InLiquid Reviews - Arcadia Works on Paper 2006

Sarah Daub, Trappings, 2005
Cut paper, 18 ½” x 28 ½”

Works on Paper 2006

Arcadia University Art Gallery
March 25 - April 28, 2006

reviewed by
James Rosenthal

If this exhibition doesn’t shed light on how Philadelphia’s art scene has become more current and activated I don’t know what does. It is certainly the most popular juried show offering artists the chance to be “curated” by an art professional of national renown; a fabulous incentive. Even the daunting editing procedure – which weeds down from over 800 pieces – can’t suffuse the enthusiasm. The final 48 pieces have a professional look that is focused and up to date.

Curiously, though the jurors change year to year, this show maintains a consistency which is unusual. Where does it comes from? The show often has a painstakingly minimal look as if all those selected came from a similar milieu. That could reflect the quality of the jurors or possibly, it could be an indication that some artists have their fingers on the same pulse as the visiting curators. The exhibition is never merely an overview of artists working on paper in Philadelphia.

Luckily, this year it is a little more ragged and varied, in keeping with the tastes of juror, Cornelia Butler who is Chief Curator of the Department of Drawing at the Museum of Modern Art recently transplanted from LA. Her choices for the show are in keeping with her experience, obviously, but from the look of the slide talk she gave at Arcadia, her preferences are quite conservative given the wide range of drawing available today. If not conservative, certainly within well-worn museum and gallery confines. Her description of the search to fill out the museum’s gaps in drawing was telling. The object was to add youth to the collection – which sounds liberating – but means they mostly collected fairly well known young artists from dealers worldwide. No surprise. With 30 million bucks you can do that. They could have wheedled pictures off musician Daniel Johnston for ten bucks each!

Apart from the name dropping of A, B, and C list artists and galleries profiting nicely, this makes me want to confront the generational as an issue. In showing many slides of the younger artists – as opposed to new art by young artists – there was presented a generic quality where nothing stands out particularly. Oddly enough the new art seems not to respond to work of say, 20 years previous like you might expect, but is full of a new vitality and much more savvy wider ranging references. The work may be the cream of the crop but it is similar to that of hundreds of other artists working in that half-illustrative pop cultural mode where John Currin and Elizabeth Peyton rule. When weighed together with so much other drawing that seemed always derivative of something else, the odd slide of an acquisition from an older artist like Eva Hesse or Philip Guston jumped out as powerful. R. Crumb looks solid, the irreverent Rembrandt of cartooning. Granted it could be the demise of the basics of Signature Style that is responsible for that. This may be a condition our post-modern situation – a damn good reason – but me thinks it is also one of fashion and a hot market.

Ms. Butler went on to say how John Currin was once outside MOMA’s purview. Yes, the Modern has always had strict guidelines. No longer. So the gates have opened and a lot of work by a new crowd can enter the vaults. I am not sure what I am complaining about. There was a point when I would have said modern art was incredibly restrictive, only adhering to narrow movements and directions. But now after dispelling all the high culture and uptight 20th-century myths, we are awash with work as anemic as it is hot. Maybe we should reinstall some Master Narratives so there is something to react against?

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