text fragment Paintings such as acts of defiance first published in Art Experience: NYC (English .) Vol 1, No. 1, Winter 2011, pp. 20-27. To read the full test will http://www.artexperiencenyc.com/EMagazine.aspx , where the magazine can be viewed and downloaded for free. The image of The Women of Franklin Street was cut IA Gagosian Gallery.
Women of Franklin Street
By Ernesto Menendez-Conde
has often said that John Currin is a provocative artist because their lack of politically correct language, his perspective from the "male gaze", his scenes that border on the pornographic and tasteless questionable when paintings combine references to the past with references to American illustration and kitschy images drawn from trade journals. There is no doubt that all these features are still controversial, but not limited Currin painting these appearances is a rather misleading approach.
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In a painting like The Women of Franklin Street (Women of Franklin Street), for example, the sexual content of representation is quite explicit. At first glance, the figures of three young half-naked, practicing a menage a trois tends to satisfy the male gaze and portray women as sex objects. However, Currin added a macabre effect. The woman in the center of the composition of a bizarrely smiles. Expression is rigid as if his face was that of a lifeless doll, grotesquely stuck on a human body. This humorous twist damaged or ridicules the male gaze precisely because it exaggerates the nature of the objectified female body. It also maintains an ambivalent position towards many feminist discourses. But beyond the fun of the seriousness of the moral and gender policies, technical skills the artist subverts the scene content. The Women of Franklin Street is not an attempt to make a soft porn image , but on the contrary, an effort to make a pornographic in a good painting.
In The Women of Franklin Street details that seem peripheral surface and become relevant precisely because they are cleverly painted. Lip of a sleeveless dress, red bra Venice, the folds of the cloth or brush strokes of a gold cameo that looks one of the characters. Beyond its explicit sexual content, The Women of Franklin Street is on the enjoyment of these (among many others) details "well painted." This seems difficult virtuosity to encapsulate in a policy of gender. The political meaning of the picture is rather to produce a "good" painting in the contemporary art field.
John Currin has said that "at present make a good painting is a political act" (2006, 43). He returns to the historical tradition of European painting. His canvases are parodies of some iconographic motifs, positions and details from masterpieces of the past, but also further studies to resume their search approaches and techniques. [1] This generally speaking, had been largely neglected since the avant-garde movements of early twentieth century through participatory art installations today. In the contemporary art scene, despite the sporadic revivals of painting, from the second half of the seventies, explore traditional artistic techniques was often perceived as an obsolete way, exhausted or conservative to make art. This is a widespread prejudice.
The reaction against the historical painting as an artistic medium was a revolutionary practice in the early XX and even a few decades earlier. At that time the avant-garde movements opposed to realism, academia and classicism. The artists were interested in the value of the new and the goal of integrating art into life. However, in the current art scene, a return to the techniques of artists of the Renaissance, Mannerism and Baroque aesthetic choice is really sophisticated and unconventional. In contrast, many facilities, digitized images, videos and participatory art forms are nothing more than mere academic exercises.
In The Women of Franklin Street absurd performances abound, often hidden or hidden assumptions, apparently convincing copies of the natural. These inconsistencies can be seen as deliberate little jokes that suggest that the contents of the paint should not be taken seriously. I shall refer to some of these improbabilities (there are many others). The table and floor are captured from two different points of view and slightly contradictory (a nod to Cezanne and Cubism). Teacups and their corresponding dishes seem to be flying, as they are aligned just above with respect to the vessels found at her side and at the same time cast a shadow on the marble surface. A silver wig hides the clumsy way in which the head women's right to articulate his own body. Her hand rests on the central character's right shoulder, but even if not visible, arm movement is suggested in a cartoon. To some extent, these solutions lead to the enjoyment of humor to appreciate the painting as they perceive it is necessary to pay attention to detail. Through these visual jokes, Currin remains intentionally discredit the literal content, while emphasizing the relevance of the painted surface.
The Women of Franklin Street is full of allusions to historical painting. A scholarly references and sometimes difficult to recognize. See Currin's paintings from the tradition of art history is one of the most rewarding pleasures provided by their canvases. The title of the painting is a tribute to Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (which suject was a brothel located across the street Avinyó in Barcelona). Like Picasso's painting, there is a table at the bottom, ready curtains on both sides of the picture and one of the characters look directly at the viewer, as do women in Les Demoiselles d'Avignon . [2] The wooden bed and chromatic harmonies in the central character's skin could evoke the works of Boucher, while the floor reminded that can be found in the Dutch interior painting XVII century. In the upper right side, there is a transparent globe, obviously, could be associated with the lightness of the sexual scene, but with brisk strokes, Currin managed to represent space, projected into a spherical shape, which has the action is, as occurs in the mirrors of some Flemish and Dutch paintings.
[1] Commenting on The penitent , Currin wrote
I had wondered how it would use the same blue background and the figure with a transparent version of the other. Gerard David always used blue, one cold and one warm, to move in space and I thought I might try something similar ( ibid, 334)
