Questionable assertion #1: My gut tells me that Ozeri’s definition of what an artist does is more conservative than Marilyn Minter, even though the difference between the two artists is visibly only a matter of stage props. Anyone?
i’d agree (regarding the potential of ozeri holding a more conservative idea of art-making), though i think there is more difference than the staging – color, cropping, affect, etc.
but i think there is a lot going on in both ozeri and minter’s work… and a lot i’m not super interested in.
i also feel like minters’ are less about depiction than ozeri’s are…
Carla,
I understand Mr. Ozeri has locked himself in his room and refused to come out ever since your harsh assessment was posted!
I found earlier mixed media paintings on the web that are marginally more interesting, but have to say that I am finding little to sink my teeth into here as art. On the one hand, who can begrudge the guy the opportunity to photograph young women in the landscape a la Ophelia? On the other, these smack of a Times Magazine fashion shoot, which may in fact be the point. But I am not, at this point, going further with them.
Is there any worthwhile comparison or contrast to be drawn here with Christopher Williams’ work? I find these surprising and challenging in a different way.
I can’t really argue against Ozeri’s ickiness–the work or the man. I showed up to his gallery talk a little early. He was really working a couple of local collectors. I left before the talk. The man was not helping my appreciation of the work.
I put the work up because seeing the show has made me aware of a problematic relationship to skill. In the past, I’ve enjoyed the fact the the apparent lack of skill in an artist can cause some cognitive dissonance, and that dissonance can open the door to some new appreciation of the mechanics of expression. Jesse Chapman and Carrie Gundersdorf are two artists we’ve posted that do that for me.
I’d never really thought before about virtuoso-type skill causing a similar sort of dissonance. But it’s happened with Ozeri. I don’t like the work especially. But there’s a form of expression in the absurd attention to craft in these paintings. And there’s a hint of nobility in it (at least to me), despite the failings.
And there are some big failings–unrepentant (or more like unaware) male-gaze, commerciality, the fact that Ozeri may be the Thomas Kinkade of pretty boho nature walks…
A couple of artist I might relate in this regard: Ed Paschke played the repulsion-attraction angle so beautifully. Catherine Murphy Hail-Mary passes past repulsion and takes obsessive skill straight to gorgeous. Even Valerio kind of uplifts the banal with his hyper-realism.
It’s really difficult to comment on this work without seeing it because on the web they are indistinguishable from photographs. Someone I used to hate is Claudio Bravo until I saw some of the colored paper paintings in real life. In reproduction you can’t see hand at all, they look like poorly composed photographs and the slickness is impressive but not interesting. In real life, though, you can see him scrutinizing every tiny surface detail and they are really captivating.
But I guess painterliness is a moot point in photorealism and I’m just speaking from personal preference. So then I’m back to the image itself which doesn’t do much for me.
I will say that the surfaces on these are surprisingly varied and organic and more painterly than the impression one gets from the jpeg. For what that’s worth. Also I’m going to venture a step further and say that the images aren’t uninteresting. They’re just not very challenging and they don’t provide much room for contemplation.
Chris, your conclusion earlier seems reasonable enough. If something thoughtful and (seemingly) unskilled can be good, why wouldn’t something skilled but somehow hollow/creepy be dissatisfying?
But I really do mean that the skill/creepy thing is problematic. I can’t quite accept it, but I can’t quite write it off either. The paintings are untroubled, but they really are beautiful. And I really do want think the pursuit of craft as evident here is noble. In the way that it’s great to find some little old guy hand-carving wooden stair bannisters in a basement in Rome or handmaking cuckoo clocks or something. I can’t quite go along with dismissing the activity as hollow. It’s a little snobby to do so.
some of it with ozeri is that i just can’t shake the feeling that he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know. like the paintings don’t communicate any awareness as to why these might be more ‘craftmanship’ than ‘art.’
I have represented Yigal Ozeri for 8 years now my gallery is in Chelsea NYC. I have been to his studio 1000s of times and I am sorry to say he is the real thing. His technique is incrediable. If MW would like to see a work in progress I will arrange it. Please come by the gallery….
I landed on this site because I was trying to discover the name of the artist whose work I spotted in the David Interncontinental, Tel Aviv art gallery when I was leaving. I was hypnotized. I’m not an art collector, but I felt compelled to find out where I can see his work. I don’t know the man, his story or his demeanor. All i know is that his work is compelling.
The first time I saw Yigals work, I thought it was a photograph until close inspection. I purchased the piece and have enjoyed it for over a year (Jessica in a green field series). Note my collection includes original DuChamp’s to Warhols and through to international emerging artists.
Since then, several artists have seen this piece and said it must be a painting over a photograph. The currators that have reviewed it, were impressed with the skill and light.
I was in Yigal’s studio twice over the last 2 days. I saw several pieces in process. I can tell you – these are REAL paintings on BLANK canvas and paper.
As for it’s artistic worth… I believe he has it. The work is beautiful and ephemeral. The photo realism pulls you in, the figures engage and cause the viewer’s mind to drift in it, even after a year of viewing.
His technical skill is too high??? There are too many artists that don’t have the technical skills to match their ideas – this produces work limited by those skills.
When an artist has both – mind and craft MULTIPLY over time to allow him to go places others can’t. Duchamp’s mastery of impressionist and cubist painting were a foundation and freed his mind to produce the “Ready-mades”.
As for you don’t “like” the artist… you find him ‘creepy’? If artist as popularity contest was important – we would have lost many of history’s greatest.
Elsewise, I will let your statements judged as the character assassinations that they are. Saying more about the speaker than the subject.
I recommend seeing the works in person. The pieces I saw in process will be at Mike Weiss in a few months.
If you enjoy beauty, respect an artist’s skills and can let go, I think you will enjoy it.
Jim, I don’t think a provocative discussion about art is character assassination. You’re way off base there. Who’s Ozeri that he’s beyond criticism–Sarah Palin?
Here are simply stated a couple of my problems with Ozeri’s work.
1. Technical matters aside, they are way too conceptually rooted in photography. There’s a huge body of literature on the difference between the way a camera records light phenomena and the way the human eye/mind percieve the world. Some of the main differences being with the time of perception, the experience of spatial depth, the experience of three dimensional volume and the subjectivity of human perception, as opposed to the camera’s neutrality. So much of the “Art” of painting, from Giotto to Giacommetti (and before, and after) has been to present a human negotiation of being in the world. And it’s really, really hard, despite the technical skill to say that Ozeri does that. It really looks like he copies photographs really well and there’s not much more to it than that. (The Ozeri exhibit at Cohen had oil paintings, watercolors and actual photographs.) A courtroom typist may record trial proceedings accurately and skillfully, that doesn’t make him Shakespeare.
2. I have a really hard time finding an idea that the work embodies through subject, narrative, process, color, composition. It just seems to be about an older guy with a lot of skill who likes to look at younger women in the woods. The women themselves are pretty much presented as objects, devoid of personality or individual sentience on the one hand, the photo’s neutrality denying them any kind of otherworldly elfen earth goddess status on the other. They may let the mind wander, but that’s not quite the same as being thought provoking.
Neither of these may have anything to do with the reasons you collect artwork. These are aesthetic judgments, not judgments about the individual pleasure these may bring. They are the same sorts of problems I might have with a novel or a film, opera or play. Because I need art to exist in the same way those things do—as statements, as provocations, as examinations, edifications, what have you.
Chris, thank you for making the (apparently not so obvious) point that to criticize art is to take art seriously. If work like this causes some discomfiture, on grounds aesthetic, political, or otherwise, it would be bad faith for those seriously engaged with art and art-making to gloss over these reads.
Also, on a more troubling note, has anyone actually SEEN Ozeri and Sarah Palin in the same room? Coincidence? Perhaps…
I’m going to address the elephant in the room: why not just *continue* to use photography? Since that is what Ozeri starts with, why not finish with it?
Can anyone NOT associated with selling Ozeri’s work verify that such as “Untitled” aren’t Photoshopped images with “hand embellishment”?
PS-See how meaningless it is to “untitle” a work?
Questionable assertion #1: My gut tells me that Ozeri’s definition of what an artist does is more conservative than Marilyn Minter, even though the difference between the two artists is visibly only a matter of stage props. Anyone?
i’d agree (regarding the potential of ozeri holding a more conservative idea of art-making), though i think there is more difference than the staging – color, cropping, affect, etc.
but i think there is a lot going on in both ozeri and minter’s work… and a lot i’m not super interested in.
i also feel like minters’ are less about depiction than ozeri’s are…
My gut reaction is that these are icky manifestos from an icky person.
My comment was supposed to get lost in the middle, not final say.
My gut reactions, especially about people (and even more so people whom I’ve not even met), are not reliable.
Carla,
I understand Mr. Ozeri has locked himself in his room and refused to come out ever since your harsh assessment was posted!
I found earlier mixed media paintings on the web that are marginally more interesting, but have to say that I am finding little to sink my teeth into here as art. On the one hand, who can begrudge the guy the opportunity to photograph young women in the landscape a la Ophelia? On the other, these smack of a Times Magazine fashion shoot, which may in fact be the point. But I am not, at this point, going further with them.
Is there any worthwhile comparison or contrast to be drawn here with Christopher Williams’ work? I find these surprising and challenging in a different way.
http://www.davidzwirner.com/artists/1/selected_works_1.htm
Or an I off on (off on?) a tangent? Did not read what was said by Ozeri or others on these…
an I ?
meant AM I off on a tangent…
Other relevant linkage. Seems to answer a lot of questions I had from looking at the work with no accompanying context.
I can’t really argue against Ozeri’s ickiness–the work or the man. I showed up to his gallery talk a little early. He was really working a couple of local collectors. I left before the talk. The man was not helping my appreciation of the work.
I put the work up because seeing the show has made me aware of a problematic relationship to skill. In the past, I’ve enjoyed the fact the the apparent lack of skill in an artist can cause some cognitive dissonance, and that dissonance can open the door to some new appreciation of the mechanics of expression. Jesse Chapman and Carrie Gundersdorf are two artists we’ve posted that do that for me.
I’d never really thought before about virtuoso-type skill causing a similar sort of dissonance. But it’s happened with Ozeri. I don’t like the work especially. But there’s a form of expression in the absurd attention to craft in these paintings. And there’s a hint of nobility in it (at least to me), despite the failings.
And there are some big failings–unrepentant (or more like unaware) male-gaze, commerciality, the fact that Ozeri may be the Thomas Kinkade of pretty boho nature walks…
A couple of artist I might relate in this regard: Ed Paschke played the repulsion-attraction angle so beautifully. Catherine Murphy Hail-Mary passes past repulsion and takes obsessive skill straight to gorgeous. Even Valerio kind of uplifts the banal with his hyper-realism.
Found someone fond of the Ozeri paintings: http://artmotelradio.squarespace.com/journal/2008/9/10/tis-the-season.html
There have to be more Ozeri-enjoyers out there. Speak up!
Good call on Catherine Murphy.
It’s really difficult to comment on this work without seeing it because on the web they are indistinguishable from photographs. Someone I used to hate is Claudio Bravo until I saw some of the colored paper paintings in real life. In reproduction you can’t see hand at all, they look like poorly composed photographs and the slickness is impressive but not interesting. In real life, though, you can see him scrutinizing every tiny surface detail and they are really captivating.
But I guess painterliness is a moot point in photorealism and I’m just speaking from personal preference. So then I’m back to the image itself which doesn’t do much for me.
I will say that the surfaces on these are surprisingly varied and organic and more painterly than the impression one gets from the jpeg. For what that’s worth. Also I’m going to venture a step further and say that the images aren’t uninteresting. They’re just not very challenging and they don’t provide much room for contemplation.
Chris, your conclusion earlier seems reasonable enough. If something thoughtful and (seemingly) unskilled can be good, why wouldn’t something skilled but somehow hollow/creepy be dissatisfying?
But I really do mean that the skill/creepy thing is problematic. I can’t quite accept it, but I can’t quite write it off either. The paintings are untroubled, but they really are beautiful. And I really do want think the pursuit of craft as evident here is noble. In the way that it’s great to find some little old guy hand-carving wooden stair bannisters in a basement in Rome or handmaking cuckoo clocks or something. I can’t quite go along with dismissing the activity as hollow. It’s a little snobby to do so.
Maybe that’s not the right word–I was responding to a general air in the thread, if inaccurately. I’m not trying to be snobby.
But also, I’m not really into these, so I probably am drifting into a kind of dismissive attitude.
some of it with ozeri is that i just can’t shake the feeling that he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know. like the paintings don’t communicate any awareness as to why these might be more ‘craftmanship’ than ‘art.’
Yigal Ozeri is a fraud. He has been painting over photographs for years now.
Just want to state that “MW” has nothing to do with the blog. But, point taken.
I have represented Yigal Ozeri for 8 years now my gallery is in Chelsea NYC. I have been to his studio 1000s of times and I am sorry to say he is the real thing. His technique is incrediable. If MW would like to see a work in progress I will arrange it. Please come by the gallery….
Mike – I’m not MW but would love to see a work in progress.
Yigal Oseri
i realy love your work
make more
show us
let us joy
gunternoa@hotmail.com
www. flickr.com , search for person gunternoa1960
I landed on this site because I was trying to discover the name of the artist whose work I spotted in the David Interncontinental, Tel Aviv art gallery when I was leaving. I was hypnotized. I’m not an art collector, but I felt compelled to find out where I can see his work. I don’t know the man, his story or his demeanor. All i know is that his work is compelling.
The first time I saw Yigals work, I thought it was a photograph until close inspection. I purchased the piece and have enjoyed it for over a year (Jessica in a green field series). Note my collection includes original DuChamp’s to Warhols and through to international emerging artists.
Since then, several artists have seen this piece and said it must be a painting over a photograph. The currators that have reviewed it, were impressed with the skill and light.
I was in Yigal’s studio twice over the last 2 days. I saw several pieces in process. I can tell you – these are REAL paintings on BLANK canvas and paper.
As for it’s artistic worth… I believe he has it. The work is beautiful and ephemeral. The photo realism pulls you in, the figures engage and cause the viewer’s mind to drift in it, even after a year of viewing.
His technical skill is too high??? There are too many artists that don’t have the technical skills to match their ideas – this produces work limited by those skills.
When an artist has both – mind and craft MULTIPLY over time to allow him to go places others can’t. Duchamp’s mastery of impressionist and cubist painting were a foundation and freed his mind to produce the “Ready-mades”.
As for you don’t “like” the artist… you find him ‘creepy’? If artist as popularity contest was important – we would have lost many of history’s greatest.
Elsewise, I will let your statements judged as the character assassinations that they are. Saying more about the speaker than the subject.
I recommend seeing the works in person. The pieces I saw in process will be at Mike Weiss in a few months.
If you enjoy beauty, respect an artist’s skills and can let go, I think you will enjoy it.
- Jim
Jim, I don’t think a provocative discussion about art is character assassination. You’re way off base there. Who’s Ozeri that he’s beyond criticism–Sarah Palin?
Here are simply stated a couple of my problems with Ozeri’s work.
1. Technical matters aside, they are way too conceptually rooted in photography. There’s a huge body of literature on the difference between the way a camera records light phenomena and the way the human eye/mind percieve the world. Some of the main differences being with the time of perception, the experience of spatial depth, the experience of three dimensional volume and the subjectivity of human perception, as opposed to the camera’s neutrality. So much of the “Art” of painting, from Giotto to Giacommetti (and before, and after) has been to present a human negotiation of being in the world. And it’s really, really hard, despite the technical skill to say that Ozeri does that. It really looks like he copies photographs really well and there’s not much more to it than that. (The Ozeri exhibit at Cohen had oil paintings, watercolors and actual photographs.) A courtroom typist may record trial proceedings accurately and skillfully, that doesn’t make him Shakespeare.
2. I have a really hard time finding an idea that the work embodies through subject, narrative, process, color, composition. It just seems to be about an older guy with a lot of skill who likes to look at younger women in the woods. The women themselves are pretty much presented as objects, devoid of personality or individual sentience on the one hand, the photo’s neutrality denying them any kind of otherworldly elfen earth goddess status on the other. They may let the mind wander, but that’s not quite the same as being thought provoking.
Neither of these may have anything to do with the reasons you collect artwork. These are aesthetic judgments, not judgments about the individual pleasure these may bring. They are the same sorts of problems I might have with a novel or a film, opera or play. Because I need art to exist in the same way those things do—as statements, as provocations, as examinations, edifications, what have you.
Chris, thank you for making the (apparently not so obvious) point that to criticize art is to take art seriously. If work like this causes some discomfiture, on grounds aesthetic, political, or otherwise, it would be bad faith for those seriously engaged with art and art-making to gloss over these reads.
Also, on a more troubling note, has anyone actually SEEN Ozeri and Sarah Palin in the same room? Coincidence? Perhaps…
more on some current ozeri showing over here…
I’m going to address the elephant in the room: why not just *continue* to use photography? Since that is what Ozeri starts with, why not finish with it?
And, why do the models always look like shiksas?
Can anyone NOT associated with selling Ozeri’s work verify that such as “Untitled” aren’t Photoshopped images with “hand embellishment”?
PS-See how meaningless it is to “untitle” a work?