Julian Shnabel is the extra phony

He's now more famous for his films:



Julian Schnabel on IMDb

Critically, "Before Night Falls" and "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" are film masterpieces even if the subject matter has some real downers, they both have a strong life affirming message.

I never knew anyone in the academic arts or the art business who likes every piece of art created, nor every artist, classical or modern. The gallery I worked for had an exhibition of Julian Schnabel's work at a huge gallery in South Laguna, Ca in the mid-1990's. I liked a lot of it but don't think I'm in love with his work.

One man's meat is another man's poison.

Touche. He seems to me to be a man with a huge appetite-- for everything. He's got this kind of self-deception thing going on that keeps him larger than life. Years ago I recall Vanity Fair wrote an article about him and his then wife. I forget the wife's name but he was talking about her as the sun, the moon, the sky. Then poof, all of a sudden he's married to someone else...

We had a friend who was a fine artist. Once he came to our house, and we asked him what he thought of a particular painting that we had. He replied that he thought that it was, "charming". We knew exactly what he meant.

I think that Julian Schnabel's stuff is "charming"!

I don't believe the Guggenheim purchase art because they think it is "charming." They recently added a one of Schnabel's huge broken crockery pieces, his most original imagery. I also really like the Dennis Hopper portrait.




As for artists having multiple relationships (sometimes at the same time!), what else is new.

Phoenix, you are being kind by putting him in the charming category. His art seems too muscular for such a description. I'd say he's got an above average sensibility and excels in self promotion. i'd put the word charming in front of the person who does art as a hobby. Shnabel has made a career out of it.

I know what you mean though, about the charming comment. I've often thought people dispense of the word because they don't have the verbal skills to do better, Or, they are simply being polite.

Lightwizard, the Getty purchases charming? I am a fan of Dennis Hopper though-- is that a J. Shnabel portrait of him? Take away the Star and place the piece somewhere anonymously and I would think an extremely gifted high schoool student went all out.

I've attended all of the top art school exhibitions from high school to university and have never seen anything of the quality of Schnabel's work. Is is a product of ego? All great art is the product of ego. It's whether it's expressed out of the studio and as I've said before, it's almost always certain that an artist should be seen and not heard. Duchamp was one of the few artists who wrote books about art, but he had a special kind of artistic genius and artistic philosophy.

Contemporary artists don't wish to create a literal portrait of their subject, otherwise it would be a John Singer Sargeant. They go for bringing in inside out in an abstracted manner. Dennis is the consummate art collector and owns several Schnabels. Again, it isn't required that everyone love an artist's work -- the artist certainly knows that isn't possible. The finest artist always paint for themselves, not an audience, and is why they would hate taking a commission if there was artistic criteria place on the work.

Schnabel's ego allowed him to make a film that is a paean to Basquiat, which is difficult to find. An artist paying tribute to another is really pretty rare.

Now that you mention it-- I remember being in art school and thinking I was surrounded by a bunch of hacks (this was a top art school). There was the occasional bright spot for a student, but usually you ended up looking at their work and scratching your head or hoping you could make a quick exit.

So I'm not giving Shnabel enough credit, because this ceramic thing of Hopper is pretty great.

But...I assure you his paying homage to Basquiat is because the man dies the heros equivalent of a death in these modern times.

As for DuChamp, he was an introvert. Shnabel is not.

I agree with Robert Hughes' characterization of Schnabel as an extreme self-promoter. But I greatly admire those very large lyrical abstract works that seem to have been painted with mops. They are aesthetically moving.

That is one aspect of Schnabel that I did not like as an artist -- I can see it as a film maker.

Schnabel is, indeed, an Olympic-level self-promoter, but I'm not sure that quality should figure into a discussion of the artistic merits of his work. Admittedly, it is difficult to set aside Schnabel, the highly extroverted personality, but, when I try to do so, I find some of his work, especially the large, lyrical pieces that JLN mentions, very successful. His work is definitely beyond anything I've ever seen in a good high school or college exhibition. Would I choose a Schnabel over--to stretch the point--a Picasso? Quite probably not, BUT there are a few excellent (to my eye) Schnabels that are better than some weak (to my eye) Picassos. If I am asked to make a judgment about an artist, I always like to judge him or her by what seems the best works. By this method, I think Schnabel's art work is quite good--and I find the two films mentioned very strong. The man has substantial and flexible artistic vision.

LW: John Singer Sargent is "literal?"

Within the sub-meaning of "literal" -- of a portrait being actually such, without exaggeration or inaccuracy. It's a comparison, not a niche. Although obviously Sargeant was influenced by the European Impressionist, his portraits are meant to convey a person's face as it actually appears, even if the stylistic approach is to soften the contrasts of light and color.




Portrait of Henry James

Sargeant tended towards a much more illustrative (literal) representation of the subject, playing down the detail, sometimes capturing character and personality in extraordinary ways, but had painted so many commissioned portraits that some of the are almost entirely illustrative.

In the other direction of more fluidity and atmospheric light control, "El Jaleo" is likely his masterpiece:

I particularly like this portrait of H. James. It's full of character/attitude, like Picasso's G. Stein.

Consider the rule: reject a painting not for its defects; do so for its lack of virtues.

LW,

I know what you meant, in context, by calling Sargent "literal." It just struck me as amusing; no criticism of your insight is implied. I do think that Sargent managed to capture more of his sitters' characters than many of them were aware of. The Henry James portrait is a good example. James is posed as to suggest he is looking down on the viewer; his left hand is hooked into his clothing in an artificially casual way that may point up the writer's seemingly total lack of casualness, etc. Sargent is brilliant, I think, at small, telling gestures. One can see this talent particularly clearly in the watercolor sketchbooks he made of his companions while they were traveling in the countryside abroad. He seems, to my eye, especially adept at bringing his women friends to vivid life.

Interesting bringing up John Singer Sargent-- because I see some parallels with Shnabel. Both have a facile quality to their work. And the subject matter-- Sargent painted high society, Shnabel does movie stars, etc.

Good observation -- in fact, Sargent became disillusioned with doing his wealthy patron portraits one after the other and had made a sufficient amount of money to get into deeper subject matter. This is the ultimate failure of nearly any artist, even abstract as their subject matter is intuitive forms in pictorial space. He then began producing expertly painted watercolors of architectural subject and eventually works like the images of soldiers.




I think Schnabel will direct more films and drift away doing any art except commissioned portraits, perhaps for funds to be used as financing for future projects. "Diving Bell" was mostly French produced.

Gala,

Another parallel to extend the one you observe: at first, both Sargent and Schnabel embraced their wealthy patrons; then, they began to back away to focus on work they consider more substantial (we can only guess in the case of Schnabel, but film certainly seems to be becoming more important to him than painting or sculpture). I'm not sure that Sargent painted exclusively "high society;" one could argue that he painted anyone who had the dough. Some of his best portraits are of a furrier friend's daughters--definitely, not the from the higher rungs of the social ladder in those snobbish days.

I'd bet along with you, LW, that Schnabel will continue to do the occasional commissioned portait--if the price suits. He has expensive tastes, and, despite his serious (and, to my mind, talented) approach to film, he is still feeding the conspicuous consumption that is part of his self-promotion.

Miklos, let's put it this way, Sargent had access to high society, which means he could go just about anywhere he'd like while still taking the commissions of the lesser knowns if the price was right.

I like how Sargent has made his way into this conversation, especially considering he's probably Shnabel's predecessor in terms of directions taken. He's something like the Great-Great-Great Grandfather of Shnabel.

I could never see a parallel with someone like Thomas Eakins or other painters of that time-- Sargent has a glossy surface quality to his work that reminds me of Shnabel. Shnabel's just the updated version, for which he has a jillion other artists to thank. Yep, Shnabel is a Titan when it comes to self-promotion. One shrewd fellow.

Gala, I agree with you completely about the access Sargent developed to high society--which, in turn, allowed him considerable freedom in choosing his sitters. Well put.

Schnabel possibly has broad access to celebrities and celebrity-collectors (both of whom may pay more--or much less--depending on their usefulness to the artist, than lower-profile collectors).

Probably, some of Sargent's gloss comes from his fascination with light. Check out his depictions of Venice to see this at an extreme.

My objection to Schnabel is his commercial bent. He is so similar to that which I find objectional in Andy Warhol and his followers. His large (15 X 12 feet) abstractions are powerful. But their scale reflects to me the size of his ego. God bless him, nevertheless. He IS a great talent.