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Post #398 • October 29, 2004, 9:19 AM • 17 Comments
Anne Tschida for the Miami Herald: The horrendously titled Explanations bolster show. (Copy editors and designers write titles at a newspaper, not authors.) Tschida has hit the trifecta - she has now written for the Herald, the New Times, and Street.
Alfredo Triff for the Miami New Times: Physical Graffiti: And you thought it was all about teens gone wild with cans of spray paint.
Miami New Times capsule reviews return to the web.
Jason Budjinksi for the Broward/Palm Beach New Times: Artbeat. I barely let this one in.
As of this writing, the Street website has one story on it from last week. If you had a car that worked as well as this website, you'd push it off of a cliff. Carlos Suarez de Jesus writes about Ashmore Gallery, but can you read it online? No you cannot.
In contrast, the Guardian has a bunch of cool things up: Lucian Freud's portrait of a pregnant Kate Moss, Robert Hughes on MOMA, and a Dali getting sliced up to make a new Dali. I may subscribe.
See you there: Tonight - group show, A.A. Rucci, and Annie Wharton at Ambrosino Gallery, Victor Muñiz at Leonard Tachmes.
2.
October 29, 2004, 5:14 PM
I don't think so. I don't own a pair of camo-print pants like that. I had to look at it for a while though. Creepy.
3.
October 29, 2004, 5:34 PM
Thanks for the Guardian links. The Freud/Moss piece reads like it was written by Christie's advertising department, and judging by the image of the painting (as well as images of another recent portrait by Freud in the latest Modern Painters), Freud isn't what he used to be. I don't like saying that, but it's what my eyes tell me. The price tag, of course, is very inflated. The Dali piece was pointless, except to place Dali, again, as the proto-Warhol. The MOMA piece was quite interesting as historical perspective. As for linking to Artbeat, you shouldn't have. Really. Don't do it again.
4.
October 29, 2004, 6:02 PM
Your right again Jack, Freud isn't what he use to be. Kate Moss has that distinct look of cardboard in this painting which is a bad sign.
5.
October 29, 2004, 6:09 PM
I'm having trouble reading the Moss painting - is the canvas a parallellogram, or has Freud painted white triangles on either side of the image?
You gotta admit that Freud at his worst is still better than a lot of artists at their best.
6.
October 29, 2004, 6:19 PM
freud at his worst... okay but anybody who will pay 3 million for that painting should be beaten to within an inch of his life, just for good measure. I think violence is the answer to our art world woes.
7.
October 29, 2004, 6:44 PM
Never mind geometry, Franklin. The painting looks stale, flaccid and rather generic, like someone aping Freud. Either he's losing it or he no longer cares much, as he surely doesn't need to from a commercial standpoint. The painting will still fetch huge bucks, sort of like boxers who can lose a fight, even lose badly, and still walk away with millions. Still, that's not his fault; it's the market's.
8.
October 29, 2004, 7:09 PM
So what's the matter, Franklin, you don't like Explanations Bolsters? I always thought they were pretty cozy.
9.
October 29, 2004, 7:31 PM
Not my thing, Oldpro, but I do like to snuggle up with a wall label sham.
10.
October 29, 2004, 7:35 PM
I feel sorry for John Peter Moore. Finally someone figured out what to do with Dali and he is going to jail for it.
Oh, but wait, he wasn't convicted for stealing or faking or cutting up the paintings, but for "damaging the moral rights of the author". Hey, I've had my moral rights damaged ever since I can remember. Whom do I sue?
I think Duchamp should have been jailed for damaging the moral rights ot the urinal designer. At least.
Triff is a trip. First he weighs in with good old tried & true "late-capitalist society" which, of course, necessarily causes "information overload", which, of course, necessarily means "we can't find meaningful signs". Gosh, I'm thinking, that six-sided red sign that says STOP, now there's a meaningful sign. Maybe I am missing the profundity of it all.
Then he lets us know he is up on his Wittgenstein with a dynamite quote which states, more or less, "words are useful if they are used right". Thank you Alfredo! Thank you, Ludwig! Then he reviews a show at great length by telling us almost nothing about the characteristics of the objects being reviewed, but then I read that the show gets to "retain its nonstandard cultural viability", so I figure, well, so what.
Aarghh!
11.
October 29, 2004, 8:45 PM
"I think violence is the answer to our art world woes."
Why does that sound so tempting?
I must be getting really, really frustrated.
12.
October 29, 2004, 9:31 PM
argh! where's the link to the Freud piece??
13.
October 29, 2004, 9:34 PM
The Freud portrait featured in the latest issue of Modern Painters was executed over eight months, requiring over a hundred hours of the sitter's time. The high quality of that work is unquestionably much greater than that of the Moss portrait, so the difference is probably due to the lesser amount of time invested by Ms Moss, most likely because she was of course pregnant at the time.
(The same Modern Painters article also reveals that one sitter asked Freud whether he should purchase multiple copies of the same shirt, so it would not wear down during the course of the sittings, but Freud answered that even among manufactured goods, there may be enough variation between two examples that the portrait could be affected. This should indicate the amount of time and effort one of Freud's works is expected to take, and perhaps provide a metric to judge the expected quality of one work over another.)
To answer Franklin's question, the triangles are painted (tho not necessarily "by Freud," as such).
14.
October 29, 2004, 9:48 PM
Oldpro... I do what I can (by trial and error) and often miss --and sometimes get it. Its part of any human endeavor. If I read you correctly, you point to redundancy in my remarks and who knows, may be youre right. I dont claim to be a pro, nor I cast old as prefix to make it more redundant and begin to wonder if Im just proficient at fooling people like you that find the time to read me, not to mention the additional --and not irrelevant-- effort to put it in writing.
15.
October 29, 2004, 10:14 PM
you get em Triff, I got your back!
16.
October 30, 2004, 12:33 AM
Alfredo: "oldpro", while perhaps descriptive, is meant to have the slightly facetious spin that blog names often have. it is not a claim to wisdom.
How "old" and "pro" are redundant is beyond me, however, and how one can make a single word "more redundant" is really beyond me.
No, I neither saw nor indicated any redundancy in your remarks. I just thought some of it made no sense. If you are "fooling" me, well, you are surely doing a good job of it. Maybe it is your last sentence. What does "it" irefer to? Is it "fooling", or "effort", or "proficiency" or your writing or what? That has me fooled, for sure.
17.
October 30, 2004, 12:50 AM
Hovig: I tend to agree with you and the others about the quality of the Kate Moss painting, although the old caveat about not seeing the original applies especially in Freud's case, and especially with a large picture like this. And although I am very wary of hitching quality in art to the work that went into it (can you imagine what monsters would arise from such a criterion!) I get the feeling that it might have some validity here. Freud's paintings seem to live in their excruciating "over paintedness". This one feels slick and too blended and suave. Also the color is not good (again, the caveat). In most of his paintings the crusty, overworked surface seems to submerge the color. Here it reads too easily as color as such, as blended paint.
It would be good to see the original with the other pictures in the Tate. Maybe Franklin wiill sponsor a field trip.
1.
Phil Isteen
October 29, 2004, 5:10 PM
Franklin, is that you in the photo on Abrosino's home page?