Skip to content

Category: Criticism

Banality as Your Saviour, Jeff Koons at the Whitney

There are people who love and people who hate the artwork of Jeff Koons, oddly enough I’ve always been on both sides of that equation. I’m less enthused about his place in the canon of the collectors market, but that is a completely different beast. So let’s do something that is tough to do when we talk about Koons, let’s ignore (for the moment) the money and collectors market.

To me the artwork that was made while Koons was ascending to the higher reaches of the art market are still interesting to me. I’m referring to the vacuums in vitrines, the basketballs, and the bronze inflatable’s. To many the inflatable’s is the location where Koons starts to get lost a bit. Unlike other sculptures Koons was making at the time these are not directly out of consumer culture (as a ready-made). These bronzes stay away from the presentation of the real thing – effectively these bronzes would kill the user who, for instance used a bronze life raft as a life saving device. Any of the basketballs or vacuums could easily be used in any other setting.

Staying on the subject of both the Basketballs and the Vaccums, these works have an oddity that takes them from something in a box (of sorts) to something else entirely. This small-scale industrial nature seems to me to echo Donald Judd – his kind of small scale and quirkiness of production. Similar to Judd, his use of color is specific and careful; it is this nature that will eventually be discarded as Koons’ work turns a corner to become focused on spectacle and monumentality. In making this move – away from the quirky, small production feel, Koons finds new territory that is more akin to what Hollywood would make as art.

By the time of the “Made in Heaven” photographs Koons seemed to have lost his way completely (some would also say found his way – as the works that would Koons would make, would be the works that the mega-collectors would start to find most interesting).

An Ending.
The fact is that Koons is loved by the collectors and the few dealers that sell his work. However that love seems to end there (for the most part). Ask most artists and critics and after they stop bitching about the money aspect of the work, and very little gets said about the artwork.

I’m reminded of this last quote from the movie “Patton” when it comes to the bravura around Koons, I think it’s a rather telling quote.

For over a thousand years, Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of a triumph – a tumultuous parade. In the procession came trumpeters and musicians and strange animals from the conquered territories, together with carts laden with treasure and captured armaments. The conqueror rode in a triumphal chariot, the dazed prisoners walking in chains before him. Sometimes his children, robed in white, stood with him in the chariot, or rode the trace horses. A slave stood behind the conqueror, holding a golden crown, and whispering in his ear a warning: that all glory is fleeting.

This show at the Whitney is the conquerors slave holding that crown.

Comments closed

A quick thought on our developing monocultures

I really like this quote from Rapheal Rubinstien (from his article on Neo-Expressionism in Art in America)

“… it’s vitally important that we have, someplace, a public forum where we can argue with each other about new art. I often worry that the art world is adopting the MSNBC/Fox News model—closed spheres where clusters of like-minded partisans never have to confront opposing views.”

Not surprisingly, I like this because I’ve been thinking along these lines recently. From Facebook to blogs to magazines to openings, I’m seeing a highly fractured and increasingly uninteresting artworld open up before me. I’ve never believed in monocultures, but I fear that is what we are starting to evolve towards.

I’m meeting more and more artists and curators who know so little outside of a particular realm, that when confronted by an idea or approach that is outside of the narrow comfort zone, the artist/curator has no response; and worse, no ability or desire to ask further questions. In the long run it’s the loss of these further questions that I worry about most. Because in my mind it is exactly the further questions that can bring new ideas and approaches to the foreground of our art discourse.

You can read Neo-Expressionism Not Remembered at this link: http://www.artinamericamagazine.com/news-features/magazine/neo-expressionism-not-remembered/

Artwork: A R Penck

Comments closed

Article in the Frederick News Post

Lauren LaRocca has written a nice article about the current show at the Delaplaine Arts Center and a bit about my process.

I’ve been bowled over by how positive everything has been in Frederick – from an easy to work with group at the Delaplaine to attentive viewers and artists in the area and thoughtful press. The show at the Delaplaine has been a tremendous experience. – Thanks to everyone.

You can find the whole article by following this link.

Leave a Comment

The "Hirst" Problem

For part of the morning I’ve been participating in a conversation facilitated by Matthew Collings facebook page about Damian Hirst and the critical thought (or should I say lack of critical thought) around the current show by Damian Hirst at every Gagosian Gallery worldwide. It’s an audacious thing – to have a show in 11 galleries around the world at once, it is even more so to have 11 shows worldwide showing only one type of artwork from one artist. And, to be frank about it, there are very few artists that would be able to hold up to the spotlight and criticisms that would come from such an event.

The initial comment was about the tone of criticism and it’s lack of analysis toward the work. I think many of the reviewers tend to write for the “front of the house” that is, the audience that follows art more aggressively than others. This may account for the lack of analysis of the work. In a way saying “Hirst” is almost like saying “Warhol”, by the time you are done with that one word, most people have a decision in place about the work before encountering the work. Clearly the name is a highly loaded word. However it is only loaded in the speaker and listeners mind and is neither contextualized nor visualized.

I agree with the initial comment about criticism without analysis. I think it’s a serious problem. Right now, the art community is finding the critic only useful to use as a sales tool. It seems that we have been willing to get rid of critical thought for a voice that supports the cost (not value) of the art made today.

When we breakdown the highest levels of the “art world” there are really four major groups of people; artists, dealers, viewers, and critics. Are we really ready to cut out one fourth of our community?

As for Hirst – the personality (or perceived personality) is so big it’s hard to get it away from the art. I find the spot paintings interesting, in a way they are like an episode of Seinfeld – all the concepts and loose ends are tied up and presented as a whole. It seems the biggest complaint is that Hirst has been successful with his artwork. I don’t blame Hirst for making money with his art, I am however bored by the conversation about his wealth when it comes to his work, it’s a valueless canard.

“DAMIEN HIRST: The Complete Spot Paintings  1986–2011″
 Installation view, Photo by Rob McKeever

Leave a Comment

Architect and Gardeners

Brian Eno has been making the press rounds of late as his new album has been released. One of the more interesting things about Eno these days is not necessarily the music (although it’s quite good) it is the thinking around the music and his willingness to share his creative process with others.

This brings us to the most recent conversation at the Serpentine Gallery.

Eno engages us with what is a difference in the perceived notion of creative process (my words – not his) versus what has been happening in studios or wherever art is being made these days. Eno compares this approach between Architect and Gardeners.

“My topic is the shift from ‘architect’ to ‘gardener’, where ‘architect’ stands for ‘someone who carries a full picture of the work before it is made’, to ‘gardener’ standing for ‘someone who plants seeds and waits to see exactly what will come up’. I will argue that today’s composer are more frequently ‘gardeners’ than ‘architects’ and, further, that the ‘composer as architect’ metaphor was a transitory historical blip.”

While this seems at the time obvious it is also at the same time a little bit oblique. This positioning straddles a creative space that artists work in, that non-artists tend to not know (but often believe they understand). It is that space between knowing what is going to happen at the end of an artwork, and fully understanding every step, versus not knowing what is going to happen to get the final destination.

The Architect and Gardeners” presentation is available at the Edge.org website.

Leave a Comment