Art
for anxious times
By Jia-Rui
Chong. November
5, 2001
"As much as I like modern art, it is very
suspicious of any ideal of 'beauty.' You can't paint Venus emerging
from her half-shell these days without giving her a wart for comic
effect. Anger and anxiety often drive modern art; to disturb and
undermine are often its imperatives. I usually love the subversion
at work in these works, but I've been looking for something else
recently. The enjoyment of seeing a conventional still life upset
by a elephant-nosed gas mask has diminished, now that I can walk
outside and see Mr. M's Discount Center trumpeting its wide selection
of American, Russian, Chinese, and British gas masks at 'great prices!'"
