Saturday, August 30, 2008

Small Epiphanies

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It's really not fair to try to cram every artist who writes in their paintings or uses words or writing gestures into the category of Abstract Calligraphy. And even worse, is to label any artist's work that incorporates dots of color, as Abstract Pointillism. Pointillism had/has a specific purpose, and there are artists, even today, such as Barbara Carter, who keep that oeuvre alive and contemporary.

Image is from her website.

I've known all this for a while now, but upon reading a wonderful review in the New York Times, things became crystal clear and the point was driven home; the point for me is to be more precise in describing different oeuvres.
In his review of the current show at MOMA, titled "Pipe, Glass, Bottle of Rum: The Art of Appropriation", Ken Johnson points out that actually there are only a couple of artists in the entire show who truly use appropriation; the rest do not. (For example, using found materials is not appropriation.) And he very thoroughly explains the different artist's use of materials and the movements they reflect. In his honest telling, you feel like a butterfly flitting across the pages of contemporary art history.

That said, it's pretty obvious that I need to Expand my "Categories" to do justice in identifying each artist's oeuvre and accordingly, go back through all older posts and make some corrections.
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