Me and Mr. Robinson, God bless you please, coo coo ca-choo, hey, hey, hey
This is an AI-generated article on Walter Robinson and the New York art scene.
You watch in amazement as half of the Jewish New York art world mourns and expresses condolences over the death of Walter Robinson (74). And you say to yourself, Jesus Fucking Christ!, Holy Tenno!, what will happen in Tokyo when Mario passes away… 🤣
Things are still looking good for me at the moment at Sechs+Sechs, I’ll easily make it past 69, and with the Seventeens…
By then, all of my acquaintances and friends in Tokyo will probably have died. lol
Walter-was-a-wanna-be-artist. With no talent. A pretentious pulp painter for being too dumb to understand the technique of acrylic painting. Even more dumb to master oil painting. The more Walter fucked around the more he found out, that he was a hopeless case as a spoiled boy in striped pajamas.
Up-date 2025/3/3
Mike Cockrill about Walter Robinson, on February 10, 2025 at 1:24 PM:
He came to my studio a few years ago because he said he wanted me to show him “how to paint a figure.”
Standing in front of one of my female figures he asked, “How do you do that?” I said, “Well, you know how you have cool light and warm shadows or warm light and cool shadows?”
Walter said, “No.”
I asked him, “Did you go to art school?”
He said, “No.”
I said, “Forget about how I do it. You have your own unique way of painting. Do what you’re doing.”
Walter happened to become an influential editor. Every art dealer, curator and artist was suddenly licking his ass. Jerry Saltz on Vulture, February 12, 2025: “As soon as my first Village Voice column came out in 1998, he (Walter) asked if he could republish whatever I wrote on Artnet. I said “yes” without checking with my bosses and never looked back. This was a game changer for me. It made me realize that writing did not exist if it did not exist online.”
Walter was “lucky” enough to have hired the self-loathing, impo + psychopath Charlie Finch (1953-2022; book “most art sucks” 1998) as an American pseudo-critic, who speedily wrote about the New York art exhibitions with a sharp tongue, unscrupulous, merciless, without regard for losses. Molti nemici, molto onore, mussoliniesque.
Also because Walter, who had similar nasty vibes, endorsed, liked Charlie’s smelliness and Hinterfotzigkeit.
Charlie got him the clicky-hits he needed. Plus bad reputation.
Walter’s monetization concept a fiasco.
Unsuccessful Walter was fired.
After his dismissal from artnet, New York art dealer Jeffrey Deitch, who previously licked Walter’s ass, got him a solo show with his fake Polke-Picabia-Prince-Painting-Copies.
I saw Walter’s paintings in Switzerland at the Art Basel booth of Jeffrey Deitch. Carelessly displayed, without the right, professional lighting for the artworks, on the banister of a staircase. A disaster in many ways. Walter’s p・arty practice output is a white joke.
On this rare occasion, there is one more, highly sensitive, aspect worth mentioning in the context of Walter’s influence as the former editor-in-chief for artnet. Walter was married to Lisa Rosen. The New York art scene is or was heavily Jewish. Not so obvious to the outsider, but important to know for the art specialist, who doesn’t want to die as an idiot. The following examples may be illuminating, typical of the subtle demarcation and kunstmafiaesque, clique economy. Japanese artist KAWARA On 河原 温 was advised to change his name to Jewish and behave as a gay man. The extremely successful artist Algerian-French Adel Abdessemed is blocked / “obstructed” in New York, and his exhibitions are panned by Jewish art critics like Jerry Saltz because he is a Berber. For example, the actually occurring exhibition in Amsterdam “Sex: Jewish Positions” is unthinkable in New York by reason of censorship. Maurizio Cattelan’s masterpiece “Breath Ghosts Blind” (2021) will not be shown in New York considering part of the influential Jewish art scene is opposed to it.
The two reviews, written with a rude and aggressive attitude, presented below, may be of interest to my Japanese ART+CULTURE readers. As we don’t know whether these old texts will still be available in the future (artnet’s financial status is very bad), I have copied them, along with screenshots, for documentary reasons.
First, let’s read Walter’s review about prolific, well established Sputniko!, whose conceptual works with gender and feminism themes I do appreciate and value a lot. I would like to highlight the title and the last sentence of Walter’s review:
“”Talk to Me” OH, SHUT UP”
“But art? I say it’s spinach, and I say the hell with it.”
“Talk to Me”
OH, SHUT UP
by Walter Robinson
The mad scientists have taken over the Museum of Modern Art for “Talk to Me,” July 24-Nov. 7, 2011, MoMA design department curator Paola Antonelli’s summer blockbuster featuring almost 200 design items that represent the interface between people and machines. Emblematic of this suspiciously futuristic notion is the real Metrocard Vending Machine by the entrance, so shockingly familiar-yet-out-of-place that I forgot to actually look at it to see if it works (it does).
The “mad scientist” motif is courtesy of the Japanese-English artist Sputniko (b. 1985), who described herself in just this way. A game young graduate of the Royal College of Art design program, Sputniko has devised two metal, purse-sized, wearable body-extension sculptures, one that allows a person to talk to crows in crow language, and a second that permits people to experience a simulation of menstruation.
Yes, that’s right. From the illustration, it appears that the silver metal contraption, worn on the back of the belt, has an arm that extends uncomfortably down between the legs. The user extracts his or her own blood with a syringe, feeds it into the machine, which then expels it from you-know-where. Sputniko said that a YouTube vid about the Menstruation Machine had over 200,000 hits, and had won a prize.
MoMA may well acquire the thing for its collection; the work is in an edition of two, with one owned by an art-collecting doctor. Sputniko explained that she got her name in Japan, where her atypical looks were mistaken as Russian.
The show includes other almost-as-nutty objects, from a bumbling little cardboard robot named Tweenbot Sam to an anti-style Muttering Hat whose dangling earpods let the wearer have the schizophrenic experience of hearing voices. A digital slingshot allows a would-be vandal to shoot digital paint splats onto digital screens, and a solar-powered Tree Listening device provides an aural peek inside arboreal xylem tubes.
An oval-shaped lacquered resin Communication Prosthesis gives the wearer a teeth-baring grimace that is billed as a “conversation stopper,” and a spherical glass Phantom Recorder ostensibly translates the electrical impulses from a missing arm or limb into a poetic readout on an electronic screen.
Some of my favorite things in the show are digital games, like the music apps that turn the iPad into a stringed instrument, as with Max Weisel’s Soundrop (2010) and Henry Chu’s Squiggle (2010). At the entrance to the exhibition is a mural-sized projection of Talking Carl, a little digital creature, square and red, that responds noisily to pokes and tickles (not unlike Tickle Me Elmo, if you remember him). Carl is billed as “loveable” but is really a pain in the ass.
So, what is all this stuff, really? Who makes it, where do they come from, and what do they make it for? A good question, and I don’t have the answer, though one clue is that many of the items are co-authored by university design departments. Google is even listed as a maker of one of the exhibits.
Strange and inventive though it may be, “Talk to Me” is mostly gadgets, toys, videogames and even science. MoMA has made itself over into a funky version of a Sharper Image store (which tellingly went out of business in 2008). But art? I say it’s spinach, and I say the hell with it.
“Talk to Me: Design and the Communication between People and Objects,” July 24-Nov. 7, 2011, at the Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd Street, New York, N.Y. 10019.
WALTER ROBINSON is editor of Artnet Magazine.
http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/reviews/robinson/talk-to-me-at-moma-7-21-11.asp
KID STUFF
by Walter Robinson
Can we make this about me rather than about Yoshitomo Nara? The diffident, eternally adolescent Japanese Neo-Pop art star is already the favorite of bigfoot collectors and teen girls worldwide, and the subject of the first hot art show of the fall season, “Yoshitomo Nara: Nobody’s Fool” at the Asia Society Museum, so he hardly needs this puny little text to be about him.
Art is always about the viewer, of course, and this is especially true with Nara, whose exquisite cartoon images of grumpy little girls and sleepy doggies pierce right through to the hearts of his many fans. When I made some paintings of kittens back in 1980 — this is the part that is about me — one was exhibited in “The Beast” at P.S.1 in 1982 (curated by the brilliant Richard Flood), and another hung above the Max Fisch bar on Ludlow Street for many years — I realized that the pictures were guaranteed to elicit a chorus of sighs of affection and ahhs of approval from at least 50 percent of the audience (the cat-loving half, of course). It was a hard-wired reaction.
At the time I suppose I was amused by the notion that “authenticity” could be found in biology and evolution or whatever, but now with Nara’s work what seems important is its expressivity, of all things. His cartoons really do reach out to his audience and take them on a little emotional rollercoaster ride back into toddlerhood. Nara’s art regresses you, if you let it. He’s an Emo artist for a mean world, and people like it like Matisse liked his armchair.
Nara’s work regressed me very quickly to early on in my elementary school days, when I first remember being celebrated as the kid in the class who could draw (first and last, I should say). My specialty was frieze-like high-noon showdowns, with the bad guy facing off against the sheriff in the middle of the street. With the creative illogic of a kid, I would put the “good stuff” — the sheriff’s star and the bad guy’s black bandanna — on both characters. This kind of brilliant kid styling is key to Nara’s art, giving it its individual peculiarities, like the angry eyes and sad little smiles.
Other things can be said about “Yoshitomo Nara: Nobody’s Fool”: it’s about Nara’s love of Pop music, and the press kit includes a nice playlist he made of early ‘60s British rock; it includes several large installations that seem designed to fill the space, and a few early ‘80s works that suggest Nara started out with Neo-Expressionism; and it proves that though cartoonish, Nara’s pictures can have a perfect verve, and can also be beautifully, lovingly done, like they were Rothkos or some such. But then that would make this review about him, instead of about me.
“Yoshitomo Nara: Nobody’s Fool,” Sept. 9, 2010-Jan. 2, 2011, at Asia Society Museum, 725 Park Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10021
WALTER ROBINSON is editor of Artnet Magazine.
http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/reviews/robinson/yoshitomo-nara9-8-10.asp
check:
Tokyo Perspective: Chronicle of a Death Foretold regarding a respected American Art Dealer
奈良美智や村上隆を巡って：「FUCK YOU」や「お前、授乳中なんだから、俺のビジネスパートナーにはなれない」
https://art-culture.world/articles/blum/
18 Feb 2025. Is This Yoshitomo Nara’s Most Soulful Portrait? Exploring Cosmic Eyes (in the Milky Lake)| Sotheby’s
Step into the world of Yoshitomo Nara with Cosmic Eyes (in the Milky Lake)—a powerful reflection of his mature painterly practice and lifelong exploration of self.
In this captivating work, Nara captures the raw sensitivity and complexity of his iconic protagonists through the lens of Japanese Neo-Pop kawaii aesthetics. A wide-eyed, rosy-cheeked girl meets the viewer’s gaze—vulnerable yet defiant, relatable yet enigmatic—embodying Nara’s signature ability to reflect the spirit of each generation.
Her eyes, shimmering with luminous hues of blue, pink, and green, become portals to the soul—a bridge between viewer and subject, inviting us to confront the self and glimpse the rebellious nature within.
A true testament to Nara’s ability to evoke emotion and sincerity, Cosmic Eyes (in the Milky Lake) reaffirms his place as one of Japan’s most celebrated contemporary artists.
Sotheby’s Modern & Contemporary Evening Auction / Lot 10
4 March 2025 19:00 GMT London
PROPERTY FROM AN IMPORTANT EUROPEAN COLLECTION
Yoshitomo Nara
Cosmic Eyes (in the Milky Lake)
Guaranteed Property
Irrevocable Bids
VAT reduced rate
UK: Greenford Park Warehouse
Estimate:
6,000,000 – 8,000,000 GBP
1,130,947,884 – 1,507,930,512 JPY
7,578,300 – 10,104,400 USD
7,241,856 – 9,655,808 EUR
54,950,562 – 73,267,416 CNY
78.000 – 104.000 BTC
Yoshitomo Nara
b. 1959
Cosmic Eyes (in the Milky Lake)
signed, partially titled and dated 2005 (on the reverse)
acrylic and glitter on canvas
162 by 130.2 cm. 64¾ by 51¼ in.
Executed in 2005.
Condition Report
Provenance
Stephen Friedman Gallery, London
Private Collection, Brazil (acquired from the above)
Acquired from the above by the present owner
Literature
Jacques Prévert, Tori e no aisatsu, Tokyo 2006, n.p., illustrated in colour
Bijutsu Shuppan Sha, Yoshitomo Nara: The Complete Works, Volume 1: Paintings, Sculptures, Editions, Photographs, Tokyo 2013, no. P-2005-005, p. 197, illustrated in colour
Exhibited
London, Stephen Friedman Gallery, Yoshitomo Nara, February – March 2006
Same age 奈良美智 NARA Yoshitomo never mentions Walter’s artnet’s slating critique. He prefers to quote Jerry Saltz’s wife Roberta Smith’s review from the New York Times.
Had Walter any influence on Nara’s extremely successful career?
No.
Last year Walter promised me to write a follow-up of KID STUFF, see the cover pic.
“Hmmm I might be able to do that, how many words do you want?”
So, where’s Walter’s new review about Nara? During my next opening parties, I’ll give you the answer with a glass of Champagne in our hands.
In conclusion, what will Walter be remembered for?
As someone who overestimated himself, made blatant misjudgments, was a pitiful, mediocre acrylic painter, and strongly supported and promoted his “alter ego” aka Charlie Finch, a misogynist and “Destruktivitätsmensch”.
Kudos for coining the new term in Western-influenced art history: “Zombie Formalism”. Walter’s analytical summary of the new painting trends among young artists deserves recognition as he pointedly defined a new contemporary art movement.
Quotes from FB:
1. “Walter knew everyone and had a superpower that I envied, he remembered everyone’s name, what they did, and could give you a list of whom they slept with. He was so wry and witty and honest.”
2. “Walter also had a dark side, a mercurial snarliness that, trust me, you did not to be on the wrong side of. It really pains me that our last interaction was one of those in which I crossed him and he snapped at me, out of all proportion, then blocked me (this happened on instagram).
I was shocked and hurt, but figured we would eventually put it behind us as we had done in the past. I regret that we didn’t have a chance to make up, but I’m going to file that incident away as just one of the little dips in a long up-and-down road. It was mostly up, and I will miss Walter a lot.”
3. “I spoke to another artist/writer yesterday with a similar story to yours. He described Walter as an “aggressive editor” and that they wrangled quite a bit over texts he wrote. But it all made for better and more concise punchy writing consistent with Artnet’s goals.”
Walter, who was married four times, with-holes-fulfilled-life-in-NYC, was just a wannabe busybody, a petit bourgeois, from backwoods America.
Walter Robinson is one of the reasons why the New York art world became insignificant, obsolete.
God bless you.
Tokyo 東京, 20 Feb 2025
Mario A 亜 真里男
The more you f*ck around the more you find out。
In case you’re interested in NY’s art world:
とても悪い人、アートアドバイザー リーザ・シッフ氏：「私はフェイク、毎日 詐欺師でした。」
A very bad person, art advisor Lisa Schiff: “I was a fake, a fraud every day.”
https://art-culture.world/articles/art-advisor-lisa-schiff/
The Slow Death of the New York Art Scene
ニューヨーク・アートシーンの緩慢な死
https://art-culture.world/articles/slow-death-of-the-new-york-art-scene/
The Year 2021. Still Symptomatic For New York’s Art Scene: Taking Drugs.
2021年。麻薬とニューヨークのアートシーン
https://art-culture.world/articles/new-yorks-art-scene/
五木田智央のニューヨークのアートディーラー、メアリー・ブーンは刑務所に30ヶ月間
GOKITA Tomoo’s New York Art Dealer Mary Boone sentenced to 30 Months in Prison
https://art-culture.world/articles/gokita-tomoos-new-york-art-dealer-mary-boone-sentenced-to-30-months-in-prison/
Prominent Collector and Dealer Adam Lindemann Arrested
New York Art World
https://art-culture.world/articles/adam-lindemann-arrested/
Next One @ Sotheby’s: Hugely Popular Amy Cappellazzo Bites the Dust
What will happen @ Sotheby’s Japan?
https://art-culture.world/articles/amy-cappellazzo/
Art world darling, cool Kenny Schachter @ Art Basel
アート界の寵児、クール ケニー・シャクター ＠ アート・バーゼル
https://art-culture.world/articles/kenny-schachter/