Brandl and Bullock in Europe This entry: “Faster Painting! Move! Move!” Part 3. (Mark Staff Brandl and Leonard Bullock continue their debate about contemporary painting, as seen in an ever more numerous group of shows in Basel, Switzerland and nearby locales in Europe.)
......
MSB: De Keyser --- for me his work typifies "wilted" Euro-hip abstraction, oh so debilitated, for curators in the know. On the other hand, for most artworld denizens, Richter is a focal point of any thought on recent painting.
Raoul De Keyser painting
LB: Yes, but one isn’t forced to put him in every survey of contemporary painting.. Let’s see just how influential he really is by exclusion. Try leaving him out entirely. The Richter offered isn’t even one of his popular abstract paintings from the last ten years, but a slate-green monochrome mixer from the 70s. In the same room center stage is given to an American lionized by Europeans: Robert Ryman. Six works. The next room privileges Swiss artist John Armleder similarly.
MSB: I know Armleder, assisted editorially on a book centering on an interview with him. I am aware much of his approach is fabricated for success --- he was Koons way before Koons himself. But I tend enjoy the "bounciness" of his work. Armleder’s charmingly cheerful Fluxus-like art brings to mind it’s opposite, art far less playful — the text room?
LB: Requisite, of course. Every “final” must have one. It contains a few works from Remy Zaug--- someone probably unknown to most people reading this, but the dominate "text-art-star" in Switzerland ---, several On Kawara’s, and an extremely amusing John Baldessari which seems out of place. Also present is a Daniel Buren faded, red-striped fabric piece, about a meter high, hung flush to the floor. What was once a novelty (of painting?) is now an historical remnant.
John Baldessari painting
Remy Zaug painting
I am grateful for a “crack” in the historical frame which allowed one of the best Andy Warhol car-crash works into the show, hung immediately before the entrance to the dry text room. The work was made shortly before the ostensible beginning date of this show, 1968. It’s owned by the museum, so it didn’t have to come far. Early Warhol elicits reflection in a way the later work does not. This series in particular hasn’t lost a compelling visceral spark; it’s still disconcerting to enjoy the oscillating, double-exposed color Ben-Day dots at the victims expense. This is Andy at his snake oil-seller heights as artificer of the ghoulish aspects of American voyeuristic kitsch, before he became its prime purveyor. An example of the later is a portrait displayed on the ground floor.
Andy Warhol painting
Bernard Frize is placed in a corner near the spiral stair. His alkyd-on-enamel process paintings are the most voluptuous paintings in the show. Their placement creates the impression that the works have been hygienically isolated from the higher profile “diet doctors” around the corner. One remembers ones body at the moment of encountering Frize’s works.
To Be Continued ........
Was in the Weisman Art Museum recenty, A Frank Gehry structure on the University of Minnesota campus and encountered a Bernard Frieze en face d' un par none other than The Shark, nice suprise!
This leads me to some thoughts about visiting Swiss art shows. John M. Armleder, Sylvie Fleury et al. literally own Geneva, a hotel or two and MAMCO by over exposure. They are about varnish. Belge slacker painter, Luc Tymans and Niele Toroni, easy and plenty abstract painter? are in more exhibits than not.
Frieze's ink and acrylic late 80s paintings which resemble Chinese stone are gorgeous, after that he seems to have moved closer to a pale regurge of Morris Louis. However I recall an exceptional Sigmar Polke in Zurich Kunst Haus entitled "Greed and Jealousy". Richter and Warhol are everywhere en Suisse...good to know somethings never change. All this said...David Reed, NY baroque swish painter and calligraphic Brice Marden must look pretty good!
Did I just redline the civility-odometer here?
Glenn Grafelman
"Did I just redline the civility-odometer here?"
Not at all! Interesting documents, and rather similar thoughts in many ways to mine or Leonard's. We need more such comments along your line here.