The problem with Manny Farber

Manny Farber (b.1917- d.2008), a much admired film critic who became less admired painter, is the putative subject of a show at Moca on Grand Avenue. One Day At A Time: Manny Farber and Termite Art is loosely based on his idea that the best art may not be accepted masterpieces but more off-beat and less grand gestures.

White Elephant Art v.s. Termite Art is most effective when Farber riffs on his expertise: film. But one idea remains relevant, his faith in the idea that individuals and the works of art thrive outside an accepted mainstream.

Manny Farber, Cézanne avait écrit, 1986, oil on board, 72 × 72 in. (182.88 × 182.88 cm), courtesy of Quint Gallery, San Diego.

It’s an extremely relevant idea. (For more on that check out the new Nathaniel Kahn documentary The Price of Everything, a fair if sobering take on the role of the market on contemporary art coming soon to HBO.)

Manny Farber, Domestic Movies, 1985, oil on board, 96 × 96 in. (243.84 × 243.84 cm), ResMed collection. Courtesy of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

His nicely colored, oddly distorted still life paintings incorporate complex details from films and from his own daily life. They are earnest and competant, occasionally witty. But, as Molesworth says in her own essay, she never took his work seriously, until now. Now, they correspond to shifts in her own thinking about the out of control escalation in the art market and its role in museums and history. But that doesn’t make the paintings any better. There is no question of them being a cozy alternative to Pop Art by Warhol.

Josiah McElheny, An End to Modernity, 2005, Nickel-plated aluminum, electric lighting, handblown glass, steel cable and rigging. (Back) Patricia Patterson, Mary at the Stove, 1993 installation at MOCA. Photo by Hunter Drohojowska-Philp.

Dike Blair, Untitled, 1997, gouache on paper, 24 x 18 in. (60.96 × 45.72 cm), courtesy of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

The show also includes an handful of charming paintings by Patricia Patterson, Farber’s wife of 40 years, his muse in some ways and, frankly, always a better artist.

Patricia Patterson, Mary at the Stove, 1993, casein on plaster, 95 1/2 × 72 1/2 in. (242.57 × 184.15 cm), courtesy of Athenaeum Music & Arts Library, La Jolla.

Certainly, the show is worth a visit but while you are there, don’t miss a wander through MOCA's permanent collection where you can have your spirits lifted by the site of a largely white John Chamberlain sculpture flanked by a pair of massive black and white Franz Kline paintings, a reminder that Moca still has one of the great collections and the canon is still worth while. It is on view to March 11, 2019.