I’m talking about John Currin, or Mr. Bodacious as the NYTimes calls him in the recent article.

I’ve never liked his work. It’s always seemed too illustrative and market-pandering to my eye, but the article linked above makes clear that not only are his paintings horrid and stupid but he is an ignorant, arrogant ass.

Here are some telling quotes: “I wish I could find more to love about it,” he recently observed, “but it’s hard. I have not seen the will to make a masterpiece in American art. What’s here? Albert Bierstadt? He’s small beer compared to the Europeans.” Ever heard of a little painter called JACKSON POLLACK you ignorant boob!? “I know Warhol is a great artist,” Currin said, “but I don’t like him. It’s the kind of art that advertises that he knows the doorman at the club.” I can’t even go into the awesome ignorance embodied in that one.

Blackhawk of The Thing gave a concise crit of this super-doofus on Thingist recently: …you will plainly see that the guy does not have a single original idea in his head, merely rips off everyone from Holbein to Botero to Ed Ward. Because he doesn’t disguise this, the work is supposed to be “referential”; it’s not, it’s just fraud. No hand, no eye, no mind. What are we supposed to do w/ him then? He remains an idiot’s idea of “intellectual painting”, & therefore anathema. My advice? If you want to go see some truly great American painting and have only one afternoon, head over to the Met and check out the Philip Guston retrospective instead of visiting The Whitney. permanent link to this post