by Jerome du Bois
Leanne Potts has written a promotional advertisement for local artist Hector Ruiz, clumsily disguising it as a critical art review. She even wags her finger at him a couple of times. Since it's short, I might as well reprint it all and then semi-fisk it. Ms. Potts misses at least two crucial points, each of which undermines her argument.
Hector Ruiz is one of the most talented artists in the city. His visceral woodblock prints, woodcarvings and papier-mâche installations show what life in America in 2005 is like for anyone who isn't a white male. He also runs a gallery in an old auto repair shop on Grand Avenue, where he shows his work and that of talented and relatively unknown comers. It's Phoenix art at its edgiest and most independent.
Elsewhere in the newspaper, in a special section, we learn that Leanne Potts lived in Albuquerque for a while, where Mr. Ruiz's sidewalk-tourist-type woodcarvings are ubiquitous. She doesn't see the connection? And the "Under the White Man's Thumb" theme is bullshit, which we've written about elsewhere.
So it's a surprise --on a number of levels-- to see Ruiz's Chocolate Factory showing work by big-deal New York artists like Jeff Koons and Julian Schnabel. They're part of an exhibition called "The Secret Show," and they suck.
Koons and Schnabel are widely regarded as the incarnation of 1980s New York art-world excess. Koons makes meaningless art out of blatantly kitschy material. He once made a life-size ceramic sculpture of Michael Jackson and his pet chimp, Bubbles. Schnabel is known for gluing broken plates to monstrous canvases or pieces of wood. Both sell their work to people with more money than taste.
At the Chocolate Factory, there's a print by Schnabel from a later, non-broken-crockery phase, and one of Koons' Balloon Dogs shrunk to the size of a dinner plate.
Both are awful.
Ruiz is far more talented than either of these poseurs, so what's he doing showing their work? Is this what happens when you get a show at the Heard Museum (currently, Ruiz's work is on display there)? You think you have to kiss up to superstar artists who aren't fit to clean your paintbrushes? Say it isn't so, Hector. We like you just the way you are, an unaffected homie on the PHX art scene.
This is probably a simple matter of money.
Ruiz has bills to pay like the rest of us, and for all the attention paid to First Friday, most of the people making the scene are not buying art. This means gallery owners have to hustle to keep the doors open, the lights on and the Two-Buck Chuck flowing.
A Schnabel sold for a quarter of a million dollars at an art auction a few weeks ago, and a Koons went for a cool million. That tacky Michael Jackson ceramic? It went for $5.6 million back in 1991.
If Ruiz could sell a Koons or a Schnabel to some clueless richie, he could afford to install an air conditioner at his gallery. He could stop worrying about paying his bills and focus on continuing to show some of the best work in the city.
Go see the show. You can see fine work by famed German expressionist George Baselitz and the cool, graffiti-influenced work of Barry McGee. Both work as a chaser to the schlock of Koons and Schnabel. You've seen bad art before, I know, but this is bad art that costs more than a three-bedroom house in Buckeye.
Then buy something from Ruiz, anything, so he won't have to stoop to this swill.
First, we didn't see the show at the Chocolate Factory. And I have no idea why Hector Ruiz mounted it in the first place. But my speculation --well, our speculation, Catherine's and mine-- is that it was a one-off hoot, and Ms. Potts is sadly mistaken if she believes that Mr. Ruiz believed that he would actually sell anything. That wasn't what the show was about. She is thick. And I doubt if even Mr. Ruiz sees the wonderful irony of him underlining the fact that nothing --not even Koons or Baselitz-- can sell on Grand Avenue.
People do not buy Schnabel, Koons, and Baselitz on Grand Avenue. They call up an art dealer in another part of town, or America, and make an appointment in a clean, well-lighted --and air-conditioned-- place of business, at a time of mutual convenience, safety, and also of convenient parking.
Ms. Potts thinks Mr. Ruiz is hard up. Help my poor wittle struggling artist friend. She seems to be unaware that Treg Bradley bought up most of Mr. Ruiz's Heard Museum show. Thirteen pieces. You can bet that's just the beginning of the synergy. The pieces will not reside in Mr. Bradley's home for at least two years, though Mr. Ruiz has already received his payment. The pieces will go on tour. This guy's got some momentum, and we bet he'll have air-conditioning by next summer.
Ms. Potts also seems to be unaware that the works in "The Secret Show" were not for sale. I first read about it in JAVA, which is not online, but this website has helpfully reprinted that article, written by Scott Andrews. (That's where I read about the sale, too.) In part, then:
He [Hector Ruiz] is putting up works owned by three local artists that want to remain anonymous --a different kind of collector. Pieces by luminaries Julian Schnabel, Jeff Koons, and George Baselitz will be shown with works by newcomers [?!] Louis [he means Luis] Jimenez, Barry McGee and Espo. Hector is calling the exhibit “The Secret Show.”
So that pretty much flattens the notions behind Ms. Potts whole "review," doesn't it? Perhaps the pieces were for sale, but it doesn't sound like it, does it? Something she could have cleared up with a phone call or an email or a studio visit.
This is sloppy work. Her hand is as crude as that of Mr. Ruiz. She got hold of a very small idea, but an idea nonetheless --rare for these downtown art writers-- so she inflated it. It was completely mistaken, but so what? It was an idea: please don't make Hector Ruiz sell out. A dumb, crude idea. But that's what this city promotes and rewards --a heavy, crude hand-- whether it's blinding, stifling, smothering, or bludgeoning, it doesn't care, it just waves and waves, and says . . . "whatever." In the rusty-saw voice of The Rebarb.
Watch for the swing of its stupid black shadow, anyone out there who values the upright stance, the upward glance, and high standards in art and life.
Not to mention honest art reporting.
Now, to go baste a real turkey . . .
Posted by Jerome at November 24, 2005 03:00 PM | TrackBack