I'm a big fan of Richard Diebenkorn, however to be fair, this show is a great disappointment.

In what amounts to a show of his artworks while earning his masters degree, the show falls flat. I think the problem could be that this work is clearly not mature - in fact it is fast, thin, and a little bit generic in its feel. RD was at the time of his New Mexico experience, painting in the style of the abstract expressionists - I should really clarify that - because of the diversity of images created by that group, Diebenkorn was mining a style that felt like deKooning with a touch of Robert Motherwell thrown in. As far as student work - that is all well and good, the problem arises in that the questions that the ABEX painters were addressing is completely absent in these works. They come across as a series of images of wanting to be taken seriously without providing enough firepower to support that approach.

I rarely do a bad review on this site - I think enough people are negative enough as it is - why add to it. However in this case, I had pumped this show up twice before seeing it and was so let down I felt that I owed at least some semblance of my truth to you the reader after actually seeing this show.

There was one thing I was really hoping to see after I realized the weakness's of the show. That is the sense of place that Diebenkorn has transfixed in his Ocean Park series, I was really hoping for that same kind of place in these paintings. Unfortunately that is not here. Lets hope that a show of his more mature work will be making the rounds soon - this is not the kind of show that does a reputation any good, especially the stellar reputation of an american master like Richard Diebenkorn.

Labels: Bad Review, Painting, Washington DC