| Portrait painters often choose to accentuate particular qualities in their subjects. Louis XIV’s court painter, Hyacinthe Rigaud, idealized the king to make him appear youthful and to glorify the monarchy. Napoleon’s painter, Jacques-Louis David, highlighted the leader’s military prowess. Although she too has painted Napoleon and Louis XIV (Rigaud’s version as well as Leonardo DiCaprio’s), Elizabeth Peyton’s idealizing is of an entirely different breed. She does not glorify her subjects through life-size canvases or heroic stances. |  |
Dmitry Komis
Elizabeth Peyton’s work was on view at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise in May.
Portrait painters often choose to accentuate particular qualities in their subjects. Louis XIV’s court painter, Hyacinthe Rigaud, idealized the king to make him appear youthful and to glorify the monarchy. Napoleon’s painter, Jacques-Louis David, highlighted the leader’s military prowess. Although she too has painted Napoleon and Louis XIV (Rigaud’s version as well as Leonardo DiCaprio’s), Elizabeth Peyton’s idealizing is of an entirely different breed. She does not glorify her subjects through life-size canvases or heroic stances. Rather, their importance is signified simply by being chosen as her subjects.
Since the mid-1990s, when she was credited with “reviving” the genre of portraiture, and even painting itself, Peyton has generally presented slight, intimate works that reinterpret not just often well-known images of artists, musicians, historical and literary characters, but also friends and lovers, in a nostalgic fantasy of her own creation. They are often seen alone, reading or thinking—as if removed from a specific time or place—making the viewer feel as if he or she is intruding on a private moment.
From royals to rappers, her paintings of men have consistently been the most intriguing. Real or imagined, the unabashed “feminization” of her male subjects has rarely been given its deserved critical attention. Preferring fey, fragile types—Ludwig II, Kurt Cobain, Sid Vicious—she transforms even ordinary-looking men into cherubic beauties. Peyton objectifies and eroticizes her male subjects, imbuing their ordinary actions with the grace of a reclining Sargent socialite.
Although based in 80s appropriation art as heavily as 19th century portraiture, there is no ironic distance in Peyton’s paintings. Her sincerity stems from the fact that she truly admires these people, and it does not matter if she knows her subjects personally or not. Her new show at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise does not break any new ground for the artist. She’s still mixing references of old (Diaghilev, Alice Neel in 1931, Age of Innocence) and new (Matthew Barney) in her trademark, effortlessly skilled brushstrokes. But after a season of “unmonumental” sculpture and a painting-deprived Whitney Biennial, Peyton’s works are a breath of fresh air. The way she hangs her work is likewise emblematic of her eclectic list of references: wholly democratic. I often feel Peyton would benefit from an even more obsessive approach; for example, I imagine seeing a room full of Daniel Day-Lewises installed in homage to Roni Horn’s Portrait of an Image. This show does boast three new paintings of Barney, who looks decidedly more boyish than his current aging self. But perhaps that is how Peyton sees him or wants to remember him; she paints as if she were trying to stop time from passing her by.
