Recent art that you liked

[stlukesguild]

Rotten misogynistic core to her paintings? I don't see that at all. Seems that they are actually powerfully feminist. She asks us to confront our usual comfortable polite sexism. Her women are not just objects of desire. They are pretty scary innocent goddesses and seem to have mystical power.

My God! Such a profoundly powerful body of feminist art! Not the least bit sexist... or using a vulgar sexuality to pander to an audience who confuses shock with originality.

Art criticism has long been masterful at employing "fake news," fabrication, and fantasy to promote the questionable long before such became the stock and trade of political discourse. It is good to see someone capable of researching and quoting such critical fiction.

 

[stlukesguild]

laika- Supposing they were painted by a man? Would you feel the same way? After reading the back-and-forth above, and looking at many of the paintings, I wonder how such work, if done by a male, would be received in the current thought-climate?

artyczar- It still does not matter (to me) the gender of the person who creates these things. Sally Mann put out a photography book years ago of her kids where her girls were naked and she got a ton of shit for it. They are just standing around, totally innocent and beautiful, playing as young kids do--not posing with their legs open! You can read about it somewhere, I'm sure. People tried to ruin her career. This was before the internet days though.

I tend to agree that it does not... or should not matter what the gender of the artist is. In fact, I try to separate the artist from the art and not base my critical opinions on the artist's biography. A lot of what you read critical of the art of Picasso, Balthus, Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, Gauguin, and many others is far more rooted in disdain of the artist's biography than it is in the actual art.

 

[stlukesguild]

I didn't know you felt this way. I could have sworn I saw that you liked her once upon a time. I was never all that into her, but notice how wildly popular she'd become.

No. I never liked Yuskavage's work. I have a vast library of art images saved to my computer hard drive but not a single painting by Yuskavage. I had to download the images I used above as I used them.

So you don't like Shutz? She is one of my favorite painters, but I would not call her lowbrow. I feel like she's in a different class or genre, and her work is powerful, but I'm no critic. I discovered her a few years after Sillman (I think they were paired in a show together), and though their work is not too similar, it's not so dissimilar either.

I'm not a fan of Schutz' work. I feel the paintings seem to filter the Expressionism of Beckman, Gauguin, and others through goofy cartoons such as the Powerpuff Girls. Having said that, I feel they have far more going for them... including in terms of technical skill... than the paintings of Yuskavage. I like Amy Sillman's work far more than either.

I never noticed Yuskavage as an "erotic" painter either. I just felt indifferent to her work. If I were to give my very honest impression of her work, I thought it was maybe technically skilled, but it felt wispy, weak, and too fantasized for my liking.

Maybe calling the work "erotic" misses the mark. Rather, the work strikes me as employing sexuality merely as a means of shock and titillation of a jaded audience. The critical argument about Yuskavage's supposed technical mastery strikes me as nonsense considering all the artists that I know of who are far more skilled IMO.

 

[laika]

I tend to agree that it does not... or should not matter what the gender of the artist is.

If Larry Flynt had painted the paintings you selected - and maybe I'm going out on some alien limb here - the public reaction would have been very different. Just my little observation, which is apparently a totally foreign and minority thing to consider. You say, in essence, that she was a darling in certain moneyed circles of the art biz, and I was just playing "what if."

Anyway, forgetting my non-contributions, this turned out to be an interesting discussion.

 

[stlukesguild]

Returning to the raison d'être of the thread here are a few new recently discovered works of art of interest:

-Sunday, 1963, Gregory Gillespie

I came upon a slim volume of paintings by Gregory Gillespie while working in the library at art school. Gillespie had studied for some years in Italy and his paintings employ the use of textures and surfaces inspired by artists including Carlo Crivelli as well as the weathered walls of the Italian homes in which he lived. On one level, this image is little more than a commonplace view of a family gathering... and yet there is something at once mysterious... almost surreal... and timeless to it.

The Doryman (Evening) Port Clyde, Maine- N.C. Wyeth

Like many others, no doubt, I have long been aware of the great illustrator, N.C. Wyeth... but I'd never seen this lovely painting before which reminds me of the earlier paintings of Stanley Spencer.

-Giuseppe Cesari- Perseus Rescuing Andromeda

At first, I thought this painting was an unknown (to me) work by Paolo Veronese or another Venetian master. I wasn't completely off the mark. Cesari was a Roman-born Mannerist of around the same time period as Veronese. This is not your usual painting, however. It is a miniature painted on a piece of lapis lazuli. Lapis Lazuli is a semi-precious stone long prized for its brilliant blue and used in creating the blue pigment used by Vermeer... and Veronese. Cesari lets large areas of the stone's blue show through in the sky... and builds his composition on the "imperfections" of the stone, placing Andromeda's feet upon a crack.

 

[laika]

...his paintings employ the use of textures and surfaces inspired by artists including Carlo Crivelli as well as the weathered walls of the Italian homes in which he lived.

So, the crackling around the edges and on the little boy is intentional in the top painting? Interesting how the two groups seem to be spotlit. It seems to be night outside the areas that are lit, but the girl is dressed for sunbathing. It would be nice to spend some time with that painting.

The Wyeth is breathtaking.

It would be great to see the first two on a wall. The last one is amazing too, all things considered.

 

[john]

Rotten misogynistic core to her paintings? I don't see that at all. Seems that they are actually powerfully feminist. She asks us to confront our usual comfortable polite sexism. Her women are not just objects of desire. They are pretty scary innocent goddesses and seem to have mystical power.





My God! Such a profoundly powerful body of feminist art! Not the least bit sexist... or using a vulgar sexuality to pander to an audience who confuses shock with originality.

Art criticism has long been masterful at employing "fake news," fabrication, and fantasy to promote the questionable long before such became the stock and trade of political discourse.It is good to see someone capable of researching and quoting such critical fiction.

Well you found the "worst" ones. Maybe because I'm a New Yorker but even they are not misogynistic or very shocking nor is their intent to shock for shock alone. Maybe if they were engaged in sex, but they are not and even then it would not be very shocking if presented sensitively. Male nudes have been treated the same way with full frontal. I may have repeated what another critic said but that and those are my words and feelings about it also. Not like it's some mystery. If anything, most of her paintings are just kind of silly and incapable of being sexual. They are too cartoonish to be shocking or porn. Normal realism female nudes are actually more misogynistic. The woman are just seen as objects. And may I remind you that above you quoted the critic that deemed it to be trash. So good to see that you can quote critics who you agree with.

And it should be stressed that I was talking about that one particular painting and the following diptych. I should have made that more clear. It's not her as an artist in general. I agree most of her other stuff is pretty shallow and crude. But in those paintings I posted above the nudes have power and there is a narrative. They are not simple objects as are the vast majority of female nudes. In those paintings they are not just vacuous sex dolls. They have power and agency. I don't need some other person to tell me that. It's quite obvious to me.

Now if you want to talk misogynistic and objectifying, the painting below is that. It's shocking that woman are still seen this way in the modern world. Hubba hubba!! Woo woo!!

 

[stlukesguild]

So, the crackling around the edges and on the little boy is intentional in the top painting? Interesting how the two groups seem to be spotlit. It seems to be night outside the areas that are lit, but the girl is dressed for sunbathing. It would be nice to spend some time with that painting.

Yes, the craquelure was intentional... but I'm not certain how much one can control it. As I noted, Gillespie was enamored with the look of the weathered surfaces of the ancient buildings in Italy as well as of the old paintings. This is the painting that first grabbed my attention by him:

The actual painting is several inches thick with constructed elements that are actually 3-dimensional and other elements that appear 3-dimensional that are a painted illusion. Such paintings were inspired by American trompe-l'œil paintings, by paintings by Carlo Crivelli and others in which the artist would attach a modeled sculptural apple or pear and include several others that were wholly painted... challenging his skill in rendering the illusion of 3-D form and space. Gillespie also built upon the fantastic imagery of Bosch, Magic Realism, and Surrealism as well as Leonardo's famous quote:

"Look at walls splashed with a number of stains, or stones of various mixed colours. If you have to invent some scene, you can see there resemblances to a number of landscapes, adorned with mountains, rivers, rocks, trees, great plains, valleys and hills, in various ways. Also you can see various battles, and lively postures of strange figures, expressions on faces, costumes and an infinite number of things... stop sometimes and look into the stains of walls, or the ashes of a fire, or clouds, or mud or like places, in which, if you consider them well, you may find really marvelous ideas."

-Leonardo DaVinci

Many of his paintings from Italy employ fantastic architectural elements that are often quite weathered.

One of my favorites from his years in Europe is Street in Madrid which recalls... almost certainly in an intentional manner,,, The Street by Balthus:

Upon returning to the US, Gillespies paintings of his American surroundings frequently retain elements of the fantastic and illusions of the ancient:

 

[laika]

Thanks for the generous answer, stlukesguild! His paintings are beautiful, and, as you mentioned, charged with mystery. Happy to have been exposed to Gillespie.

 

[Artyczar]

I respect your viewpoint John, by the way. I'm still not a fan of her work, but can see how you can appreciate how they would have a feminist perspective and their own agency. That is something to consider. I also do not see them as erotic, pornographic, or crude because the images are too cartoonish as you said. But I still don't see how she got to be so popular. Her work just never excited me (no pun intended).

But I also don't see the basic nude you used as an example as misogynistic and objectifying because it seems tame in comparison to all the others I've seen in art in general done in the thousands. It's pretty standard as people have been painting pretty naked ladies for centuries. Maybe I'm conditioned by society (unfortunately?), but I see modern advertisement as much, much worse in terms of being misogynistic and objectifying, or perpetuating female stereotypes, especially those that are harmful to formidable youth. However, there's no way of putting all that back into the box. The only way to improve all that is to present more positive images of femininity and gender on a different spectrum. That is being done in small ways these days, but of course, not enough. Maybe in another hundred years (or less?) things will be different. But you know, pendulums swing back and forth.

 

[john]

Yes Ayin, I was somewhat surprised to find that the painting by her above "Bonfire" has been acquired by the Met Museum of New York and on view. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/688569

I guess like all artists, they have better and worse works. In her case she used to be simply crude, under the guise of social commentary, but has become more complicated and interesting?

" It's pretty standard as people have been painting pretty naked ladies for centuries. Maybe I'm conditioned by society (unfortunately?)"

Well I think that's it. A historically male dominated art culture that likes to acquire pretty things. Objects of desire that happen to be people as opposed to say a landscape or a floral still life. Is it bad to present a person as an object? Why is it OK if they have clothes on? Is the problem actually just some sexual hang up? I'm not sure. It's complicated and I feel dumb today.

And certainly some people can probably look past the sexual aspect and only see the naked human form objectively, as a kind of sculpture but I can't do that and maybe that's my problem. Seeing any nude makes me mildly uncomfortable, whether male or female, pretty or ugly. Maybe it's me but I'll bet that feeling is pretty common. Otherwise everyone would be walking around naked at the office.

 

[john]

This is another artist that stood out to me in the new book I got. For some of her paintings she builds an entire elaborate model of the landscape with buildings that she then refers to for the painting. I like how clean her paintings are and how there is an intimate look at humanity, from a distance. Sort of Hopper-esk. Filled with life but still lonely somehow.

Amy Bennet

Amy Bennett

Amy Bennett is a painter living and working in Cold Spring, NY. She is represented by Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY, Richard Heller Gallery, Santa Monica, CA, and Galleri Magnus Karlsson, Stockholm, Sweden.

www.amybennett.com

Paula

Setting the Stage

Now Is Gone

New Mother

 

[laika]

Filled with life but still lonely somehow.

I can see why you would compare these paintings to Hopper. There is a certain sterility and loneliness to these. They seem like a capture of something after whatever action may have taken place.

 

[GrantCee]

Maybe I'm conditioned by society (unfortunately?), but I see modern advertisement as much, much worse in terms of being misogynistic and objectifying, or perpetuating female stereotypes, especially those that are harmful to formidable youth. However, there's no way of putting all that back into the box. The only way to improve all that is to present more positive images of femininity and gender on a different spectrum. That is being done in small ways these days, but of course, not enough. Maybe in another hundred years (or less?) things will be different. But you know, pendulums swing back and forth.

I grew up in the late '60s and early '70s, and the advertisements back then were horrendously worse. It's painful to look at them today. While I won't say what's being produced now is ideal, it's certainly a LONG way from what was acceptable back then!

 

[stlukesguild]

Well you found the "worst" ones.

Perhaps... but there are lots of paintings similar to these and these are the sort of paintings that she initially built a reputation upon.

Maybe because I'm a New Yorker but even they are not misogynistic or very shocking nor is their intent to shock for shock alone.

I'm not certain how being a New Yorker would change your view of her art. I suppose that many living in a large urban center will have been exposed to lots of things that might be more shocking than Yuskavage's paintings. Honestly, I think that the term "shocking" isn't exactly apt. I'm not shocked by Yuskavage or almost any artist. Or perhaps I should say that if I'm shocked or surprised it's more that I am shocked or surprised that an artist with any real skill would waste their time on such work. But then, such art sells and for many that is the main purpose of art.

Maybe if they were engaged in sex, but they are not and even then it would not be very shocking if presented sensitively. Male nudes have been treated the same way with full frontal.

I think it is the cartoonish aspect that recalls the juvenile comics in Penthouse emphasizing and exaggerating the boobs and ass is what pushes these into the realm of the vulgar... and that is what is "shocking"... that such vulgarity should be embraced as serious art. Yes, there are male nudes in art that are full frontal. But how many serious works with 36-inch dicks or parading their butt cheeks for the viewer in a preening manner. Again, there are such works of art found among the Roman sculpture... but not the finest works.

They are too cartoonish to be shocking or porn. Normal realism female nudes are actually more misogynistic. The woman are just seen as objects.

I'm not sure I agree. I suppose the cartoonish can't be "porn" in the sense that such art is not likely sexually arouse the viewer... but certainly, the cartoonish and vulgar can be shocking and pornographic in the sense that it is art about little more than sex. I don't get the idea that a realistically rendered nude (male or female) is more misogynistic. It may certainly be more arousing... but that has more to do with the viewer, doesn't it? Is a painting of a nude nothing more than a reduction of the subject to a mere object? Perhaps. But isn't that true of almost any subject? If I paint an apple or a plum or a puppy dog or a landscape or a portrait I am focused upon the subject as an object. I am focused upon the relationships between the various parts. I am focused upon the play of light and color. Even if I am seeking to express the most profound feeling or emotion a good part of the painting process involves considerations of the objective... and there is no guarantee that the emotions that I strive to express are what this or that viewer will see.

Now if you want to talk misogynistic and objectifying, the painting below is that. It's shocking that woman are still seen this way in the modern world. Hubba hubba!! Woo woo!

You really seem to be stretching here. So any rendering of the nude body is misogynistic and objectifying?

Why is this true of the nude and not the clothed figure?

Hmmm? It seems to me that a great many artists paint (and a great many art lovers collect) that which they find visually attractive or beautiful. Even in this modern world, it seems to me that a great majority of humans find the human body/face/figure visually attractive/beautiful... and this is no less true of a good many artists.

 

[GrantCee]

Seeing any nude makes me mildly uncomfortable, whether male or female, pretty or ugly. Maybe it's me but I'll bet that feeling is pretty common. Otherwise everyone would be walking around naked at the office.

Nudity, as a rule, doesn't bother me. Some nudity, particularly that made for shock value, does.

Yuskavage's work bothers me, perhaps because it's a little too cheeky in imitating men's magazine cartoons from decades past. If it's objectifying when done by a man (and it is), is it also objectifying when recapitulated by a woman? (That's a rhetorical question, as I don't have a good answer.)

 

[laika]

If it's objectifying when done by a man (and it is), is it also objectifying when recapitulated by a woman?

This is a much better articulation of what I was trying to ask earlier in the thread, so thank you, GrantCee

Her style would have been cool as sci-fi and/or fantasy paperback book covers in the seventies. She could have been the female Frank Frazzeta, but oopsie, there I go dragging gender into it again

 

[stlukesguild]

Well I think that's it. A historically male dominated art culture that likes to acquire pretty things. Objects of desire that happen to be people as opposed to say a landscape or a floral still life. Is it bad to present a person as an object? Why is it OK if they have clothes on? Is the problem actually just some sexual hang up? I'm not sure. It's complicated and I feel dumb today.

How complicated is it? Most humans like to look at beautiful "things" and this includes painted/drawn/sculpted images of people, places, and things. Of course, a lot of art works on other levels beyond a mere representation of beautiful objects. Some art is narrative. Some art is memorial. Some art is expressive of feeling or emotions, etc...

And certainly some people can probably look past the sexual aspect and only see the naked human form objectively, as a kind of sculpture but I can't do that and maybe that's my problem. Seeing any nude makes me mildly uncomfortable, whether male or female, pretty or ugly. Maybe it's me but I'll bet that feeling is pretty common. Otherwise everyone would be walking around naked at the office.

Well, yes. Ancient Greek and Italian Renaissance culture looked at the Nude as an expression of ideals of beauty beyond sexuality, but undoubtedly, our culture inevitably links the nude or naked human body with sexuality. This is not always wrong. A lot of nude art is sexual or erotic in nature and should we expect otherwise? Sex is one of the most profound of human experiences. Like birth, and death, and war it is one of the most common themes in art. Is it a negative criticism of a work of art if it makes us feel uncomfortable? I had a professor who admitted to becoming physically ill standing before Grünewald's famous Crucifixion...

... although he admitted it might have been due to the sauerkraut he's had earlier for lunch... Still, he had no problem acknowledging that the painting was an unquestionable masterpiece.

 

[Artyczar]

I think it's all in the eye of the beholder for sure. It also depends on the culture the viewer comes from. Some cultures are more "shocked" than others because of their circumstances. Some people are just more uncomfortable with nudity in general than others, or violence, or sex, or fruit! Some people sexualize things that aren't meant to be sexualized at all. Or maybe they are. But who knows how much? Everyone has their own sensitivities and/or hang-up depending on how you see them, or how much shame you do or don't have about it, etc., etc., and on and on. We don't know the view of an artist, whatever gender. We don't know if or when a woman is recapitulating a man's view. We don't know her intentions as an artist. These are total assumptions. Maybe it looks that way. Maybe she is embracing something that some men can't even comprehend when she is rendering such imagery. Viewers (of all types of genders) will interpret the paintings differently and have their own assumptions, right or wrong, but what counts is how the work makes impact. Who cares if some people are shocked? Like I said, I'm personally indifferent. I'm more grossed out by a Thomas Kinkade. Ha ha.

 

[Artyczar]

This is another artist that stood out to me in the new book I got. For some of her paintings she builds an entire elaborate model of the landscape with buildings that she then refers to for the painting. I like how clean her paintings are and how there is an intimate look at humanity, from a distance. Sort of Hopper-esk. Filled with life but still lonely somehow.

Amy Bennet

Amy Bennett

Amy Bennett is a painter living and working in Cold Spring, NY. She is represented by Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY, Richard Heller Gallery, Santa Monica, CA, and Galleri Magnus Karlsson, Stockholm, Sweden.

www.amybennett.com

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Paula
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Setting the Stage

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Now Is Gone
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New Mother
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I know Amy Bennet's work well and have seen most of her shows at the Santa Monica gallery she is represented with, which is next door to mine. I really like her work and the paintings are impressive in person. They all remind me of little miniatures you see with toy train sets.