Best of 3 has the best take on the news that Shaquille O’Neale will co-curate a show titled, Size Does Matter:
It would be so easy to just poke fun, or dismiss this as a publicity stunt. But you know what? The sun’s shining, I’m feeling generous, and I’m going to say that maybe Shaquille O’Neale has a genuine interest in art and his co-curation of a show for the Flag Art Foundation is a mutually enjoyable and beneficial enterprise.
Titled ‘Size Does Matter’,
the show has a line up of artists who I wouldn’t kick out of the
gallery for eating crackers, including Maurizio Cattelan, Chuck Close,
Andreas Gursky, Jeff Koons and – of course – a big naked guy from Ron
Mueck (on loan from the Hirshhorn). In an icing-on-the-PR-cake move, the catalogue features an essay by (in)famous author James Frey.
It is a stretch to think O’Neale would find anything to admire in a man who cowers in a corner. (Image via Hirshhorn) Museum publicity stunt? These are desperate times, Mrs. Lovett.
Carol Diehl has a roundup on her blog, which is suitably titled Art Vent, of critics going sexist-berserk. I’ve been reading on other blogs various snippets from Blake Gopnik’s Washington Post review of Anne Truit Truitt, all making him sound goofy. But when Diehl called his piece “the most scathing and sexist writing I’ve ever encountered about an artist,” I finally clicked over to the Post to read it.
Sexist? Not even a little bit. It’s jaunty, and jaunty doesn’t work if a few pushing-the-edge sentences are plucked from the whole. I found it insightful, especially this part:
When Jasper Johns and others had found the abstract in the ordinary, Truitt
seems to find the everyday in the abstract — a much stranger thing to
do.
Knocking Blake Gopnik is the art bloggers’ national sport. He has written a few things that made my eyes pop (Exhibit A here), but he startles not because he’s a fool but because he’s trying to enliven what his editors might well feel is the stale form of the art review.
Editors at newspapers rarely appreciate reviews. Gopnik is working to interest them in his, them and presumably other people who do not think of themselves as part of the art world. Anyone pushing a boundary is going to fail on occasion, but he does not fail Truitt.
As for Charlie Finch, whom Diehl also hangs in her gallery-of-shame for his sexist post on Triutt, also no. He’s Truitt’s son-in-law. (We know this because he titled his piece, “Mother-in-Law.”) His point of view is personal and affectionate, ending with:
The Hirshhorn retrospective should vault her into a special pantheon of
her own, one which she occupied in privacy during her own life and in
public now that her work belongs to the world.
What a canine. Did Gloria Steinem march in vain? Women artists can’t get a break. His fellow dog, Blake Gopnik, called Truitt a genius. It’s a wonder women don’t riot in the streets.
No humor allowed: Jen Graves posted this dazzling piece of (at least brief) nonsense yesterday:
Remember: American men don’t do art unless it involves naked ladies, unless the men have thin shoulders. I hate you, Garrison Keillor.
Jen.
He’s kidding. Kidding. The whole thing is a spoof on sex stereotypes,
not an indulgence of them. Hate Garrison Keillor? Save it for Dick
Cheney.
A one-night only, anti-Thomas Kinkade show in San Francisco took up a fair amount of space on blogs this week, in reaction to a story in the S.F. Chronicle. What got me were comments from Last Gasp publisher Ron Turner, who has, as he notes, published a Kinkade book.
“I’m
not anti-Kinkade,” Turner said. “I think he gets under everyone’s skin
because he glorifies the fairy tale. Kinkade is a master marketer, and
I think the idealizing of the images is Kinkade’s own inside joke.”
No,
Ron. It’s not because he glorifies fairy tales. What Hunter S. Thompson
said about Richard Nixon is also true of Kinkade’s work, that it’s a
“monument to all the rancid genes and broken chromosomes that corrupt
the possibilities of the American Dream.”
Jos Sances added just the right touch of realism to Kinkade’s creepy delusions years ago.
I find it perfectly possible to hate BOTH Garrison Keillor and Dick Cheney.
Having known Gopnik years ago, and having had problems with other reviews he’s written, I still have to agree with your assessment of the Truitt review. There is plenty of sly irony in there, and I enjoyed it.
Ries: Why bother? I don’t hate anybody I can think of right this minute, although I’d like to see Dick Cheney spend his golden years in prison for high crimes and endless misdemeanors. You’re the wrong age to hate Garrison Keillor. The Stranger hates him because he’s even older (gasp) than a boomer. You and I are boomers, old man. Catch up.
I’m totally shocked and disappointed that Garrison Keillor wrote this. It seems that he’s losing his mind. The “Lake Wobegon” brand of Funny does NOT come through in this, because it’s simply not there.
I’m actually sad, because overall I’d have said I liked Garrison Keillor. Here, he’s made an ass of himself. We didn’t really need another ass speaking on behalf of the assholes in this country.
Susanna. You’re “totally shocked”? Will you dare to eat a peach? Will you wear your trousers rolled and walk upon the beach? (It’s not his Wobegone brand. It’s in his “Guy Noir” style, admittedly, not his strongest. He is not, however, speaking for assholes. He’s making fun of them.) If you and Jen were speaking for Seattle here, I’d be packing up my cares and woes.
Age has nothing to do with it.
I like some artists older than me, and younger.
I dislike others in both age groups.
Keillor is corny, predictable, starchy (as opposed to sweet, spicy, salty, or even sour) interminably boring, and has some of the worst taste in music I have ever heard.
I do agree with him about the naked women, though…
Uh, I guess not if the peach looks like this.
He’s not making fun of dopey sexist American men. He’s using self-deprecating humor to validate them.
Or, at least that’s the way it reads to me: A white, English-speaking American with an extensive education who generally appreciates his sense of humor. You at least have to admit that something failed in the delivery, regardless of his intent.
Susanna. I’ll admit that. It’s flat.