Winners of the MacArthur “genius” grants were announced yesterday. Having recently been very impressed by one winner’s work, I’ll refrain from my usual curmudgeony response to these newly minted geniuses. Mark Bradford won one of the $500,000 prizes. He is a mixed-media artist who is sharing a show with Kara Walker (a former MacArthur grant winner) at Sikkema Jenkins in Chelsea now.
Red Painting, above, is kinda genius. It’s a real show stopper right by the door. This jpeg doesn’t at all do it justice. That and the one below, Orbit, are both large with a lot of small detail you can’t appreciate like this. Easy solution? Go to Sikkema Jenkins and see some genius.
“the fellowship is not a reward for past accomplishment, but rather an investment in a person’s originality, insight, and potential.”
I guess that explains it.
Do you like any non-representational art?
Ahem, let me see….
I love Joan Miro’s paintings – his lines are masterful!
But, mechanically produced grids don’t excite me…
OK..OK..but these of course are not the mechanically produced grids to which you refer, I take it?
Well, “Orbit” certainly looks like some kind of cheesecloth print…