SHARKFORUM: OPINION WITH TEETH

Leonard Bullock is a wonderful, "painterly" painter --- even a painters' painter, if I dare say so. He is originally from the southern US, lived for a long time in New York City and for the last 10 years in Europe --- primarily Germany and Switzerland. Leonard has a complex background and is highly erudite. He and I frequently have discussions about art, contemporary and historical, most frequently painting. In addition to my "own" running blog column here, I intend to sporadically enter bits of discussions he and are having. And I'm going to do it in dialogue form, since that is how they occur. The posted form reflects the verbal form reflects our conjectural form.
This time we are discussing a whole series of exhibitions which occurred in the recent past in Basel, Switzerland, ones which purported to be about Painting Today.

MARK STAFF BRANDL: At the moment in central Europe, much to our pleasure, painting seems to be making strides back to the center of the “discourse,” to borrow a favored metaphor from the neo-Conceptualists. This is not without rather serious resistance by the reigning aficionados of spectacle art, painting’s major competitor. However the signs are on the wall literally and figuratively, and we both applaud.

Basel was a focus of this activity not long ago. This city in a top west corner of Switzerland is within spitting distance of both France and Germany. This makes it rather international, along with such things as the Basel Art Fair, titled fatuously in German “Art,” arguably the world’s most important such convergence. A couple of years ago, while that venerable fair took place, the city was excited as well by being turned completely over to a vast panorama of shows entitled en bloc Painting on the Move. It even had its own web site, unfortunately allowed to lapse into nonexistence as is the fate of many such sites, and a massive tome of a catalogue for the three museum shows bearing the collective title. This 264 page book consists mostly of color photos of work and includes fine catalogue essays and transcribed conversations by many fine authors, including Bernard Mendes Bürgi, Thierrs de Duve, Douglas Crimp, Peter Pakesch, in English and German.

The venues involved included the Kunstmuseum (Art Museum), the Museum für Gegenwartskunst (Museum of Contemporary Art) and the Kunsthalle. Additionally, moreover, all major commercial galleries also mounted shows concerning aspects of painting as related to their programs. These included such highlights as “AbstracT” (correct title – not a typo) at Evelyne Canus which included Bernard Frieze and David Reed, Mathis Vass at Fabian and Claude Walter Gallery, Herbert Brandl (no relation) at Tony Wuethrich, and many others. This all was further highlighted by a collection of the best of painters living in Basel at a group show in Kulturhaus Markgräflerhof. Each venue supported the main title Painting on the Move, but also had its own subtitle. Leonard and I --- and other painters and painting-haters ("pintophobes" in Brandl's terminology) --- are still talking about it.

LEONARD BULLOCK: The most fully coherent show of this group was the exhibition at the Kunstmuseum — except for its hopeless final room, containing a nepotistic hodge-podge of work. Let’s call it the pay off room.

MSB: As would be expected from it’s subtitle, A Century of Contemporary Painting (1900-2000), the Kunstmuseum displayed a marvelous collection of Greatest Hits of the 20th Century. While it was difficult to ascertain the whys and wherefores of the placement, the shear quality and fame of most works held all together beautifully. The age when painting was king, and certainly acted too exclusive, built the fear that so many Europeans have had of it until recently in Postmodern times, resulting in the now exaggerated backlash of painting hatred. My favorites in this show included Francis Picabia’s Le Baiser of 1924-1927, Brice Marden’s Untitled No. 1 of 1986 and such surprises as Alexander Rodchenko’s stark, textured, black and white Line of 1920/21. It also included a handful of disappointments such as a tepid, even if highly hyped, polka-dot work by Damien Hirst, Plutonium of 1997.

To Be Continued .............