Quote of the Day: Steve Martin
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| Martin Mull, Endgame, 2014. Private collection |
"If a comedian says he is also a painter, run. Except this one."
—Steve Martin on Martin Mull
Martin and Ann Philbin are co-curating an exhibition of Mull's paintings for the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.
Comments
> one.
If Endgame is done all by hand, Mull is technically damn good. But if those are actually photo images silk-screened onto a canvas, not as much. Then it gets closer to Dataland territory.
As for creative skill, Mull's one work does make me pause. A variation of when I see pre-Raphalite art. A reaction that will be tested a lot at the Lucas Museum.
"...Failure for Art Lovers but a Hit for LA":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AH2ZiFrAEJo&t=261s
"But I feel a little like I'm in a parking garage."
@prototropo, Youtube:
The curation is lousy—like for example, the Francis Bacon placement!?!? And in the background of the Rodin sculptures? A roaring highway! So very LA, depressingly.
@TobyNomad, Youtube:
I hear you. It’s not a roaring highway though, Wilshire isn’t that bad but I get you. [End quote]
Michael Govan, meet Richard Brown, Richard Brown, meet Michael Govan.
Or meet: Kenneth Donahue, Earl Powell, perhaps Andrea Rich too.
Certain major-league art museum are analogous to the San Diego Zoo while LACMA is more like the LA Zoo.
Since 1965.
And just because people sip smoothies at Erehwon, restore mid-century houses in LA and hang out with a lot of art-world hipsters doesn't mean they don't have the heart of a rube. Oh well.
Again, since 1965.
I remember Mull as Leon Carp, Roseanne's mean and snarky boss on Roseanne (the TV show). So many multi-talented people on that show.
... RISD grads are very technically-proficient. So, I had to research how he made these paintings.
"He [Mull] accomplishes this through contrasts both sharp and subtle, recreating what often appear to be photographic elements with an old master’s invisible brush stroke. He also does it through bold color contrasts- B & W versus color is a constant- often to promote disquieting visual and symbolic effects. He is also given to novel investigations of the picture plane, something more evident in his later work, inspired by his rediscovery of “The Lesson” by Henri Matisse. Mull is interested in the way figures and grounds intertwine and interact, often in ways that deceptively look like collage but are painstakingly painted by hand. In this sense he appears to have graduated from his early photorealism to a unique form of magical realism. His scenes exists neither outside or inside, but somewhere on a psychic plane between media, memory and daily life."
Definitely worth a closer look.
--- J. Garcin