Culture Review

Love Before Intimacy

Exhibition | Lola Montes Schnabel
By Avram Finkelstein

Intimacy Before Art

Kids often grow up wanting to do what their dads do. Police precincts all over America are full of them. But artists aren't cops, and sadly, there is no such thing as legacy talent. So being the child of an artist can be deadly. And then what do you do if pop is Julian Schnabel? The jet stream of his swagger could torch the best of us. Fortunately for them, his children appear barely singed. Vito Schnabel has the gallery, the Bruce High Quality Foundation, and his very own Brucennial. And now Lola Montes Schnabel has a solo show under her belt. Don't feel out of it if you're still hungry for a sense of what that show actually looked like, after foraging through reviews that focused solely on the opening. So here is a little meat, and please, don't throw plates at us. Five canvases aren't necessarily a show. All five of them showed guts, but only two were remotely resolved. One showed promise, and there was a hint of mysticism in it. What the artist loses in her battle with negative space she compensates for in rhythm. Her palette is mean, to say the least. She owes as much to Baselitz as she does to her dad. And regardless of what her father tells her, charisma isn't everything.

TAGS: 1980s, art, exhibition, hole, neo expressionism, nepotism, New York City, painting,

FACTS: Date: December 16, 2011 (The Hole, New York City)