Pathetic aesthetic: Cary Leibowitz’s zingers are more relevant now than ever
Cary Leibowitz – also known as Candyass – belongs to Loser Art, a self-ironising, self-reflexive and at times self-loathing style that emerged in the 1990s. Also an exponent of what critics have dubbed ‘pathetic aesthetic’, Leibowitz narrates his experiences as a gay Jewish artist in mainstream American society with searing self-truths. It hardly needs to be said that, at this time of deep political fracture in the US, these are stories that need to be heard.
And Leibowitz doesn’t just tell his story. He yells it. His works are recalcitrant one-liners, imperatives and exclamations painted in unavoidable blues and pinks. 'Don’t HATE Me Because I’m Mediocre' shouts one painting, 'GO FAGS!' screams another. You can’t help but think these painted wooden panels would be better off gallery walls and out on the streets at the protests.
Twenty-five years – and more than 250 exhibitions – after Leibowitz’s first solo exhibition, at New York’s Stux Gallery in 1990, the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco is staging a retrospective that brings together Leibowitz’s popular text-based paintings with some recently rediscovered ceramics that were shut up in boxes for 24 years. Other works 'we literally excavated from the basement of his Harlem townhouse' says curator Anastasia James
The pretensions of the art world are also called out in the show. 'I think that the main reason Cary’s work is so powerful is that it is accessible in a way that most contemporary art is not,' explains James. 'When so many of his peers shifted their practices to appeal to the art market and the critics, Cary continued on with consistency, making art that embraces complexity and contradiction. His work displays a palpable disdain for what is popular and a deep-rooted reverence for the ugly, and as a result has been intentionally out of step with the traditional narrative.'
In 2018, the retrospective will tour to the ICA in Philadelphia and the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston.
INFORMATION
’Cary Leibowitz: Museum Show’ is on view until 25 June. For more information, visit the Contemporary Jewish Museum website
ADDRESS
Contemporary Jewish Museum
736 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA 94103
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox
Charlotte Jansen is a journalist and the author of two books on photography, Girl on Girl (2017) and Photography Now (2021). She is commissioning editor at Elephant magazine and has written on contemporary art and culture for The Guardian, the Financial Times, ELLE, the British Journal of Photography, Frieze and Artsy. Jansen is also presenter of Dior Talks podcast series, The Female Gaze.
-
This office interior by Faye Toogood is a communal space that encourages collaboration
The new Hato Studio London offices by Faye Toogood encourage IRL collaboration through a tactile environment
By Rosa Bertoli Published
-
Toyota bz4X SUV is the marque’s first pure electric vehicle
The Toyota bz4X is our first chance to explore how the long-standing masters of mass automobile production make an EV
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
Ash Tree House offers a contextual approach to a north London site
Ash Tree House by Edgley Design is a modern family home in a north London conservation area's backyard site
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
Detroit Institute of Arts celebrates Black cinema
‘Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898-1971’ at the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) brings lost or forgotten films, filmmakers and performers to a contemporary audience
By Anne Soward Published
-
BLUM marks 30 years of Japanese contemporary art in America
BLUM will take ‘Thirty Years: Written with a Splash of Blood’ to its New York space in September 2024, continuing its celebration of Japanese contemporary art in America
By Timothy Anscombe-Bell Published
-
Todd Gray’s sculptural photography collages defy dimension, linearity and narrative
In Todd Gray’s New York exhibition, he revisits his 40-year archive, fragmented into elaborated frames that open doors for new readings
By Osman Can Yerebakan Published
-
Frieze LA 2024 guide: the art, gossip and buzz
Our Frieze LA 2024 guide includes everything you need to know and see in and around the fair
By Renée Reizman Published
-
New York artist Christopher Astley showcases an alternative natural world
At Martos Gallery in New York, Christopher Astley’s paintings evoke an alternative natural world and the chaos of warfare (until 16 March 2024)
By Tianna Williams Published
-
The Whitney plots Harold Cohen’s artistic AI adventures
‘Harold Cohen: AARON’, at the Whitney Museum of American Art celebrates the artist’s software – the earliest AI program for artmaking – as an artwork in its own right
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Sneak peek: inside Jack Shainman’s vast New York gallery
Jack Shainman’s new gallery space opens with ‘Broken Spectre’, a new film by Irish artist Richard Mosse
By Mary Cleary Published
-
Artists explore the meaning of home through the lens of queer and trans domesticity in New York
Group exhibition ‘Dreaming of Home’, at Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, uses a seminal Catherine Opie photograph as a springboard to explore the meaning of home today
By Hannah Silver Published