Recent Articles

Recent Articles by Clay McNear

National Features >

  • Houston Press

    The Passion of Victoria Osteen

    A flight attendant's smackdown with the wife of mega-preacher Joel Osteen inspires a whole new set of commandments.

    By Rich Connelly

  • City Pages

    Your Field Guide to the RNC

    Today Denver, tomorrow the Twin Cities.

    By Matt Snyders and Bradley Campbell

  • The Pitch

    Star Power

    A country musician rescues Waylon Jennings' tour bus from the scrap heap.

    By C.J. Janovy

  • Village Voice

    Serrano's Second Movement

    The provocateur who brought you "Piss Christ" pinches off a new concept.

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Writers of the Purple Prose

One picture’s worth a thousand atavistic contemplations

By Clay McNear

Published on April 03, 2008

Michael Lundgren takes a nice pic. His silver-gel landscapes offer unadorned depictions of our lovely, denuded desert. Odds are, you’ll like ’em.

So God forbid the works should be allowed to speak for themselves. No, their meanings must be spelled out, tediously, in terms you have no hope of understanding. Well, we’re taking a stand, right here, right now, against artspeak and its unholy offspring, the “artist statement.” To wit, an excerpt from Lundgren’s personal manifesto: “[The] images are an atavistic contemplation of the origin, drawing out the mythological potential of the desert. The landscape is only discernible because of the presence of what is fundamentally absent. Myth and metaphor remain unfixed, open.”

Say freakin’ what?!


Tuesdays-Saturdays. Starts: April 3. Continues through May 3, 2008



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