Art critic, film critic do battle in NY Magazine

This is definitely not a still from Christian Marclay's "The Clock." [Image: still from Disney's animated Cinderella wherein Cinderella transforms amidst a profusion of sparkle]

NY Magazine (which I receive in print form because it is the ultimate literature with which to stock the bathroom-- much better than Interview and Foreign Policy) regularly runs short art essays by mega-famous art critic Jerry Saltz (and the occasional feature: the "How To Make It In The Art World" issue was good). This week they paired Jerry Saltz with film critic David Edelstein to discuss Christian Marclay's video art piece, "The Clock." Saltz gushes over the "abstract narrative forms"; Edelstein calls the piece, "breathtakingly unimaginative."

Midnight for Cinderella [image: Cinderella breaks from Prince Charming's grasp as the clock strikes midnight]

It's a fun read, not too long, and I loved the down-to-Earth creative choice to pair the two critics. I'm also excited that the Art World is finally collectively excited about something cool instead of a stunning display of wasted wealth. As far as I know neither Louis Vuitton nor Fiat nor any of the other usual suspects have inane spin-offs, no custom yachts were involved, no platinum-dipped trains dangling over NY from a chain of diamonds.

Midnight for Pongo [Image: still from Disney's animated 1961 "The 101 Dalmations" wherein Pongo (the dalmation dude) looks on as Roger (the human dude) warms Pongo's sickly newborn puppy and gnaws anxiously on his pipe]

"The Clock" is just a 24-hour collection of movie clips where the time is shown, playing in real time in a theater. So the piece functions as an actual clock as well as a film.

Midnight for Ariel [image: still from Disney's animated Little Mermaid from the "kiss the girl" scene wherein Eric and Ariel are in a boat with fireflies lighting up and fish making a synchronized swimming fountain around them by spitting water]

I remember when someone or other made "24-Hour Psycho" by slowing the classic film frame by frame so it filled a 24-hour span. It came to a museum where I used to live and I got to spend some time watching it play out-- just 20 minutes or so, you'd have to be Bruce Nauman to sit through the whole thing-- and even with such a simple concept, actually experiencing the march of time in front of a screen in a gallery is an extremely powerful tool. I'm not surprised so many artists are engaging with it.

Midnight for Philip [Image: still from Disney's animated Sleeping Beauty wherein a rascally Maleficent (the evil witch / queen) holds a candle to illuminate Prince Philip (who is totally not the same person as Prince Charming or Eric) who is tied up in her attic]

 In case you haven't noticed I've illustrated this post with scenes of midnight around the Disney Princess universe ("princessphere"?). I was going to show Disney clocks striking various times chronologically throughout this post, but midnight seems to be featured disproportionately in the princessphere (along with the far less punctual, "final wilting of the really important flower") so I used what was available. I suppose Disney is doing their part to nurture that nagging suspicion that all the really cool stuff happens after you go to bed.

ETA: There's some more lite criticism of "The Clock" here. I'll post links to more as I run across it.

Midnight for Ursula [image: still from Disney's animated Little Mermaid wherein Ursula throws herself against a piece of coral in a melodramatic show of anguish]

Mary Whyte, "Iron Man"

Mary Whyte, "Iron Man," 2000.  In the Gibbes in Charleston, SC. [Image: watercolor of older black man in his shop holding a hammer and leaning against a wall and table containing some unfinished ironwork. He's dressed all in blue denim. Sunlight rakes across the image. The image is very high contrast, with rich darks and bright whites.]

Lydia Lopokova (Lady Keynes) by Christopher Wood

Lydia Lopokova (Lady Keynes) by Christopher Wood, 1924. National Portrait Gallery, Britain. [Image: sparse drawing on tan-beige paper of a youngish white woman's head and shoulders. She's got a 1920s bob and collared shirt or dress. The lines forming her shoulders and neck are barely there and her hair isn't shaded, just left outlined and blank inside. Her head sits atop a long straight neck and she seems tight-lipped and anxious, probably due to looking down and to her right. She is turned at 3/4 angle.]

Jan Morris by Arturo di Stefano.

Jan Morris by Arturo di Stefano. National Portrait Gallery, Britain. [Image: full-body horizontal portrait of an older white woman sitting in a steelcase chair in a white room in front of a window through with a landscape is visible. Her legs are crossed, her hands are folded in her lap, and she wears a yellow sweater over white collared shirt, pearls, a wristwatch, a dark knee-length pleated skirt, and black Mary-Janes. A tabby cat is curled up at her feet. The style is realistic and opaque but ever-so-slightly primitive. The stark edges of the shapes and high saturation and contrast, while realistic, make it look sort of collage-like. The composition is also slightly uneasy and makes the painting dynamic despite the stationary subject matter.]

Ismail Merchant by Don Bachardy

Ismail Merchant by Don Bachardy. National Portrait Gallery, Britain. [Image: Watercolor portrait of an older white man's torso and head on an unpaited white background. Brushstrokes are blocky and show lots of white background through the facial features and blue stripes of his shirt or bathrobe, giving it a loose and ethereal yet graphically strong quality. The face and hand (which rests on a paper or book) are red and orange, contrasting with the blue/grey stripes of the shirt, the hair and the eyebrows. The figure moves diagonally up the page as he leans back, from the lower left-hand corner, where his hand rests, to the upper right-hand corner, where his head is.]

What is art?

I cannot believe I'm asking this-- or writing the answer voluntarily-- as I was sick to death of this question by the first year of art school (and sicker by graduation). But unlike years past I'm not b.s.-ing my way through an answer (not consciously anyway) and I'm finally satisfied that I have an answer that exists outside the untenable binary of genius / loser, art / craft, transcendent / kitsch that is particular to post-Renaissance modernity. [Image: Lisa Simpson holding her sax in front of clouds shaped like Bleeding Gums Murphy, an obvious spoof of Simba's dad-cloud apparition from The Lion King]

***

Art is the notation or commentary that you make on life, similar to the notes you take in class. [Image: Lisa, Marge and Homer Simpson watch a meteor shower]

***

Some things you copy down because you need to know them. Or because it is interesting enough as-is that it's worth remembering. You usually parse what you believe is the most important or salient fact and make a note of only that, particularly when it is representative of a bulkier portion of the learning material. This selectivity reflects a combination of your personal values or intellectual system, and what the teacher (i.e. cultural authority) says is important.... [Image: Lisa and Homer Simpson watch TV in awe]

... I'm alluding to classical Academic art, cave paintings, scientific illustration.... [Image: Homer as da Vinci paints Lisa as the Mona Lisa]

... most portraiture.... [Image: storage room full of statues and paintings of Mr. Burns in many styles]

... and historic monuments. [Image: Homer Simpson imagines himself playing Foosball with Michelangelo's David]

***

Other times you may jot your own abstract theories of the material in the margins of a novel or history book: leading questions to remind you later of your thoughts, or your theories pertaining to the text which usually reflect your larger cultural and intellectual environment, such as parallels with material you're learning in another class.... [Image: Lisa Simpson dressed like Sherlock Holmes, i.e. a detective]

... Here I'm alluding to Abstract Expressionism... [Image: 3-D Homer Simpson paints crazy lines like Pollock]

... art which advances a theory such as Futurism and Cubism... [Image: spoof of Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase featuring Homer Simpson stumbling cubistically down a staircase]

 and mystical or religious art. [Image: Lisa Simpson reads Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass]

***

Or maybe the class doesn't interest you and you're doodling unicorns in your notebook and making escapist fantasies. I'd say these "notes" are still reflective of the class because 1) they were produced because you were in class and 2) they are often subconsciously related to the material or are a reaction to it, such as a cartoon of your teacher with a Hitler mustache. Here I'm thinking of escapist art, fantasy, sci fi, satire, mindless entertainment, psychadelia, decorative art and art for the sake of pure beauty. [Lisa Simpson dances while Chief Wiggam eats a donut in a spoof of David Lynch's Twin Peaks where Agent Cooper dreams of the Black Lodge]

***

In this analogy community happenings or collaborations might be a sort of group study session... [Andy Warhol holds a giant soup can above a cowering Homer Simpson in a Dali dreamscape]

 ... or lab class where you learn through pre-designed experimentation. [Image: Lisa Simpson plays the sax in band with other kids]

***

You mostly make the notes for yourself but you might share them if they are outstanding, or if note-taking resources are scarce, or if someone else needs to use them. [Image: Lisa Simpson stands heroically in front of a sunset]

***

And while many of us were forced to take notes in class because we wanted to pass the tests or because our teachers made us, "notes on life," i.e. art, are usually voluntary.... [Image: Bart Simpson does write-offs reading, "I WILL NOT EXPOSE THE IGNORANCE OF THE FACULTY"]

... Maybe we have never come across an adequate representation of life quite as we've experienced it, and we want to make note of our version of events-- for the pursuit of a Higher Truth, in order to help others going through the same thing, because we think our thoughts could entertain others, because we think our experience is super important, or because we think we have something better to offer than what already exists (plans for the future, proposals, fantasies, utopias).... [Image: Lisa Simpson reading Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar]

... Maybe we aren't allowed to express certain thoughts or do certain things in real life, so we express them in abstract ways.... [Image: Lisa and Bart Simpson peruse a copy of Public Nudity: Codes and Statutes]

  ... Maybe we're taking notes on behalf of a huge group of people: carving our tribal history onto a vessel, or making something to entertain every child in an orphanage, or documenting a disappearing culture, or inspiring social justice.... [Image: Lisa Simpson points an accusatory finger with the caption, "The whole damn system is wrong!"]

... Or maybe we feel compelled to take notes and we never really understand why. [Image: Lisa Simpson holds her sax and looks up as Bleeding Gums Murphy sits alone on a bridge in front of the moon playing his sax]

***

And just as the division between the material being taught and the notation of it (or between teaching and learning) exists only because we say it does-- because we are conscious of ourselves versus others and the linear flow of time, because modern large industrial and / or capitalist societies value the division of labor (teacher/student), because we are a society of domination that values a hierarchy of information based on class markers-- so the division between art and life exists only because we say it does, and for the same reasons. [Image: Lisa Simpson plays her sax while Homer chills out on her bed and listens with a bag of chips]

Lord Byron, by Quentin Blake

Lord Byron as portrayed by Quentin Blake in his "Informal Panorama" of famous figures-- sort of a quixotic Bayoux Tapestry-- for the 2009 octocentenary (i.e. 800th anniversary) of Cambridge University. Whoever orchestrated the project is a genius. You may recognize Quentin Blake's style from his work illustrating Roald Dahl's books such as The Witches, Matilda and The BFG. [Image: Simple pen drawing-- or cartoon, really-- colored in with fresh bright, loose watercolors, depicting Lord Byron leaning cavalierly against a dog (or bear?) while he pats its head and reads some papers. Admiring male scholars look on from the left and adoring busty ladies swoon on the right. Behind them all are a large body of water, purple mountains and billowing clouds, with the words, "Byron 1805" scrawled across the top. The dashing figure of Byron appears unaware of the stir he causes, his unruly locks of wind-tossed hair and conspicuously tight pants completing the image.]

Camila Batmanghelidjh by Dean Marsh

Camila Batmanghelidjh by Dean Marsh. In the National Portrait GalleryBritain. I think this was a study for another, larger painting. Even though the technique, angle and unfinished headgear make this study appear to be from the 1600s or so it is unmistakably modern. I'm trying to figure out why; it might simply be that she plucks her eyebrows.

Presidential Portraits

So they just unveiled the official White House portraits of former President George W. Bush and former First Lady Laura Bush. What do you think? I give them a resounding "meh." The painting hanging in the background of George's portrait is one of W's favorites. It actually depicts a horse thief from a short story but to W it apparently evokes a religious missionary of some sort, i.e. him. I think the artist brought a little of the classic Frederic Remington cowboy appeal from the painting into this portrait. Still though... meh.

Laura Bush by John Howard Sanden. 2012

George W. Bush by John Howard Sanden. 2012

A commenter on Shakesville wondered how the artist got through the painting without wretching-- I assume because of W's politics, as he's a pretty average looking dude. Hell, I'd love to paint the official portrait of George W. Bush. Facially, he's interesting (a cartoonist's dream). He's known for action and outdoorsiness (Sarah Vowell once called him, "America's gym teacher") which opens the field to all kinds of interesting poses and lighting. But most of all, to those who loathe his politics, he's like some sort of inscrutable Mona Lisa. Is he stupid and innocent, a naive Christian led by the nose by Rove? Or did he know exactly what he was doing? How much of him is authentic? He could be a great subject. Laura Bush has already proven to be a fantastic subject, as shot for Vogue Magazine. She's gorgeous, in my opinion, with a cat-like reserve that is at once smug and stifled. And her face has this odd intelligent buttery quality. None of that comes across in the portrait above, but it's fine, I guess.

Which leads me to some of my favorite official White House Presidential portraits from the past:

Abraham Lincoln by George Peter Alexander Healy, 1869. Lincoln got all the best portraits, which is awesome considering that he was a stunningly ugly man. The statue of him sitting regally in the Lincoln Memorial is incredible.

Andrew Jackson by Ralph Eleazer Whiteside Earl. I couldn't find a date on this but I'm guessing 1820s/30s. The man was a violent war-monger and colonialist [ETA: I meant "imperialist," as I was thinking about the Trail of Tears, not realizing that "colonialist" would be confusing given the historical context of just having won independence from the British] whose nickname was "Old Hickory." And very popular. This portrait gets that across I think.

Calvin Coolidge by Charles Hopkinson, 1932. The chair he's sitting in is fine furniture, certainly, but the "'Tis A Gift To Be Simple" quality of it, and the raw naked starkness of the rest of the painting, is an interesting choice for a Depression Era portrait. Especially the face turning away from the light and the shadow across the right side of the background. It reminds me of the simplicity and earthiness of portraits in the Napoleonic era when the opulence of the Rococo age was coming under vicious attack, a fitting parallel to the decade following the Gilded Age, Jazz Age, and finally the Wall Street Collapse that occurred in 1929, the last year of Coolidge's presidency.

Dwight D. Eisenhower by J. Anthony Wills.

Gerald Ford by Everett Raymond Kinstler, 1977. This is a nice, compelling portrait with good brushwork. I like it.

Franklin Pierce by George Peter Alexander Healy. 1858. Healy did several Presidential portraits and they're all very good. These people look very "historic," but still like real people who did tedious things.

Harry Truman by Greta Kempton. 1945. I love the sepia tones of this and how they pull a modern man into a 1770s Turner-like background. The clouds give a sense of cannon fire (war) and the sweeping on of history to reveal a bluer sky. Maybe that's not exactly how WWII was but it's a ideal sentiment that Kempton got across here. Truman was a maker of treaties and a supporter of NATO and the United Nations, part of a zeitgeist of catharsis.

Ronald Reagan by Everett Raymond Kinstler (same as Gerald Ford above). 1991. I love this for the silly pink phallus column in the background and candy-colored romanticism. I imagine the landscape behind him to be a bird's eye view of the subdivision from Edward Scissorhands. This, ladies and gentlemen, is Reagan nostalgia.

Probably my favorite Presidential portrait, EVER. John F. Kennedy, painted posthumously in 1970 by Aaron Shikler. I guess he could get away with this classic pose of defeat because the man had just been assassinated. There is so much of his presidency reflected here-- the massive controversy, the acidic vitriol similar to radical anti-Obama stuff, the "golden boy" look of "Camelot," the uneasy times of radical social change, and the relative impotency of his time in office, the tension of the Cuban Missile Crisis. There is no background here, just JFK in some sort of other-worldly ether. It's not exactly depressing, though; he looks thoughtful and human in an unprecedented way. The muted sunlight is also evocative of a man in a chapel in front of a stained glass window. It's a contemplative portrait for a stunned nation.

John Tyler by George Peter Alexander Healy. 1859.

Teddy Roosevelt, by John Singer Sargent, 1903. Sargent was one of the most brilliant portrait artists of all time. Roosevelt was one of the most fantastic portrait subjects, ever. Here you go. I love how Sargent evoked the authoritative, swashbuckling pose of Henry VIII for Roosevelt.

Henry Taft, by Anders Leonard Zorn (a Swedish artist), 1911. This is the portrait of the man chosen by Helen "Nellie" Taft to grant her access to the Oval Office. She had yearned to be in the Oval Office since childhood but couldn't be president because she was a woman; Taft was a well-liked man who only ever wanted to be a local judge. Helen married him and governed from the shadows.

Woodrow Wilson, by S. Seymour Thomas. I couldn't find the date (I could hardly find the painter. Sargent did a more famous painting of Wilson but it's not the official portrait. It's very nice, of course). I've always had a soft spot for President Wilson.

But wait... there's more! First Ladies usually had official portraits painted (though sometimes the official portrait is a photograph) and because the FLOTUS is often seen as the "human side" of the Presidency in the way that wives are referred to as the "better half" (gag), their portraits are much more interesting.

Helen "Nellie" Taft (the woman who ruled through Howard Taft), by Karl Bror Albert Kronstrand, 1910. This is a really weird pose and a totally strange portrait. But interesting.

Eleanor Roosevelt by Douglas Chandler, 1949. This is a bitchin' portrait of a bitchin' lady. Why have one Eleanor when you can have four? I also adore this as a portrait of an accomplished, mature woman, as opposed to some other FLOTUS portraits I haven't included here where a woman in her 50s or 60s looks like she's getting her photo taken at Prom, which I find wildly inappropriate. I love the elegant folds of the dove-grey jacket that subtly evoke a classical Greek toga and elegant drooping wrist holding the pencil just-so, like it is almost immaterial, a natural bridge between her concrete body and abstract thoughts. This has the same ethereal, idealistic qualities that I love about portraits from the 1810's and 20's.

Mamie Eisenhower (official harbinger of the powder-pink bathroom). Guess who painted this? Her husband, President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Really.

Margaret Taylor. If you know who painted this and when (I'm guessing 1850s), please let me know. Why is it so hard to find information about an official White House portrait of a FLOTUS? Anyhow I love the brushwork, color and arresting, energetic gaze of Mrs. Taylor. This was a period in history when wealthy women dressed like human curtain rods from the set of Dynasty yet the colors and costuming lend it gravitas. Impressive.

Barbara Bush, by Herbert Elmer Abrams, 1994. This has some nice contrast. The clear crystalline naturalism offsets the stuffiness of Barbara Bush's appearance and makes for an attractive, interesting painting. The best of the Bush portraits.

Dolley Madison by Gilbert Stuart, 1804. I usually hate when people use the word "feisty," to describe women but it seems apt for a Quaker and social butterfly who, according to popular legend, rushed to rescue our founding documents from a burning building when the British set our White House ablaze (she actually directed a painting to be hastily removed from the White House as the British advanced, and though a slave of hers published an account saying she also directed slaves to rescue silver, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, it is likely that a Frenchman named Jean Pierre Sioussat directed the slaves to do so).

Nancy Reagan by Aaron Shikler, 1987. This is formally beautiful but I don't know much about Nancy Reagan herself.

Grace Coolidge, by Howard Chandler Christy. Not sure of the date on this either. But she seems straight out of The Great Gatsby-- not in the sloppy nouveau riche way but that classic understated command of the very wealthy who assume they are able to be casual. "This dress?" I can hear her asking. "Oh, I just wear it on my little strolls!" The portrait is also compositionally fun and beautifully executed.