Painting

[Corpsey]

Paula Rego review – stunning is an understatement

Violence, eroticism and oppression converge as Rego’s deeply ambiguous work goes straight for the subconscious in this mesmerising retrospective

www.theguardian.com

"The Tate wants to make an activist of Rego, and it is true that the radicalism of her early politics is there at the end, with paintings about human trafficking and genital mutilation. But the artist is ill-served by this reductive brief. Her gift is for the exact opposite: for deeply ambiguous and morally disturbing scenarios in which you are asked to think harder, feel more, be turned inside out. Ignore the captions and open yourself to the magical unease, the voodoo and catharsis of Rego’s art."

 

[yyaldrin]

fairfield porter - clothesline



it's just so pleasing to look at

 

[luka]

Went to see Paula Rego @ Tate Britain, knowing nothing about her, and wound up really impressed.

saw this today total load of rubbish

 

[luka]

Beryl Cook is much better

 

[luka]

 

[jenks]

Oh for fucks sake! This ‘something really good is actually shit’ trope that we’re having recently on here is getting tiresome. I get iconoclasm, I get it but sometimes it’s just a philistinism. Rego is not like Cook at all.
There…I’ve bitten to your trolling Luka.

 

[luka]

paintings of fat ankles

 

[luka]

in this case it is you being a philistine becasue you are responding to some cheap off the shelf psychologising, some narcissim and some very very shoddy painting/draghtsmanship

 

[luka]

if you want fat ankles you go to Cook. Rego is just a drama queen with below par technical ability.

 

[woops]

View attachment 8278

Really reminds me of my mum this stuff

 

[yyaldrin]

She was a shy and private person,[3] and in her art often depicted the flamboyant and extrovert characters she would have liked to have been.[4]

that's so sad

 

[woops]

that's so sad

I don't think so i think it's cool. Better than not having that outlet. She was the way she was.

 

[yyaldrin]

I don't think so i think it's cool. Better than not having that outlet. She was the way she was.

that is also true yes

 

[jenks]

in this case it is you being a philistine becasue you are responding to some cheap off the shelf psychologising, some narcissim and some very very shoddy painting/draghtsmanship

No. I’m not having that. But you framing the discussion about fat ankles/draughtsmanship etc makes it a pretty pointless discussion cos you are positioning Rego in a way that suits you -ie denigrating her and privileging Cook over her whilst also suggesting I’m a philistine. I’m not going to say much more on this because there’s a generally reductive pattern to the arguments on here - general retrenchments of positions etc. As I’ve said before it’s very rare to see anyone persuaded by another’s point. It’s usually just an opportunity for another layer of rhetoric.

 

[luka]

why arent i allowed to think Rego makes bad paintings? i don't understand this rule you've invented.

 

[luka]

i went becasue i assumed i enjoyed them. they make nice postcards. but when i got there and saw them in the flesh
i was repelled by them. everything about them disgusted me. the way they are painted. the crude, cartoonish quality of them.
they way they all have her in them. the vulgar literary freudianism. i came away thinking they are very bad and i really can't see
why i shouldn't be allowed to say so.

 

[luka]

saying Beryl Cook is better is great wind up becasue it's both totally true and also because it points to some of the juvenile and
dillettantish way art is received and appraised and conceptualised in this country.

 

[woops]

the juvenile and dillettantish way art is received and appraised and conceptualised in this country.

another layer of rhetoric.

oh dear!

 

[jenks]

why arent i allowed to think Rego makes bad paintings? i don't understand this rule you've invented.

I haven’t invented a rule. Like/dislike stuff but don’t be comparing her to Cook. In much the same way you’d be pissed off if people compared Prynne to Pam Ayers. It might be a good joke but it’s not useful criticism

 

[luka]

i think it is both a good joke and good criticism because it forces you to think seriously about the comparison, or at least it should