The Misuse of Kitsch: Michael Arcieri's Cold War Paintings

Robert Boyd

Michael Arcieri's new show at Avis Frank Gallery features a bunch of paintings of cold-war era imagery in canvases where three distinct images are arranged vertically.


Michael Arcieri, Bonneville Blast, 2012, oil on canvas, 48" x 45"



Michael Arcieri, New for Spring, 2012, oil on canvas, 48" x 45"

You will be forgiven if when you look at these paintings you are reminded of James Rosenquist--particularly I Love You in my Ford.

James Rosenquist, I Love You in my Ford, 1961, oil on canvas, 6'10¾" x 7'9½"

Michael Arcieri, Chaser, 2012, oil on canvas, 44" x 42"

Arcieri's Chaser will remind you of Rosenquist's F-111.

James Rosenquist, F-111, 1964-65, Oil on canvas and aluminum, 10' x 86'


James Rosenquist, F-111 (detail), 1964-65, Oil on canvas and aluminum, 10' x 86'

Michael Arcieri doesn't come off well in these comparisons. I Love You in My Ford related the all-American automobile to both sex and death, and in doing so spoke to its era of burgeoning highway expansion and the freedom promised by universal car ownership. Arcieri's images, by contrast, are a nostalgia trip. Their easy ironies might have been shocking if painted in 1961, but even then the juxtapositions would have seemed obvious and heavy-handed. Now, they are pointless. The Cold War ended--decisively--in 1989. Since then, the U.S. (and the world) have not faced an existential threat of war. This isn't to say we might not in the future. But as a subject of art, the Cold War has lost its urgency. Whereas, when Rosenquist painted F-111, every American above the age of 9 or so knew that nuclear war could erupt at any time, and if that happened, the nation, if not the world, would be obliterated.

In short, Arcieri's cold war paintings are trite and unoriginal. Arcieri is a skilled painter, but he employs those skills in this exhibit to make modestly clever works that have no urgency to them, no personal feeling. Comparing him to James Rosenquist, an artist captured the zeitgeist in a powerful and unexpected way, is unfair perhaps--but Arcieri brings the comparison on himself by blatantly copying the style that Rosenquist invented. It's a weird thing to say about an artist like Rosenquist who cultivated a distancing, mock-commercial-art style, but his work exudes authenticity; Arcieri's paintings are well-wrought but empty pastiches.


Michael Arcieri, Joe From the Bar, 1949, 2011, oil on canvas, 30" x 24"

In a separate gallery, Arcieri has a group of paintings, including Joe from the Bar, 1949, which look  paintings of freeze-frames from old movies shown on an old black-and-white television. But again, the strongest sensation one gets looking at these is of their profound unoriginality.


Gerhard Richter, Onkel Rudi (Uncle Rudi), 1965, oil on canvas, 87 cm x 50 cm

Again Arcieri is channeling another painter from the 60s--Gerhard Richter. And again, Arcieri falls far short. Joe From the Bar, 1949 is a banal film image. Onkel Rudi is, however, Richter's actual uncle. Rudi (Rudolf Schönfelder) was a Wermacht soldier and died in combat in World War II. Aside from the personal meaning of the image for Richter, it reflects the anguish that people of his generation felt acutely--that their parents and older relatives had all been Nazis. Like James Rosenquist's 60s paintings, Richter's employ a startlingly original idiom to tap into the spirit of his generation of Germans. Arcieri copies that idiom to make a banal but well-executed painting.

It's unreasonable to expect Arcieri to be as brilliant as Rosenquist and Richter, but he shouldn't paint like them if he doesn't want to be compared to them.  He can paint very well--he now needs to find his own direction and his own subject.

Pan Recommends for the week of December 6 to December 12

This is a relatively slow week compared to last week as we wind down towards Christmas. Here are a few shows and performances coming up that have caught our attention.

Thursday

Interface: Artists and the Digital Age at Williams Tower Art Gallery at 6 pm [up through January 11]. This show has a wide selection of artists, including several that I don't think of when I think "digital" (Aaron Parazette, Lillian Warren, Rusty Scruby). Interestingly, Rachel Whiteread is among the artists. Ironically, this show has no website.

Windows on Main at the corner of Main and Winbern (across the street from Double Trouble), 5 pm to 10 pm. Two installations are part of this edition of Windows on Main: "Congress Applauding (Address on the Program for Economic Recovery, Ronald Reagan, April 28, 1981" by Anna-Elise Johnson and "There was a man bitten by a snake" by Romain Froquet and Rahul Mitra. A nice place for a drink and some art.

Friday

ZZzzzzzz by Nathaniel Donnett (as part of Stacks) at the Art League, 6 pm. I'm not sure whether to expect an installation or a performance or both, but Nathanial Donnett is going to use shredded stuffed animals and the dreams of four volunteers who slept in the gallery to access black imagination. Sounds like a tall order--I'm curious to see what he's done.

Cold War Paintings by Michael Acieri at Avis Frank, 6 pm. Arcieri is an artist who wears the influences of James Rosenquist and Gerhard Richter on his sleeve. Expect a little Mad Men nostalgia in this show.

Saturday

Background Noise, a studio art show by Lucinda Cobley and Nelda Gilliam at 218 Avondale, Houston TX 77006 from 11 am to 6 pm. Two Houston artists show their stuff. Expect abstractions on glass and plastic from Lucinda Cobley, if her past work is anything to go by.

Shaun El C. Leonardo performing Arena at the Progressive Amateur Boxing Association, 2 pm to 4 pm. Part of the CAMH's ongoing series of performances for Radical Presnece: Black Performance in Contemporary Art, this one promises to be action packed.

Autumn Knight and Megan Jackson: La Querelle Des Monstres at Project Row Houses from 7 to 9 pm. More performance this weekend. The description says it uses "conjoined twin culture." I had no idea that there was such a thing as conjoined twin culture, but I'm kind of naive that way.

The Big Show at Lawndale

As I understand it, Lawndale has been doing "The Big Show" every year for the past 30 years. I don't know if the format has always been the same though. This version of it featured works by a whole bunch of artists from the Houston area. They were chosen by a guest curator from St. Louis from works by 409 artists who entered works (and paid an entry fee for the privilege). The show on the walls is what Laura Fried picked. You can see it until August 8.

I don't have any idea what was rejected from the show, but I was surprised by the number of paintings (as opposed to sculptures or video or installations or mixed media work). I was surprised by the number of basically realist paintings, or paintings that used elements of realism within postmodern contexts. It seems like a really conservative show over-all. That's OK. I was impressed by the painting prowess of Houston.


Kevin Peterson, Hope, oil on canvas, 2009

Like this amusing painting byt Kevin Peterson. The artist assures us that the man on the left is not meant to be Obama, and that indeed both men are white. He made this statement at a slide show given by the artists. Not all the artists spoke, though. I am pretty sure we didn't hear from Michael Arcieri, for example.


Michael Arcieri, Nation Builder, acrylic and oil on canvas, 2009

The idea here is kind of cheesy, juxtapozing a baroque style painting with grafitti. I think he may be suggesting that the two modes of expression are both highly coded in ways that their intended audiences would understand easily, even if they are opaque to 21st century gallery goers. I just like the contrast between the flatness of the grafitti and the depth and roundness of the baroque figures.


Michael Arcieri, Slave, acrylic and oil on canvas, 2009

Grafitti played a part in several pieces. Street art has come a long way since I was doing pieces in the early 80s. I like the way David Cobb painted an illusionistic depiction of basically flat grafitti here, and I like the feel of the railyard.


David S. Cobb, Blue Camel, acrylic on board, 2009


Mindy Kober showed slides of her work over time (as many of the artists did). Her work began being done mostly with gouache but she recently changed to using crayon.


Mindy Kober, Contemplating the Universe, crayon and gouache on paper, 2009

The reason she gave was simple--crayons were cheaper than gouche. The recession has hit everyone hard, hey.

Jed Foronda was one of the slide show artists. He showed a lot of older work that seemed fairly loud and colorful, a little like Ben Jones, but now, as he put it, "painting wasn't working" for him anymore. What he was doing now was excavating magazines with a sharp knife, creating these debossed objects that, in contrast to the earlier work in his slides, seem quite elegant.


Jed Foronda, Glory Hole No. 8, primer, wood, excavated Artforum, 2009

I like how they look like colorful, terraced open-pit mines.


Jed Foronda, The Wheels Keep On Spinning, primer, wood, excavated Artforum, 2009


Jed Foronda, The Wheels Keep On Spinning, primer, wood, excavated Artforum, 2009 (seen from an angle)

Foronda said the best magazines to use for this kind of piece were art magazines and porno magazines--because they both have really good colors.


John Runnels, From the Series: Whisky Tango Foxtrot - For Ultimate Carnal Knowledge, encyclopedia and bookends, 2009

There are a couple of punks in the show. This by John Runnels piece amused me. It was also one of the few sculptural pieces in the show.

Jasmyne Graybill managed to get three sculptures in the show. Well-deserved--these pieces are astonishing (and really disgusting in a totally surprising way).


Jasmyne Graybill, Specklebelly, steamer basket and polymer clay, 2008

Yech, right?


Jasmyne Graybill, Citruspur, lime squeeze, polymer clay and plastic, 2008

This is art you can almost smell--musty, gag-inducing. The craftsmanship is astonishing.


Jasmyne Graybill, Crested Buttercream Polyps, muffin pan and polymer clay, 2008

I love them. Perfect art for the kitchen!

Over all, the artists seemed too smart. Lots of references to other art and to art history were worn too close to the surface. When the artists spoke, they often spoke of "exploring issues around" this or that. I kept waiting for someone to say, "I paint X because I like X." For all the skill shown here, I didn't feel much. Even the political pieces seemed old hat. I saw reflections of art from New York and elsewhere, filtered through BFA and MFA programs. This may be unfair because I know not all the artists come out of that world of university art education. And I liked a lot of the work! I just wasn't blown away by much, and maybe part of the reason for that was hearing the artists speak about their work. Maybe that was a mistake.

The earnest, intelligent artist statements perhaps gave me extra appreciation for Jim Nolan's slide presentation. He described his work as post-minimalist, and name-checked one of my least favorite artists of the 80s, Joel Shapiro, but in contrast to so many of the artist here, he felt free to declare, "I try to stay away from craftsmanship as much as possible." After all, he added, "if you spend a lot of time on something, does it get better?"