David Park

Hackett-Freedman Gallery is currently exhibiting a group of important, rarely exhibited works on paper by David Park (1911–1960)

May 8–June 28, 2008. I'm so there.

Hey! Check it out: The Chron's Ken Baker finally reviews not one, not two, but THREE good painting shows!

Of course, an art critic when talking about painting usually has to bring up "the fraught condition of representation in 21st century painting", or the "the cultural circumstances that make abstract painting look absurd", ore he might just lose his rep as sort of a "champion" of new genres, risking being seen as on the cusp of all cutting edge trends period. So, although it's great to see Baker review three painting shows (and to his credit he does give painting about 1/10th of his time), it's getting tiresome to see this circular debate go on and on to no conclusive end.

In the May 2008 issue of Vogue Magazine, Michael Govan (the new director of LACMA) is quoted definitively as saying "Painting is Dead", while showing off his own collection of purely sculpture, furniture, video and installation. Govan, unfortunately is about a decade behind the most current movement in contemporary art - Painting, and unfortunately the Broad Museum of Contemporary Art will be the first to experience the hurt that's going to follow his statement. Plus how many times must a curator, writer or collector declare the death of Painting? How many times have we heard it all before?

No matter how many trends come and go in contemporary art, Painting will always be relevant, and this is proven by the ubiquity of painting as a centuries-old institution, and as a building block for most mediums and new genres, and even with the recent arrival of art stars like Cecily Brown, Dana Schutz and Kristin Baker as household names. Here's the latest Vogue feature on Kristen Baker.

Regardless of Painting NOT being dead nor showing any sign of dying ever, I've observed a trend in contemporary art, especially at the grad school level, to deliberately circumvent Painting in an attempt to appeal to curators making absurd and revolving claims about Painting. This will ultimately eat itself with an over saturation of marginal installation works that display no apparent concept, no real craftsmanship and no technological innovation.