Ya know as a fellow painter I say that whatever pays the rent is worthwhile. If you can have fun at your work so much the better and art is in the eye of the beholder.
Try and pay the rent making art sometime and your perceptions of arts will change.
ditto...if he slapped something together that spoke to me, I'm all for slapping together. I consider these works a waste of canvas, gesso an acrylics. Of course it's acrylic paints. They would dry the fastest on his assemlby line.Originally Posted by samorost
i don't think either dan or the people who appreciate him are making claims for naked obama paintings being the next sistine chapel. there's a pretty broad range of things that are art.
i don't think there's anything cynical about what dan does, and i think reading cynicism into it (or irony, for that matter) is a sort of basic misunderstanding. but i understand people not liking it, just like i understand people not liking all sorts of things, from sushi to "sussudio." it's a big ol' world, etc.
a letter written in a dream that is answered much too soon
Damn. Harsh.
Farewell, but you will be
with me, you will go within
a drop of blood circulating in my veins
or outside, a kiss that burns my face
or a belt of fire at my waist.
Painting has been put on a pedestal. Why should painting be set to a higher standard than say pop music.
Some folks feel that if something comes easy to someone, it's not as worthy of appreciation. I find it interesting that I see this more with visual art than with music. If someone can make painting look easy, it's crap. If someone can make playing a guitar look effortless, it's amazing.
Chacun a son gout.
Farewell, but you will be
with me, you will go within
a drop of blood circulating in my veins
or outside, a kiss that burns my face
or a belt of fire at my waist.
i said something along these lines before, but to try to explain it just a little bit, what i like about dan's stuff -- and here i'm speaking of the offbeat stuff, the pancakes and naked obama and faithmouse and mouse-porn stuff -- is its ambiguity. what makes it interesting to me artistically isn't so much its craftsmanship or execution (which are both fine) as that it's hard to get a read on exactly where it's coming from. the pancake portraits aren't intended to mock their subjects, or at least not clearly or only intended to mock them, but they're also something different than straight portraiture. (the fact that he does straight portraiture as well as pancake portraiture just makes the pancake paintings funnier. and it gives the straight portraits a sort of contextual twinkle -- like, it could have a pancake on it, but it doesn't.)
likewise, the obama paintings aren't heroic or mock-heroic, they're something in between. they represent mixed feelings -- about obama, but more broadly about politics and idealism and idolatry. they're whimsical, but whimsy edged with crime-scene tape.
none of which matters if you just don't like it. i'm just saying there is stuff there to like.
a letter written in a dream that is answered much too soon
I've already said more than I had planned to, so I'll wrap up my grumpy old man act with this:
I wasn't saying that Lacey's paintings were cynical, but suggesting that the people who enjoy the sloppier paintings enjoy them in a context of irony. And I don't think the paintings are bad because Lacey can make them quickly, I think they're bad because the ideas were lazily cribbed from pop culture media and quickly slopped on a canvas in the interest of turning a quick buck.
I understand that art is subjective, that everyone likes things for different reasons. I've sketched, painted, written poetry and songs and exercised creativity in other ways. I'm not saying it's easy or hard. I'm just saying I'm not a stranger to the arts.
Gypsy, I appreciate you offering your reasons for liking Lacey's work (besides "you get it or you don't"). I'm just not getting any je ne sais quoi from this stuff.
Spleen vented, grumpy old man trundling off to bed now...
i think the fact he's found a market for them is funny, and good for him. but i think it's a stretch to say naked-obama-on-unicorn paintings were intitially conceived in the interest of "turning a quick buck." i think he started them because they amused or entertained him, and then when they started selling, he did some more. i also don't think his ideas are lazily cribbed from anywhere, i think there's some actual inspiration there.
but that brings us back again to things working for you or not. i think it's interesting there's such a divide between appreciators and non-appreciators, which doesn't break down along predictable lines (at least on the blab).
(also i think there's a disconnect between, "hey check out this quirky dude in elko, he's doing odd stuff" and "well, he's no da vinci!")
Last edited by gypsy; 05-31-2009 at 01:42 AM.
a letter written in a dream that is answered much too soon
Yeah. I'm normally all about goofy, tongue in cheek silly shit. For instance, I have a huge collection of no-budget movies and love to watch them for many different reasons that are my own. But something about Dan Lacey evokes the grumpy old man in me, shaking my cane at those kids shooting pirates from monster trucks and whatnot.
Damn bareback ridin' bare-ass kids! Here's a dollar; ride yer damn rainbow unicorns down to the amvets and buy some damn pants!
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