A link to the newspaper story in the Star has been doing the rounds on Facebook, producing an amusing comment from one peeved visitor who said “these painters are the art world’s equivalent of the tea party”. Didn’t Donald Trump say something like “I don’t care what you say about me, just spell my name right…”?
Transcript of quotes from the CLU video interview:
“Why don’t we just talk about painting?†Michael Pearce
“I know that people say that it’s dead or dying and I’m like: “It’s living in my studio, it’s all I’ve ever done. I teach in a school where all they teach is figurative painting†Mia Tavonatti
“Yeah, beauty was marginalized in the twentieth century; it became anathema, I think to the artists. Everything was so organized around horror, and art had to be shocking. I wrote about this many years ago, that the idea that shock should be prevalent in the gallery became so commonplace that it wasn’t shocking any more, you’d kind of go to the gallery and look for the thing that was supposed to shock you. You know it’s all just horrible, it’s just nasty.†Michael Pearce
“I don’t take that approach, I just say ‘Look, it’s different what we do, we can even appreciate both – there’s no reason to say that one is good and one is bad – they can both be good.†Peter Adams
“Really I just like to paint pictures, paint things I like to paint, basically (that’s) what I want to do.†Jeremy Lipking
“It’s an opportunity for me to slow down. I live in a really fast paced world, my life has always been deadline driven and I like to be able to slow down and really concentrate on a specific subject and really take it in, look at all the nuances, the shades, the colors, the textures.†Michael Lynn Adams
“I fee very strongly a bond with all the other artists I know and try to help them, I’m very excited when they get ahead, when they get a big commission, or a big breakthrough and I’ll see a painting that they do – I’d like to incorporate some of that into one of my paintings.†Peter Adams
“Michael has really done a fantastic job of assembling some groups of teachers who are going to complement what we’re trying to do for representational painting and drawing, and I’m excited about all of the possibilities.†Tony Pro
“It isn’t a conscious effort to do something that is out of the ordinary. I really am following that which I feel is really part of me. If that’s revolutionary in the twentieth century then so be it.†Michael Lynn Adams
“It’s not trying to agitate you, it’s not playing to your ego and your intellect, its just going here, that’s what beauty does, I don’t see that going away any time soon. As a matter of fact I think it’s on the resurgence. I think as people become more conscious and less in their egos, I think it’s going to grow.†Mia Tavonatti
“We’re going back toward a cycle where people are far more concerned with the figure and with grace and beauty and elegance.â€Michael Pearce
“American realism is the true non-conformism of our time, and that’s exciting; that’s the most exciting thing that’s happened to the art world since Picasso†Alexey Steele
“I really believe that this show is really important because it’s going to show the CLU students and faculty and the patrons of the school that romantic painting through the figure is really the bedrock of what all art comes from.†Tony Pro
“This type of art has been not only neglected, but really vilified, and so we’re here to raise the standard to say, ‘Look, it’s coming back’ and it is. I think this is a historic exhibition and we all feel like that and the art history books are going to be written and they’ll remember Cal Lutheran…†Peter Adams
Shot by Stephen Wardle for CLU. Released August 22nd 2011.
