The Epicenter of Un-Expressionism: N 40'45' by W 73' 58'

"Content is a glimpse of something, an encounter like a flash. It's very tiny - very tiny, content."

- Willem de Kooning

We love going to MOMA. What we love best is visiting the lonely and neglected paintings. They seem to need company. Particularly, if one is a work of art that completely changed the art world.

Meanwhile, at the Rene Magritte show on the 5th floor, one had to stand in line for an hour. Nonsense!

We walked down a floor to the Duchamp corner to see “Three Standard Stoppages”.

And here it is. Isolated. Ignored. We can’t believe it was painted in 1914. One of our group dropped to their knees crying out, “We are not worthy.” Alarmed tourists on their way to the Margritte show looked over “Why are these guys slobbering all over this old subway map painting? Should we call a guard?"

We start up a conversation with the piece. On closer examination we realize that a version of a Fauvist painting  (Villon or Duchamp?)  “Young Girl and Man in Spring” was painted over. Maybe there is a cross in the painting also. The old work is turned on its side, scraped down. Defaced. Two black bands frame it as if in a shroud.

Over this tomb Duchamp drops the neutron bomb of modernity. A diagram (what appears to be a golf course) is painted on the surface. Let's take a closer look. There is a grid drawn over the painting in pencil. We think they were lines tracing strings randomly thrown tossed on the canvas.

What gives? What’s the subject matter? Is this a metaphor for something? Or is it just decoration? What is this guy trying to express?

All of these questions are irrelevant.

You see this is the first work of art where an artist tried to un-express himself. In other words, it was created solely by chance, a methodology that subverts the usual modus operandi of painting. “Three Standard Stoppages” is to painting what quantum mechanics is to classical physics.

It is born in an era when science realized that God does play with dice.

“Three Standard Stoppages” is Part 2 of a trilogy. It is sandwiched between “Three Large Stoppages” and the “Large Glass”. This middle child’s offspring were named Process, Conceptual, Minimal and Pop Art. This is the painting Jasper Johns doesn’t want you to know about.

We complained to the curator that MOMA shouldn’t show paintings that are still wet. She just looked at us.

Tom McManus is a writer and artist in NYC.

Balthus Paints Lolita

“I am thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets, the refuge of art. And this is the only immortality you and I may share, my Lolita.” –Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (1955)

 Entering the Balthus show at the Met we were rudely confronted by a sign. It warned us that this exhibition may be disturbing to some viewers. But what we witnessed instead were eager patrons lusting over a group of exquisite paintings. The object of their desire? Balthus’s erogenous paint handling.

 Now here is an artist who seduces by brush. In this drawing room, Old Master gazes longingly at Modern. This is where burnt umber, venetian red and vermillion are sexualized. Where dry brush plays voyeur to washy underpainting. It is as if Corot or Degas were working in the midst of a Post Freudian world.

 “Yes”, we say. “Yes.”

Tom McManus is a writer and artist working in New York City. 

Ankle Deep in Ink

A young woman stands in the parlor of who knows whose Victorian mansion. She is clearly a member of a higher society, dressed like a circus acrobat, clad with gold, jewels, and pearls. As the eye of the gentleman wanders down to her ankle, something unusual appears. Leaves of green on her skin, not worn, but tattooed. What is this tattooed Jezebel doing then and there while covered in a fortunes worth of gold? We wonder too. 

In this day and age, most wouldn't necessarily think of tattoos as being something so exclusive for the social elite, but in the olden days, when tattooists were just traveling artisans, only the wealthy could afford the luxury of being inked. The Queen Mother of England, and even Winston Churchill’s mother both had tattoos. 

Whoever this young lady was, someone must have paid a small fortune for her to have been covered in gold and painted by who we have identified as an unknown American painter. We like to think of this piece as the first shovel of mysterious dirt that covers our time capsule of tattoo art. We know this is from some time around 1880, but the woman's identity is unbeknownst to us. Not much else can capture the mystery and allure of such a strange time period like a painting like this. 

If anyone has insights about this unusual piece, please let us know. 

 

New Revelation Eric Fischl=Bob Ross

The smell of arugula, balsamic and Virginia Slims choked the room. Our inside source, a “fly on the wall” was at a clandestine meeting of the infamous Gang of Five New York Times art critics, having yet another emergency session to discuss what to do about the Fischl dilemma. “On one hand, we can’t mess with the system, his galleries are upping the pressure, advertising is screaming at us. But his paintings?  I think we all saw that Steve Martin pic against a Bob Ross landscape.” This was greeted by groans. “We’ll lose even more face if we don’t say something now about his paintings going on that bus tour. What next, a Fishcl store in the damn mall?”" Silence broken only by the muted radio as an endless NPR fundraiser droned on. “God sakes, didn’t they get enough dough from Roy Kroc’s widow?”

Unfortunately at this point our inside man was called for a delivery and had to scat. If he can retrieve the tapes next week he will.

This came in as a comment on the last blog:

After watching the video of Eric Fischl talking about his Saint Barts painting of his friends,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7fazNp0e4w

I don’t think Fischl is the new Leroy Neiman.  I think he’s the new Bob Ross — painting “Happy Trees.”  I love the mind-on-idle feeling of a Bob Ross video.  Listening to the lazy carefree anesthetized Fischl discuss painting makes everything so happy and wonderful and beautiful that I’m not sure if I’m going to kill him or myself.

Taking Umbridge: Fischl = Neiman

Comparing Leroy Neiman to Eric Fischl is not fair. We own these two drawings by Mr. Neiman. They are great. He can capture with a simple line an in depth character read of the subject. The one on the right depicts the scene walking into Sardi’s. The goal would be a table  with a fawning waiter or a seat at the bar next to the inebriated sot who probably has a good story. Well, good luck getting by Vincent Sardi, plunk in the middle of the sketch, holding the heavy leather menues like a gladiator’s shield. The next drawing ( left) is Jerry Lewis. From behind, fidgeting in a chair. Here’s a case, if anything was, of undiagnosed Adult ADD. He can’t sit still, Neiman nails it in simple strokes.

I once had a teacher at Art Center who would talk of a vaudeville act where the performers would stomp their feet and prepare for someting dramatic to happen. They would chalk their hands, look skyward, clap them together with great affect and then applaud themselves heartily before taking elaborate bows. Nothing at all would happen. There are drawings such as this, my teacher concluded. Mr. Fischl would fit handily in this category. It is really not fair to compare Mr. Fischl to Mr. Neiman.

But please, let’s leave the art critics out of this discussion. There are some fine and good critics at the New York Times. Then there are some who probably should retire. One has to look back with the passage of time to determine who was right and who was asleep at the wheel.