REAR VIEW- A Critical Review

A Group Show @ LDGR, NYC

“I like big butts and I don’t know why. You other brothers can’t deny, that when a girl walks in with an itty-bitty waist and a round thing in your face you get sprung.”, Wise words from late 20th century American poet Sir-Mix A Lot. I think about those words a lot. Sometimes the appreciations of rear ends can define an epoch and can reminds us of how important that biological feature has meant to the last several hundred years of western art history. This impact is unambiguously celebrated in, “Rear View”, at LGDR on view now on 64th St. in NYC through June 1st. Featuring work by such eclectic artists as Eric Fischl, Cecily Brown, Edgar Degas, Jenny Savile, Lucian Freud, Yoko Ono, Botero, Jordan Casteel, and Jenna Gibbon among other really masterful painters and sculptors. There’s Francis Bacon, Andy Warhol and De Chirico with Anselm Kiefer, Rene Magritte, and Andrew Wyeth all in the same room upstairs on 2. All of them flashing ass like gangsters. I don’t think any of these artists ever thought that they would be shown all together in the same space but oh man, it works well. Why would Yoko Ono’s video of cheeks clapping over monotone free-associated ramblings play so nice with John Currin and Barkley Hendricks.  Tell me in the comments below what you think. I was smitten with the whole project and even if you’re not an ass person go see this show. Urs Fischer’s paraffin wax burning sculptures will warm your heart the minute you walk in the door. Also, LGDR has the greatest public bathroom in NYC. Seriously, White marble luxury hotel style on the first floor.  I part with you now with a lovely quote by Jen-Luc Goddard which may sum up the atmosphere of the exhibition, “First there was Greek civilization. Then there was the Renaissance. Now we are entering the Age of the Ass.