Recent art that you liked

[stlukesguild]

We are only ever arguing for our own personal bias...

That's not true in my case. I actually prefer art in which the artist's hand is obvious... in the mark-making and other "abstracted" elements (form, space, color, etc...). But at the same time, I find it incredibly insulting to suggest that an entire genre or approach to art is inherently inferior and nothing more than an exhibition of technique. This is simply the reverse of the old "even a child could do it" comment directed at Abstraction.

 

[stlukesguild]

A great many of the contemporary artists that I pay close attention to might be deemed "minorities" or "outsiders": women, African-Americans, Latinos, and various non-Western artists. What I am often drawn to is the fact that these artists are frequently far removed from the dominant directions and art theory of art-school-educated artists. One of the artists I posted some time back was the Pakistan-born Hiba Schahbaz.

After moving from her ultra-conservative and repressive homeland to New York City, Schahbaz expressed surprise at the degree of discomfort and even censorship surrounding paintings of the nude in the US.

I have recently begun following another artist from the Middle-East... in this instance, Iran. I think her personal artist's statement introduces her better than I can:

I am Maryam Gohar (a pseudonym I have made up of my real name “Maryam” and my Grandma’s “Gohar” (means gem) who was the very first unorthodox feminist I knew). I am a female artist currently residing in Iran. For many years I have been working as a children’s book illustrator while having this more feminine and sensual part of my artistic-self hidden from the world. Being a woman artist in Iran and the nature of my works combined, made it harder to work in larger scales and I started with sketchbook pieces first. This enabled me to work on subjects near to my heart with less fear of exposure. There are too many taboos to put aside, too many rules to break and too many sacrifices to make working here; apart from extremists in the highest governmental seats, there are the majority of men and women who have been brought up with these brass-bound beliefs. It breaks my heart to see my mom and dad, though aware of my secret transition, aren’t curious to know more about it; fearing to find out their innocent little girl no longer exists.

Gohar's works deal with female sensuality and eroticism. Her figures are painted in watercolors and acrylics and are superimposed against backgrounds commonly drawing from erotic Asian art: Japanese, Chinese, Indian, and Middle-Eastern. She states that her intention, in part, is to speak out against the conservative Iranian notions that stigmatize or marginalize anything "non-vanilla".

 

[john]

SLG

Yes the Lipkin is not as photorealistic as some others but is still photorealism, the background notwithstanding. It was obviously painted from a photo. It is beyond realism. It is photorealism. I will concede that upon closer inspection that perhaps brush strokes can be seen. So what. Is there a grey area between the two? Yes.

No the Koons is not painted from a photo. Nothing in it looks like a photo. The fact that photos or digital images may have been employed has absolutely nothing to do with it. Any publishing art critic calling the Koons "photorealism" would be publicly laughed at.


"I find it incredibly insulting to suggest that an entire genre or approach to art is inherently inferior and nothing more than an exhibition of technique."

Why should you be insulted? Are you doing photorealistic paintings? It's merely my opinion, along with the opinion of many most? artists who would be insulted if told their paintings look like photos. The last thing they want to hear is that their paintings look like photos. For good reason. They would have failed. You don't seem to share that opinion. So what?

 

[stlukesguild]

Yes the Lipkin is not as photorealistic as some others but is still photorealism, the background notwithstanding. It was obviously painted from a photo.

John, this is my last response to this debate. You make repeated assumption and state them as fact. Lipking's painting was not "obviously painted from a photo". There are thousands of artists with similar skills who work from life and there were thousands in the past whose paintings were just as illusionistically "real" as Lipking... in spite of painting well before photography. Velazquez immediately comes to mind.

No the Koons is not painted from a photo. Nothing in it looks like a photo. The fact that photos or digital images may have been employed has absolutely nothing to do with it. Any publishing art critic calling the Koons "photorealism" would be publicly laughed at.

No... the only one being laughed at is you. Koons would be the first to admit that he frequently works from photographs. If you had done your homework you might have watched any number of video documentaries on Koons in which the methods of projecting photographs were on full display.

"I find it incredibly insulting to suggest that an entire genre or approach to art is inherently inferior and nothing more than an exhibition of technique."

Why should you be insulted? Are you doing photorealistic paintings? It's merely my opinion, along with the opinion of many most? artists who would be insulted if told their paintings look like photos. The last thing they want to hear is that their paintings look like photos. For good reason. They would have failed. You don't seem to share that opinion. So what?

I'm not personally insulted, but I find the notion that any high degree of Realism and/or Photorealism is somehow inferior and mere exhibition of craft is insulting to a good many artists. It is one thing to state that a certain painting or style does little or nothing for you. It is something else to make statements of opinion as fact with regard to how such artists work and the degree of Art involved in their work.

 

[brianvds]

Francois Krige (1913 - 1994) - Bushman group

The artist, along with a friend, spent months living with the bushmen (nowadays more politically correctly known as the San), at a time (as I recall, it was somewhere in the 1950s) when they were still living in fairly traditional hunter-gatherer manner. Made a bazillion sketches. They only returned to civilization when they completely ran out of provisions, and then he produced a good number of these somewhat Gauguin-inspired paintings.

 

[joe1It]

this post is wonderful, thank you very much,
I have to read it calmly, as well as discovering new artists in the last pages, many exceptional ideas and explanations to better appreciate fantastic art.

I have to reread better, however, Picasso's blue period is one of the things that had impressed me most in recent years, it's wonderful,
another thing I love about Picasso, I like Picasso, they are the bulls, the sequence of the bulls, it makes me think that there is all his thought and his work there. and much in general

 

[Artyczar]

I LOVE the bulls!

 

[stlukesguild]

Yes... the bulls and the various photographs that document the development of Guernica and other paintings by Picasso and Matisse show how the thought process continues throughout the whole of the realization of a work of art.

 

[brianvds]

Winston Churchill - Tower of the Koutoubia mosque, 1943. Oil on canvas, 46 x 61 cm

I have long had a soft spot for Sir Winston's paintings.

 

[Nufocus]

View attachment 7984
Winston Churchill - Tower of the Koutoubia mosque, 1943. Oil on canvas, 46 x 61 cm

I have long had a soft spot for Sir Winston's paintings.

 

[Nufocus]

Aha, so you’re also receiving mail from Christie’s...

 

[Nufocus]

I guess though that with the prevailing South African bs re foreign currency it’s kinda tough to buy....

 

[Iain]

We are only ever arguing for our own personal bias...

That's not true in my case. I actually prefer

I find it incredibly insulting to suggest that an entire genre or approach to art is inherently inferior and nothing more than an exhibition of technique.

I suspect you would have grounds to challenge me to a duel if I had suggested such a thing.

 

[john]

SLG, this is also my last response in this debate. My opinion is the Lipkin painting is beyond realism, it goes into the photorealism area. I think most would agree. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe IRL it's more obviously not photorealist.

As far as Koons being a photorealist........while his work-like that above- is not what I would consider to be photorealism I did find this quote ......Jed Perl’s New York Review of Books " In his recent paintings he has created what amount to photorealist collages, with inflatable toys, cartoon characters, classical statuary, and details of a woman’s hot-red lips or sexy head of hair layered and juxtaposed to create trippy Pop fantasy visions." https://www.artsjournal.com/culturecrash/2014/09/the-big-lie-of-jeff-koons.html.

I understand that you are reluctant to draw the line between art and craft. Perhaps you are right and there's no point. Maybe you don't mind literal "crafty" copying but artists usually want to be creative. They don't want their paintings to look like photos or another artist's work.

This debate about art vs craft is nothing new of course. My opinion is that a line can generally be drawn most times. I don't believe that one is better than the other, only that one is more artful. Thus my question about where is the art in the Lipkin painting.

I will concede that portraits are somewhat of an exception and yes the Lipkin painting is an excellent portrait. The skill needed to do it is impressive. My criticism of it for being "photo" realist and lacking "art" is perhaps misplaced and as I said, he's painting his teenaged daughter. You don't want a teenaged daughter mad at you. I know from first hand experience.

I should add that being photorealistic doesn't preclude a painting from being artful. It's what is done with it is the key. Like there are artful photos and some not so much.


But OK, enough of this, let's move on.

 

[brianvds]

I guess though that with the prevailing South African bs re foreign currency it’s kinda tough to buy....

I couldn't even afford my own work, let alone anything I have to pay for in dollars, Sterling or Euros.

 

[brianvds]

A local newspaper illustrates some of its articles with linocuts by Jeff Rankin. Some of these I rather like:

 

[john]

This woman goes around to art galleries and takes videos and then comments on the artists and their works. I haven't been to many galleries - even though NYC is only an hour drive - but I find the whole thing fascinating. She's like a personal educated guide to them. I try to keep an open mind but a lot of it leaves me cold, confused and feeling like I'm just too dumb to get it. Not so with this exhibition. I think I need art to look nice, to have some aesthetic quality for me to like it. I know, shallow right?

And something I learned from her I found interesting is that nearly all the works in the major galleries have already been sold.

 

[Artyczar]

VERY Interesting.

 

[Claude J Greengrass]

Gino Severini, The Dance of the Pan Pan at the Monico c.1959 oil on canvas 400 x 280 cm

 

[stlukesguild]

I'm always keeping a lookout for new works by the Japanese artist, Ikenaga Yasunari.

I recently came upon these two paintings. The second painting is the only nude by Yasunari that I am aware of... and it is rather reserved at that... considering the Japanese Shunga tradition.