Colleen: June 2008

Thursday, June 12, 2008

found critque #2

As David Carrier noted in his 1985 essay Suspicious Art, Unsuspecting Texts (Arts Magazine, November 1985), Lawsons argument leads a little too conveniently to a solution found in art like that which Lawson himself produced. (Last Exit: Painting appeared in Artforum with reproductions of paintings by Salle, Lawson, Walter Robinson, Troy Brauntuch and Jack Goldstein, suggesting the range of relevant painting to be quite narrow, yet to also include Lawson.) To be fair, of course, Lawsons writings and his work both came out of what he believed painting should be and do, as well as the historical position painting was in. To that end, his 1981 painting Dont Hit Her Again, an agreeably sized canvas in monochromes that goes almost abstract while clearly revealing the face of a child with a black eye, seems iconic of that moment in painting.
That moment is still very much with us. Nowhere has it been more evident than in two recent exhibitions, both in Los Angeles: Jack Goldstein: Paintings from the 1980s, organized by Julie Joyce at the Luckman Gallery, California State University Los Angeles, and The Undiscovered Country, organized by Russell Ferguson for the Hammer Museum at UCLA. To be clear, neither of these was an exhibition about the death of painting or a crisis in painting, but both shows resonated withand showed the reverberations ofthe discourse of paintings implied death or crisis. Initiating a wave of interest that has only accelerated since his suicide in 2003, Goldsteinwho stopped making work and disappeared from the art scene in the early ninetiesresurfaced in the new millennium, exhibiting some of his work through Brian Butler at 1301PE Gallery in Los Angeles. The 2002 exhibition of his paintings at CSULA was a punctuating momentan incredible visual postscript to the writings of Crimp and Lawson. In that show, one could see that Goldsteins paintings did what Crimp wanted art to do, pulled off what Lawson believed painting could pull off and, equally important, they looked like they could have been made yesterday.
Everyone quibbles about inclusions in group exhibitionsand everyone did so regarding The Undiscovered Countrybut Goldstein was the only painter I thought really was missing. A strange echo of New Image Painting, the exhibition explored representational painting from the 60s onward and specifically tried to address paintings place in a post-photographic, post-abstract field, thus inevitably rubbing against some of the anxieties involved in the death of painting discourse. It brought together works from the likes of John Baldessari, Vija Celmins, Philip Guston, Neil Jenny, Gerhard Richter, Richard Hamilton, Thomas Lawson and Richard Princeall artists who through their work and painted representations have dealt, in different ways, with questions about what painting should and could dohung with younger artists like Luc Tuymans, Enoc Perez, Kirsten Everberg and Laura Owens.
Among the assorted possibilities it raised, the exhibition confirmed that (1) painting had been capable of what Crimp considered impossible well before he made such a declaration and that (2) in the wake of the surge from the seventies through the eightiesin what really is an older, ongoing discourse of the crisis of paintinga younger generation of painters has emerged bearing the mark of a climate informed by the likes of both Crimp, with his naysaying, and Lawson, with his strained boosterism.
The product of this generation is that of artists who came of age amidst both the pressures and permissions imposed by the emergence and subsequent dominance of a culture of critique within the field of contemporary art. This critique, thrust negatively by Crimp and somewhat more positively by Lawson into the field of painting, yielded results, which are not all Lawsonesque in appearance. In fact, they reflect the full breadth of pluralism that has come to define contemporary painting, from the sort of edgy, painterly representation exemplified by Tomory Dodge to the odd mlange of style and reference offered by the likes of Anton Henning and Richard Hawkins; from the self-conscious and self-effacing abstraction of Pia Fries to the color-field graffiti of Katharina Grosse and the new-and-improved Neo-expressionism of Cecily Brown; from the hyper-fauvism of Daniel Richter to the recent, quasi-abstract text paintings of Monique Prieto. As David Joselit, riffing on the sentiment of Yve-Alain Bois 1986 essay Painting: The Task of Mourning, commented in a roundtable on paintings death published in Artforums March 2003 issue, the death of painting might more have been a case of the end of one game of painting, played by specific rules, and the emergence of a new game of painting with new rules. These artists indeed seem to be working with an awareness of a changed or changing set of rules of the game.
As Crimp wrote of the term postmodernism in Pictures, to be meaningful the term needs to do more than signal chronology; it needs to signal a change. With such a demand for useful terminology in mind, it seems reasonable to refer to much of our current painting not in terms of post-death or post-crisis but, in consideration of the influence it shows and the role it assumes via such varied forms, as post-critique.
By Christopher Miles

found critque #1

IT has a really flat, tempera kind of feel. I would suggest when "speed painting" to block out the form in your darkest color, and build it up by painting light shapes (or doing the reverse... block it in lightest value, build up shadow shapes.)If you feel you are losing track of foreshortened portions or shapes, get a new layer up for some quick finding lines.I'm not sure what brush you are using, but it is making it look like finger painting.That orange slit doesn't do anything for the painting. Is it supposed to be the stand-by "squinty eye of doom?" I would recommend reaching deeper and finding an idea for a brilliant eye that invokes "death" rather than "Spawn" (like the comic book.)The "eye" is also in a spot where it doesn't seem to correspond to a face... if feels more like a visor or something.But I think the biggest thing is to gesture out the painting, block in your lights and darks based on a pre-conceived light source, and let the painting find detail when you feel the values actually read as rough volumes.Oh, and, as far as I handle digital painting, which I admit I am still working out my style, I tend to want start with darks and paint in lights with opaque medium, and the opposite for translucent medium.

song lyrics

Never Again by Nickelback

He's drunk again, it's time to fight She must have done something wrong tonight The living room becomes a boxing ring He's time to run when you see him Coming licking his hands She's just a woman Never Again I hear a scream, from down the hall Amazing she can even talk at all She cries to me, Go back to bed I'm terrified, She'll wind up Dead In his hands, She's just a woman Never Again Been there before, but not like this Seen it before, but not like this Never before have I have Seen him this bad She's just a woman Never Again Just tell the nurse, you slipped and fell It starts to sting as it starts to swell She looks at you, she wants the truth It's right out there in the waiting room With those hands Lookin just as sweet as he can Never Again Seen it before, but not like this Been there before, but not like this Never before have I have Seen him this bad She's just a woman Never Again Father's a name you haven't earned yet You're just a child with a temper Haven't you heard "Don't hit a lady"? Kickin' your ass would be a pleasure He's drunk again, it's time to fight Same old shit, just on a different night She grabs the gun, she's had enough Tonight she'll find out how fucking Tough is this man Pulls the trigger just as fast as she can Never Again Seen it before, but not like this Been there before, but not like this Never before have I have Seen him this bad She's just a woman Never Again

Should’ve Listened by Nickelback

There's clothes all over the floorI don't remember them being here beforeSmell of perfume isn't here, why's lipstick on the mirror?And still I don't understandNo pictures left in the hall, there's three new holes in my wallWhere the hells my credit cards, why's my wallet in the yardAnd still I don't understandWell now I guess I should've listenedWhen you said you'd had enoughA little trick I picked up from my fatherIn one ear and out the other, whys love gotta be so tough?Should see the look on my face, my shit's all over the placeWhy's this happening to me, why'd you take both sets of keys?And still I don't understandWell now I guess I should've listenedWhen you said you'd had enoughA little trick I picked up from my fatherIn one ear and out the other, Whys love gotta be so tough?Well now I guess I should've listenedThere's clothes all over my floorI don't remember them being here beforeThere are no candles in here, lipstick still on my mirror?And still I don't understandNow I guess I should've listenedWhen you said you'd had enoughA little trick I picked up from my fatherIn one ear and out the other, why must life be so tough?Well now I guess I should've listenedWhen you said you'd had enoughA little trick I picked up from my fatherIn one ear and out the other, whys love gotta be so tough

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

"Stone disobedient children" (Deuteronomy 21:18-21)- The Bible

“I understand there are 10,000 people dead. It’s terrible. It’s tragic. But in a democracy of 300 million people, over years and years and years, these things happen.” –GOP strategist Jack Burkman, on MSNBC’s “Connected,” Sept. 7, 2005

“It’s totally wiped out. … It’s devastating, it’s got to be doubly devastating on the ground.” –President Bush, turning to his aides while surveying Hurricane Katrina flood damage from Air Force One, Aug. 31, 2005

by Dave Batista "unleashed" published in 2007

"Now, don't get me wrong, my ex-wife is the love of my life and I would never knowingly hurt her. However, while I was busting my butt on the road like a dog, she would sit around the house and do nothing. I mean, yeah, she had cancer, but she couldn't vacuum? And since the chemo made her "not in the mood", I had no choice but to have threesomes on the road. I mean, she's talented and I hated to see her waste her life like that when she could be a dancer, or maybe a nurse. But she's not a bad person and I take full responsibility for my actions, even though it was her fault."