Review: New and unimproved: the spectacle of Julian Schnabel
Not a shred of irony is to be found in the extensive Julian Schnabel show at Blum & Poe. Irony is such an aesthetic mainstay now that hunger for it feels startling, but the arrogance and bombast here are suffocating. Even a whiff of the sardonic would be refreshing.
“Infinity on Trial” encompasses Schnabel’s 40-year career, with emphasis on the last few years and the ‘80s, the decade of his ascending celebrity. In between those bookends, Schnabel directed significant feature films including “Basquiat” (1996) and “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” (2007). He can be a storyteller of sensitivity and exquisite restraint in that medium, but when it comes to painting, Schnabel is all grandiosity and bluster, striving and self-importance.
Schnabel draws on themes and images from myth, religion, film and plenty of prior art, but the references only nominally thicken the plot. He memorializes the contributions of others in a self-aggrandizing way, advertising the vastness of his own reach, the scope of his own psychic arena.
Big, bold and brazen, Schnabel’s art and ego met the needs of a hungry, hyperbolic market. “Only a culture as sodden with hype as America’s in the early ‘80s could have underwritten his success,” sneered Robert Hughes, in 1987. Only a culture still just as susceptible to salesmanship would embrace him anew -- and without irony.
Blum & Poe, 2727 S. La Cienega Blvd., Los Angeles, (310) 836-2062, through April 30. Closed Sunday and Monday. www.blumandpoe.com
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