I saw this show yesterday, and initially hated it.
But then I was walking around and thinking about it, I guess it was a little too close to home with my own cartoons.
These paintings are super-skillful and polished. They look a little like very polished Disney cartoons, or Ren and Stimpy… But they also have sort of random, unpleasantly superficial art references: random digital/pixel areas, the ubiquitous crystalline shape, symmetry that doesn’t seem to have any significance. All of these things are very popular “moves” and while these paintings have a lot of stuff I feel that Sam Gibbons “owns” there is a little too much disingenuous trendiness.
That being said, they are still really captivating and well made paintings.
You can see the show’s website when you click here.
What bothers me is that: I like so much about these paintings, they are really well drawn. The painting is crisp, extremely dexterous, and interesting. The colors are thoughtful, carefully selected, a study in careful analysis of colors from popular culture and cartoons. But there are persistent reminders to trends in contemporary art that I think most of the decisions in these paintings go beyond. Maybe Sam Gibbons needed these trends to locate himself and feel that he was making something “good,” or if he is cynical something salable. I don’t know him personally, or blame him for making something that will appeal to people who may purchase his work. Honestly I don’t have enough money to purchase one anyways, so my opinion is just a random foot note.
They occupy an almost cubist space, and would be very similar to cubist space if they allowed short shadows from one object/character to fall on another object/character. Not that I think it would be better, but I am just pointing it out.
What you can’t see from the photos is that the edges are sculpted. I imagine they were cut with a jig saw, but maybe something more advanced, can’t be sure.
These paintings have really gotten to me. I see a lot I like, and a lot I dislike. Because of that they are creating an internal debate. That is about as good as it gets. When art makes you discuss what you think is valuable, what you consider to be important, your ideas regarding aesthetics, your concept of beauty, line and craft – that art has done its job…
Filed under: claire oliver, sam gibbons
PWNDED !!!
who? me or him?
I feel ambivalent about this work, which forces me to think it is good.
YOU !
BTW all the shit that bugs you are nods to american illustration, graffiti, and the superflat movement.
… they should make you happy!
well… I guess what underlies my dislike of the moments I mentioned in the post is that it takes me out of the painting, seems superficial, and it is a cloying attempt to ingratiate the painting to someone who wouldn’t be interested in what the painting really is a homage to cartoons, manic emotions, and drawing. Drawing approaches a religion for me, and when these little “moves” come out that are completely superficial, ala Johnathan Lasker, or some other early 1990’s clever post-Modernist painter. I think that kind of thing is completely boring, it is a way to make a visually interesting painting via quoting other periods in painting, which of course makes the painting about painting, about quoting style. I like painting to be about contemporary life. Having something to do with contemporary life is much more interesting than writing an art history paper like some snarky smart ass Art History major who thinks they are smart, so smart that they can take randomly from history and recontextualize it in a way that belittles it. It is just so fucking snide, and I bored with it.
wow, you really DID get PWNED.
I like it better when you argue Deryke.
I am guessing you don’t feel up to it, and are enjoying provoking me. So for the sake of my dignity I will stop.
no argue on this, the work SHOOK you.
literally, the gets MAD props from me! and IN FACT i like the way that it shook you up so much that i think its actually good for you. sam has made a new fan.
this what art is about and i could NEVER argue with that!
EVAR! srry … d!
this whole thing reminds me of when my lil bro (ex step bro) came back one night from seeing janes addiction. he was pretty young and when he got back i could tell he was shaknen a bit. he then got mad at me and told me how they sucked, too loud, etc. i didnt say much i just gave him a lil shit about being a pussy, etc. you know, the bizness, but nothing much.
well needless to say, long story short, blah blah blah… JANE’s is one of his alltime favorite bands ( mine as well), and it me a bigger believer in gods of Rock and Roll and the power of art.
that’s a nice anecdote, and I feel you with Jane’s Addiction – they are awesome. I had a similar experience with my first Pixies CD.
However, I am not some novice that hasn’t seen good painting before, this is a problem with the references in the painting. I love the way they are painted + the craft involved, but find the goofy use of stuff I see all the time, and since you are in grad school – you do too boring.
I actually wrote a few lists in my notebook analysing the craft in these paintings, and definately Sam Gibbons has a lot of flair + polish. It made me think about the level of finish in my own work.
But that doesn’t get around the sophistry is making references to common, shoddy ideas that are beneath the level of craft and more interesting ideas in these paintings.
well, i could say the same about all that deconstructive mind babble pontification stuff you like, but the reality is that you are gonna keep seeing it. its who does it best, and this guy is doin it well.
the thrust of modern drawing and painting is coming directly from two sources American commercial illustration and graffiti. within these world using subject matter over and over again is the name of the game. i understand this a bit more because i am trained as an illustrator and have been neck deep in that world for a long time. what seems to bother a lot of folk is that they don’t see it as deserving the artist’s nod. many would say that about Murakami, but i don’t.
i feel a kinship to works like this the same way that i see it like i see music, more specifically independent (not indie) music. these are like songs in an album. you can pick apart each lyric but its really about the body of work. and much like music these works will fade back and become apart of what gets us to the next movement in drawing.
don’t get me wrong these are bad ass and the idea of picking apart piece by piece really shows us that we may indeed be falling into the modern artist’s trap of over thinking.
did you like PAUL’S BOUTIQUE [bestie boys] ?
I don’t have the perspective of an illustrator, but I see a lot of Modernist painting in these, so I wonder if Illustration didn’t get its information from painting… There may be a loop of painting feeding illustration feeding painting, etc…
Also, as artists, we are the producers of images, we need to understand how paintings are made, what thinking goes into it. I am trying to decode these, that helps me understand them. I don’t think it is overthinking. After grad school at Iowa, I was trained to intuitively try to understand what I am looking at – and then structure a statement from the context of my viewpoint/intuition/education/experience…
the LOOP is so true! but its a good thing.
i understand the language of painting, in fact i enjoy it as a method of academic dialog, but that is the problem its that dialog that ends up taking over, and using tongue and cheek references dulls the pain of having to endure that for me.
i thought a lot about semiotics and painting and i’m not that proud of it.
the reason i invoked the beasties was the idea that reference heavy work is an old tradition that is and has been finding a bigger niche in today’s work. i dig that as well.
My opinion –
Thanotic poop. Art will eat itself. I think the mouths and the poop shapes really are about this work chewing up and spitting itself and other currently hot visual tropes back out. It is very slick and smooth and polished – eye candy, and about as nourishing to the soul as a box of Nerds is to the body. Frankly, sex and death are boring in this context.
From the “biography section of the gallery website”:
Sam Gibbons’ paintings are fascinating renderings of cartoons perversely entwined in spasms of death and candy-colored imitations of sex. Gibbons’ work is a painterly convergence of figuration and abstraction; resembling a Rorschach test, one side of the canvas mirrors the other, lending symmetry and precision to fluid and spontaneous bursts of color and form. Employing imagery that was originally intended to entertain and pacify, Gibbons’ paintings are at war within themselves. The typical role of the cartoon is subverted; these benchmarks of inexperience are engaged in violent and sexual acts. Acting as allegories for the loss of innocence, Sam Gibbons’ paintings exist as a complex and beautiful mimicry of the human condition.
Since when are cartoons “benchmarks of inexperience”? they have been violent and made by adults, for adults from the git-go.
That’s my late 2 cents.