Posts tagged visionary

Robert Longo: Creating Art From Dust

Art Blog

By the turn of the 21st century, Robert Longo was, as he puts it, sitting at the top of the junk pile.

He had once been a leading protagonist in the “Pictures Generation.” Alongside fellow artists like Cindy Sherman, Richard Prince, Louise Lawler and David Salle, he became one of the most collected, exhibited and talked about visionaries of the early 1980s, rising to prominence during the golden age of contemporary art through his “Men in the Cities” series, which depicted suited, dancing silhouettes drawn in charcoal.

But he was punished for it — and cast aside.

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Lucien Smith Finds Poetic Justice In ‘Southampton Suite’

Blog

When abstract painter Lucien Smith manipulated a repurposed fire extinguisher and turned it loose onto a series of 9-foot-by-7-foot unprimed canvases — and, in 2014, sold one at auction for $372,000, nearly six times its estimate — the art world collectively lost its mind.

His rise through what he called his “Rain Paintings” series would be simultaneously meteoric and disruptive. The New York Times and Vogue named him the “art world wunderkind,” while ruthless critics attempted to tear him down. For a time, it worked.

After Artsy estimated that his work generated $3.7 million that year, Smith took a step back from the New York spotlight in 2015 by retreating to his home and studio in Montauk — disenchanted by dealer and gallery politics, and eager to reconnect with himself.

Five years later, he has done just that, and with poetic justice. Ten of the very same large-scale, controversial “Rain Paintings” are now on view for the first time as a group at the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill through January. He waited for the right moment to place the paintings, he said, knowing that when they did reappear, they might look radically different to him.

And they do.

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