{"id":611,"date":"2009-05-29T10:34:00","date_gmt":"2009-05-29T17:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp\/2009\/05\/alison_elizabeth_taylor_take_a_1\/"},"modified":"2009-05-29T10:34:00","modified_gmt":"2009-05-29T17:34:00","slug":"alison_elizabeth_taylor_take_a_1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/2009\/05\/alison_elizabeth_taylor_take_a_1.html","title":{"rendered":"Alison Elizabeth Taylor: Take an object, do something to it…"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Alison Elizabeth Taylor<\/a> was the subject of feature story last year in the New York Times, Tyler Green<\/a> asked why:<\/p>\n

In the last year there have been probably 100 Chelsea shows of
\n35-year-old-ish artists with so-so CVs. So why has the New York Times
\ndecided that one Alison Elizabeth Taylor is worthy of a long profile?
\n(Note that I’m re-creating the NYT’s HTML coding, ha ha.) I mean,
\nthere’s nothing wrong with Taylor or her work (which appears to be the
\nlovechild of Fred Tomaselli and Stephen Balkenhol), but why her and not
\n100 other artists?! The Carol Kino-penned story never makes that clear.
\nIf the paper of record is going to declare one artist whose history is
\nindistinguishable from scores of others worthy of this kind of
\nattention, it should explain why.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Purely within the context of newspaper realities, I attempted to explain, nothing against Ms. Taylor.<\/p>\n

Green’s not asking about reviews. He’s asking about human interest
\nstories with an art angle. What is it about this particular human —
\nAlison Elizabeth Taylor — that inspires press to scribble in a
\nnotebook and arrange for a photo shoot? Green knows the answers but,
\nidealist that he is, must be hoping they aren’t true. They are. Always.
\nOne size fits all. Every feature story in the mainstream press about an
\nunknown artist scores in at least one of these categories. (Story here<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I ended with this:<\/p>\n

Extra points go to artists if they or their subjects are glam. Back to
\nAlison Elizabeth Taylor, which is, by the way, a great name for an
\nartist. She’s female, young, got a gimmick and is lovely, which is why
\neverybody runs her picture. If she weren’t spotlighted in the nation’s
\ntop newspapers, she’d have every reason to complain.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Glam?
\nShe’s not only lovely, she looks terrific posed next to her work, her
\nhair being the same color as part of the veneer behind her. (New York
\nTimes photo.)<\/p>\n

\"alisonelizabethtaylor.jpg\"<\/a><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Taylor is included in Supramundane<\/em> at at Ambach & Rice<\/a> through the weekend, with Chainlink <\/i>from 2008.<\/p>\n

\"elizabethtaylor.jpg\"<\/a><\/span>Curated
\nby Elizabeth Burke, it’s an excellent show (more later today) off the
\ndeep end of the unruly expressive. The context throws her craft roots
\nin high relief, where they stifle her narrative content. <\/p>\n

Taylor’s
\ninspiration began with a visit to the Met, where she was struck by 15th
\ncentury Italian marquetry, or wood inlay. Using techniques she mastered
\nfrom the period, she creates bleak landscapes with a charged
\npsychological content reminiscent of Eric Fischl<\/a>.
\nWhat saves Fischl from being swamped by the inherent drama of his
\ntableaus is his paint handling, which is nervously silky. His content is<\/i> his paint handling and the reason his edgy dramas continue to haunt.<\/p>\n

Taylor
\nwas raised in Las Vegas but is not interested in high rollers. She
\nfocuses on what is bleak and dying in the sun, the trashed grounds and
\nworking poor piling up around the edges of reckless high hopes. <\/p>\n

She
\ncalls her wall pieces paintings, which they are not. If she finds a way
\nto make the meticulous refinment of her production work for her
\nmarginal narratives, she’d be unstoppable. What doesn’t work as a
\npainting could as a functional object, and she appears to be moving in
\nthat direction. (Click through to Room<\/i>, here<\/a>.) <\/p>\n

How about boxes that are boxes, or, as Marianne Moore<\/a>
\nput it, “imaginary gardens with real toads in them”? She needs real
\ntoads, real functionality. Her solution comes from Jasper Johns: <\/p>\n

Take an object. Do something to it. Do something else to it. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Alison Elizabeth Taylor was the subject of feature story last year in the New York Times, Tyler Green asked why: In the last year there have been probably 100 Chelsea shows of 35-year-old-ish artists with so-so CVs. So why has the New York Times decided that one Alison Elizabeth Taylor is worthy of a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-611","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}