Abstraction: "The New Casualists"

BE WARNED. In a sense below is a breakdown of the "critical (or non-) thought" surrounding some current art movements articulated within a article published recently in The Brooklyn Rail. It is not a dismissal of any particular show or artist as some of such things included in such beg for more first-hand viewing and discussion.

http://brooklynrail.org/2011/06/artseen/abstract-painting-the-new-casualists

It has been said that ALL art writing does to some degree overly praise and repackage what the artist is doing. Although I get into this below, on top of the words given after the fact there are the underlying theories fueling the currents of what thinking and processes and such are validated and distributed which then forms criticism which is then distributed and validating.

The problem I have with this as a stylistic grouping in "The New Casualists" - which I think is artificial in itself in labeling a range of talents and activities - is that just like October theories or whatever post-theory theory this article lists a number of activities and approaches the artist is supposedly invoking that if actually present in the art I would vibe with but that I think remain overtly bombastic praises of what is actually going on in much of the work.

In other words if someone doesn't know that it is cool to "circumvent" certain painting strategies, to "go against didactic thinking" "rally against macho posturing" and to make crappy looking paintings to tentatively oppose rigid Peter Halley-like conventions that are "TOO ART WORLD"...then to me and to the larger world they exist mostly as crappy paintings or at the very least..disingenuous tactics on the part of critics to wave such 'critical' flags as meaningful and should be praised largely for their "insouciance" and whatever formal successes.

"Insouciant abandon" as the fiery claim states - might indeed translate sometimes as meaningful art as there is plenty room for abject, deconstructivist, junky and/or crappy looking things in my book, but the work still has to transcend something or engage me in its world if it wants me to consider it in any serious way. "Synthesis and Recombination" arn't inherent values in art or ideas. They just arn't.

We have to unfortunately accept some superflous writing but in this case of this article it is indeed describing a movement than a single work or show. The art like the writing In its attempts to describe whatever mini-zeitgeist that postures as being anti-philosophy and anti-critical - rides on those same tropes to have some higher significance over 'lower arts' that it robs.

These being trends going far back into previous decades. and many artists of past generations are referenced which could lend to its own discussion.

But the issue here that ties both the criticism of the writing and work together is a 'lets pretend' on part of the artists and critcs that there is no strategy and therefore more genuine form of artmaking over other things. This begs to be discovered on my end in the works themselves. Often once something is removed of these critical trappings that are being proposed as non-existent and exposed ultimately as basically insider-critiques of art-making, its up to the work to prove itself on whatever formal and experimental merits it has. If its presenting itself as anti-innovative as an idea, I'd much rather look at a Kupka painting personally than something that meta stumbles over such.

Less than half a decade there was (in my mind) a more interesting dialogue of new 'formalism' or abstraction. A "drunk" Vs. "stoned" thing that had various alchemical and often anti-intellectual (although not necessarily as a goal - just less mind generally) approaches to art making. The problem for me here is a pretense of purity or depth that is like one inch thick. I'm all about the unknown but at least give me some real spark of originality or serious investigation with something. Are we seeing the results of some serious investigation of something so personally odd or are we praising some half-baked window with promises of suspended disbelief? A disbelief that is then being given value for being a half-baked window that says "trying" or 'grand narrative' is lame and little else.

You can see these underlying 'anti-theories' everywhere in this article. Do I believe it is also driving at least some of the works' self-importance in some way? yeah.

The articles efforts to stir up alot of quasi-math type validations like "fuzzy logic" and such things becomes fairly similar to what Clement Greenberg and co. would stir up I think. What in the recent past would them be funneled through some feminist critique and rebuilt in felt 5 years ago is now appearing as pure negating Orphism removed of much passion or skill.

To "accommodate a world in which there is often no clear truth or falseness." can be said for pretty much anything and simply to "experiment with unusual ways of applying paint." is not intrinsically on the level of complex physics, philosophy, or math...sorry. Malevich, Al Held, Jay DeFeo, Ryman, Lynda Benglis etc...are in my opinion and this kind of dedication is lost amongst many of these artists. If we find more mystery and intrigue and less academic stodgily in recent unravellings of hard sciences than in contemporary art then this presents a problem for understanding what is truly tweaking reality and perception and which is merely passing jargon.

If someone wants to see their personal investigation and long term goal of pursuing something in their weird space as the sole reason for making things...that is somewhat different than relying on ideas like "closure to abstraction" or "Meta" and so forth to validate what is altogether not very weird or experimental. Show me the really freaky thing and I will stop seeking 'answers'.

Recently on the Jerry Saltz page it was posted: Chuck Close said to me in 1985: "If it comes out looking like art, it must look like someone else’s art."

My opinion is that with Close's comment its a double step beyond the "Make it new" kind of logic.

Its not about how making something that appears old and contrived is necessarily bad, something new and slick necessarily good, rehashed and screen-printed black-and-white necessarily 'smart', or childlike - meaningful, and clearly 'regressive' is not anti-capital or non marketable.

To me I'm usually sizing up whether a process or mindset comes from something that is charted rather than what it looks like new. If we are seeing a real dialog with 'abstraction' in its myriad forms, ultimately for me it is not about 'new' but 'huh?' which is worth seeking out. Close shows you can use conventional subject matter and inhabit it with something else. Most of these artists to me seem to be showing what actually amounts to conventions disguised as a blessed 'huh?' informed through some critical trope and then being labeled by those critics as something far beyond what probably many of the artists could care less about.

So when it says:

"intrigued by the questions and contradictions in art than by any definitive answers it might provide." or

"They also harbor a broader concern with multiple forms of imperfection: not merely what is unfinished but also the off-kilter, the overtly offhand, the not-quite-right. The idea is to cast aside the neat but rigid fundamentals learned in art school and embrace everything that seems to lend itself to visual intrigue—including failure. "

These are concepts that are important to me and what I do..but then again I don't really appraise what many of these artists are doing as being all too engaged with contradictions that have much relevance to me even as a 'creative person'..never-mind a person who really has no concern of over which painting methods yield which results.

The Working Title, Bronx River Art Center, 2011

Lee Bontecou, untitled, 1998 (contrast)