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No, I'm not going to complain about the beauty of Peyton's androgynous renditions of pop cultural icons. But I am struck by the deep provincialism of a fine artist who so eagerly emulates pop culture's glossy sheen with gesso-polished seduction: if you want to see fine art reduced to a province of pop, do not miss the show.

But wait, I got that all wrong: popularity and celebrity are not what attracts Peyton to her subjects. It is their brilliance, their heroism, their influence on so many people's lives that endears them to her. Or so I learned at a recent public lecture at the College of Visual Arts, where Elizabeth Carpenter, the Walker's curator busy peddling Peyton to presumably hip audiences, repeatedly emphasized the sheer "gorgeousness" of the work. So, yes, some of the portraits are indeed stunning. There is no arguing with that. (Gregory Scott, reviewing the show in vita.mn, even tastes the lime of Piotr Uklanski's shirt in a mystifying act of synaesthesia.)  But I cannot help but get suspicious when the critical discourse about an artist's work is reduced to "gorgeous" alongside biographical details that merely serve to turn Peyton herself into a celebrity of sorts.

Perhaps I am being dense here: isn't it that influence, that heroism, that putative brilliance that got Peyton's subjects into the public's eye in the first place? Celebrity--as in, someone who is celebrated--seems like a direct effect of that mysterious appeal. In contrast to ephemeral paparazzi photographs, seen today and forgotten tomorrow, Peyton's portraits celebrate pop culture in oily permanence: they enshrine and immortalize that elusive, celebrated je ne sais quoi of fame hatching, ready to slip from its velvety chrysalis.

The second most popular term in Carpenter's talk: infamous. The "infamous" Sid Vicious, the "infamous" Chelsea Hotel. A lot of gorgeous infamy to go around--and why not sell a show based on that asset?

In recent years, so many artists have ventured into the world of business, citing Andy Warhol's famous assertion that the art of money making is the most fascinating of all the arts: think of Takashi Murakami's Louis Vuitton bags conveniently for sale in the museums hosting his retrospective, or Jeff Koons, whose work graced the roof of the Metropolitan Museum last summer. Or, consider artists like Julian Schnabel who, driven by recent economic conditions, now show and sell their work in fashion boutiques and other such places devoted to crass commercial exchanges. So what's new?  How is Peyton's oeuvre so different? How come that one of my esteemed colleagues laconically observed that Peyton's work encompasses all that's wrong with the art world today? (Thank you, John D., for letting me quote you).

Fine art, in stark contrast to design, illustration, and all of the applied arts, is supposed to be above and beyond commercialism. But is it? Of course, I am not the first to raise this question: Dave Hickey famously--and somewhat notoriously (dare I say infamously?)--called for fine art to jettison its mantle of sanctimonious unction and enter the world of the entertainment business and luxury commodities full scale and without any pretensions about its lofty, ideal and perhaps idealized status. If that ever happened, so Hickey, art would have a chance to fail--and thus to grow, to change, to go--well, you know, where that soon to be re-made gorgeous man in a tight uniform always wanted to go. (Though not of Peyton's generation, he could have benefited from some androgyny, I must say).

Commercialism, it turns out, is a double-edge sword: while artists who "go commercial" are accused of selling out quite frequently, those who refuse to make professionally--and thus also commercially--viable work are derided as hobby-ists, as mere amateurs who lack a professional's devotion, commitment--and ability to earn a living. How is earning a living different from the kind of modest commercial success associated with professional artists who balance day jobs with a nightly studio practice? Does commercial viability--that it, selling your art as a commodity--automatically stamp you as a sell-out? A no win situation for the mercantilist-minded.

Peyton, though, does win. And how does she do it? She is selling us some--and I feel compelled to quote--gorgeous paintings with all the clout of high art while her subjects are reassuringly accessible to anyone familiar with the pop culture of the last, say, 20 years. Her work, like other artists' work, blurs the line between the fine and the popular, mass produced--and it does so with a little less conceptual aplomb than one might expect.  

Her attitude toward her subjects has repeatedly been described as "sincere"--but does her work transport that putative sincerity? Or is this work tempting us exactly with its promise of sincerity, with its presumed absence of cynical nihilism and conceptual rigor? At a point in time when a brilliant politician got himself elected president on the message of hope and a new era of post-cynicism, I am getting a little paranoid about this abundance of sincerity and heart-felt honesty all around. Is that the brand we are falling for these days? Is sincerity the new black?

Peyton herself, of course, enters into the pictorial world of "Live Forever," resembling, more than just a little bit, her pale, prominently cheek-boned, red-lipped subjects. And again--why wouldn't she? Vanessa Beecroft has turned herself into a somewhat unlikely fashion icon of sorts who thrives precisely on the controversy she creates. But Peyton is too elegant for that. No controversy here: just the quasi-infantile, easily digestible common denominator of pop. Gorgeous. Infamous. And so personal and intimate. (Ask any fan about a personal, intimate connection with the adored star--and intimacy is guaranteed. Do I dare mention the 23 million viewers--so far--who have watched Chris Crocker cry about Britney's treatment on YouTube?)

Peyton's portraits of famous people turn art into a sort of pictorial wish fulfillment: I get to touch your lips, marvel at the thickness of your hair, let my gaze, and brush linger over the pallor of your cheeks. This kind of scopophilia does not grant the equivalent of carnal knowledge but a private pleasurable knowledge nonetheless. Rather than subvert the famous male gaze of psychoanalytic criticism that aimed to objectify women and teach them the narcissistic pleasures of looked-at-ness, Peyton appropriates that gaze and lustily turns it on her subjects. Ah, the revolution must have arrived when women get to objectify men. But the act of bringing Nick and Ben and Craig and Jarvis and Liam and Kurt so close also enacts the distancing intrinsic to fine art: in pop culture proper, their faces are everywhere. Here, they hang on white walls, signifying the auratic distance of the original, precious artwork. So how close do we really get? How much can Peyton make fine art look like pop culture and still hang it on a museum wall?

Peyton's art, considered as a phenomenon, tempts us precisely with the promise of closeness, intimacy, and, alas, sincerity. What gorgeous infamy that is: the superficial artifice reigns, and the cultural arena of fine art is turned into a province of popular culture, for better or for worse. Only time will tell if these hopelessly hip portraits have a longer shelf life than the beautiful, talented men Peyton enshrines.