Art review: Mark Grotjahn at Blum & Poe

Watching "Avatar," it's hard not to be struck by the utter strangeness of a fantastically complex high-tech movie that worships fervently at nature's mysterious altar. Digital primitivism is a peculiar faith, especially with 3-D glasses.

Thirteen mostly recent, mostly large paintings by Mark Grotjahn at Blum & Poe knock that sort of faith upside the head. Emphatically handmade, with layer upon layer of pigment built up with brushes and palette knives on cardboard sheets affixed to canvas, they wear their secrets on their sleeve. Like all first-rate art, they're more mysterious for it.

The result is sumptuous and mesmerizing – one of the most beautiful painting shows in recent memory. As with some earlier works, Grotjahn's obvious source for this body of work is Picasso's 1907 Cubist masterpiece, "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon." Specifically he focuses on the ferocious women's lozenge-shaped eyes, linear scarification and mask-like bearing.

His paintings, some as large as 8 feet by 6 feet, look spontaneous but aren't. Color and gesture are orchestrated as symbols to be read as simply and directly as the letters in his name, which are also deployed as shapes painted as parts of the compositions. Sometimes those letters are even cut out of the cardboard and reversed, as if the artist's identity were empty space.

Picasso's penetrating, even accusatory eyes turned up in later art, including Paul Klee's whimsical 1928 "Cat and Bird," where a feathered creature flits like a delicate thought through a feline mind; Lee Mullican's knife-edge "sunspots" of the 1950s and after; and Jay DeFeo's big, 1970s graphite rendering, "Eyes," which suggests the spellbinding experience of a waking dream.

He is nothing if not ambitious in invoking an artistic pantheon. His predecessors often invoked tribalism as something powerful but remote from industrial civilization, which needed to be recovered. Unlike them, however, Grotjahn makes paintings that refer to Modern art as if it were itself a totem.

Forget nature, these paintings say. A conscious experience of culture of any kind is what identifies our clan, and art is a material sign of spiritual kinship.

Grotjahn is mostly known for hard-edge color abstractions that juxtapose two slightly off-kilter vanishing points. Their vibrant, tactile surfaces deny the illusion of deep space that, during the Renaissance, vanishing points were invented to create. The recent paintings, plus one each from 2007 and 2008, involve another contradiction, this one built on primitive founding myths of Modern art.

– Christopher Knight

Blum & Poe, 2727 S. La Cienega Blvd., Culver City, (310) 836-2062, through April 3. Closed Sun. and Mon. www.blumandpoe.com.

Images: Untitled (White Face 815), 2009 and Untitled (Red Yellow and Blue Face 821), 2009. Courtesy of the artist and Blum and Poe, photo credit: Douglas Parker.

Comments

[Donald Frazell]

Wow. could it be that what i have been writing is finally coming to be, at Blum and Poe of all places? Decently written article, though I see the eyes more like De Kooning's women than Picasso's, but do see some of Klee in the work. The sculpture look interesting too, may just have to go by the opening tonight. I would bring the wife by, but she is going to a womens meeting pushing ehre magazine. Red shirt, say hi.

Line, color actually good, amazing for an American, and structure, using the entire space and not all handwringing self expressive. Havent see this guys earlier work, but he jsut may have grown up, gotta check it ou. simlar to Arnaldo Roche, whose show at MoLAA a year ago was great, and has a couple of excellent works at Latin American masters gallery at Bergamot, or did. Modernism may return, it is as valid a approach as any, certainly far more relevant than self absorbed contempt art, and this most certainly is Modern.

Serious art needs to be criticized more in our papers and by critics, pushing the work of children for the benefit of teh wobbling inudstry has got to end, or at least not made the priority. There have been signs, actively seek it nout, please! it is important, art was, and must be again. It is needed, and about US, not i. this is nice, hope it holds up in person, so much doesnt, better as jpg's online than in the flesh. And nature is involved, many eyes are actually more peacock feathers, the botany of plants is present, involving the spiritual in our world, with humanity as one its aim.

Props when earned, they are here.

Still, art collegia delenda est
This can easily be learned on ones own, saving huge amounts of cash. The museums and bookstores are our textbook.

[david mcdonald]

I agree, I was knocked out by the show. They're really well painted, visually stunning, and smart. Hard to know what not to like.

[Mary Martin]

Mark Grotjahn show is ridiculous. He reworks 19th century ideas without adding anything but a shift in scale. He didn't even try to rethink Picasso or klee, it is empty and boring as far as I am concerned. If you want to see paintings that rethink modernism and Picasso then maybe you should check out John Millei's Women in a Chair paintings at Ace Gallery,or fly to New York and spend sometime with the work of George Condo. Mark Grotjahn is a fake.

[Forrest Truman]

What is with all these mid-career artist taking on Picasso? First there was the John Millei show and now Mark Grotjahn. Don't get me wrong I like both shows, I think Millei's take is fresher then Grotjahn's, and in the end they both amazing and painters, I just wonder why there are no new ideas out there.

Forrest Truman

[Cate]

Donald, you said that "pushing the work of children for the benefit of teh wobbling inudstry has got to end..."

I read that Paul Klee was very interested--even fascinated--by the art work of children. He imitated a childlike (not childish) style in some of his own work. You can see examples of these simple lines and shapes in "Cat and Bird."

There's something for everyone to like in Mark Grotjahn's art. Yes, it's unanimous! Jay DeFeo's "The Eyes" have it.

[William Wray]

There is an intense use of color, feeling and nervous energy I like here. There is a tribal icon approach like a palpable warning to invaders to watch out for the ju- ju powers of the locals. My one quibble might be I see a bit too much of repeating the same successful methodology that if the artist is not careful can go from being deep exploration of one technique to getting stuck in a formula approach. The eye shapes with the coeternal radiating energy reminds one of mental illness, the art feeling apropos as a title cards for a sixties suspense movie about an artist going insane. Refreshing.

[Kate Doran]

Mark Grotjahn is so overrated. I am shocked that Christopher Knight couldn't see through the hype, it is all bells and whistles and no content that makes Mark Grotjahn's paintings so user friendly and in the end weak. There are so many amazing painters out there, why are we focusing on work that doesn't move the dialog forward? If you want to see some serious painting then check out Jonathan Lasker at L.A. Louver, or John Millei at ACE, or Mel Bochner at Marc Selwyn, just to name a few. I get so bored with all the irony and game playing in this town, I guess it's just politics as usual in this here town.

[Donald Frazell]

Well, looks like we finaly have that much vaunted "conversation" artistes so dearly love to talk about, but never truly have. While I like this guys work, its not exactly either groundbreaking or clever, thank god. As who cares? Art is about power, about truth, about life. About what We do, not what a tiny insular artscene wants to be when they grow up. It may be a good starting point about what art is, what it has been, and where it is going.

It is definitely modern, and i am continuuously amazed how little art grads know about art, its certainly NOT cubist, and neither was Demoiselles d'Avignon CK. Its expressionist, more derived from van Goghs trails of paint straight from the tube, but mixed and applied painstakingly with a pallet knife. It is more decorative abstract expressionist, this Picasso stuff just shows the lack of knowledge of Modern art, all art actually, as creating a signatrue is the goal of the artiste, a marketable item that is inatantly recognizable, yet shallow as it is but a tiny sliver of what art is supposed to be. Originality and thinking is greatly overrated, especially when done by mediocre minds. Power and truth is arts goal.

Bells and whistles Kate? Where? its called paint, done with passionate use of color, line and structure. All completely lacking in the inspid color, weak line and conceptual meism of your examples. All games, all elitist, all seperatist, all incredibly shallow, not seeking to create the common mythology of humanity, arts true and only role in life.

I took two guys I work with to see the show at the opening of the wood hippy furniture show upstairs, there were probably three or four real scultpures, the rest about decorating a rich persons house. Kinda cool, but not art. With lots of neo-goth, anorexic, unsmiling, desperately attempting to appear intelligent, crowd upstairs. The Latino guys got it, they liked the paintings, We went through it seveal times as they often mount such things, Kimba had on a couple of works he worked on in the office, they started with how it was presented, and went form there. But they gradually started seeing and feeling more, arts job.

This show gets back to where art should be, on the path of its role in human culture. No games, no "brilliant" concepts, no self expressive baby talk. Purely visual, layered and intense of emotion. Evoking things, not presenting in a shallow and obvious way. It will feel just as alive 50 years from now, while Kate, Forrests and Marys heros collect dust in some dead Contempt Museum which no one goes to, just like the boring and forgotten predecassors of the last 50 years. They will be behind the covered Hirsts and Koons trash in some bankrupt rich guys pleasure house.

No one cares, and no one goes except art grads, trained into Pavlovian responses to cleverness and the limited strictures of a masters thesis, instead of exploring our world. Life is out there folks, not in Ivory Towers of sheltered children. It is time to put aside childish things. Life calls. Lets get to work.

art collegia delenda est

[Donald Frazell]

And Cate, Klee hated it when people said he drew childlike. He was a poet, his langauge that of evoking primal images and emotions, is poetry naive and childlike? No, like Thelonius Monk in music, they are deceptively complex and sophisticated, this guy does have some of that. Not nearly as complex, the colors swirld and create depth, but he lacks the various creatures, forms, and language that grows out of exploring life. they are excellent, but certainly not of Klee or Monks passion or power. Still legit, and so much better than most of whats out there now. Though that may be damning with faint praise.

[Forrest Truman]

Donald, If the only why to remain timeless is to just repaint the past then count me out. Mark is good I will give him that because he tricked you in to believing that he is a soulful cat, making art with love and passion. You obviously don't know the first thing about Mark's work if you think he it's honest or pure, his work is all concept and strategy just add the gallery he shows in and do the math. Context is everything. Donald Mark Grotjhan is just high priced easy on the eyes remakes of the greatest hits of modernism, he even borrowed Klee's oil on cardboard mounted on canvas move. This guy will not stand the test of time. He will end up in the same hole you dug for the other millionaire con-artists you mentioned.

Forrest

[William Wray]

I have to wonder if the distain for Mark Grotjahn stems from his virility in skill sets and styles. He makes it all look so effortless…
Are people uncomfortable that his work might reflect a hint at the underling weaknesses in a broad range of contemporized art? I haven’t seen anything wildly original in art in years. Nor in Music, politics, movies whatever. We can only slice the influences finer now. I’ll bet 5 bucks any living artist touted as original can be shown to have been deeply influenced by other artists to a point where is arguable that nobody is original.
I like some of the examples of artists cited as “better” or more worthy, but don’t see them as terribly original or better. We are all made up of our influences. Why are Grotjahn’s feet being held in the fire?

[Donald Frazell]

While I am not very enthusiastic about his past works, or as William stated his possibly getting in a rut, as the range is limited here, I am not dealing with those issues. I am talking about what is at the gallery. I already said it felt like decorative expressionism. But it is still expressive of the world beyond the artist himself, and that is refreshing.

These other examples are extremely myopic, and of a particular time and place, where they and their small group hangs out. With nothing to do with anything else in the world, now, or of the past. They are built on sand, at least he has bedrock to construct upon. Its called culture, we can but add a link to the chain that exists, as it grows and evolves, to ignore it is to be nothhing, for nothing comes from nothing, only god can do that trick.

He may well be a footnote in the future, but is young enough to maye not be. I dont know, and doesnt matter right now. This is something worth looking at, and that my friend, is so very rare in the fine art world now. As william said, all art is derivative, or as picasso said, Artists steal, and use for their own purposes, Bad artists copy, in other words, plagiarize for effect. A thing doesnt matter, who cares if its a still ife, nude or landscape? its the triggering effect in the viewer of more, of that artist understanding the subject so well he can get past the parochial, and into the catholic. Er, universal. Not a popular word right now.

It is solid, quality art, something one can look at and feel it is fresh, that has a presence in a room, a life force of it own. That is the artists goal, to reflect life and feel true, not demonstrate how clever one is. That just, er retarded. And the biggest lie, and trick of all.

His gallery backing is rather suspect, but then, who cares? Why judge a book by its cover? As long as he can fill the pages with life, thats all that matters. We all have a job to do, that is the artists. To allow the viewer to life life intensely, and truthfully. Even if a blowhard. Who ever said artists were nice guys?

art collegia delenda est