represent

Art as alien virus

Armory Show, 2012

Some fun, big-picture reflections on the current Armory Show can be found today from the New York Times, starting with the idea that art is an intelligent virus that propogates itself through the work of artists, without any clear indication of why. That sounds just about right. And a nice passage on how the resurgence of painting hasn’t slowed down:

There is a ton of painting here, and it is all over the place in stylistic terms, from the postcard size, photorealist pictures of nondescript suburban homes, stores and roadside signs by Mike Bayne at Mulherin to the big, colorful, Pop-Expressionist canvases of Bjarne Melgaarde at Greene Naftali. Painting is far from dead; it just does not feel the need to progress linearly, and that is a good thing.