tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2987736854176165487.post6075072915683711132..comments2024-03-16T19:14:58.420-04:00Comments on Painting: Zombie Formalism:the lingering life of abstraction in New York that just wont dieMartin Mugarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12799696151828817646noreply@blogger.comBlogger36125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2987736854176165487.post-27762516778381133842023-02-01T08:04:08.012-05:002023-02-01T08:04:08.012-05:00Does ZF represent an AI interpretation of abstract...Does ZF represent an AI interpretation of abstraction.Martin Mugarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12799696151828817646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2987736854176165487.post-39681409147313646762022-02-26T06:25:27.869-05:002022-02-26T06:25:27.869-05:00NYC art (Martin Mugar, ‘Zombie Formalism’ (see URL...NYC art (Martin Mugar, ‘Zombie Formalism’ (see URLs), Walter Robinson, ‘Flipping and the Rise of Zombie Formalism’ (see URLs), and Jerry Saltz, ‘Zombies on the Walls’ (see URLs) have started calling abstract paintings that are easily appreciated ‘zom- bie formalism’, since their formats fail to<br />challenge viewers.Martin Mugarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12799696151828817646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2987736854176165487.post-74742902987725288962022-02-24T12:15:12.558-05:002022-02-24T12:15:12.558-05:00These footnotes put the sequence of ZF in order st...These footnotes put the sequence of ZF in order starting with me to Robinson to Saltz Martin Mugar, ‘Zombie Formalism: The Lingering Life of Abstraction in New York that Just Won’t Die’. Blogspot, 2013, Dec.: https://martinmugar. blogspot.com/2013/12/zombie-artthe-lingering-life-of.html<br />Sue Spaid<br /> REFERENCES<br /> 131<br />Emotion and Empirical Aesthetics<br />Walter Robinson, ‘Flipping and the Rise of Zombie Formalism’. Artspace, 2014, April: https://www.artspace.com/magazine/contributors/see_here/ the_rise_of_zombie_formalism-52184<br />Jerry Saltz, ‘Zombies on the Walls: Why Does so Much New Abstraction Look the Same?’, Vulture, 2014, June: https://www.vulture.com/2014/06/why- new-abstract-paintings-look-the-same.htmlMartin Mugarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12799696151828817646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2987736854176165487.post-71340492897493002732021-01-09T09:58:00.071-05:002021-01-09T09:58:00.071-05:00Fuller acknowledgment of the philosophical groundi...Fuller acknowledgment of the philosophical grounding of Supports/Surfaces might also contribute helpfully to the current debate about what has been called “Zombie Formalism.” Coined by artist-blogger Martin Mugar, the term has been popularized by artist-critic Walter Robinson, who denounces much recent market-friendly abstraction for bringing back to life the dead ideas of Greenberg and relying on cheap novelty and pretentious gestures toward concepts like “materiality.”<br /><br />This comment from Raphael Rubinstein in Artin America is definitive of who came up with the termMartin Mugarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12799696151828817646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2987736854176165487.post-83780409501468140592019-01-30T15:49:06.350-05:002019-01-30T15:49:06.350-05:00A message from a Theosophical society about Hilma ...A message from a Theosophical society about Hilma af Klint at the Guggenheim. <br />Hello Dear Martin, it does look like Hilma's (Klint's) work could be influenced by timeless teachings of Theosophy. These ancient wisdoms do not originate with Annie Besant, Charles W. Leadbeater, nor from Helena Blavatsky. "Thoughts are living forces, choose them wisely" ~ Y.R.<br /><br />Is this a counterforce to Zombie Formalism. She always thought her work would look best in a spiral building. Cosmic battle!!Martin Mugarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12799696151828817646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2987736854176165487.post-4878081379045787462017-10-16T08:00:30.286-04:002017-10-16T08:00:30.286-04:00Copied from Chris Hedges: 'Neoliberalism and g...Copied from Chris Hedges: 'Neoliberalism and globalization are zombie ideologies. They have no credibility left. The scam has been found out. Martin Mugarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12799696151828817646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2987736854176165487.post-27152319322436421242016-05-18T06:13:27.717-04:002016-05-18T06:13:27.717-04:00I can see your point. Some people see provisional ...I can see your point. Some people see provisional painting as a Mannerist movement after the classicism of High Modernism.Martin Mugarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12799696151828817646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2987736854176165487.post-31943035196738071772016-05-18T03:13:13.852-04:002016-05-18T03:13:13.852-04:00Hope this isn't too much of a stretch, but thi...Hope this isn't too much of a stretch, but this all sounds like an echo of a very long standing conversation in Western Art -going back to Titan and Rapael - concerning the supremacy of colore or disegno. Not directly the same discussion, bit there are some interesting parallels!Miles Hallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12959398293328374657noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2987736854176165487.post-6868908315043331002016-03-14T19:12:35.624-04:002016-03-14T19:12:35.624-04:00thanks Mr Faverman
thanks Mr Faverman<br />Martin Mugarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12799696151828817646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2987736854176165487.post-54229682219610184202015-11-24T07:28:59.854-05:002015-11-24T07:28:59.854-05:00From the auction "ob"-scene in the Art N...From the auction "ob"-scene in the Art Newspaper: <br /> “Warhol (29,215 pieces at auction to date) had 56 canvases up for sale in the week, safe to say more than any other artist; if only he could have lived to experience his transformation into fully-fledged currency, he’d have been tickled.” forget the return of the gold standard.We now have the Warhol standard. I said in the zombie formalism blog that any substantiality would be squeezed out of art so as to function as currency:Martin Mugarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12799696151828817646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2987736854176165487.post-87701337686536667172015-10-12T17:06:33.231-04:002015-10-12T17:06:33.231-04:00Thanks!I I appreciate Raphael Rubinstein making th...Thanks!I I appreciate Raphael Rubinstein making the claim on my behalf even though it angered his friend Walter Robinson.Martin Mugarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12799696151828817646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2987736854176165487.post-48380313521201624782015-10-12T16:50:35.110-04:002015-10-12T16:50:35.110-04:00Thank you for your comment on my own essay about t...Thank you for your comment on my own essay about this topic, at artcritical.com. I've updated the essay to reflect the actual lineage of your term.SeNDhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18222694515894934755noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2987736854176165487.post-87576969824773310682015-09-19T10:18:45.594-04:002015-09-19T10:18:45.594-04:00Great historical/philosophical background illumina...Great historical/philosophical background illuminating that pathological stripe of painting flooding the market. Another aspect touched on in your essay is their function as empty vehicles for Wall Street money laundering. In this way they are a part of the world financial sculpture, a conceptual art object/project that instigates dematerialization on a grand scale.Sarah Walkerhttp://sarahwalker.org/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2987736854176165487.post-63618969005483747702015-09-14T17:12:19.386-04:002015-09-14T17:12:19.386-04:00A younger artist friend Paul Pollaro said that Par...A younger artist friend Paul Pollaro said that Parrino is punk and that the more contemporary versions of Zombie abstraction such as Kassay are grunge. Parrino as punk is telling the world to fuck off. Kassay as grunge says it all sucks and is infinitely nihilist. A lot has to be sorted out here.I thank "anonymous" for unpacking zombie formalism which was presented to me already packed by Saltz and Robinson.Martin Mugarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12799696151828817646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2987736854176165487.post-24247499980086507242015-09-08T22:13:06.725-04:002015-09-08T22:13:06.725-04:00Parrino is sui generis in his use of zombie and ha...Parrino is sui generis in his use of zombie and has more in common with Serra and early Held than with the artists grouped together by John Yau that I labled as zombie along with Walter Robinson.I mentioned the Malevich connection in a comment above that I repeat here: <br />Groys somewhere talks about Malevich's project as distinct from Mondrian's.The absolute supremacy of his forms destroys the visual language of the past and gives us a new language grounded on nothing but itself.Mondrian comes to his abstraction via a reduction of perception that drags the past along with it in the form of warms and cools and push and pull.These zombie artist are in the Malevich strain of abstractionMartin Mugarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12799696151828817646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2987736854176165487.post-84739494449151778522015-09-08T14:38:23.975-04:002015-09-08T14:38:23.975-04:00the figure of the zombie hardly lacks distinction....the figure of the zombie hardly lacks distinction. it occurs in african, norse, hindu, and chinese folklore. there’s also a strong tradition found in anglo-saxon literature. until very recently, its manifestation was derived from haitian voodoo rites. first popularized in the thirties by the pre-code horror classic‘white zombie’, starring bela lugosi, this trope faded following the cult success of ’the serpent and the rainbow’ in the eighties. the notion of ‘will’ is strong in these fictions; haitians didn’t fear the zombi per se as much as its boko, or he who cast the spell that enslaved them.<br /><br />it was this exact moment, with painting deemed dead and history allegedly dying, that found steven parrino snatching souls and reanimating corpses. using metaphors derived from sources that owe as much to kashmir malevich and robert smithson as to todd browning and mario brava, his experiment was largely at odds with the critically fashionable, market-savvy simulationist painting that was arguably its twin. parrino’s twisted canvases— zombie formalism avant la lettre perhaps, but certainly known by their author and discerning others as such-- only became collector trophies after his untimely death in 2005, when the brian kennon book mentioned above appeared.<br /><br />parrino’s works and their dissemination predate the arguments made here by many years, and should be acknowledged so. it’s disingenuous to argue otherwise, for whatever reasons, simply because the model of subjectivity his works propose is at odds with hidebound practices and hamstrung thought understood as properly ‘abstract’. <br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2987736854176165487.post-71462780361384122782015-09-08T12:49:44.154-04:002015-09-08T12:49:44.154-04:00I see zombie impulse as an absence of life,a lack....I see zombie impulse as an absence of life,a lack.It appears Parrino wants to pound that lack into our skull as a positive element. Negativity always flips into something positive. Stella and Reinhardt tried to control visual phenomena by limiting it to one or two elements. .It seems that Parrino abandons the optical with a punk violence: Hardcore zombie art.Was it Hegel who said that at night all cows are black? The will to a lack of distinctions is a "dead" end.Martin Mugarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12799696151828817646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2987736854176165487.post-2750092830346875542015-09-08T11:43:52.346-04:002015-09-08T11:43:52.346-04:00The late Steven Parrino introduced the zombie impu...The late Steven Parrino introduced the zombie impulse thirty years ago. It's clearly stated in 'The No Texts', posthumously collected by Mark Dagley for the Abaton imprint in 2003. The artist Brian Kennon, founder of Two Cannons, published 'Hello Victims: Ad Reinhardt' in 2005, featuring reproductions of the black paintings juxtaposed with apocalyptic video stills and skeletal cruciform diagrams. Jacob Kassay's work was strongly influenced by these forbears, and some of it was even produced in the Greenpoint studio Parrino had shared with Olivier Mosset. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2987736854176165487.post-67300675435950161982015-06-26T11:06:25.811-04:002015-06-26T11:06:25.811-04:00My article linked up with an interview with Camill...My article linked up with an interview with Camille Paglia Dennis Hollingsworthhttp://www.dennishollingsworth.us/archives/003173.html#commentsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2987736854176165487.post-78772177302742243862015-06-26T10:59:30.580-04:002015-06-26T10:59:30.580-04:00Another reference to my contribution:
"Its o...Another reference to my contribution:<br /><br />"Its origins are cloudy. Blogger Martin Mugar in his late-2013 blog Zombie Art claims the lack of blood, the coldness of certain paintings defines this reanimation of the abstract. Then popularized in Walter Robinson’s Flipping and the Rise of Zombie Formalism for Artspace.com where he exalts us to take sides in his ongoing undead battle."Terrence Hannumhttp://aboutcontentpress.tumblr.com/post/106151502558/zombie-holocaust-or-when-theres-no-more-room-innoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2987736854176165487.post-9297384363665994692015-04-30T06:55:39.170-04:002015-04-30T06:55:39.170-04:00Glad you responded to the core of the essay which ...Glad you responded to the core of the essay which is a meditation on what is reality.Thanks!Martin Mugarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12799696151828817646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2987736854176165487.post-3362453490138393582015-04-30T06:42:08.588-04:002015-04-30T06:42:08.588-04:00"There exists not such a thing as Objectivity..."There exists not such a thing as Objectivity" Professor in quantum physics Dürr <br /><br />http://weisser-elefant.blogspot.de/2011/10/quantensprung-im-oberstubchen.html<br /><br />Thank you so much for your deep thougts, Martin. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06905272011267836598noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2987736854176165487.post-37315684648248759992015-03-31T17:35:17.241-04:002015-03-31T17:35:17.241-04:00From Raphael Rubinstein in "Art in America&qu...From Raphael Rubinstein in "Art in America" September 2014 in an article on Theory and Matter:"Coined by artist-blogger Martin Mugar, the term has been popularized by artist-critic Walter Robinson, who denounces much recent market-friendly abstraction for bringing back to life the dead ideas of Greenberg and relying on cheap novelty and pretentious gestures toward concepts like "materiality.""Martin Mugarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12799696151828817646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2987736854176165487.post-32425857265820549552015-02-21T07:33:39.617-05:002015-02-21T07:33:39.617-05:00Art always reflects the economy.Read this from zer...Art always reflects the economy.Read this from zerohedge:<br /><br />Back in the real world; evidence of the U.S.’s zombie economy is both overwhelming and abundant. It begins with 0% interest rates. As has frequently been noted in the past; 0% interest rates are the economic equivalent of a defibrillator. As with a defibrillator; it is the most-extreme form of stimulus known to us. As with a defibrillator; it is a “therapy” option which is so radical/reckless that it is only ever intended to be used as a last resort, to resuscitate a patient on Death’s door.<br />Martin Mugarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12799696151828817646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2987736854176165487.post-80120517322657838912014-10-21T07:47:28.376-04:002014-10-21T07:47:28.376-04:00I think you’re correct, Martin. Zombie Formalism h...I think you’re correct, Martin. Zombie Formalism has very little to do with anachronistic issues of perception, visual theoretics or aesthetics. I believe this kind of work is concerned with the contingencies of outsourced production, capital liquidity and Neo-Liberal economics. It is “abstract” only because the focus of the work is on the realization of the “conceptual” object itself. That’s why the kinds of materials, the dimensions of the piece, the logistics of manufacture and the tools used in the work’s making actually matter more than the visual perception of the art object. We do not have to look for coded and quantified meaning because it is always-already available. What we actually look for in this kind of “abstraction” is optical sleekness, designer efficiency, upscale luxury, and surprisingly, ease, harmony and continuity. Zombie Formalism is one of the first art “movements” created by professionally educated artists strictly as a “branded” style, produced and curated exclusively for a specifically-identified high-end consumer/collector. There can be no revolution, political, social or cultural, here at the end of history. There is no point to it. There is only the certainty of economics.<br />"from the administration of Henri Magazine"Henri Magazinehttp://henrimag.com/blog1/?p=6859noreply@blogger.com