"Bad" Painting is the name given by critic and curator
Marcia Tucker to a trend in American
figurative painting
Figurative art, sometimes written as figurativism, describes artwork (particularly paintings and sculptures) that is clearly derived from real object sources and so is, by definition, representational. The term is often in contrast to abstract ...
in the 1970s. Tucker curated an exhibition of the same name at the
New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, featuring the work of fourteen artists mostly unknown in New York at the time. The exhibition ran from January 14 to February 28, 1978.
Tucker defined "Bad" Painting as a focused or deliberate disrespect for recent styles of painting, not the more common sense of technical incompetence, poor artistic judgement, or amateur or outsider dabbling. The press release for the exhibition summarized "Bad" Painting as "an ironic title for 'good painting', which is characterized by deformation of the figure, a mixture of art-historical and non-art resources, and fantastic and irreverent content. In its disregard for accurate representation and its rejection of conventional attitudes about art, 'bad' painting is at once funny and moving, and often scandalous in its scorn for the standards of good taste." "Bad," as Tucker's use of
scare quotes
Scare quotes (also called shudder quotes,Pinker, Steven. ''The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century''. Penguin (2014) sneer quotes, and quibble marks) are quotation marks that writers place around a word ...
suggests, is thus a term of approval for eccentric and amusing deviations from accepted styles at the time.
Artists
Artists included in the exhibition were James Albertson (1944–2015),
Joan Brown
Joan Brown (born Joan Vivien Beatty; February 13, 1938 – October 26, 1990) was an American figurative painter who lived and worked in Northern California. She was a member of the "second generation" of the Bay Area Figurative Movement.Glu ...
(1938–1990), Eduardo Carrillo (1937–1997), James Chatelain (b. 1947), Cply (alias
William Copley) (1919–1996),
Charles Garabedian (1923–2016),
Cham Hendon (1936–2014), Joseph Hilton (b. 1946),
Neil Jenney (b. 1945),
Judith Linhares (b. 1940), P. Walter Siler (b. 1939), Earl Staley (b. 1938), Shari Urquhart (b. 1938), and
William Wegman (b. 1943).
Style
On paper, Tucker's criterion for "Bad" Painting is rather generous, allowing merely that "the artists whose work will be shown have discarded classical drawing modes in order to present a humorous, often sardonic, intensely personal view of the world". But this alone would simply permit work with
Expressionist
Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...
or
Surrealist
Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to ...
tendencies, not to say
caricature, styles already well established within a canon of good taste. In practice though, Tucker's criterion is much stricter, and excludes for example, the established Expressionism of a
Leon Golub (1922–2004) or
Jack Levine
Jack Levine (January 3, 1915November 8, 2010) was an American Social Realist painter and printmaker best known for his satires on modern life, political corruption, and biblical narratives. Levine is considered one of the key artists of the Bos ...
(1915–2010), the caricature of a
Peter Saul
Peter Saul (born August 16, 1934) is an American painter. His work has connections with Pop Art, Surrealism, and Expressionism. His early use of pop culture cartoon references in the late 1950s and very early 1960s situates him as one of the fa ...
(b. 1934) or
Philip Guston
Philip Guston (born Phillip Goldstein, June 27, 1913 – June 7, 1980), was a Canadian American painter, printmaker, muralist and draftsman. Early in his five decade career, muralist David Siquieros described him as one of "the most promising ...
(1913–1980), the fantasy of later
Honoré Sharrer (1920–2009). Some further condition was obviously at work in her criterion.
In the catalogue essay, a context of the preceding fifteen years is sketched, in which
Minimalism and
Photo-realism represent a prevalent "classicizing" style for American painting and against which "Bad" Painting presents a challenge (although not a movement). At best, this explains the selection as a retreat from photographic or "classicizing" standards for figuration to an older style. Tucker identifies a shared theme of iconoclasm, and a preference for parody and antagonism for her selection, but again, these are qualities common to Expressionism and Surrealism, and even some Photo-realism. A further feature noted is the use of "non-high-art sources", the most prevalent being comics. Yet curiously, Tucker makes no mention of
Pop Art, as inspiration or opposition. High and non-high (or low) art cannot be a matter of imagery or iconography, since high-art features as much irreverence and caricature as it does realism and veneration (for example, the work of Goya or Daumier, Lautrec or Arcimboldo). Nor can the difference rest purely upon technique, since paintings may be high or low-art. Yet, comics as a source, along with other commercial illustration cited, surely separates "Bad" Painting from earlier Expressionism and Surrealism, surely picks out a crucial trait across this otherwise disparate group. Tucker's essay cannot quite put her finger on it, but one might tease this out by considering preceding developments in figurative painting in the 1960s and 70s, a little closer.
While art historical allusion, humour and fantasy are undoubtedly features of her selection, more precisely, they arise in deliberately citing popular print or publication sources, albeit with increasing distance or restraint. The strand to figurative painting discerned by Tucker surely derives from the styles of
Pop Art,
Pattern and Decoration
Pattern and Decoration was a United States art movement from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s. The movement has sometimes been referred to as "P&D"
or as The New Decorativeness. The movement was championed by the gallery owner Holly Solomon. The ...
,
The Hairy Who The Chicago Imagists are a group of representational artists associated with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago who exhibited at the Hyde Park Art Center in the late 1960s.
Their work was known for grotesquerie, Surrealism and complete i ...
, and affiliated Chicago groups, and Californian
Funk Art
Funk art is an American art movement that was a reaction against the nonobjectivity of abstract expressionism. An anti-establishment movement, Funk art brought figuration back as subject matter in painting again rather than limiting itself to th ...
. One way of understanding "Bad" Painting is to notice how these preceding styles progressively depart from common or mass print imagery, while spelling out crucial differences between painting and prints – defining painting. In this way, they disclose telling differences in meaning between the two, even when imagery remains much the same. Tucker rightly senses this project travels in tandem with Minimalism, but without quite grasping the consequences. "Bad" Painting signals a further and final dissolution to this project, an end rather than a beginning.
To briefly summarise the development - the use of cartoons and banal illustrations in the work of Pop Art pioneers, such as
Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the Art movement, visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore th ...
(1928–1987) and
Roy Lichtenstein (1923–1997), soon prompted painting from other kinds of cartoon and illustration and other qualities of painting with which to highlight such sources. The Hairy Who, for example, broadens the project, arriving at more
stylised or abstracted cartoon captions and characters, although their inspiration is as much
naïve and
outsider art
Outsider art is art made by self-taught or supposedly naïve artists with typically little or no contact with the conventions of the art worlds. In many cases, their work is discovered only after their deaths. Often, outsider art illustrate ...
as the graphics of Pop Art. However, their wider acceptance with shows between 1966 and -68 surely reflects a momentum created by the success of Pop Art. Funk Art in San Francisco, as in the work of
William T. Wiley
William Thomas Wiley (October 21, 1937April 25, 2021) was an American artist. His work spanned a broad range of media including drawing, painting, sculpture, film, performance, and pinball. At least some of Wiley's work has been referred to as ...
(1937–2021), similarly continued to mine a strong illustrational style devoted to fine, continuous outline and mainly flat colours, even as it adopted less familiar content. In both cases, the work maintains a cool detachment in manner, as painting, even as its content is much less obviously popular or commonplace. Pop Art is also quick to use art historical references, such as Warhol's ''Mona Lisa'' or Lichtenstein's Mondrian and
Cézanne illustrations, as a way of driving home the point about painting and print's differences. Subsequent allusion in following styles to famous paintings, inherits some of this irony, although the project steadily dilutes, turns "bad".
Pattern and Decoration (P&D) actually derives from Minimalist abstraction, but through progressive expansion to compositional formats of basic
symmetries
Symmetry (from grc, συμμετρία "agreement in dimensions, due proportion, arrangement") in everyday language refers to a sense of harmonious and beautiful proportion and balance. In mathematics, "symmetry" has a more precise definiti ...
and stripes, soon allows overlapping planes – a minimal depth – then shadows or volume, then more concrete objects in symmetrical patterns, and with these a measure of figuration. Patterns of repeating pictures, or serial motifs, are eventually a prominent feature of the style. Sources become textiles and other printed matter, such as wallpaper or wrapping paper. With these, P&D converges with Pop Art and following styles, dissipates as a project, or turns "bad" in the hands of fringe practitioners. P&D sources often carry an additional vulgar or
kitsch
Kitsch ( ; loanword from German) is a term applied to art and design that is perceived as naïve imitation, overly-eccentric, gratuitous, or of banal taste.
The avant-garde opposed kitsch as melodramatic and superficial affiliation wi ...
quality with their earnest, sentimental motifs, once these are removed from a print context and scrutinised as painting. Kitsch, in these cases, becomes something like a badge for the extended exploitation of prints and pattern by painting, a sign of the project's exhaustion.
With these precedents in mind, Tucker's examples of "Bad" Painting may be divided into roughly four groups. To be clear, Tucker does make this division in either her essay or exhibition. What is offered here is simply a demonstration of the consistency of her selection, even as her description proves misleading or inadequate. The first group (in no particular order) brackets works that highlight
illustrational styles derived from print sources, although more remotely than Pop Art. The works by Albertson, Carrillo, Hilton and Staley favour this. Note: reproductions of examples cited here, can be found on the New Museum of Contemporary Art's website, listed in the external references below. Albertson's mock symbolic or allegorical scenes, such as ''Memento Mori'' (1975) ''Sex, Violence, Religion + The Good Life'' (1976) and ''The Triumph of Chastity'' (1976) all supply humorous content in contrast with earnest titles, in a broad-brushed style, akin to movie posters or magazine illustration of an earlier era. Carrillo's large-scale ''Los Tropicanas'' (1974) presents a futuristic scene peopled with glowing skeletons, female nudes and a strangely mechanical bird. By
iconography rather than technique, the work alludes to
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...
as much as Surrealism and to a
genre
Genre () is any form or type of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially-agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other for ...
native to print. It is the clash or confusion to style here that signals a poverty or "badness" to standards. Also of note, the
drawing to figures in both Albertson and Carrillo does largely maintain classical proportions and foreshortening, contrary to Tucker's sweeping claims. Hilton's architectural scenes, from Roman and Medieval painting, feature precision and
projections akin to the work of
Roger Brown (1941–1997), a key
Chicago Imagist, and add equally stylised figures, much as architectural illustration uses. All four artists extend the derivation from print styles to less obvious means, less compelling features. The work is "bad" in comparison with Pop Art, for pursuing techniques and imagery to trivial or nugatory ends for painting, for blurring or obscuring reference in prints. This is something Tucker's catalogue essay actually celebrates, a point to be returned to presently.
The second group brackets the work by Cply and Siler, whom retain the strong outlines of comic-strip or animated cartoon figures, stylised drawing and mostly flat colours. Although, Cply's figures are notably looser in drawing than most comic- strips, while the attention to pattern and a decorative flattening in projection also aligns the work with P&D. In some examples, ribald subject matter pose something of an extension to the genres, presents a more eccentric extension. Siler's equally casual arrangements, such as ''Spookie Stove'' (1976) share affinities with Chicago artists such as
Karl Wirsum
Karl Wirsum (1939May 6, 2021) was an American artist. He was a member of the Chicago artistic group The Hairy Who, and helped set the foundation for Chicago's art scene in the 1970s. Although he was primarily a painter, he also worked with prin ...
(1939–2021) and
Gladys Nilsson
Gladys M. Nilsson (born May 6, 1940) is an American artist, and one of the original Hairy Who Chicago Imagists, a group of representational artists active during the 1960s and 1970s. She is married to fellow-artist and Hairy Who member Jim N ...
(born 1940), as well as Funk artists, such as the watercolours of Wiley from the late 1960s. The combination itself is a symptom of a growing diffusion, a weakening distinction for both styles. The work is "bad" for its minor variation, its feeble allusion.
The third group brackets works by Brown, Garabedian, Hendon, Linhares, Urquhart and Wegman, where a derivation from P&D is foremost. Here, more decorative, frontal motifs often emphasise fabric supports, in works such as Urquhart's ''Interior with Sugar Talk'' (1977) and Hendon's tapestry-like ''Mallard with Friend'' (1977). Repeating motifs are incorporated as a bold wall paper in ''Interior with Sugar Talk'', but the focus for this group is mainly upon the picture as a single, central motif, often with a border or frame, as in Linhares' ''Turkey'' (1977), Garabedian's ''Adam and Eve'' (1977). Works are generally executed in broad, open or loose brushstrokes, bright colours, a staple of textile design. Brown's work from this time often features patterned borders along the bottom of the picture; however, examples selected for "Bad" Painting concentrate instead on the centralised motif, flat colours and an
oblique projection
Oblique projection is a simple type of technical drawing of graphical projection used for producing two-dimensional (2D) images of three-dimensional (3D) objects.
The objects are not in perspective and so do not correspond to any view of an ...
to the surrounding space. In ''Woman Wearing a Mask'' (1972) – one of the standouts to the show – it is presumably the attention given to modish black lace lingerie and high heels, content that recalls advertising, included within a more relaxed composition, that appealed to Tucker. The witty,
trompe-l'œil
''Trompe-l'œil'' ( , ; ) is an artistic term for the highly realistic optical illusion of three-dimensional space and objects on a two-dimensional surface. ''Trompe l'oeil'', which is most often associated with painting, tricks the viewer into ...
cat mask (a flattened picture within a flattened picture) worn by the woman, is also executed in the casual brushstrokes favoured by textile design. The picture thus shares an insouciant confluence of styles, an amusing "badness". Again though, it is worth noting that Brown's drawing of the figure in this example is traditional in proportion and modelling, contrary to Tucker's prescription.
The fourth group brackets the work of Jenney and Chatelain, where vigorously brushed grounds to central, simple motifs are prominent. The derivation is not so much to Pop Art and print sources, but to
Jasper Johns
Jasper Johns (born May 15, 1930) is an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker whose work is associated with abstract expressionism, Neo-Dada, and pop art. He is well known for his depictions of the American flag and other US-related top ...
' (b. 1930) use of stencils and templates, filled with short, broad, impasto strokes. Stencils, like prints, afford multiple instances and establish strict conventions in wide use, acquire a certain authority for it. They are essentially designs, whether of the American flag or a target. John's compliance with them remains rugged but respectful, or highly ambivalent. His work from the 1950s is usually seen as an important precursor, if not initiator, of Pop Art. Jenney's work from the late 1960s, such as ''Girl and Vase'' (1969), exchanges stencils for simple outlines, usually of a familiar or topical object. Yet the structure retains some of Johns' ambivalence. The precise outline constrains boldly brushed filling in narrow areas or shapes, while in broader, less defined areas, allows the brushwork greater prominence, so that it undermines content there, creates a decorative or detached ground. Significantly, Jenney described this development as "bad drawing". But Jenney's selection for "Bad" Painting is curious, in that the work was nine years old at the time of the exhibition, and widely recognised. However, Tucker's selection concentrates on examples where the object or drawing style loses some of its familiarity and gives the rugged treatment a more mannered, arbitrary quality. A Chatelain example such as ''Untitled'' (1977) extends this development, so that figures have become more cursory, perhaps Expressionist. Any rationale for the stooping figure on the left of the picture, for example, is now lost and the surrounding ground, granted even greater latitude to impasto brushstroke and colour. Once more, the work exhausts a seam of rigid iconography and painterly treatment, arrives at a ‘bad’ icon, or an icon treated "badly".
All four groups thus trace a steady diffusion to print sources and the means with which painting distinguishes itself from them. The stylistic lineage offered here demonstrates a greater coherence and articulation than Tucker's catalogue essay, and indicates several inaccuracies to her description but essentially confirms her choices. "Bad" Painting remains a useful style with which to survey American figurative painting toward the end of the 1970s. Tucker's sense of an emerging post modern era was in part true, in as much as she detected a pervasive dissolution, but "Bad" Painting did not announce the end of progress, or further development in painting, as she supposed (see quote below). The style itself was too diffuse, too peripheral, geographically and stylistically, to exert a decisive influence.
Influence
It is clear from her catalogue essay, that Tucker saw "Bad" Painting as a dilemma for notions of progress and assessment. "The freedom with which these artists mix classical and popular art-historical sources, kitsch and traditional images, archetypal and personal fantasies, constitutes a rejection of the concept of progress per se... It would seem that, without a specific idea of progress toward a goal, the traditional means of valuing and validating works of art are useless. Bypassing the idea of progress implies an extraordinary freedom to do and to be whatever you want. In part, this is one of the most appealing aspects of "bad" painting - that the ideas of good and bad are flexible and subject to both the immediate and the larger context in which the work is seen."
Unfortunately, Tucker does not supply this larger context, in which one might see a "progression" of figurative painting styles up to 1978. Nor does she acknowledge that "the extraordinary freedom" accorded the artist under such an arrangement is also useless, if standards for individuality multiply with number of individuals. Flexibility and subjectivity on these terms becomes excessive. Indeed, the development Tucker sketches might also be described as a drastic dissolution for the critic, whereby each work must be accorded its own style, each style applied only to one work. Comparison or assessment thus becomes futile. Badness, on these terms, has little to recommend it.
Bad Painting is sometimes seen a precursor to the wider movement of
Neo-Expressionism
Neo-expressionism is a style of late modernist or early-postmodern painting and sculpture that emerged in the late 1970s. Neo-expressionists were sometimes called ''Transavantgarde'', '' Junge Wilde'' or ''Neue Wilden'' ('The new wild ones'; 'Ne ...
that follows in the early 80s, a style with branches in Germany, Italy and France, amongst other nations. But there are important differences. Tucker's selection does not concentrate upon large-scale works, featuring broad, urgent facture, applied to
allegorical
As a literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a hidden meaning with moral or political significance. Authors have used allegory t ...
or metaphorical themes, frequently political or historical. Her selection is more wide-ranging. Bad Painting shares none of the shrillness, the social provocation often found in Neo-Expressionism. "Bad" Painting is typically more restrained, in scale and scope, more light-handed in touch, light-hearted in sentiment. Similarly, "Bad" Painting is often associated with New Image Painting, another trend in figurative painting defined by an exhibition later in 1978, curated by Richard Marshall. But there, the trend is focused upon New York-based artists and a derivation closer to that outlined for Jenney, who was also included.
Where "Bad" Painting does find later resonance is with the publication of
Thrift Store Paintings by the painter
Jim Shaw in 1990. As the title suggests, Shaw's collection is drawn from humble, second-hand sources, rather than an explicit criterion of badness. But the collection is not concerned with surprising bargains for the conventional art collector. On the contrary, it is a catalogue of discarded or rejected tastes. It amounts to "bad" painting, in the more general sense, of poor judgement, technical incompetence or outsider indulgence. Its appearance and impact in 1990 demonstrates a further plurality to figurative styles of painting, an extension to Bad Painting, although not an exhaustive one. Because of the priority given to place of purchase in Thrift Store Painting, works are mainly easel-scale and devoted to traditional themes, factual and fictional. There is no place for "bad" Minimalism on a site-specific scale or geometric abstraction, for instance, no works abandoned by recent ambitious art students or failed post modernists. Thrift Store Paintings is devoted to the peripheral, the clumsy and comic, as was Tucker's Bad Painting. The difference is that Shaw allows a wider array of figurative styles, from the Naïve to Surreal or Expressionist, the Photo-realistic to Pop or decorative. But again, importantly, works are never wholly of one style; instead, hover uncomfortably or "badly" between conflicting categories, summoning too many standards, too weakly. Thrift Store Paintings is rarely linked to Bad Painting in published criticism, however.
Shaw's publication was received favourably and led to later exhibitions. Critics still occasionally revile them, but this is perhaps to miss their sophisticated appeal, their potent suggestion. Their acceptance also coincides, and possibly prompts work by
John Currin
John Currin (born 1962) is an American painter based in New York City. He is best known for satirical figurative paintings which deal with provocative sexual and social themes in a technically skillful manner. His work shows a wide range of in ...
(b. 1962),
Lisa Yuskavage (b. 1962) and
George Condo
George Condo (born 1957) is an American visual artist who works in painting, drawing, sculpture and printmaking. He lives and works in New York City.
Early life
Condo was born in Concord, New Hampshire. He studied art history and music ...
(b. 1957), for example, where the focus is upon portraiture and stereotypes, much like Thrift Store Paintings, but provides a more directed mix of technical
virtuosity
''Virtuosity'' is a 1995 American science fiction action film directed by Brett Leonard and starring Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe. Howard W. Koch Jr. served as an executive producer for the film. The film was released in the United Stat ...
with vulgarity, caricature with
idealism
In philosophy, the term idealism identifies and describes metaphysical perspectives which assert that reality is indistinguishable and inseparable from perception and understanding; that reality is a mental construct closely connected t ...
, stylisation with
realism
Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to:
In the arts
*Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts
Arts movements related to realism include:
*Classical Realism
*Literary realism, a move ...
. Such work is sometimes associated
[Badura-Triska, Eva, et al., ''Bad Painting – good art'' , exhibition catalogue, Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna, 2008,] with "bad" painting, for degrading or conflating traditional iconography, but the difference lies in a narrowed scope for these later artists. Fewer "bad" elements are managed within a more obvious structure, are "bad" perhaps in anatomy or drawing, but "good" in volume or tone, colour or composition. Such work remains popular but generally earns no more precise grouping than
Post Modern
Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of moderni ...
. By contrast, "bad painting" has been invoked by the artist
Albert Oehlen (b. 1954) for dual exhibitions, contrasting bodies of work dedicated to "bad painting" and "good painting". But Oehlen's concern is really with accommodating figuration and
abstraction within the same work, with demonstrating degrees or a spectrum between them. Good and bad here fall between a purity of means – formal or intrinsic properties to painting – and impurity of ends – extrinsic content to a picture. This is a far broader criterion for figurative painting than Tucker's Bad Painting or related subsequent developments and gains little by an association.
Finally, the influence of "Bad" Painting was not immediate or sustained, on American painting or internationally. Albertson, Carrillo, Chatelain, Hilton, Siler and Staley achieved no wider recognition. However, the style anticipated a growing interest in other kinds of pictures for painting, not exclusively predicated upon print models, not exclusively private or remote.
References
{{Reflist
Further reading
* Albertson, James, et al., ''"Bad" Painting'', catalogue, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New YOrk, 1978.
* Battcock, Gregory, ''Super Realism: A Critical Anthology'', Dutton, New York, 1975.
* Faust, Wolfgang Max & de Vries, Gerd, ''Hunger Nach Bildern: deutsche malerei der gegenwart'', Dumont Buchverlag, Cologne, 1982.
* Fineberg, Jonathan, ''Art Since 1940: Strategies of Being'', Laurence King, London and NY. 2000.
* Hopkins, David, ''After Modern Art 1945–2000'', Oxford University Press, London, 2000.
External links
Press release and catalogue excerpts for the 1978 New Museum exhibition
American art movements