UD‘s old pal Paul Lafolley is featured in the New York Times.
UD has never been a fan of his work, which has at once a sort of all over the place New Agey thing going on, and a pretty obsessive rigidity to it…
“Mr. Laffoley has yet to encounter a system of mystical thought he could not absorb into his own project.” Right. This is a nicer way of saying what I just said.
“Mr. Laffoley’s works may seem impenetrable, but they are not nonsensical. They limn a richly provocative cartography of consciousness itself and its heretofore under-realized possibilities.” Rather pretentious formulation there, and note that the critic never says what place or places in particular this map designates for consciousness to realize.
Because work like Paul’s is all over the place conceptually, its power and legitimacy rest heavily on the artist himself, as a sort of mystic sage. I’ve never been able to grant Paul that status, and his art as such is for me too catch-all to express anything in particular.