Art Talk
Should Art Schools Ignore the Art Market?
Edward talks about the exhibition of MFA graduates from the leading Southern California art schools, where most of the works come across as seriously undercooked.
By Edward Goldman • • 3m ListenLast Friday night, the Blue Building at the Pacific Design Center hosted the opening of the exhibition of the artworks by graduates of several Southern California art schools. The exhibition occupies the several showrooms on the second floor and it is open to the public through August 24th. The committee chose 90 MFA graduates and the resulting exhibition, as one might expect, is rather a mixed bag.
MFA graduates at the Pacific Design Center
MFA graduates at the Pacific Design Center
MFA graduates at the Pacific Design Center
However, the majority of the artwork came across as, if I may say so, seriously under cooked. God help these young artists as they enter into the real world, and try to support themselves. There was not a trace of figurative painting or sculpture among the artworks, which is not a surprise considering that such work is thought of as completely outdated, totally out of fashion, and mostly ignored by art schools.
MFA graduates at the Pacific Design Center
Just think for a moment about the never-ending demand for portraits of people in positions of power: presidents, chiefs of industry, celebrities of all kinds, and then the whole army of well-to-do people with their spouses and kids. From the time of the Pharaohs to the gilded era of American robber barons, the best artists were selected by those in power to make their portraits. Today’s list of good painters or sculptors involved in the art of portraiture is extremely short. As a result, corporate boardrooms, civic plazas and even presidential palaces are filled with banal, and sometimes embarrassingly inept likenesses of people who deserve better.
(L )Equestrian portrait of John Wayne in Los Angeles.
(R )Portraits of the the King and Queen of Spain in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid
Want to see a good example of such bad art? Stop at the corner of La Cienega and Wilshire in Los Angeles and look at the bronze equestrian statue of John Wayne and his poor horse, both of them looking half-dead. The Duke deserves better than that. Or look at the insipid portraits of the King and Queen of Spain hanging in the lobby of the famous Thyssen-Bornemisza private art museum in Madrid.
Nikolai V. Tomsky, Portrait Bust of Dr. Hammer, 1982-83, bronze, the Armand Hammer Collection
Hammer and the Getty, and seeing commissioned portraits of their namesakes done by the best of contemporary artists. Instead, visitors are greeted by a “paint-by-numbers” likeness of these strong, complicated, and larger than life businessmen who, in my opinion, deserve better.