KAREN WILKIN
271
good and bad art has been made in traditional ways. The curious thing
about the new "new painters" is how alike they all seem, in spite of
their evident belief in the power of personality to transform inert matter.
But matter - mostly slick, glossy, garish paint - dominates, homogeniz–
ing images, gestures, shapes, and inflections that should provide vivid tes–
timony to the presence of the individual. Admirers of the movement tell
me that the slickness, the gloss, and the day-glo intensity are part of the
point. If so, these qualities, along with the up-to-the-minute, mass-pro–
duced facture would seem to demand some kind of irony or deadpan
detachment, but it's all dreadfully earnest and humorless. Perhaps it's un–
fair to judge from a single group show. In the past, for example, I've
seen individual works by some of the new "new painters" - Joseph
Drapell, Roy Lerner, Marjorie Minkin, in particular - which I've found
more convincing, but I'm afraid that much of
Neill, New
Pail/til/g
made
you long for just the plain "new" or even the "old, old."
For that, your best bet was the Morgan Library, where the Thaw
Collection of drawings served as a touchstone of excellence. Spanning
the Renaissance to the twentieth century, from vigorous pen and ink
Rembrandts to pastel-enhanced monotypes by Degas, from lively, moral–
izing Goyas to cool, detached Cczannes, from a hyper-elegant Ingres
portrait to an explosive "psychoanalytical" Pollock, the selection of
works renewed your faith in such beleaguered notions as connoisseurship,
judgment, excellence , taste, and, I am afraid, the power of money - not
that money would have made any difference, if those other unfashionable
elements hadn't been brought into play.
