# Is John Currin an important painter? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 12, 2004, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-john-currin-an-important-painter/274378 "2004-11-12T14:23:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2004, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-john-currin-an-important-painter/274378/1 "2004-11-12T14:23:29Z")
I don’t think he’s succeeding at being all that incisive and clever with his quasi-classical grotesque morphs of American life, but tastes vary. The British seem to like his take on “crass” Americans. For me, it seems more like cartoon commentary on run of the mill social absurdities than high art. Am I missing his deeper or larger point somehow? [A touch of crass at London’s Serpentine Gallery.](http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/collective/A1164971) > [@](#): > > Take one look at John Currin’s paintings and you could assume he likes stupid women with big tits. Pouting, wide-eyed ingénues look vacantly out of his canvases while ladies in mini-skirts measure each other’s immense breasts. There is nothing politically correct here. And yet, on closer inspection, his representation of women isn’t so clear-cut. > > Currin depicts a bizarre and very American world of ageing divorcees, 70s pin-ups and cliché gay couples. He distils the falsity of TV culture and throws it back in people’s faces. Currin wants viewers to feel uncomfortable and enjoy it. > > He fuses this very modern approach to his subjects with a kind of classical style which combines the strange, jagged poses and extended bellies of the 16th-century German painter Lucas Cranach, or the hand gestures of Da Vinci, with WASP-ish empty faces. You hate the people he depicts, but you just can’t help but love the way they’re depicted. Francesca Gavin 05 September 03 ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2004, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-john-currin-an-important-painter/274378/2 "2004-11-12T15:27:02Z")
Do his paintings pass the “is it art?” test? To me, yes - the paintings create a tension in my mind and I find myself asking questions about who the character is and what they are like and thinking about and what Currin was intending - all good stuff that art should do - raise questions and make me think. Is his art important? Certainly not in the way that other art has been important in the past - it hasn’t raised questions that have crossed over to the public discourse. The questions his paintings raise seem to be along the lines of what you surmise - what is he stating about our society and certain classes and types of people within it? Worthy questions, but not Important in the capital “I” sense of the word to me… ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2004, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-john-currin-an-important-painter/274378/3 "2004-11-12T15:32:22Z")
I’d agree with **WordMan** (as I always seem to do…) – Currin is interesting but not important. Interesting in the sense that he’s technically very competent and does stuff that I always want to stop and look carefully at – but not important, in the sense that I don’t know his name, and instead always go “oh, right, that guy.” ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2004, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-john-currin-an-important-painter/274378/4 "2004-11-12T16:36:13Z")
> [@twickster](#): > > I’d agree with **WordMan** (as I always seem to do…) ::blushes:: awww, shucks. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2004, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-john-currin-an-important-painter/274378/5 "2004-11-12T16:55:15Z")
I saw his show at the Whitney several months back, and was not terribly impressed. He’s not nearly as interesting a satirist, or realist painter, as a [Paul Cadmus](http://www.queer-arts.org/archive/9809/cadmus/cadmus.html) or a [Geroge Tooker](http://www.art.com/asp/sp-asp/_/PD--10096849/sOrig--CRT/sOrigId--8974/The_Subway__1950.htm?ui=48F963BC746E44CDB9FCA683873C073A). I’d put him on a par with an illustrator like [Charles Bragg](http://www.charlesbragg.com/). ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2004, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-john-currin-an-important-painter/274378/6 "2004-11-12T17:06:42Z")
I think he’s a little better than Bragg (whose work I’ve never seen before) – he seems a trifle less obvious. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2004, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-john-currin-an-important-painter/274378/7 "2004-11-12T17:44:46Z")
A better question may be, “Is painting important any more?” Re: Currin, I think he’s interesting, and agree that from a technical standpoint he’s pretty good, but I don’t see much in his work that one cannot see in, say, the work of illustrators of the covers of pulp novels of the 40s and 50s. I would rate him important only in the sense of injecting a bit of life into what seems to be a dying form. That’s not intended as a backhanded slam, BTW; I’m always happy to see his work, and think he adds something to his subjects that would be very difficult to get across with a more photorealistic approach. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2004, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-john-currin-an-important-painter/274378/8 "2004-11-12T19:25:46Z")
> [@El\_Kabong](#): > > A better question may be, “Is painting important any more?” > > Re: Currin, I think he’s interesting, and agree that from a technical standpoint he’s pretty good, but I don’t see much in his work that one cannot see in, say, the work of illustrators of the covers of pulp novels of the 40s and 50s. I would rate him important only in the sense of injecting a bit of life into what seems to be a dying form. That’s not intended as a backhanded slam, BTW; I’m always happy to see his work, and think he adds something to his subjects that would be very difficult to get across with a more photorealistic approach. Is painting really a dying form? ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2004, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-john-currin-an-important-painter/274378/9 "2004-11-12T19:44:28Z")
Dying? Probably not. Marginalized to a cult-like set of practitioners and passionate patrons? Probably. Don’t you think that is happening with: - Poetry - Opera - Classical Music in general - Literature etc., etc., etc.? How often is a true genius in one of these arts crossing over and being acknowledge in a standard media forum - let alone being lauded as a cultural influence - compared to how they used to be decades and centuries ago? Even as late as the 1960’s, with Pop Art - the debate of the nature of paintings and modern art seemed culturally relevant and important. I don’t see that happening today… ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2004, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-john-currin-an-important-painter/274378/10 "2004-11-12T21:08:09Z")
I was referring to representational painting in general, and portraiture specifically. Yeah, a lot of people do it, but in terms of artistic innovation, there doesn’t seem to be much left to accomplish.