ART REVIEW: Agnes Martin show at LACMA better minimal painter than all the dudes. You gotta be in a certain mood for this show, though. You gotta want to get your elitist on, that’s it, you check your populism at the door on this one.
But I watched Robert Irwin putt-putt thru the LACMA Galleries this afternoon and noticed he got real close (closer than the marked line on the floor allows but he was with Govan so nobody said shit), and he stared and stared at almsot every one of them as close as he could get and I tried that and appreciated them more without the edges. Wish she had been like the art fair darlings of today making nine hundred foot canvasses where you could lose yourself in the field she lay.
She is really the opposite of digital art, and thus the opposite of all art today. She has no ideology and the inherent politics in the act of artmaking are about liberating the self – viewed now in utter terror in this era of everybody asking “which side are you on?”. Think about it… she demands the long stare, the commitment, the suspension of the threat of walking on after seven seconds that every viewer carries with them.
LACMA could sure help the experience by banning strollers, groups of tourists, teenagers, old people looking for the bathroom and millenials with their goddamn selfie sticks. Anyway, there, two thumbs up for the queen of the graphite line and pastel perfection.
Oh and now I will be gauche and remind you that I am in a movie with Agnes Martin (separate scenes completely, but really) called ART CITY SIMPLICITY where she steals the show with liberating words for all artists and then I do my glib smack thing. Anyway, go be an elitist at LACMA and then drop seventy bucks at their cafe on bread and two salads, smiling the whole time because you are a graphite-line loving member of the elite, nod to the other elites, drop the mic and uber home.