Glenn Ligon gets Obama's vote

I will be the first to admit that like all vocations in life there is a dominance of mediocre talent who though a combination of reasons from connections to politics tend to dominate any given field. A mediocre majority runs the world is no great epiphany. There are tons of bad painters of all approaches. The problem is that all forms of education have certain standards that have to be met to become a proficient in your field of endeavor. Not so with art. Basics are replaced with emphasis of a clever idea.
A good example might be Glenn Ligon the conceptual artist who was chosen to have his work hang in the white house. While he has enough education to understand basic design, the strength his work is of the metaphor of cultural repression, not art fundamentals. He encapsulates the concept by taking the text of famous writers written pages, blows them up to a distorted super graphic size, and silk-screens them onto his surface of choice. Like a child with a Xerox machine copying and distorting he "creates" some nice texture effects. The metaphor of cultural repression takes visual form by being impossible to read. Get it? I guess some people find this deep; I think it’s smart high school level collage.
When rich people buy this art they feel smart and socially informed. In this case they now have a politically correct hook that seems profound, but is easy to explain to their friends and makes them sound like a sage. Critics, galleries, museums do the same. It fits smoothly into marketing, investment and the promotion of the Cabal that controls the art world.
Could Mr. Legion do the same with a sound education in the fundamentals of representational painting? Picture a portrait painting of James Baldwin on the skill level of Andrew Weyth that showed the layers of cultural repression etched on the man's face. Two approaches to the same idea. One supported by the art world, one considered trite craft.
If Mr.Ligon could paint well he might combine the two and have more tools in his toolbox. In the end the 20 years it takes to learn how to paint is too much of a sacrifice in a world where the power brokers give it no value. Better to network; appropriate images and re- format them, follow fashion, and exploit the guilt of cultural repression. How is it something is more unadulterated that comes from combining existing imagery than something that comes out of your own brush? I can’t answer that, but the art world sells that idea.

Marcia Roberts at Rosamund Felsen Gallery

This is a staggering premise. I think the artist should just do variations on this subject until there is enough paintings to build a monumental museum devoted to the representation of the plank in perspective. I can’t wait to walk the hall of giant planks.
I can only hope the colossal building itself will be based on this searing plank design. Planks within planks so to speak. I can’t stop myself from envisioning giant sculptures made of concrete, steel, and massive rectangle blocks of ice flown in from the few remaining polar glaciers with colored gel searchlights illuminating them. I can’t think of a better use of the last of the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf. Genius, grant worthy, I'm on my knees, sick with envy at my on worthlessness as an artist. I’m only alive because I don’t own a gun. Wake me when the Art Gods pass, my eyes are not worthy to gaze upon them.

My David Hockney Conclusion

Culture Monster
David Hockney back in L.A. -- for a bit




David Hockney was always a puzzle to me. As a child/ teen my mother would take me to modern art museums to expose me to culture. I got giggle from artist like Ed Ruscha and Klaus Oldenburg, but Hockney I couldn’t figure out. I was attracted to the fact he was doing something I visually could see with figures and backgrounds, but always was left with a feeling his wasn’t finished developing as an artist. The drawing was representational in the most primitive way and the painting was crude in form and technique. The colors were occasionally appealing from 40 feet but that feeling was wrenched away as you got close to the painting. Everything in his work felt separate from background to foreground, no sense of a unified picture, just unattached elements painted side by side. I like when I see representational elements mixed with abstraction in Diebenkorn, but there was something about Hockney staying to close to the representational (without any foundation) for his work to coalesce for me. Seeing his new landscapes codified it for me. Every part of the painting is still crude and awkwardly unharmonious, he was never classified as a folk artist, but I think in the end that’s what he is: a modern folk artist. His work begs for it to be judged with the traditional, but is to crude to stand up to the great history of painting he claims to so deeply understand. Perhaps he feels the beauty in his patternmaking, but never captures it for the viewer, it’s always away in the distance. Perhaps that gives him drive? The sad think is a good art teacher could make him great in very short time.

Rembrandt or not? Figure it out at the Getty

from the Times
Culture Monster
- Suzanne Muchnic


"An introductory section offers clues to identifying Rembrandt's style, such as his sketchy and suggestive line, selective detail and precise rendering of light. His work is further distinguished by its intense emotional impact, dynamic composition, expressive faces and eloquent body language."


Can I make the leap to say the criteria for identifying Rembrandt is applicable to distinguish good art from any period?

Think of Ed McCann’s forceful voice to Johnny Carson: “Everything that is the criteria for good art is listed in this series of examples used to identify Rembrandt from his students!”

Carson as Karnac the Magnificent might say if he was a contemporary artist, critic or investor: “You are wrong rabbit skin glue breath! There is so much less to modern art! All rules based on skill hinder an artists purity of expression!”


Quoting the story:
“Establishing distinctive stylistic traits. Multiple interpretations of the same subject came under particular scrutiny as scholars learned to identify the individual artists' visual vocabularies.”

This is precisely what makes an artist unique that has been stripped from the aesthetic vocabulary of today’s contemporary artist. If you can’t draw, anyone can forage idea-based art that uses the limited approach of found objects or imagery collaged together. Future art historians are in for a right go in identifying today’s identity free art. Lets hope artist start mixing their own personal glue that can be uniquely analyzed.

Jeff Koons' 'Train' nowhere near its final destination, or even a start date

Couldn't Jeff just declare a real train art? Save money on making a copy, then hang that? To heavy I guess... Here an idea for free: sink a train halfway into one of the tar pits and throw in about half of the corny old contemporary art at LACMA.

Art review: 'Collection: MOCA's First Thirty Years'

argument for making burning garbage legal again


in the 10% I'd keep


I'd have to add what's missing for this collection is what's missing for the last thirty years of modern art; much of anything with lasting depth and meaning that reflects the history it lived in. I'm over charm, whimsy, making small things big, satire, fashion, and the set decoration that passes for art. It’s all Wall Street investment turned into the biggest pyramid scam of all time. While there is some good things in the collection a flamethrower taken to 90% of it would bet the best art performance ever. If you want the public to support contemporary art give them something they can experience from a culturally emotional level, so much of this collection feels like altars of artists sense of self-entitlement. If people cared about this stuff there would be a 100 posts of ejaculatory revelation at the culture monster blog at the wonder of it all with lines outside MOCA’s door stretching for miles. As it is people have to be begged to come. Art needs to be relatable to the masses, not just the perversely educated.

Alejandro Diaz / The World’s Largest Cardboard Sign and Other New Works

At the Happy Lion

"Will do fake art for money" "I fooled the art critic" "My Gallery Owner is a fool" " Empty Gallery""Fuck the product, keep the box" "Sharpies and Cardboard are Awesome" "Commentary as Thin as what it's written on" " Corrugated Crap.com" "Take a lettering class" "Recycled Ideas are gay" "Crackhead Roof, Chinese Wall" " I hate skill" "Thin Concept=light idea”“Can’t wait to take the money for this show and buy Plywood to write on” "Garbage is money if I say so" "Ed Ruscha hates me"" Will Suck Ed Ruscha's dick"
"If cunts were cardboard, I'd be fucking money"