On Sep 18, 2008, at 8:46 AM, Chris Miller wrote:
Yikes! I forgot about the Photorealists! (and yet even among the
three that
Kate sites, only one, Estes, has significant exposure in major
American
museums. Salt can only be found in the Smithsonian - and Baeder is
only in
Indianapolis)
But my claim was "All of those *traditional* genres are
categorically excluded
from museums .." -- and if we compile a list of the methods and
qualities of
Photorealism, how much does it have in common with the traditions of
European
landscape painting?
Photorealism isn't equivalent to a "genre" of subject matter but a
style or mode of portrayal. But, hey, it's Miller, and logic isn't
that important. Miller has a conclusion (curators = bad) and goes out,
digs in the leaves and dirt, and finds a few truffles to support his
conclusion.
Miller doesn't want museums to return to collecting and exhibiting
*genres* of work, but rather *styles.* And in this, his purpose is to
throw out the damned czarists and install proletarians as the
commisars of the art politburo that decides which art meets his test
of stylistic purity and doctrinal accuracy.
His objection to Estes is equivalent to saying that Pearlstein's nudes
aren't in the "genre" of "figures," or CLose's portraits aren't in the
"genre" of portraiture, or Carolyn Brady's still lifes aren't in the
"genre" of still lifes. (These are the categories Miller named in his
message this morning at 9:12.)
There are thousands of artists, all working in the "traditional"
categories, and all collected *and exhibited* by museums (you know,
the really big ones, not just some regional museum, like ... uh, the
Smithsonian, tucked over on the provincial side of the Mall).
Jim Dine
Michael Mazur
Rackstraw Downes
Neil Welliver
Odd Nerdrum
William Beckman
etc. ...
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Michael Brady
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
