Schorr, Close and Plein Air

Today I thought I would write about three recent art shows that we’ve seen. About a month ago we saw the Todd Schorr show at the San Jose Museum of Art. I’d seen his work for years in Juxtapoz magazine but seeing them in person was much more impressive. His technical skills are amazing and the paintings so complex that it is entertaining but difficult to catch everything that’s going on in them. And the size of some of the paintings is astounding. I can’t imagine anyone completing these works but I’m glad he can. If you get a chance to see the show elsewhere you really should. It’s a spectacle and bravura performance. The nearest I’ve done to this type of work, subject-wise, is when in high school I hand painted three or four sweatshirts with scenes of monsters driving cars because high school classmates wanted imitations of Ed “Big Daddy” Roth’s artwork. Roth is one of Schorr’s influences.

Following Schorr at the San Jose Museum of Art is a Chuck Close print show. I’ve admired his large portraits ever since I became aware of them in the 70’s and have seen shows of his paintings before. The print show includes a few of his paintings, which are the starting point of the prints, which serve to provide multiples of the same subjects. Close does not produce the prints himself but hires technicians and printmakers to do them. Some were done with traditional methods like Japanese woodcuts, linocuts and etchings, but there are also some unusual multiples such paper pulp and flock. Like his paintings, the prints are generally very large. Since I’ve lately been preparing to do some printmaking again, it was particularly enlightening for me to see the reduction linocuts. This was another excellent show.

Then we saw American Legacy: Our National Parks, a plein-air painting show, at the Haggin Museum in Stockton. First off, I have to mention that the phrase plein-air has become almost an annoying cliché for me, rating right up there with other art phrases that became annoying, like genuine oil painting or oil paint on canvas. I’m not referring to those phrases as a description of the media but as a “special” type of work. This is just what artist’s do, or some artists anyway, and I don’t think there’s anything magical about it. OK, now that I’ve got that off my chest, I’ll talk about the show. As you can tell from the title of the show the artists painted in national parks. Some of the work was excellent, most of it was very good, but there are a few weak works. Painting rocks, such as mountain peaks and the Grand Canyon is not as easy as would seem and if they’re not done convincingly just end up looking soft, like giant loaves of bread. Not all the national parks are visually spectacular and it was nice to see work from some of the smaller and subtler parks. Actually, about half the work in the show is not plein-air, but studio work based on field (plein-air) sketches. It was a good show to see.