Bad Painting

Bad Painting

Artistic Movements, Periods and Styles in 5 points

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Bad Painting

• Bad Painting is a movement that was born in the 70’s when Figuration and Expressionism returned with force to the plastic arts. Moreover, it is categorized under the heading of the movement called “Neo-expressionism.” The latter was a worldwide movement, and Bad Painting would be the Neo-expressionist version that occurred in the United States.
• The name comes from the fact that, at first sight, the works are brutal and grotesque, as they clash with the conventional norms of the representation of beauty. This is not because there is no more talent in the art world, but artists choose to express their vision of the world in a primitive way, full of instinct, of rawness, with a wild, aggressive, brutal expressionism.
• Bad Painting is a provocation against “good taste.” The name itself is ironic and mocking. It is a reaction against certain values of civilization and the apparent refinement of human beings, which in fact have not evolved, quite the contrary, and have ended up making this world an increasingly hostile, barbaric, inhuman world.
• As we can imagine, this trend has gained a huge number of detractors since, being an obviously grotesque painting (as we said, full of “ugliness” according to traditional aesthetic canons), it is difficult to distinguish the fine line between an artistic work and something devoid of artistic talent.
• The artists’ worldview may be placed in a fantastic or irrelevant image. Their vision of the world is not what they paint, but how they paint it: the brutal aesthetics, the deformation, the frenetic, aggressive brushstroke (what we call gestural brushstroke). And it is common for works of Bad Painting to include a certain tone of satire: some touches of sharp humor slapping a reality that may have a nice facade but a lot of misery behind it.

Representative Artists: David Salle, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Eric Fischl, Julian Schnabel, Kenny Scharf, Neil Jenney, James Albertson, Joan Brown, Robert Chambless Hendon, Eduardo Carrillo, James Chatelain, CPLY (Copley), Charles Garabedian.

Image: Trumpet (1984). Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Recommended links:

Timeline: moments of Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Postmodern Art.

Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Characteristic Elements of Expressionist Painting.

Artistic Movements II: from Neoclassicism till the end of the 19th century.

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