Saturday at MONA
John Azoni features a recent series of works on paper entitled "CHOMP!!" showing jaw-like forms with big teeth devouring, or about to devour cute innocent things, or random items of culture such as fast food hamburgers or ice cream cones.
Alongside this series at the MONA are other of Azoni's works on paper, more reminiscent of his new paintings, which will be featured downstairs at the MIA.
Opening: Saturday July 8, 7-10 pm.
posted by art blogs are fun at 9:39 PM
26 Comments:
Fresh paint: John Parlangeli will also be showing a large group of his paintings in the downstairs gallery as well.
It will be fun to see John's big paintings. I've only seen his smaller work at Belmont and loved it.
im not interested in john's work
Was'nt Stella Vine supposed to be in that show as well?
stella was supposed to, but now the website says september.
glad i found out before making the trek out there. i would've been pist off to see a bunch of pre- school drawings.
stella would have said detroit sends too many neg vibes and to bugger off! but she isn't aware of that yet and is coming the second date she planned all along.
she would've said detroit unlike her london mates don't support each other and are doomed to fail because of that.
she's promised a "gob-smacking" good show for her first museum effort in the states. and i'm proud she chose detroit. and everybody else can bugger off!
i'm suprised your showing john azoni
imature/average student work
also the bio you sent out for him is hilarious.
he decided to be an artist because he was excited about using color to create shadows...?1! funnyfunny
disappointing
no offense john, just a bit puffed up and a few tads too many airs
Looking forward to John's show.
Neg vibes = Inconvienient truth
You stupid americans always jelous of everyone whos isn't you.
for every one thing jon does wrong he does two things right weather you like his work or not his work ethic and perserverance to get shows is very strong. overall he is in the show and most of us are not?
I stumbled onto Azoni's show when I picked my work up from MIA yesterday. I was impressed. Very large work. And a sense of balance and color. I always enjoy critiques given before seeing the work, "immature, student work."
Bull crap. Sour grapes. And/or someone who just doesn't like the guy for whatever reason.
See the work if you want to judge it. Or shut up.
some people are just naturally assholes. to make fun of a 14 yr old for discovering color in shadows is proof. i remember when i did and i was 16 and had just discovered the fauves. it's usually something small that makes us want to become artists. anonymous (scared-to-use-a-name-as usual) obviously has no reason to call himself one other than jealousy.
I can't believe that people have already commented negatively towards john's show? what? Have you seen the show yet? I bet you won't even go!
I understand truthful criticism but to put down someone before the show is just immature!
There is always a simple or silly story that gets an artist started. I just was sent this one in an e-mail posting for an upcoming show. The guy was going to do a self-portrait but suddenly decided to just do a blue square instead: and his career was born.
[Frederick Hammersley is an artist who truly has faith in his intuition. It was intuition that compelled him, as an artist just out of school, about to paint a self-portrait in his tiny bedroom, to paint one of the squares of his preparatory grid for the portrait blue.
He suddenly decided to just paint the square blue, it “felt right” and after a quick inner debate (if he painted the square blue he couldn’t do a self-portrait and at that time money for canvas and paints was scarce) he followed his impulse. This was the start of Hammersley’s exploration of geometric abstraction.]
I don't really see that much negative criticism here so far. Just questions.. Perhaps some are too sensitive. John has a great piece up at the DAM members exhibit at the moment.
I'm going to disagree with Matt. The reason John's work looks immature is his color. Detroit Abstract Expressionism often falls into the habit of out-of-the-tube, yellow then purple, red then green, green and blue, etc painting. Already he relies on familiar gestures, familiar movements and simple compositions to build superficial paintings...not without nice moments. John's work ethic is great, and he deserves to show as much as anyone else around here, but he really should be pushing himself right now. Maybe reading some Greenberg right around his denunciation of the Abstract Expressionists in favor of Post-Painterly Abstraction and looking at Frank Auerbach, Georg Baselitz, looking, looking, looking...
John, we'll all be interested in seeing where your work goes.
as artist's, even the harshest criticism is great in value to us. It pushes us to grow, experiment, change. John must be doing something right, if it's sparking such strong opposing reactions from the bloggers.
secondly, the downfall of americans:
they always think european's are superior.
give someone an accent, and all of a sudden they are the know all.
i like stella's work, but you guy's seem to regard her as a god.
sunny,
I think we are all just very excited to have an international artist - praised by saatchi come our way! It doesn't happen often:)
Sometimes people complain when an older artist gets a big survey, - they're old and out of touch with what's really happening. Other times, young artist's surveys are trashed just because they are young, and haven't matured to their full potential.
Where does any artist fit in without flak?!
A comprehensive survey is always good, young or old, and has been a tradition with MONA since its inception.
With John's work you can see an overall "style" quickly developing, and the directions it might go.
It's also a chance for collectors to purchase and help finance and encourage a young artist's career (the prices are still relatively low/some of these were going for $80)-- to become a patron, one of many hopefully. (I remember when a French collector came into MONA and bought out an artist's entire show. That was thrilling.)
John didn't ask for a show. I saw his drawings and asked him. I'm more than pleased with the results.
And the crowd got better later on, Kevin, although not what one would hope for a local boy.
And thanks for leaving some cheese. And for coming out.
Sunny,
Stella approached MONA for a show in 2003 -- a year before Saatchi "discovered" her and when you could still get a large painting for around $500 (they're upward from 25,000 now).
I had to turn her down then because MONA was being pushed out of Detroit and was without a venue for close to a year. Now we've got a space, and I ran into her in Chicago in April and we talked about doing the show now.
My point is that MONA isn't over-impressed with an accent, but with an artist who we've always had an eye on and who has also become important on the global scene for whatever reason -- and that we'll be bringing her here - and to share MONA's galleries with both her and some local artists.
That hopefully hanging side by side, or gallery by gallery, these Detroit artists will share in some small limelight that might fall on her visit. And their work be viewed in a larger context than just "Detroit."
It will be an inclusive exhibition, shared with one Brit and two Detroiters. And that can only be good for everyone.
-Jef
i was at the opening and enjoyed the work very much. it was really great to see so much of this guy's work from paper to canvas. his work reminded me a little bit of some other artists who showed at MoNA before, maybe a year ago.which i liked too. there was a lot of their work too. i think that's important to really gauge an artist. so maybe there's a new detroit style developing we're not consciously aware of. or maybe even several.
paint john paint and keep on painting.
dont stop
Or stop for a minute. Take a breath. Re-examine what you are doing and why you are doing it and then decide to keep going.
all of a sudden everyone is big brother!
azoni is this, azoni is that. he needs to do this, or that.
a lot of contextual bull (knowing he's still in school, so he's judged accordingly).
i looked at the work and liked 90% of it. i imagine most the artists hitting on him here aren't half as good and feel threatened by that.
There hasnt been this much talk about one artist around here since Gary Mayer was the local art star
is it a furor in the arts community or just on this blog? I wonder sometimes if you all know the difference.
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