Untitled
2016
16×20
Oil on linen
Painting notes:
Would anyone out there want to know what I might have been thinking when I composes this? Apart from the F-L show I read a Dada article in the NYRB, reminding how much since is that innocent impulse warmed over and babbled over. Another component is my alienation from the art whirled, my glossy picture books of the work of artists my age or a few years older who’ve made fame ’n fortune whilst I made a living too pusillanimous, unconfident, or responsible to try for the brass ring. What else? How D. Trump reminds of Weimar, denied human planet degradation. silly art, overeating on garbage food exemplified by a tubby and a cruise ship plowing past Venice.
The F-L show. Photos he kept ostensibly innocent, but was his collection. The photographers are associated with the racy and homoerotic. Did he have a cache not in the show?
Then there are the associations by name, subject, color, shape. The flagellation scene that popped up in an unrelated search, as often happens, the branches morphing into Pollockian lines. He had a couple of decent years but for me he’s fodder for the critics. He couldn’t live up to his press. The Painted Word. Ingres’ hallucinatory old man’s last vision. A bit of Poussin who took me a long time to appreciate. Some think my stuff kinky focusing on the “pointy bras and crotch shots.” I reply it’s all fair game, that’s a component to explore. Like John Waters I hail from Baltimore, the nation’s schlock capitol. I ponder what is good/bad/acceptable art. What is verboten? Why? It’s therapy. I’ve returned to a childhood impetus, to materialize my angers, my fears, my bogey men. To see them, to punish them. I do it for my own pleasure, to see what I come up with, if I can meet my goals. It’s like a novelist who waits for her characters to reveal themselves, to lead her. The footnotes are a nod to and send up of art scholarship. Amuses me to take fungible identical bits of paintings, i.e. a bit of blue in a J. J. Flage might be worth say 300k. but an identical bit slopped on a sidewalk, worthless. I was a true believer early on in the pronouncements of critics and in the new art. I am disillusioned. A little holds up for me but most as with most product is full of sound and fury. Geezerhood, wisdom? With many the earliest works are the most innovative, personal, the rest is commentary. I look for personal expression, rush by the acres of Caravaggisti. Much expression of my pain at being disregarded, criticized for “crotch shots and pointy bras” on the homefront. I now include them in part at least because I’m contrarian. Included von Pluschow to show I’m equal opportunity.Wants nice pictures. She likes decoration, I, expression. Pretty patterns and colors are nice but, forgive me, don’t interest. I’m for the meaning of life being an ineffectual.
- Fantin-Latour, n.t., n.d.
- Raoul Hausmann: The Art Critic, 1919/20.
- Boucher: Summer, 1755.
- Francesca Woodman, n.t., n.d.
- Marcel Duchamp: Marcel Duchamp as Rrose Selavy, 1920/21.
- Man Ray: Study for Object to be Destroyed, c.1965.
- George Grosz: Republican Automatons, 1920.
- Carpaccio: The Lion of St. Mark, 1516.
- Tilman Osterfeld: Pop Art. p. 129 chapter head.
- Claes Oldenburg: Pastry Case, 1961-2.
- First International Dada Fair Catalogue, 1920.
- Wayne Thiebaud: Cake Counter, 1963.
- Raoul Hausmann: The Art Critic, 1919/20.
- Anon: Gabrielle d’Estrées et une de ses sœurs, n.d.
- George Grosz: Daum Marries….1920.
- Alma-Tadema: Sappho and Alcaeus, 1881.
- John Heartfelt: Title Picture der Dada 3, 1920.
- Man Ray: Emmy Hennings, 1921.
- Roy Lichtenstein, Takka Takka, 1962.
- Emmy Hemmings.
- Claes Oldenburg: Soft Toilet, 1966.
- Kurt Schnitters: Merzbild 1A, 1919.
- Hannah Hoch: Fur ein Fest Gemacht, 1936.
- Jasper Johns: Decoy, 1971.
- Alex Raymond: Secret Agent X-9, June 9, 1934.
- Arthur Rimbaud.
- Jasper Johns: Three Flags, 1958.
- Robert Rauschenberg: Canyon, 1959.
- Bon Appetit, Hunde 2015, p. 102.
- Poussin: a bit of drapery.
- Dada Meeting, 11 January 1921. I like Zelig in the photo.
- Fantin-Latour, n.t., n.d.
- Poussin satyr.
- Wilhelm von Pluschow, n.t., n.d. + Peter Blake: Drum Majorette, 1957.
- Fantin-Latour, n.t., n.d. + Egon Schiele: Observed in a Dream, 1911.
- Hannah Hoch: Fur ein Fest Gemacht, 1936.
- Blake: Drum Majorette, 1957.
- Jackson Pollock: Untitled, c. 1948/9.
- Hannah Hoch: Frauliche Dame, 1923.
- Fantin-Latour, n.t., n.d.
- Charles De Dray: Freedom Train: 2013/15.
- Paulette Leaphart, 50: The Women Who Showed Their Breast Cancer Scars. NYT 11/4/16.
- Ingres: The Turkish Bath, 1863.
- Marcel Duchamp: Fountain, 1917/63.
- Watteau: Pierrot, 1719.
- Kurt Schnitters: Merz Picture 29-A, 1920/40.
- John M. Waterhouse: A Mermaid, 1901.
- Peter Blake: Only Sixteen, 1960.
- George Grosz: The Guilty One Remains Unknown, 1919.
- Giorgione: Sleeping Venus. n.d.
- Kurt Schnitters: Merz Picture 29-A, 1920/40.
- Fantin-Latour, n.t., n.d.
- Wilhelm von Pluschow, n.t., n.d.