Product Description
Moore demonstrates his satirical take on abstract expressionism in an early work which he titled Monkey Business.
Canvas Editions
Standard Edition Canvas: 100
Canvas Size: 17⅞ x 22"
Artist's Edition Canvas: 5
Canvas Size: 29½" x 35¾"
Each limited edition canvas is signed and numbered by the artist and comes with a Certificate of Authenticity.
ABOUT
From listening to professors Howard Goodson and Al Sella talk and lecture, Daniel concluded that they must have been painting abstracts since the 1950s when the style was considered mainstream. As he looked around the art department, he also concluded that most of their students had been brainwashed into painting abstracts, too. Either that, or they simply wanted a good grade.
“Even though abstract expressionism was on the radical side of art, I nevertheless viewed it as being part of the establishment. I still had some of the rebel in me, and I decided that I was not going to play that game. A couple of the other students felt the same way. Besides,” Daniel adds, “my competitive nature viewed this as merely another challenge.”
And so a very nonabstract line was drawn.
As an art major, Daniel had taken a healthy dose of art history courses. While he admits to not being the most learned scholar on the subject at the time, he gained considerable knowledge as to the genesis of painting, its development through the centuries, and the artists who had mastered it. He also had formed strong opinions on the current art trends and the direction in which they were headed.
“Although they did not come right out and say this, the message I seemed to be getting from the professors was that superrealism was somehow a lesser art form than abstract expressionism. I decided that I would quietly retaliate against the prevalent thinking surrounding me. That’s what sparked Monkey Business, my commentary on abstract art.”
Painted in 1975, the setting for Monkey Business is borrowed from An Artist in His Studio, the realistic masterpiece painted by the Dutch artist Jan Vermeer, who lived from 1632-1675. In the Vermeer, a tapestry is being pulled back to give the viewer a sneak peek into the artist’s studio. There, the artist, his back to the visitor, is engrossed in painting a woman standing in the light from a window to the left. From the first time he saw it, Daniel had been captivated by the realism in Vermeer’s painting.
But now that mischievous gleam lit in his eyes and tweaked the corner of Daniel’s grin. He placed a clean canvas on his easel and began painting his own version of the Vermeer, incorporating some of the old painting’s elements into a satire. In reverence to the Old Master, Daniel rendered the borrowed elements as best he could, careful to avoid the appearance of slamming one of his heroes.
In Daniel’s painting, the artist is a chimpanzee, who is contentedly cranking out abstracts and eating Chiquita bananas. A crate of bananas sits on the floor suggesting that the abstract artist might just be in it for the payoff, and as long as the money holds out he will keep cranking out the work. Several abstracts hang on the wall. Daniel made the satire even more poignant by making the paintings on the wall of the monkey’s studio copies of abstracts actually painted by a chimpanzee.
“I was trying to get across the point that a tried-and-true art form was being lost to abstract expressionism,” Daniel says. “As the theme for this spoof, I decided to use the common ‘anyone-can-do-that’ rub, which almost everyone has heard at one time or another about abstract art. “Every toddler who has ever picked up a crayon and proceeded to make marks on papers or walls has created abstract art—and some of it, I must add, is quite interesting. So, in that sense, the ‘anyone-can-do-that’ expression is true.
“I know that not everybody can paint ‘good’ abstract art,” Daniel continues. “But therein lies the dichotomy. What are the criteria for ‘good’ abstract art? A few of the basics are the same as for judging any painting. However, with abstract painting, a deeper understanding of the nuances and aesthetics of art are necessary for most people in order for it to float their boat.”
As he remembers it, Daniel’s classmates got a real hoot out of Monkey Business in the classroom.
— An excerpt from "Crimson & White and Other Colors" Book
by Daniel A. Moore & David Moore
