Installation view of the exhibition at the Gagosian Gallery, New York
Just as it has always been less interesting to worry over Balthus' pictures of prepubescent girls than it has been to wonder about his politics, being scandalized by John Currin's new pictures would be missing the point. They may seem more graphically explicit than normal, but Currin has been in this territory before. The more interesting question is what ends he is serving.
For Currin has served some interesting ends before. When he first emerged in the early 1990s he seemed to make realist painting powerful again, possibly critical again, precisely by worrying some liberals with his imagery of busty girls and weedy men. And years later he again seemed to touch on something in the ether when he began to give his imagery a more defined folksiness, a historical American down-home feel which echoed with the recent resurrection of Norman Rockwell.
Unfortunately, however, Currin's new show merely seems to be serving the interests of his career and a scandal-hungry public, for it is messy, desultory and ill-defined. Nevertheless, his talents as a consummate caricaturist are given an outing in some good lean fun: the show opens with a cheeky portrait of a boy, Francis (2005), and 2070 (2005), a portrait of a dozing granny. However, the unfolding pictures suggest that these characters are just the innocents in a strange world which mixes middle American values and fashions - and a peculiar love of fine china - with prurient sexual desire. Purple Bra (2006) reprises Courbet's infamous L'Origine du Monde, the eponymous bra falling away and the headless woman opening her legs. On The Pillow (2006) lies a woman fantasizing over a novel. And by the time we get to The Danes (2006), a trio of figures are pleasuring each other on a bed.
This may be the most explicitly pornographic exhibition Currin has put together, but it seems done to little purpose. Pornography is powerful material, and its ability to violently tear asunder the veil of aesthetic disinterest that pictures are still consumed with, as well as to open out different realms of imagery of the body and desire, makes it an interesting presence in the galleries. Many conveniently forget, of course, that the porn industry is a poison, and Currin seems to have forgetten that pornography is rarely powerful in and of itself. For, one wonders, who are these people, why are they so perverse? And why are they depicted among still lives of frilly china dinner services?
One moment they are conservative nouveau riche; the next, in pictures like "Federal" Rachel (2006), they are characters from the Revolution era (even though this Rachel is undoubtedly Currin's wife, artist Rachel Feinstein); the next they are unfashionable courting couples, cooing at each other in landscapes and poses borrowed from the old masters (Rippowarm, from 2006, is an obvious borrowing from Titian). It is a mystery, and the fact that the exhibition has no title may suggest that it's a mystery to Currin as well.
Morgan Falconer
John Currin
Until 22nd December
Gagosian Gallery
980 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10021
T: +44 212 744 2313
John Currin, 2070, 2005
John Currin, The Danes, 2006
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