Showing posts with label joseph beuys. Show all posts
Showing posts with label joseph beuys. Show all posts

Sunday, November 9, 2008

postpostmodernism and postmodernism 2

mark rothko, magenta black green on orange

mark rothko, magenta, black, green on orange

the wikipedia entry on postpostmodernism suggests (to me) a wide variety of interpretations, most having to do with the idea that postmodernism is somehow past its prime.

what strikes me from my personal perspective is that there are but a handful of artists from the postmodern period whose work really gets to me - to be precise: there are many individual art works that get to me, but they mostly seem to be exceptional in the artists' oeuvre. so i mean artists whose work gets to me more than a few times, work in which something fundamental to me seems to be developed. And then again, are these artists anywhere postmodern in the art-philosophical sense? also, none of them are alive anymore. [of course my knowledge of modern art is rather limited. i look forward to discovering artists which disprove my contention about postmodern art].

of course, for me there is mark rothko. then, for me personally with rather contradicting/conflicting feelings: joseph beuys. also francis bacon, especially when he focuses more on spatiality than on gruesomeness (of which i'm not a fan at all). i'm also intrigued by constant (nieuwenhuys), also especially his more spatial paintings. perhaps i'll think of some more (oh, i wrote something already on chuck close, ok perhaps he should be in this list also...)

to be continued.

Monday, June 30, 2008

quality & art 13: forgery 3: andy warhol

obviously, other people are thinking on the same issues. i came across edward winkleman's blog (the posting of thursday 26 june 2008, i cannot link to it directly), where he discusses a current forgery issue which tallies with my previous post.

it concerns works by -or not by- andy warhol, such as the work below:

andy warhol? 315 johns

andy warhol?, 315 johns


the issue is also discussed in the new york times of 26 june 2008.

the interesting thing these articles show is that intrinsic value of an art work seems to be considered completely derivational to who made it, generally without any questioning whatsoever as to whether this is a sound principle. by contrast winkleman runs an open thread on what makes an art work `good', and he is clearly thinking about art & quality somewhere along the same lines as the thread art & quality of this blog (he doesn't make a pagerank comparison though, which i believe to be a key issue).

would you -i mean seriously, would you really- believe there is such a thing as the andy warhol art authentication board? it would lead one to not ever take the modern art world seriously again. perhaps unless an art work strikes you as inescapable, unless you are rooted to the ground, or you find yourself coming back to an art work either physically or in your mind over and over again.

i doubt that art works made by artists who produce works by the dozen a day will fall in the above category.

when an artist doesn't produce works as if every scribble, every scrap, every idea, every execution is brilliant deep art - in other words when an artist takes time, effort, mistakes, reworking etc. before releasing art to the world, then i think there will be much less need for an authentication board.

i have seen exhibitions of joseph beuys for instance, serious exhibitions mind you, where it seemed that the curators thought that every scrap of paper that the good man ever touched was transformed into breathtaking mindboggling art.

all the more is the pity, because in my eyes beuys was a very talented draughtsman...but how to find these wonderful drawings amidst all the nonsense? how difficult to fake/forge a beuys? well that depends on the work, but in general it should be extremely easy. just take any oily substance (wax, linseed oil, cooking oil, motor oil) smear it on an envelope, add some pencil, maybe a little ink/paint and you are done. the less you think about it, the more convincing. if you want to do a good job, study beuys' handwriting carefully, and add some mystifying terms. in german.