The resurgence in my interest in Art (or less pretentiously, art) continues to entertain and enthral me, and fortunately I still have the 101 gigabytes of art documentaries on my external hard drive to keep me piqued and satisfied. Many of the shows I haven’t even watched, such as about half of the theEYE series, and a host of others. I even have series’ hosted by Rolf Harris and Sister Wendy. If all it takes to be an interesting and entertaining speaker on art is personality, lack of pretension and expansive knowledge on the subject, then the Aussie wobble board-bothered and the 80-year old penguin have got it.
And I do like art, but I’ve just sat here for the best part of five minutes trying to think of an artist I really love to form the basis of today’s blog post. You know what; I’m reeling in old boots and buckled bicycle wheels instead of the prize-winning pike I’m fishing for. I already posted about Cy Twombly, without doubt my favourite painter, and possible my favourite sculptor too; so he is ruled out for today. I plan to do an article about William Burroughs’ shotgun art, but haven’t put the book on the scanner yet. Other artists that spring to mind are either too obviously hip, or not interesting enough; Jon Burgerman, Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Sarah Lucas, Louise Bourgeois, Robert Crumb, etcetera, etc, &c. If I wanted to be super-hipster I could work hard at being conspicuously different and choose an obscure Nazi propaganda artist, or a jobbing Page 3 photographer. Thinking about it for a moment I realise I wouldn’t have to work hard at all to adopt such affectations; I’m probably ninety percent of the way there already.
There are a few art books within immediate reach from my bed where I currently sit crushed and heated by my Palaeolithic laptop, like a lump of coal changing into a diamond (<<nonsense clumsy stupid simile of the day). Here is This Is Modern Art by Matthew Collings, a book to accompany the Channel 4 series of nearly ten years ago. It’s a great book; amusingly written, broad and informative, and most importantly full of pictures. It has also reminded me who might be my favourite artist and a worthy subject for today’s (at this rate it won’t be today, so don’t get your hopes up, sorry) blog post: Martin Kippenberger.
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| Installation of Kippenberger's posters at Luhring Augustine |
I heart Martin Kippenberger, as do plenty of art buyers, but not enough TV documentary makers or curators of galleries I have been to. I have never seen a Kippenberger in the flesh, but fortunately do have a massive book about him (so large it fits on no shelf). This book will form the basis of the Kippenberger post that is in the pipeline. The thing I love about his work is that nothing looks too similar; he blasted from one style to another, yet it all still fit in to his larger body of work. A completist Kippenberger retrospective would be mind-blowing. Looks like there has already been one at LA’s MOCA and another at New York’s MoMA. Once again, curse you America for draining Europe of it’s cool stuff.
Here have some Kippenberger:
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| Zuerst die Füße |
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| Untitled |
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