Tuesday, November 08, 2005
Painting Condoleezza Rice
Belgium's Foreign Minister, Karel De Gucht, who seems to be either transportingly sexist and arrogant or imperfect with the English language, once remarked that our Secretary of State "is a strong woman, but not entirely unattractive." The American press seems to have missed this particular indignity, so it is with a great mixture of pride and xenophobia that I report it here.
In perhaps related news, Belgian painter Luc Tuymans has painted Condoleezza Rice, she looking both strong and "not entirely unattractive," although a lot more stern and dominating than I think of her. However, if stern and dominating is how the rest of the world imagines her, that's good enough for me. Never look a gift strategic asset in the mouth. Or something like that.
The New Yorker's Peter Schjeldahl reviews artist Tuymans' current exhibition at David Zwirner in New York, calling him "the most influential painter of his generation." Indeed, my reflexive desire to mock Schjeldahl's short note in the November 14 issue is as powerful evidence of my own philistinism as anybody is likely to unearth. But hey, why mock it? Why not just repeat it verbatim?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Schjeldahl just said that Tuymans' painting of Rice was "to test the resilience of his ... audience." Not a terrifically challenging task in Soho, I should think.
In perhaps related news, Belgian painter Luc Tuymans has painted Condoleezza Rice, she looking both strong and "not entirely unattractive," although a lot more stern and dominating than I think of her. However, if stern and dominating is how the rest of the world imagines her, that's good enough for me. Never look a gift strategic asset in the mouth. Or something like that.
The New Yorker's Peter Schjeldahl reviews artist Tuymans' current exhibition at David Zwirner in New York, calling him "the most influential painter of his generation." Indeed, my reflexive desire to mock Schjeldahl's short note in the November 14 issue is as powerful evidence of my own philistinism as anybody is likely to unearth. But hey, why mock it? Why not just repeat it verbatim?
What is Condoleezza Rice to Luc Tuymans, the Belgian who, at forty-seven, is the most influential painter of his generation? A small, fuzzy picture of the Secretary of State, glowering, jumps out from the mostly large, fuzzy pictures of decidedly bland subjects now at Zwirner, including a bed canopy, tree trunks, a table setting, and a pair of ballroom dancers performing in the Texas State Capitol rotunda (everything must happen somewhere). It's like Tuymans, famous for generating poetic intensity while painting about very little, to execute the occasional shocker (a Holocaust gas chamber, once), as if to test the resilience of both his style and his audience. As an artist, Tuymans follows -- and improves on -- Gerhard Richter in setting epistemological soft traps for viewers, exciting and then confounding interpretive cravings. Growing intellectual frustration overlaps dawning aesthetic plesure in subtle beauties of extraordinary touch and color. (The pale hues in this show -- lavender, plum, peach, citron -- are practically aromatic.) In the end, your questions aren't answered; you just can't remember them.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Schjeldahl just said that Tuymans' painting of Rice was "to test the resilience of his ... audience." Not a terrifically challenging task in Soho, I should think.
1 Comments:
By 
, at
Tue Nov 08, 02:43:00 PM:
A "scary" Condi is fine with me.
Wonder if the de Villepin would have pulled on Condi what he pulled on Colin Powell at the UN?
This is great!
