Pipilotti Rist and George Condo at The Hayward

Contemporary and Old Art Reviews

Pipilotti Rist and George Condo at The Hayward

Postby jasperjoffe » Fri Nov 04, 2011 9:21 pm

Pipilotti Rist is better than George Condo. And the Hayward under Ralph Rugoff (great name) is consistently putting on wanna-see shows. That's the good news.

Rist's kitchy videos are funny and beautiful and trippy when projected on great drifting curtains, zonky enough to send a few people to sleep on the bits of people cushions, which are also very comfortable. The smaller onse, very Tony Oursler (who came first) in handbags and seashells and dollshouses are entrancing in a lillipution way. There are kinda of- don't really neeed to work out exactly what they are- themes of nature, sex, women, animals which flit between dream and nightmare.

Condo, the much feted painter's painter, didn't turn this painter on. His takes on Picasso, and general knowingness are repetitive and dull, the paintwork looks expensive but not beautiful, and the single figure portraits all have the figure plonked statically in the bottom two thirds of the canvases. They are not funny or clever or lovely. What is the point, and why do people like them so much? Perhaps the cartoon eyes and brushy paint work please in their consistency, indicating some direction I am missing.

So who'd have thought it. Video art better than painting. Perhaps I was dreaming.
jasperjoffe
Site Admin
 
Posts: 768
Joined: Mon Jun 07, 2010 2:53 pm

Re: Pipilotti Rist and George Condo at The Hayward

Postby CAP » Tue Nov 08, 2011 4:46 am

It's not really fair to compare them.

Although easy to see why Pipi's show is better than George's. But it's a bit like saying I preferred watching a cricket match to watching tennis. What's to compare? Condo is over-rated and there are older posts somewhere back in the archives wondering about that, but it's not like he's really doing the same thing as Rist.

The girly video thing is a bit like trying to listen to a whole album of Bjork, or even Kate Bush. Although I don't think Pipi even has Bjork's range. What she does is certainly strong visually, but if it was on up against a Michael Snow show say, or Jem Cohen I know which I'd go for.

But even they are not really commensurate.

Maybe Ryan Trecartin would be a more interesting comparison?

:)
User avatar
CAP
 
Posts: 1081
Joined: Thu Jan 06, 2011 11:38 am
Location: Off-world

Re: Pipilotti Rist and George Condo at The Hayward

Postby CAP » Tue Nov 08, 2011 4:49 am

But it's true Rugoff has got a decent programme going, not too predictable, not too parochial.

:ugeek:
User avatar
CAP
 
Posts: 1081
Joined: Thu Jan 06, 2011 11:38 am
Location: Off-world

Re: Pipilotti Rist and George Condo at The Hayward

Postby jethro » Tue Nov 15, 2011 10:41 pm

Too bloody true, Ive looked many a time at condo to try and get an inkling at what it is folk see in him.
overrated bumkum no less
jethro
 


Return to Art Reviews

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 7 guests

cron