Thanks to Tyler Green at Modern Art Notes for mentioning this page as an example of online art-writing. I've been enjoying his, too. In another recent post he mentions his dislike of John Currin and mocks the inevitable hagiographic Kimmelman review in the Times. Kimmelman invokes Paul Cadmus and I think that's exactly right: both artists are acerbically witty, with old master polish, but "minor" or "genre" figures. The difference is Currin's canvases are sold as the current high-priced ($400,000) "cutting edge": that's disturbing because it shows how retrograde the collector sensibility has become. Currin's work is mildly transgressive, eminently collectible, and assures the continuity of a certain line of American painting in museum collections: Sargent, Hopper, Cadmus, Tooker, Larry Rivers, Alex Katz, John Currin. Avant gardes come and go, modernist and postmodernist trends seem faddish, but the Painterly Tradition is preserved. John C, I hope you're very proud.
|
Thanks to Tyler Green at Modern Art Notes for mentioning this page as an example of online art-writing. I've been enjoying his, too. In another recent post he mentions his dislike of John Currin and mocks the inevitable hagiographic Kimmelman review in the Times. Kimmelman invokes Paul Cadmus and I think that's exactly right: both artists are acerbically witty, with old master polish, but "minor" or "genre" figures. The difference is Currin's canvases are sold as the current high-priced ($400,000) "cutting edge": that's disturbing because it shows how retrograde the collector sensibility has become. Currin's work is mildly transgressive, eminently collectible, and assures the continuity of a certain line of American painting in museum collections: Sargent, Hopper, Cadmus, Tooker, Larry Rivers, Alex Katz, John Currin. Avant gardes come and go, modernist and postmodernist trends seem faddish, but the Painterly Tradition is preserved. John C, I hope you're very proud.
- tom moody 11-25-2003 5:56 am