Guffwatch - Cy Twombly edition
November 16 2014
Pictures: Christie's
One of the attractions of contemporary art, from the market's point of view, is the fact that so much of it comes in 'series'. An example is Andy Warhol's 'Elvis' paintings, one of which, a 'Triple Elvis', sold last week at Christie's in New York for a record $82m. These series translate, financially, into readily identifiable units in which the only thing that matters is the price made by the last one. So if a Warhol 'Triple Elvis' is now worth $82m, then we can adjust the value of all the other Elvis paintings accordingly. I don't know how many 'Triple Elvis' paintings there are, but there's 22 of the 'Double Elvis' versions.
A similar series, which featured in Christie's mega $850m sale in New York last week, is Cy Twombly's 'Blackboard' paintings. Again, I don't know exactly how many there are of these, but it seems there are many, for they crop up regularly at auction. But spare a thought for the poor sod who has to write the thousands of words necessary to justify the immense status of these works in an auction catalogue. Surely, there's only so many ways you can describe a doodle?
Well, it seems there is indeed only one way to describe Twombly's tedious loops, but the solution cunningly adopted by the auctioneers is one recognised by students the world over; cut and paste!
See if you can spot the difference between the two following paragraphs. The first appeared in a Christie's New York sale catalogue last week, for the above 'Blackboard' painting, which sold for $69m:
The nuance and strength of expression that Twombly manages to inflect in his line while still maintaining a continuous rhythm and flow is what makes these lasso-works truly exceptional. Twombly’s incisive and idiosyncratic line simultaneously manages to express both a continuity and a fracturing of this flow, which generates a pervasive sense of dynamic independent movement caught up in a collective progression caused by an irresistible, insistent and perpetual force. In this, the lasso-line paintings reflect something of Italian Futurists’ use of the dynamic rhythm of disjunction to suggest motion, energy and simultaneity. Predating the advent of Fascist art and the Stalinist Realism of the 1930s and 40s, the motion studies of the Futurists were largely untainted by recent political history and as such they informed much of the new art in Italy in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Of particular relevance for Twombly were works like Umberto Boccioni’s 1911 studies for States of Mind and Giacomo Balla’s many studies of air currents and the flight of birds that also followed the example set in the 15th century by Leonardo. Twombly is also known to have been looking closely at Duchamp at this time, in particular, his early Futurist works, such as Nude Descending a Staircase and Sad Young Man on a Train, although it is perhaps the French artist’s Three Standard Stoppages that is most resonant in connection with such measured and yet poetic explorations of line as those that Twombly’s Blackboard paintings present.
The below paragraph appeared in another Christie's New York catalogue, for the below Twombly 'Blackboard' painting, which made $15m in 2011:
Twombly inflects his line with expressive nuance and strength, while maintaining a continuous rhythm and flow, making these lasso-works truly exceptional. Twombly's incisive, idiosyncratic line expresses this flow as simultaneously continuing and fracturing, generating pervasive, dynamic, independent movement, caught up in a collective progression, caused by an irresistible, insistent and perpetual force. In this, the lasso-line paintings reflect the Italian Futurists' use of disjunction's dynamic rhythm to suggest motion, energy and simultaneity. The Futurists' motion studies predated the advent of the Fascist art and Stalinist Realism of the 1930s and 1940s, and so were largely untainted by recent political history. As such, they informed much of the new art in Italy in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Of particular relevance for Twombly were works like Umberto Boccioni's 1911 studies for States of Mind and Giacomo Balla's many studies of air currents and the flight of birds, which also followed the example set in the 15th Century by Leonardo. Twombly also looked closely at Duchamp at this time, in particular Duchamp's early Futuristic works such as Nude Descending a Staircase and Sad Young Man on a Train. However, it is the French artist's Three Standard Stoppages that resonates most with Twombly's "blackboard" paintings' measured and poetic explorations of line.
The fact that some of the words have been shifted about a bit, to make sure that the two paragraphs are not absolutely identical, helps explain why so much contemporary art guff makes little sense.
Update - a reader writes:
In an entry of your blog you wonder how many"tedious loops" by Cy Twombly there are and you conclude that "there must be many since they regularly crop up at auction". You stress that contemporary art seems to like series.
Asking such a question is similar to asking how many abstractions Mondrian painted, or how many water lilies Monet painted, or how many Mounts Sainte Victoire Cézanne painted...I could go on and on. It is perfectly all right to find Twombly's abstraction "tedious", yet a closer look at the surface of these paintings, at the difference in light, the intensity of the brush strokes, might give your readers a different view of those works. It is a little too easy to dismiss them the way you do with simplistic conclusions based on the reading of a Christie's catalogue (a type of literature that is universally scoffed at, even among auction house staffers and collectors...).
Another point if I may: the price of a painting has nothing to do with its aesthetic value. They sometimes coincide and sometimes not. It is not Twombly's fault if two people were rich enough to compete at such heights for one of his works. It doesn't make it better or worse.
But perhaps, in your opinion, a Mondrian grid is just a grid and they look all the same. I do hope it is not the case though...
Personally, I'd say Monet's water lilly paintings are on a slightly different level, when it comes to variability and inventiveness, than a series of identical Warhol prints, or indeed even a monochromatic Twombly blackboard painting.
Many people make the mistake of thinking I begrudge wealthy contemporary artists their financial success. But this is far from the case. As I've said before, I even admire Damien Hirst from this point of view. My criticisms are always directed at the occasionally daft marketing and presentation of such works, and the justification of their immense value.
