The Tayt Modern
Friday, July 18, 2008
"Your eyes get lost in all this, among the love hearts, the nipples and cocks and pea-pods that might be vaginas, the jagged seismic judders, the tremors that have gone off the dial. "APOLLO," one painting announces, and "I have known the NAKEDNESS of my scattered dreams" another."
This is Adrian Searle raving about Sir Nicholas Serota's Cy Twombly retrospective at the Tate Modern. But is Cy Twombly really any more deep than Tay Dall, or more deserving of being shown at the real Tate Modern? Isn't one piece of modernist abstraction just as irrelevant as the next? Is there a theory in this world that can actually explain the difference?
Labels: Cy Twombly, modernism, Tate Modern
posted by Vince Condesini at 12:19 AM
35 Comments:
Yes. Cy's been making modernist abstraction since 1951. Tay Dall filched the style and wants to pass if off as "contemporary art". Duh.
'x has been making art type y for z years, therefore x deserves to be taken seriously' is dodgy logic to begin with. In light of your second sentence, it seems (correct me if I'm wrong) that your argument is that p copied x, therefore p is crap and x is brilliant. So if you do something for the first time (or, as you also imply, for a long time), then it's art, if it's already been done then it's crap? in that case, I can think of MANY things that would have to be disqualified from the term 'art'. And we would have to include a whole lot more things into the 'art' category than we presently do. Or is it an issue of misrepresentation? If Dall DIDN'T present her art as 'contemporary', would that make it any less pukeworthy? It's an interesting and complex question and I don't think there's any 'duh' about it. There must be something more that distinguishes the two.
You can see the difference if you look at their paintings. Cy Twombly has taste and intelligence, Tay Dall is loud and cheesy. But you can't say that without sounding like an authoritarian Greenbergian pratt.
except maybe you could argue that she is making a very dumbed-down version of abstraction, to the point where it's concerns start to look ridiculous. But what if she was doing that on purpose as an ironic statement? Would a Tay Dall painting count as a noteworthy critique of High Modernism?
Anonymous 4:14, I think 'is loud and cheesy vs 'has taste and intelligence' is a perfectly valid comparison, whatever you think it makes you sound like. Say it and be proud.
Anonymous 4:20: Irony is all about context - so Tay Dall's work could conceivably be construed as ironic statement, but it would have to be presented in such a way as to make its nature apparent. As it is, there's just no way. I've seen her website. no way.
To just write off Modernist abstraction as irrelevant seems so silly: an entire movement that arguably represented the front line of visual intelletectual exploration for at least 30 years can't have been simply rubbish. Bigger minds than any of ours, like Rothko's, Reinhardt's and even an early Guston's, were preoccupied with abstract concerns.
I will agree that Tay Dall is cynically riding on the coat-tails of past visual languages. But I hardly think lumping Twombly in with this two-bit provincial dauber is any way interesting or convincing criticism.
If you'd like to look at something interesting in this vein of visual critique, check out New York painter John Bauer's work: a compelling amalgam of painterly gesturality and digital-age image fallout.
But sussed theorists constantly fail to identify work which IS making an ironic statement. They also write long erudite essays eulogising about stuff which is as dodgy as Tay Dall. There a book called Critical Perspectives on Contemporary Paintings which is jam-packed full of ludicrous examples. Another big tendency I've noticed in these theorists is to be very against painting, and yet to swallow all High Modernism's avant-garde pretentions 'Hooke, Lyne and Cynquer' (as Marcel Duchamp said). Like, if you're going to paint it has to be DEAD FUCKING SERIOUS or they just don't get the point at all.
Dear Anon 5.04
Please tell me you can't be so obtuse as not to have spotted that this person is not trying to say that Dall and Twombly are interchangeable, but to use their very difference to raise discussion.
This reminds me of the kind of genius huffers and puffers who call Hirst's "For the Love of God" a publicity stunt, and get cross that he wasted so much money on diamonds. Wakey wakey.
I think one of the primary differences between Twombly and Dall is knowledge, intention vs ignorence and accident.
What if someone with no knowledge of art theory/the conventions of painting etc just picked up a paintbrush and what resulted was an abstract masterpiece? It seems to me that this is perfectly possible, if a little unlikely. I'm not a painter so maybe it's just not possible, but I can conceive of this happening in other art forms - poetry, for example. A lot of critical theory ascribes a LOT of intention to works that poets themselves would dismiss completely, saying something like 'it just comes out that way'. I guess they would have to be versed in the basic conventions of poetry, but I don't think any more so than the person who has studied poetry for years and still comes out with the most godawful, overly-cerebral bollocks known to man. I mean, basically what we're looking for is the difference between good art and bad art, and while knowledge and intention can be important components, I don't think they quite get us there. I have a feeling that we are going to end up with something vaguer and less easy to define (and probably less satisfactory), like 'insight'. So maybe that's where the contrasting 'ignorance' come in. I don't know. It's a toughie.
Also (anon 5.04), I don't think Dall is cynically anything. Riding, yes. cynically, no.
I think it's interesting if you listen to the Serota podcast on the link, how much those concerns have had time to become assimilated, and are now, in South Africa at least, the basic ideas behind completely commercial painting. Tay Dall is not the only one, there are hundreds of them, all painting 'feelings' and 'vibes' and getting in touch with the "deep inner connection with nature". Yay, South Africa has reached High Modernism, only 50 years late. Maybe we'll get to postmodernism by 2048.
God you guys are more condescending and elitist than greenberg ever was. in fact what tay dall is to twombly you people are to greenberg. too much frivolous adolescent student partying ingesting a few trendy theories and thinking yourselves more clever than you are is what it smells like. so much head information and mildly complicated rhetoric and no soul man!
Iree
Ja, check out James Brown at 11.49...
And on that note, James, give us some soul. please. I'm waiting.
also, how do you know how clever anyone is? i don't remember giving you my IQ results.
(but if you find it all too 'complicated', that's ok. HEAT magazine is out there with your name on it.)
I love how commentators like 11.49 seem embarrassed about theorising, as if it's disingenuous to have a conversation at a high level, a betrayal of 'soul'.
Some sort of twisted attitude about authenticity gives rise to statements like 'so much head information and mildly complicated rhetoric and no soul man!'
Is it a particularly South African malaise to be coy about intelligence and sophistication? When will we give ourselves permission to crawl out of the cultural gutter?
Maybe there is the possibility of having soul AND intelligence .... woohoo, imagine that. We should be so lucky.
Groove on 11.49, Groove on. 'Head information' is, like, for PARENTS man. Gross.
I love that everyone has so much blogging time on their hands on a Monday morning.... get back to work you lazy fucks!
yourself
Dude, get on your grooveball. Come play in the psychedelic love-pit of joy.
Does it have boobs in it?
For you, boobs and a big bag of nuts. I'll show you mine if you show me yours.
I only have pistachio nuts. They're small and green.
boy i sure seem to have dumbed down the anti-gutter high level discussion. was hoping for a serious response. oh well...
j brown 11.49 aka mississippi john hurt
It is not easy to take you seriously:
You flippantly dismiss abstraction citing depth as a criterion; that on a forum called artheat gossip art truth. depth?
Bill Ainslie was into abstraction and depth and out of his work (or at least very closely associated with his dare i say inspiration) emerged: Feni, Koloane and Kentridge. Yet you so easily brush abstraction aside.
Who is robert sloon anyway? ANd Little wort? who is speaking here?
I am ignorant.
are you saying jackson pollock was funded by the CIA? My undersanding is that abstract FORMALISM was supported (Louis, Noland, Judd et. al) but i struggle to reconcile rothko; and pollock's drunken bohemian existential lurching at transcendence a la navajo indigenians with reactionary paranoid conspiracy theories aimed at the CIA...
maybe its just me
Anonymous 1:57am,
By starting this conversation are we brushing abstraction aside, or investigating it? What is more important: Revering our masters unquestioningly (Ainslie, et al.) or trying to figure out what it means to us now? I agree we must be respectful, but rigorously questioning your parents beliefs has been a major part of the 20th century's dare I say inspiration. Surely it is not unreasonable to keep that rigor?
As for the depth of artheat's gossip art truth slogan, you should do your research on what each of those terms implies. Start with Wikipedia. It'll help you to understand the power and use of gossip.
The point of the question posed, if you would like to read it again, anon 1.57am, is not about modernism at all. It is about theory, it's capabilities and limits. Can theory account for the difference between Tay Dall and Cy Twombly? Especially when modernism itself is deeply questioned.
What is being implied is that theory cannot effectively argue these distinctions, and therefore if we are to rely on theory for the validation of art, then we have to embrace painting like Tay Dall's as having equal value to that of Twombly.
So, nobody is ACTUALLY busy trashing your esteemed Modernist heroes. Well not now anyway. Will get onto that next week.
It seems too easy though and lazy i think to emphasise the otherness of modernism. It reminds me of black and white thinking and is triply tragically ironic in a socalled postmodern time. its great that the subject is raised here - white south africans need to work through their deeply ingrained tendency to see things in a binary fashion and i think the modernist bashing tendencies are a symptom of that. Its a hangover from our own racism and schizoid paranoia
Don't worry about having missed the point entirely. Being preachy and patronising is always a helpful contribution to any discussion.
Given what claims itself post hoc as rigour while putting itself out as adolescent flippancy and trite dismissiveness (which belies arrogance and a sense of infantile omnipotence) as is the segue of arrogating the essential “point of the discussion” to the point as one person sees it, a little dose of the preachy and the patronising might be appropriate.. towards the provocative nonsense that started the discussion as well as the reactionary defensiveness of some responses
come again?
Ok ok, I segue unto thee I hath been rather defensive and extremely rude. And people really are free to criticise whatever they feel like. In fact it's really interesting to see what is of concern to people.
Here is why this discussion has been a bit frustrating for me. Say, for example, I had written a rude sexist flippant piece about bad woman drivers, and said something to the effect that a woman driver could wreck a Porche as if it was an old tin can. And then the rest of the week I kept getting responses from outraged Porche fans, angry that I had compared the car with a tin can. And say I kept responding that I wasn't insulting Porches, but women drivers, and the response was that I was being flippant. It kind-of drives you up the wall a bit, excuse the pun.
So, to go over this argument again from the beginning, the thing that is being insulted here is not modernist painting (Porches), but the limits of theory(women drivers). I insult theory by questioning whether it could even argue the difference between Dall and Twombly. The fact that Tay Dall is a particularly bad painter gives my insult a little spice, I feel.
The reason why this is all of interest to me is that I actually really care about the difference between Tay Dall and Cy Twombly, and would love to find a way to put that difference into words effectively. If anyone can help me with this, please email me immediately on lizzalittlewort@gmail.com and make sure to label your email URGENT.
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