Bad Paintings...

It's raining and I don't have an umbrella, so I scamper from awning to awning and finally slide into a Duane Reade to buy one. Back out on the street I head to the Allan Stone Gallery to see a group show and then on to see the Neil Jenney show at The Barbara Mathes Gallery. Jenney is well known for his "Bad Paintings" a term assigned to him by the art critic Marcia Tucker, and a description that Jenney liked very much. The paintings were simple big strokes with dripping paint that set off a surreality in his realistic painting. One of my favorites was of a row boat on the water. It was beautiful and I was looking forward to seeing more of the same at the show. The Allan Stone show was entertaining as are all of the shows that are there but besides a wooden monkey on a divider looking down at everyone in the gallery and a punklike portrait of a girl the show was somewhat mundane. In fact it was a disappointment. The rain was falling harder when I got outside but I picked up the pace excited to get to the Jenney Show. When I arrived I was not so thrilled with what I saw. The show is not of his old 'Bad Paintings' but his new "Pretty Paintings" that are unoriginal and without a bit of spirit, clouds that look like turtles and rabbits floating across luminescent blue skies with snarky things written below them like 'atmosphere'. There are even some pieces that aren't paintings at all just limp phrases ala Holtzer that are lifeless and evoke nothing. To say I was disappointed is an understatement. It's not that the paintings aren't good and most people would find them aesthetically pleasing but I wanted "Bad Paintings" Neil, not these overworked, pristine damar varnished narratives. Two disappointments in one day wasn't thrilling. I walked back into the rain that truly was more emotional than any art I saw that day. I walked in the rain without my umbrella wanting to feel something even if was just getting wet...