Artists don’t give other artists the same break, which means, no matter how admired, others do not see as well. Compare Matisse’s self-portrait with Derain’s portrait of him, and the reverse: Matisse painting Derin vs. Derain painting himself.
A self-portrait’s focus on lips suggests a sensualist, although a focus on the lips of another implies the subject is of no account. If the subject’s teeth are showing, clearly, he/she is from the underclass.
In the history of Western painting, no one from the privileged classes ever had his/her teeth painted into a portrait, just as in Japan, no respectable women was ever portrayed with even a single strand of hair out of place.
When those rules surface in more recent times, they are a kind of violated shorthand.
Man Ray made sensual lips ridiculous, and Nicky Hoberman gives the big eyes of self-representations a crazed intensity. To see all is to go crazy.
Jasper Johns put his stamp on both eyes and lips to denigrate critics of his acquaintance, here.
Which brings me to Seattle’s John Grade, pronounced grotty. It rhymes with haughty, which is apt for his current venture, walls and folded sheets of rubberized lips. They appear to be ready to speak, but next to them, Samuel Beckett was garrulous.
At Davidson Galleries through Saturday.
John Grade – New Works, May 2009 from Davidson Galleries on Vimeo.
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