Neil Jenney
Encyclopedia
Neil Jenney is a self-taught artist born in 1945. He attended Massachusetts College of Art in 1964. In 1966 he moved to New York City
where he currently resides.
His painting style was described by the art critic Marcia Tucker
in 1978 as Bad Painting
, a description which he has embraced. Jenney describes his style as realism
, but it is an idiosyncratic use of the word on his part, meaning: a style in which narrative truths are found in the simple relationships of objects. His body of work during 1969–1970, which is the period for which he was first known, was a reaction to minimalism
and photo-realism. Neil Jenney has always been anti-photo. The work's impact was large for such a brief period: according to New York Times art critic Roberta Smith
"in those two years Mr. Jenney helped put representational painting on a new course and established precedents for the art of the 1970s, 80s and 90s."
Often, Jenney's work of this period depicted pairs of objects which had evocative cause and effect relationships (such as a saw and a piece of cut wood, as are depicted in the 1969 piece Sawn and Saw.) In an April 15, 2001 review in the New York Observer
of his show of work from the late 60s and early 70s at Gagosian Gallery, Mario Naves said that the paintings:
His painting Here and There (1969), which depicts a white fence dividing a field of drippy, green brushstrokes, was in the 2004 exhibition The Undiscovered Country at the Hammer Museum
in Los Angeles. His work is in many museums including the Museum of Modern Art
, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art
, and the Corcoran Gallery of Art
in Washington D.C. He currently shows with the Barbara Mathes Gallery [www.bmathesgallery.com] in New York City (22 E. 80th street). His painting "Meltdown Morning" is on display at the Philadelphia Museum of Art
.
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
where he currently resides.
His painting style was described by the art critic Marcia Tucker
Marcia Tucker
Marcia Tucker was the founding director of the New Museum of Contemporary Art from 1977 to 1999, a museum located in New York City, dedicated to innovative art and artistic practice...
in 1978 as Bad Painting
Bad Painting
"Bad" Painting is the name given to a trend in American figurative painting in the 1970s by critic and curator, Marcia Tucker . She curated an exhibition of the same name, featuring the work of fourteen artists, most unknown in New York at the time, at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York....
, a description which he has embraced. Jenney describes his style as realism
Realism (arts)
Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...
, but it is an idiosyncratic use of the word on his part, meaning: a style in which narrative truths are found in the simple relationships of objects. His body of work during 1969–1970, which is the period for which he was first known, was a reaction to minimalism
Minimalism
Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...
and photo-realism. Neil Jenney has always been anti-photo. The work's impact was large for such a brief period: according to New York Times art critic Roberta Smith
Roberta Smith
Roberta Smith is an art critic for the New York Times and a lecturer on contemporary art.Born in New York City and raised in Lawrence, Kansas, Smith studied at Grinnell College in Iowa. Her career in the arts started in 1968 while an undergraduate summer intern at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in...
"in those two years Mr. Jenney helped put representational painting on a new course and established precedents for the art of the 1970s, 80s and 90s."
Often, Jenney's work of this period depicted pairs of objects which had evocative cause and effect relationships (such as a saw and a piece of cut wood, as are depicted in the 1969 piece Sawn and Saw.) In an April 15, 2001 review in the New York Observer
New York Observer
The New York Observer is a weekly newspaper first published in New York City on September 22, 1987, by Arthur L. Carter, a very successful former investment banker with publishing interests. The Observer focuses on the city's culture, real estate, the media, politics and the entertainment and...
of his show of work from the late 60s and early 70s at Gagosian Gallery, Mario Naves said that the paintings:
"...aren't really bad at least not bad bad. That pejorative adjective, in Mr. Jenney's case, comes with scare quotesScare quotesScare quotes are quotation marks placed around a word or phrase to indicate that it does not signify its literal or conventional meaning.- History :Use of the term "scare quotes" appears to have arisen at some point during the first half of the 20th century...
a mile high and connotes an art that combines the dead-end figuration of Pop, the dead-end materiality of Minimalism and a sense of humor that is, if not dead-end, then sharply deadpan. Mr. Jenney painted the pictures during the heyday of Conceptual ArtConceptual artConceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions...
, and if they were, in part, a rebuff to its disembodied verities, they also partook of its intellectual detachment."
His painting Here and There (1969), which depicts a white fence dividing a field of drippy, green brushstrokes, was in the 2004 exhibition The Undiscovered Country at the Hammer Museum
Hammer Museum
The Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Culture Center, or the Hammer Museum as it is more commonly known, is an art museum in the Westwood district of Los Angeles, California...
in Los Angeles. His work is in many museums including the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art
Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...
, and the Corcoran Gallery of Art
Corcoran Gallery of Art
The Corcoran Gallery of Art is the largest privately supported cultural institution in Washington, DC. The museum's main focus is American art. The permanent collection includes works by Rembrandt, Eugène Delacroix, Edgar Degas, Thomas Gainsborough, John Singer Sargent, Claude Monet, Pablo...
in Washington D.C. He currently shows with the Barbara Mathes Gallery [www.bmathesgallery.com] in New York City (22 E. 80th street). His painting "Meltdown Morning" is on display at the Philadelphia Museum of Art
Philadelphia Museum of Art
The Philadelphia Museum of Art is among the largest art museums in the United States. It is located at the west end of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park. The Museum was established in 1876 in conjunction with the Centennial Exposition of the same year...
.
Sources
- Ausstellungskatalog: documenta 5. Befragung der Realität – Bildwelten heute; Katalog (als Aktenordner) Band 1: (Material); Band 2: (Exponatliste); Kassel 1972
- documenta Archiv (Hrsg.); Wiedervorlage d5 – Eine Befragung des Archivs zur documenta 1972; Kassel/Ostfildern 2001, ISBN 3-7757-1121-X