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04/26/2005


To understand this work of art

Cytwombly

Must one know that the artist, Cy Twombly, is gay? Tyler Green smacks down Slate magazine's notion that any art that is decorative is 'gay art'.

Posted 2:34 PM EST by Andy Towle in Art & Design | Permalink

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  1. Art criticism makes my tits hurt. Let's go out to the parking lot and smoke some crack!

    --Point and Speak Barbie

    Posted by: david | Apr 26, 2005 3:46:02 PM


  2. Siegel's assertion that 'Twombly is working in a tradition that associates homosexuality with an ideal human freedom' nearly made me choke when I first read it. Bravo, to Mr. Green calling him on it.

    Posted by: albert | Apr 26, 2005 4:58:42 PM


  3. I had no idea that Cy Twombly was gay! I loved his art so much when I was growing up, that I named our cat "Cy". Interesting...

    Love the image Andy.

    Posted by: Mike P | Apr 26, 2005 6:28:43 PM


  4. That is art? I drew shit like that when I was litle kid. My mother should have kept it so that I could now have it shown. Puhleeze!

    Posted by: Emery | Apr 27, 2005 8:50:44 AM


  5. Oh, purleez! Does Tyler Green think critics should avoid mentioning that Jean-Michel Basquiat was black? Probably not. So what's the big deal with looking at sexuality if it's relevant. And it is relevant in Twombly's work. Tyler Green's rant would not be so irritating if it didn't fall in line with the reactionary former attitudes of the art establishment. Most of 20th century art theory, written by heterosexual men and women, has done everything it can to avoid discussing how the experience of being queer might impact on the form of an artist's work. You can't discuss the amoral aestheticism of Oscar Wilde or the mask-like vacancy of Warhol without acknowledging that they were gay and that their gayness infused their work. But, you'd be surprised at the somersaults some critics have made to avoid doing just that.

    I get the sense Green doesn't feel comfortable with the implication that a gay artist would be drawn to the purely "decorative". It sounds like stereotype -- "he's gay, so he's into girly things." But Siegel doesn't link the decorative to the feminine. He links it to a very queer artistic preoccupation going back, at least, to Wilde -- should art have to justify its existence by having a purpose or meaning?

    Posted by: Joachim | Apr 28, 2005 5:59:17 AM


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