So appropriate for the absurd pulp fiction for which it was named.
Robin Greenwood (1950 -- 2023)
To be ‘new’ a painting doesn’t have to have been painted in 2018, or even by a living painter. What this survey and the comments show is that time, discernment and taste has not yet caught up with many of the paintings on display. A painting is ‘new’ if it opens up untapped resources for others that have been lying fallow or unnoticed, or if it reasserts the fundamental eloquence of the means, the simple elements of colour, line, plane, area-shape, facture, in a surprising way — (confined surprise, as Greenberg called it, not literal theatrical surprise -Seminar 8).” Comment by Alan Gouk on Key Paintings of the 20th Century, a ‘Musée Imaginaire’, Part 2, 11.3.18.
“For something to be “new” in this sense, not only does it not have to be painted in 2018 or by a living painter, but it doesn’t have to be either modernist or abstract. Just saying.” Comment by RG in reply, 12.3.18.
*******
Above is a brief exchange between Robin Greenwood and one of the artist/writers who posted text on
Abcrit,
an online forum he created to talk about art. He also created the
Branchester Chronicles to document and discuss the exhibitions he invited into the gallery he started.
As you may note, Greenwood does not connect judgment to a narrative of art history. But his approach to art is so theoretical, I’d hesitate to call him an aesthete. He wants sculpture that has no frontality - so all figurative and much non-figurative is off the table. His own work looks like fluff balls of tangled metal - and I doubt they would engage me in person.
He wants painting that is free from all associations, striking out as its own new thing. energizing space with a swirling gyre of mark making. He offers the abstract expressionism of Pollock and Krasner as examples:
Lee Krasner
Meanwhile, he despairs the. “drift” of the work by Frankenthaler and Olitski, two of Abstract Expressionism’s most dubious and indulgent painters …..in clear detriment to the “all-over energy” of Pollock; or, for that matter, the best of
A work of art is the unavoidable result of countless feelings, memories, ideas, experiences etc. But still, the greater prominence given to theory, the worse it’s going to look. Analytical Cubism is a classic example.
Nevertheless - I really like almost all the painters in Greenwood’s circle. Mostly, they’re old folks who picked up ABX at art school, loved it, and never moved on. That is not how to build a career - and like Greenwood, most of them needed another source of income. Many don’t have galleries or even websites.
If I had a house in London, this is what I’d fill it with.
(No wall space left in Chicago)
Here’s a shot of Greenwood’s last show.
His sculptures desperately curl away from surrounding space as if it were toxic.
John Pollard, Brutal World
These Brits are certainly not sentimental,
but still this is a world I’d like to live in.
I feel joy, love, passion
whether intended or not.
Anne Smart, Broiderie Landings, 2013
Greenwood had this above his bed.
Less aggressive, still probably quite thrilling in person
where you can feel the surface.
John Bunker, detail
John Bunker. B. 1968
Fred Pollock, Clyde Magic, 2018, 30 x 39
The over stimulation of
a hip urban scene
Back in 2013, there was an interesting discussion of color in this artist’s work over on the
Brancaster Chronicles .
Ashley West: Fred, one thing for me that I find challenging looking at your paintings is the high key of the colour, the primary and secondary colours, and the fact that I’m used to looking at painting like this that’s primarily all about colour where the compositional structure is simplified to a degree, so that the colour can operate as free from that structure as possible. Do you see what I’m saying?
Fred Pollock: No, I’ve no idea what you are talking about.
Ashley West: Well, if you take geometric abstract painting, like Mondrian or Ellsworth Kelly…
Fred Pollock: Oh, OK.
I do wish Fred had stuck to his incomprehension because, like Fred, Mondrian’s colors occur within the context of an exciting graphic design. The excitement in Kelly’s paintings, if any, is strictly intellectual.
But I am happy to report that at the end of this discussion, Robin Greenwood says in his typically self effacing way:
And so I’m missing Robin even more now.
He felt that the art theory he learned at school ( flatness, color, space) did not really identify what was special about the work of his friends - but he couldn’t come up with anything better.
I think we just have to switch focus from cause to effect - and talk about how the piece makes you feel - as ignorant as that that may appear. Art is quite different from a baseball game. It cannot be tabulated on any kind of score card.
Patrick Jones, Picking up Sticks, 2022, 24 x 36
Cirque du Soleil ?
Want to see more.
Beautiful and thrilling
Nick Moore, Cryptic, 2017, 48 x 48
A classical feeing here.
The Fall of Troy?
Emyr Williams, Times Refresh, 50 x 30
Richard Ward, August 19, 27 x 27
Nice on-line discussion of the “slap dash” used in the above.
Richard Ward, 120 x 100”
Man walking?
Noela James Berry
Henry Hay, Word Go, 28 x 24”, 2019
Younger than most (b. 1990), now does figurative
#EC_ismyname
EC
This artist is coy about her name and every other detail of her life.
But she is my favorite
and still quite prolific on Instagram.
Always seems to be looking for whatever will surprise.
Alexandra Harley
The only sculpture shown that I liked.
Definitely quite frontal, however.
Sadly, with Robin’s passing,
his gallery and both forum websites have passed away as well
Sic transit Gloria Mundi
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“To be ‘new’ a painting doesn’t have to have been painted in 2018, or even by a living painter.
“…a number of the Tintorettos were new to us, and what’s more, were exciting and up-to the-minute. The experience of such art is often not only a ‘new’ thing, but also a ‘now’ thing, a revelation of the moment, even if we have seen it before. With art as good as this it is never just a matter for art history. And there is more originality and immediacy in a few Tintorettos than in a dozen FIACs.” [FIAC is a Parisian Contemporary Art Fair]. From a Poussin Gallery catalogue essay, “New to Sight”, by RG, January 2010.
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