Art to watch in 2010

I waited to long for anyone to notice this, but in reading the Sunday Arts and books today it really struck me how embarrassing weak contemporary art is that only one artist is mentioned in the artist to watch listings for 2010. Administrators who are good at squeezing money from rich collectors are more important that the artists themselves. Even an administrator that doesn’t yet exist is more important that a real artist. That the symbolic importance of an administrative post is more crucial than an actual artist frightens me. Sadly this hypothesis is a perfect reflection of the average artists work today.
The concept that an artist comes up with has to have a unfathomable value to the average person that in turn can only be understood by critics then disingenuously decoded by them. Then the investment end of art cabal is willing to buy into the new anointed one. The key is if enough approve that the artist is doing something that is a controllable, passion free investment, thus the hot artist is born.
Expansion of museums of junk is what matters to make money from the construction, protect, design and promotion of artists they are heavily vested in. Networking becomes more central for the artist than producing passionate work. Uniquely skilled artists are difficult find and control, better to promote empty vessels that will go with the flow. Next Year will we see any artists listed as being worth watching? Why should there be if they have nothing relatable to say to the world?

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.