| | Michael,
I think my failure here may be that I haven't succeeded in making my point personal enough. Let me create a hypothetical review to see if it better illustrates my perspective:
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Kimberly: A Review
Hard-core Objectivist artist Michael Newberry has always seemed to have a thing for degrading women by showing them naked, writhing and submissive, but now it seems that his confused zealotry for Randian man-worship has finally led him to envision the decapitation of woman qua woman.
A drawing entitled _Kimberly_ is what appears to be his latest exercise in flinging angry, anti-feminist Objectivism at the better half of humanity. It is a dramitc image of a beautiful naked woman whose head is almost completely hidden in shadow, making it appear as if it is missing. Newberry forced his model to hold a sheet above her head to obscure it in darkness, and he admits that he is contemplating forcing her to hold the sheet again for up to 60 hours, even though he thinks the model would probably try to kill him in retaliation. "It is doable," he bragged coldly.
Apparently Newberry's Objectivist ideal is a woman who has no head -- one who can't think for herself or talk back to him, a mindless body which obeys his orders to stand in painful, unnatural positions so that he can shine bright lights on her breasts and ogle her from the darkness.
"You think that you and your filthy lesbian sob sisters have what it takes to be President?" Newberry seems to be taunting poor Kimberly from the Randian shadows, "Well not in my man-worshiping paradise, little Missy! Keep those arms up!!!"
Newberry has not commented on the drawing’s meaning, or lack of it. It is an aesthetic crime that artists like Newberry offer us nothing more than the headless void of Objectivist art.
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If I were to encounter such a review in reality, wouldn't you hope that I would respond with passion and frustration? Wouldn't it be virtuous of me to "smear" such a smear? I certainly wouldn't expect anyone to have a ~polite~ conversation about it with its author.
As far as Kinkade is concerned, my comments had other meanings. One of them was that the "artworld" is a miniscule percentage of the population. When applied to postmodern visual art, declarations like "We need a concerted effort to take back art," and "I am sickened by the state of art today," don't address the reality of what is actually culturally dominant. Virtually no one has heard of Matthew Barney. Millions and millions of people, on the other hand, have not only heard of Kinkade, but have purchased his art. They absolutely ~gush~ over it. As Morley Safer put it, Kinkade has "sold more canvases than any other painter in history. More than Picasso, Rembrandt, Gaughin, Monet, Manet, Renoir and Van Gogh combined. He is the most collected living artist in the U.S. and worldwide."
He is a rock-ribbed capitalist, dedicated realist artist, and an eternal optimist who portrays nothing but happiness -- the "painter of light" as he calls himself. Yet ~you~ question his status as a champion of representation? Is there no pleasing you, man?
J
PS: To counter the potential misunderstandings and negative effects of my risky little hypothetical review above, let me say that I think _Kimberly_ is fantastic. I agree with Adam Buker that it has an "atmosphere of intrigue." It gives me a sense of... how should I put it?... it gives me the feeling that I'd associate with a ceremonial ritual that might accompany an important lifetime event -- perhaps a vow -- or the anticipation of some other personal climax. Unlike the comments in my hypothetical review, I think the image ~emphasizes~ the head and face by tantalizing us with its absence (or obscurity). It has the feeling of sacred anticipation with a bit of mystery. I don't know if that's what you intended but that's the feeling that I get from it.
Is the image "strong enough" to be converted to oil? No, it's strong enough to leave it the hell alone.
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