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From: Rudi
Category: Exhibitions
Date: 01 October 2003
These are sour paintings, he seems to be down on women, and down on life. That's not to say they are not better than the other junk imitating junk shop painting: they have an intensity and variation in technique that, when combined with their graphic subject matter, makes them initially fascinating. Look at the show three times, and you've had enough of Currin, whether he's a misogynist or not, he uses his talent to make women ugly, and you have to ask why. I think the curators would like us to believe he is subverting sterotypes but the feeling is more that he is using them as weapons, angrily. (Repeating and exaggerating is generally what passes for critical comment in art). In Currin, one of the better painters alive, we see the withering sickness which causes painting's impotence. He offers no hope, just a wretched confirmation that death approaches.
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