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new new painters
Post #394 • October 25, 2004, 7:33 AM • 4 Comments
Via Piri Halasz: Moffett's Artletter 2.0. Kenworth Moffett directed the Museum of Art, Ft. Lauderdale for eight years during the '90s. He has recently opened his home in Stamford, Connecticut as a private museum of abstract art, and looks like he intends to revive, in electronic form, a newsletter that he put out during the late '80s. This issue advocates a group of artists calling themselves the New New painters (pause here for cringing), whom I gather have works in his collection and seem to trace their lineage to Jules Olitski.
I observe that the art world is becoming big enough to support any number of self-sustaining factions, including these folks, whom I calculate as fifth- or sixth-generation abstract expressionists.
2.
October 25, 2004, 6:05 PM
You arre right - that web site does not show very much very well. The Google image search for Olitski, even though muddled up with other stuff, gives you much more.
http://images.google.com/images?q=olitski&ie=ISO-8859-1&hl=en&btnG=Google+Search
3.
October 25, 2004, 7:14 PM
The problem with the New New Painters is they are not very good. Ken Moffett should know better, but, from what I have seen, doesn't. For what ever reason he has decided to champion these artist. The link to Jules is the use of gel and thick paint; the paintings don't measure up.
4.
October 25, 2004, 8:02 PM
Moffett's text suffers from too much breathlessness, not to say hyperbole, which is counterproductive (though no doubt he means every word). The visual component is clearly suboptimal, which is a serious flaw, given what the site is presumably intended to accomplish. I'd like to be more supportive, but I found myself uncomfortably close to cringing.
1.
Onajide
October 25, 2004, 4:19 PM
Yes, Moffett has long talked about this group of painters and, Golden paint company. I saw a group of works some years ago at the Vero Beach Art Museum, when I was living up in Ft. Pierce, that I found really strong. Of course, I respected the then Director/ Curator's choices for a lot of work shown there. At the time, I thought it was somewhat risky for a rather conservative town. However, during the NEA nudity controversies they never once stopped offering nude drawing, painting, or photography classes or showing such art. They have several Jules Olitski pieces in their permanent collection too.
His website could use some work, for sure. The images aren't the best either.