WARNING: The following review contains hemming and hawing. Also equivocation.
I've written before, more than once, that I'll go to any art event if someone invites me. This has never been really entirely true. I always consider going if someone invites me, but there are other considerations, such as how terrible the art looks, how cranky I am that evening, whether or not there's a family event at the same time, and so forth. Over the summer, too, this blog became somewhat inexplicably more popular, such that I've been getting a lot more invitations to things than I used to. So while my invitation policy used to be nearly true, it's gotten much more fictional over the past couple of months.
I feel unnaccountably bad about this. I don't owe anyone free publicity, but on the other hand, I do like to be invited to things and I hate letting people down. I'm a people pleaser. You can tell that, can't you?
So I got this invitation via e-mail to this opening. I checked out the work and I'm going to be honest: It didn't look great. It didn't look bad, either. It looked, really, like the kind of work that really can't be judged by JPEGs. I figured the work could go either way. In person it could be very good or it could be totally lousy. Impossible to tell. My first impression, then, was to skip the opening.
Then I looked up who was inviting me. The message was from a woman who was, judging by the photos online, attractive and upscale enough to get in photos at fundraisers attended by what, from my lowly perspective, appear to be the New York fashion elite. Well, the invitation was almost certainly not personal, but I was flattered nonetheless, because I'm easy like that. A pretty girl who knows rich people wants me to go? Then maybe I should!
A later message was from a guy, which brought me down a bit. But he was inviting me to the pre-opening, which, he said, was for press and VIPs. VIP! I've never been a VIP before, except once when I was someone's guest. I'm special!
Then I saw the address of the opening. It was in the middle of nowhere, Brooklyn. I mean, the middle of Brooklyn can't possibly be the middle of nowhere, not really, but in terms of my existence, it was: Not near any other art openings, not near subways I usually take, not near where I get off the bus, not near my studio. Also, not near a good neighborhood. This was in one of those neighborhoods I only hear about on the evening news because there's a fire or a hit-and-run.
Have I hemmed and hawed enough for you? More warning: There's further ahead. But anyway. I had my reservations about going and I had my reasons for going and none of them were really related to the art, and what I'm getting at is there are lots of things swirling around in my head that have nothing whatsoever to do with art which go into whether I see something or not. This is not very high-minded of me, I know, and part of me feels bad about it, but it is what it is.
In the end, that Thursday night, I went. I found myself getting off the L train in Bushwick. I immediately thought, compared to this, my studio's neighborhood in Gowanus is Park Avenue. Flushing Avenue in Bushwick is an area that can best be described as up and coming because it can't go much further down and away. But that's where the great art is, where those outside the art world are, right? Because it's cheap. It's not like Williamsburg or DUMBO or Chelsea or the Lower East Side, even, neighborhoods which have been so thoroughly gentrified you can't afford to live there. Those places are still trying to pretend they're down and out, but they're the very haute kind of down and out that takes a large amount of cash to practice. Not Bushwick: I passed an open pool hall with signage in Spanish. I didn't even know Spanish people played pool.
There on the corner of Vandevoort and Flushing Avenue I found Factory Fresh, and if you get there before October 11, 2009, you'll see Tim Kent's All That is Solid Melts into the Air.
Let's get the last of the hemming and hawing out of the way: I'm not sure, if I'd been walking from gallery to gallery in Chelsea, that I would've stopped for very long at Tim's show. I would've skimmed right over it, probably, without really giving the work any time at all to sink in. But I wasn't in Chelsea, I was in Bushwick, and I'd come over two hours by bus and train -- the bus getting stuck in the Lincoln Tunnel for 45 minutes due to some kind of accident ahead of us -- and when I got there, I was one of the only visitors in the gallery, and I was greeted warmly by my e-mail correspondents and introduced to the artist. All of which conspired to keep me in the gallery and paying attention.
As soon as I arrived I was met by Wade Groom and Katja Douedari, the husband and wife team of Studio Douedari, the publicity firm getting the word out on Tim's show. Both of them are really lovely people, new parents of twins, and we had a good little talk before they introduced me to Ali Ha, co-owner of the gallery, and at last Tim Kent himself.
I was completely charmed by everyone in the gallery, not least Tim. He's an excellent conversationalist, made me feel welcome, had interesting things to say, struck me as intelligent, intense, and serious. I really liked him. We talked for a few minutes before he left me alone with his paintings and the few drawings he had up. One thing he confided in me was that the show had been intended as a small show of drawings; somehow it had ballooned into a rather large show of nearly 20 paintings and a handful of graphite works. As I began to look around a good crowd of people began to fill up the space so that by the third or fourth time I'd walked around I was having to dodge viewers to get around.
Tim Kent, No Love Lost, 2009, oil on linen, 72x68 inches
Which brings us finally, at long last, to the work itself. Sorry it took me so long, but I warned you.
I definitely think Tim is a real artist. I think there's something to his work. I'm not certain I'm capable of reviewing it properly, which accounts for all my equivocation; I'm not sure it's near enough to something I have a feel for. That said, a couple of the paintings strike me as real standouts, very solid, excellent work. I've reproduced two of them here, and I think they're the best in the show.
My instincts were right, however: You can't appreciate Tim's work in JPEG form. The JPEGs lend them a clarity and obvious concrete aspect almost totally missing in person. Standing in front of his work, what strikes me most about it as a whole is ambiguity. At few points is it clear exactly what he's rendering. Even the few small paintings which are clearly portraits are blurred, messy, nearly abstract; you'd never pick their subjects out of a line-up. One portrait, titled E.C., is so abstracted I'm not sure it's intended as a portrait at all.
In his figurative work he tends to attenuate parts of the figure. Legs wander off in a smear of paint and blend into the bedsheets. Faces are blended into the wall. It's difficult to ascertain what's shadow. In The Room, It Breathes a crisply rendered staircase and fairly tightly painted chair set off the other end of the room where someone is splayed on the bed. It took me several minutes of looking (some over Tim's shoulder as we talked) to realize there is, in the foreground, a nightstand with pill bottles and a wine glass. To say that an air of menace hangs over these paintings is to understate the case. Likewise in No Love Lost it was a little while before I noticed there was a dog in the painting.
Tim Kent, Childhood's End, 2009, oil on linen, 46x50 inches
Although I'm naturally drawn to the human figure -- I tend to think every painting needs a person in it -- my favorite in the show turned out to be, after several trips around and looking very hard, Childhood's End. It's a pure cityscape, with passages of impressionism, but instead of seeing sunlight and bright colors, this is one of those dingy, dirty back ends of the city. Scaffolding and trusses dominate the buildings, the air is hazy and claustrophobic, the sun wanly laps down from the right. It evokes an urban landscape even Hopper might find too depressing.
Some of the other works struck me as less sturdy. Tim's abiguity can take him too far from anything concrete, but he doesn't really make the full leap into abstraction; his palette reminds me of Clyfford Still but he doesn't activate the surface, doesn't drive up the pressure the way he needs to be truly abstract. Instead his paint just dissolves into a muddle. And Tim's use of stags strikes me as inorganic and unfelt. An artist like Christopher Reiger uses wildlife because he has to -- it feels as if he lives with his deer and foxes and bears. With Tim, I get the feeling he somewhat arbitrarily chose the stags as some kind of symbol; they didn't choose him.
So with all my hemming and hawing my conclusion is that Tim Kent is a real and serious artist. I don't feel my critique really does him justice; I don't feel qualified to judge him. All I can say is, go out to Bushwick and see for yourself.
This is good student work. I'm sure Tim Kent's family and friends are thrilled, thrilled to be showing in NEW YORK CITY and they certainly are gracious and nice and all I'm sure. No one is to be ostracized or barred from ever showing in new york again until they have something more to say than "I live in and and love my industrial neighborhood" and "I have a hot girlfriend." which to be fair got a lot of eighties artists famous, and even a few contemporary gay hairdresser types. Girlfriend! Sour grapes right there. But also, LA sucks.
I'm not a fan of Surehand Luke types with their palette knife/1" brush adobe/adobo/doobie brother asthetic. That includes Neo Rausch who does it like only an academic can (like spam).
Too clever by far, like this comment, to be sure.
The lighting in the space made hotspots on the paintings. My feeling was this was a vanity show where the artist was sincere(ly) deluded as all young MFA's are) but the gallery was putting on an event (like they do for Kostabi or second rate David Salle Paintings or late late late Basquiats) - certainly there are no local "fans" from across the pond or anywhere having a conversation or worship session al la the YBA's) here. And out of context (my feeling was that the context of the artist is "first show out of school" and "bourgeoise") Which is great and all but this is NEW YORK CITY or at least bushwick city, which I sometimes visit just to see how the other half lives (i.e. the deadly gangs of Peruvian pool players, art students and localized or sedentary trustafarians) none of whom were in attendance in force that I could tell, due to a strict door policy (no street people).
No, this was an internet party, and the paintings were set dressing for the numerous photographers who aimed their phallic probes (film theory, bro) at the VIPS (i.e. family members).
THe painting of the woman undressing...has a sort of je ne sais qiou n'est ce pas? It has a sense about it, as if it could be a polish woman undressing at a loft on Franklin street in Greenpoint, or a Swedish babe undressing at a Clinton Hill batchelor pad, or a london belle finding time to crash in the East End after a long night at the disco.
Now that I;ve taken the piss, as they say, I expect a full on war - no one seems to be looking for a cock up out here, other than a few stupid obnoxious bloggers who are the only pulse I can detect anywhere outside of a few rude shows ut on by circus barkers even more demenented than these who seem to think art is a joke to be mocked, but only by them, because they are the only ones who "get it". Or maybe I'm projecting.Actually in any case it points to a profound lack of "content" for all involved. My advice is to pack it in and go for reality cooking shows, which provide ample opportunities for taking photos of cooked geese.
Hey, good to see you, Zip. Slow day at EAG and Ed's I guess. I won't try and chase you away like EAG and I won't call you names like Franklin; in fact I'll go so far as to encourage you to chime in here as often as you like. This comment of yours was even fairly coherent up til the end.
I know you're just passing along your impressions -- did you see the show in person? -- but you're off a bit. Tim's not right out of school. You may feel free to think his paintings are student-level work, but he's past that. This may be one of his earliest New York shows but he's shown in England. I personally can't criticize anything on the basis of being student-level because I don't think like that.
You may be on to something when you say the work's too clever -- I wouldn't go that far but I do think Tim may be overthinking. Talking to him, he seemed very intent, very thoughtful, trying to steer himself carefully. If I were the advice-giving type I'd suggest he loosen up a bit; maybe his palette, too. I'd like to see a wider, less purposely constrained range of colors. But I always worry that I'm trying to make painters paint the way I paint, which is a dumb thing to do.
The lighting got worse as the sun went down. I was there early enough that the works were well-illuminated by the oblique sunlight. I left as it was getting dark, partly because I wanted to survive the walk to the subway station. Which is a joke, really: The neighborhood's nowhere near that bad. I saw several young, slim women walking alone, in less than sensible shoes, which is a good sign that the neighborhood's safe. (Greg Coates was the guy who pointed out to me that the relative safety and cleanliness of a city can be judged by the footwear of the ladies.)
As far as your phallic film theory, don't be an idiot. My dim view of both "the male gaze" and dopey, obvious parallels between zoom lenses and penises should be well known by now; in case you missed it, Zip, it's my considered opinion that it's all so much low-IQ academic pigshit. Don't wallow. You're better than that.
You talk to much, and so does Tim Kent.
oh man spare me the preamble Im much too jaded to give a shit. I dont know that I would let me piss on my blog - sorry you have to slum it with my crap. WHen you get more readers and commenters I'm sure you will be able to snub me properly. I feel for you man. Yeah I dropped by at night - and I walked past the bushwick houses - though I've only had one attempted mugging about five years ago - I knwo it can be dangerous still where its not so well lit.
You are right - student work is just a lazy put down.
John Berkey, who did a lot of sci fi book and magazine covers - would be better than some idea of expressionistic paint handling that only sort of alludes or nods to - gives 60% because it's afraid of not looking cool.
Neo Rauch, who I mentioned has "technique" but he works hard to make it feel dashed off, energetic and slick - something I cant stand - and I feel that urge here - that need to be loved, like picasso when he made "picassos" as if every one was a masterpiece to be traded for dinner).
Zip, my man, I wouldn't snub you no matter how many readers leaving comments I had. I rarely understand what you're saying, but I like having you around. Sincerely.
I'm not a big fan of Rauch, although I don't think I've seen much of his work in person, so my opinion isn't serious. I'd go out of my way to see one of his shows just to find out how I feel about it.
I didn't feel Tim was trying to look dashed off. Maybe.
I think John Berkey did the cover of one of my favorite books from when I was a kid.
By the way, Colin, you may be right that I talk too much. At least I can handle simple English grammar.
Well I dont think this is his best work - in fact I wanted to say they felt like he was trying to fill space on the canvases - a common problem of peopel working larger.
Change of direction? Too soon. Cashing in? DO IT IN THE BACK ROOM.
Rosson Crow for example works large and uses some easy techniques - splatters, wet into wet - that you can master in a few years - or Helen Verhoeven who went to the most academic hellhole in ny the academy of art in manhattan - they are the worst of the academics there.
Im not going to say Grunge has more soul, but it offered hope that there was mroe than Billy Joel or Idol or whatever, despite being sort of hippie-funk meets metal-punk.
Katherine Bernhardt or Wendy White - not "students" but have the same problem.
Frank Frazetta had it down, i dont know why the hipsters dont just mainline that shit for real yo.
I forgot to mention the black people in bushwick - inexcuseable. Sometimes on a clear night you can hear the drums of the cannibals and the ululations of arian barbarian hordes roaring through the streets.
Grunge sucked. Still does, actually.
P.S. Every artist you mention, Zip, looks absolutely fucking dreadful. Wendy White was in Art Fag City's list of 33 Outstanding Artists Emerging After 1999 which is proof enough that's she's a shitty hack making junk assemblages not worth the sixty cents of carbon unfortunately trapped in their molecules.
Except Frazetta. I'm a heap big fan of Frazetta from way back, although of course I've never seen his originals. I expect they'd be flat and unexciting, like the Boris Vallejo originals I've seen -- illustration has that problem. But I mean one day to make a day trip out to Frazetta's home museum in East Stroudsburg. Want to come along?
ive been trying not to be too negative, it poisons you, you know, but I am going to say spooky mansions as subject matter is a cop out/hackneyed/overdone/lametobeginwith/kitchy from the point of view of Fine Art and not as good as Frazetta from any other point of view I can think of. A field trip to the Frazetta you are not serious.
The artists who make dreadful new york art are on another trip and its kind of higher and angrier than me right now, but also deluded but also based on a certain narrative that I'm sure feels real to them but that doesn't feel real to me anymore, sort of like a ghostly mansion, which is something someone already did, both as assemblage , collage, installation and painting as well as whatever else.
But maybe not because they didn't think the narrative was real, but because they thought it was a cool idea or something but were afraid to commit wholy because then their career would be over or they would have to admit to their failure in some respect - the possibilities here are endless.
The best art is what you make for your friends, but its weird when that becomes public or the style and comodified or whatever. Then everybody wants to know who did it first so they can make everyone angry because at the heart of it they are angry.
Hey Chris did I chase Zip away? I deleted his violent ramblings that included stuff about killing homeless people and implied violence towards me. Sorry that stuff is boring and scares away the neurotypicals. Otherwise I thought I engaged him just fine. Art blogs are here to stay because this comment thread is a fine example of how comment threads about art are often more interesting than the art under discussion. You guys can go tit for tat about artists all you want to but it boils down to your individual tastes. You are not going to win the argument or prove a point. All we will learn is that zip likes so and so and hates so and so and Chris likes so and so and hates so and so (feel free to replace likes and hates with whatever descriptive terms you want to).
Chris I am familiar with how you approach the review writing process and I would say this review didn't work because the first person intro stuff in this review (you know the part in the beginning of the review where you talk about yourself for a while before discussing the art), went on for way too long. Usually these first person intros are mildly entertaining, but this review really could have started at, "I'm not sure, if I'd been walking from gallery to gallery in Chelsea, that I would've stopped for very long at Tim's show."
This was review was hard to write. Took me almost a week even to sit down to it. No surprise if it's not my best.
Oh and yes, I am serious about a field trip to see Frazetta. I've been thinking about it for years and years. I spent summers near Stroudsburg for many years, so I know the area. It's an easy trip, about an hour from my house.
Frazetta's site seems to be down due to the recent death of his wife. I'm not sure what one has to do with the other, but there you go.
I would like to go there. I always loved Molly Hatchet albums covers, especially "Flirtin' With Disaster". Vallejo and Frazetta were heroes of mine when I was younger. And really does the dstinction between illustration and fine art really still hold? Look at what is in the galleries. Puhlease! Don't mean to be overly critical about the review. Most of the time the anecdotal stuff you include in the review is charming but this review kind of fell flat for me. But again, one little opinion amongst over three hundred others.
Listen, you can be critical of my review. I'm being critical of someone else. Be pretty sad if I couldn't take it myself. I'm a little unsure of this one. It's okay. They can't all be winners. The best I could do was try and inject that ambivalence into the review itself.
I believe, by the way, that the distinction between fine art and illustration still holds. Not everyone agrees, but I feel it quite strongly. I don't think it necessarily has to hold -- I can imagine a piece done as illustration which could also be fine art. But that's a thought experiment; I have yet to see that piece.
I think the confusion between illustration and fine art -- the blurring of the boundary between them -- is due to so many people judging quality through reproduction. In JPEG form (or in a magazine), illustration stands side by side with fine art. In JPEG form illustration and fine art are indistinguishable. Actually, in JPEG form illustration often looks superior to fine art. It's only when you see the originals that you can see the difference; in fact one could probably define the difference between them as something only detectable in the originals.
The intent of the work doesn't enter into it, except insofar as the intent determines the work. Illustrators working for reproduction naturally, as a rule, don't include elements which can't be properly reproduced. So the color range is narrow, for example. Colors are not as saturated. And so on.
In journalism class I wrote an article about AIDs. I thought that was my best article. It made people think and was concise and to the point. I only took one class and at the time I didn't understand the whole process, that you could sort of "blog" about anything on your "beat".
I metnioned all those artists and am ambivalent about mentioning them, all except Frazetta, who not only painted good book covers, but managed to find a wide audience through his talent and drive. He mattered. I'd like to think artists matter but they don't. Showing to a few people and getting the PR treatment in Artforum or Artinamerica doesn't mean as much as reaching thousands via a book. If you make an incomprehensible movie that people forget, then you probably failed as an artist. Making work for critics is like making hay for horses. So what. You are not superior or better or even different if you like something only a few other people like. And putting something like a joke in code doesnt make you smart, its jsut a code.
make work for people about stuff they understand. I dont know anythign about neurotypicals - I;d be flattered that im not typical and yet id rather be just like anyone else, a humble person who likes hay like everyone else.
I never threatened to kill a homeless person, you must have read "knife" when I meant "tennis racket"
That last sentence should have gone at the top of the page, but as it is you will probably not get that far, even though I put it in it's own paragraph. I think that's called the "lede" but I;m not sure. My angle is pretty much the same all the time - writers need angles. Like "he was part of the Lost Generation, the flower of the creme de la creme that was cut to pieces by the automated death of the Hun's machine guns" - thats a great one because it includes a food trigger, which at least reminds me of food even if it is referring to someone or something I dont care about like a war that occured back in 1918. I do like Motorhead though.
Other than that I think you all need an editor because thats what turns writing into writing. Look at Peter chjeldhl - he can barely write, but give that guy and editor and BSNG - he sounds like a New Yorker.
id go to frazetta but It wouldnt be very fun unless I was less strapped for cash. neurotypically speaking.
zip I was poor for many years post college. I didn't get an MFA (which I paid for by doing temp work on the overnight shift) until many years after I got my BA. I ate Ramen and lived in filth and squalor in a pre-genritification Williamsburg. Williamsburg was mostly an awful shithole before the art student hordes transformed it.
Chris I like what you are saying about jpegs and I want to do a comic about how visual art is for a niche audience mostly because it is not delivered to the masses through trendy technology. The idea of the original real object, the cult of the original is what ensures that art will always be for a niche audience and will never mean as much to the public as film and music does.
My comment about fine art/illustration has to do with the stuff I see in galleries; the techniques used by contemporary painters, the application of paint and other materials, the subject matter. I see a lot of cheesy illustration like imagery in the galleries. It is an outgrowth of the Warhol sensibility. But the irony and smart alecky crap that gets smeared on top of it, sickens me.
One of the things that is great about fine art, but also somewhat infuriating, is that it's by necessity a niche market. It can't be otherwise. You call it "the cult of the original" and that may be strictly accurate but the word "cult" has negative overtones, intimations of falsehood; I don't think it's appropriate. It's a simple fact that originals are better at conveying emotion. A symphony in concert is not a recording of a symphony; a CD of a human voice is not someone in the same room speaking to you; a JPEG is not a painting.
We've become a culture of recordings, which is neither good nor bad, I expect. It is what it is. We can't change it.
As far as what you see in galleries, I sort of subsumed all that under my phrase "Not everyone agrees". There is a lot of illustration-like work in galleries, going back as far as Warhol and possibly farther. A lot of Surrealism (I'm tempted to say all of it) is basically illustration. I say this as someone who makes a pilgrimage to the Dalí Museum every time I'm in Florida; I love stuff that makes a good dorm room poster.
But, really, most artists you see in galleries wouldn't qualify as the least illustrator's lowliest assistant. I'm thinking lately that people only become artists because they're too incompetent at everything else, but that may be excessively cynical of me.
Films or music (not played live) don't convey emotions? Not sure what you mean about the conveyance of emotions and the original artifact. Why is painting or visual art the exception? That is the question.
Films and music recordings and JPEGs can convey emotions. Film is its own category because I think the experience of moving images plus sound plugs into different areas of the brain than static images; comic books are also different because of their combination of words and images. Recorded music versus live music is a more subtle difference. There's an enormous amount of stuff, for lack of a better word, involved in recording, transmitting, and reproducing sound.
Anything, really, can be a carrier for an artistic experience. The question is what's better at conveying that experience. Some things are better than others. I imagine a JPEG could be as wonderful an experience as a great painting. I imagine that, but it doesn't mean it's likely. I mean, you can sculpt in marble or you can sculpt in dog shit, but there's a reason people prefer marble.
The fact is a painting is capable of carrying more, of having a greater effect on a viewer, than a reproduction. I imagine it has something to do with complexity -- greater range of colors, greater variation of surface texture, things like that. But I'm not sure, beyond being able to experience it.
It took painting a long time to emerge in human history. For the longest time drawing or painting had a magical, religious, and utiltarian purpose before it became Art with a capital A. Therefore I am not willing to write off any media at this point in time, in terms of the potential value it might have as a means of conveyance of visual art.
Paul De man the deconstructionist tried to tell us there is an infinite regress in text - a vertiginous crevasse of observer observing - i was reading aobut that on the shitter today. It's easy to forget about belgium. But I can agree there is medium specificty to a point but I'll prove you wrong about the emotion part. I could communicate rich nuanced emotion using an alphabet system or something.
I went to a cheap undergrad and didnt have to work in school but I worked every summer in shitty jobs when I should have been interning like all the kids do these days - or even back then. I am not in school now but I wish I was. Even communting to a crappy community college job or high school would be ok if it paid for food and rent.
That should read: "Therefore I am not willing to write off any media at this point in time, in terms of the potential value it might have as a means of conveyance for visual art." Fucking duh!
I would not want to be unemployed right now. Things are tough all over. I have one of the cushy jobs that still include joiningt a powerful union that has political sway. But the man is chipping away at everything and healthcare costs are so fucking through the roof at this point that it will be a common sight to see people keeling over in the street and getting carted away to the town furnace.
What I am trying to say is his. Visual art has not integrated well with narrative. Avant-garde narratives, like that Matthew Barney shit, is not timeless. More and more artists are flirting with narrative, but they will always have to insert non-sensical passages into the mix in order to stay in the Fine Art category. Static images, painterly images have been around for a long time and they are not going to go away. But I do think that memorable and beautiful and disturbing static or shifting images can be made on the computer or television screen. These images can be memorable, and just as searing as painted or drawn images.
I thought the preamble was fine. There is a human touch to your writing that I can relate to, but then, I came to your writing through your "She's Having a Baby" e-book (or whatever we call these things), not as an artist googling my own name. Ramble on!
Thank you, Jim.
oh well thats the voice of authority. A random goofball off the edge of cyberspace. Or was that a joke? Some people dont have time for preambles. Is that part of the concept or just a side effect of the creative process? Sure, dumbing it down or smarting it up can be a thorny hedge againts idiots, but also, you arent writing for posterity, so what do you care if the gnats of the future die before they even get to the second paragraph? DO you have any other tones than jocular? You are a phillistine.
oh well thats the voice of authority. A random goofball off the edge of cyberspace. Or was that a joke? Some people dont have time for preambles. Is that part of the concept or just a side effect of the creative process? Sure, dumbing it down or smarting it up can be a thorny hedge againts idiots, but also, you arent writing for posterity, so what do you care if the gnats of the future die before they even get to the second paragraph? DO you have any other tones than jocular? You are a phillistine.
I am a philistine, you're right. I'm proud to be a philistine given the definition of taste and class obtaining today.
I have a tone aside from jocular. I also have righteously angry, disgusted, and cynical.
The preambles are what they are: Preambles. It's how I write. If you were looking for Derridian doublespeak layered over day-old horseshit, I'm afraid you're on the wrong site. However, I can recommend a couple that are right up your alley.
A random goofball? And who the fuck are you, Dame Judith Zipthwang?
All I did was say I enjoy the guy's writing. Hope you're a good artist, cuz you sure are a shitty, insecure "hey, look at me" writer whose muddy digressions (and poor spelling, punctuation and capitalization) obscures the occasional amusing one-liner you get off.I much prefer Mr. Rywalt's overt self-loathing to your covert self-pity and gladly have time for Rywalt's preambles, asides, random musings; your telling anybody else to get an editor is the joke of the month, considering every mental fart you have you see fit to share...
Ok fine, premables are great. Most people dont have time for them and the bad grammars.
Those links were horrifying dont ever do that to me again.
Ok fine, premables are great. Most people dont have time for them and the bad grammars.
Those links were horrifying dont ever do that to me again.
Did you delete my last comment?
If not this is what I said.
The anecdotal stuff in your reviews usually works just fine. You have created an enjoyable persona and it is fun to imagine strolling into a gallery and taking a look at the art and people along with you. Even though you would say that you are simply telling it like it is, nothing is as simple as that. I am sure that the people who read your blog enjoy hearing you take people and the art down a few notches. That is part of the dynamic. You have a following and obviously people like it. I just thought this particular formula didn't work for this review. That's it.
I did not delete your last comment. I don't delete comments. Look, I even left in Zip's duplicate comments. I was thinking of deleting them but I forgot to bother.
I don't know that I've ever said I'm telling it like it is. I don't think that's what I'm doing. I'm trying to be open and honest about myself, but that's not telling it like it is, that's telling it like I see it, which is a different thing. I don't have the objectivity to tell anything like it is. I doubt anyone does.
It's fine that you thought the formula didn't work this time out. I'm not sure we disagree. If I were putting together a portfolio of my best work, this review would probably not be in it. I'm glad I wrote it, and I stand by its contents, but that doesn't mean it's a winner.
And, you know, it's not really a formula, exactly. I don't sit down and try to match whatever I need to write today to the formula. It's just my evolving approach. Can't write by formula.
you could delete my comments Tim Kent Doesnt deserve this - but I do thin he could work harder to be a genius artist an ditch the stag in the city thing (which is what is not an allegory and really hapening to detroit but whatever).
The form of writing is a many splendoured thing and I dont think i have a handle on it but I believe they call this self indulgent but if no one is paying you indulgences then who is going to save your soul iggy pop? I'm using technology.
I never used the O word you did Chris. 'Telling it like it is', for you, means no pretense or jargon. I wouldn't in a million years say you are being objective. You are kind of like the Larry the Cable Guy of the art blog world. Git-R-Done! Just kidding. I think your lack of pretense and need to make it clear to your readers that you are not part of the scene is a crucial part of your shtick. And I do not think you are formulaic. That is another word you placed in my mouth. But you do include a lot of anecdotal material in every review you have posted so far and that is why I said what I said.
I'm glad you added "just kidding" because Larry the Cable Guy is actively evil. Not just bad or unfunny, but really wrong. Dragging humanity in the wrong direction.
You didn't call me formulaic but you did say the particular formula didn't work for this review. Implying that I have a formula, which I don't, not exactly. Well, maybe I do but I don't mean to. I don't work by formula, anyway.
I think the anecdotal material helps cover up (some of) my deficiencies as a writer. Such as getting to the damned point. I've never been good at whittling it down.
My son got back his scores for the New Jersey Assessment of Skills and Knowledge, the standardized test used to screw over the entire educational system thanks to No Child Left Behind. His score in the Explanatory Task section -- essay writing -- reads, "Your child wrote too little to assign a meaningful score". Which I guess is a score of its own kind, isn't it?
The funny thing is, I can totally relate. Until I discovered a typewriter, and then word processing, I hated writing for school. Somewhere in college, over e-mail, I blossomed into the crazed typist you see before you.
I was the opposite. I was always good at shooting the shit. I'm one of those people who thinks about writing their first novel at least once a day, year after year, but has nothing to show for it at age 42 except scattered fragments that amount to nothing.
Well I'm a firsty on this stool and I only found this blog because you reviewed Tim's show. I don't know Tim except for a recent conversation at a bar here in Bushwick. I walked down the street and had a look then googled. So it goes. I'd like to mention a few things. First off, smarten the fuck up. :) cheers. Their is plenty of good advice both in the review and the comments but I'll be damned the pessimism, post modern irony tip toe-ing, self loathing, life loathing, attempt loathing makes me want to knife the lot of you next time you set foot round here. joke.. sorta. ( By the way, its not a scary or dangerous neighborhood. Its a spanish family oriented neighborhood with working cement and iron factories.) No gang violence so stop with the cliche's. Its cheap but only in comparison to whatever neighborhoods you live in. I lived in Baltimore for six years in a row house for $500.00 a month (whole house) and I had real drug dealers, rapists and muggers on my block. Guess what? You get used to it and it stops being scary; it just ends up being life. Remember life? Well I live here, have a full time job in the art handling world, I paint every night and read everything worth reading. I show sometimes and I don't have an MFA because it's expensive and I've got $100.00 for the next two weeks. So your stuck with me. Next. STOP WITH THE PESSIMISM! This is art folks. Painting in fact. Painting is harder than it ever has been because our pictoral experience is so well informed. Sometimes you have to forgo you knowledge when looking. The whole illustration/fine art discussion is unnessesary, Illustration has always had some of the brightest/genius paint handlers in the world since Daumier and onward. Why? Because its simplified and doesn't largely deal with mystery. Illustration deals with purpose, painting doesn't allways. We forget that painting takes time. How many mediocre works with promising moments were shown by people that we now consider to be masters. How many paintings from these masters were shown in little bars and galleries or not shown at all? More that the masterful paintings. Community is important as an artist. We used to have cafes, than bars, now blogs. Too bad or whatever. Lets not knock some one for showing solid painting that could be more and will be more. Lets give advice, talk critically and help the brother at arms. This is life people. Lets not knock someones hard earned efforts just for showing something that isn't game changing shake you to your core makes you a fifteen year old in love with art kinda shit. Their is a lot of phony underthought and over talked art out and about. Tim's work is not that. Tim's work does demonstrate that he is a real artist with a capital A and whether you take it or leave it is just based on that transitory thing called taste.
Cheers and future apologies for the rant.
-flannigan
you could delete my comments Tim Kent Doesnt deserve this - but I do thin he could work harder to be a genius artist an ditch the stag in the city thing (which is what is not an allegory and really hapening to detroit but whatever).
The form of writing is a many splendoured thing and I dont think i have a handle on it but I believe they call this self indulgent but if no one is paying you indulgences then who is going to save your soul iggy pop? I'm using technology.
oh small world. H Lewis gallery got robbed at gunpoint with skimasked dudes who had just robbed a SuperFresh supermarket. The thing about superfresh is that the food wasnt always superfresh, actually not so fresh - kind of like me. But self loathing is not something I can step away form sorry. Chris doesnt have a copyright on it either. Eageageag seems to be the best of breed though - I'll let him step into that horsehair shirt. No prob. I'll vainish in the air you'll never find me. Or maybe I'll be you.
Tim Kent still needs to kik ass before he can take names. Go Vikings!
"makes me want to knife the lot of you next time you set foot round here. joke.. sorta."
This invalidates the rest of your rant crazy dude.
zip there is no Olympic event for self loathing. And short of killing yourself or self mutiliation, I don't think it can be quantified. Words words words. Just remember you are your own worst enemy and your own best friend. Kinda fucked up.
Flannigan: The only gangs anyone mentioned were "deadly gangs of Peruvian pool players". That's a cliché now? Already? Because I'd never heard of them until Zip pulled them out of his fanciful personal universe. As far as cost, I did some quick research and it's actually about the same price to live there as it is to live where I live. Which says a lot about how expensive New York City has gotten.
The Peruvian pool gangs were indeed a fabrication. I have never seen a group of Peruvian perps playing pool. I have had words with Polish roughs over the order in which people play pool and th rules of said game. I kick ass, BTW.
I had some friends (long gone) move to Bushwick (among others) - for the loft living. But the wife had a job so they moved to Bedford Avenue circa 2007 if you see what I mean, to a smaller space for the same price. The deal being they didn't need to live in a big loft or throw parties so their friends could meet women or further their art careers. The wife "hates art," she says (because it is pretentious and passive agressive like me I think). Then they bought a house and moved away so they are as good as dead to me. WHich is too bad because I made some money cat sitting for them.
This is not Serpico, Mean Streets or Escape from New York. This is Bushwick, a neighborhood to move to because you want a large industrial space to build weapons of mass destruction in, not a crummy expensive 2 bedroom apartment in Clinton Hill, Fort Green, Cobble Hill, Greenpoint, Red Hook, Park Slope, Astoria or anywhere else young people move to. not that I recommend that either. My advice is to move to Santa Cruz and get a good job with benefits.
The thing is is that I actually would rather live Bushwick than in the suburbs, but if I had a choice between a shared loft (like a room in a loft or something) or a house to myself and a job and a car in the suburbs, I would take the job and live in a converted church. hail Satan.
I think this relates to the painting because of the rural theme but also the urban theme an the domestic theme and the urban decay theme. Thank me later.
The people playing pool when I passed on my way from Tim's show didn't look Peruvian to me. I'd guess Colombian, possibly Ecuadorian. But my eye for these things isn't great. They could've been from Mumbai.
One night when we lived in Hoboken my wife and I were walking with a friend past a church converted into condos. "How'd you like to live there?" I mused aloud, and our friend replied, "I couldn't live there. How could I fornicate with my boyfriend?"
She's married now. No more fornication for her! In fact she's expecting her first child. How sweet.
Fact is, as bad a neighborhood as Bushwick appeared to me -- and of course I was exaggerating for comic effect -- New York doesn't have bad neighborhoods like it used to. Serpico and Mean Streets hark back to a New York that doesn't exist any more. I grew up in a New York with some really rough spots, but they were getting sanded down and filed off even as I entered adulthood, and now they're all smooth. In a way it's a shame but I hated it when I was younger. When you can't visit your grandmother because of the crack addicts in the lobby of her building, it's tough. Thirty years earlier and it would've been my Uncle Stosh living under the stairs. At least back then we knew the homeless addicts.
Now that we've established your bonifides, lets move to the critical aspect of the work. I was criticizing not Tim Kent but the trend that he unfortunately has become a part of -- not unlike graduating art school and moving to Bushwick (or WIlliamsburg 5-10-15 years ago), there are a bunch of people who paint aristocratic scenes, hunting scenes (they used to call this genre painting in the days of the guilds) and so on. I realize that not everyone has seen a lot of this stuff and thus would doubt me - but rest assured I can nme drop several and you would go, oh yeah, what is the deal with that, just like Seinfeld.
My anecdotal theory is that this is due to the influx of relatively rural or semi-rural artists who graduated from small school in the hinterlands. That this fascination with the "Buckhunter" esthetic as well as the more decadent and frankly gay or at least gay friendly of the European traditions (Goethe? Proust?)is interesting. We know that the metrosexuals get laid more - and also that the Cock rockers who had gender bending haircuts (thank you david Bowie) got the most ass. I;m deeply envious. So I dont blame anyone for doing the same. But I;m too insecure in my sexuality and far too uncool to do any of that (one reason i am not a real artist). This goes as far back as not wanting to wear my first grade pals clothes because they just weren't me. I;m still there mentally, at the age of 4 or whatever.
SO when an artist comes up with cock rocking paintings like these, i doubt their sincerity if they say somethign like "all that is solid melts into air" - because we all know this, just like we have seen a billion stag paintings. Sure, we all feel alienated in our little ockets of radiance here int he urban jungle, isolated, fragmented, torn apart like Kafaesque fish in a sea of disintegration and desuetude beyond the crystal city.
"Blogging, I love blogging!" just like the twix commercial - or the drummer, who gets more ass than the lead singer, one suspects (what an egotistical prick).
How true. If I read the book this show is named after will I too get laid?
You know, Zip, somewhere in your deranged ramblings there's a core of true observation, and it's one of the things I like about you. Also I enjoy deranged ramblings to an extent, or anyway having deranged ramblers around. It's good to have people like that every so often.
But I sense the truth of what you're saying. Yes: This show is about belonging. Not that the paintings themselves are about belonging, they're not at all, but the existence of this show, this gallery, where it is, and the style of the work, altogether it's about belonging, about sending out a call, like a dog whistle or a mating squawk, that says to all the hip, beautiful, tattooed, serious, brow-furrowing, PBR-drinking, Doc Marten-wearing types in the area, and it says, THIS IS THE ART WORLD, COME PARTY WITH US.
The ambivalence I tried to express in my review flows directly from my being invited to join this community when it's clear I'll never really be a part of it, because the instant I show up at the door everyone knows I don't belong. I'm free to be there and observe, maybe, but I don't bear the proper signifiers to truly take part. I can't hear the whistle. I see a title like "All That's Solid Melts into the Air" and all I think is how unbearably pretentious that sounds. Like someone wants a phrase that has the ring of sincerity and morose intellectualizing and figures that about sums it up.
Yet even now I'm reluctant to write all this down because I really want those people to like me.
you are not cool
The art does last though, assholes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzY2pWrXB_0
hotlin bro. That or the one from the titanic.
Good Eavening! Well alright. I was a wee bit tipsy and of course I wouldn't knife you! Just attention grabbing is all.
Dear Zip your extravgent language toiling is truly enjoyable and does as Chris mentioned excavate so many truths in the dirty facts. Yeah, Tim could do without the beasts or get more intouch with them. (I saw them first as smart compositional forms for movement... which yes just reaffirms what has been said). Love your shit, know your shit, do your shit. The fitting in stuff has a ring of truth. I don't feel like I'm getting the real hum of what Tim cares and worries about in those paintings. We can only hope that he will move in that direction. I think that man knows how to paint and is trying to figure out why to paint and finding a language for that why. Hence maybe the drippy spacious brush handling in comparison to his earlier paintings. As far as things go, to be self indulgent for a moment, I've got works in my past that haunt me but they all drowned in a basement flood in baltimore and mildewed back to a better place. Since then I have been working on a long series that I think is to my disadvantage to self conscious of the now and of formal issues I feel I might not have worked out properly. But! I'm relising it and things are changing and I've learned a lot from doing it. A slow progression and an endless tight coil of toil. So it goes.
By the way Chris I like your writing. No joke. This place is a relief. Real people real bullshitting real ripping and roaring. A guitar riff for air guitar. Next: Zip!: I was in H.Lewis when that robbery happened. who the hell are you? were you the robber?!
Small world.
Next Next: the cliche thing.. well I guess I'm simple and hopeful and I don't like pigeon holes or book covers so I ignore the whole lot and the criticism it might spark me to make. I know its cheaper in other areas hell I work in Newark NJ and let me tell you there are some sweet bargains. But... I like the old hats I've run into in bushwick and I like thsese random interesting people I keep bumping into.. like our Tim Kent. I ignore the pbr..(sometimes I drink it too) I ignore the docmartins.. (baffles me).. I like Levi jeans should I stop buying them just because the kids and everybody has them? I like colored shirts with checker patterns cause hell I'm from a trailer park in Maine and it makes me happy. should I quit that too just because AM NY says its the cool new trend in brooklyn and the downtown scene? nope. I dig what I dig and everybody should just follow their bliss (as long as it's not religious fundamentalism). The funny thing I found out about this neiborhood that I think is fleshing out the cliches is the students. It's great for the local business but the whole damn bushwick open studio for the majority is trust fund art students. I got really down last year but when I went to it this year I relised that 98% of the studios had different artists than last year. Its just kids after art school riding out that last bit of the parents doe hoping to make a break. The rest of us are packed away in our apartments converting living rooms into laboratories and wittling away our lives after many regrets and graces working away years later at the craft and lifestyle we chose by heart, as best we can.
So, ON TO THE NEXT SHOW! :)
cheers all,
Flannigan
I do sometimes get the feeling that a goodly chunk of this art thing is just hanging in there, sticking it out, holding on. And then the poseurs will drop out, new ones will come in, and eventually you'll be an institution because you've been there forever.
On the other hand, sometimes I get the feeling I should just accept that I'm a poseur and give up.
Dont worry too much about the conceptual shit, is my answer. But don't pass on your hangups to the kids, or to your friends, is my advice.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/regional/klyn_loony_runes_GAqSa3VhklMYMGE3eGQ0UO
Ah, the New York Post, bastion of integrity and hard-hitting news. I don't see a photo with that article, which is a shame, because I'd love to see what these runes look like. I know a little bit of occult crap. It's my fallback position if the art thing doesn't work out.
The conversation is on the canvas. Reading this shit, I think: so what? who cares? I'm not alone.
"The conversation is on the canvas."
Yes the painting says it all. Why bother discussing it? Too bad Chris didn't take your advice. Then we wouldn't have had to read about Tim Kent's work on Chris Rywalt's art blog.