130 replies to this topic

[Godot]

I've been looking for a thread on artists and can't find one. Apart from discussing soon to be dead artists such as Lucian Freud, I'd like to kick this off with a debate on the dear departed Beryl Cook.

Who is the better artist, Beryl Cook or Tracey Emin? And is Rolf Harris better than both of them?



One of Beryl's buxom ladies.

[honez]

 Godot, on May 29 2008, 09:42 AM, said:

I've been looking for a thread on artists and can't find one. Apart from discussing soon to be dead artists such as Lucian Freud, I'd like to kick this off with a debate on the dear departed Beryl Cook.

Who is the better artist, Beryl Cook or Tracey Emin? And is Rolf Harris better than both of them?

[pic omitted]

One of Beryl's buxom ladies.

What's the title of that one Godot? The moneybox?

[Banshees Scream]

You never really know with this man. Godot might tell his wife that he is going fishing but ... it won't be fishing at the docks. Sometimes I visualize him as a little British Clooney. Even as I don't generally get along with Godot, I've always considered him to have 'class' ... class as in 'that person moves a certain way' ... and only people with class move that way.

It has also occurred to me that the chick one post above me is probably athletic and not very cheap. I guess for some people she might be worth every cent. At the end of this post I still have no idea why that image appears before me 'as in what does it have to do with this thread? But I'm not really complaining. I see the genius within that image in a very inappropriate way.

[Godot]

 honez, on May 29 2008, 01:55 AM, said:

 Godot, on May 29 2008, 09:42 AM, said:

I've been looking for a thread on artists and can't find one. Apart from discussing soon to be dead artists such as Lucian Freud, I'd like to kick this off with a debate on the dear departed Beryl Cook.

Who is the better artist, Beryl Cook or Tracey Emin? And is Rolf Harris better than both of them?

[pic omitted]

One of Beryl's buxom ladies.

What's the title of that one Godot? The moneybox?

I think it's called: "Open for Small deposits." I can see this is going to be a minority thread.

[Twelvetrees]

 Godot, on May 29 2008, 09:43 AM, said:

 honez, on May 29 2008, 01:55 AM, said:

 Godot, on May 29 2008, 09:42 AM, said:

I've been looking for a thread on artists and can't find one. Apart from discussing soon to be dead artists such as Lucian Freud, I'd like to kick this off with a debate on the dear departed Beryl Cook.

Who is the better artist, Beryl Cook or Tracey Emin? And is Rolf Harris better than both of them?

[pic omitted]

One of Beryl's buxom ladies.

What's the title of that one Godot? The moneybox?

I think it's called: "Open for Small deposits." I can see this is going to be a minority thread.

I thought the title was "put your money where your mouth is".

[TAFKAG]

 Godot, on May 29 2008, 09:43 AM, said:

I can see this is going to be a minority thread.

Godot, I'll help nurture your plucky little thread with news of the death of kids' TV producer/director/author/model-maker David Mitton, who worked on Thunderbirds and Thomas the Tank Engine.

No news on the health of Messrs Garfunkel or Scargill at present.

[Godot]

 TAFKAG, on May 29 2008, 11:52 AM, said:

 Godot, on May 29 2008, 09:43 AM, said:

I can see this is going to be a minority thread.

Godot, I'll help nurture your plucky little thread with news of the death of kids' TV producer/director/author/model-maker David Mitton, who worked on Thunderbirds and Thomas the Tank Engine.

No news on the health of Messrs Garfunkel or Scargill at present.

Thanks TAFKAG. In time we might get on to a few heavyweights too, like Hockney and Freud.
There seems a gap between the "up and comings" such as Hirst and Koons and the old established artists. I would struggle to do a top 10 of aging contemporary artists. But it could include a couple of photorealists, Richard Estes (born 1932) and Ralph Goings (born 1928) who I would expect to get obits.

I can't understand why there is so much interest in motor racing and football on here but not much about art.

I would have expected strong views on Emin v Cook (I think Cook is the better artist, incidentally); alas not. Hockney, for me, is in a league of his own, the Alan Bennett of art (and born not far away from Bennett).

[Anubis the Jackal]

Anything that raises the tone of Deathlist is fine by me. At least it isn't bizarre ramblings courtesy of scottish and newcastle.

Re. Emin vs. Cook. To me it's a case of "If I was in a pool full of sh*t and someone threw a bucket of sick at me, would I duck?" Emin is an out-and-out charlatan and Cook was a minor caricaturist, although undeniably popular for those wanting a birthday gift for their mothers.

With you on Hockney, the man is a national treasure.

[TAFKAG]

A few ageing artists I've at least heard of to add to the pot:

Sculptor Louise Bourgeois, 96.
Jasper Johns, 78.
Cy Twombly, 80. (Twimbledon Common resident, would get an obit on sillynames.com)
Er... Yoko, 75.
And pop artist Richard Hamilton, 86, who created this rather well-known piece...

[Anubis the Jackal]

A couple more...
Frank Stella (72)
Carl Andre (73)

[Godot]

 Anubis the Jackal, on May 29 2008, 04:01 PM, said:

Anything that raises the tone of Deathlist is fine by me. At least it isn't bizarre ramblings courtesy of scottish and newcastle.

Re. Emin vs. Cook. To me it's a case of "If I was in a pool full of sh*t and someone threw a bucket of sick at me, would I duck?" Emin is an out-and-out charlatan and Cook was a minor caricaturist, although undeniably popular for those wanting a birthday gift for their mothers.

With you on Hockney, the man is a national treasure.

If only all philosophical questions were so thought provoking Anubis. I think I would probably duck. I agree about Emin but I think Cook will be reassessed by critics (most of whom know bugger all anyway) in time and fill the kind of slot occupied by Lowry and other naive artists. He's not everyone's cup of tea but I do rate Lowry who I would put in a much higher league than Cook.



On the other hand, what's the point of ducking? The variety might be welcome. No, I would duck.... maybe.

But is it wrong to be populist? What about Tretchikov or Jack Vettriano?

[Godot]

 Anubis the Jackal, on May 29 2008, 04:31 PM, said:

A couple more...
Frank Stella (72)
Carl Andre (73)

Good calls for top 10 aging artists. Jasper Johns (78)? (Edit. Sorry just seen TAFKAG above)

[Twelvetrees]

 Godot, on May 29 2008, 04:44 PM, said:

 Anubis the Jackal, on May 29 2008, 04:31 PM, said:

A couple more...
Frank Stella (72)
Carl Andre (73)

Good calls for top 10 aging artists. Jasper Johns (78)? (Edit. Sorry just seen TAFKAG above)

May I add
Claes Oldenburg (79)
Wayne Thiebaud (87)
Christo (73)
Bridget Riley (77)
Jose Bernal (83, has Parkinsons)
Gerhard Richter (76)
Howard Hodgkin (75)
Pierre Soulages (88)

Also, the critic Brian Sewell is 76, but looked in rude health (what other sort would you expect?) when I saw him at the opera yesterday. However, Robert Hughes, the influential author of 'The Shock of the New', though only 69, is not in such good shape.

[themaninblack]

 TAFKAG, on May 29 2008, 04:18 PM, said:

A few ageing artists I've at least heard of to add to the pot:

Sculptor Louise Bourgeois, 96.
Jasper Johns, 78.
Cy Twombly, 80. (Twimbledon Common resident, would get an obit on sillynames.com)
Er... Yoko, 75.
And pop artist Richard Hamilton, 86, who created this rather well-known piece...

Sssh! I was keeping that for meself for next years DDP...still if you have him in the list, then the idea
of him being unique would have gone for a Burton anyway!

Uniques are hard to find in the cut-throat world of deadpooling y'know...

[Lord Fellatio Nelson]

Isnt comparing Emin with Cook like comparing Boxing with Ballet? Emins a fraud.
I do like Art, then again what is Art? For example the person who designed the Lamborghini Miura was, for me, very much an artist, it was a beautiful creation.
Ely Cathederal is jaw dropping. When I walked through those doors I truly understood that there really is a God, how else could man be so inspired to create something so beautiful.
Going in the other direction, I find the works of Banksy is now folklore instead of inventive. There will come a time when, as good as it is, it will lack that edge, the very thing that made it all work to start with.
Cook probably got lucky, I mean, what was the draw? Fat ladies or the situations they were painted in? Are umpteen paintings of Fat ladies by the same person artistic, even if its what you do? Is painting the same things over and over like churning out the same washing machines, over and over.
Now im just waffling.
regards
LFN

[Lord Fellatio Nelson]

Oh, and Rolf Harris rocks.
Pure snobbery, bullsh*t and prejudice from the "Up their own ar*e Art World" stops him from being taken seriously as a bloody good Painter.
So there!

[Godot]

 Lord Fellatio Nelson, on May 30 2008, 12:03 AM, said:

Is painting the same things over and over like churning out the same washing machines, over and over.

You could ask that of Bonnard (wife in bath), Monet (lily ponds, Rouen Cathedral), Degas (ballet dancers).....or Roy Lichtenstein below.

[TAFKAG]

 Lord Fellatio Nelson, on May 30 2008, 12:08 AM, said:

Oh, and Rolf Harris rocks.
Pure snobbery, bullsh*t and prejudice from the "Up their own ar*e Art World" stops him from being taken seriously as a bloody good Painter.
So there!

Anyone that says Joss Ackland's Spunky Backpack on national television is fine by me.

[Dave to the Grave]

 Lord Fellatio Nelson, on May 30 2008, 01:08 AM, said:

Oh, and Rolf Harris rocks.
Pure snobbery, bullsh*t and prejudice from the "Up their own ar*e Art World" stops him from being taken seriously as a bloody good Painter.
So there!

Come on LFN, that's like calling Tony Adams a bloody good footballer. Right place, right time, determined, successful, but even they wouldn't claim to be particularly gifted. (I of course don't know this for a fact, and they both probably think they are incredibly gifted, and in some way share a resemblance to a donkey).

This chap is doing a bit of a Rolf.

[Madame Defarge]

 Godot, on May 29 2008, 03:40 PM, said:

What about Tretchikov or Jack Vettriano?

Jack Vettriano can keep churning these out until he's 100 years old and I'll keep on liking them.

And also, scribble on, Ralph Steadman!