Francis Bacon, Painting, 1946 Bacon Fat When it comes to Francis Bacon (1909-1992), less is more. The current "Centenary Retrospective" at the Metropolitan, on view through Aug. 16, is ample proof. One picture at a time can be quite effective, but seeing any Bacon that once might have taken your fancy (perhaps out of some deep-seated perversity) along with others of the same or far too similar ilk destroys any credence he might once have had as a … [Read more...]
Archives for May 2009
Strike Will Cripple Art Industry in 2010
Received: Art Strike 2010-13! The refusal to labor is the chief weapon of workers fighting the system; artists can use the same weapon. To bring down the art system it is necessary to call for years without art, a period of three years...when artists will not produce work, sell work, permit work to go on exhibitions, and refuse collaboration with any part of the publicity machinery of the art world. This total withdrawal of labor is the … [Read more...]
‘The Pictures Generation’ at the Met
Not Every Picture Tells a Story "The Pictures Generation (1974-1984)," now at New York's Metropolitan Museum through Aug. 2, proves that pictures will not cure you of photography, any more than the hair of the dog will cure you of rabies. The exhibition offer as many insights about photography as it does about spinach. The … [Read more...]
Oldenburg at the Whitney
Ice Bag Restored Centered around the artist's newly restored Ice Bag - Scale C (1971) -- it inflates! it slumps! it rotates! -- Claes Oldenburg: Early Sculpture, Drawings, and Happenings Films (through Sept. 8) is drawn primarily from the Whitney permanent collection. Occasioned by the dire economics of the moment, this is one of those exhibitions that proves necessity can be inspiring. Who knew that the Whitney owned so many tasty Oldenburgs? … [Read more...]
Ernesto Neto at the Armory
In The Womb of the Tropical Spider Lycra deployed like tenting, like venting, like pastel parachutes and saliva, forming a gigantic "spider" with udderlike, fabric stalactites weighed down with turmeric, glove, ginger, black pepper, and cumin introduces the hallucinatory feminine into the splendiferous, all-male, historic Park Avenue Armory. One needs people cautiously making their way through the fabric passageways; one needs … [Read more...]