So I’ve been thinking about artists who are interesting to me and have guided me through formative times in my art viewing, so below is a list – really a begining of a list as this changes almost daily or hourly.
Neal Jenny: in particular “the bad paintings”
Anselm Keifer: While attending the Greman expressionist show at the Corcoran in 1985, Bernard Welt leans over my shoulder after looking at a painting covered with hay and says “Thats what I call color field painting.”
Jasper Johns: Say what you will about his later work and his “canonization” of being the best post-war painter ever, it’s probably true.
Ed Ruscha: How can anyone be as cool as his work?
Robert Mangold: his precision and color work is amazing
Robert Ryman: his simple engineering or re-enginerring of the painting continues to be interesting to me – I’m less concerned about the reductive qualities of the work as I am the possiblities of where else he could possibly take this work.
Stuart Davis: Because there are days where I think he is responible for any new approach to painting in the last 50 years.
Gene Davis: Because he was local, because he made some really smart paintings that are quoted still.
However one thing that most of these artists share is a simplicity and power to the work they do – I wouldn’t dare call them minimalists (except for the ones that are) but they share (for the most part) a stripped down approach to subject matter and presentation.
One last thing – this comes from Pitchfork – even though its about the “new” indie rock it could almost be about painting and street art as well.
“This decade’s indie-kid rhetoric is all about excitement, all about fun, all about fierce. The season’s buzz tour pairs M.I.A. with LCD Soundsystem, scrappy globo-pop with the kind of rock disco that tries awfully hard to blow fuses. The venues they don’t hit will play host to a new wave of stylish guitar bands, playing stylish uptempo pop, decamping to stylish afterparties. Bloggers will chatter about glittery chart hits, rock kids will buy vintage metal t-shirts and act like heshers, eggheads will rave about the latest in spazzed-out noise, and everyone will keep talking about dancing, right down to the punks. Yeah, there are more exceptions than there are examples– when aren’t there, dude?– but the vibe is all there: We keep talking like we want action, like we want something explosive.”