Tony Green, 8:55 a.m. 28 July, 2012 #

1. It would certainly be 'a mistake' for anyone to show paintings, if all the criticism was of the hasty kind in this review. This criticism says "I don't yet know what to think, because I can see similarities to other painters' work, but haven't yet understood what these paintings are about'. And looking for resemblances doesn't greatly help, even if they are fairly obvious ones.

'Clumsy'? "Aesthetically clumsy?" What, if anything, does that mean?

Is this magisterial judgmental predication supposed to be intelligent criticism? [I thought the days of "I like nos. 3, 5, 7..." died when Gordon H.Brown stopped newspaper reviewing].

For my part, I do see a relation with Colin McCahon's painting, but in these paintings, especially the Te Kooti paintings, I don't see that as a bad thing. Largely black and white, simple workmanlike paintings - direct, modernist visionary - in keeping with the rest of the work in other materials.

On what grounds is some of Jim Allen's work singled out as the 'very best'? And why is that all 1970s work?

Maybe it would be sensible to try thinking about the relation of the imagery of the paintings to that of Jim Allen's work of the last ten years. And note that the show at Michael Lett's is composed of 3-d and a wide variety of 2-D media, and various conditions of imagery, of which painting is only one.

John Hurrell, 6:45 p.m. 30 July, 2012 #

Actually Tony, I spent more time than usual on this review, aware of Jim’s (understandably) passionate fan base but trying to articulate my disquiet about some of the works. Whatever the possible faults of my discussion around the two styles of painting and the photographic images, your dismissive comments about Gordon Brown’s reviewing are fortunately not matched by Victoria University’s commissioning lectures from both you and him to be published at the start of their Art History Lecture Series in 2003.

In other words he must have been doing something right, and assuming your description is accurate, I like him think it important to look in detail at individual works and to try to argue (if believed) for why some succeed and not others. I don’t believe some artists are geniuses who hit gold every time – who are beyond criticism. Trying to understand one’s ambivalences (arguing for one’s subjective likes, dislikes or combinations) is the most interesting and responsible thing a writer can do: articulating the encounter with particular works.

Those Te Kooti paintings of Jim’s remind me of the (to me) ‘clunky’ McCahons included in ‘A Question of Faith’, paintings which had never previously appeared in ‘Gates and Journeys’, ‘I Will Need Words’ or earlier surveys, escaping the ‘official’ corpus up to then I think for good reason – they look comparatively clumsy. The visual component counts. My view is all art needs a carrot in the form of a physical or mental image to draw the audience in so they attend to the details closely.

Assuming you disagree, I’m curious to know if your enthusiasm for the On Reading Redemption Song works extends to say the treebased images of The First Three and Beyond The Real as well? Whatever Jim’s intentions, does the conceptual (social) content alone of these works decide your assessment, determining your response, without considering the non-symbolic or non-narrative quality of image? Somehow I doubt it.

You ask about my list of ‘very best’ Allen works and the lack of recent entries. Some later works were included, but not the ‘remade’ Contact performances which I felt (at Artspace anyway) were marred by the dominant presence of the cameraperson and Jim’s greater bodily involvement in the work. The content seemed to have changed (his right to do so, of course) but confusing for those trying to understand the original project.

Maybe you are not referring to those works at all but to Hanging by a Thread II (2009)? If so, yup, I agree, it is important. But that question (your indignation at apparent omissions) would imply that you have been buying into the Gordon Brown approach all along. Perhaps I am mistaken but I doubt whether you claim objectivity, and that you (like me and Gordon Brown) argue vehemently to justify your likes and dislikes – your taste. Or did Gordon never attempt to justify his taste at all? Was that your point of issue?

Tony Green, 8:27 a.m. 31 July, 2012 #

I guess you never read Gordon H Brown's newspaper reviews. Isn't it your job to inform readers of what they might wish to go to see?
Or is it really your job to sit in judgment over artists? Perhaps given your view of your position as judge of quality, you should really go to their studios and show them how to do their job better.

Tony Green, 10:52 p.m. 31 July, 2012 #

ok so you see your job as giving opinions -- that accounts for any amount of brief & largely inscrutable pronouncements outside any context of thought --

so you get the first word [one damning word, maybe] -- before anyone can formulate their own view, you are pre-empting that process --

& no doubt there are plenty of people who will take your pronouncement as authoritative & expert -- isn't your website still funded by Creative NZ?

you still haven't accounted for pronouncing paintings 'aesthetically clumsy' - what does that mean? -- you don't like something about them? maybe you favour something else in paintings [what? & why?]
& why does it come down to likes & disliikes, -- 'aesthetics' as a matter not of thought, but merely of taste? [aka opinions] That is no basis for an argument to which anyone can respond.

& maybe you've missed the point of these paintings which are it seems parts of a broader scheme, an ensemble, involving a variety of media -- -- & some very particular hanging -- 'upside down', diagonally , low on the wall -- is it 'about' media

& you say the paintings are 'eclectic' -- I guess this is because of the 'look-alike' remark that they resemble two other painters' work -- 'eclectic' is supposed to be something bad? as it used to be in criticism that worried about combining very different styles -- e.g. Raphael. Michelangelo & Correggio -- but it's your perception of two similarities, not of a deliberate attempt by allen to marry two styles.

as for the McCahon comparison, I guess you haven't noticed the differences -- & when you do you might think differently about them, instead of dismissing them as imitation McCahon -- simply put McCahon's notion of painting does not involve such evident material covering of canvas with dense smooth paint -- or such clear object-like figuration. I'd say very much sculptors' paintings.

John Hurrell, 12:54 a.m. 1 August, 2012 #

The first word is only because there is so little discussion overall, Tony, and I'm sure other gallery visitors have plenty of views quite separate from of my own - not pre-empted by me. They are not sheep - their independent views are sincerely welcomed and easily presented here if they wish to air them.

Or would you prefer silence, a climate with no feedback at all? Surely it is better for the art community that there is debate. While I am the individual who propels this site along there are other diverse points of view to be found here. Lots of writers marching to different drums. Often the same artists get opposing critical receptions. Different cities, different reviewers.

Anyway, be it ideas, symbolism, political content, the shape of an image, a colour - it is all opinion is it not - and as such, aspects of the artist's decision-making process to which an articulate person can respond, but which ultimately as argument can never be objectively verified. Is there a split between visual and ideational properties in terms of what is worthy as a basis for conversation? What if analytical thought is really an attempt to justify our taste after the fact? Reason backing up emotion and intuition, not vice versa. Cognitive science seems to support that with Damasio, Jackendoff, LeDoux etc.

You said earlier you saw a relation between the Te Kooti works and McCahon's paintings (not seeing that then as 'a bad thing') but now you backtrack. Other NZ artists on the same (eclectic) path - like Parker, White, Brown etc - would you treat them so sympathetically? Or is Jim a different sort of artist - beyond rebuke? If you didn't know who painted those works would you say the same?

Tony Green, 7:33 a.m. 1 August, 2012 #

I'm not back-tracking abt Jim Allen's painting & your labeling it 'eclectic'. I'm saying you're muddled abt that.

& I'm still waiting to hear what you mean [in your considered 'opinion'] by 'clumsy aesthetically' ?

Tony Green, 4:45 p.m. 1 August, 2012 #

You twist my words. re- McCahon. Scroll back & look.

So now it's [at last] a little bit clearer that in your 'aesthetic' you want gracefulness & elegance. & this is bad because 'oafish' etc & you'd better start noticing that Jim's sculpture is very little to do with your criterion.

But all in all you thought a great deal about the Jim Allen fan-base, as you said, -- & this is to tell them that he isn't perfect? -- or do you enjoy trying to down artists who've had long [& difficult] careers -- who've ben accorded some degree of critical celebrity?

it would have been better to take more thought about the show, rather than abt the 'fan-base' -- instead of this headline attack on Jim Allen's painting. Oh dear, it's new & you haven't seen any before. [Easy way out is to condemn it, with some ridiculous claim to having better taste than the artist & better taste than his fan-base. Of course, to call critics & historians 'fans' treats them like screaming 14 year olds greeting a pop-star at an airport. And it makes you sound like a grumpy old schoolmaster. ]

His painting doesn't meet the gracefulness test --so we go from 'I don't like' to 'clumsy aesthetically' [another version of don't like, a smoke-screen] to another version of 'don't like' [which is now attached to a 'quality' gracefulness'] -- well thanks, glad to know, your dogmatism about a quality so ill-defined and elusive that the a critic can chuck it about any old how. It's just a matter of taste, all over again.

& other artists will be glad to know that your derogatory remarks come from an unstated Classical Beauty criterion --- like a good 19th century Academician [which wd count out Romantics, Barbizon School, Manet & Impressionism & pretty well everything in the 20th century & delay for a century acceptance of Caravaggio.]

Tony Green, 7:45 a.m. 2 August, 2012 #

agreed

Ralph Paine, 1:56 p.m. 2 August, 2012 #

Question: how best to speak or act on behalf of those intimate strangers whom we adore; of those who have created the world afresh and cast us adrift in its lightness, its currents and eddies, its storms? They are famous painters, musicians, philosophers … And us? What possible thanks might we offer these grand midwives of our being-new-born? Thus, our complex dilemma; the dilemma of the fan, artist-as-fan. It is said that the fan has precursors—the spectator in ancient arenas, the eighteenth century fanatick, the maniac of 60s pop—and an etymological link with demons and temples (fanum). Perhaps then the fan understands the self to be a demon, or to be demonised by an-other, an understanding which would call forth the world as pure hallucination... An understanding which here I give thanks to.

Ralph Paine, 10:56 p.m. 2 August, 2012 #

Maya is the illusion of perceiving fixed, proportional, and separate phenomenon, whereas hallucination is when all phenomenon are perceived as collective, swarming: Deleuze calls the later an "errant and even 'delirious' distribution ... (the One - All)" ... Selves, others, demons.

Ralph Paine, 10:50 a.m. 3 August, 2012 #

McCahon sent the Master Allen a mirror. Allen held it before his disciples and said, "Is this McCahon's mirror or my own? If you say that it is McCahon's, how is it in my hands? If you say it is mine, has it not come from McCahon?"

Tony Green, 12:52 p.m. 3 August, 2012 #

Hallucinatory may be the way to describe the offering of comments [whether of praise or derogation] in the name of nothing but an individualised 'liking' or 'disliking' -- that cannot answer to [or refuses to] any reason, or principle for its liking. If we all followed this way of responding publicly to art, the result is a consensus view based on counting everyone's votes. That would include the large number who are indifferent and no doubt please the hostile opponents of anything new.
The utterly banal view of reviewing on this website favours a status quo of mediocrity in the arts, [as it would favour the status quo in all kinds of thought including the sciences]. Is this really what Creative NZ would like to see take effect? Its claim to be egalitarian is plainly false, since such a view suppresses all attempts to 'open up the holes in the status quo' for new thought. Often initially unpopular art is that which turns out to be the most effective & useful for all. A useful critical act would be to be in the advanced guard of those who look for & make known the new & effective.

Tony Green, 10:12 p.m. 4 August, 2012 #

Persuasion, Hurrell style:"I like because I like because I like -- I can't say why -- & does that matter?".