Big Little Laura (bigger here) by Lisa Yuskavage
Lisa Yuskavage is one of America’s most popular painters, but not for the right reasons. She was one of those artists who hit the jackpot (whatever that means - recognition, respect, reward) relatively early in her career. Her work has also been smacked with the vague ‘controversial’ label for the same wrong reasons - a soft porn aesthetic.
That sounds so stupid.
Yuskavage paints a lot of nude figures with exaggerated curves and lines. Her work sometimes has this billowing glow that recalls those cheesy, airbrushed Playboy spreads from the 80’s and 90’s. Sometimes she paints embracing figures, or romanticized females in a fuzzy masturbating repose.
Sometimes she paints weird shit, like Good Evening Hamass, and although I’m sure there are stacks of affronted critiques on some poor Art & Feminism professor’s desk, this is how Yuskavage explains that painting:
“The sunsets over New Jersey with all the pollution are just magnificent and I wanted to paint a painting with a sunset. So that’s where the painting came from; the desire to paint a sunset. Everything else came out of those sort of associations. I don’t know where her big ham ass came from per se. It was just a vehicle for the sunset to reflect on. That’s how she got a ham ass. Because it looked like a ham ass.”
I think Yuskavage should be popular because she’s a brilliant painter. She hits every nail on the head. Her compositions are always dramatic and well organized. She has an unusual eye for color, and she knows how to make very pastelly colors sing when they bounce off each other on the canvas. Her drawing skills are great. Some of her still lifes and figurative paintings show you that Yuskavage paid a lot of attention in her art history classes, especially to the impressionists and the Italian renaissance painters. She uses the same wonderful device that contribute to Degas’ and Manet’s ongoing popularity - combining pretty with ugly, mixing serene with disturbing, being nice and mean at the same time.
Maybe porn and google searches for “dismemberment and/or violent death” really have lowered my IQ. But I don’t see any soft porn in Yuskavage’s paintings. Instead of some politically charged scandal to celebrate or upheave whatever threats that lie within soft porn (whose only offense is being too boring to jerk off to), I think she pays attention to things. As much as her work is well-executed, it’s also loaded with pop culture relics and low-brow references. I think the bulk of her work, or at least what I’ve seen in books and online, is more aligned with pop surrealism than whatever genre she gets stuck in.
One of the things I’m learning about studying art is that clever people know how to use their skills wisely. It’s a simple truth. But I always forget this, especially when I don’t understand a piece of art. I’ll spend hours staring at a Lisa Yuskavage painting, thinking “why does she put such childish, cherubic faces on all of these big-tittied babes?” I look for the answer in the background or clues in the objects. I make up my own answers. I read articles that say she’s gone soft around the edges. This means I’ve forgotten that simple thing.
Maybe Lisa Yuskavage likes manga a lot. Maybe she likes painting fabric and objects more than faces. Maybe she sucks at painting faces. Or maybe the faces, the suburban 70’s boobs and the implied lesbian action are all just vehicles for the sunset to reflect on.
Maybe art criticism is the worst possible way to learn about art.