return to worldwidereview.com,
the home of critical reviews
From: Rodney Ward Category: Art Date: 19 September 2009 Time: 01:05 PM Review: The current interest in redefining the way art is publicly validated possibly stems from the hedonistic war of attrition between the "apparent" conceptualists who quelled the critical chaos in the outset of this green unpleasant millenia and the back to basics pencil licking auteurs. There are schools of rascals in both camps and they are most often identified by the rediculous characterizations they have plumped for in their bid for stardom. But of course stardom bears a heavy toll if you are to be a constant savant in the eyes of the critical seekers of authenticity and so it was with a heavy heart that I happened across the Guardians free guide to Drawing. I am very interested to know the authentic thoughts and outcomes of the drawing public but so many of the examples included in this attractive little booklet are not really the thoughts nor the doubts of real practicing drawing artists, I think it jolly droll to be listed as an "Art Star" thus pandering to Jeff Koons core career as Andy Warhol-Wannabee, those sketches used as illustrations are obviously not prep-sketches and are blatent set dressing created long after the chrome Rabbit has been manufactured in one of Koon's outsourced workshops, yes drawing is a language you pretentious pasty faced tate accolightweights but it's a language some of us can actually read into, my curiosity abounds when Grayson Perry gets interviewed (he can hardly get time for any drawing) yet again, wow so sodding ordinary, The Portal to Another World , a bloody ordinary one, especially if the chief reason for being an important contributor is that you fancied wearing your sisters underwear and get applauded for it ever since, no reference to the delightful drawing on acetone prompted by the omitted Hugh Stoneman, where was Lucien Freud in this look at drawing,? maybe he,s too old even though he is practically one of the very few figurative artists who chooses to draw with the easel facing the subject - now that is amazing! There's little to commend this apart from William Kentridges contribution, Louise Bourgeois is interestingly oblique but it's main problem is that its the narrow section of society that exists only in the spectrum of the Guardian Mummy and Daddy readership along with the Tate and all in its train Shame though, The Big Draw is ten years old but where was Hockney, Gerald Scarfe?....I can practically hear his steely nib scratching all over the taste seekers jotters.