Art
Philosophy
From the Village Voice-
Painting à la Mode by Jerry Saltz December 4 - 10, 2002:
"I love painting; so do you. But hear this: Not with standing
its near death experience (what one critic called its "passage through
the eye of the Minimal-Conceptual needle in the late 1960s and early 1970s"),
except for a few curmudgeons, the pleasure police at October, some pedantic
curators, and maybe Arthur Danto, no one thinks painting is dead. More
importantly, no one has actually thought this since the Nixon administration.
We need to get over the painting-as-victim-and-victor complex. Painting
is much in evidence in galleries and art schools. As always, collectors
covet it. Like many recurrent avant-garde ideas, this one is self-serving
belly-button gazing. We need to stop thinking painting is fighting for
its life and that we're saving it. It isn't and we're not.
Nonetheless, many
painters seek shelter in this position, cling to it, or act as if they
were involved in some sort of noble rescue mission. The only thing painting
needs rescuing from is those presumptuous artists who treat it as if
it needs protecting—the ones who think theirs was the last generation
that really understood the medium. Painting is one of the greatest visionary
tools ever invented, and among the most effective ways to alter reality,
see it better, or invent a new one. Painting gives permission, it doesn't
ask for it; it not only
explores consciousness, it changes it."
Art articles from the from the Village Voice-May 2003
Grace and
Gawkiness in Chelsea
Vinyl
Mania
Turning
Conspiracy Theories
Into Visual Exorcisms Dark Star
Room With a View
