Wednesday 16 May 2007

When does new get old?

In a recent review, 'It's boring at the top', Jerry Saltz writes that in Andreas Gursky's recent photographs the "fizz has gone flat, the power has run low, the former buzz has become a drone." Saltz suggests that Gursky's latest works, while still powerful (not to mention enormous, and expensive) are becoming dangerously self-referential.

Edward Winkleman has picked up on the review, and subsequent buzz, to write an interesting post that asks, can we expect artists to stay on the bleeding edge? (That's what we call 'cutting edge' in NZ - new term coming to an artist-run space near you soon.) Should they have to? Is it inevitable that after a flare of startling originality an artist will continue to explore what interests them, with the result that their work, while new, looks old? And that elderly trope - if the market likes it, why not keep on making it?

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