Robert Kushner: I Heart Matisse

Robert Kushner’s I <3 Matisse might be better titled something like It’s Complicated. Matisse’s influence shows strongly in these still lives - the iconic fishbowl, the array of vividly contrasting patterns, the looseness of the brushstrokes. The ghost of the master is everywhere. But there are also important ways in which this series is solely Kushner’s. The patterns here are far wilder than they ever are with Matisse. The variety of mediums mixed in with paint marks another way in which Kushner gives the old classicist a modern spin, and so is the almost fluorescent color. The show is daring, and sometimes engaging, but it comes up short when the colors are left unbalanced, and the simplified shapes that Matisse never painted, but Kushner did, seem to have no weight when set among the ones that directly reference the old master. The elaborate patterns, the neon and muddy colors, end up being hard on the eyes, too loud, too tacky, too bright. The images do not evoke joy, or a sense of timelessness the way Matisse’s work does. Perhaps the emoji in the title of the show prepares the viewers for an ironic take on the distinct symbols attributed to Matisse. Maybe the artist wants the viewer to binge on the domestic interiors, the prints, and the loud colors so that they would never want to go near it again. Homage and tackiness meet and vie for dominance, and the results are predictably mixed.