The Bad Art Cafe

let alone paint great

from a working manuscript of a book review of a Quick Killing in Art by Phoebe Hogan: A quick killing in art is the first place to start if you want to know about the person who is jean-michel basquiat & what his life was like as new york artist, (in great social detail). but inspite of it's last chapter, chanel-surfing in paint, (a chapter that successfully tries to sum up his painting ouvre.) this is not the place to find out about his accomplishments in avant-garde american art. for that you need to look at the exhibition catalog from 1992 from the whitney museum of american art by richard marshall, & it's essays by rene ricard, et al. after reading the entire quick killing in art, (this book is quick killing in prose), you might think jmb was an accident in the art world waiting to happen: how could anyone that drugged out paint, let alone paint great

la parisienne

she's a fragment of a wet fresco painting from c.1500BC, but she looks like a modern day lady dancing in gay paris. she has a profile of dark painted big eyes, curled black hair, a tiny waist (we can't see, but know from other frescos), and red ruby lips. she looks like she could step out of a fashion magazine instead of a fresco on the minoan wall at the palace of knossos, crete. it isn't that long ago in human history, although sometimes we think it is . . . .

from: gardener's art through the ages:

". . . the spirit of la parisenne is also a product of the resultant verve of (the artist's) hand, and the simple, light delicacy of the techinque matches exactly the vivacity of the subject. it is the monoan sense of immediate life the minoan skill in catching it that strikes us as novel in the ancient world, and prophetic of great changes in man's outlook on nature."