magneticisms


Eric Fischl: 1970-2007. wonderful paintings herein, still the arbiter of what art should do, and the deepest place to do something,although with the vagaries of performance art and mixed photography within our sensibilities now, painting has become a recluse art;painters laways need to find a more extroverted aspect of their Being;Fischl however seems to have had a good run thus far; with suggestive narratives of desires of the flesh, the the act, cunninglingis capturing the attractions, the magnetisms in the air,as in his early work, human forms beachside, gazing, with eyes to absorb what is avaiable for the imagination, relaxing waiting for a naked body to pass, with a bathing suit on, nothing more sometimes less,Fischl is always subtle with this material;he makes you make the connections,leaves his work open; it is these games and attractions that has fascinating us n' Fischl, as the budding learning scenes, "Birthday Boy", sitting as at the altar of desire with a voluptuous unknown woman, perhaps 'Mommie' perhaps 'Auntie', or a friend of the family, all quite natural,never explicit; later He discovered the vacuous-nesses of middle class surburban life, sitting, contemplating your portfolio,or rotting your brain with aimless thrills; doing nothing for hours, basking in the self-conceit of your money,or last night's fellatio beside the pool,, there are both female and male sex toys in Fischl, players of no sense of worth except self-personas; the naked woman-body draped over her lover or benefactor or agent in his suburban bedroom,or the paunched boyfriend with a small member ready to serve; and always money is assumed to be part of the narrative; Fischl likes to stay away from the complexities of the city,too encumbered; his art is universal and timeless,so it covers this, the history of painting has attracted attractions like these,uncaptured feelings, premonitions of what the body needs,pure perceptions, spectacles,intense situations, pure colour as in Rothko,or the after-violence in Goya or Pollock attracts the representative body to participate as well as the mind, the mind alone and its various intellectualisms can get boring after a while, and we get tired of reading the lauded critics,who have their own career horizons to pursue anyways;Fischl suggests this as well, the after-event, something has already happenened or will happen, future tense, subjunctives, indicatives, or his art is nonsensical. . .

Superbly illustrated


Eric Fischl: 1970-2007. This publication is an expanded edition of "Eric Fischl 1970-2000". In the opening essay Arthur C Danto helps us see the artist in context from his student days in the 1970s, when painting was almost an anathema, through his early work and to his notorious painting, "Sleepwalker", which brought him to the public's attention, and to his mature paintings. Selected paintings are discussed in more detail mainly with reference to their content and meaning. The discussion covers forty years of the artist's work and is supported with many quotes by the artist. The second very short essay by Robert Enright further discusses Fischl's work with specific reference to the artist's aims.

The bulk of the book "Fischl on Fischl" comprises examples of the artist's work accompanied by his comments taken from an interview with Robert Enright conducted in 2000 and 2007. The comments sometimes relate specifically to the painting alongside which they appear, but often are more general.

Finally there is a short and witty personal commentary on the painting "Barbeque" by collector of Fischl's work, the actor Steve Martin. The book concludes with a Biography; Exhibition History and a list of Collectors. There is no general index, and no index to the paintings illustrated in the book.

The book is illustrated almost entirely in colour throughout and contains over 250 examples of Fischl's work from his early efforts through to his mature work. The main section "Fischl on Fischl", pp 31 to 338, contains the bulk of these, with picture on virtually every page; most approach full page in size (allowing for margins), but a few are reproduced unnecessarily quite small. While most of the work consists of paintings in oils there are also some drawings, water colours and a few bronzes. Fischl's work is figurative in both senses, and often provocatively sexual in nature, but irresistibly appealing with his free approach and strong sense of light and shade.

This is certainly a very fine volume. I would like to have had more about Fischl's practical approach to his work, although it is very good to have his own thoughts on several paintings and what he was aiming for; and given the often large scale if his canvases it would have been informative to have had a few examples of close-up detail, I also found Danto's frequent references to himself distracting; but these are minor criticisms, although the omission of an index to the paintings is rather more irritating. However it is superbly illustrated with an abundance of Fischl's output; and well worth it for that alone ~ highly recommended.

Well Worth the Wait!


Eric Fischl: 1970-2007. Fischl must be one of the world's greatest living figurative painters and this fantastic collection of his work has been well worth the long wait for publication. It's that rare thing in an art book, top quality reproduction of the artwork with decent sized plates on quality paper, a fairly informative text and not overflowing with the gibberish commentaries that plague many artist's monographs,

I first became aware of Fischl's work some fifteen to twenty years ago when I came upon a reproduction of The Pizza Eater in a cheap book of one hundred paintings of merit or some such nonsense and was immediately struck by both his sheer physical TALENT and the raw and challenging nature of his subject matter. A young pre-pubescent girl wanders naked on the beach, eating her pizza, oblivious to the leers of two teenage boys in the foreground. It's like walking into a meld Edward Hopper, Balthus and Lucien Freud with the savagery of Francis Bacon thrown in for good measure. Talk about being blown away!

Anyway, over the years I've found more work by him, slowly building up a knowledge of his painting, holding him up as a master to aspire to, and, for the last six months, waiting for this book to be published and delivered and it has finally arrived, and I feel like a junkie being let out of rehab with a thousand pounds in my pocket. Seeing anyone's entire output at one sitting is breath-taking, seeing Fischl's is just too much. I have to keep shutting the book and going back to it, indulging in sheer unashamed gluttony after years of famine.

If you only buy one art book in your life think about buying this one!