Shortcut to A Closer Look at John Currin http://slate.msn.com/id/2093020/slideshow/2093150/ http://slate.msn.com/id/2093020/slideshow/2093150/entry/2093128/fs/0//

"Currin, who had recently completed his M.F.A. at Yale  University, was living in Hoboken, N.J., and trying  to figure out how  to break into the New York art  world. As he tells it, he realized  that the best way to  stand out from the crowd of aspiring young artists was to do the thing nobody..." Aside from his erudition, Currin is  also a masterful provocateur. For  his first solo show at the Andrea Rosen Gallery in 1992, he presented a group of acerbic  fantasy portraits of aging Park  Avenue doyennes rendered in a  pared-down, linear style that did the job without calling too much  attention  to itself. In the press  release, Currin described them as  "paintings of old women at the end of their cycle of sexual  potential ⦠between the object of  desire and the object of  loathing"â”a deliberately sexist  barb aimed at the "politically  correct" art establishment. ("I  meant it to sound mean. And I meant it to sound harsh," he later  admitted.) Kim Levin, a critic for  the Village Voice, took the bait.  "Boycott this show," she wrote, virtually guaranteeing a minor  stampede of curious readers   heading downtown to see what  the fuss was about.

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