Musea Art Review: #22 Art in America Jan.'04
TomHendricks474
Title: "Art in America" Jan. 2004 issue
What is it? Glossy monthly magazine covering new art worldwide.
Technical Quality:High - excellent color reproductions and above average
magazine design.
Innovative Quality: Average
Review: Modern Art has no clothes and this, the major art magazine for Modern
Art in the US, can't see through it. Six main features in this issue. 1. Multi
media artist, Robert Whitman's work seems to be neither great theater nor great
film nor great art. Surreal and abstract elements don't seem to add up to
much. 2. Polly Apfelbaum's floor pieces are mostly abstract cloth and sewing
art with more misses than hits, though I did like the decorative fabric design,
"Today I love Everybody". Note that there is also an ad selling her work. Is
there some connection between buying an ad and getting a major review? The
magazine does not make it clear one way or another. 3. A look at Dutch Master
Hendrick Goltzius, substantial art from the past that makes the newer works
pale in comparison. 4. Films of Finnish artist, Ilppo Pohjola that seem to be
goofy visual dada. 5. Bland abstractions from Warren Rohrer. 6. Realistic
paintings from James Valerio that show great skill in mostly interior still
lifes, but overall are too cluttered to add up to much except visual overload.
Plus art news with heavy emphasis on NYC art galleries, auction reports, book
reviews ( Giacometti, and Gorky bios), obits, scene reports from Madrid (huge
photo exhibit - sample photos seemed silly and dispensible) , England (
painter Graham Sutherland's work - mostly hits some misses), Montreal with a
major retrospective of conceptual artist Francoise Sullivan (above average
samples though somewhat bland). Plus a look at architecture work from two
Chicago architects, Koolhaas and Jahn for the IIT campus. Both's work seems
dirivative and neither's work is very attractive. Plus a 17 page major
section on reviews of exhibitions in the US and across the globe.
Overall the art (excluding the article on the Dutch Master Glotzius, and
Sutherland) seems NYC heavy with an insolated and isolated insider feel, out of
touch with reality, convoluted, little ability to communicate to the viewer,
impersonal, inconsequential, cold, surreal or dada-istic without the innovation
or charm or newness that came with the original dada or surrealism movements
that occured almost 100 years earlier; silly but lacking humor, depressing,
weird, no warmth, no humanity, no bigger themes outside the artists, no civic
connection, no historical connection, derivative, sterile, jejune; nothing
fresh or new or innovative, no 'wow' factor, bland, and egotistical with most
artists filling up large canvases or huge spaces with nothing but boastful
air... Proof here that Modern art hasn't been modern in 50 years. It's played
itself out , and this emperor has no clothes!
As to the reporting itself - the reviews, and news articles - they varied in
quality but had similar problems throughout: wordy, too long, often talked more
about ideas than the work, seldom brought up issues of beauty or relevance or
problems of being endlessly derivative of better work that have gone before;
often depended on insider incestuous references; reviews were consistently soft
(which treats all art the same) , with convoluted descriptions even when there
were visual examples to fall back on; celebration of the inconsequential and
the weird for weirdness's sake, with no challenge to the excess frivoluousness,
the ugly, the egotistical, little talk about technical skills or lack there of,
no talk about the cost or any aspect of the business of art, or surprisingly -
very little talk about any artist or the problems that artists have, or the new
ideas artists are bringing forward.
In the article on the photo-realist, the pompous reviewer says, "Nevertheless
the old-fashioned rendering of the external world by brush or pencil still
holds a certain fascination." But that can now be turned around. I say,
"Nevertheless the old-fashioned rendering of the modern art world and magazines
like this, still holds a certain fascination - but not much consequence!
Contact Info: Brant Art Publications, Inc., 575 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10012.
Overall Grade 2.5 out of 10.0
Grading system: 9-10 Highest grade - Life's work of a master (ex. Collected
plays of Shakespeare, collected symphonies of Beethoven) 8-9 Single best work
of a celebrated master's career. 7-8. Best work of an era or genre or decade.
6-7 Best work of the year. 5-6 Very good. 4-5 More good than bad. 3-4 Average
amount of good = amount of bad. 2-3 Mostly bad with some redeeming parts. 1-2
Nothing redeemable. 0-1 So bad it is offensively bad and outrages the reviewere
for taking up that time in his life - just awful.
Musea guarantees a review for all art work in any conceivable field IF you
follow the rules posted on alt.zines or see our website or e-mail me.
Tom Hendricks tomhend...@cs.com
http://musea.digitalchainsaw.com
gbfmif
way more readable
TomHendricks474 wrote:
> Review #22 3/04
> Title: "Art in America" Jan. 2004 issue
> What is it? Glossy monthly magazine covering new art worldwide
> Technical Quality:High - excellent color reproductions and above average
> magazine design.
> Innovative Quality: Average
ok - enough and last try at very simplistic editorial comment suggestions