Tuesday, March 2, 2010

OUT OF STYLE

Ever since the brain surgery, I seem to have less patience for what seems to me to be hypocrisy or outright delusion, and not just from the right.

For instance, can anyone tell me how the make up on the model on the cover of Sunday's NY Times magazine (as well as most of the shots inside and over the past few decades—did this decadent style begin in the Reagan era? Hmmm...) can be seen as anything other than an attempt to make this woman look like an evil robot?

If it's meant to be art, I can dig that, though it's nothing that new. But as "fashion" (and I know some see that as "art" too, as I do, but only when it reaches that level, which for my taste this doesn't) this seems incredibly tedious and obvious and technically trite. Or is it just me?

2 comments:

Harryn Studios said...

ain't just you Michael - but then again, i might just be an extension of a minority ...
i'll answer in more depth later - but for now, yes, the style began in the late 70's and 80's as an extension of the glam rock, ZIggy Stardust - resurgence of pre-war Germany's cabaret scene - had a lot to do with Berlin's hot art scene, Helmut Newton's photographs and later, the Grace Jones, glamor punk, downtown NYC club scene where shock fashion reigned ...
today, as with a lot of paintings, its pretty much a incestuous hybrid of what's been done before - hopefully it will breed itself into extinction but that depends on the strength of the monarchy in the art, fashion, and music industries ...
Hans Hoffman used to say "kill the painter before he kills the painting" ...

Jamie Rose said...

Yes. Shades of 70's Bowie. And FYI the "model" is Julianne Moore.