Yesterday I posted
the 1993 NYTimes Magazine Art World All-Stars cover. I've also been looking at an old
Art in America Jerry Saltz article called
A Year in the Life:Tropic of Painting. The article is included in the October 1994 issue but is a study of painting shown in NYC over the course of the 1993/1994 season.
Lots and lots of photos and names and observations and it's fun to look back at in retrospect. He's divided the work into eleven categories - some with subsections - that I will list here along with the artists included, links, and interesting tidbits. You can read the whole article
here.
Category I. The Big Cats"
it's important to remember how new the work of these artists once looked and how very little painting today carries that kind of newness"
Gerhard RichterFrancesco Clemente Enzo Cucchi - "seemed lost in repetition and ersatz paganism"Sandro Chia - "was shooting blanks. He seems mired in a sappy, vaguely neo-hedonistic realism"Julian Schnabel David Salle Kenny Scharf George Condo Markus LupertzCategory II. The Museum Cats"three big names and a sleeper"
Lucien Freud Robert Ryman Roy Lichtenstein Vija CelminsCategory III. Keeping On With Distinction"all over town, quite a few artists - mostly over 50 - went on with the business of making paintings"Frances Barth - nice site!
Jennifer BartlettLynda BenglisBill JensenEllen PhelanPer KirkebyLouise FishmanJohn Moore James Bishop Martha Diamond Robert KushnerSidney TillimJack WhittenRobert Zakanitch William T. Wiley Konrad Klapheck - "come(s) on like a burst of fresh air"Elizabeth Murray Mary Heilman - go to the artists page
Robert Mangold Chuck Close Alex KatzCategory IV. Our Bodies, Our Selves, You AssholePatricia CroninNicola Tyson Lisa Yuskavage - "kitschy colored portraits of very young girls who have grossly distorted female bodies. She's a good painter but her color - hyperintense pastel shades - is better than her drawing, which is fairly unremarkable"Nicole Eisenman - "
is over-the-top and out-of-control in a positive way. She's one of the looser cannons around, right now"Mira SchorSuzanne McClellandLari PittmanJulian TrigoRita Ackermann - "
her work has a real "look" to it and a complicated emotional temperature that could lift it above its trendiness"Marlene Dumas - "
the flat-footed ways they're painted leave me completely cold"Category V. Toon Time "this may be one of the most vital areas of contemporary painting"Peter Saul Phillip SmithCarl Ostendarp Chuck Agro and
hereChristian Schumann - "
(his show) was one of the best of the season" - "There's a raw energy and an undermining sense of humor to Schumann's work. He's a natural; there's nothing forced about his work"Amy Sillman - "
her influences are keeping her a notch or two away from something new"Thomas Trosch - "
there is a quaint loveliness to Trosch's work, even if his images aren't that memorable"Katie MerzLily van der Stokker Ugh. This has just become a really long list. Maybe I should go back and delete everything except for the categories and the artist's I've included a quote for? But I wanted to be able to look up and link to some of these artists.
Okay, I'll just stop here with the first half. Maybe I'll do the rest tomorrow.
UPDATE: THE REST OF THE LIST!!