I've been mulling over the Painting Now show at MOMA for a couple weeks. There has been plenty of ink spilled about the show, primarily decrying it's lack of curatorial clarity along with too much influence coming from collectors and what currently feels like the omnipotent art market. Much of the work was familiar to those of us that look at a lot of paintings, so new ground was not broken and thats another disappointment, MOMA use to do that so well. These are all troubling issues which were compounded this week by MOMA opening its Bjork retrospective. Spectacle, without criticality, seems to have been added to the organizations mission statement.
However what I have been thinking about were the paintings divorced from all the issues above. Are they good paintings? Do they reflect the best of the artists included? I've tried to avoid re-curating the show because all of us could add or subtract artists, but based on what was there, its a good show. It's probably a great show for visitors not looking too hard.
Here are a couple of the highlights
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| Kerstin Bratsch, Blocked Radiant Series, Oil on paper in artist's frame, 2011 |
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| Kerstin Bratsch, detail |
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| Kerstin Bratsch, detail |
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| Nicole Eisenman, Beach Runner (Clara) 2014, Oil on canvas |
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Nicole Eisenman, DETAIL Beach Runner (Clara) 2014, Oil on canvas
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| Michaela Eichwald, Ministering to the Alien, Synthetic polymer paint, wax, lacquer and tempera on synthetic leather, 2013 |
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| Michaela Eichwald, DETAIL Ministering to the Alien, |
