Leopold Museum

The introduction, biography, and reflective essay that preface the sketches and paintings are rather aggrandizing, elevating Kubin's genius artificially and attempting to mythologize his work. It's a strange move because he doesn't seem to need any such artifice: For one thing, when he was in a good mood, he aggrandized and mythologized himself plenty--the guy had an ego as outrageous as his neurotic pessimism, and he was prone to lavish, fictionalized embellishments of his own biography. But more importantly, his work is already genius enough without any excess praise piled on; it's like the authors of these various introductory materials felt it necessary to sell the idea of Kubin, but Kubin's art speaks plenty loudly for itself. Which is why, if I could, I'd actually give this 3.5 stars, because for all the faults of the front matter, the artwork here is brilliant. Disturbed and often unnerving, but fascinating and beautiful. His is truly involving art, abosrbing you into a distorted and sometimes demented world view that anyone would likely recognize from their childhood nightmares, like a weird philosophical blend of Charles Addams and Maurice Sendak, but in execution bearing more of the the darkness of H.R. Giger and the twisted whimsy of Mark Ryden (who, for me, actually reads like a latter-day Kubin). If you buy this book, skip the front matter, but I do highly recommend this or any other collection of Kubin's work, because his vision is unsettling but moving, and his execution is unconventional but excellent.… (más)