A Good One James Stanfield

Let me spend a few minutes typing about Martin Kippenberger. There have been a few shows of his up around town for the past few months. For the most part they have bored me. The one at Luhring Augustine was especially dull. But I did find a work of his that had some interest for me. It was at Metro Pictures and called Family Hunger.

I don’t really know what its about, and the little kitsch-modern thing at the top made me uneasy as to how serious the piece actually was, but I loved the shitty wooden lattice work that the smaller sculptural piece used for a pedestal. The pedestal separated the work from its audience, by raising the main part of the work a few feet above most folk’s heads. Really the upper object seemed like a diversion to sneak in the real artwork, which I think was the lattice. Of course the lattice was nothing without the upper modern thing to frame the wooden support. In short I’m confused by this object and it has kept me thinking.

I don’t ponder this object in any complex way. I just look at it (I went back to the gallery at least 5 times looking at it) and it looks down at me. It really doesn’t care much for me, but I just think its right-on.