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Re: Jerwood Contemporary Painters, Jerwood Space.

From:     Nned 
Category: Art
Date:     15 May 2009
Time:     09:01 AM

Review:

Indeed. Jealous because these judges are not in my network, and as such I stood outside of the opportunity to get myself a 
cheque for a grand like these kids all got.  Also, I don't paint.
There is another saying, championed by this site in fact, 'BEING CRITICAL MAKES THINGS BETTER'. Your criticism of my 
comments, as well as leading me to the assumption that you have a picture in the show, is unproductive, as perhaps I admit, my 
initial complaint was. 
There is a strange myth surrounding abstract painting, that it holds the intellectual high ground, because it is harder for the 
viewer to read. Of course it is usually the case that infact its concerns are usually based on motifs (abstracted from reality), a 
repetition of certain marks/forms/colours/formats and indeed a lack in a subject other than that of itself and its own history/place 
in some art historical canon. With this I am not suggesting it doesn't deserve to be taken seriously, I'm just trying to put it in its 
place.
I am a big fan of much abstract painting, and was merely saying that where I though the work of the judges is innovative and 
interesting, little innovation was to be found in much of the work selected by them for this show. 
I concede that this maybe okay, because as we often hear, the best artists really only make work for themselves (or I suppose 
that they should do). I want to be bowled over by a selection of contemporary paintings, this show should pack a real punch but 
the pictures in this show don't do that. My pins are still standing as the paintings cling tightly and lifelessly to the wall and cling 
tightly onto Mondrian/Popova/Picabia/Malevich for their congratulation.
BUT I did quite like the big pinkish one on the wall on the right as you go in the space, the range of marks was interesting and 
the sense of working struggle evident. Also the one with a relief pushing through from behind, at a different angle to the lone 
phallic black brushstroke erect in the middle aroused a certain mystique. 


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