to put painting & CEC into such direct comparison and competition with one another. Yes, painting is perhaps as useless and obsolete as philosophy in an increasingly CEC context. In a way, if you substitute “painters” with “poets,” Heidegger’s re-presentation of Holderlin’s query “(W)hat are poets for in a destitute time?” becomes a great place to start.

Tactility is overrated (one of the high points of Kelley Walker’s recent work is he can fool you into being seduced by an ink jet print) and Sillman’s canvases aren’t all that damned tactile anyway. Compared to her idol Guston, who could really sling it around but knew when to quit and leave areas “un-virtuoso,” she works every inch of the painting up to a uniform level of tastefulness. That’s ultimately not tactile because there is little contrast or risk. Artists like Guyton and/or Walker (or Claire Corey, or Anton Vidokle’s work from about 10 years ago) test the cult of tactility by exploring what tech can do within the oh-so-necessary stretched canvas frame-of-reference. It’s still conservative and retrograde because it caters to the landed gentry’s need for decor but more vital than the endgame of making composites of every other painter’s style. Anyway, thanks for the reminder that what touched off this discussion was Halle’s phrase “painting’s primacy in the 21st century.” It just sounds so ludicrous. The median collector age is about what–eighty? It’s primacy on an IV drip.

Tactility is overrated (one of the high points of Kelley Walker’s recent work is he can fool you into being seduced by an ink jet print) and Sillman’s canvases aren’t all that damned tactile anyway. Compared to her idol Guston, who could really sling it around but knew when to quit and leave areas “un-virtuoso,” she works every inch of the painting up to a uniform level of tastefulness. That’s ultimately not tactile because there is little contrast or risk. Artists like Guyton and/or Walker (or Claire Corey, or Anton Vidokle’s work from about 10 years ago) test the cult of tactility by exploring what tech can do within the oh-so-necessary stretched canvas frame-of-reference. It’s still conservative and retrograde because it caters to the landed gentry’s need for decor but more vital than the endgame of making composites of every other painter’s style. Anyway, thanks for the reminder that what touched off this discussion was Halle’s phrase “painting’s primacy in the 21st century.” It just sounds so ludicrous. The median collector age is about what–eighty? It’s primacy on an IV drip.

lets face it: Sillmans paintings look OLLLLDDDDnin a bad way

lets face it: Sillmans paintings look OLLLLDDDD\nin a bad way

it’s like this, painting… painting is like the acoustic guitar of art. Everybody has one in there bedroom, and can strum a couple chords, and with those couple chords can sing a bunch of cover songs… Big deal right? I mean when I’m in a bar and those two assholes are up there chopping away at all those shitty bar covers I literally can’t take it! I really want to go up there and smash the guitars and punch their faces, rip out the plug on the PA system… But on those occasions when the artist can pull it off just right, it can be perfectly poetic, sad, and beautiful.

it’s like this, painting… painting is like the acoustic guitar of art. Everybody has one in there bedroom, and can strum a couple chords, and with those couple chords can sing a bunch of cover songs… Big deal right? I mean when I’m in a bar and those two assholes are up there chopping away at all those shitty bar covers I literally can’t take it! I really want to go up there and smash the guitars and punch their faces, rip out the plug on the PA system… But on those occasions when the artist can pull it off just right, it can be perfectly poetic, sad, and beautiful.

So, after actually seeing the show and buying a zine, I’ve decided that the best thing about the show has nothing to do with Sillman’s paintings at all. The zine makes interconnections between the death of painting, the invention of the light bulb, the rise of conceptual art, the pictogram for having an idea (light bulb above your head), etc. — I spent far more time with the zine than I did with the paintings. Even though the zine was meant to supplement/justify the paintings, it showed that some stream-of-consciousness doodles/ideas combined with xeroxed “thematic” images are actually way more engaging than a bunch of big abstract oil paintings.

Following the above thread, one could view a zine as somewhere between a magazine and a website — a kind of archaic proto-blog. I still want to believe that painting (and drawing, sculpture, printmaking, poetry, etc.) can remain significant and vital, but in the case of Sillman’s show, it’s like she unintentionally undermined her own work by plopping a slightly less-obsolete mode of expression/communication (the zine) as a divining rod to it (and, I guess, any painting made after the invention of the light bulb).

Also, combining the whole high/low culture thing (offering a zine in your abstract oil painting show at a high-octane Chelsea gallery) comes off as incredibly disingenuous to me. That Sillman makes a stab at artist’s who make paintings for money — instead of, I suppose, the exploratory/philosophical/tactility reasons — almost makes me see the whole show as a big sarcastic joke.

So, after actually seeing the show and buying a zine, I’ve decided that the best thing about the show has nothing to do with Sillman’s paintings at all. The zine makes interconnections between the death of painting, the invention of the light bulb, the rise of conceptual art, the pictogram for having an idea (light bulb above your head), etc. — I spent far more time with the zine than I did with the paintings. Even though the zine was meant to supplement/justify the paintings, it showed that some stream-of-consciousness doodles/ideas combined with xeroxed “thematic” images are actually way more engaging than a bunch of big abstract oil paintings.

Following the above thread, one could view a zine as somewhere between a magazine and a website — a kind of archaic proto-blog. I still want to believe that painting (and drawing, sculpture, printmaking, poetry, etc.) can remain significant and vital, but in the case of Sillman’s show, it’s like she unintentionally undermined her own work by plopping a slightly less-obsolete mode of expression/communication (the zine) as a divining rod to it (and, I guess, any painting made after the invention of the light bulb).

Also, combining the whole high/low culture thing (offering a zine in your abstract oil painting show at a high-octane Chelsea gallery) comes off as incredibly disingenuous to me. That Sillman makes a stab at artist’s who make paintings for money — instead of, I suppose, the exploratory/philosophical/tactility reasons — almost makes me see the whole show as a big sarcastic joke.

That’s become a familiar strategy now–”see, these aren’t just tasty commodities because I have a zine/video/website/noise band in the same space while they’re up.” One might go so far as to say that it is what David Joselit is justifying–pardon me, explaining with the superfluous term “transitive painting.”

That’s become a familiar strategy now–”see, these aren’t just tasty commodities because I have a zine/video/website/noise band in the same space while they’re up.” One might go so far as to say that it is what David Joselit is justifying–pardon me, explaining with the superfluous term “transitive painting.”

@tom moody What I said in my review is that Sillman is making an argument for painting’s primacy in the 21st century. That’s not the same thing as saying that painting has achieved such primacy, so I’m not sure what you are referring to as being “ridiculous.”

But’s here’s what I think is ridiculous: That the technological arguments for painting being dead are anything new. They were being made back in the Nixon era, when it was still a three-channel broadcast universe, and answering machines were state-of-the art in interactivity. Back then, what everyone was wetting their pants about was the video art made possible by the first generation of consumer cameras. Those devices, like ones produced by SONY, used half-inch, black-and-white open reel tape. Have you ever seen works by Acconci or Beuys or Nauman using one of those things? They look like moving daguerreotypes. Worse, actually: Moving daguerreotypes under water

Each supposedly new stab at technology, then, encodes a veneer of visual obsolescence that becomes burnished by nostalgia over time—just like painting. What’s missing, of course, is the tactile element. Is that a deal-breaker for me? Well, no, because I’m not making a choice between painting and everything else.

Still, why all the fuss about tactility? Nowhere in my review do I say Sillman matches Guston pound for pound in that regard, but that’s irrelevant anyway, because tactility is as much the subject of her paintings as the means to making them. And tactility in this sense—or rather the fact that’s it’s become suspect in contemporary art—is, among other things, a vehicle for Sillman to speak truth to power about the state of things as they exist in this moment in art history. To wit: That all the strategies accepted as bona fide now—and which ultimately flow from Duchamp’s Readymade, or Benjamin’s idea that the aura of a painting is necessarily subsumed by its reproduction, or Warhol’s transubstantiation of surface into depth—have become debased, imperial styles. Koons, Relational Aesthetics, you name it.

Now, does this mean if everybody started painting again tomorrow, that the medium wouldn’t be vulnerable to similar corruption? That, of course, already happened: Beginning in the mid-19th century, painting was put on trial, found guilty and executed for precisely the crime of moral and intellectual bankruptcy. It just took a while for the proceedings to conclude and the sentence to be carried out.

However, if “Skin Fruit” is any indication, it may be time to put all those approaches which have been lumped under the small-c conceptualism label for the last 30–40 years under similar scrutiny.

This is, ultimately, what I think Sillman is hinting at. So, it doesn’t matter if she’s not as good as Guston, or simply a pasticheur, because if she’s doing what I think she is, then she’s right. And that’s good enough for me.

@tom moody What I said in my review is that Sillman is making an argument for painting’s primacy in the 21st century. That’s not the same thing as saying that painting has achieved such primacy, so I’m not sure what you are referring to as being “ridiculous.”

But’s here’s what I think is ridiculous: That the technological arguments for painting being dead are anything new. They were being made back in the Nixon era, when it was still a three-channel broadcast universe, and answering machines were state-of-the art in interactivity. Back then, what everyone was wetting their pants about was the video art made possible by the first generation of consumer cameras. Those devices, like ones produced by SONY, used half-inch, black-and-white open reel tape. Have you ever seen works by Acconci or Beuys or Nauman using one of those things? They look like moving daguerreotypes. Worse, actually: Moving daguerreotypes under water

Each supposedly new stab at technology, then, encodes a veneer of visual obsolescence that becomes burnished by nostalgia over time—just like painting. What’s missing, of course, is the tactile element. Is that a deal-breaker for me? Well, no, because I’m not making a choice between painting and everything else.

Still, why all the fuss about tactility? Nowhere in my review do I say Sillman matches Guston pound for pound in that regard, but that’s irrelevant anyway, because tactility is as much the subject of her paintings as the means to making them. And tactility in this sense—or rather the fact that’s it’s become suspect in contemporary art—is, among other things, a vehicle for Sillman to speak truth to power about the state of things as they exist in this moment in art history. To wit: That all the strategies accepted as bona fide now—and which ultimately flow from Duchamp’s Readymade, or Benjamin’s idea that the aura of a painting is necessarily subsumed by its reproduction, or Warhol’s transubstantiation of surface into depth—have become debased, imperial styles. Koons, Relational Aesthetics, you name it.

Now, does this mean if everybody started painting again tomorrow, that the medium wouldn’t be vulnerable to similar corruption? That, of course, already happened: Beginning in the mid-19th century, painting was put on trial, found guilty and executed for precisely the crime of moral and intellectual bankruptcy. It just took a while for the proceedings to conclude and the sentence to be carried out.

However, if “Skin Fruit” is any indication, it may be time to put all those approaches which have been lumped under the small-c conceptualism label for the last 30–40 years under similar scrutiny.

This is, ultimately, what I think Sillman is hinting at. So, it doesn’t matter if she’s not as good as Guston, or simply a pasticheur, because if she’s doing what I think she is, then she’s right. And that’s good enough for me.

Model railroading is dead also, I think.

Model railroading is dead also, I think.

Howard, I’m not saying technological arguments against painting are new, only that you didn’t include them in your reasons (retinal, reactionary, etc) why a naysayer might call the medium dead. You mentioned video in a list of other art forms supported by institutions and that is indeed a Nixon era technology. The whole landscape has changed since then, which is why we’re having a conversation about Sillman below a jpeg of her work instead of me reading you in Time Out and writing a letter about what I think you left out. I am very interested in the way older art forms are mutating into new art forms and feel a bit sad for artists stuck in the “subversive decor” model. As for tactility being a fuss, you aren’t the only person talking about it as painting’s raison d’etre: there are other participants in this thread, you may notice. Anyway, it’s interesting you are shifting the frame in your comment from Painting vs Nixon-era conceptualism to Painting vs Skin Fruit (as opposed to say, Painting vs Unmonumental, or Painting vs Younger Than Jesus, both of which abounded with new media and practitioners who possibly aren’t buying into the ancient paradigms).

Howard, I’m not saying technological arguments against painting are new, only that you didn’t include them in your reasons (retinal, reactionary, etc) why a naysayer might call the medium dead. You mentioned video in a list of other art forms supported by institutions and that is indeed a Nixon era technology. The whole landscape has changed since then, which is why we’re having a conversation about Sillman below a jpeg of her work instead of me reading you in Time Out and writing a letter about what I think you left out. I am very interested in the way older art forms are mutating into new art forms and feel a bit sad for artists stuck in the “subversive decor” model. As for tactility being a fuss, you aren’t the only person talking about it as painting’s raison d’etre: there are other participants in this thread, you may notice. Anyway, it’s interesting you are shifting the frame in your comment from Painting vs Nixon-era conceptualism to Painting vs Skin Fruit (as opposed to say, Painting vs Unmonumental, or Painting vs Younger Than Jesus, both of which abounded with new media and practitioners who possibly aren’t buying into the ancient paradigms).

There are plenty of people still interested in painting, who still believe its vital, and at the end of the day that is why its not dead. I love painting and get more excited about new painting then most any other art form. It’s an old language but one that, I believe, still has potential to evolve. There is no reason painting can’t co-exist with new art forms as it’s not like new art forms are threatened by the continued practice of painting. This idea that painting is going to be replaced by new media just sounds like outdated Modernist hogwash. Pluralism (in media, concept, etc) continues to be a major defining characteristic of our time and I don’t really see the value in reconstructing a new endgame agenda where painting dies via the cyber revolution.
I don’t really see how digital art is any less predisposed to being “subversive decor” then painting is. Just because it can exist on a screen(s) and not on a wall?

There are plenty of people still interested in painting, who still believe its vital, and at the end of the day that is why its not dead. I love painting and get more excited about new painting then most any other art form. It’s an old language but one that, I believe, still has potential to evolve. There is no reason painting can’t co-exist with new art forms as it’s not like new art forms are threatened by the continued practice of painting. This idea that painting is going to be replaced by new media just sounds like outdated Modernist hogwash. Pluralism (in media, concept, etc) continues to be a major defining characteristic of our time and I don’t really see the value in reconstructing a new endgame agenda where painting dies via the cyber revolution.
I don’t really see how digital art is any less predisposed to being “subversive decor” then painting is. Just because it can exist on a screen(s) and not on a wall?

Painting isn’t dead.

Art for Art World’s sake was never alive.

Painting isn’t dead.

Art for Art World’s sake was never alive.

Another thing I find fascinating about these kind of conversations is the severe ire reserved for painting. Instead of simply focusing on the new art forms or strategies that they are interested in, people invest a lot in dismissing painting. Why? Ultimately this level of heated response just continues to add to my feeling that painting is still vital.

Another thing I find fascinating about these kind of conversations is the severe ire reserved for painting. Instead of simply focusing on the new art forms or strategies that they are interested in, people invest a lot in dismissing painting. Why? Ultimately this level of heated response just continues to add to my feeling that painting is still vital.

Sillman destabilized how we’re “supposed” to view, think about, and make a painting. The very title of her exhibition speaks to this: “Transformer (or how many lightbulbs does it take to change a painting?).”

Well, we’re all bringing our “lightbulbs” into the fray (Sillman conflates the light bulb pictograph with “concepts” and “ideas” in her zine), but how much has this actually changed her exhibited paintings? It’s like they’re the first things to disappear — that light bulb has blown.

Sillman also (re)initiated the “painting is dead” conversation/thread in her zine, which Halle reiterated and we’re continuing here. Sillman has cast many lines in her exhibition — yes, there are the paintings, but there are also drawings, a zine w/poster (with a CD, which no one has mentioned yet) — not to mention the Sikkema website, attendant press release, Saltz’s Facebook praise, etc. Multifariousness and distraction seems essential to how Sillman created and wanted her exhibition to be received. But her engagement with the tactility of painting — and the paintings themselves — are just another component to the total “system” of her exhibition (and all the forms that we’re provided with and creating to experience its parts/echoes). I’m not convinced that, in this case, that the paintings are even all that important as the other parts. They were a necessary part of giving this system traction, but are now just spent leftovers hung to be sold as expensive husks to some willing consumer.

The way we produce, experience, and evaluate painting (and art in general) has become fantastically dynamic, “impure” (if compared to Greenbergian formalism), and rushing in a million directions all at once. But where are the paintings? They’re not at the center anymore, they’ve moved out of frame; why is it so problematic to keep them in focus, and so liberating to forget them completely (even though they ostensibly started this in the first place)?

Sillman destabilized how we’re “supposed” to view, think about, and make a painting. The very title of her exhibition speaks to this: “Transformer (or how many lightbulbs does it take to change a painting?).”

Well, we’re all bringing our “lightbulbs” into the fray (Sillman conflates the light bulb pictograph with “concepts” and “ideas” in her zine), but how much has this actually changed her exhibited paintings? It’s like they’re the first things to disappear — that light bulb has blown.

Sillman also (re)initiated the “painting is dead” conversation/thread in her zine, which Halle reiterated and we’re continuing here. Sillman has cast many lines in her exhibition — yes, there are the paintings, but there are also drawings, a zine w/poster (with a CD, which no one has mentioned yet) — not to mention the Sikkema website, attendant press release, Saltz’s Facebook praise, etc. Multifariousness and distraction seems essential to how Sillman created and wanted her exhibition to be received. But her engagement with the tactility of painting — and the paintings themselves — are just another component to the total “system” of her exhibition (and all the forms that we’re provided with and creating to experience its parts/echoes). I’m not convinced that, in this case, that the paintings are even all that important as the other parts. They were a necessary part of giving this system traction, but are now just spent leftovers hung to be sold as expensive husks to some willing consumer.

The way we produce, experience, and evaluate painting (and art in general) has become fantastically dynamic, “impure” (if compared to Greenbergian formalism), and rushing in a million directions all at once. But where are the paintings? They’re not at the center anymore, they’ve moved out of frame; why is it so problematic to keep them in focus, and so liberating to forget them completely (even though they ostensibly started this in the first place)?

There should be a Godwin’s law for art world conversations which states that the longer the thread, the greater the probability that someone will say “see how much heat this work is generating? It must be good.” (It’s possible that the “heat” is generated by fear that the culture at large is losing interest in treasured practices.)

There should be a Godwin’s law for art world conversations which states that the longer the thread, the greater the probability that someone will say “see how much heat this work is generating? It must be good.” (It’s possible that the “heat” is generated by fear that the culture at large is losing interest in treasured practices.)

Statements like “painting is dead” or “X is dead” are so decontextualized. Who needs to take such a god’s eye view? You may not like someone’s work or even like a particular category of work, but to dismiss an entire field? What a strange field this is!!

Statements like “painting is dead” or “X is dead” are so decontextualized. Who needs to take such a god’s eye view? You may not like someone’s work or even like a particular category of work, but to dismiss an entire field? What a strange field this is!!

Julia, I think what Jesse and others are saying is that “painting is dead” was raised by the artist that we are discussing.

Julia, I think what Jesse and others are saying is that “painting is dead” was raised by the artist that we are discussing.

Tom,I’m having a hard time understanding your animosity for painting when most of the artwork I can find on your own website depends on language of painting. Is rendering a 2-D image via pixels on an iPad rather than with paint on canvas or pencil on paper really the difference between “new” and “retrograde?”

Your argument against painting seems to be that since Sillman is not a good a painter as Guston, it just goes to show that the medium has nothing new to show us. This is pretty silly. Anyone compared to one of the seminal figures of post-war art is likely to come up a bit short. Tactility is a strawman as it is a value on a scale; being on one extreme or the other certainly allows you to take a polemical stand, but it seems like recent art history has shown that the pendulum will always swing back the other way.

You are ultimately embracing the high modernist idea that artists must strive for a newness in style or subject. That is more “retrograde” than any particular media an artist might choose to use, but it seems even more ridiculous to equate artistic invention with any particular technology.

Tom,I’m having a hard time understanding your animosity for painting when most of the artwork I can find on your own website depends on language of painting. Is rendering a 2-D image via pixels on an iPad rather than with paint on canvas or pencil on paper really the difference between “new” and “retrograde?”

Your argument against painting seems to be that since Sillman is not a good a painter as Guston, it just goes to show that the medium has nothing new to show us. This is pretty silly. Anyone compared to one of the seminal figures of post-war art is likely to come up a bit short. Tactility is a strawman as it is a value on a scale; being on one extreme or the other certainly allows you to take a polemical stand, but it seems like recent art history has shown that the pendulum will always swing back the other way.

You are ultimately embracing the high modernist idea that artists must strive for a newness in style or subject. That is more “retrograde” than any particular media an artist might choose to use, but it seems even more ridiculous to equate artistic invention with any particular technology.

Brian Dupont: I think this is a simplification of Tom’s argument. He finds Sillman’s surfaces too uniform and over worked. I think that’s a legitimate criticism of the work, even if, after seeing it, I came out thinking the show was great.

Brian Dupont: I think this is a simplification of Tom’s argument. He finds Sillman’s surfaces too uniform and over worked. I think that’s a legitimate criticism of the work, even if, after seeing it, I came out thinking the show was great.

A high modernist that hates painting–now that’s funny (as Sally noticed earlier). One more time, with feeling: Amy Sillman raised the “death of painting” frame, Howard Halle said it wasn’t so relevant anymore, but left out a reason why it might by relevant. I’m correcting that for the reasons mentioned above.

A high modernist that hates painting–now that’s funny (as Sally noticed earlier). One more time, with feeling: Amy Sillman raised the “death of painting” frame, Howard Halle said it wasn’t so relevant anymore, but left out a reason why it might by relevant. I’m correcting that for the reasons mentioned above.

And Paddy, thanks for stepping in, but it’s not just the surfaces, it’s the recycling and pastiching of painterly moves from Terry Winters, Milton Resnick, Matta, Guston, etc etc. I didn’t say the surfaces were overworked, I said “she works every inch of the painting up to a uniform level of tastefulness.” That’s not the same thing.

And Paddy, thanks for stepping in, but it’s not just the surfaces, it’s the recycling and pastiching of painterly moves from Terry Winters, Milton Resnick, Matta, Guston, etc etc. I didn’t say the surfaces were overworked, I said “she works every inch of the painting up to a uniform level of tastefulness.” That’s not the same thing.

Mea Culpa. I think the surfaces might be overworked.

Mea Culpa. I think the surfaces might be overworked.

I think Tom’s analysis of the analysis is spot on. And I do happen to wet my pants when watching old b/w conceptual video reels made via SONY. Is the “severe ire reserved for” technology another gorilla?

I think Tom’s analysis of the analysis is spot on. And I do happen to wet my pants when watching old b/w conceptual video reels made via SONY. Is the “severe ire reserved for” technology another gorilla?

“Hating” painting — as if the inherent qualities of a medium were determinative –can’t think of anything more high modernist than that.

That’s just the Satanic message you get when you play Clement Greenberg backwards.

“Hating” painting — as if the inherent qualities of a medium were determinative –can’t think of anything more high modernist than that.

That’s just the Satanic message you get when you play Clement Greenberg backwards.

Tom, its not so much that thread has gone on for so long that makes me think painting is vital, its more about your (and others) particular grudge against painting that I don’t understand or respect which leads me to believe that you aren’t either looking hard at contemporary painting or you just have some personal animosity or insecurity against it. I share Brian’s confusion about your issues with painting when I look at your work, it looks just as derivative from contemporary painting as Sillmans…accept I don’t have as much as an issue with that as you do. The specific notion of originality from ones influences that you site is a noted Modernist lie, one that was never true to begin with. (Hi Picasso, meet African sculpture!)
I think the conversation with contemporary painting is much more nuanced then with Modernism. Sillman isn’t really just rehashing ab-ex or Guston. Her mark-making is a language and if one looks at it closely it is more about erasure and reconsideration of the painterly stroke, something that the ab-ex generation was not only less concerned with but generally also in opposition to. Her marks are more tentative and doubtful. She is literally conversing with art history via mark making but it takes consideration to get that from her work. That is true of any good painting though..
Again, the conversation in contemporary painting is much more nuanced. There aren’t these dramatic shifts that happened in Modernism but that doesn’t mean nothing is going on. To say painting is dead, is as simplistic as saying the novel is dead. Both are forms that experienced great changes in the last century but there is still potential for future growth. It may not look like as dramatic as Joyce or Proust, or Picasso and Mattisse did in their day but that doesn’t mean the entire language is exhausted. To say so is not only simplistic but also inconsiderate.

Tom, its not so much that thread has gone on for so long that makes me think painting is vital, its more about your (and others) particular grudge against painting that I don’t understand or respect which leads me to believe that you aren’t either looking hard at contemporary painting or you just have some personal animosity or insecurity against it. I share Brian’s confusion about your issues with painting when I look at your work, it looks just as derivative from contemporary painting as Sillmans…accept I don’t have as much as an issue with that as you do. The specific notion of originality from ones influences that you site is a noted Modernist lie, one that was never true to begin with. (Hi Picasso, meet African sculpture!)
I think the conversation with contemporary painting is much more nuanced then with Modernism. Sillman isn’t really just rehashing ab-ex or Guston. Her mark-making is a language and if one looks at it closely it is more about erasure and reconsideration of the painterly stroke, something that the ab-ex generation was not only less concerned with but generally also in opposition to. Her marks are more tentative and doubtful. She is literally conversing with art history via mark making but it takes consideration to get that from her work. That is true of any good painting though..
Again, the conversation in contemporary painting is much more nuanced. There aren’t these dramatic shifts that happened in Modernism but that doesn’t mean nothing is going on. To say painting is dead, is as simplistic as saying the novel is dead. Both are forms that experienced great changes in the last century but there is still potential for future growth. It may not look like as dramatic as Joyce or Proust, or Picasso and Mattisse did in their day but that doesn’t mean the entire language is exhausted. To say so is not only simplistic but also inconsiderate.

And again, I still don’t understand how digital art or new media is any less of “subversive decor” then painting. Is it because you think digital art is more resistant to the capitalist market then painting? But hasn’t the history of conceptual art (or more recently Relational Aesthetics) shown that the market can re-incorporate anything it wants to to its own ends and totally subvert it’s capitalist critique?
Digital art is still exclusive and elitist in its own way. There are a lot of people of people who don’t have access to those specific technological tools and don’t have a way to make, or view, that kind of art. On the other hand anyone, for better or worse, can make a drawing or painting. Its total commonness and its elemental-ness is part of its vitality.

And again, I still don’t understand how digital art or new media is any less of “subversive decor” then painting. Is it because you think digital art is more resistant to the capitalist market then painting? But hasn’t the history of conceptual art (or more recently Relational Aesthetics) shown that the market can re-incorporate anything it wants to to its own ends and totally subvert it’s capitalist critique?
Digital art is still exclusive and elitist in its own way. There are a lot of people of people who don’t have access to those specific technological tools and don’t have a way to make, or view, that kind of art. On the other hand anyone, for better or worse, can make a drawing or painting. Its total commonness and its elemental-ness is part of its vitality.

“To say painting is dead, is as simplistic as saying the novel is dead.” Adam, I suggest you take this complaint to Sikkema Jenkins gallery, where the sentiment was raised in a press release: “The lightbulb is thus a pivotal image for illumination, reflection, transformation, the comic, and obsolescence – a thematic stand-in for the
conditions of painting itself.”

“To say painting is dead, is as simplistic as saying the novel is dead.” Adam, I suggest you take this complaint to Sikkema Jenkins gallery, where the sentiment was raised in a press release: “The lightbulb is thus a pivotal image for illumination, reflection, transformation, the comic, and obsolescence – a thematic stand-in for the
conditions of painting itself.”

There is so much misunderstanding and basic confusion in the above arguments regarding painting, especially from the “experts,” that it would take years to straighten out this debate. Besides, as one who has been playing with the “warm shit” for nearly fifty years, and only now beginning to glimpse a tiny fraction of its potential, witnessing these kerfuffle’s keeps me laughing.
Painting is not dead or dying, what is are peoples imaginations and ambitions. I sincerely believe the best tact for the future of paintin’ is obfuscation, and the above thread bares out the fact that it seems to be working.

There is so much misunderstanding and basic confusion in the above arguments regarding painting, especially from the “experts,” that it would take years to straighten out this debate. Besides, as one who has been playing with the “warm shit” for nearly fifty years, and only now beginning to glimpse a tiny fraction of its potential, witnessing these kerfuffle’s keeps me laughing.
Painting is not dead or dying, what is are peoples imaginations and ambitions. I sincerely believe the best tact for the future of paintin’ is obfuscation, and the above thread bares out the fact that it seems to be working.

It’s kinda funny how as painters we tend to get all up in arms when someone brings back up the “painting is dead” notion. Yes (I am aware) it was Amy Sillman who brought it up. It’s one of those things that becomes a soft spot for painters even if the statement has become exhausted. But there are a lot of valid questions still about how you keep painting relevant. It doesn’t inherently speak of our time and culture like so many new mediums do so it becomes more difficult to use painting to contribute to our cultural dialogue. But painting that is devoid of anything real to contribute can still be aesthetically alluring and enjoyable, so it sometimes gets more free passes and leaves us wondering what is the point of all this rehashing.

It’s kinda funny how as painters we tend to get all up in arms when someone brings back up the “painting is dead” notion. Yes (I am aware) it was Amy Sillman who brought it up. It’s one of those things that becomes a soft spot for painters even if the statement has become exhausted. But there are a lot of valid questions still about how you keep painting relevant. It doesn’t inherently speak of our time and culture like so many new mediums do so it becomes more difficult to use painting to contribute to our cultural dialogue. But painting that is devoid of anything real to contribute can still be aesthetically alluring and enjoyable, so it sometimes gets more free passes and leaves us wondering what is the point of all this rehashing.

I agree with James: “Painting is not dead or dying, what is are peoples imaginations and ambitions”. Funny, it’s Moody’s CEC that’s doing the butchering. Also, the condescending: “see, these aren’t just tasty commodities because I have a zine/video/website/noise band in the same space while they’re up”- proves that Moody’s Law will permit no displays of ambition on the part of anyone, just sit in front of your computer all day and shut up.

I agree with James: “Painting is not dead or dying, what is are peoples imaginations and ambitions”. Funny, it’s Moody’s CEC that’s doing the butchering. Also, the condescending: “see, these aren’t just tasty commodities because I have a zine/video/website/noise band in the same space while they’re up”- proves that Moody’s Law will permit no displays of ambition on the part of anyone, just sit in front of your computer all day and shut up.

It’s interesting how the statement “Artists don’t have to live in their own time, but you’d think there would be more curiosity about the new tools, content, and problems-to-solve presented by omnipresent technology” is translated into “just sit in front of your computer and shut up.” One could argue that a zine, video, website, or noise band without an accompanying show of tasteful semi-abstract paintings is the more ambitious move.

It’s interesting how the statement “Artists don’t have to live in their own time, but you’d think there would be more curiosity about the new tools, content, and problems-to-solve presented by omnipresent technology” is translated into “just sit in front of your computer and shut up.” One could argue that a zine, video, website, or noise band without an accompanying show of tasteful semi-abstract paintings is the more ambitious move.

Hi everyone. At Two Coats of Paint we’re always happy to see painting discussions on other blogs, but the subject seems a little shopworn. Yawn. About Sillman’s show: The thing I like most about her zine is that she used a primarily picture-based format to explain the inherent power of images rather than writing a jargon-laden essay explaining what’s on her mind. I admire that. I agree with some of the other commenters here that Sillman’s ‘zine brings the paintings, which feel a little tired on their own, to life.

Hi everyone. At Two Coats of Paint we’re always happy to see painting discussions on other blogs, but the subject seems a little shopworn. Yawn. About Sillman’s show: The thing I like most about her zine is that she used a primarily picture-based format to explain the inherent power of images rather than writing a jargon-laden essay explaining what’s on her mind. I admire that. I agree with some of the other commenters here that Sillman’s ‘zine brings the paintings, which feel a little tired on their own, to life.

It’s also interesting how many people leave comments to say how much this discussion is boring them.

It’s also interesting how many people leave comments to say how much this discussion is boring them.

@Tom Moody, Okay one last thing here, then I have a life to get back to. You keep bringing up this idea of Sillman being a pasticheur in the references to other painters that she makes, but painters throughout history have similiarly quoted others——Manet, to name one, channeled Velasquez and Goya with some frequency. Is he then merely a pasticheur in your estimation?

@Tom Moody, Okay one last thing here, then I have a life to get back to. You keep bringing up this idea of Sillman being a pasticheur in the references to other painters that she makes, but painters throughout history have similiarly quoted others——Manet, to name one, channeled Velasquez and Goya with some frequency. Is he then merely a pasticheur in your estimation?

“Adam, I suggest you take this complaint to Sikkema Jenkins gallery, where the sentiment was raised in a press release”
Well, its obviously raised only to acknowledge the continual and habitual critique of painting over the last century and a half and brought up somewhat ingeniously as part of the strategy of the press release to be refuted by the content of the show. Ultimately whether Sillman, alone!, is totally successful in proving the continued legitimacy of painting is beside the point to the general conversation that has been happening here. Its not the issues raised in Sikkema’s press release or Halle’s review I take issue with, both of which raise the “painting is dead” polemic only to ultimately critique it’s contemporary relevance and build a context for Sillman’s show, its the arguments against painting you have presented in this thread that I am in disagreement with.

“Adam, I suggest you take this complaint to Sikkema Jenkins gallery, where the sentiment was raised in a press release”
Well, its obviously raised only to acknowledge the continual and habitual critique of painting over the last century and a half and brought up somewhat ingeniously as part of the strategy of the press release to be refuted by the content of the show. Ultimately whether Sillman, alone!, is totally successful in proving the continued legitimacy of painting is beside the point to the general conversation that has been happening here. Its not the issues raised in Sikkema’s press release or Halle’s review I take issue with, both of which raise the “painting is dead” polemic only to ultimately critique it’s contemporary relevance and build a context for Sillman’s show, its the arguments against painting you have presented in this thread that I am in disagreement with.

I should add that, as an ex-New Yorker living in San Francisco, I have only been able to experience Sillman’s show virtually. It’s a totally unsatisfying position for me, one that points to painting’s visceral- in the flesh strengths or, as I am sure Tom would suggest, it’s tactile/stationary dependency. That’s just one of those things about painting that will either be an asset to it’s future in the digital age or possibly a severe life-threatening handicap. I am just very confident in the former. Paintings are worth a pilgrimage and,, for me at least, and other then sculpture/installation, I can’t really say the same for a lot of other media.

I should add that, as an ex-New Yorker living in San Francisco, I have only been able to experience Sillman’s show virtually. It’s a totally unsatisfying position for me, one that points to painting’s visceral- in the flesh strengths or, as I am sure Tom would suggest, it’s tactile/stationary dependency. That’s just one of those things about painting that will either be an asset to it’s future in the digital age or possibly a severe life-threatening handicap. I am just very confident in the former. Paintings are worth a pilgrimage and,, for me at least, and other then sculpture/installation, I can’t really say the same for a lot of other media.

Hi, Howard. The key word is “merely.” Nothing wrong with channeling if you bring something to the mix. Manet’s contribution we know. I can’t really see a reason (poMo or otherwise) for Sillman’s greatest hits compilation. Building a bridge to the 20th Century? “A bunch of painters I like”?

Hi, Howard. The key word is “merely.” Nothing wrong with channeling if you bring something to the mix. Manet’s contribution we know. I can’t really see a reason (poMo or otherwise) for Sillman’s greatest hits compilation. Building a bridge to the 20th Century? “A bunch of painters I like”?

The attacks against Moody ultimately reflect a misunderstanding of how this thread got started. They also make me wonder if people are actually seeing the show, reading the zine, reading Halle’s article, etc. It seems like there’s a lot of hotheaded reacting here to someone who is questioning the “primacy of painting” within the context of present technologies — why should his response invite such derision, especially when Sillman is engaging in essentially the same kind of inquiry herself?

Sillman’s driving conceit for her show (as outlined in her zine, w/pictures) is that the advent of the light bulb (new technology) coincided with — and, perhaps, engendered — “the death of painting” (a phrase Sillman correlates directly with conceptual art). Sillman claims to love paintings that came after this “death.” So, for Moody to follow Sillman’s own “train of thought” and apply it within the context of emerging contemporary technologies couldn’t be more relevant.

Sillman goes on to explain that, since we have a symbol for having an idea (light bulb above head), there should also be a symbol for feeling (like touching something), and that this symbol should probably have a hand in it. This is supposed to reflect her love of the tactility of painting, and conflate the whole conceptual-painting/death-of-painting/tactility-of-painting idea into a new symbol.

The oil paintings in her show appear to be colored, blown-up selections from the sequence of drawings included in the exhibit. This sequence shows the “transformation” (here’s where the exhibition’s title is evoked most explicitly) of a light bulb into a picture of a head with a light bulb above it. There are dozens of drawings that display this transformation, and the fact that Sillman selected these images to make paintings from seems important: they constitute a visualization of and engagement with the synthesis of thought & tactility that Sillman wants to create a new symbol for. They are responses to her own titular question: “How many lightbulbs does it take to change a painting?”

Whether all of this makes for a good show is up for grabs, of course. It just seems awfully lazy to scapegoat someone for offering a topical perspective that falls in line with the questions presented by Sillman herself.

The attacks against Moody ultimately reflect a misunderstanding of how this thread got started. They also make me wonder if people are actually seeing the show, reading the zine, reading Halle’s article, etc. It seems like there’s a lot of hotheaded reacting here to someone who is questioning the “primacy of painting” within the context of present technologies — why should his response invite such derision, especially when Sillman is engaging in essentially the same kind of inquiry herself?

Sillman’s driving conceit for her show (as outlined in her zine, w/pictures) is that the advent of the light bulb (new technology) coincided with — and, perhaps, engendered — “the death of painting” (a phrase Sillman correlates directly with conceptual art). Sillman claims to love paintings that came after this “death.” So, for Moody to follow Sillman’s own “train of thought” and apply it within the context of emerging contemporary technologies couldn’t be more relevant.

Sillman goes on to explain that, since we have a symbol for having an idea (light bulb above head), there should also be a symbol for feeling (like touching something), and that this symbol should probably have a hand in it. This is supposed to reflect her love of the tactility of painting, and conflate the whole conceptual-painting/death-of-painting/tactility-of-painting idea into a new symbol.

The oil paintings in her show appear to be colored, blown-up selections from the sequence of drawings included in the exhibit. This sequence shows the “transformation” (here’s where the exhibition’s title is evoked most explicitly) of a light bulb into a picture of a head with a light bulb above it. There are dozens of drawings that display this transformation, and the fact that Sillman selected these images to make paintings from seems important: they constitute a visualization of and engagement with the synthesis of thought & tactility that Sillman wants to create a new symbol for. They are responses to her own titular question: “How many lightbulbs does it take to change a painting?”

Whether all of this makes for a good show is up for grabs, of course. It just seems awfully lazy to scapegoat someone for offering a topical perspective that falls in line with the questions presented by Sillman herself.

I thought it was strange how Joselit in October began with painting/installations that effectively tweeked how we see paintings as IN a network, and then bestowed transitiveness onto Sillman because she depicts diagrams. I don’t know if this weakens or strengthens his argument.

I thought it was strange how Joselit in October began with painting/installations that effectively tweeked how we see paintings as IN a network, and then bestowed transitiveness onto Sillman because she depicts diagrams. I don’t know if this weakens or strengthens his argument.

Amy Sillman aside, I mean I don’t give a shit about Amy Sillman… but Tom, I don’t think anyone would disagree with your statement there’s “Nothing wrong with channeling if you bring something to the mix” but you seem to be flat out saying that painting is dead and is no longer capable of bringing anything new to the mix?! You are therefore saying that the visual image itself is no longer capable of bringing anything new to the table. You are basically saying that (static) visual art is no longer relevent (photography, graphic design, collage, screenprint etc…) An image is an image, whether its painted, made in photoshop, or embroidered onto a beach towel. The internet is this new arena yes, but it’s one who’s primary function is to sort, inform, document, display and create discourse about non-cyber reality. All you need is a cheap digital camera to set loose any image into the CEC anyway. Your basically declaring the death of the image, and I don’t think you really mean that.

Amy Sillman aside, I mean I don’t give a shit about Amy Sillman… but Tom, I don’t think anyone would disagree with your statement there’s “Nothing wrong with channeling if you bring something to the mix” but you seem to be flat out saying that painting is dead and is no longer capable of bringing anything new to the mix?! You are therefore saying that the visual image itself is no longer capable of bringing anything new to the table. You are basically saying that (static) visual art is no longer relevent (photography, graphic design, collage, screenprint etc…) An image is an image, whether its painted, made in photoshop, or embroidered onto a beach towel. The internet is this new arena yes, but it’s one who’s primary function is to sort, inform, document, display and create discourse about non-cyber reality. All you need is a cheap digital camera to set loose any image into the CEC anyway. Your basically declaring the death of the image, and I don’t think you really mean that.

“Bestowed transitiveness”–vc, you rock. Jesse, I’ll give some thought to whether the light bulb is really a symbol for technology or just a cartoon that stands for “idea.”

“Bestowed transitiveness”–vc, you rock. Jesse, I’ll give some thought to whether the light bulb is really a symbol for technology or just a cartoon that stands for “idea.”

Jesse, I liked reading your thoughtful assessment of the show. Its one thing, and entirely valuable, to reconsider the context of painting in the contemporary landscape but its another to snidely to dismiss an entire media as some comments here have done. That is what I, and suspect others here, were referring to.

Jesse, I liked reading your thoughtful assessment of the show. Its one thing, and entirely valuable, to reconsider the context of painting in the contemporary landscape but its another to snidely to dismiss an entire media as some comments here have done. That is what I, and suspect others here, were referring to.

It doesn’t much matter what one uses to make a picture as long as it speaks to those that see it of their own experience of living. It’s amusing to observe though, the virulence with which new-media proponents (starting with photographers) marshal any and all implements to try to bash painting into submission. Whether by dismissing it as passe or pastiche or any of a number of clever intellectual arguments, all the efforts might be better spent actually making something that resonates. But, of course, these musings come from a dumb painter, so…

It doesn’t much matter what one uses to make a picture as long as it speaks to those that see it of their own experience of living. It’s amusing to observe though, the virulence with which new-media proponents (starting with photographers) marshal any and all implements to try to bash painting into submission. Whether by dismissing it as passe or pastiche or any of a number of clever intellectual arguments, all the efforts might be better spent actually making something that resonates. But, of course, these musings come from a dumb painter, so…

The light bulb was undoubtedly a major, major new technology that fundamentally, paradigmatically redefined — among other things — how we see the world. And I can credit Sillman and her conspicuously low-tech, stream-of-consciousness, probably-affected cartoon narrative for reminding me of that. If I’ve taken anything from the show, it’s re-recognizing the significance that artificial light has had on our retinal experiences. Looking at all of human history, we haven’t been dealing with this sea-change for very long at all.

I’m well aware of how exhaustive these exegeses are, but over-thinking the show has actually added a new facet to how I think about painting since it died over a hundred years ago. And if painting is dead, it always has been, and who really gives a fuck? Assigning an ultimate value, function, or purpose to any art form is stymieing. I think scrimshaw’s day has come and gone, but if it quickens someone’s spirit and gives them wings, then rock-on scrimshander!

The light bulb was undoubtedly a major, major new technology that fundamentally, paradigmatically redefined — among other things — how we see the world. And I can credit Sillman and her conspicuously low-tech, stream-of-consciousness, probably-affected cartoon narrative for reminding me of that. If I’ve taken anything from the show, it’s re-recognizing the significance that artificial light has had on our retinal experiences. Looking at all of human history, we haven’t been dealing with this sea-change for very long at all.

I’m well aware of how exhaustive these exegeses are, but over-thinking the show has actually added a new facet to how I think about painting since it died over a hundred years ago. And if painting is dead, it always has been, and who really gives a fuck? Assigning an ultimate value, function, or purpose to any art form is stymieing. I think scrimshaw’s day has come and gone, but if it quickens someone’s spirit and gives them wings, then rock-on scrimshander!

I’ll drink to that. Cheers!

I’ll drink to that. Cheers!

“Scrimshanders do your thing” is not a theory I’d take to the bank but we can certainly agree that everyone has a right to be happy.

“Scrimshanders do your thing” is not a theory I’d take to the bank but we can certainly agree that everyone has a right to be happy.

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“I would add that I am excited about new art made with new technology but I fail to see how it is an either-or situation. I think painting can exist alongside it and be in dialogue with it.”
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I completely agree. Attempting to beat one art form into submission while elevating another is senseless. This form of intellectual sport is useless and proves nothing. Yes, art does carry with it the weight of the past, but dismissing one art form over another in lieu of technological innovation is senseless. If an artist is capable of using any medium, even one that has been seemingly banished as “archaic,” to create meaningful work then who are we to snub it on grounds of choice of medium? As we continue to discover more ways of creating art, we should allow them to stand parallel to one another, not in defense against the others.

–
“I would add that I am excited about new art made with new technology but I fail to see how it is an either-or situation. I think painting can exist alongside it and be in dialogue with it.”
–
I completely agree. Attempting to beat one art form into submission while elevating another is senseless. This form of intellectual sport is useless and proves nothing. Yes, art does carry with it the weight of the past, but dismissing one art form over another in lieu of technological innovation is senseless. If an artist is capable of using any medium, even one that has been seemingly banished as “archaic,” to create meaningful work then who are we to snub it on grounds of choice of medium? As we continue to discover more ways of creating art, we should allow them to stand parallel to one another, not in defense against the others.

@jesse I’d like to see this entire thread scrimshawed onto a whale’s tooth and taken on Antiques Roadshow for an appraisal. But not from one of the Keno brothers; they kind of creep me out.

@jesse I’d like to see this entire thread scrimshawed onto a whale’s tooth and taken on Antiques Roadshow for an appraisal. But not from one of the Keno brothers; they kind of creep me out.

Some hilarious stuff here but in all seriousness, gorilla vs yeti… got my $ on KONG.

Some hilarious stuff here but in all seriousness, gorilla vs yeti… got my $ on KONG.

The Keno twins sure know furniture, but they be maaaad creepy…

The Keno twins sure know furniture, but they be maaaad creepy…

Painting is dead. Long live painting!

Painting is dead. Long live painting!

Painting is dead (says Amy Sillman). Long live jpegs.

Painting is dead (says Amy Sillman). Long live jpegs.

I’d rather look at paintings about jpegs.

I’d rather look at paintings about jpegs.

they look awful, trust me

they look awful, trust me