“Angie” is not the first time Zimmerman has picked up a brush. In December, the former neighborhood watchman sold a blue, latex paint illustration of the American flag with the text “God One Nation with Liberty and Justice For All” for $100,099.99 on the auction site eBay.
“It’s very primitive,” said Jason Edward Kaufman, a contributing editor at Art+Auction, about Zimmerman’s work, “the sort of thing an art critic wouldn’t look at twice.”George Zimmerman’s Paintings: A Critical Appraisal
While the American flag painting may look like a military ad or a patriotic poster, “Angie” looks like a “bloodbath,” Kaufman said.
“They’re just kind of so appalling that you hate to make comparisons,” said Andrew Russeth, art critic for the New York Observer, when asked to place Zimmerman’s painting in the context of a particular artistic movement. “It looks like someone is doing paint by number.”
Russeth panned the paintings as “a desperate cry for attention.”
“People like George Zimmerman and George W. Bush who don’t seem to be able to make their cases in other ways kind of see art as a field in which they can redeem themselves,” he added.
UPDATE: The Associated Press has demanded that George Zimmerman halt the sale of one of his paintings because the news agency says it directly copies an AP photo.
62 comments:
What do our resident artists think?
Is this similar to the work of Shepard Fairey? Whose "Hope" poster of Obama was "widely described as iconic" according to the first sentence on the topic in Wikipedia?
The "critics" sound enraged with envy and jealousy.
The next Robert Crumb!
He's twice compared to GWB but the work is nothing like that of Bush. They are both Untouchables, that's the only similarity.
Whatever their motivations, I think you'd be hard-pressed to convince anyone that the critics were jealous of Zimmerman's artisic talent.
I think you'd be hard-pressed to convince anyone that the critics were jealous of Zimmerman's artisic talent.
et Tu, Mr. Jones?
The Associated Press has demanded that George Zimmerman halt the sale of one of his paintings because the news agency says it directly copies an AP photo.
I guess Warhol never used an AP image.
Nothing sacred.
Nothing sacred
Everyone scared
If the 'paintings' were not fetching however much it is that they are going for, over $100,000 or so, would the criticism be this pronounce?
My guess is probably not.
The idea that GZ may profit from the fame they gave him is just too much for them to bear.
Hmm, I just felt a tweet coming on
Again, similar to Shepard Fairey.
Except Shepard Fairey sued the AP for dec relief.
Page's riff was Page's riff. It was there before anything else. I just thought, 'well, what am I going to sing?' That was it, a nick. Now happily paid for. At the time, there was a lot of conversation about what to do. It was decided that it was so far away in time and influence that...well, you only get caught when you're successful. That's the game.
—Robert Plant
Zimmerman might be trying to pay his attorneys.
I've heard that payment is problematic.
So, once again we're criticizing Zimmerman for trying to find a way out of crap that the race hustlers dumped on him.
Good for him for doing what he can to survive and pay his bills.
Interesting that Time cropped the picture to eliminate the political commentary that was the primary point of the work.
Art is in the eye of the beholder and evidently is also tied to political persuasions.
I don't see anything less artistic about the prosecutor being painted in bloodbath colors (probably that is how Zimmerman feels about the nasty crunt) than a Jackson Pollock painting where basically pots of paint have been randomly thrown up on to a canvas. Grandma Moses. Is her work any more or less primitive than that of Bush? Outside artist are fawned over by the "art world" especially if they are poor uneducated blacks.
Booooosh and Zimmerman the White Hispanic, while not necessarily as accomplished as Warhol, who does a mean can of Campbell's soup or as super duper fantastic as Picasso who does doodles worse than those you can see on many a bored CEO's scratch pad at a tedious meeting or as good as my 2nd grade daughter can do......Nope....not anywhere as accomplished. Unfortunately, they fall on the wrong side of correct thinking liberal/fascist art critics.
Piffle.
Art is in the eye of the beholder and evidently is also tied to political persuasions.
Art is in the eyes of those who be Holder.
Art is also commerce. You can have a beautiful piece of art but if no one wants to buy it then it is just garbage.
You know like Crack's music.
That was mean. True but mean.
Troop, that was ingorant of you.
My fault. I cracked open the door.
Interesting that Time cropped the picture to eliminate the political commentary that was the primary point of the work.
Excellent point. I noticed that but failed to make the connection.
Yay, I got re-tweeted by gaypatriot.
It didn't come easy ;)
Overall I think Zimmerman's work is not that bad. Compared to this?
Political commentary cropped by Time magazine: "I have this much ['this much' in small print, referencing the gesture Angie is making] respect for the 'American judicial system" -Angie C."
Looks like crap to me, but if someone's willing to pay for it then more power to him.
"I got re-tweeted by gaypatriot.
It didn't come easy"
Did we really need to know that?
Trooper bait.
It looks like 10th grade average art. But the name of the game is capitalism, and what the market will bear.
@Amartel no wonder they cropped it out.
Here is my attempt at Twitter Stardom, maybe my best so far. its all downhill from here.
I don't think anyone took it seriously as art but it was a way to donate to the GZ cause and the belief that maybe it won't lose too much of that value as a collectible.
Of course people should be able to donate to the causes they want. Still you can hardly blame a liberal art critic for taking off the kids gloves when giving his opinion.
Restored Jesus kind of has that look in his eye like he has THIS MUCH respect for the American Judicial System. Maybe it's the guyliner.
Still you can hardly blame a liberal art critic for taking off the kids gloves when giving his opinion.
Yes you can. The art critic is supposed to be criticizing the art not the ARTIST.
A food critic doesn't determine the quality of the food based on whether the chef is a Republican or in the case of Zimmerman a White Hispanic who was accused of racism. The food stands on its own merit as should the art.
Personally, I find many artists that are celebrated and very famous to be not at all 'artistic'. I fail to find the art in their art. Pollock paintings....if you can call splashing paint randomly against a wall painting.....are something that completely eludes me as art. It has nothing to do with Pollock the person. I know nothing about him. It has to do with my taste in what I consider artistic and what takes skill.
Hitler's paintings are worth a lot of money. Just sayn'
I wanted to commission Palladian to paint several of the commenters at my blog as dogs playing poker on black velvet. But he declined.
He is a true artist.
Note: I'm not saying that Zimmerman is a good artist or not.
The issue is the political aspects of the liberal art critics not liking the works of Bush and/or Zimmerman based on WHO they are and not necessarily on what they do.
I am willing to bet that if George Bush's paintings were presented as outsider art, done in a naive style by an unschooled poor black person or hispanic or other favored ethnicity, the art critics would be drooling all over themselves and coming up with superlatives to praise the works. Bet?
I see Michael Haz as a Bulldog. Sixty Grit as a Hound Dog. Chicken Little as a Greyhound. Cody Jarrett as Pit Bull. Pogo as a Basset Hound. Blake as the dog who looks in the Victrola. Tim as a Boston Terrier. Palladian as a Pekinese with a thyroid problem because that is a very gay dog.
Darcy, Dust Bunny Queen and MamaM would all be poodles in revealing costumes.
And me.
I would be a Coyote.
A wiley one at that.
Sorry if I left anyone out. If I did I am open to suggestions as to what type of dog you would like to be in the painting.
Oh and one more thing. Absolutely no rare clumbers. Just sayn'
Hell, you don't even have to be a racial or ethnic minority or even poor to be praised for "art." Applications from helpful* white men of limited to non-existent talent who copy off photographs of ethnic minorities are acceptable.
Just ask Shepard Fairey.
*key word
I see you left out the difficult dogs - Ari and Bagoh.
I wanted to commission Palladian to paint several of the commenters at my blog as dogs playing poker on black velvet. But he declined.
Even Michelangelo had sponsors.
I will gladly chirbit for $
Not at all. I was going to use the dogs in their avatars. Ari would be a German Shepard. Bags would be a very horny Pit with a hopeful expression.
I will gladly chirbit tomorrow for a hamburger today.
What are your rates?
I would definitely pay for a chirbit of the Crack Emcee's blog being read in the voice of Billie Thomas.
Now that's entertainment.
It would probably win a Grammy or something.
If Matthew Beard were awake he would say that is racist.
I would definitely pay for a chirbit of the Crack Emcee's blog being read in the voice of Billie Thomas.
Damnit Troop, he's not in my repertoire. That would call for "character development" like I did for Ritmo to get Inga Schwartzenegger down. I can do "Fat Albert" though.
I suggest Jamaican.
Cola Nut?
Even better.
Can't we stop talking about this knucklehead now?
Sorry if I left anyone out. If I did I am open to suggestions as to what type of dog you would like to be in the painting.
Just have a dog skull hanging on the wall for me.
"Can't we stop talking about this knucklehead now?"
Yes, please.
Yes you can. The art critic is supposed to be criticizing the art not the ARTIST.
I'm just gonna go out on a limb and suggest that there's no downside for them telling it exactly like they see it.
Your idea that art critics would drool all over themselves with joy and excitement if it wasn't a rightie poster boy is a little naive I think.
Deb
Inga
Chip
garage
Bags
Meade
Warning! Warning! Danger Will Robinson!
I couldn't find a good bloodhound pic for nd with houndstooth hat and pipe.
That was hilarious rebellious Rabel
Thx, Lem.
So it's like "paint by number" according to esteemed art critic Andrew Russeth. But what turns him on?
If only Zimmerman worked with yellow balloons! Russerth would be all "in love" and "dying to see what the sculpture looks like in the artist’s other trademark colors." Steve Martin, call your office.
Gush.
We are not amused.
I think I should be represented by a foot long with sauerkraut and whipped cream.
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