It's not Perverted - it's Subverted.

No surprise: Another major magazine hits the newsstands with a contemporary painting on it's cover, prompted no doubt, by the seemingly absurd, or merely unseemly, high prices being paid for contemporary visual art. This time though, it isn't one of the high-fashion magazines with a fawning nod of deference to the stupendous prices being paid; this time it's a serious news publication with an enraged critic; instead of fashion fluff, we have Jed Perl, the seasoned art critic of The New Republic, all salt and pepper, plainly stating that the current art scene is wrong, that it's rubbish, and that it must be stopped!

Plainly stated? Well not quite, it's a lengthy 6 page critique, but buried within the intolerance are some shrewd observations and also several great swipes to hold the reader; like these:

 

and...

'New York magazine recently profiled in a cover story called "Warhol's Children" one of these clowns [who] does collages incorporating his own semen, much as Warhol had his friends and hangers-on piss on canvases to create his "Oxidation" series.'

 

'Kiki Smith, whose dumb-beyond-belief Whitney show was full of the sort of neo-hippie baubles I wouldn't buy at Target for $14.95'.

_{Kiki smith Copyright - Whitney Museum, NY}

... 'defies accusations of misogyny by making the men in his paintings every bit as repulsive as the women.'

Six pages worth? Well, brief it is not, but it's worth the full dig: The main argument of Perl's is that as art becomes pure commodity, questions as to whether it has any virtue, or quality, disappear - so worthy or worthless artists thrive in a meaningless circus of 'Laissez-Faire Aesthetics' - his headline.

Does he have a point? Well a Sotheby's press release from May '06 boasts a total $128 million from one night's contemporary art sales. This included DeKooning and Lichtenstein going for $15 million a piece, but also Lisa Yuskavage's Honeymoon (1998), which went for $1,024,000. Is it worth it?

Lisa Yuskavage - Honeymoon 1998

Hmmm... with an emphasis on undermining perhaps.

At that same auction a world record sale price for a photograph was recorded: Andreas Gursky's 99 Cent went for $2.48 million (see end of this article). But Perl's main targets are painters, he doesn't mention Gursky. As for John Currin, whose work is 'exposed' on the cover of TNR, that selection is one of his worst, and it is deliberately ironic - here is one of his better pieces:

 

 

_Left.

_{Park City Grill, 2000 - Collection Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Justin Smith Purchase Fund, 2000.
Courtesy Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York and Sadie Coles HQ, Ltd., London.
Photograph by Andy Keate.}

_{©2003 John Currin.}

Perhaps Currin is misrepresented by Perl, yet few (except the rich & famous buyers of Sotherby's) seem to really like his work, even balanced reviewers like Mia Fineman for Slate can't reconcile it, and I don't particularly like Currin's stuff either. However, contrary to what Perl implies, Currin can paint very well (better than Henri Rousseau for instance) - it's what he paints, that's challenged, but it isn't the non-experience one has with Yuskavage. They shouldn't be lumped together.

About halfway through his article Jed Perl acknowledges that he may be repeating the argument between high culture and popular culture, but he can hardly avoid it can he? And Perl almost gets caught up in the inevitable trap of saying that what he likes is fine art, and what galleries - such as David Zwimmer's & The Gagosian, put out, isn't fine - it's pop. (Here he touches on the subject of my prior post 'The collectors [make] sure that [shows are] ... sold out even before they open', but strangely fails to mentions the Saatchi & Saatchi machine. Perl struggles in defense of his critique only to slam back to great effect:

'I recognize that [such] taste ... is in part a continuation of developments that are now a generation old.... Yet there are differences between garbage then and garbage now. And claims that 60's art was self-consciously ironic, while contemporary is mocking nothing. Perhaps emptiness?

^{Gursky - 99 Cent © Andreas Gursky/Courtesy Phillips de Pury & Company}

After circling the fine art verses pop art several times (slamming the popularization of late Warhol & de Kooning along the way 'Warhol is the evil prophet of the profit motive' Perl finally hones his argument with some observations which do cut through as major concerns, even if they are not resolutely supported by the subjects of his ire, check this out:

'There is no struggle with distinctions because there is no recognition of distinctions. The result is a flattening of all artistic experience... it has left us with a weakening of all conviction, ... a reluctance to champion, or surrender to, any first principle. Laissez-faire aesthetics ...violates the very principle of art, because it insists that anything goes, when in fact the only thing that is truly unacceptable in the visual arts is the idea that anything goes.'

I'll admit that I'd be tempted to compromise if my paintings sold with six zeroes after the first numeral, rather than three, but Perl's distinctions are just as important to me. What I find distasteful in some of the work discussed above is that it is painted in a way that appears to be calculated to exploit, rather than being painted in a way that is authentic to the experience of painting. The soul of the painter is not presented to the viewer.

As for the corruption of art in market forces? Perverted, no. Subverted, of course.

_{To read Jed Perl's excellent criticisms visit www.tnr.com or pick up a copy at your newsstand.}