Comments on: Episode 144: Lisa Wainwright on Robert Rauschenberg

By: SUSPEND « Vortexhibition Polyphonica

SUSPEND « Vortexhibition Polyphonica — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 21:56:13 +0000

[...] Rauschenberg Erased De Kooning Ovation TV Interview with Charlie Rose Interview with Lisa Wainwright NPR Profile Interview by Dorothy [...]

By: Bill Dolan

Bill Dolan — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 22:31:19 +0000

My favorite scene in the Basquiat movie was when the electrician stringing lights in the gallery was lecturing him on the importance of a day job and Basquiat seemed to be focused on more important stuff. It really makes me cringe when I recall it.

By: The Shark

The Shark — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 05:53:12 +0000

Dimitry -most of your post is simply in my opinion, dead wrong. And what gives with the tallest midget metaphor? -you’re sounding like Tony Jr. or something- Schnabel may be awkward and obnoxious but he has certainly had his moments – even Currin whom I obviously dislike is better than you claim….your take on Basquiat is simply a false argument -what you are saying about graffiti artists is true about them -but Basquiat was never really one of them -oh he did graffiti -but it was always directed at the art world.

the Britney/Lindsay comparison is lame -look, I know your paintings -you could learn a thing or two about picture making from any of these people you are putting down -think about it. Take some advice from a fairly iconoclastic, sometimes quite angry man -you come off as simply sour-I’m critical to a fault, and it starts in the studio with my own work -I spend a great portion of my existence painting ferociously to back up the talk, to earn the right to have and hold the opinions I expouse.

Tony, you and I don’t have much to disagree with here -I think the paintings are not as good as the drawings -but I often think that about my own work…….Basquiat was a very developed drawer -but not so much as a painter -had he lived longer, who knows? Painting is not a young persons game really….it takes a long time to be good, to master-

By: Tony Fitzpatrick

Tony Fitzpatrick — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 02:06:32 +0000

Gentlemen– you need to take another long, hard, look at Basquiat… there was a good deal more there than you might think…….and i assure you there was nothing put-on about how this guy saw the world– he was the real thing.

By: Dmitry Samarov

Dmitry Samarov — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 22:15:14 +0000

Debating Schnabel vs.Currin vs.Basquiat etc. is like picking the tallest in a midget contest…I love Schnabel’s movies though and, as mentioned above, that was a complete surprise…The trouble with Basquiat et al, for me, has always been the put-on primitivism and intentional crudeness meant to evoke some sort of raw authenticity…The strategies borrowed from street art and graffiti just don’t translate to the canvas; what’s powerful on the side of a train or a highway overpass becomes a desperate ploy in the service of novelty…A lot of these folks seem much more interesting as ‘characters’, an art world version of Britney Speers or Lindsey Lohan; most don’t go to them for their musical or thespian skills…

By: The Shark

The Shark — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 17:45:09 +0000

Well I knew you would have something to say on this Tony- I will give Balzac that Basquiats paintings arent all that -he was a primitive oddly enough -and like most primitives, lacked the skill and discipline to assimilate and then move on and conflate different technical aspects/conceits of art making -something you can get away without in the frontloaded-immediacy of drawing but not with painting. Which is why the paintings appear just that way, front-loaded -with no depth, an awkward regurgitation of de kooning with stick figuration. Not so the drawings

What Mark? You dont think Gary Oldman makes a good Schnabel? Is it the fact that Oldman is a somewhat skinny guy and Julian is as big as a house? No, he’s not much of a painter -but he sure beats the hell out of Kilimnik or Currin or any number of the high priced commodities as art of today-

By: Mark Staff Brandl

Mark Staff Brandl — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 17:26:17 +0000

I never really thought much of Basquiat’s art. It’s okay, but I thought he was more of a concocted and then chewed-up “star.” BUT — I’ve watched the movie 5 times, believe it or not, because my art history classes have requested it. I think it holds up well!

Yes, I can’t stand Schnabel as painter or as “media figure,” and Schnabel thoroughly self-aggrandizes beyond belief and beyond reality in the figure who plays the film version of himself (Albert Milo) — but I think he is a much better filmmaker than painter and much better filmmaker than I was prepared to expect! That hype and stuff around him and Basquiat, as Balzie mentions, poisoned me too much, I guess.

Maybe a lot of the quality is Jeffrey Wright, but really, upon repeated viewing the whole flow and the cuts, narrative sequencing and the shifts in mood and such technical stuff holds together remarkably well. There are some actually almost elegant passages, and the like never appears in Schnabel’s mostly ham-fisted paintings.

I’ve never managed to see the Pollock movie. How is it? Is it worth foisting on students? — maybe even just to discuss discrepancies or the like?

By: Tony Fitzpatrick

Tony Fitzpatrick — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 17:11:03 +0000

Basquiat was a wonderful artist– and a necessary one– and a lovely , troubled guy. He was a comet.I always found Hughes’s appraisal of him harsh and churlish…. When I see his work now– It still burns , it still resonates– it keeps beginning; which is what great art must do.

By: The Shark

The Shark — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 16:55:23 +0000

Balzac -btw I have an idea as to who you are- FORGET ABOUT THE 80′s! C’mon -200k for a crappy Karen Kilimnik rendition of Leonardo de Caprio as a musketeer?…..500,000.00 for an average looking watercolor of some pop star by Elizabeth Peyton? 15million dollars for a post impressionist revisited piece of fluff by Peter Doig?

The 80′s look self effacing and modest compared to whats going on today- I can remember the outrage when Donald Sultan was getting 50k for his escapades in roofing tar…..chump change by todays standards-

Basquiat draws beautifully.

By: Balzac

Balzac — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 12:48:46 +0000

I think you are right there, I do hate everything about him, but I think my distaste is unfair in a way, as my true loathing was for the myth-making that went on around him that tainted my thoughts on everything else he did. The 80′s hype machine was silly.