Pierre and Gilles, Lisa Yuskavage, everyone in the art world is out to sell. But when does art aimed at selling become bad art?
I’m still hoping someone else weights in on Yuskavage or P&G.
Meanwhile I want to add to the mix Giorgio deChirico’s multiple versions of the “Piazza d’Italia” paintings (one is above), that showed at the Philadelphia Museum of Art last year. Are these paintings, all quite similar, to be dismissed as mere art commodification? According to curator Michael Taylor, deChirico was inspired to factory-like production of multiples by Andy Warhol.
And then there are the similarly produced Haitian images of life in some tropical Eden from the Haitian painters’ cartel (that’s a joke). These, like the deChiricos, are not quite identical but nearly so, and they are made to sell (to right is “Paradis” by Daniel Louis).
I am a fan of the Haitian work and the deChirico work, both of which, when not lined up chockablock on one wall, feel heartfelt and mysterious to me.
