Jonathan Meese

Contemporary and Old Art Reviews

Jonathan Meese

Postby CAP » Fri Nov 18, 2011 4:29 am

I was checking out this You Tube of the German hipster performance artist - the first time I've actually seen him in action - and I have to say the piss-take of Beuys these days is looking E X T R E M E L Y tired. And Jon's performance comes to little more than a grotesque caricature of a Beuysian 'lecture' on art and society - minus the blackboards - maybe Jon shoud update that to Powerpoint slideshows?

As for his Neo-Neo-Express paintings - not a lot to get excited about there either. I just don't think there's much mileage left in the primitivist/graffiti tip after Penck and even The Late (great) Don Van Vliet. And, as everyone from Klee to de Kooning, could tell him - to paint 'primitively' - effectively - first you've got to be able to paint properly or traditionally!

And as for the dopey SM/satanic sculptures - I think this territory is best left to the Chapmans. Which doesn't leave Jon with a lot of moves, frankly! Well, there's always the hair and goofy costumes I suppose. Who'd have thought Germans could run so close to being Californians?

California Uber Alles, indeed.

But I guess the Germans like to see the Beuys/Kippenberger/gross-out thing living on, even if in a sadly diminished form like Meese. How else to explain his continued support there? He sort of looks good, so long as you don't look too close or too long. The ads in Art Forum are probably his strongest suite. Is this the first glimpse of the great German wave of artists - that really starts with Beuys and the Post-War generation of the 60s - finally subsiding? It's been a great run, but you sort of know it can't go on for ever.
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Re: Jonathan Meese

Postby jasperjoffe » Sat Nov 19, 2011 9:14 pm

i mostly agree
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