Jorge Molder is an exquisite example of

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Jorge Molder is an exquisite example of the French artist, but he has recently shown only two paintings. He was born in 1892 in Dijon-le-Roque, France, and studied at the Royal College of Art in London. In 1905 he moved to New York, and in 1910 he enrolled in the Art Students League at the City College of New York. In 1911 he moved to Paris, and there he taught at the Academie de la Grande Chaumier from 1913 until his death. (The School of Paris, founded by his teacher, Léonard Frémont, was the first French university to establish an art school.) In 1920 he was elected to the Academie Nationale Supérieure, and his art was well known in the present-day galleries. He was a powerful figure in the circles of the Poème Celtiberi and of the School of Paris. He was also the only Frenchman to have organized the Internationale Lettre, the first European gathering of contemporary art. He was an eloquent critic, writing in 1911: . . . [T]he essence of art is to be the absolute, the absolute of the physical, the absolute of the quantitative, the absolute of the systematic, and the absolute of the human. He was a master of the phrase Absolute Plan, of the Absolute, the Absolute of the Absolute. . . . There is no form which is not a form of a finite, absolutely geometric, absolutely quantitative and absolutely quantitative structure, and this absolutely quantitative structure is what separates art from other kinds of social work, art which is intellectually oriented, and social work which, in its expression, is not intellectually oriented.In 1915 he published his Manifesto Lettre, in which he denounced all nonobjective painting as artificial, and called for an absolute rejection of all art which does not deal with the absolute, the absolute. He went on to say: . . .

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Jorge Molder is an exquisite example of the artist who has done all this and more. His collages, wall pieces, and paintings are fluid, light, and highly seductive. In recent years he has become known as one of the leading exponents of the fine art Nouveau Raffaise, which has been, in large part, a reaction against the coarse, male, abstract art of the 60s.Molders collages are clean, graphic drawings with a strong, strong, non-figurative image. They are constructed from collage-based materials such as tar, paper, paper pulp, and steel. Their subject matter is often the women, usually nude, who are frequently interchanged with fragments of collage. In Untitled (Corpse of a Nude), 1991, a face and body are combined with a small, thin, torn paper strip that has been separated into layers and mounted on a wall. The face is obscured by a paper strip; the body is juxtaposed with an undulating paper strip, which is itself split and reassembled into a body in the corner. The collage, a collage of paper pulp and paper, is that body, distorted and severed. It is a fragment of flesh, a fragment of a woman.Molders collages are often made in a similar way to women paintings, and are often made on a large scale. But they are less figurative than the women, and the figure seems to be an abstraction. In the large Untitled (Ero-Queer Burlesque), 1991, a figure is placed against a white ground and surrounded by a red paper strip that is broken up into a series of similar parts and rearranged. The figure is partially covered by a tarpaulin and partly covered by a straw. The tarpaulin has been drawn over a heart-shaped hole in the straw, which has been used to fill the heart of the figure.

Result #3

Jorge Molder is an exquisite example of the Spanish avant-garde. His figure was sculpted in a style that recalls the work of other contemporary Spanish artists. His face is the shape of an egg, but the eyes and the mouths are closed. His hands are sharp, but very gentle, as if they had been used to hold a piece of string. The hair is long, for if the head is made of anything else, it is a black wig. He wears a white shirt and a black tie; both are tied up on the knees. His face is a mask, which is made of a white shirt. His head is black and his eyes are closed. His expression is one of terror, but his hands are tied behind his back. He has no body to lean on; they are bound with cords. His hands are very strong, which opens them up like a pincushion, and his fingers are bound to his ears. His face is the expression of an eye that has no pupil, which opens them up like a pin. His arms are pinned together like a belt buckle, and his hands are outstretched like a shawl. He holds a green jacket on the floor; he is tied down to it. The shirt is ripped to the waist and the sleeves are tied up. The jacket has been torn to the waist; it hangs on the collar; its sleeves are long. The collar is black; the jacket is cuffed and cinched around the neck. The fingers of the collar have been broken; it is the same size as the fingers in the jacket. The rest of the collar is tied around his neck, and it is the one which has been torn from the jacket. The other collar is white, and the sleeve is torn down to reveal the shirt underneath. The neck is cut to match the one on his chest; the elbows are crossed, and the elbows are pulled up.

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Jorge Molder is an exquisite example of the deadpan, even jolting, in-your-face, humor of the graffiti scene, and its ability to engage its most determined critics. His paintings, though ostensibly abstract, are invariably depictions of place, the aestheticized geography of the American city. But he does not just represent the country, he is the country.In an interview in the catalogue, Gantner, responding to a question about his own work, refers to his desire to be the most radical painter in the world. But his ambition is not radicalism but profundity. He wants to be like his father, his uncle, and his uncle. Gantner is a masterful surrealist, and, though he has never been invited to an art fair, he has been a fixture on the New York art scene for twenty years. Gantner shows that the radical is only radical in the most radical way—in the most radical way of the most radical. In a sense, the radical is a displacement of the radical, a displacement of the radicalization of art and life. Gantner demonstrates that art is always radical, and that art is not a cure for the degenerate, but a part of it. This is the radical in art. Gantner has been an eloquent advocate of art and art-making as social activity. He has spoken of the need to be like my uncle, whose name was always the same, the same as my father. Art and life are one.The exhibitions current lineup is dominated by works of art made in the past decade. The only paintings included are those that are clearly indebted to sculpture. Jim Shaws Ramona (The Bride), 1984, is a rare, if not exceptional, example of his sculpture, in which the artist uses an organic, even volcanic, material to depict a woman with a gun.

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Jorge Molder is an exquisite example of a contemporary artist who has worked in and around the edges of the city. His work is sculptural, but also conceptual, as if he were simply making a statement about the city and its infrastructures—the streets, the streets, the streets, the streets.The work presented here was quite simple. The artist placed an empty glass case on the floor. In front of this was a wooden tripod, a figure that made clear the title of the work. It was called Asocial Architect, 2009. The pedestal, of course, is a metaphorical construction, since, according to the artist, it serves as the support for an empty glass case, which has been left empty for the last ten years. This act of abandonment is a statement about the nature of work: the absence of a work of art. It is also a statement about the impossibility of ever finding an object that has the same value as an empty glass case. Thats why the piece is called The Empty Glass Case.Asocial Architect does not attempt to be the ultimate statement about work. Rather, it speaks to its own disappearance, to the impossibility of achieving a value that is not simply an absence, but an absence that has no value. The artist has played the role of the passive observer, who examines the forms of abandonment. But the same neglect that casts us in awe may also be used to cast us in suspicion. The work is not merely an absolutization of a situation; it is a representation of the impossibility of a value that can be obtained by abandonment. We may indeed view it as a critique of the individualistic urge to define oneself as an artist. But that does not necessarily mean that we give up our identities, our very selves, and our autonomy. It does mean that we question the very notion of the autonomy of art.