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Flirting with Death


Jacob Kassey, Xanax (Diptych). 2011. Courtesy the artist, art : concept, Paris and ICA, London. Photo by Marc Bowler

M-KOS editor Oli Sorenson’s text “Flirting with Death – Dispatching along 19th to 21st Century Painting” is featured in the latest issue of esse arts + opinions themed on The Idea of Painting.

Painting has suffered at least a half dozen major existential blows since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, starting with Hippolyte Delaroche declaring “from today, painting is dead” in 1839, when he first set eyes on daguerreotypes. From this precedent, debate still abounds today as to whether photography, with its more effective means of documenting events and immortalizing faces as well as democratizing the whole imaging process – and now allowing anyone to embrace the once elitist talents of painters when a point-and-click camera – has killed off painting.

There must be more to painting than the territories claimed by photography, since it certainly hasn’t lost any of its appeal to audiences, nor has it lost any market value. On the contrary, painting seems evermore the dominant commodity for commercial galleries, art fairs and auctions. Of the ten top-selling artists at auctions worldwide, nine are painters. Each time painting is declared dead, more kudos and columns are dedicated to the deceased. If violent scenarios make for good television, perhaps the same is true in the art world. Today so many paintings adorn the walls of art institutions that one is tempted to wonder if this art form was ever under serious threat, or if all this death talk was just an elaborate marketing campaign. […]

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Outlook: Provincially Yours

Performance view at Sadler’s Wells. “Un Peu De Tendresse Bordel De Merde!” (2010) Photo by Alastair Muir

Not so long ago, Montreal-based dance company Dave St-Pierre performed at Sadler’s Wells in London. Their much-hyped piece Un Peu De Tendresse Bordel De Merde! divided the audience’s opinion into camps at opposite ends of the appreciative spectrum: loving or hating it. Critics in the latter group were utterly appalled by St-Pierre’s visceral choreography, giving it a zero star and snippy comment such as “lazy, derivative and very, very provincial!” (one critic in particular allegedly had his specs taken off and spat on by one of the dancer, all a part of the performance, of course). The intended shock and awe of bullock-naked dancers running through the audience didn’t quite hit the mark of a memorable work, in a city forged by traditions of dissent and punk ethics.

Crossing over the channel, we find a new exhibition opening at La Maison Rouge in Paris, to once again put Canadian culture in the spotlight, this time looking at Winnipeg. Their press release states: Continue reading “Outlook: Provincially Yours”