Mark Ryden

I do not know how to feel about Mark Ryden.

On one hand I feel guilty enjoying the simplicity of his references, like Jesus, Buddhist Symbols, meat, anthropomorphic pumpkin men, and Christina Ricci. There is something cliched about the references.





But upon writing that, I do not think those things are so simple.

I have never laughed at British silliness, endless jokes about cheese are tedious. But, jokes about bodily functions are endlessly amusing, and Shakespeare and South Park rank about the same for humor. Who knows. I read in a catalog of Sigmar Polke drawings that people use the language of the things they control, so when people curse they are referring to the fact that they only control their own bodies. Most curses are bodily references.

I do like the level of painterly craftsmanship, something which I feel guilty about too. Going into the Chelsea galleries reinforces my feelings, because most of the paintings are painted really crummily, but the artists seem really smart. I guess, for this theory to work, you have to accept that Chelsea galleries are the center of contemporary art in the US, which is probably less and less true everyday. I am also suspicious that the gallerists might be the smart ones, and the painters are more like demiurges, pushing their unbridled desires out. Which is the opposite of calculation, strategy, and smartness.

I was reading the most recent issue of The Believer, which incidentally came with some cool temporary tattoos, and the opening article is about the nature of cuteness. Pretty interesting, and while I was reading it I was thinking about Mark Ryden and his host of imitators that populate the magazines Juxtapoz and Hi Fructose. Knowing these artists informed my reading of the article, and helped me enjoy it, and compare some of the theories presented, one theory they present is the specific physical features that make something cute, and I enjoyed comparing what they were saying to the paintings of Mark Ryden.

In favor of Mark Ryden I think his images are unavoidably compelling, they can hold my unthinking mind for a long time. I have been giving more and more importance to images which hold my unthinking or nonverbal mind. The paintings are mesmerizing, and they use space well, they have complex compositions, the figures are, well, cute too.

In a way I think the case can be made that the paintings of Mark Ryden function on the same level as the paintings of Neo Rauch. Although for some reason it is easy to take Neo Rauch seriously and hard to take Mark Ryden seriously. They both use contemporary graphic culture, Neo Rauch uses one from Leipzig, and Mark Ryden uses one from California, and maybe that is the biggest difference. Their artist statements are similar, they both talk about referencing their unconscious mind in an uncritical way, and how composing those thoughts are central to their practice.

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