September 13, 2023

"Nutt dislikes drawing on canvas except with charcoal, which he also dislikes, but for a different reason."

"He primes his canvases with gesso, making it not unlike a heavyweight paper.... Nutt doesn’t work on drawings and paintings simultaneously, switching when he becomes fed up with one or the other. About 25 years ago, the paintings began taking longer; eventually a full year to complete. He has been working on this one for the last seven.... His fixation on a single image also is a kind of refusal: of the constant demand for novelty, the endless churn of commercial production, of faddishness. It says we already have everything we need. As the title of his show puts it: Shouldn’t we be more careful?"

I really identify with the artist who feels annoyed by his own materials. He's also, we're told, "elliptical and impenetrable," "socially and conversationally hermetic," and "allergic to talking about himself."

23 comments:

Robert Cook said...

One of Chicago's "Hairy Who" art collective. I've never been particularly taken with his work or of most of the work of the Hairy Who, but some of it is fun.

Joe Smith said...

Don't have NYT access so did an image search...meh.

Not my style.

At some point he must have gotten a glowing review from some 'important' critic and things snowballed from there.

I don't see anything exceptional here...rather Picasso-derived.

To each their own...

Hassayamper said...

This is a prank, right? This stuff looks like it was drawn by a high school sophomore who got a C+ in art class.

n.n said...

Some persons prefer a human canvas. Wanted dead or alive.

john said...

Does he only draw in allergy season? What's with the fixation on runny noses?



gadfly said...

So Jim Nutt is somewhat of a "nutter" - what the Brits call a foolish or eccentric person or someone who is not mentally sound.

Aggie said...

Good Lord, take it out on the material, man, not the clients.

Free Manure While You Wait! said...

meh

eom

Jupiter said...

What a stupid fucking pretentious asshole.

tim in vermont said...

LOL, art is a con game. It's all a game of The Emperor's New Clothes.

That's not true, Robert Crumb is great, but a lot of it is a con game.

RMc said...

Oh, Nutt's!

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

His fixation on a single image also is a kind of refusal: of the constant demand for novelty, the endless churn of commercial production, of faddishness. It says we already have everything we need.

Confirmation: r/Doppleganger, r/amiugly and r/FaceRatings are very popular reddit subs.

Dave64 said...

Looks like a Mad Magazine parody

R C Belaire said...

I'm sure others, like Ms. Althouse, appreciate the work. But, I'll pass.

Narr said...

Nutt my taste.

RJ said...

It's not art; it's poorly done drawing.

Dave said...

I looked with what I call objectivity at the slide show displayed at the link. The representations appear to be women with traditionally male characteristics. There is a couple. The woman has a prehensile? prolapsed? vagina and this woman is peaking under the male's skirt. The one date I checked shows 2022. I like art to be beautiful and also thought provoking. This art is thought provoking.

FullMoon said...

His paintings reminds me of Nancy Sinatra's singing.

Rusty said...

Not to my taste, but whatever. It does explain the rats though.

Humperdink said...

After many failures, he has finally perfected the black nose.

RigelDog said...

I wish more "art" spoke to me. I mostly appreciate only those works of great conventional beauty. Nutt's work might as well be a poem written in Albanian for all the sense or meaning that I can derive from it---doesn't mean that it's not art, or even great art; I just don't understand the language.

mikee said...

The TV show Malcolm in the Middle had an episode wherein Hal quit his job and devoted himself to creating a painting. Not just any painting, THE painting which he had seen in his mind since he was a child and always wanted to paint. He works and works and works at it, and finally finishes it just as he had seen in his mind. The large work is so amazing that it brings the whole family to awe. Then it slides off the canvas, and is ruined, because Hal kept overpainting his failures again and again until he achieved success.

Sitcom plots make for great art, too.

Narr said...

Malcolm ITM was a classic, but hardly anyone I knew watched it. A few years later though, they would rave enthusiastically about poor imitations.