Posted by unregistered user at 7/24/08 10:27 p.m.

This subject is near and dear to me, and my upbringing just outside the Boston Metro area. This place is amazing. I'm shocked they have survived. But they make a great case for shockingly bad art everywhere...so bad - it's almost good en masse. I have mentioned them several times at 'unBlogged' - but here was my most recent mention back in November of '07: http://tjnorris.net/blog/?p=1237

Thanks for bringing this to light Ms. Hackett.
- TJ Norris

Posted by unregistered user at 7/25/08 10:31 a.m.

Karen Kilimnik is one of the trendiest art stars, and one of the worst painters of the moment.

She is clueless about paint.

Her recent show at MOCA Chicago had me ready to go Oedipus Rex.

Her work is loved by curators and critics who adore the conceptual and the faux intellectual, and who actually have disdain for painting.

They only have a tolerance for painting when it isn't about painting, but is used in the service of something else. Theory anyone?

They embrace her work because it is about "ideas" that they can compose turgid catalog essays about.

And worse yet, have some of their academic didactic drivel stenciled onto the gallery walls or made into portable audio recordings that complete the viewers suffering.

Great paintings need no explanation or justification.

Posted by Marulis at 7/25/08 12:06 p.m.

I have a tendancy to agree perhaps, that it should be unnecessary to have an instruction manual handy when viewing a painting. Some of the most intriguing art will leave a lot of wires dangling and additional paths to follow. A great painting is quite often an unfinished endeavor for the Artist who will rely on a feeling of satiation.
I do feel, however, that with the simplest of tools, ie. pigment on canvas or even pencil on paper, there are still unique and undiscovered ideas to explore.
For me, the skillfull act of applying paint to canvas is not the end-all.
I remember many years ago a photograph in Life Magazine which showed the amazed look on the face of a young deaf child who was able, after a medical procedure, to hear sound for the first time in his life. Pure enlightened joy it was and a feeling akin to the emotional reward a creative feels when happening upon a new discovery.
So yes, skip the instruction manual but keep those electro chemical pathways open. Ideas are important.

Posted by unregistered user at 7/25/08 5:22 p.m.

Dear Marulis,

I don't mean that I think ideas are unimportant in art.

I mean that I think "ideas" are unimportant in art.

The two paintings that Ms. Hackett uses as examples in this post are essentially aesthetically identical.

Both are amateurish and clumsy in execution.

One is anonymous and fetched $7.00 at a thrift store.

The other is by art star Karen Kilimnik and her work is fetching $400,000.00 and more per painting.

The only difference between the two paintings is that the Kilimnik comes packaged with a bunch of academic jargon, or "ideas" which attaches an elitist signifier.

In the current hedge fund art market, this signifier attaches six figures to a really bad painting by an artist who can't paint and is simply using paint as the latest vehicle for her conceptual installation art.

Marcia Tucker's "Bad Painting" show was thirty years ago. In the early 1980's both the Whitney Program and the Yale Art Department were full of student work just like this.

High time to get over it.

Posted by unregistered user at 7/27/08 4:21 p.m.

I like KK's paintings. They're clear like stain glass, and pure.

Posted by unregistered user at 7/27/08 4:29 p.m.

Marica Tucker???!!!

Posted by Regina Hackett at 7/28/08 11:55 a.m.

Thanks #039: Dreaming while typing. It's Marsha. Changed it. I'd x through the old in the text but strikethroughs aren't available at the PI. Regina

Posted by unregistered user at 7/28/08 4:58 p.m.

Marsha Tucker???!!!

Try Marcia Tucker...

Posted by Regina Hackett at 7/28/08 9:48 p.m.

Ok, life-long bad speller here. Really bad speller. Spell check gave me a career, such as it is. In this case, I was right the first time, Marcia, and changed it to Marsha when challenged. Anytime I'm challenged on spelling I assume I'm wrong. MTucker is famous so her name comes up both ways. It's right now. Again. How appropriate that this is a post about bad. Regina