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Re: Londonpainting blogspot

From:     CAP
Category: Art
Date:     16 December 2009
Time:     12:24 AM

Review:

It’s a nice dream Ron, but the truth is such a site is fleeting, when not under severe threat. The closest 
I know of, was PaintersNYC blogspot, where you did get some forthright exchanges and a certain 
amount of urgency. But after you’ve declared everything fucked and everyone cunts, basically people 
just don’t visit it anymore. If you check the posts on PNYC from 2006, through to its demise in 2008, 
you’ll see there’s a fairly steady exchange of posters or commentators. The reason is because one 
party or another simply has nothing left to say to others, for professional or personal reasons. You 
want to pull the trigger on someone, don’t expect them to come back for more. Some people’s ideas 
are unpleasant. Some people’s personalities are unpleasant. 

So at a certain point, dialogue or interactivity just shuts down.  

On Londonpainting, things are a little quieter because London isn’t NY and everyone’s not looking to 
network Chelsea through the side door and there isn’t the arch little game of insider’s tags and double 
talk (so far as I know). Also the ‘painting is dead’ thing isn’t as rife as it was a few years ago, so 
painting is not quite the endangered species anymore. But then again discussion doesn’t descend 
into curatorial slogans and citation or critic’s vague policy statements, either. We do try and keep it 
fairly plain and to the point.  And where else can you say that of?


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