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Mary Heilmann, 'Trellis', 1996
Despite the joyous assertion of medium immortality shouted from the title of this painting survey that spreads, roomily, across both Matthew Marks and Greene Naftali Galleries, there is also something uncertain and inadequate about that last bit -'Part II'. It's unavoidable, as this is the second iteration of a contemporary painting survey that Marks and Pat Hearn organised ten years ago (Hearn having since died, and her gallery closed, the baton has passed to Greene Naftali), but unfortunately it sounds rather like "Live Forever!", then, with a sigh, "Yup, still here..." It's a mood that pervades the show. Perhaps it would be different if that first survey had been twenty years ago, instead of ten: then one could celebrate painting's survival despite the critical drubbing it received in the 1980s. As it is, there isn't much to say: painting was here at the beginning of a market bubble and hey!, guess what...
The title aside, painters have been busy in the last decade, so there's much to sift - young turks to assess, old gods to topple and new ones to put in place. Mary Heilmann is perhaps the preeminent god here, being the only artist to have also appeared in the previous show. In part, that is a tribute to the spirit of Pat Hearn's gallery, as Heilmann was an important presence on her roster, but it also points to the mood of contemporary painters - free and easy with their medium, unafraid of abstraction, slightly comic, but serious too. Mike Kelley's candy-coloured red streaked 'Carpet #2', from 2003, shares that mood, as does Isa Genzken's gridded abstraction 'MLR' (1992); and Ellsworth Kelly's tangy 'Green Relief' (2007) also sums it up (doesn't there seem to be a Kelly for every occasion?) But one could reasonably object that the defining discussion in painting of the last decade has been the return to figuration, and in that regard a Guston or a Doig would seem vital, and yet neither appear here (and neither appeared in Part I). Instead, in the figurative vein, there is a vigorous orange-pink fantasy by Sophie von Hellermann, 'Orders from Amazon' (2008); a cartoon monster of teeth and spurting penises by Bjarne Melgaard ('Untitled', (2008)); and a marvellous comic mural, 'Complain Mountain' (2008) by Lily van der Stokker, which could almost be a Guston from some lost New Yorker cartoonist phase.
Lily van der Stokker, 'Complain Mountain' (2008)
Martin Kippenberger, 'Untitled' from the series 'Krieg Boese Wicked', 1991
One comes across great pictures and perceptive arrangements throughout this show. Significantly, some of those pictures are by artists who usual metier is sculpture - the three untitled Mona Lisas by Gelitin are indeed very massy heaps of colour. Others are by committed painters like Charline von Heyl who convince one that the medium can still be serious and worthwhile. Nevertheless, the show does not convince. It's that shrugging mood of time-serving, of still here-ness. One mourns the lost talent of the late Michel Majerus, and one recognises the importance of Blinky Palermo and Christopher Wool, and yet none of their pictures really stand off the walls declaiming their value as art. Might it be the installation?: Marks' gallery, usually dramatic and capacious, has been carved up to suit paintings' needs, and feels flat and boxy. But it's not that entirely: I found myself glancing over pictures by greats like Jack Goldstein and Martin Kippenberger, only to consult the list of works, look again, and conclude that they were simply weak examples. And of all the lesser-known Minimalist painters who have been revisited recently, does Anne Truitt deserve a room to herself? Has Wade Guyton, a newer arrival, earned the same? One ums, and ers, and doubts it.
As summer shows go, this one is very strong and valuable, but painting needs more these days if it isn't just going to win its immortality by simply "hangin' on in there".
Morgan Falconer
Painting: Now and Forever, Part II
Until 15 August
Matthew Marks and Greene Naftali
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Morgan Falconer is a journalist and critic. After an age spent immersed in 1920s New York as a graduate student, the result now props up his computer, and today he writes about contemporary art and culture for a variety of publications including Art Review and Modern Painters. |
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| Published on 17-07-2008 |
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