Remember you're a Twomble
Cy Twombly is the kind of artist that the critics find brilliant, profound and mystical and the average punter finds a bit of a mess. He is very much a painter of the "my kid could have done that" school, as a toe into Tate Modern's comprehensive survey of the American Abstract Expressionist's work confirms. My "For better or worse, Twombly's art nevertheless yields to conventional modes of exegesis," says a man called Richard Shiff in the introduction to the catalogue. "Twombly's making joins art to life, life to art as an all-purpose glue. Sylvester's third term and Rauschenberg's gap acknowledge this making-factor". "It's a few squiggles, innit" might be a more normal response. And yet Twombly does seem to invite the viewer - beg the viewer, even - to look for meaning in his doodles. They do seem rather well thought out given they are supposed to be spontanenous. What do the numbers mean here? Why has he written "I have known the nakedness of my scattered dreams" on this one? Is that a fanny? If I were to write a sentence about the paradigms of primordial praxis and the irreduceability of intractable thought - would you reckon I knew what I was banging on about? After a while, you can't help but theorise a little. In a painting called Crimes of Passion, I discerned a few sketchily drawn traps, of the kind that Wil E. Coyote uses to try to get Roadrunner: a spring, a weight, a cliff, a flight of stairs. Is Twombly suggesting a particularly elaborate crime of passion? Or toying with the paradox of a premeditated crime of passion? How bamboozling! These little traps cropped up again in Twombly's rather pleasing little sculptures, such as Aurora, which depicts a rose in a snare. Then suddenly I got it: the traps are a Twombly joke and a kind of warning to us: don't read too much into this, or you too will be caught in the snare of your own pretensions. By the time I got to the series of green pond paintings Twombly did for the Venice Biennale of 1988 I'd given up looking for meaning - these were vivid and lovely enough to override that urge. I just wanted to splash around inside them. Never mind Rauschenberg's gap.
hunch is the critics dig him partly because his scribbles and dribbles are license for them to indulge in their own abstract art: talking nonsense.
Richard Godwin is described as a Music Critic. Shouldn't he stick to that and not try to write of art?
"A bit of a mess" and "My kid could have done that" and "A few squiggles" are all comments that an ignoramus could apply to many brilliant artists, including Picasso, Joan Miro and Jackson Pollock, all of whom changed the history of Art.
It is called Abstract Art, Mr. Godwin, and perhaps you don't appreciate or understand it.
Cy Twombly is not quite on the level of Picasso or Miro, but he is still a serious, beautiful and appreciate artist.
Please, stick to music.
Would you like to read that Miles Davies is just caterwauling?
It sounds like that to me, but I would not say that.
Posted by: sydney marks | 14/07/2008 at 11:12 PM
Yo Sydney! Are you a critic critic? The paradigms of primordial praxis and the irreduceability of intractable thought in this blog entry elevate it to levels that Salvatore Quasimodo could only dream of.
Peace out.
Posted by: Billy Bodkins, Iowa | 15/07/2008 at 12:42 PM
Wow was the Cy Twombly bad! I mean really really awful stuff. I didn't get it and i didn't get his 'artistry'. The best thing was reading the intellectual guff that's written to justify his work. I bet he's laughing at everyone who pays a fortune for his work.
Posted by: Dan S | 18/07/2008 at 12:36 PM
All hail, Sydney Marks!
You are correct - a critic, like everyone else on this planet, can only hold views on one specific area of interest. Once one has chosen one's metier (at the age of 7 years and 5 months) then that is one's field of study for the remainder of one's days.
Any deviation and interest outside your alloted sphere is immediately invalid and questionable - especially if, as in this case, Mr Godwin gains pecunery recompense for his opinions on music (and music alone!).
Mr Godwin sought to outmanouvre these sensible constrictions (that have stood human thought in good stead for eons) by not offering his own opinions but attributing the comments of others , wise or foolish, to Cy Twombly's work before moving on to explain why comment or analysis is unnecessary - preferring to immerse himself in the artist's work instead of offering opinion on it.
Mr Marks is clearly made of better stuff, seeing through the flimflammery and cutting straight to the nugget - Mr Godwin clearly doesn't appreciate or understand abstract art. The cloak was lifted from my eyes.
Well done Mr Marks - a victory for common sense!
Posted by: Lee Stone | 18/07/2008 at 02:43 PM