A painter in midcurrent: the recent survey of John Currin's paintings gave viewers in New York, Chicago and London an opportunity to assess the achievement of this provocative artist

Art in America, June-July, 2004 by Raphael Rubinstein

He may yet do so, but judging from the paintings on view here, there are myriad dangers in his path. Chief, perhaps, is his attachment to pastiching historical styles, whether they belong to Norman Rockwell, 1940s Picabia and Magritte, or Cranach. (This is something that his contemporary Lisa Yuskavage generally avoids; her paintings are deeply involved with both kitsch illustration and art historu, but they don't directly ape the look of older work.) Also problematic is that his genre scenes, however exquisitely painted and larded with bizarre touches they may be, never seem to breach their anecdotal bounds and cliched accoutrements. Ultimately, for all his variety, Currin doesn't seem to have much visual imagination; he appears to be altogether too comfortable with the stock photos of Renaissance prototypes that he favors as source images. When he does introduce an unexpected element into a painting, it's usually in a heavy handed way--the three fish draped over a woman's head in The Moroccan (2001) smack of high-school Surrealism. Far better is a more recent painting, Fishermen (2002), which depicts two naked figures balancing precariously on a fish-filled wooden boat. The unusual subject, the contorted poses and the decision by the artist to have the rope and net-wielding figures turn their backs (and bums) to the viewer contribute to the painting's effectiveness. One hopes that this picture, which the artist says came to him in a dream, signals a change--not one that would take Currin away from social issues, necessarily, but that would lead him into a more imaginative, less self conscious artistic process. The future of Currin's reputation will depend, it seems to me, on whether he can find a way to become more visually inventive, to escape his academic dependence on older art and to engage with more profound content.

"John Currin" was seen at Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago [May 3-Aug. 24, 2003]; the Serpentine Gallery, London [Sept. 9-Nov. 2, 2003]; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, NEw York [Nov. 20, 2003-Feb. 22, 2004]. The accompanying catalouge includes contributions from art historians Robert Rosenblaum and the exhibition's curators, Staci Boris and Rochelle Steiner, as well as an interview with the artist.