Sunday 26 June 2011

Tuesday 21 June 2011

Frank Stella... and the Simulacrum

This is a text, that I keep coming back to, by the 'neo-geo' artist Peter Halley "Frank Stella... and the Simulacrum" Published in Flash Art, No. 126, January 1986. (Click on the post title) Halley argues that although Stella is seen as part of the modernist tradition his work "conforms closely to a model of post-modernism that is dominated by ideas of hyper-realization, simulation, closure, and fascination."

The video is an interview with Stella recorded 14 years earlier (simultaneously funny and obnoxious!)

Monday 13 June 2011

Medulienka

Click on Post Title for link to 1972 Munich Olympics U.S.S.R.v.U.S.A. Basketball Final.
The colour images broadcast by European and U.S. television did not allow for conclusive proof that Sergei Belov's foot was over the line when making the winning pass to Alexander Belov. The images broadcast by Soviet television were in black and white, which allowed for a clearer contrast magnification showing that his foot remained behind the line.
The work 'Medulienka' proposes that Belov bought his girlfriend a dress to celebrate his team's gold medal success, which is entirely speculative. However, a statement of fact is that Belov died only two years after his marriage, and six years after the winning basket of 1972, at the age of 27.



Medulienka/ 2011

Sunday 5 June 2011

Paul McKinley at the third space



Paul McKinley's show, 'Palisade', deals with our attitudes and relationship to the landscape of historical sites which are sometimes also termed as places of 'Dark Tourism'. A compelling series of works which not only grapple with how the narratives of the sites can be depicted, but also finds ways of presenting the surfaces of the works as sites of conflict in themselves- several of the works balance finely between matt and glistening paint, drawing you in to picture spaces which are at once seductive yet uncomfortably haunting. Show runs to July 2nd. McKinley is represented by Kevin Kavanagh Gallery in Dublin.







Friday 3 June 2011

Now's the Time

Amy Sillman/ Cliff 1/ 2005

Click on Post Title for link to a somewhat wistful but nevertheless great article by painter Amy Sillman in the new Summer 2011 edition of Artforum. It seems there's more in the air just now to do with AbEx, than with my previous reflections in Post May 18th that it was 80s painting that seemed to be resurfacing (although previous Posts April 12th and 13th, and August 18th had a bit to do with AbEx affairs.) There again, the legacy of the 'expressive gesture' in painting is certainly around a lot just now- maybe it's more a conjoining of AbEx and 80's Bad Painting that's in our time just now.