Julian Schnabel is a man of bold gestures. He is grand, immodest and generous. He built himself a palazzo on the Hudson river, when he decided to change medium he bypassed video and went directly to commercial filmmaking and, meanwhile, made a name for himself as a decorator, eschewing modern design for rich colours and deep textures. He is also squarely out of fashion. No respectable museum will touch his work. Is this perhaps unfair? The other day I stumbled upon a book published by Skira retracing his career and, much to my surprise, felt a strong compulsion to buy it. All of a sudden, his famous broken crockery paintings, which had always seemed to me slightly repellent, appeared full of energy and depth. His newer material, bold strokes of paint on found images, seemed beautiful and poetic. It seemed quite refreshing to find art that is openly emotional done by a painterly painter, as opposed to the dessicated, intellectual pieces that fill so many museums and galleries these days...
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