SHARKFORUM: OPINION WITH TEETH

......

MSB: De Keyser --- for me his work typifies "wilted" Euro-hip abstraction, oh so debilitated, for curators in the know. On the other hand, for most artworld denizens, Richter is a focal point of any thought on recent painting.


Raoul De Keyser painting

LB: Yes, but one isn’t forced to put him in every survey of contemporary painting.. Let’s see just how influential he really is by exclusion. Try leaving him out entirely. The Richter offered isn’t even one of his popular abstract paintings from the last ten years, but a slate-green monochrome mixer from the 70s. In the same room center stage is given to an American lionized by Europeans: Robert Ryman. Six works. The next room privileges Swiss artist John Armleder similarly.

MSB: I know Armleder, assisted editorially on a book centering on an interview with him. I am aware much of his approach is fabricated for success --- he was Koons way before Koons himself. But I tend enjoy the "bounciness" of his work. Armleder’s charmingly cheerful Fluxus-like art brings to mind it’s opposite, art far less playful — the text room?

LB: Requisite, of course. Every “final” must have one. It contains a few works from Remy Zaug--- someone probably unknown to most people reading this, but the dominate "text-art-star" in Switzerland ---, several On Kawara’s, and an extremely amusing John Baldessari which seems out of place. Also present is a Daniel Buren faded, red-striped fabric piece, about a meter high, hung flush to the floor. What was once a novelty (of painting?) is now an historical remnant.


John Baldessari painting



Remy Zaug painting

I am grateful for a “crack” in the historical frame which allowed one of the best Andy Warhol car-crash works into the show, hung immediately before the entrance to the dry text room. The work was made shortly before the ostensible beginning date of this show, 1968. It’s owned by the museum, so it didn’t have to come far. Early Warhol elicits reflection in a way the later work does not. This series in particular hasn’t lost a compelling visceral spark; it’s still disconcerting to enjoy the oscillating, double-exposed color Ben-Day dots at the victims expense. This is Andy at his snake oil-seller heights as artificer of the ghoulish aspects of American voyeuristic kitsch, before he became its prime purveyor. An example of the later is a portrait displayed on the ground floor.


Andy Warhol painting

Bernard Frize is placed in a corner near the spiral stair. His alkyd-on-enamel process paintings are the most voluptuous paintings in the show. Their placement creates the impression that the works have been hygienically isolated from the higher profile “diet doctors” around the corner. One remembers ones body at the moment of encountering Frize’s works.
To Be Continued ........