Traveling the University of New Mexico Department of Art Faculty Show 1980 by Gaston La Plum

DOGFISH
A floating shield shape, or shovel head. Decorative art, progressing toward the edge 
with relentless uninterestingness.

OLDGUY
Dated duality  (2 canvases side by side).

ADILDO
"Butterfly Chair."  Illustration for Ms. Magazine done by the wrong sex.
"Kimono Series."  Illustration for Vogue Magazine with unfinished head.

EVEAPPLE
"Triad III & I."  Children's woodblock collage painting, but less spontaneous.

INEPT
Paper swallows the uninteresting flat rectangles that hover below in idea-less squalor.

INTRUSION
A master craftsman of other people's decorative ideas.

POKE
Pretentious useless plates, in a beautifully functional display case.

SMOTE
The token aspens painter.

PENIS
Stodgy, ill-painted pseudo realism– the worst painting in the show. 

FATBAG
Landscape lithographs with hairy skies—looking rather dirty, overdone & cloyingly ugly. An insult to Placitas.

"Interior spaces."  Lacks the large Bernard Buffet signature.

LAZYPRICK
S & M bondage images so popular now among jaded males. Picture area cluttered & totally contrived– except for Wedding Dance Fetish I– should have stopped there. Sequels even more artificial .

RACQUET
Decorative womanhood, at least lower keyed, some color sophistication but top heavy.

LOCUST
"Blowing Sand, White Sands." Some sense of the old mystery in photographs.

JACKSPRAT
Energetic pencil landscapes perhaps overdone –  dancing V's set on the ground like restless lawn sprinklers.
"Corrido Blanco." Backpacking assemblage/ collages in chained & strapped cases. The medium is the interest.

WIDER
As usual,  artists taking on words as if they've just discovered them. The words irrelevant to the images, or at least dissipating possible image strengths. Drawings/words poorly done.

HERNIA
Again the mix of photo and drawing/lettering in unbalanced juxtaposition, but in this case, with no strength on either side. 

DIXON
Decorative sculpture at its pseudo art-deco worst.

COGWHEEL
Could be a nice child's boat except for the pretentiousness of its "art" — which turns it into a cumbersome expensive object to maintain in a gallery.

WINTERS
Lithographs of Bresdin forest floors.

CLINCHY
"Marsh Romance." A photo script into some strip of world where humor didnt die and art takes on some wings.

NEEDLER
"Inscapes." Mondrian/Cubist notecard series for a new Hallmark line.

ABORING
"Nightfish in the Garden." Exquisitely done wall-art appropriate for high level dining rooms.

Gaston La Plum



Gaston La Plum, International Roving Critic, left me this critical piece back in 1980 when he was in Albuquerque and viewed this faculty show. Since I just ran across it I'm making it available for the first time . . . I've run into La Plum several times in my life but I'm presently out of touch with him although Dr. Elmo Acadork has recently heard from him in Paris . . . I have no way of telling who "Bad Art" is but I include the drawing since it was clipped to La Plum's piece . . . All of the above artists were on the faculty at the time of this show. larry goodell