This Is Not an Art Post
September 15th, 2006I think if I were a member of Congress, or the head of a university, or in some other such position of authority which demanded I get my portrait painted, I would hire Brian Calvin to paint it. I’m sure he would make me look like a pretty cool dude. I hope Brian wouldn’t mind, but I would choose to wear a navy blue suit, just to be funny and to separate me from his other models and because it’s only fitting that a member of Congress wear a navy blue suit.
Try as I might to hate his paintings, I think Brian Calvin is a pretty good artist. He has a show up right now at Anton Kern. You might think you hate him because of his subject—good-looking kids looking spaced-out in their street clothes. You think, “Oh Christ, this is some Barry McGee bullshit, isn’t it?” But rather than being a masturbatory exercise in street style, his paintings are austere and beautiful and carefully considered and very much engaged in the elusive language of painting that most people don’t care about because it’s pretty tedious, I supose, what with all the talk about the “edge” and “surface” and “the picture plane” and whatnot. So the paintings are great. And a little stupid because who really cares about his cute street kids and his cartoony style which is why I’d be wearing the suit.
The best Brain Calvin paintings remind me very much of Piero Della Francesca:
September 16th, 2006 at 12:42 am
i like the iconic/casual quality. alex katz-y.
you are right on with the piero.
September 16th, 2006 at 7:39 pm
I don’t care for Mr. Calvin’s paintings. The very best ones (paintings of lumpy-weighty seagulls or boys pulling their shirts over their heads) do sort of approach uncanniness or are formaly interesting — and I’ll be the frost to admit that he can move the paint around, BUT what they resemble more than Katz or Piero, in form and content, is illustration from mainstream youth-y magazines like Rolling Stone and Spin. I don’t need to see more pictures of pretty slacker dudes.
I think, Mitch, that you were suggesting that one can look past the subject matter and concentrate on what’s happening with the paint itself. But it’s a pretty big leap to ignore that big, long-haired, stylized mug. I don’t disagree that they refer to earlier paintings, and you ARE right on with the Piero, but I think if you look at someone like John Currin (whom I also have some issues with) in comparison to Calvin you see someone who is considering, critiquing, and invested his subject. Even Elizabeth Peyton, who’s dudes look all the same like Calvin’s, has a much more complicated relationship to who she paints.
September 16th, 2006 at 7:41 pm
Oh, and by “frost” I mean “first”. It’s ghetto slang, don’t try and understand…
September 16th, 2006 at 8:02 pm
Hmmm, I don’t so much look past the subject and see the formal rigor beneath, so much as the paintings make me feel some of the affection Calvin obviously possesses for these dudes and dudedettes. The relationship EP has with her subject seems like a much more familiar one, at least in the art world—youthful obsessions viewed from a distance.
I mean, I suppose Peyton’s relationship to her subject is more “sophisticated,” but isn’t it nice when someone can love something unambiguously? Why be critical of that?
September 16th, 2006 at 9:22 pm
Well, when someone loves something shallow or obnoxious or problematic unabiguously, and puts that love out in the public, I think we can be critical about that. Leni Reifenstahl, to use an extreme example, expressed her unambiguous love for the Nazis in a very beautiful, avant-garde experimental way…
September 17th, 2006 at 1:37 am
Her work is more than “love of Nazis,” don’t you think?
I don’t want to be in the position of saying “what you enjoy is stupid.” I don’t see that there’s anything super “problematic” in liking attractive stoners. The way he presents them in this stoic, highly composed sort of way is interesting to me. I mean, I don’t he’s fantastic or anything…
It’s not my job to scoff at someone’s interests or to hold a political yardstick (or a “cool yardstick”) up to a work of art to determine its merrit.
This is not an art post.
September 17th, 2006 at 9:40 am
But you’re right, Todd.
It is important to call out shallowness. I was was being unecessarily arguementative. Also, I shouldn’t be posting so much in the comments portion of this post.
September 17th, 2006 at 7:54 pm
Gimme 10 minutes and I could make you one of those.
September 19th, 2006 at 12:30 pm
Since this isn’t an art post, I can say I like this. I’ll check back in a week or so to see if I still like it, and if I do, will probably have no better idea then, then I do now. One more thing – I continue to notice that, for me, viewing art if much more enjoyable and meaningful with a guide or commentator present.