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It is too easy to be dismissive in our love or hatred for the work of John Currin. To either banish the artist as sexist or automatically welcome him as the critic of American capitalism obscures what may be gleaned from the phenomena of his renown. The stars in our eyes, pro or con, make it difficult to determine the authenticity of our response. Some would attack to prove they are free from the pack mentality. Some would defend to demonstrate they are “ahead” of all the rest. It is the art world obsession of asking who shall be greatest. And, as it goes with obsessions, the grander point is missed in the flurry of bravado. The question as to what is the grander point is hardly asked. The reflex response upon the mention of Currin’s work is “big boobs”. After that, the mind pretty much halts. These creatures that live upon the chests of the feminine physique have provoked endless attention. But, not necessarily attention that goes beyond the merely obsessive. Is humanity’s (well, about a D-cup proportion of humanity) obsession with sex parts sexist? It is if those in ownership of the parts are distorted for simply having them. Does Currin distort his figures? Yes. Does this mean the work is sexist? Perhaps. Currin, however, does not simply paint figures. He also creates isolated shapes for the sake of beauty. He might start from a female face that catches his eye in an advertisement and then use one of his arms as a source for the same figure, anything that makes an attractive shape within the composition. Although aesthetic concerns invade the premise of the picture, through Currin’s vision, beauty somehow ends up being grotesque. The artist’s fascination with parts exceeds the whole. The paintings are made up of “formalized” things. This is not to say the imagery is insignificant. It is essential as a vehicle to present an idea but not, thus far, an emotion. In light of his conservative priorities, maybe the imagery is a calculated transgression to seek approval in an art world generally cold on painting. If it weren’t for the provocative figuration would anyone be paying attention? Probably not. Definitely not. There are outstanding figurative artists, ones who do not use mannerist techniques or theoretical tie-ins to pop culture, who have no hope of attaining serious recognition. What they do simply isn’t cool because idiosyncrasy is prized above innovation. Worse, as one critic has pointed out, idiosyncrasy is mistaken for innovation and even for individuality. Currin’s paintings fall short of eloquence in as much as he combines pre-made images from pop culture with pre-imagined traditional techniques. Something George Condo has done effectively well. The reason Condo’s work enters the realm of individuality is because the paintings are also infused with a singular eccentricity. The emotional impact of the brush mirrors the feeling of the image. Formal concerns blend equally with psychological ones. With Currin the combining is strictly conceptual, one-sided. His feelings stay at the periphery of the creative process. The “idea” pushes them aside. To make the work “interesting,” provocation replaces surprise. The image is collapsed into an ambulance-chaser mentality. Individuality is replaced with fascination - jaws drop at the sight of mutilation. The figures are censorious. We can’t know them. We can’t be them. We can’t even desire them. They are untouchables and they don’t touch us. We can only stare and be stared back at. They take a passive-aggressive stance. Which seems the intended point, but in practice could be an excuse for no point. Without emotional feedback, even when that feeling is indifference, the paintings miss the mark in their stake for ambiguity. Indifference is fathomed rather than felt, merely featuring the thought. There is no question Currin has craftily catered his imagery to the art world public in order to create a degree of controversy. And in regards to his work, this fact may or may not matter. Ambition is no sin. Ambition is no sin unless it steps on someone or something to get where it’s going. Take, for example, the painting of the blouse-less Bea Arthur. The actress, known for a type of feminine sarcasm, demands a tell-it-like-it-is strength of character. Everything about her resists being reduced to a thing. Middle age comes as a relief because ladies tire of being made into objects. And, in the maturing years, if they’re not altogether ignored, society is more willing to hear what they have to say rather than obsess about what they look like unclothed. So, take one of these women, these musicians, actors or authors, and make her strip. Stand there and watch as she turns away to unbutton her blouse. Threaten her when she hesitates to continue. After all, in the name of art, it’s okay. No matter that ruthless ambition cannot differentiate between humor and mockery. What stands out is the deadness in the women’s eyes, enlarged, yes, but dead. Their individuality has been stamped out. And it’s not funny. The Man Show gets old quick even when siphoned through the history of art. The paintings revel in feminine repression as much as they renounce it. This could be construed as ambiguity, mystery or irony. And to interpret it as such would be correct if there was a balance. But, the balance here is deceiving. Although Currin says he loves these “divorced” women, he sees them in no other way than empty. And that’s the thing about sexism. It doesn’t recognize itself because it adores its target as much as it hates it. To claim the paintings are just a joke is a misnomer. To say Currin’s work isn’t sexist because a female painter uses a similar strategy is to presume that women never subject their own to misogynistic tendencies. Aren’t women sexist too? Not according to Robert Rosenblum. Further, to equate Currin’s criticism of the wealthy class with Goya’s is a poor defense since Currin focuses almost exclusively on gender issues. With Goya humanity itself is on the chopping block. So, let’s stop beating around the bush. Currin’s paintings are sexist. But does it necessarily follow that to like them is to be sexist (sinful, ambitious) too or that the artist is so either? No. Yet, being afraid to admit the work’s misogyny is disturbing. Do we think there is gender equality in the art world? Come on. Wake up and smell the assholes. The theme of sexism in Currin’s work is symptomatic. The paintings are not so much revelations of social and political malfunction as they are depictions of the artist’s hatred of his feminine self. The self he suspects of vanity and frivolity; the face of beauty turned a lie. The self he suspects will be his downfall, exposing his failings, and, horror of horrors, turning him into two gay guys with big noses making homemade pasta. Which leads us to the crux of the matter. What Currin paints isn’t figures and he’s not just thumbing his nose at political correctness (as satisfying as that may be). The issue is more complicated and far more interesting than the politics of sexism in advertising. He’s attempting, consciously or not, to paint shame. Shame as the sole dictator distorts. It looks upon its object of desire only to suffer the blade of guilt. It berates itself with thoughts of being a “loser”. Then, in an effort to escape the burden of self-loathing, it seeks to maim the desired. It turns its loser mentality loose on all surrounding things. Every object is up for mocking. Faces are crusted over with a palette knife. Couplehood is crippled. The “he” is a pathetic narcissist and the “she” is well endowed with emptiness. And even when shame is lawfully wed to its object a similar baloney occurs although the warping is appropriately covert, more like Botticelli dipping teabags with Rockwell. Either way a mannerism, a coercion, is the name of the game and everybody smiles no matter what. They may be sexy wanderers with sheer clothing in the snow, but like most pretty facades are only substantial during phone sex. The bags they carry contain alienation not intimacy, not food. They are ghoul-nymphs demoting the soul. They are a painter’s nightmare and a most worthy subject. To paint the vacuity of a contorted soul, the thing that makes a sin out of liking to look, is a brave proposition. For who likes to look most of all but painters, those, whose very lives depend upon looking. Imagine a painter who feels guilty simply for being a painter? Well, shame on you, Duchamp. Thanks to you, we’ve got one. Shame on us for letting anything-goes-theories dictate the art world as it is today. For now we have a painter who seeks transgression by being academic. Call him “the apologist painter.” Talk about flip-flops. Still, the subject of the guilty painter is loaded with tension; the kind of conflict perfect for making great art unless an academic approach squelches it. Why is Currin’s work academic? Because shame is depicted instead of embodied. The balance between the personal and impersonal is overwhelmed by personality. The artist uses paint to represent, that is, to dictate, the idea. For all his technical skill, which he continues to acquire with enthusiasm, and is indeed a necessary component, there is no personal dialog. The communication is restricted between the image and the artist and, separately, the artist and the paint. Yet, poets of yore have learned a truly provocative conversation takes place when the medium, the image, the idea and the artist speak as one voice. With Currin the paint is handled charmingly in a variety of styles all of which serve the image without serving the feeling of the whole. Instead of being artistic critiques the works are more like painterly advertisements. This is to say the paintings are intriguing (the “Lovers series” is exceptional for its strangeness), but overall, the aesthetic tools are just shy of the song of the subject, the song of shame. So, what would the voice of shame look like? It looks like something we haven’t yet seen. But, we do know what anxiety looks like and Giacometti has shown us this. The question is how did he do that? He did it by being anxious. Every movement of his body, every touch of the hand, every aesthetic and conceptual choice that was made was a nervous one. And we know this because the evidence can be pointed at and, doubly, because it was documented in James Lord’s book, A Giacometti Portrait. The sculptor was positively agitated. He changed his mind every other second. He pulled his hair out over the impossibility of his task to capture the constant shifting between life and death seen in a single moment. He rearranged his shaving tools on the dresser in his bedroom a thousand times every morning. He had an existential relationship with anxiety that seeped into every facet of his work, not to mention his life. He felt it so we could feel it too. And, further, he felt it so we could see what it looks like. As Kline would say, he had “the capacity to be embarrassed.” And this, I think, is the key for Currin. Find the reverie of art in embarrassment, man! Yield to the pivotal moment in which shame is courage. Let out that guy with the black leather gloves. Have him be the one to make the aesthetic choices. Sip from the love of our forefather -the artist who tripped over his big feet and broke his heart every time. For right, there, is honor, the answer to shame, the tenuous balance, and the grander point as well.
Jennifer Reeves, NYArts, March 2004 Sources: John Currin, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Serpentine Gallery, London, in association with Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers John Currin and the American Grotesque, essay by Robert Rosenblum, p. 10-22 Interview with John Currin, by Rochelle Steiner, p. 76-86 |
