I don’t expect gallery press releases to be a work of literary genius, but it’s best if they aren’t actively bad or weird because it keeps people like me from complaining about them publicly. This week’s latest and greatest offender comes from BravinLee Programs, which describes the recent work in Marcia Kure’s upcoming show thusly:
Far from suggesting vulnerability, [the work’s] eroticism suggests a kind of dangerousness. Precise and beautifully executed, these intricate images compel the viewer to consider a world condition that is anything but harmonious; these figures are designed to kick ass.
I suppose the gallery can’t describe the contrived art affections of torn paper edges, and poor attention to the placement of images, (particularly in Bride and After the Bombings when ink application grows lighter simply because the artist runs out of room on the page), but dangerous and “kick ass” figures? Whose ass is getting kicked by a series of characters who must only be viewed in profile (check out the work online – not one painting features a frontal shot.) If this kind of phrasing tells you anything it’s that when work this bad makes it into the gallery system, people simply start making shit up when forced to talk about it.
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