20 April- 30 June 2010
Greengrassi
London
SE11

Bluster, feminist and otherwise, is thick on the ground. Her work has been described as everything from a “critique of prurient sexuality” to a “disingenuous peddling of soft-porn”. Yuskavage herself has been heard to remark: “I only load the gun.” The weapon with the most powerful ammunition though is not the female form, but that of the darkest recesses of the female psyche. The place few of us are prepared, with such honesty at least, to go.(David Zwirner)

Box of delights or something like that: Struck by the size of some of this work in both directions, so very small and so very large and canvas tacked in such an old fashion way, it makes them all the more tactile. Apocalyptic settings and soft sweetness that’s fierce and confronting. A universe created by the artist and at times it feels like its for the artist too. There is a glass wall that seems to exist between me and the paintings, just enough distance to comprehend the make believe and recognize the real.

Questioning is fun: its as much about peeling away the layers of the art work as it is peeling away the layers of ‘I like it, now why?’ There’s a chance that these paintings elicit that kind of reaction from more than just me. I think Yuskavage accepts and confronts the issues that would bring a viewer to regard these works as both grotesque and beautiful and not always simultaneously. I wonder if this reaction has dulled over time?

Lisa Yaskavage interviews/articles

Charlotte Sinclair, Naked Truth. British Vogue HERE
Josephine Breese, Lisa Yuskavage at Greengrassi on ‘This Is Tomorrow’ HERE
Jayson Whitehead, What Kind Of Thing Am I Looking At? HERE

Possibly no longer shocking but just tipping an acceptable level of kitsch.