1
Miimm
Modern Painters
Writers 0W
Artists
A collection of great writing on art b}
critics,
and
artists from
some of the worlds leading
novelists, poets.
the pages of Modern Painters magazine Foreword byA.S.
B
j_
\ Writers on Artists On Artists
\\ liters
will
of the qualities
and challenge you,
surprise
outrage and enlighten you.
From
precise discussions
work to Bamboyanl writings with an edge, Writers On Artists of a particular
artist's
gathers together a collection of essays that are as diverse as art
Modern
itself.
Painters magazine selected
the thirty-nine articles from
publication.
The
its
and edited
fifteen years of
collection demonstrates that the
possibilities for discussing art are as idiosyncratic
as the writers
and
Nick Hornby
is
artists
themselves. For example,
moved by the
revealing photographs
of Richard Billingham; Bryan Robertson shows his
admiration for Robert Rauschenh^-g; Seamus
Heaney
writes poeticallv
Cooke; and Will S of the work of
.
Damien
tter ,
iting
Hirst.
DK Publishing joins with this
Barrie
matches the audacity
unique presem
.Modern Painters in
artists
century and challenging
new
of the twentieth
talent of the twenty-
its distinctive DK design, Writers On contains approximately 350 full-color reproductions as well as portraits of all the artists first.
With
Artists
and
writers.
Quotations by the
artists
within
the essays provoke deliberation; quotations by
other critics in the side-bars provide opposing points of view. will come away from reading Writers On seeing established artists in a different light
You Artists
and open
to fresh visions
from the daring new talent
of the art world.
'Writers
On Artists is a fantastic,
stimulating, I
can't recall
talent
and
and challenging book. such a convergence of
intellect, controversy,
and
sensibility ever taking place before.
An amazing artistic feast.
Enjoy."
William Boyd "At last
-
- art criticism that is fun What could be nicer?"
to read.
hn Ashbery $40.00 USA •9.95
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Writers ^Artists
Writers ^Artists In association with
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Writers on p.
artists
/
[essays by] A.S. Byatt... [et
al.].
cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-7894-8035-2 I. Art. Modern-20th Byatt, A.S., 1936-
(alk.
paper)
century.
2. Art,
Modern- 19th
centurv.
I.
.
N6490 .W755 2001 709'.04-dc21
2001042264 Color reproduction by Mollis Morgan, l\ in the United States In R R, Donnellj \ Sons Co. I
Printed and
bound
fin
complete catalog
at
www.dk.com
Contents Foreword byA.S. Byatt 6
Introduction by Karen Wright
7
184 Bridget Riley on Piet Mondrian
Peter Fuller on Sir Sydney Nolan
8
196 Craig Raine on Georges Seurat
David Hockney on Pablo Picasso
16
Richard Wollheim on David Hockney 24
Matthew
Collings on Jeff Koons 40
Howard Jacobson on Andy Warhol 50 Germaine Greer on Paula Rego 62 Peter Jenkins on Larry Rivers
72
Michael Hofmann on Otto Dix 82 Jed Perl on Henri Matisse 94
204 David Bowie on Tracey
Em in
222 Andrew Motion on Duane Hanson
224 Nick Hornby oh Richard Billingham 230 Bryan Robertson on Robert Rauschenberg 244 A.S. Byatt on
Patrick
Heron
252 John Ashbery on Henry Darger
256 Paul Bailey on Constantin Braneusi 262
Siri
Hustvedt on Giorgio Morandi
Duchamp
102
272 Martin Gayford on Jackson Pollock
Jamie McKendrick on Stuart Davis
110
288 Tom Paulin on Chaim Soutine
David Sylvester oh Marcel
Sister
Wendy
Beckett on Salvador Dali
Will Self oh Phillip
Damien
Hirst
1
16
122
Hensher on Cy Twombly 130
Patrick
Heron on Paul Cezanne 138
290 Harland Miller on Jean-Michel Basquiat 296
Bill
Berkson on Willem de Kooning
302 Julian Mitchell on Ed Ruscha
310 Jules
Olitski
on Himself
William Boyd on Howard Hodgkin
148
320 Lance Esplund on Wes Mills
Degas
158
328 Seamus Heaney on Barrie Cooke
Trevor Winkfield on Jasper Johns
166
334 Charles Darwent on Donald Judd
Norbert Lynton on Robert Motherwell
174
340 Ian MacMillan on Harmony Korine
Julian Barnes on Edgar
Index 346
•
Picture Credits 351
•
Acknowledgements 352
Foreword byA.S. Byatt
Writing
about painting
words
of
is
knows
Patrick
Heron
says "the flavour
intensely anti-visual. Strictly speaking, painting cannot be written
is
about. Visual experience
place or person,
As
peculiarly difficult.
that the
words
is
purely visual..."
call
up
as
many
A
good novelist or poet, describing
a
different mental images of that place or
person as there are readers. Yet to write about painting requires unusual rigor and accuracy.
A work
of art
is
singular.
There are many ways of writing badly about painting. Most painters write manifestos or vague
lyrical afflatus.
inaccurate, but overexposed all
"vibrant."
There
is
and
There
irritating
is
words- "tender," "delicate," "intense," "bold," and above
the language of the schools
allegories of writing,
way
in to a
Modern novelists
and make a beeline
Painters puts
good writing
and poets who can
works and
artists in
a remorseless innocent moralism,
on
schools
political,
It
they have
in
isn
t
see,
first.
The
common
-
ol artist
-
a painter thinks
how and why
the virtues of toughness,
a
by painters who can
about his or her work, and by
work of
art is as
it is
and
strikes us
flexibility,
And
delight in impossible accuracy, writerly
putting curiosity before the need to judge and generosity before
all,
little
of jol
and writer
explain
how
see,
the pieces are chosen primarily for the quality of the writing.
smartness or position-1
amount
contributions in this anthology are written by
and describe accurately what they
who can
a text-book
modesty - and above
bearable
as
any included verbal clue, including the signature,
for
and can make non-painters understand
does.
it
"situates"
possible narrative or meaning.
those very rare writers on art as
which
and sexual grounds. Many novelists and poets write badly because they see paintings
social,
write,
producing
an "appreciative" language of threadbare, not
and movements and recently judges them with
as a
badly,
>st
and
m
gallery-gossip
is is
no dated meta-language. Each piece ickney, Riley,
t
though what there
and Heron,
is
amusing, a a revelation,
both
indirectly of the art of the
writer, as well of the artisl
And
the illustratioi
Heron's point. The) luck
at
.ire
,!
"striui.
the patentl) real realities of
an d indispensable. They bear out Patrick any kind... But
th<
do
that. It
is
we can
hint with any
a truly civilized collection.
Introduction by Karen Wright Editor-in-Chiel
Writers
on
has had a very long period of gestation
Artists
magazine's lifetime. Fuller:
Modern
combative and
devoid of spiritual values. Above
he wished
all,
has been
my
it
from pop
to philosophers
and poets
to
make
novelists
-
art.
these pages.
Unfortunately, not
The
is
art
one writer
and
want
I
to
all
be included here.
to all the artists
who
curator and
critic,
illustrations
and presentation
lively,
of
them
And
risk of offending the
more
He was
right
of writers,
many more,
book
I
—
dedicated to
is
Sylvester,
who
to his subject, getting
and
artists
only one solution," he said. "Place
it
was
will all
enjoyed an
it
right:
he was a
in this book,
over their location in
them
simple solution and the best one.
We
I
an individual word or phrase. As a
is
dedicate this book in gratitude to his memory.
all
died shortly
whom
was anguishing over the order of contents
a
as well
often provocative, discussion about
delicate egos of both writers
the book. David rebuked me: "There
order of publication."
list
relish the task of looking
so this
David
to the tone of
he cared passionately about being true
great example. Shortly before he died,
and the
world he found
inspired them.
particularly to single out.
ongoing debate. Getting a piece from David entailed
- from
Peter
as well, of course, as great critics. All
before this book went to press, was one of a loyal band of contributors with
everything
critic
of them, or even a small proportion, could be fitted within
engaged with, deserve
Painters contributors,
But there
an
task of selection has been difficult, even painful, since so
as the artists they
Modem
all
to
muster an extraordinary
of these writers share one vital quality, that of being visual: closely at
and
late waiter
both readable and enjoyable.
art writing
great pleasure to
and
the fourteen years of the
was founded by the
he issued a challenge
idealistic,
Since his death in 1990, stars
Painters
—
chronologically, in I
miss his long silences.
should
like to
WRI1
1
ON
Ri
IMn
-\R1
Sydney Nolan bv Peter Fuller
PETER FULLER: You once
said,
"My own
history
is
involved in
what
I
can probably
with truth a working class background." Your father was a streetcar-driver.
come Sydney Nolan
to
Sydney Nolan:
call
How did you
be a painter? Well,
I
was always
interested,
from early days
at school.
I
took up
art
Australia's most widely
known
artist. Sir
Sydney
Nolan worked in a variet) media in his career as a
classes as soon as
I
could,
when
I
was twelve.
Later,
I
went
into the art
department of
a
of
factory called Fayrefield Hats.
It
was our job
to design displays to go in
shop windows and
painter, printtnaker,
draftsman, and using
sitcli
set
designer,
as In/use paint
and polyvinyl
acetate on masonite, glass, paper,
exhibition stands for a big annual fair in
and canvas.
images of page-boys giving hats I
also
to visiting
airmen
who had
had tailor-made page-boy costumes, and
Melbourne in 1917, Nolan had little formal ait training. His first worh,
with the advertising manager, and
starting at about the age of
So
I
was
overseas.
I
to
twenty-one on producing
flown out of "Britain... That sort
used
to
go to the various
balls,
in
revealed the influence of
Paid Klee. Typical period
is
Moon
a splash of yellow
against a blue background.
Later Solan arrived
at
more representational
a
style,
producing both landscapes
and work
that dealt with
Australian folklore, history,
The infamous
legend.
Australian bushranger and outlaw.
Ned
Kelly,
is
featured in Solans
work of Nolan's
this time.
work has been
exhibited internationally; in
permanent collection of the late Gallery, Loudon.
the
and the Museum
of Modern \eu York. He mis ned in I9H1 and became member of the
Art in
t i
'4 Merit in I9H
a died in 1992
kinta
be photographed giving
can remember one called Delysh,
a
a hat to
French cabaret
star,
some
celebrity
from
very beautiful. She was
middle-aged by the time she got to Australia.
I'd
be dressed up and on stage. So
I
was not
oj this
Bo\ and the
1940 -
I
I'd
and
21. were abstract,
and
exhibition buildings in Melbourne.
working continuously throughout those years from fourteen
of thing. Born
some
varied materials
miel on
only designing page-boy posters and exhibition-stands; but
use the page-boy motif now, just as
Beckmann
I
actually
did, to describe
was one. So
my own
life
I
intend to
during that
SYDNEY NOLAN
period:
I
was the
living subject of the
mythology of the hat
BY PETER FULLER
factory.
Fuller: While you were working at the hat factor} did you have another idea of what
becoming an Nolan:
Yes.
education: all
might mean?
artist
I
I'd
got that from night classes.
been
went
I
see, I'd
been through
to the night school at the
thev did charcoal studies from the antique;
There was one of Ariadne, a Greek
a technical school
metal-work classes, and so on.
to jewelry classes,
the handicrafts. But
You
first
we had
a
I
was well-trained
Melbourne Gallery
school,
marvelous collection of plaster
century sculpture, which
I
now
was
realize
in
where casts.
Peter Fuller
a
During
fantastic
work of
but then, of course,
art;
have taken months!
I
thought
all
didn't
want
to
would be an awful thing
it
have done that sort of thing. Anyway,
Rimbaud,
I
I
went upstairs and
copy to do,
in charcoal.
but
realize
I
That would
now
I
so
I
started to base
my
among
should
life
the most important art
critics in Britain.
on a
Wendy
Beckett. Fuller was
horn in Damascus. Syria, in
947 and
seems,
and much
formal,
this abstract
less
element has surfaced again. You once
anecdotal than
is
said, "I'm
much more
sometimes imagined." Do you think that there
is
a
1969
His early fascination with psychoanalysis led to his first
somehow obscured
the preoccupations with abstraction and the formal
and Psychoanalysis.
.Art
Other writings include The
Champions, The
dimensions which have run through your work since the beginning? Yes.
the Hall of
been
it's
Fame
a kind of mirror-trick in a way. Recently,
Queensland, which
in
is
I
had
the Fine Arts,
to
do
The
in the field.
Psychology of Gambling, and then.
Nolan:
London
after studying at
Cambridge.
hook
sense in which the labels you have acquired as a painter of myth and of the Australian
landscape have
started as a staff
writer at Cify Press in
Fuller: Your early work was always very involved with abstraction, and in your most recent it
'the
of his time In Sister
in
paintings,
Called
Ruskin
1
concept.
literary
his lifetime, Peter
Fuller was wideh considered
read, exhaustively, instead:
Ouspensky everybody. And
the philosophers,
it
Crisis in
Beyond the
Crisis in Art, Seeing Berger,
a painting for
a big stockmen's (rancher) thing, almost like the
Robert Natkin, Images of
God: The Consolations of Lost Illusions. Theoria and
Sydney Opera House; so
I
had
to
do something which would
really
be
in line
the autobiographical
with
Marches
stockmen, or Australians' idea
Past.
Fuller considered himself a critic of the ideolog)
of themselves; but
turn
I
could
still
Modernism, and influenced
away from
that and, as
have been doing
at
I
Although he wrote as
home, do
the abstract things. You see,
my
who and
idea as a boy
was
b)
the writing ofJohn Berger.
he was opposed
critic,
initial
and
assumptions of later
"reduce art
later
"left"
to ideolog)
abandoned a Marxist
approach
that
it
to those
to art. In his later
work, he argued for the
abstract painting
was the way
I
importance of spiritual values in art.
wanted
to express myself; the
had, in 1940,
first
exhibition
was
as abstract as
I
I
could
make
claiming that a
materialistic
But then,
in the situation
I
was
things like
and
in in Australia,
Ned
with
Painters
1987
as a
He was
killed in a car
crash in 1990.
Kelly around,
these lacunae in the
all
in
polemical platform for these views.
that
to perception.
He founded Modern magazine
it.
approach was an
impediment
Chinese Mountain Landscape with Boat. cl982, acrylic lacquer spra)
mythology, or the history, of the place,
I
saw an opportunity to
on annus, ~2 \ 63 in 1183 x 160 cm. Estate of Sir Sidney Nolan.
\\
Rl 11 RS
ON
\R1
In
1
n
And
use m\ know ledge of abstraction in that cause.
the Kelly paintings,
really,
are as
abstract as they are anecdotal.
Fuller:
I
remember something Kenneth Clark
said about your work:
accepted those upside-down birds and flying harvesters vivid
my
if
could not have
"I
eye had not been led by the
communication of every touch, by the truth of tone, which
is
the surest sign of a
natural painter." Well, he's not exactly talking about abstraction; but the sheer painterliness of your early pictures has perhaps
Nolan:
Yes,
it
has,
been forgotten.
because the imagery was so
tight
and so localized that people missed the point.
The
other day
I
was
reading in Richard Wollheim's book, Painting ,as Art, about the lure, the invitation in a picture.
Fuller: That's a great book!
Nolan:
Yes,
interesting.
extremely
it's
Of course,
he's using
Adrian Stokes's theory about the invitation in art; but
impression that lies, in
is
is
I
have the
where the secret
that invitation or lure.
That
the thing that grabs you from
the
end of a room and draws you
to a painting;
matter
if it
it
doesn't really
happens
and Delilah, or abstraction, or
be Samson
to
a Paul Klee if
the dazzle of
paint turns into a late Picasso kell\ in the Bush. 1945,
enamel
cardboard. 25 x 30 in/64
\
Nolan
ott
nude,
I
really feel
now
that
it
doesn't matter
much.
It is
a basic attraction.
What
are you
76 cm.
Caller). Cultural Facilities
going to say about Laseaux? Are you going to say
that's representational art, or abstract art, or
Corporation. . .
how would you
put
decorative painting:
notch,
it
it?
just
What can you moves over
call that
a notch,
and
it's
fairy-tale or
an abstract painting. But
it's
only a
isn't it?
So the
battle fought
particular, by
on behalf of the Americans by Harold Rosenberg and,
Clement Greenberg was
actually, like lots of conflicts,
wasteful. Rosenberg said that abstraction
Martin
funny transition from certain
1
ast for a
was the
art of
unnecessary and
the next three hundred years. Well,
leidegger stood in front of his university and said that the Third Reich
thousand years. So you've got t
to
be very careful!
he did ended up rather puzzled. irted to
want
to paint
1
in
Someone
think the
like
was going
to
Rothko who staked
same was
true of Pollock.
heads and mythical figures that he could see
SYDNEY NOLAN
emerging from
his
maze
of paint; but everyone
thumbs-downed on
it.
He
BY PETER FULLER
just wasn't
allowed any space to proceed in that direction.
Ned
Fuller: But
when you
that kind of
modernism, hadn't your
Nolan: No, no, no
...
in a
was
trying to
make an
my
in
had already consciously rejected
notes that
would be
it
a
good idea
to take
Kelly paintings are ironic in their use of national mythology:
and
Kelly,
ironic
all
the rest of the things the Australians have thrown-
comment on
these cliches; the paintings, in themselves,
formal sense, are ironic.
They owe much
some
paper and
was a
seemed
and
all that.
my way
nudging felt
to Matisse, in
cases, as anyone, with
their tilted floors
I
Kelly paintings you
wrote somewhere
Don Bradman, Ned
Pharlap, I
I
The Ned
Picasso out of doors.
up.
did the
false
that
I
wall-
was
really
through what
dilemma
—
it
you had
representational
or you
art,
me, that
abstract art; but, for
was
a pointless battle.
you
really
had
had
What
to look for
were
paintings that had this
imitation or lure. That
where can
t
has persisted; you
art
pin
is
it
down
these categories.
to
any of
It's
an
attraction of the thing in front of
you which
attracts
you before you
realize
you are attracted.
Death of Constable Scanlon, 1946, enamel on composition board,
It's
like
some people you meet
interested.
And two seconds
...
Or
word, or a phrase someone says suddenly, you're
like a
before you had no idea you were interested.
sometimes, that momentary interest turns into your destiny;
can put
it
two ways;
in the negative sense,
horses in the race, in the hope that
one point; so
I
know
that's a fatal
that I'm always
changing
style or consistency.
this
But
narrow gap which
I
styles, that it's
you could say that
pick the winner. Well,
I'd
thing to do.
could be accused of doing that, and
I
I
It's
the
way
becomes your I've tried to
my
father
to lose all
have been accused of doing have a package of
not really that.
can see
it
in this
I
Of
in/90 x 121 cm.
National Gallery of Australia.
course, thing.
back
all
So you
the
was a bookmaker
your money. But
at
I
people have said
that;
styles, or that
36x48
I
have no interest
just feel I'm trying to thread
my way
in
through
century between these two opposing forces which
stand in a highly theoretical and false dichotomy. There's quattrocento art that looks the
way
it
does; but, in two hundred year's time,
11
WRI fERS ON
\R1 ISTS
\\ licit
is
20th century
art
going to look like? Are people going to be lusting after Mondrian's
Boogie-Woogie or are they going to be tramping ,
to
he looking
at
the Blue Period of Picasso, or
is
down
Gauguin going
extraordinary synthesizer? He's hardly this century this century, just as G.F.
the only route
my
painting
and the
I
life
rest;
was confused.
came
I
wanted
to task
to Australia in
was your
first
Nolan: Well,
don't feel
I
to
be seen as an
suppose; but nonetheless, he was in
have been wayward;
fall
Artists are divided into
and
you about your
1949. Did you
I've just first
I
I
merely selected
didn't
want
to
be in
two groups: the naive-spontaneous
into the naive-spontaneous group.
opposite; I've got a very strong will,
Fuller:
I
I
Guernica or are they going
could find through a confused century. The one thing
seemingly
I
Watts was. So
to look at
But
kept on sticking to
I
think,
it
since
maybe, I'm the I
was
a boy.
meeting with Kenneth Clark when he
know much about him
before you rnet him?
What
impression of him? I
didn't
know
very
much. He was coming out
to give
some
lectures on
Pretty Polly Mine, 1948, rifnjl
in -
on hardboard, in/91
Art Galler) of
12
Cezanne;
I'd
read a couple of essays of his but that was
all. I
didn't go to a reception at the
x 122 cm.
New
South Wales.
Sydney Art Gallery
for
him. But he saw a painting of mine there of an abandoned mine-
SYDNEY NOLAN
shaft.
was
It
of ochers
just a landscape
and
had
it
painted freely and tonally
even though asked did.
a
if
sort
and whites and the remains of
kind of a wind-break structure. But
it
was
full
was
it
of color.
BY PETER FULLER
a
was
it
fairly precise,
And
so he
he could come and see me, and he
He was
man who had
We
drawings.
because he had been
visiting
a collection of Charles
Keene
late
had
all
the paintings around: the
and so
central Australian paintings, the birds, on.
And
me
feel a bit strange.
made
then he behaved in a way that
He
good!"
like, "That's jolly
kept saying things
And
then he said
could he have the pictures out of that room, into the light,
where he could see them
He was
better.
with a chap called Professor Joseph
Hare
in a Trap, 1946,
rvpolin
Burke,
who wrote
a
book called Hogarth and Reynolds - an academic chap. And they talked
on board,
36x48
in/91 x 122
cm
Estate of Sidney Nolan. 1
away
like
Englishmen about
"What the
hell
But then
and everything
he talking about!
is
it
art
started to
else.
He
well,
how can
I
All his English stuff about, jolly good!',
narrow down and he
you might never come back."
And,
told
me
that
"You realize that
said,
if
I
if
put
it,
thought,
I
and so on."
you leave Australia,
decided to leave, he would do everything
compelled and dedicated to transmitting emotions and care for very little else." "I'm
"Sydney
i
Nolan. ..was he could
in
London
to facilitate
my way
about the fact that you might not birds, flowers,
and wonderful things
you'll find that there are
there's that."
Of
course,
that, fifteen miles
things,
I
was
to
back.
I
didn't
out of Sydney,
said, again,
And
do with
other kinds of birds.
everything else that would draw
ten years.
come
But he
you're in the middle of exploring
this continent.
And
there's
understand then that
me
to
when
I
in
to Australian landscape. I'd
in
.
.
.
and
all
to
it
a
man
which there were quite Kellys. I'd
I'd
done
all
and
the great myths
of the Australian landscapes and
like
for
the abstract
the Central Australian landscapes, the ones that are in the Tate now. So in a
pictures,
way
I
the Australian past."
a lot of innovations in relation
done some of the drought
though not exclusively, by
there's this
meant meeting
inspired largely,
Europe,
was twenty-eight and had been painting hard
done the Ned
the
Europe there was opera and
pretty deeply involved by that time of course;
and the Wimmera pictures,
But when you get
Florence
But think of what
it.
"You must think very seriously
—Russel Ward
all
had
completed a decade of work; of course many people might perhaps say that that was the
13
WRI
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ON
AR1 IMS
succeeded
only decade in which
I
end of the world, but
my mind was on
really
in fulfilling
my
potential
...
had been bred
I
at the
the central experiences of Europe, you know, nature,
Rimbaud, Schopenhaeur, and
moment
felt a
I
the rest of
kind of twinge in myself.
man who was
the
all
me
talking to
own background, and Europe,
I
So
it.
knew
for a
that
understood not only his
but he'd picked up about
me. He'd seen something about Australia, and something about me, which, conscious
of.
Fuller: is
that
you
to
it
say,
I
couldn't be
the remark he did.
was quite prophetic.
The commonest
it
I
why he made
That's
Well, of course,
as
which has
exhibits a certain fatal facility,
produce too much.
Do you
Nolan: An American once don't get
blamed
player has
for
he? Public opinion and unstable ground. critics in
A
think this
said to
working too well,
"facility,
hard.'' If a tennis
art criticism are
it
true?
is
then he's praised for
Figaro;
led
me, "Over here, we
study was recently
he Monde and
work
objection to your recent
isn't
it,
both very
made
of the art
showed they had
a
lamentable record. Fuller: But this accusation of
matter of
how
hard you work;
the techniques you use. Figures in Tree,
7
957, polyvinyl
Kenneth Clark, hinted
at this
when he
wrote, "There
is
facility, it's
it's
not just a
some
a criticism of
of
Even an admirer of your work,
in nearly all Nolan's
work
this
acetate on luirdboard,
60 x 48 in/153 X 122 an.
preference for the insubstantial and the unphlegmatic. His pictures levitate with surprising
Private collection.
ease; his dehydrated horses are so light that a
man can
pick one up." You have a fluid and
insubstantial quality.
"Painting is an extension of man's means of communication. As SUCH, it's pure, difficult,
AND WONDERFUL." Nolan: These one
of
my
are considered rare qualities by the Chinese.
paintings!
sense of melancholy.
Even when
And
if
I
I
had
may be one
it
would be
this feeling of transience.
what you are confronting
Transience
14
was young,
And
is
aspect of
difficult to
There
the decline of the West,
is
how
this. It's like a relationship,
do
this
are
one that
SYDNEY NOLAN
you know their
own
is
going to end.
It is
BY PETER FULLER
possible to enjoy that sense of transience. Everyone has
stereotypes.
Fuller: So you are saying that your critics have not understood that your techniques are part of the
Nolan:
I
meaning.
turn the criticism on
stood up for them.
Now when
matter to me. Flattery will
kill
its
head,
when
they talk about
an
artist.
But
I
I
produced the Kelly paintings, nobody
my feel
recent work negatively I
am
absolved from
...
it
doesn't
fulfilling
other
Burke. 1964, ripolin on hardboard,
48x48 people's expectations.
in/ 121
Art Galler) of
x 121 cm.
Sew
South Wales.
15
WRI
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ARTISTS
Pablo Picasso by David Hockney
LATE
LAST April (1988),
days.
It
seemed worth the journey from Los Angeles
of the late Picasso at the Centre
Pablo Picasso One
most influential
of the
and innovative artists of all time, Picasso was born in Spain in 1881, and recognized earh on as an artist-prodigy. In 1901 he went to Pans to set up a studio. His earh
d'Orsay which
My first and drawings had
work was Impressionistic.
and Picasso again
Palais,
to
queue
moment
decided on the spur of the
I
as there
morning was spent
Pompidou, Degas and Zurbaran
Picasso.
And
then there was the
Musee
in the
Grand
at the
new Musee
Picasso where there was a
relating to Les Desmoiselles d'Avignon; the picture itself
an hour to get
for
was an exhibition
had not seen.
still
I
Musee
at the
to go to Paris for five
in:
but
it
was well worth
it.
It
was
was
show
of paintings
on
also
display.
I
a wonderful, insightful
chronologically divided into the "blue period," in
which
cubism
exhibition, about the origins of
really.
And
then
in the afternoon,
I
went
to see the
he used a predominantly blue palette to create
haunting
studies of the poor,
exhibition of late Picassos. This
and
But before
I
talk
was stunning!
about that
I
want
to say
the "rose period," with a
brightened palette on
heard a
the
lot of criticism of
something about the Musee d'Orsay.
museum. Friends
of
mine had suggested
it
was
all
I'd
wrong, that
themes from the worlds of theater
and
circus.
not what an artist does that counts, but what he is.
"It's
Picasso broke with tradition in
1907 when he painted Les Desmoiselles d'Avignon,
which depicted the
human anatomy viewed
Cezanne's anxiety
simultaneously from front and back. Generally regarded as the first
interests us.
Cubist painting,
the primitive-faced, multi-
that
is
what
is
his lesson."
angled portrayal of women shocked his contemporaries. In
1912
Picasso, with the artist
the space wasn't right, and so on.
judgement so
trusted their
I
I
wasn't particularly looking
Georges Unique, created a new
form of art - the collage -
In
forward to going; in
gluing various materials onto
My
canvases into Cubist forms.
some
first
fact,
glance
expected
I
at the
to dislike
it.
massive space reminded
of the masterpieces look like postcards.
As
I
me
entered,
Picasso contributed to the
movement between 1925 and 1935 before
Surrealist
returning to
Cubism with
his
but as soon as
I
went I
suggested
and because
forgot
all
I
was
still
about the building
itself.
I
made
it
feeling antagonistic;
room with Daumier's marvelous
in the first small
parliamentarians,
had said
that a friend
clay heads of
had bought the guide which
most historically significant painting in
Guernica Painted monochrome, the work
during the Spanish Civil War
about 1840 and ending
in
his
16
a
room
ol
paintings In
I
to
museum was
So
I
looked
creating until
death in 197
want
did not
miss anything,
devoted
I
decided
to the 19th
to follow
it.
century beginning
1907, the year that Demoiselles d'Avingnon was painted, just
ivolution.
He continued
I
The guide explained that the
expresses his horror at the
bombing of a Basque town
a route
antin-Latour;
I
at Ingres
and progressed slowly and soon came
had seen most of these pictures before.
I
knew
to
the
PABLO PICASSO BY DAVID HOCKNEY
Musee Jeu de Paume new
very well;
Musee
setting at the
remembered
I
d'Orsay, they looked different
color; the influence of the printed
felt
where and
all
I
the pictures were. In their
became acutely aware
The tones seemed almost photographic -
they were tonal pictures.
black-and-white photograph had
about the camera - Canaletto after
just talking
exactly
all
had
that
— but
there was not
made
proceeded through the
I
museum -
the next rooms,
North African scenes and so on -
painters, painters of
I
I
think,
became
much
itself felt.
I'm not
the printed photograph.
chiaroscuro dominated Fantin-Latour's pictures, the whole room in
As
that
I
fact.
were
orientalist
David Hockney
very conscious of the
Born in Yorhhire
chiaroscuro in the pictures.
then
came
to the
I
Hockney was a
student at the Royal College
room with the
Manet's. Here the hanging
is
in 1937,
brilliant
of Art, where he
experimented with broad-
not
ranging
very good; they are not given
and displayed
styles
influences by Picasso,
and
Abstract Expressionism,
suitable places.
The two
great
Pop Art
in early work.
expressed
the
if
room
is
homage
Francesca,
turned
and gradually
to representational
paintings. In the early '60s,
glanced around and
I
swimming
the California
thought, "Well,
I'll
—
walk through
a favorite theme.
here and
is
Awarded a graphics
then
come
back.''
As you go
pool
that icon of popular culture
— became
and see what else
to the
Italian master, Piero della
a bit
crowded. There were quite a few people, so
his
painting matured, he
masterpieces are hard to see especially
As
the Paris Biennale, also
upstairs,
prize at
Hockney
became known
an
as
outstanding draftsman and
you begin
to
move
graphic
into the
He produced
artist.
several series of etchings
The
impressionists.
Monet,
Sisley,
on;
first
Pissarro,
room
is
and experimented with photography, combining
and so
multiple perspectives
found myself becoming a
I
many
images of the same scene into
reminiscent of Cubism. little
more aware of
color in a His work
Then
different sort of way.
went
I
collected
and
retrospectives have
Cezanne room
into a
is
internationally,
been
presented at the Patau de
which was somehow
Virriena, Barcelona,
difficult to
Pun al
see; again,
Next,
I
knew
I
the pictures.
It's
Academy of Arts,
London. Major exhibitions include the
progressed into the Van
Gogh room. it
Metropolitan
not a very big
seemed
to
Museum
Modern Art and Art in
room but
me just
Tale.
New
they I'd
The
jumped
off the wall.
Loudon: and the Paris.
Female Nude (Study
noticed the painting of
Van Gogh's bedroom, one of
for Les
Demoiselles d'Avignon), 1907, oil oil
I
of
York; the
pictures glowed;
never seen them that way
before.
of
the
Museum
Pompidou,
incredible!
la
and the
canvas,
37 x 14 in/93 x 43 cm. Civico Museo d'Arte (
'ontemporanea, Milan.
17
WR1
II R.S
ON
AR1 1STS
three that he did and
but seeing is.
it
in the
The orange bed
I
think the best. Again,
Musee
d'Orsay,
just sings with
I
knew
I
the painting from the Jeu de Paume,
realized for the
life.
While
time what a marvellous picture
first
was looking
I
made
at
I
I
suddenly realized
museum
through the
a journey
which
it,
I
it
had
during
had, in a sense, witnessed the
disappearance of chiaroscuro.
then
I
became
intensely aware of this; and
I
retraced
my
steps.
museum backwards when
course, I
clearly.
I
And
so
I
began
to see
had
excited; I'd never
before.
Of
to look for; it
this
had never
I
in this way.
then realized that the curators
Musee
at the
d'Orsay had missed something. Their
scholarship can be criticized; on the
Van Gogh room there
room
again.
it
knew what
I
museum
experience in a
seen pictures
it.
was
I
experience
did this,
I
was expecting
more
to
walked through the
I
full
really
of Japanese prints.
way
to the
ought to have been a
They must have
played an important part in the disappearance of chiaroscuro. This was a very big thing in
European
painting; but only in Europe. Oriental
paintings don't really use chiaroscuro; there
very
little
is
them about shadow. Occasionally
in
they hint at volume that way; but shadows are
never painted everything
But
I
is
found
journey.
shown
Perhaps they think that
in.
shadow, so
a
thrilling to
it
No museum
this.
So
I
began
in a different light; Girl J
With Bare
89 5,
oil
La Corunna.
irs.
Again,
I
steps and again
I
saw things
difference.
be able to see
had
this
visited before
to see the
Musee
had d'Orsay
went back the next day
in the
for
same way.
50 cm.
struck by
how
"Europe-centerd" the conception of the
museum
was:
it is
Picasso, Pans. e
a
museum
of 19th century art
om
devoted I
paintii
—
not necessarily French, although most of
They do have some Japanese
rench.
IK
my
retraced
I
makes no
on canvas,
30x20 in/75 x Musee
Feet,
I
it
s
to
ceramics
prints, of course.
at the turn of the century; this
were used on plates made
in Paris.
You can see them shows how
But the rooms dealing with
depictions don't do this; they don't illustrate the impact the Japanese prints
PABLO PICASSO BY DAVID HOCKNEY
had. art;
was struck by
I
now
I
realize
this.
much more
is
it
ignorant about oriental
want
I
artist like
When work
varied than
I
Even well educated
art.
now, to
to go back,
Picasso. I've always
have found myself getting more and more interested
I
in oriental
thought before. People are very often art historians
can know nothing about
it.
late
been willing
an
to give
Picasso the benefit of the doubt.
people said to me, "Well, the late not very good,"
is
used
I
to think,
"How do you know? How much have you seen?" After
really
the volumes of the
all,
Zervos catalog dealing with the
few
last
years were not published until 1976 or
1977.
now have
I
a complete set of Zervos:
there are 32 volumes.
a unique
It is
document covering about 75 years You can
Picasso's art.
sit
down, begin with
volume one, and look through
all
artists
with
whom
you can do
and fewer who wouldn't bore you if
you could!
I've
done
now
this
Picasso three times; each time,
do
deliberately set out to saw, of course,
When of
works
his
and systematically There are very
singly
few
of
it.
this at all
to
death
with I
And what
I
was an amazing journey-
you think of the
what painting was
of the last one, 1973,
first
in
works
in 1895,
Europe then, and incredible.
it is
I
got
the last ten volumes of Zervos to study
about ten years ago. This
is
the only
way you can begin
to see
what the
late
work
is
Reclining Nude, 1968,
doing;
oil
and you are only seeing can see a I
i.e.
lot
it
in black-and-white after "decolorization." That's the only
of things!
on annus,
58x45 in/146 x Zervos -XXVII-
114 cm. 197.
Private collection.
found that Picasso himself must have been very aware of what Mr. Zervos was doing,
keeping a pretty good record of
printed
them
which he did
clearly in the
You can
great impression
the time
tell if
all
the paintings and most of the drawings. Zervos
Picasso did five paintings in a day; you can even
morning, which he did in the afternoon, and which he did
evening. Everything like that
all
way you
on me.
It
listed; so the catalog
is
led
me
Van Gogh spent on
to look at
his paintings
forms an incredible
Van Gogh
diary.
in the
This
in a different way, too. If
and drawings and
all
tell
made
a
you add up
his letters during the last
19
WRI1
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ON
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three years of his
you
life,
he had hardly any time
realize
could have done was to paint, write, years of his existence
- an
intense,
Zervos' catalog of Picasso
am
I
never bored with
it.
every single page keeps
my
and
I
What he
sleep.
left for
at
he
All
all.
us was in effect three
human document.
also a remarkable
is
When
eat,
anything else
left for
look through
interest.
And we
it,
and unique document
own
in its
way.
don't start turning the pages quickly:
I
are talking about a catalogue raisone.
It's
a
mind blowing experience! I
I
am
not that judgemental.
saw these pictures
for the first
I
am
not one to suggest the later work had
time in 1973,
all
at
was staying with Douglas Cooper
I
the time, and
I
went, to the exhibition with
He stormed around
him.
telling
the pictures were terrible.
them
look at I
to cock.
des Papes, in
in the exhibition at the Palais
Avignon.
gone
myself
for
if
I
me
that
all
said, "I'd like to
you don't mind."
thought that Douglas didn't want to
understand because some of them were clearly about
man;
told
I
what
him
it
was
like to
this. Actually,
be an old
they were
marvelous as pictures of old age.
Anyway,
drove back with Douglas and
I
discussed the paintings with him. ranting on, "No, no!
He was just
know what he was
didn't
believe
it!
I
senile.
doing." But
any
didn't think
artist
would spend twenty years
caliber
repeating himself: and
had done
so.
The
I
He went
I
He
didn't
of that just
didn't think Picasso
paintings of the 1960s
could not have been done in the 1950s.
They and
are quite different: things get looser
looser.
painters.
This happens in
They
get older.
unbelievable confidence looser. Bust of a oil
Woman
19
/.
Goya:
it
happened with
all
of them.
it
happened with
Titian,
They seem
— and
to get
they get
Rembrandt, and
Picasso.
on canvas, -
Fainting
I
lost ut ^ii
think he found another kind of cubism
previously; but
-
different from the
cubism nonetheless. There are many
Picasso depends on the brush: g
20
And
Think of
marvelous
all
it
seems
to
me
that
it
sorts of
cubism of
sixty years
cubism. The cubism of the
late
relates to oriental art as well in that
and nothing ever just covered
itself up.
You can see
all
the traces
PABLO PICASSO BY DAVID HOCKNEY
1943,
First Steps,
oil
on canvas,
x 97 cm. Museum of Modern Art, New 51 x 38 in/130
York.
"The whole studio seemed to
with
be bristling
Picassos. All the
wood
of
bits
and frames had become
like his
pictures...
One
gets hardly idea of
any
them
FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHS,
WHICH OFTEN DON'T SHOW WHAT PICTURE
IS
WHAT I
AND
ISN'T...
CAME TO THE
CONCLUSION THAT HE arm and
of his
than what I
we
his energy in
call realist painting, far
more
found the exhibition fun on one
example, there
is
a painting of an old
which Picasso painted
in
mother teaching her child mother stiff
them: his way of seeing
is
1971.
I
to talk,
is
just stunning.
I
think
it is
On
level;
but on other a
woman
levels,
called
recognized this as relating to
it's
deeply moving. For
Homme
et
Femme Nus,
First Steps, a picture of a
which Picasso painted almost
is
a
PROBABLY
ONE OF THE GREATEST GENIUSES
man, with
the child's face, there
real
real.
thirty years previously
cupping her hands with the child s; her hands are very supple but the
and angular.
more
IS
kind of fear and
thrill at
what
is
THAT HAS EVER LIVED."
—
\linessa Bell
The
child's are
happening
21
WRI
I
I
US
ON
Left: Sitting
AR1 IMS
Man, 19
2, oil
canvas, SI x 38 in/liO x
on
to
him.
The
painting of the old
man
with the
woman
very similar.
is
He
is
bent
at his
knees;
97 cm.
Zenos XXXIII -317.
his
knees are just
circles.
and he
They
are knobbly
floor.
The woman's hands
bending down on
is
His
his leg.
little
balls
Private collection.
Right: Oil
Head
of a
Man, 7972,
on canvas.
are hanging
down on
the
are not
way
mother's do the child's in First Steps; even so, in one
cupping the old man's, as the
of looking at this picture, the
22 x 1H in/55 x 46 cm.
ZervosXXV-
146.
women seems
to
man under
be supporting the old
his arms.
Private collection. I
think this
a
is
marvelous and deeply moving painting. You can see
developed the language he was using: you can
me,
thrilling!
is
I
think there was so
really don't agree that Picasso
pictures are the start of a
new
much
now
to learn
see
more
from the
thought. I
I
is
there.
don't find
them
hey seem to think there
one
of the difficulties
I
language, a more real
now
difficult, is still
o\
way
of depicting the world.
22
I
lie
bottom
What he shows
a lot of distortion there. This in fact,
is
it
has
many
I
late
And he
recognizable; I
once
other people.
problem of "distortion"
made modern
art itself difficult for
that the Picasso's are not really distorted at
all;
is
some and
real.
the earl) antagonism to
distort the world,
that, to
Picasso exhibition.
but they seem to be difficult for
become aware
then they seem more and more
Much
late
And
think the pictures are more difficult to see than
with Picasso;
people, Hut slowly you
in the pictures.
Picasso
found only an idiosyncratic way of doing things. His
does depict the world: with Picasso, depiction never stops. the visible world
how
line
was,
modern "It
art
had
to
does not look
do with the
fact that
like that." Until
it
cubism,
seemed
to
all art, all
PABLO PICASSO BY DAVID HOCKNEY
pictures, could be "read" by anybody. If this hadn't
have been seen by peasants and
its
been
so,
the Christian message wouldn't
importance would have been diminished. But after 1907,
something new happened. The discoveries made then were very
We
with them.
seem
don't
What would an
avant-garde be about, today?
purpose, a noble purpose, the desire to
awareness. Such a higher awareness, definition spatial; space
If
it is
when
not a style,
"It's
divisions, like that
where these
it
must have
it's
a
humankind
It is
is still
way
of
life."
can lead
false divisions
a
into a higher
seen as "real" has a can't just give
Perhaps
an abstraction or
it is all
irrelevant.
me
to
be by
obvious that this has not yet
it
it
lot to
up.
do with
is all
can't be
this.
As Juan
we have been misled by
between abstraction and representation. There
there can only be one. Either of
have relevance,
up cubism. You
don't think that Picasso ever gave
Gris once said,
seems
if
expressed in pictures, seems to
happened; perhaps the fact that the photograph I
it
the whole of
lift
also about our identity.
is
to
we
do,
have an avant-garde, today. Or,
to
great; avant-garde art started
two
a representation.
false
things:
The
folly
wonderfully illustrated by Clement Greenberg's
is
Self- Portrait with Palette, 1906, oil
on canvas,
36 x 29 in/92 x 72 cm. Philadelphia
Museum
of Art,
A. E. Gallatin Collection.
comment, "With an "advanced" now possible
to
make
Kooning's reply, "And
De Kooning was
view had prevailed
it's
it's
not
and De
a portrait,"
not possible not
much
so
artist,
to."
wiser! If Greenberg's
we would have had
only
photographic portraits. Similarly, the idea that painting
was dead would have
the depiction
left
of the visible world to the camera. horrible thought
and what
He just
he made a whole
lot
went on making
couldn't stop.
of
a
a dull idea!
In his old age, Picasso discoveries.
What
new
About 1963
discoveries. For
example, the paintings he began to produce then
can be seen from any distance.
one of the rooms could see
all
at the
I
sat,
alone, in
Centre Pompidou and
I
the brush marks on the paintings
even from the center of the room. Distance
seemed
to
have been removed. Perhaps Picasso
broke the European obsession with
measurement. Scientists
like
Werner Heisenberg
and Kurt Godel have suggested that we
measure everything. These pictures may to is
can't relate
an awareness that the journey to outer space also the journey to inner space.
23
"
"
"
WRITERS ON \RTISTS
David Hockney by Richard Wollheim
SHALL PERMIT MYSELF TO QUOTE A LETTER
.
.
.
FROM ROME,
writes of Trivia: "Tlie whole maizes a picture of the
I David Hockney Bon?
Men
Hockne}
one
is
of
the best-known artists of his
generation.
A
not only delightfully vivid
is
self- consciousness
modern man
of the
and humorous, hut a document of importance
have always been the victims of trifles, hut
when
they were uncomfortable
and
.
.
.
passionate,
England,
in Yorkshire,
in I91~.
which
which George Santayana
in
constant danger, they hardly had time to notice what the daily texture of their thoughts
and
in
was
in their
1
calm
intervals;
whereas with us the intervals are
all,
and
that
is
what you have
prize-winning
student at the Royal College
painted.
of Art between 1959 and .
1962, he experimented with
broad -ranging
styles,
.
When
.
world, though
Robert Bridges said
to
him
even word could be read
that 1
in the
had written the most immoral book in the
drawing room, he had replied that the book was
displacing the influences of
not in his opinion at
Picasso, Abstract
Expressionism, and Pop Art.
He
ultimate.
later expressed his
homage
master
to the Italian
are so,
all
"And why" he
and we
are so,
immoral:
it
was meant
to
be light and irresponsible, not complete and
and
"should not things be largely absurd, futile,
aslzed,
and we and they go very well
transitory?
They
together.
Piero della Francesca as his
Logan
work matured. In a visit to Los Angeles in
the early '60s, he
was
inspired In the ubiquitous
California
swimming
an icon
popular culture,
of
and made
it
When
I
first
Pearsall Smith,
had the
he said
Pater,
to
Unforgotten Years.
privilege
- and
I
count
it
a very high
one — of meeting Mr. Walter
me, smiling, "Why do you always write poetry?
Why do you
not write prose:
pool,
Prose
one of his
is
much more
so
difficult.
Oscar Wilde, review
major themes.
of Walter Pater, Appreciations.
Hockne} was awarded a graphics prize at the Paris
Biennale and internationally
now known as
In the last
few years
it
has
become
agreement among commentators on
a matter of general
is
David Hockney, stemming doubtless from the most articulate and
prolific of
them
all,
an outstanding draftsman and graphic
artist.
In the '80s, he
Hockney
himself, that the best
way
to discuss his
work
is
to
do
so, or at
any
rate to start
by
experimented with
doing
photograph}, combining
mam
images of the same
scene or object into
multiple perspectives
so, in
purely formalistic terms. Notions like one-point perspective, simultaneous
perception, isomorphic projection, multiple viewpoint, illusionism, anti-illusionism, time, duration,
movement,
flatness, depth,
come
to the fore.
reminiscent o) Cubism.
Personally, Retrospectives of
I
feel this
is
a mistake. True, there are
works of Hockney 's
to
which
a
Hockney
include the Palau de
fundamentally formalistic approach
la
is
appropriate. But they are neither the best nor the
Yirriena. Barcelona, the Royal
Acadenr) of Arts; and the Los Angeles (aunty Museum of Art
Major exhibitions hate
been held
at the
Modern Art,
Museum
New
York- the
works
in
which Hockney seems
preoccupied with devising the kind of surface that a
- modern picture should present
who by and
large has
to the world.
truly
Or they
-
to
truly as
have been
opposed
are those works
to spuriously
on which Hockney,
understood so well the advice that Pater gave Wilde, has
ondon; and the
Pompidou.
24
of
distinctive. Largely they are
the Metropolitan
of Art, I
Museum
most
Pan-,.
momentaril) taken
it
rather too literally
and has cultivated
a
new
look for his painting
DAVID HOCKNEY
BY RICHARD
WOLLHEIM
because, simply because, the old look was something he had mastered. But in the best work, in the work where will
conceal as
much
expense of making
work and in
is
is
most himself, an approach
reveals.
It
may show
it
harder for us to see
it
that
is
primarily formalistic
us what he has done, but only at the
why he
has done
it.
And
that
is
because,
formal concerns have waited upon concerns of content. Content
itself,
it
as
Hockney
so in an interesting
Hockneys work,
this
way For
change
so impregnably, constant.
is
while formal concerns provide the
in the
primary,
is
dynamo
of change
necessary only because content remains to recalcitrantly,
The changes
in
Hockneys work represent
Ak Richard Wollheim
different assaults,
Philosopher Richrd
using different techniques, upon different faces of an enduring subject matter. Content for
Wollheim, one of the
dominant figures
Hockney
is,
Two
like the highest
mountain, there.
contemporary
paintings, both early, establish the point
I
am
making,
if
was born
with a somewhat
The two
pictures are Bolton Junction, Eccleshire, of 1957, and Flight into During the
Italy
that
— Swiss Landscape,
London
in
1923.
in
artificial clarity.
in
aesthetics,
Hockneys very
of 1961.
earliest paintings
were painted
combined intimisme with the kind of indigenous English naturalism
manner
in a
found
that can be
'60s
and
early
Wollheim wrote a
'70s,
series
of acclaimed essays on the i
For over
isual arts. years,
in Sickert, in the
thirty
he has taught
philosophy at the University
Euston Road
of London, and, since 1985,
he has been a visiting
School, and, closer in
professor at the University
of California, Berlieley.
time to Hockney
He
though not
continues
aesthetics,
to write
on
and on the mind.
ethics, political philosophy,
necessarily
more
accessible to him, in
the art that in the
and the
history of philosophy.
Wollheim
the author of
is
Freud, Art and
and Painting
course of the 50s
its
as
Objects,
an Art.
also wrote a novel,
A
He
Family
Romance and two volumes radiated out from
of essays, his is
the Beaux-Arts
On
latest of
the Emotions.
which
He
is
currently writing on the idea
Gallery,
under the
aegis of
Helen
of pictorial organization.
Lessore, into the Flight Into
more advanced
1962,
72x62
provincial art schools.
Junction
is
characteristic of this period, nothing
difference between sophistication of a
it
and Flight
London
into Italy
art student:
is
more
someone
(in
new ways
a picture
but also to
certainly the
making
second picture
is
Swiss Landscape,
in/183 x 158 cm.
© David Hockney.
Bolton
Kunstmuseum,
Dusseldorf.
by citing the greater formal awareness and
someone who had been influenced by the work
period, Larry Rivers,
Italy,
on canvas,
natural than to explain the
Jean Dubuffet and, almost certainly, by that of England's favorite transatlantic
of
If
oil
other words)
new
who had been ideas about
inconceivable without this
of the
recently exposed not only to
what making
new
artist
of
a picture
is.
Now
sophistication having found
25
\\
Rll IKS
ON
AR1 ISTS
its
way
into Hockney's head.
picture. For the it is
prime
fact
But
about Flight into
Italy is that
which Hockney had
the record of a holiday from
hoped
doesn't explain the
it
he himself explained, with
to return, as
magnificent views of the Alps, but in the course of
which he saw
was
more than the
little
traveling in. Frustration,
inside of the van he
and imagination stimulated
new and amusing
by frustration, led Hockney to find
H
uses for such resources as the raw unmarked canvas, streaking, smudging, graffiti; but these resources are not
themselves the fundamentals of the painting. They are not what motivated the painter.
To grasp the motivating force of Hockney's even
in
we cannot do
beginnings,
its
to turn to the very first
which has turned out
item in the
to
books of the world. This
better,
art,
think, than
I
mammoth
catalog,
be one of the bestselling is
Hockney
the prose-portrait of
done by Hockney's old friend and fellow student,
own The Fourth Love acnlic and
Painting, J96J,
letrasei
whole world knows,
this
meant
for
is
the sense of to lead his
life;
R. B.
best Douanier manner. Central to Kitaj's
Kitaj, in his
portrait
art
Hockney leading
a
someone determined
own
life
in his
homosexual
own
life is
to lead his
way.
As the
being free to do
so.
on canvas,
28 in/91 x 72 cm.
And
Hockney
the freedom that
treasures, of
which he
will not
be balked,
is
not just
)avid Hockney, Private collection.
freedom from constraint;
it is
freedom from pressure, from censoriousness, from claims
ethical or ideological superiority;
anarchist;
all
his life
he has thought
something
it
that,
- and
I
insists,
freedom from those who know
shall return to this later
no weakness
he
it is
to
Hockney
better.
- he has been something
in
of a student,
it
is
himself,
no surprise that someone
and who
himself to
felt this
who was
so desperately driven to discover a
pressure at the very
moment
should take the next step and find
art,
should take as
its
subject matter the
He was
at a loss.
all this,
and how he went
life
he
led.
There was no precedent that
is
freedom.
This takes us halfway to the motiviating force, to the content, of Hockney's For
no
is
admit that he can learn from others. But learning too
can be done only
to
it
At
imperative that the first
life
for
which he was apprenticing
he didn't know
school provided.
art
for advice to the fellow
at
art.
student who,
all
art
he made
how
to
do
this.
Hockney has recorded these years
later,
was
to
write of Hockney's need to be himself:
The one student pictures,
-
and
I
I
kept talking tn a
talked to
lot
was Ron
Kitaj.
Ron was
slowly doing these strange
him about them and about my work. And
I said,
"Well
I
don't
DAVID HOCKNEY
know,
it
seems pointless doing
and
vegetarian then,
And
those subjects?
doing anything
But
subjects.
I still
figure pictures
thought,
him about my and bed
interests;
from me. So
was a keen
me why
say to
that
was the way
I
broke
it.
I
began
didn't have the nerve to paint figure pictures. really
on the pictures
I
WOLLHEIM
don't you paint
quite right; that's what I'm complaining about. I'm not
it's
was considered
started writing
I
talk to
interested in politics a bit,
I
that's
it." I'd
BY RICHARD
.
.
.
anti-modern, so
And
then
Ron
my
solution
to
paint those
The
idea of painting
was
to
said "Yes, that's
begin using words.
much more
interesting.
"Loads of people, particularly artists, hate pretty pictures. Now I've never met anyone who didn't like a pretty face." That Hockney's basic concern has been should approach this
But
art.
it
tells
us
to incorporate his life into his art tells us little
about the
how, in working out this concern, he has combined
Then we have
in full the
content of his
it
art itself.
For this
how we
we need
to grasp
with a very distinctive view of
life.
Picture Emphasizing Stillness,
art.
1962, It is
not primarily the great dramas of
Hockney has of
— they
life
and
in
make
life,
nor even the great passions of
tried to get into his art; in fact, barely
them
at
all.
The
life,
that
pleasures and delights
oil
72x62
on canvas,
in/ 183x
158 cm.
© David Hockney,
Private
collection.
certainly are recorded,
such a recurrent way as
their sources the
part of Hockney's
to
most familiar
work -
sunlight,
boys' bodies, cherished faces
and
places, brilliant vegetation, curtains,
and cushions, strong cast shadows, immortal music, and the
activity,
discipline, of painting. But, his
even
the at
most hedonistic, Hockney has
not tried to capture the core, the
pure sensation
(if
there
is
thing), of pleasure, as, say,
and Delacroix the
penumbra
which
flickers
did.
such
a
Matisse
Hockney seeks
of pleasure, that
round
it.
Small
acuities of vision, brief valleities,
funny juxtapositions of ideas,
27
W
Rll
I
R.S
ON
\K1 ISTS
momentary delusions boyish jokes,
all
memories of paintings once seen,
of grandeur, sad, idle thoughts,
these flutter around in the big, unoccupied spaces of Hockney's pictures,
hut they do so not so as to enrich or enliven the depicted scene after the fact, not so as to give
a significance that
it
never had
it
really was; they are there to
mind by the
the time.
at
They
convey what Santayana,
"texture" of experience.
convey the event as
are there to
in the
passage
have quoted, had
I
it
in
because of these fine webs of association which he
It is
spins around basically simple objects that Hockney's art at
best has a frank, quirky
its
intimacy.
On
the face of
totally
it
exoteric works, his paintings bear
the
full,
precise imprint of
psychological idiosyncracy which
we have come,
this century, to
associate with extravagantly esoteric
work — the boxes
of
Joseph Cornell, the novels of Firbank, the
poems
of John
Ashbery, the autobiographical essays of Adrian Stokes, the late
chamber music
of Debussy,
widely different though they are, all
Rock) Mountains and Tired Indians
to
mind.
purest example of this compulsion to capture, within the confines of a public,
/96S. acrylic on canvas, 1
id
The
coming
(253 cm.
accessible picture,
what
is
peripheral or auxiliary to experience,
what
is
distinctive of
one
Hockney, Scottish
National Galler)
<>\
Modern Art
way
particular person's particular
Edinburgh. of Witter
Pouring into a
of looking at things,
Swimming
splash paintings that follow
it,
and then he goes on
Hockney
with the surface of the water
to say, "I
.
.
Many
.
but that was never particularly the with
amusement how he chose
to
way
the painting called Different Kinds
Santa Monica, of 1965.
Pool,
says
they are studies in "dancing lines." That his work,
is
is
this painting,
on the tape he prepared
Hockney emphasizing
was fascinated with have talked of I
Of
all
for the exhibition that
the formalistic approach to
the pools in California, and
my swimming
pools as hedonistic,
thought about them myself."
devote two weeks of his
He
life
and the
And he
to painting
He
points out
an effect that
reality lasted only "fractions of a
second."
pointed out how he chose to
the body of the picture with something that lay on the
periphery of the
\
pointing out how,
isual field. in
fill
Neither
calls
is strictly
the cause of capturing
it
a paradox.
a paradox, but both
how
it
really was,
might equally well have
would be ways of
he privileges the
the (utile, (he marginal: just because what accumulates at the margin distinctiveness, the vividness, of I
lockne)
s
confidence
in
life
for
each one of
the marginal
in
is
what
transitory,
carries the
us.
and the elusive was already well-established
in
DAVID HOCKNEY
the "love paintings" that he executed while at the Royal College of Art.
and
verbal
pictorial, to
statement, which
is
who,
in turn,
withheld. Take The
Cha-Cha
that
if
now
start to
that
looked
who
be able
to play this trick
we
the picture to find out,
with a
out of focus.
blur.
looks like
upon
we approach
We
are face-to-face
This love-picture cleverly repeats
March
hours of the 24th
which
inevitably lies
in the early
sight spoke to the
senses. Androgyny,
and
its
allure,
on the margin.
however no secret
It is
him because he
discover nothing.
the very equivocation with
artists'
Early Hours of
we
really was. If
our biological affections, and
is
attracts
in the
wonder what the boy must have
like to
The boy
was Danced
for a bold
would not have attracted
was what she
him
references,
Walt Whitman, the bard of homoeroticism, prepare us
24th March. In this painting the painter paints a boy a girl,
The
BY RICHARD WOLLHEIM
that, in time, ten
years on, the pursuit of the texture of
experience
came
to disappoint
project encountered a reverse,
came
to re-think
not to abandon
been easy
it.
it,
He came
though
for spectators of
see this distinction clearly.
have had
that they
do so
is, I
it
am
to
Hockney The and Hockney
to re-think
it,
has not always
Hockney's work
And one
surmount
in
to
obstacle
order to
certain, the preference for
talking about his
work
in formalistic terms.
Hockney himself has never had any doubt about which works of his
it is
where Mt. Fuji and Flowers,
his project, as
it
was
originally conceived, ran into the ground.
It is
the series of vast
acrylic
60x48 double portraits which occupied him
in the late
60s and early 70s and which culminated
two abandoned works. The finished pictures have come
of Pyrrhic victow over
life, in
which the element of
victory
be traced to the same source. This source, Hockney
to represent for
Hockne)
it
must
a
kind
Museum
of Art,
New
York.
and the element of defeat can
tells us, is
single-point linear perspective. Perspective captures reality, but
which
Hockney
972,
in/152 x 122 cm.
© David
Metropolitan
in
1
on canvas,
the total kills
it
commitment
in the process.
to
From
follow that salvation lay in the use, in the selective use, of other projective
systems: alternative systems of projection having been something that had always appealed to the student, the erudite, in
Hockney.
29
WRII
I
ON
R.S
AR1 ISTS
1
[owever, as
1
looked
at
Hockney's assembled work,
and another one suggested II
"HOCKNEY, BY TEMPERAMENT,
IS
ENTIRELY
UNDISTURBED BY
ANY CHARGE OF NAIVETY - AS AN
is
a
we
survey the
first
I
became
sceptical of this account,
itself.
decade or so of Hockney's work,
it is
obvious that, though there
wide range of material, without any corresponding hierarchy of genre,
suggests a democracy of interest, this suggestion is
Hockney
It is
relationship
the representation of two
may be
to varying degrees erotic.
and so worthwhile
relationship of one
human
human
to capture
being to his
which
of
not really borne out by the pictures.
one topic that had a unique appeal, and represented
For there
so difficult
is
all
a
unique challenge,
beings in relation with one another.
There was nothing that seemed
- though,
was
later, this
for
The
Hockney
to
to find a rival in the
art.
ARTIST, HE BELIEVES However, as Hockney pursued
THAT NOTHING
moment
CAN
BE
in the relationship of
this subject,
he stumbled across — as
two human beings, one moment
in the pattern of
realizing
it.
stillness,
and
— Nikos Stangos
It
transfixed him, in this
and he could not
moment one person
really
may mean
next in
thinks this and
life,
early years:
Portrait of an Artist (Pool
Iwo
Figures), 1972,
acrylic
on canvas,
120 in/213 x 305 cm. Dai id Hockney, Private
x
collection.
JO
- one
moment
time and one
it
really
some
it.
The moment
is
one of
turns, turns in the direction of the other,
to himself, half as
or next in
escape
if
trying to
we do now?" He
erotic routine, or
work something
thinks.
"What
next?"
and
out,
And
somewhere between the
next
two.
falls silent.
This becalmed sexual form that
if
complicated, "What do
something
He
'
it
emotion, which came to engross him, almost certainly without his fully
thinks, half-abstractedly or as
84
see
TAKEN
FOR GRANTED."
\\ith
in
I
moment may
or
may
not have a sexual cast, but
it is
in
an overtly
appears in and appropriates the undoubted masterpiece of Hockney's
Two Men
in a Shower, of 1963.
The
thought,
What
next?
stirs in
the
mind
of
DAVID HOCKNEY
the bald, studious voluptuary curtain
we sense
who
is its
protagonist,
BY RICHARD WOLLHEIM
and through the translucent shower
the consternation and the mounting excitement that
know ledge of
this
thought induces in the mind of the hidden partner.
The
and of
exquisite tonal painting of the curtain rings
the rod along
which they
slide heightens the
quietness, the gravity, of this filched (the artist tells us)
little
from
domestic scene,
photomagazine
a
for
men. Another work, equally shot through with the
same suspension of time, and with the same sexual suggestiveness,
is
Drinking Tea Being Seri'ed also of 1963,
Woman
the painting called Seated b} a 1
Standing Companion,
which exudes, self-consciously but
nonetheless effectively for that, an updated variant of fin-de-siecle perversity.
Then
there are pictures like Domestic Scene,
Broadchalke
which
in
,
supreme over
stillness reigns
innocent social situations. Nevertheless, to think that for
Hockney
it is
tempting
the fascination that the
becalmed moment, the abstracted mood, held could never be totally detached from
and
for this reason
it
grew and grew
its
for
him
sexual roots
until
it
gradually
came
to
Seated
dominate the
Woman
Drinking Tea,
Being Served by a Standing
representation of the portraits
which
certain that
time,
it
its
it
human
completely takes over.
Of
its
apogee
course
it
in the
has
monumental double
much
to offer. If
it
made composition
easy,
and
it
also provided a sure
in his earlier
work had
way
was
to
be successfully
realized, that the
viewpoint. Anything less static, the
it
mood depends.
that these great
I
more
Germanic machines
abscinded moment, and
it is
oil
78x84 ml'198
B
x 2
© David Hockney
is
on canvas, cm.
Private
collection.
deliberately avoided, thinking it
it
demanded,
if
scene should be presented from a single
fidgety,
do not believe that
Companion, /963,
of securing a unity of
incompatible with capturing the "texture" of experience. At the same time, it
hadn't,
dominance would have been challenged. By abolishing the dimension of
- something which Hockney
affect
reaching
figure,
it is
could only break the heavy spell upon which 7
utterly illuminating to say, as
are "about" perspective.
They
the representation of the abscinded
Hockney
does,
are about the
moment
that
necessitates perspective. In point of fact, Hockney, as
remarkable brainchildren of derive from perspective, but
the
his, it is
I
see
it,
is
unfair to the double portraits, these
twice over. For not only
is it
incorrect to say that they
unjust to hold that perspective has in each and every case
same baneful consequences. Both the Wiesmann and the Clark and
portraits are ultimately claustrophobic
Birtwell double
works but for different reasons, though
in
both
31
\\
Rl
1
i
R.S
ON
AR1
IS1
s
seem more
cases the reasons strictly
do with Hockney's own attitudes
to
when we
formal issues. Moreover,
Christopher Isherwood and structure of these pictures
Don
turn to the greatest
Bachardy,
it
becomes quite
within
it.
pour back into
human
portraits
In this picture it
Hockney
in this series,
clear that the compositional
before us,
through their parts. In the Clark
the
moment and what went on
relaxed his total control over the content, and allowed to
trivialities,
vacuumed
beings together, that he is
life
Hockney concentrated on
the significant
just a tableau that
work
than with
and the conscientious application of single-point perspective
are as such perfectly compatible with the free flow of
and the Wiesmann
to the sitters
it is
a
the
little
absurdities, the quiddities of
out of the other works in the series.
drama, which comes
alive as the older
carrying around inside himself an unruly boy, looks across at the younger
two
It is
man,
not
still
man, who ripens
under our eyes into an elegant duenna.
What C hristopher Ishenvood and
Don
something
is
incontestably true of
in itself very difficult,
all
has
these works
is
that they disclose mastery. Something,
become eminently
do-able,
and
to take a
new
it is'
hard not to feel
Bachardy. 1968, acrylic on canvas, 120 in/212 •
collection.
^2
x 304 cm.
that Hockney,
who had come
to realize that his art
had
turn
if it
was
still
vid Hockne). Private
capture the texture of experience, as glad of the excuse to abandon something that no
to
DAVID HOCKNEY
longer posed go,
him
a challenge.
But which way
BY RICHARD
WOLLHEIM
to
and why?
The
twenty or perhaps fifteen years of
last
Hockney's
art are,
Thev present
a
I
believe clear only in outline.
we
broad pattern, but
are
no longer
able to plot his evolution year by year, grasping
what came
after
what and seeing the reason. What
can certainly be said
is
that his art
is
no longer just
the diary of a singular eye. In two distinct ways
Hockney has
struggled to amplify
its
content - a
struggle that his natural restlessness, his dissatisfaction with continuing to that
he can
(as the saving goes)
as well as his curiosity
that
he has
left
art
do only too
well,
about the resources of
art
sometimes helped,
untried, have
sometimes hindered. In Hockney's
do something
whole period,
this
has blended optimism and
desperation in such a concoction that the former has often blinded his audience to the real, energizing presence of the
Model with Unfinished
latter.
Portrait,
The two ways
in
which Hockney has
tried to
extend his
art are these:
he has
tried to
1
977,
oil
60 x 60 in/152 x 152 cm.
© David Hockne\; enrich the visual findings of the eye with a depth of feeling to which he could not reach as a
younger man, and he has also tried
scene that
it
seems
to implicate the eye,
Self-
on canvas,
Private
collection.
thus enriched, into the very
to record.
At times the two aims pull apart. For instance, Hockney's most impressive attempt to increase the expressive
power of
his
work
is
executed between August and October, 1978, printmaker.
Ken
Tyler.
The
series
is
undoubtedly the Paper in a
in effect
Marco
amounted
Livingstone's admirable to
is
the image are brought into existence simultaneously, in that the sheet
through pressing liquid color pulp into paper, which
The
series has
which he
technique invented by the east coast
very well discussed in
monograph on Hockney. What the technique
Pools,
that the sheet
and
comes about
image into being.
in turn calls the
an extraordinary emotional charge. But the emotions are solitary emotions:
they are melancholy, loneliness, anxiety. In this respect, the Paper Pools form a path that leads
away from the more involved, the more
participatory, art that
Hockney was
simultaneously trying to construct. It
was
in pursuit of this latter
aim that Hockney was increasingly led not
just to
experiment with a variety of projective systems other than linear perspective, but also to present his art as fundamentally generated by such experimentation. that
such a way of looking
at
Hockney's
art inevitably
I
have already said
obscures the dependence of these
33
WRI1
1
Ri
ON
A Walk around
AR1
S
the Hotel
Courtyard, Acatlan, oil
IS!
i
upon concerns, abiding concerns,
formalistic concerns
of content.
We
have
now
to
add
985,
on two canvases,
-40 in/183 x 610 cm. t, David Hockne). Andre Emmerich Galler,, Sew York.
to this the fact that
Hockney's
own
characterization of the formal concerns in
some
measure misrepresents them.
The problem
is
this:
In the
more experimental works, which
take off from the
ingenious photo-collages, there are, in varying degrees, two very different kinds of
experiment going on. that
is
On
the one hand, there
is
experimentation with projective systems,
with systems that supply methods for mapping a three-dimensional scene
to say
onto a two-dimensional surface. All such systems presuppose a point (or direction) from
which the scene
is
at least a
viewed. Each system determines for any particular
scene the configuration that should appear on the surface, given the vie wing-point. Linear perspective
them
interested in
with
\
is
all
only one projection, reverse projection, and since his student days.
the other hand, there
iew ing-point. In other words, the projective system
scene gives
rise to different configurations,
points within the
Now
it
is
same
either kind
ol
is
is
experimentation
kept constant, but a given
through the employment of different viewing-
picture.
obvious that there
of pictures, w here the look
34
On
Hockney had been
experiment.
of
We
will
be perhaps whole pictures, certainly large fragments
the picture can be accounted for equally well in terms of
have a configuration before us, which deviates from what
DAVID HOCKNEY
single-point linear perspective
would have made
of the scene,
and
this
is
BY RICHARD WOLLHEIM
compatible both
with the use of an alternative projective system and with continuing to use (more or less) linear perspective but introducing a multiplicity of vie wing-points. In
such ambiguity
arises,
one Hockney tends
which of the two interpretations
Let us take
and
let
stand.
A
Which
is:
to
be preferred?
when
case,
We know which
but that ought not to be allowed to settle the matter
to side with,
beyond appeal. The question
is
Hockney s
Walk Around
interpretation
chimes with
the Hotel Courtyard Acatldn, a
his
deeper intentions?
sumptuous work of 1985,
"Hockney has
us concentrate on one of the blue plinths on which the stumpy rustic columns
Now
always dared to the configuration of the plinth as
projective system called reverse perspective,
made bold metaphysical
The
claims.
it
lies
on the canvas certainly conforms
to the
on behalf of which Hockney has sometimes
picture conforms to reverse perspective in that the
orthogonals, or lines running back into space at right angles to the picture plane, in this
be David, giving
the goliaths of received opinion
picture furnished by the two sides of any at least of the near plinths, are represented as
and habitual
converging not
practice one
However, there
mapped on
at a is
vanishing point, as linear perspective requires, but at the viewing-point.
another account that can be given of the way
to the surface of the picture
certainly conforms.
To grasp
this
near plinths, and this time pair
it
which
with which everything that
account, off,
in
first
reality
we seen
has been
before us
between the
—
eyes."
W'ilinmi Feaver
take the left-hand side of any one of the
not with the right-hand side of the same plinth, but
35
WRI
ERS
I
ON
ARTISTS
with the right-hand side of the neighboring plinth to the
forming the two sides of a cone of vision with
cone of vision as one of
several,
its
What
the surface in (more or less) linear perspective. relatively conservative as far as projective is
Then
see these two sides as
Then
viewing-point.
think of this
ranged across the picture horizontally, and which
collectively give the content of the picture.
with
own
left.
multiplicity of viewing-points.
It
within each cone
falls
On
projected onto
is
systems are concerned, and what
lines
Here then we have two accounts of one
would be
this account, the picture
them up across the and
picture,
my
picture.
Which should we
suggestion
is
to other
if it
Hockney s words,
or
And
adopt?
we adopt
that
second, because,
in
experiments
can be extended
this
pictures.
it
the
conflicts with
some
of them,
it
fits
with his broader pictorial aspirations.
Multiplying viewpoints advances,
with,
fits in
it
secures, his project of
it
involving the eye in the scene
something which, as
far as
it
records,
can
I
see,
is
not addressed by the adoption of alternative projective systems.
Above
all,
of the recent
the kind of interpretation
work
that
I
favor allows the
construction of the picture to be resolved
where Hockney has always sought Pcarblossom Highway.
arbitration.
It
would be
settled
by the minute judgments, but fine-grained
sensibility, of
the
11-1 Hth April 19X6 second version
"2
\
,
photographic collage,
artist's
and not handed over
eye,
to the once-for-all determination of his will.
The
superiority
W7in/182x272cm. i
id
Hockney, David Hockney
collection.
of such optical empiricism, at least for an art like Hockney's that blends surely something that he learned
on the verge of Pearblossom Highway
and
life
art,
was
in the spring of 1986.
For the shimmering works, whose constituents he carefully amassed in the heat of the desert sun, 1
is
incandescent with
life,
not because
places the spectator at infinity
- something
[ockney links with reverse perspective - but because, with amazing fineness and intensity,
stockpiles the sensory input of the mind,
movements
One
death.
the
1
of
Hockney s most touching works - and
made
in
1
973-74, entitled
he young Hockney, naked,
sailor's jersey familiar
Artist
sits at a
from photographs.
Hockney has represented himself with someone
flutters in
it
response to the
of the eye. In a picture like this, the original project
etching that he
36
it
trying to learn from
lite.
that
also
many many
flat
saccadic
moves forward.
one of the most amusing —
and Model, 1973 was the year of
table opposite the old Picasso, It is
hot,
who
and Picasso examines
head which
it
in his art
is
is
is
an
Picasso's
wearing
a sheet of paper.
the sure sign of
DAVID HOCKNEY
BY RICHARD
WOLLHEIM
Learning, where this includes wanting to learn, not being afraid to learn, not being afraid to
show that one has something
to learn,
and oblique, are ubiquitous
direct
perhaps of staying since, as
alive,
have tried
I
curiosity, or
and
a big
is
in his
and references
of growing up, perhaps of facing death.
its
to
it,
in
And
no matter what form, and is
no
sort of
overtone of learning. Even the so-called hedonistic
they might be christened "studies in pleasure."
it:
However, The Artist and Model not only
Hockneys work,
also
it is
-
if
is
the most explicit depiction of the learning
we exclude
for the
moment, though they must
slumped representations of the
here, the powerful
shows the process from the other end on.
And
life,
the desire to learn from that experience, are never far apart, there
pictures have
somewhere
Hockneys
Hockney experience,
to bring out, for
painting of his that does not have
process in
in
work. Learning appears as a way of staying young,
way
also as a
theme
It
father
- the one image
addresses the question of
how
fit
in
that
the teacher fares.
the answer seems to be that he thrives. In this picture he even returns from the grave.
Artist
and Model, 1974, etching
in black, ed: 100,
The Artist and Model
is
a wonderfully
unenvious work, and close examination of the
23 a
J
7 in/57 x
44 cm.
© David Hockney, scene reveals the lengths
detail of the
accommodate, though he penis. as
to reassure, the old master.
has
left
to
Private
collection.
Naked
he conceals the instrument of
is,
He
which the young apprentice has gone
to
sex, the
outside with his clothes, though,
it
Henry Geldzahler points out
in the catalog,
it
reappears in disguise at a point on the sheet directly
above where alive it
we might have expected
and well
in the
form of
w ith
knobbly palm
a
which
looks in on the scene from
man might
the older
man, and
Hockney,
who
in full
it
Sex
a good-natured whimsicality.
which the young
to find
it.
and
tree,
has been barred is
one way
have aroused the Note, then,
art is another.
It is
in
of
ire
how
hand on the
table
view of the master, tenderly conceals the
right
freely places his left
hand, or the instrument of his
show - Hockneys
art.
But - the print
but
at
pains to
is
certainly not placatory. His art, like his sexuality,
not annihilated,
it is
not
by,
then certainly
round, the younger of art and his
That
filial
is
polite,
it
is
merely displaced. For we must
which the older man pores
believe that the sheet over is, if
attitude
is
of, his
artist is
way
reintegrated into the fold
reticence
a picture of
"model": either
is
rewarded.
Hockney and Picasso together
should be the occasion of Hocknev's most elaborate
J7
WRITERS ON ARTISTS
tribute to learning,
and
to teaching,
has
its
own
necessity. For, at least since Picasso's
death, Picasso has been the major conscious source for Hockney's
and
art,
for this
too there are reasons.
A
Closer Grand Canyon, 1998,
oil
Several links bind the two artists together. In the
first
place, as
John Richardson has done
on 96 canvases,
130 x 293 in/330 x 744 cm.
so
much
to show, Picasso too has
been someone
for
whom
his life has
been the chosen
id Hockne), David Hockney collection.
content of his
art:
encompass the
and, in his case, too,
life
the quirks, the
trivialities,
Hockney, whatever either may
say,
has been given a broad reading so as to
little tricks,
have both been
of existence. Secondly, Picasso
artists for
whom
and
the represented figure
has always been more significant than the space, or even the representation of the space, in
which
it
stands.
And
thirdly
- and
the links are a mixed bag
- both
artists
have injected into
we are to change our world view, images have to change. The "If
artist now has a very important job to do. He's not a little peripheral figure entertaining rich people, he's really needed." their
work
a powerful,
omnipotence in
which the
ambiguous sense of death. In Hockney's
that Picasso's trivial
work exudes, and instead there
suddenly, abruptly, but
still
is
art
there
is
none of the
a sensibility close to Watteau's,
abjuring solemnity, stands for the transient.
DAVID HOCKNEY
But
work of both men we from time
in the
the presence of a
And then Hockney Picasso
has,
there are the great differences between the two
I
or
He
is
one of the most carnal
massive transformations of the
and magnificence. Hockney
lilos,
is
not a carnal
human
doubt they have their
own
grace and sentiment, their
inspire Picasso's Jove-like rage for the
human
images of Celia basically
An
it
—
face or figure
—
human
as
The
artist.
of his
face
ever worked.
It
It is
boys, lying on
desirability,
but
it
Without
a
are inseparable
does not
in the last portraits of
disastrous,
many
Ishwerwood, or the it
lacks power,
comes
to
mind.
It is
not in
and
it
in
artists'
LIVES." —R.B.Kitaj
all
ways
suitable.
But the influence of Picasso upon Hockney recalls that of Michelangelo upon Titian. At it is
companions
when Hockney man-
lacks interest, though the artist never does.
art-historical parallel irresponsibility
most direct
and damn well knew that books and art
crumpled beds
toys.
a)
great reader
this
and the human body such
the result altogether lacks terror and magnificence,
lacks interest.
"(Hockney was
most recent work.
body. In consequence,
he does
in
one of which
most part cuddly
own
WOLLHEIM
a million miles away.
artists,
who
artists
their buttocks provocatively arched, are for the
handles the
some
believe, disregarded to the detriment of
fact that gives his
terror
somber power from which we thought ourselves
a carnal artist.
is
time find ourselves, quite unmistakably,
to
BY RICHARD
its
succeeds in doing what one would have judged
impossible: throwing an artist with the most internalized of styles into stylistic disarray. But,
mulled
over, ingested, the influence
spur to
new
things.
The
vitality of
is
benign.
Hockney's
reason to ask, not knowing the answer.
What
It is
art is
fructifying,
what
it
presents a challenge,
gives us genuine interest
it is
a
and
next?
Garrowby canvas,
Hill,
1
998,
oil
ou
60 X 76 in/152 x 193 cm.
© David Hockney,
David Hockne)
collection.
39
WRI rERS ON ARTISTS
Koons
Jeff
by Matthew Collings
KOONS HAS A UNIQUELY MEMORABLE INTERVIEW
JEFF evenly smiling and considerate, like a demented conceptual Jeff Born
Koons
in York. Pennsylvania,
1955, Jeff Koons studied
in
at the .Art Institute of
Chicago and moved to New York in 19 He became a
artist, in
once monstrous and
air hostess, or
into objects by other people.
He
is
He
android.
Duchamp and Andy
the tradition of Marcel
up ideas and has them made
STYLE, at
Warhol.
a
is
He
thinks
different from his
predecessors in that his objects are always immaculately presented, as near perfection as possible.
He
has been a constant presence in the
magazines for several years and has
art
.
Wall Street broker in order to
fund
even made an appearance
museum and
international In tbe I980's.
- where
gallery circuit
Painters. Before achieving
Art.
consumer
absurd
to
own brand of He focused on
culture, especially
kitsch, turning
work now
his
prices even by today's standards
- he supported himself
his
contemporary American
fame on the
sells for
extraordinary
into high
it
commodities broker.
Street as a
porcelain and
women, and
a
wood
He caused
a fuss in
as an artist
New
by working on Wall
York recently with his show of
sculptures of fluffy animals, big busted naked and semi-naked
huge white-faced Michael Jackson holding
a white-faced
chimp. The
His work displays a
art.
mass of contradictions:
combining imager) oj both sexualit) and childhood.
One
Modern
Koons used
his sense of the
promote
Pop
in the discerning
his artistic career
best-known works, "Puppy" - a 50-foot-high
exhibition
was
success but was called "racist" and "sexist" and
a big financial
considered beyond the pale even for
New Yorkers.
"evil"
Both conservatives and the
and
liberal left
of his
topiar) constructed of
flowers
- emphasizes the
transience of things.
Considered a genius
pronounced themselves sickened. From the
17,000
/?i
a
"new low"
BBC
in
an
art
television that
Hilton Kramer complained that this was
right,
world "already crowded with rotten
now
he had
art."
Koons himself declared on
taken the lead "at least in American
art.
.." .
M.C.
some.
a charlatan In others, Koons
produces work that exhibits
same
the
spirit oj
Marcel
that of
After your "Late
Show" debut
the question most often ashed
was whether yon
really
mean
audacit) as
Duchamp and
what you
sa].
And) Warhol.
mean some
I
Although Koon\
persistently
maintains he has
t
i
strong
moral consciousness in
mam
work,
his
art critic
wrote
work 1
am
oj is
Robert Hughes
him. "If Jeff Koons' about class struggle.
Maria
But other things
I
I
o\
say,
and when
certain theatrical side. You're called
upon
think about
to project
take a completely different view the next day artist really
I
it
the next day they
still
seem
might just mean for the moment. These interview situations have a
critics dismiss
him as a person devoid of substance and conscience. The
right.
of the things
isn't
an attitude. But having the freedom
just being frivolous.
It's
to
something that an
needs, otherwise you get too protective of yourself and fearful of making any
move. But there are things
I
restate again
and again and these pretty
much
represent
my
Romania.''
position.
It's
like
a fairground
AbsoluicK
40
I
In
spiel isn't
is
Jfll
it
-
the "Jeff
Koons Show" 7
Koons Entertainment."
I
believe in art as a
new
communicative
JEFF
device that's part of the entertainment world. slightly different
participates in "showtime."
MATTHEW COLLINGS
draws a
just
It
BY
audience than other entertainment vehicles.
Peter Fuller, the founding editor of
impressed by this
It
KOONS
new
Modern
was
Painters, said he disliked your art hut he
work's effect on the liheral artworld's sensihilities.
Do
you
really
work
at
upsetting people?
never do anything just for shock value. I'm only interested in developing
I
freeing
so that artists can be
it
more
liberated in
what they
do. I'm just
art
and
showing what's
Matthew Collings Collings gained a reputation
necessary in order for the work to be really effective. surgery
-
I
don't think
confused person.
I
he had
it
done
It's
Michael Jackson's
like
just out of vanity or
because Michael
think he's extremely realistic about what
is
is
plastic
such
as
an opinionated and
humorous observer of the a
contemporary
art scene
through his television
necessary for him to do to be
appearances and writings.
effective in his industry. For his
photograph
to
be hanging on the walls of prepubescent and He was
pubescent white middle-class himself a mulatto, to
girls,
there were certain things he had to do.
make himself more
He had
to
make
white. That's radicality That's abstraction. I'm
horn in 1955 in
London. After studying
Byam Shaw
painting at the
School of Art and at
much more
interested in that kind of abstraction than in any formalist idea.
I
Goldsmiths College, he
point to that
edited the art magazine
sort of thing
because
it's
an example of what everybody faces every day of their
they have an opportunity to be really effective, that's exactly the off. It's
as plain as day. Effectiveness
is
moment when
power and the exercise of power. And
lives;
when
they back
that's
what
Artscribe International until being dismissed for
an
men from
He
then
the art critic for
BBC's The Late Show, and occasionally
f/ie
separates the
altercation.
became
the boys.
hosted the program.
What
else
He
do you
like
defends his
He
about Michael Jackson? territory
- the
territory of sexuality. He's able to express
left
the
BBC
in
1996
to
write his first book Blimey!
and
to
From Bohemia
to Britpop
for David Bowie's newly
manipulate a very refined elegant
sexuality.
founded publishing company, 21.
A
described
critic
Collings' book as "hilarious
and
horrible, intelligent
frightening art
-
and
the book the
world deserves." Collings also wrote a guide to
contemporar} art in 1
York called
It
Hurts:
New New
York Art from Warhol to Now. This Modern Art, his
book accompanying the
Britain's
UK
made
television series,
1999 nonficiion
best-seller
list.
Michael Jackson and Bubbles, 7988, Porcelain, edition of 3,
42 x 70.5 x 32 cm. Sonnabend
in/ 107
x 179 x 81
Caller)',
New
York.
41
.
WRITERS ON ARTIS1>
And
is
that
why you
porn star
Italian
like Ciccolina, the
who was
member
elected a
of parliament? Actually Ciccolina represents innocence
1
and
purity.
Michael's kind of active
-
in
motion,
whereas she projects a kind of pre-sex image. It's all
I
Modern
suppose
wonder what have
-
desire with her
to
Painters readers might
these sort of considerations might
do with
Well
like the eternal virgin.
my
art.
.
interest in art
as effective a vehicle for
possible.
that
is
it
should be
communication
as
Other avenues have opened up,
like
the electronic print industry, film, video, the
recording industry, and so on. But even though the art market has grown enormously and there's a
much
larger
audience for
previously, as an effective
device it's
it
hasn't really
It's
communicating
moved
become completely
at
all. If
community
rhetoric.
much
carries so
it
knowledge and virtue and of course all. It's
anything,
own
lost in its
an industry that thinks
carries nothing at
than
art
it
reaily
a self-protected
that likes to think
it
deals with
these special levels of intelligence. But to me, so long as something isn't really effective don't care
And
this
what
it's
babbling about.
I
It isn't real.
perception of the artworld's limitations
has always been your central theme?
\eu Hoover Celebrity IV, New Hoover Quik -Broom. 1980-86, acrylic, fluorescent lights,
2
vacuum
It's
I
one of the themes of the
art
I
like.
I
always enjoyed Dada, and
enjoyed Surrealism. What's great about Marcel
Duchamp
is
that
when
I
was
a
young child
he frees you from the
cleaners,
56 x 22 x 20
ml 142 x 56 x
Saatchi Collection, London.
5J
cm.
masturbative aspects of learn about yourself.
I
art
-
mean,
this idea that says art I
live
is
a very subjective activity
with myself everyday and
that's
where you can
one of the things I'm
most bored with. The world outside of myself, the objective world and relationships with things in the world that
yesterday
42
who
we
all
share - that's what interesting in
(.arcs' I'm interested in things that
go
art.
way beyond
I
know what
I
dreamed
that subjectivity.
JEFF
Do
you think
On
Duchamp
the contrary,
is
really
an
Everything that deals with the subjective should be called "anti-art." But art.
think the
I
time
last
BY
MATTHEW COLLINGS
"anti-art" artists?
think he deals with the objective dimension and for
I
KOONS
that's art.
that's just
grand manner with the subjective was
art really dealt in a
Baroque and Rococo periods. That's the
me
last
time
it
was
modern in the
really effective in that area.
making some of the greatest art being made now. It'll take the art world ten years to get around to it."
"I'm
Do
you
think of these
like to
like that
I
new
sculptures of yours as a bit like grand Baroque images?
power of communication and
that effectiveness in
meeting the needs of
Bourgeouis Bust - Jeff and Ilona, 1991, Marble, edition of 3 and artist's
proof,
45x28x21 people, yes. just as
much
particular
would
I
as a
Pop
Pop
The way they have
star titillation.
it
for a
And
I
moment
don't think
but
when
because effective communication has it
at first,
but
somehow
you're actually enjoying
But
to
aren't
is
trying to
you're already
it's
it's
this
"hook" -
just a short
really
working
want
it.
with
it
I
Im
lasts
You
resist
realize
when
—
they say you're just a manipulator, I'd better
do that now"? I
don't at
this particular position in art right
now
is
because
I
I'm trying to exploit myself and to do everything that's
my
that. I'm trying to
expect
cm
of myself as totally absorbed in ideas of leadership.
have
possible within
J
it
hooked even before you
I'm not interested in wondering what's the next step.
I
x 53
it.
your detractors right
The reason
13x71
effect.
he so preoccupied with what xou think other people need
mind thinking
in/1
00111165}' of the artist.
that's a
term
a subversive aspect.
always thinking "OK, what's the next step.
all
meet the needs of the people
meets people's sexual needs with that
star
wonderful thing to me.
You can fake
think that Jeff Koons
like to
when you
limitations.
And
I
think everybody should be doing
be an example to others.
explain your work you irritate those
who feel uneasy
even more.
m
really very
honest
in
what
I
say: If
people listened they'd see
not saving anything just for sensationalism; I'm actually
43
.
WRI
I
R.S
I
on
ar:
my
describing the nuts and bolts of the work. In at in
"The Late Show" - the sculpture of
in banality,"
of action. St John the Baptist,
/
988.
porcelain, edition oj three artist's
57 x
was
the person as
that
my
art
Courtes) oj the
144 x artist
was
Baptist,
what
Jeff
Koons stands
that
we looked
which was there
to "baptize
really the starting point for a certain
Not
trying to present myself as an agent of salvation. for politically
other media, and industries other than in
John the
St.
-
—
so
much
you have
this idea that
course
Jeff
Koons
embrace
to
ami
proof,
10x25
I
was suggesting
exhibition of last year
76x62
the only
"art," as
way
to
be effective
in
cm.
contemporary
society.
Well, this other media idea
Sometimes you
frightening.
isn't so
sound
you
re
going off
Well, I'm interested in freedom.
Freedom
really
the rails though.
like
.
the commercial industry,
where only
effectiveness counts. You
want
to
And
the people
ass? say,
effective
It's
"How
- use
it.
use
dare you do that? That
is
out and buying perfume based on in the
They'll be motivated
certain things
lot
of
that'll
are going
tits
and
ass ads
magazines.
They don't know what they
things
and
a sexist
who
statement" are the same people
tits
is
when
my
by and responsive
to
and then appalled by the same
they're faced with
exhibition
people, in as
like?
much
them
was directed as
it
was
directly.
A
at this class of
saying, "You're
motivated by banality and the dislocated imager)'
you find
in advertisements.
of yourself,
about
it,
remove the
and take
guilt
Respect
this aspect
and shame you have
a step forward.''
I
used very
simple ideas about guilt and shame. Like the sculpture with the pink panther, which the guilt and
woman
shame
think everyone
/
hat's a lot
and shame. Not
in original sin
knows about
guilt
any more, but
and shame.
of masturbation in one interview! You
are so mild on the surface.
44
about
of masturbation. Here's a
that's free of guilt
everybody believes
is
What
lies
beneath?
I
JEFF
the other day
whatever
was
funny you should ask
it's
I
back
got
wanted
I
to say
going to
really
was
I
And
let rip.
that. I've
New York,
to
and
been traveling a
thought
I
just going to say all
BY
MATTHEW COLLINGS
Of anger?
Feelings of contempt for the art world?
Well,
KOONS
that hatred
I
I'd
Europe
lot in
and
go out that evening for a drink and
and not care what anyone
had
recently,
for the art
world —
if
else thought.
I
there was any Pink Panther, 1988, Porcelain,
-
hatred there
was
I
just going to let
out in one big explosion. Like: "Nothing can touch
it
edition of three
and
artist's proof,
41 x 21 x 19 in/104 x 52 x 48 cm.
me now —
Koons and
I'm Jeff
found that actually interest in
world.
If
it.
it
wasn't
want
I
to
example,
I
me
if
could
wake up
don't have to
at all.
I
tried
one
little
taste of
it
and
I
Courtesy of the
artist.
had no
I
at all
my own
it's
be as liberated and free as
possible. I'd like to think films, for
me
can defend me!" So
art
find I'm not angry at the art
I
anything disturbs
limitations.
my
wanted
I
start
to
tomorrow.
I
morning and
in the
ur
make v
I
a
say,
"AS MORALITY
SEEMS TO HAVE
SUPPLANTED CIVILIZATION,
MOVE ON TO
I
THE
SPIRITUAL."
"Oh, I'm 34 and I'm an .
maker.
.
"
Or
I
magazine but writing
—
a year.
So
I
I
don't
know anything about
maximum
that's really the
my own
even day Not the 7
of
maybe two books
only thing
limitations that
art world.
wonderful community. it's
not a film
might suddenly want to have a
read a
angry about:
and
artist,
It's
The
would be
I
I
face
art world's a
just that
it's
remained protected from any
isolated
real
power
or effectiveness in the world.
You
mean
it isn't
anything like Hollywood, as
huiux people think?
Absolutely not. Their glamour
is
How
effective are art stars?
pretty limited.
What have
they
4S
WRI
!
I
RS
ON
\R1 LSTS
The
got to offer?
own glamour
is
only
way
artists
can find their
to incorporate aspects of
systems
other than "art" and to be creative and confident
enough
to really exploit
what they have. And
to
bring out the primal artist in themselves. I'm not talking about
some rough primal gesture but
idea of the real
power of
better understanding of
— we should have
art
we were
to
who
put the marks on the caves.
it.
After
all,
We
of history, of the perception of what sitting
yesterday!
the ones
were
in
charge
some asshole
We
beside you thought reality was.
him what he did
a
and a better sense of
it
how
manipulate
this
And what
told
he'd probably
do tomorrow.
What about more want and
to paint
old fashioned artists
who just
Nature and the model in the studio
so forth?
Well, that's the
if
they weren't allowed to do that, then
thing we'd
all
want
to start doing.
has to be this conservative aspect of course.
was banned, then pretty soon
radical artists
.
there
.
If
it
would
be moving into that void. Somebody's got to maintain
it,
fighting for
otherwise we'd
be back
in there
Nature again.
You, think there's always radical
all
an equilibrium in
art,
of
and conservatives?
Absolutely. But do
I
believe these people
just maintain this area like
it
was
who
a piece of property
Rabbit. 1986, Stainless Steel.
Edition of three and artists proof.
41 v 19 x 12 in/104 Courtesy of the
should be the leaders? Absolutely not. They are not courageous and
artist.
on any front
/
lilton
think
1
line
Kramer
Yes,
1
certainly wouldn't be
with them.
said your sculptures represented a
find that difficult to understand.
can have
the) can have
a positive effect
more
political
on young
I
"new low" in
know what
artists
art
art.
I'm doing
is
and help them lead
power and have more of an
anyone who'd been involved with the
4(.
I
x 48 x 30 cm.
effect.
I
very positive and a better life
I
where
would have thought
dialogue for as long as Hilton has would
know how
JEFF
suffocating and destructive his
own
heroes.
He
me
to
he opens up
if
to
me.
like that don't deter
because
I
same breath he always
in the
me - Duchamp,
Duchamp. And
Johns,
after
Johns
it
.
flag.
.
"Brilliant,
my
reflective,
And
contradictory,
attacks
was Andy.
MATTHEW COLLINGS
his
know
always
BY
make up
something new then
occur since Jasper Johns painted his American
the flag couldn't have occurred without
sounds wonderful to
these statements over the years that
all
fearful that
Hilton attacks
Koons had
says Jeff
made
But you know, things
will fall apart.
OK when
everything's
He's
and he s probably
territory,
whole world
it is.
KOONS
Jeff
That
Koons's
work
Andy Warhol. Such good company!
is,
of many Do
xou admire the image of himself that Jasper Johns projects
God,
yes.
was watching
I
and Johns back
60s was
in the
this film
like a film star
-
this
guy could
a guy!
And Johns would
to see you."
But
this sort of thing is
say,
"Why?"
what brings about
like
unaware of
is
just
it
.
.
is
irrelevant.
Because
toward making his market and his market
is
down with him and
is
a
this
in the
recapture the
it,
tough
lost edenic
say, "Jasper!
'newness' of
was a philosophical enquiry. What
childhood."
That
—Nathan Kernan
persona was consciously developed
elements of his personality coming out
their impact.
He
in
that seventeen million dollar market.
market doesn't just come out of nowhere. Whether by Jasper, or
sit
really project!
naturally,
end these
and
he's really quite
are the building blocks
Balloon
isn't in
Whitney Biennial
the
this year.
Dog 1995-8,
[installation of work in progress),
part of the total effectiveness. I'm really
high
shocked he
levels,
an attempt to
slightly sinister?
about Warhol the other day that had Johns
motherfucker! Intellectually tough. Leo Castelli would
So nice
-
at one
chromium
126 x
Getting seventeen million dollars for
149x47
stainless steel,
in/
320 x 379 x 119 cm. single painting
supposed
to
-
this
is
power.
How
can they not have that represented
in the Biennial if
it's
Courtesy of the
artist.
be about who's
been effective
in art?
To
remove the market from the discussion in favor of this little critical
say,
"Oh
dialogue and
but he handled
yes,
paint so well.
." .
and have
everyone walking around
New York
saving,
what a good
"Oh
artist. .."
yes,
when
everyone knows that the true political
power, where the
negotiating really takes place, is
in the
start
market.
When
you
throwing around
seventeen million dollars, or fourteen million dollars for a painting, then the curators
47
.
WRITERS ON ARTIS1
.
S
have to conserve their
Seasons series by Johns
going to true
let
is
power and
of
little bit
it
What
really all that good."
When
the market dictate the situation.
power because
absorbs
and a
their ideas
all
"Oh
say,
well,
we
know
don't
they're really saying
if
is
new Four
the
that they're not
of course the market represents the only lot
of other ideas besides.
Don't you think collectors are boring on the whole? Don't you resent having
on them?
to rely
The
first
a sense of
thing that any good artist has to develop
independence from the artworld. What
really destroys a
young
artist is insecurity,
away
that everything could be taken
moment. The media, the -
is
it's all
at
the fear
any
galleries, the collectors
The
very chaotic actually.
artworld
doesn't have this defined corporate structure
Of course
that people imagine.
there's a
system
and
of sorts. This person will talk to that person
somebody
else will pass
you can trace a nothing
line of
like as clear
chaos leads to a
lot
and
oh
it
to
somebody
power of some set as
of insecurity.
kind. But
people think. It's
has achieved some independence from
but the
Signature plate (Parkett edition),
1989, Portfolio edition offifty,
visible for a while
artist
eat
still
diameter: 10 in/26 cm. Artist's proof.
to sacrifice
what
want
to feel
know he can
has to
but he can
all
it
that
they're offering for
and provide
what you
important and have their
survive without them.
And
only after an
bit of
He may
it's
this
really
These
power
not be so
for himself. You've always got to
truly want. You've always got to
art.
.
artist
he can
stand up to the collectors and the dealers and do his other people
else.
be ready
be winning
at
these negotiations.
Give
me an example from
your
own
career.
Opposite page, top to bottom:
2000 nearh
Lips. oil
finished state
In the early years
10 x 13 fill
x4
I
had no
political support.
I
wasn't getting
from the
it
galleries
I
.
on canvas,
was working with,
or from the collectors.
m.
Courtesy Deutsche Guggenheim.
or for
some kind
of illusion of
it,
so
I
I
wasn't going to waste
decided
to
my
time waiting for
it,
go independent and achieve a better
Berlin.
Grotto, oil
2000 nearh
finished state
,
position from
which
to care for
my
work.
on canvas.
10 x 13 ft/3
x4
m.
Courtesy Deutsche Guggenheim,
You became a commodities broker.
Berlin.
Mountains 2000 state
.
oil
nearly finished
Yes,
I
on canvas,
10.x 13 ft/3
x 4 m.
number
ol
achieved a better position by going to Wall Street. But other things.
Courtesy Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin.
4s
.
the average level.
I
just
know
I
can take care of myself, that
could have done any
I
I
can support myself past
JEFF
KOONS
BY
MATTHEW COLLINGS
People assume that a commodities broker couldn't be
an
That someone who deals with money can't
artist.
have the
of an
spirit
artist.
was always an
I
but
living,
Whether
was being
making
art at
make
for
it
important
I
was
me —
is
art.
the weekends, or having other people
whatever -
irrelevant.
is
What's
the art itself and the passion and
Not how many other
that's involved.
activities
you might be engaged
ideas.
think about things and
over a period of time and then
execute those ideas. That's in.
Everything else
Do
you think
Modern
my
week and only
a broker in the
ambition
I'll
a broker to earn a
was always thinking about
I
I
artist.
is
let
I'll
work with
I
them resonate
-
act
go and
I'll
I'm really interested
all
irrelevant.
there's a place in
which
Painters,
in.
is
New York for
quite a conservative
magazine in many ways? I
think because
New York
it is
so self contained the
conservative stance without too I
would
more
artworld could probably absorb a
much
problem.
think of myself actually as a
like to
radical conservative.
\\
hat are rour conservative aspects? I
to
try to
be
realistic
about the environment and
be rational and have an understanding of things.
The
radical aspect
do what
is
is
actually to follow through
and
necessary - to take action.
W^iat do you think about this idea of Peter Fuller's that artists
been too
art has
and
it
shoidd get back to Nature?
would be
like the
much concerned with better if there
natural environment
experience that Well, I'm
is
all
He
says
abstractions
was a return
and
fundamental
modern
to things
to the biological
to everybody.
.
for sex.
49
WRI
11
KS
ON
AR1 ISTS
Andy Warhol by Howard Jacobson
MINDING
HIS
OWN
BUSINESS outside the tradesmen's entrance
Gallerj' last October,
Howard Jacobson was
figure in a shelved, peroxide wig,
Vndy
Warhol
Born Andrew Warhola of Czechoslovak immigrant
laughed
spectrally,
and putting sennce
and vanished
who
to the
accosted by a wraith-like, whey-faced
thrust a manuscript into his hands,
into the night. Realizing the value of this
to art histor) before 1
Wayward
personal gain, he sent
chance acquisition,
it
in a plain envelope
it
was the weekend and there
parents in Pittsburgh in
1928, Warhol studied design
and
{postage $2.50) to
Modern
Painters.
Now
read on...
Carnegie
art liiston at
Institute of Technolog) in
Pittsburgh before moving to
NeuYorkCih Tliere,
in
Saturday, August 26, 1989
1949.
he became a
commercial
Got up so
illustrator for
\ogue and Harpers Bazaar and did window displays, later incorporating the
late
was no Today Show. don't know,
it
was
missed the Today Show. Then realized
I
No
all
- New York
one called
so abstract.
all
day, so
Found
a
I
just sat
number
for
and read the phone book. And George Bush and wondered
I
if it
subjects 0} advertising into
and prints. He had one-man exhibition
paintings his first
at the
Hugo
Caller} in 1952.
connected to some hideout belonging scared in case he answered, and
hung
George Bush.
to the
I
started to call
and then got
up.
Taking as subject matter banal objects such as comic strips
and ketchup
you want to know all about Andy Warhol,... just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me, and there i am. there's nothing behind it." "If
he
bottles,
spearheaded the Pop Art
movement
of the '60s,
culminating
in his
photo
silkscreens of Campbell's
soup cans and "Marihn" prints in 1962.
Warhol crossed media boundaries producing films, records
The
-
the rock band Underground -
lilu;
\el\et
and the magazine Interview. Most OJ his work was done at his studio,
an old
Rang Chris and Victor and Bianca and
Julian, but they
were
all
out.
Knew I was
silver
jacton which was invariably
getting tired
when
I
started to ring Marilyn.
Would have been
cute
if
she'd answered.
filled with other artists, celebrities,
Among
and hangers-on.
this loose
Still
couldn't sleep, so
I
played with the telephone some more. Dialed U-P-Y-O-U-R-S
assemblage
was Valerie Solanis who,
in
and B-I-G-D-I-C-K
to see
what happened, and
it
was so exciting and so much
fun.
1968. shot and seriously
wounded Warhol. Warhol died
1989 the
Modem
in
7987. I„
Monday, August 28, 1989 -
Museum of
Jean Michel, or was
it
New York - London
Billy
Boy
or
was
it
Catherine, picked
me up
so early
I
missed
Art organized the
largest retrospective
>da)
Show.
I
had
my
contacts
in
and
really couldn't see too well. Bianca, or
was
it
exhibition of his work.
Jerry,
so
went with
me
to the airport (limo
$95, porter $20, magazines $60,
mouth freshener
ANDY WARHOL
$15, presents for
The
time
last
I
Anthony d'Offay
said that to Sylvester Stallone he thought
couldn't understand
meant
I
expect to see any stars
A I
Got the Concorde.
$5).
if I
was
it
a plane full of
if
she'd
me
wanted
There was nobody
was
was
a starless fight. {Laughs.)
He
talking about the sky.
nobodies and kept saying
how
did
I
traveled in daylight.
hostess with a wide ass recognized
wondered
I
It
HOWARD JACOBSON
BY
to
to
me and handed me
be sick in
meet me when
I
a sick bag to sign. Afterwards
it.
arrived so
I
cabbed ($55)
(doorman $10, porter $5, room probably $1,000,000). They looked
at
to the
me
Savoy Hotel
really strangely
Howard Jacobson Jacobson was born in
when
checked
I
in, like
I
was supposed
to
be dead or something, but they found
me
a great
Manchester, England, in 1
room, well more I'd
him
given
overlooking
like a closet,
He had
a tip ($1).
quite
some
river.
some bulge
The
in his
bellboy
hung around even
after
in
life
University.
England and Australia
and now
after death.
is
novelist
Tuesday, August 29, 1989
Got up
Show, then remembered
I
was
in
London. Watched in cardigans
(1984),
Model
I
waited
works of nonfiction,
An Argument
weren't.
How
be on but they can you have a
show
in
for
Comedy
(1997). His most recent novel.
television
(1992),
including Seriously Funny:
and the Queen
to
The Very
Man
of a
and he has written four
interviewing no ones.
Mother
critic.
Behind {1983), Peeping
Tom something called Good Morning Britain instead, a couple of straight guys
for Fergie
a full-time
and
Howard Jacobson's novels include Coming From
— London
early to catch the Today
He
has taught in universities
pants which was surprising
considering he was about a hundred. So there you are kiddo, there's
942, and educated at
Cambridge
No More
Nice Guy,
is
Mister
about a
disillusioned youth
London
coming
of age in 1950s Manchester.
Queen
without Fergie and the
Mother being on? Waited a
phone
call
in all
morning
for
but no one rang.
That s the worst,
when you phone
there hoping for the
sit
to
go and
it
calling
Zandra and Manolo and
Rifat,
just doesn't. Tried
but they were
Heard Dustin was something
to
all
out. Dollar Signs, 1981.
in town,
SiUiscreen ink on synthetic polymer
paint on canvas,
do with Venice
84 x 70 in/229 x
and
a moneylender, so
I
1
78 cm.
Courtesy of Waddington Galler)\
tried
London and James Goodman
him, but he wasn't in either, unless his
Gallery,
phone was on the wall and he couldn't reach
New
York.
it.
Did the usual thing - glued myself together and wandered around London (cabs $20).
Went
to the
strike. It
Hayward
was kind of
Gallery,
where they were busy hanging
exciting, being
me and
worrying about some
hung, and also being ignored. Picked up a
leaflet
with
51
WRITERS ON ARTISTS
on the
that old Turquoise Marilyn
Went back
wasn't as "meretricious" as Dali.
lfli|ilH
rang Bianca in
New York,
meant. I'm talking
you get
|wMil#1
collect, to
me
m
floor with Alana.
why
didn't
or
*
» H^^w ^^ w
I
and
it
call
maybe she was
She was saying
all
blow job
give myself a
I
anything better to do, and what did
that
.1
to hotel
You
I
her and I
wrestling
these things to if
didn't
I
have
have against
consulting the Oxford Fucking Dictionary.
u
said
whole low voice and Latino-Euromumble.
this
like
it
ask her what
like her: "Hellll-loooo."
must have got her out of bed, on the
front. Inside,
asked her
I
was what meretricious meant, being able
if
to give
yourself a blow job while reading the Oxford Fucking Dictionary, but she said
how was
she supposed to know,
she was born in fucking Nicaragua.
Squeezed pustules and went
to bed.
Wednesday, August 30, 1989 — London
Went
sightseeing with
my
camera.
Saw and
photographed Big Ben. Seen and photographed
Thought the cab
if
4
#
*•;#*
*'"#?
got in Atomic Bomb, 7965,
whole
part of the
and took
it
set,
that
was
but then
to the
sitting it
me was
behind
turned out
bigger.
it
like
wasn't, so
I
Savoy ($7).
Silliscreen
ink on synthetic polymer paint
on canvas,
104x81
Thursday, August 31, 1989
— London
in/264 x 205 cm.
Got up
Saatchi Collection, London.
at
Cabbed
9 and went to get collagen.
catch Fergie or the
Queen Mother. Caught
to
the eye of an adorable
Gee, he was so good-looking. Perfect chest and teeth. tell.
The ones with Catherine
in the
sun
all
the huge cocks have to stand very
will say things like,
day
fries their brains.
you don't want But
I
Buckingham Palace
don't
to
($8),
guardsman
hoping
instead.
And
a
still,
otherwise they overbalance.
huge cock. You can always
bother with guardsmen, standing
know - you could mold
this
one into
anything you fancied, take him to the movies, give him books to read, teach him to
watch the Today Show (laughs) anything...
Went magazine.
could be
Friday,
to I
McDonald's and got energized. Saw
don't
remember doing any interview
Andy Warhol
September
Shiu'd
52
how
in to
dye
in ten
1,
easy stages.
It
my
for
picture on the cover of a freaky
them.
didn't take
It
was
all
about
how you
me
that many.
my
surprise appearance at the
1989 — London
my
hair
and eyebrows because of
to
ANDY WARHOL
An
Serpentine the next day.
Went back
to
bed
them. But get this -
Found
I
to
TV -
still
no Fergie - and read the papers.
didn't bother to clip the articles.
hundreds of thousands of dollars the guy gets
know why. like
down
easy street.
Took sleeping the
for a
married again.
If
is
great.
at
10:30
and woke up
pill
Queen Mother on
Which
in a
new
at night, feeling
I'd feel
in
most of
finally get past that.
All
way.
And
depressed.
the news, opening or closing something.
she could find someone,
was
I
about the
canvas these days. Fischl, too. Don't
guess they've both put their ice skates on
I
skating
So you
phoney baloney interview some creep did with Schnabel.
a
HOWARD JACOBSON
has to look the part, sweetheart.
artist
watch
BY
I
so they're both
I
just
missed
wish she'd get
more up about my chances. Lavender Disaster, 1963, silliscreen
September
Saturday,
1989 — London
2,
50x38
Limoed It
to the
Serpentine in time for the private view. "Success
ink on synthetic polymer
paint on canvas,
is
a
Job
in
New York.
Menil
in/269 x 208 cm.
collection, Houston.
was the same show they had back home
and can
in
Pittsburgh earlier this year.
decide
t
if
I
think the idea
is
junky. At the Pittsburgh
opening
someone
is
joke, "Success
New York." and go
It
I
had
really thrilled
It
I
all
got
seeing the poster for
That old tacky
exhibition.
to
in
to leave
great. Like
these families were out walking.
had
heard
I
to bed.
Hyde Park looked
boot.
funky or
hand job
a
was so funny
Still
my
Elvis Presley
said private view, vou know,
be somebody to get
in,
was allowed through which
is
you
but anyone great
because the somebodies are everywhere
and you're sick of them. You just looked artistic,
ordered a mineral water from a
trestle table set gallery, like
it
up
Afghan
more
were
in.
cute African guy fez
zips
middle of the
was some kind of soup
kitchen, and you
A
in the
and
in a knitted
tight cycling pants with
on him than
I'd
traced
Mao
Tse-tungs looked as though he thought
he knew me, then shook his head and
53
WRII ERS
ON
ARI ISTS
went back himself.
He had
which from
an Islamic pattern on his looked
a distance
embroidered kisses and
A few
on being looked
to concentrating
English
girls in
I
at
shirt
like pairs of
thought that was sad.
wrinkly black socks and
minis and baseball boots took hours
thrift-store
inspecting everything on the walls, every
nothing drawing and graphic design schtick, they were in the Louvre or somewhere.
like
thought
was
it
great,
I
because their clothes were
kind of go-to-hell don't-give-a-shit ironic but their faces I
my
it's
were
all
and
serious
religious.
own.
know - one day you
don't
I
do disasters and the next you
to
cherubs sucking on
tits.
masterpiece? Anyway,
I
Modess ads again -
the
heard someone behind
just
So who's
was
And
here-and-now, and the objects
50x38
ni
included embroider the
of opportunity."
get so confused by catalogs.
Went
across the street to the Polish
Club
in
Princes Gate.
signed the
I
Warhol
book Warhola so
that they
desk
said, "Hey, that's a
does
it
it
sure
matter? We're isn't
a job in
sunken Eastern
I
all
would think
Czech name American
New had
isn't it?"
now
If
Polish, but the I
wanted
you want
to
little
to say to
guy
at the
him, "What
know what success
is,
Which
kind of
made him
it,
I
sadder.
ordered Bavarian knuckle of pig with meat dumplings which
wrong places
Polish
was
though the whole of Europe had marched across
probably wasn't too good an idea. the
I
Gdansk." But he was so sad, and his face had that
look, as
just smiled at him.
as usual.
name - came
in
I
must have put on
Donna de
while
I
was
Salvo
eating.
- and
a
don't
hundred pounds, tell
me
in
that's a
She curated the exhibition
in
York and edited the catalog and uses funny intellectual words. She this
bunch
Trevor - one
of
of
egghead types with her and someone called Alistair or
those lag English names.
bul tousled, like a Wall Street banker
54
I
on canvas,
12~ x 97 cm.
Estate of And)
moods
He was
wondering
really pretty. Sort of if
he's a fairy.
I
to
do
the feet.
reading out from the
expectant feet celebrate a youthful
synthetic polymer paint
want
want
really thrilled to see
so funny.
me
just
to say what's a
"The sensuous and
catalog:
Torso. 1977, Silkscreen ink on
Even when
get so confused looking at art.
smart
wanted
to
I
ANDY WARHOL
him
invite
to
bv the time I
I
come by and
piss
on some drawings
up the courage they were
got
loved the waitresses.
They were
like
for
me
if
he was ever in
New York.
HOWARD JACOBSON
BY
But
into their borscht.
from another age. They were wearing these
flouncy black skirts and black stockings and cream sandals. Cream. There
I
go with
my
sensuous and expectant foot fetish again.
"You're a killer
of art, you're a killer
of beauty,"
— de Kooning Sunday, September
Went The that's
to
Celibates.
church (collection
I
I
thought
think
Afterward that
$2).
I
was feeling so used and abused and
priest looked so adorable in his surplice
when
I
it's
I
had found the next idea
I
felt
went
to Trafalgar
neglected.
they'll eat shit off
the same.
They
I
I
wished
really
I
had brought
wanted
to
lied to.
my
camera, and
work on — Ten Celebrated
a great subject, just so erotic.
Square
to feed the birds with this little
you can buy, but they were standoffish,
but mine.
Maybe
like the English,
they thought
I
who
package of seeds
and took everybody's seeds
had some gay disease.
the sidewalk but they're particular
It's
they take seeds
almost comical; off.
People are
Elvis
I
and
silliscreen
give
told Warhol.
1989 — London
2,
you
their
cheeks instead of their tongues but
they'll still
shake your
1964,
Two
paint on canvas: each
panel, 82 x 82 in/208 x
Thought about going
into the National Gallery, then
remembered
it's
only got old
it.
208 cm.
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto. Gift
stuff in
panels:
paint on canvas, silliscreen ink on
aluminium
hand before you've even finished peeing.
II,
ink on synthetic polymer
from the Women's Committee
Fund.
55
WR.I
I
1
R>
ON
AR1 [STS
Tuesday, September Spent the watching TV.
A
Warhol:
two days
last
was
I
1989 - London
5,
in the hotel
nervous about that reception to celebrate the opening of "Andy
really
Retrospective" at the
who sounded
Palabimbo or somebody - and But when
it
Hayward because some
though he was high up
as
was
squeezing pimples and looking for crabs and
I
had
in the
Mafia was going
this idea that Fergie
canceled because of the
all
strike.
I
Council hot shot
influential Arts to
be there - Pietro
might have been coming as well.
was so disappointed.
I
new magic
had gotten
a
crystal to stop
things like this from
happening.
I
guess this one
has
now been invaded
the
last,
where
and
to get
I'm back in
know
don't
I
like
another until
New York.
just have to leave
it
the sun and hope
it
I'll
out in
recharges.
Put on dark glasses
and walked around Covent Garden.
It
reminded
when
ten years ago to
I
me
of
went
Martha Graham's
opening
Opera
at the
House and then cabbed back Paint By
Number
(Seascape), 1963,
Synthetic polymer paint canvas, 54
\
with Halston and
moved
to the hotel
everyone's morning papers from in front of their doors to other
and Prestype on
~2 in/138 x 183 cm.
places, so that like people
who expected The Times
got the Daily Mirror.
The
funniest
Private collection.
thing
I
ever did.
Stepped bath with
my
in
I
felt like a different
dog
shoes
shit
still
through your shoes, so soles of
my
feet. If
I
person
on the way back
this time. All alone.
to the
Savoy and had to throw myself
in the
on. I've read that the diseases you get from shit can eat their
stayed up
all
way
night burning leather ($295) and scrubbing the
those intellectual nuts
who
say
I've
got a foot fetish
had seen
me
you
can imagine what they'd have thought.
Wednesday, September Cabbed I
56
wearing
1989 — London
($10) to Alexander Roussos Gallery ($5) for preview of "Sexual Ambiguities."
half expected
start
6,
it
to
be called off by strikes so
lipstick at night so
my
lips
I
only half glued myself together.
look wetter and
fuller,
but I'm afraid
I'd
I'd like to
get stuck
ANDY WARHOL
under
and
thought
I
someplace. Anyway
a bright light
was
it
great that there
I
was
was
really thrilled the
show was
this notice outside the gallery
still
BY
HOWARD JACOBSON
going ahead,
warning that "This
show contains imager)' and subject matters that the general public may find offensive," because there was just this whole bunch of dicks on the
Some guy w ith the cocks saying. it
was
He seemed I
New York
him
told
Then
was it
something — was standing
it
this
on the
for
show and no
it
profit or
was
so funny.
in front of
like
one of
actionable and
anything and the cops
my come,
was
Zealand waiter
put
was
shocked so
Victor's.
overheard the
I
to
that
any minute.
sort of
it
but actually
at
or
would never have done
Demis Roussos
really brave of
could be here
name — Robert
a weird
And
wall.
New
who was
pouring the champagne say that
he thought the drawings
were tame and a
bit short
Maybe
penetration.
on
New
in
Zealand they just penetrate before they're introduced
because there's nothing else
But he was cute and
to do.
had big muscles and he was grand.
And
there was
really there. Just
nobody
everybody vou already knew, but nobody.
Two Bananaramas. One Duran
Paint By
Number
(Sailboats). 1962,
Synthetic polymer faint
Duran. Oh, and Martin Taylor-Brown
who manages some
old has-been English group, the
canvas, ~2
\
Private collection.
who
Beverley Sisters or Brothers,
And
better than he did. hello to
me and we
chit-chatted but
boring,
left
and
The
I
I
I
best act
want
don't think she recognized
didn't go over.
was
a
to find
out
if
in his wig.
I
hope they sing
Lady Edith Foxwell, the Disco Dowager, and she
I
had
just seen her
her because she was the most beautiful didn't
Duchamp
look like Marcel
said hello to
I
von Thyssen was there, but
husband
all
he was
black guy, kind of
woman
me. And Baroness Fiona
on TV. She said that her
in the
world but also the most
right.
like
Merce Cunningham only young, wearing
pink chenille bedspread and a matching turban and these silver high heels - about inches
- and
the bedspread was slashed up one leg to the crotch.
But he kept touching the sandwiches before choosing one, so kept putting his glass
He
asked
me
down and
about
my
forgetting where,
complexion so
I
said
and
I
It
was
a
EIGHT
really romantic.
couldn't eat any, and he
ANYONE
could have picked
just told him, "Listen,
I
it
up.
haven't swallowed
and Prestype mi
100 iu/183 x 254 cm.
WRITERS ON ARTlM's
am
He
sperm."
And
like
remember. And that
was
it
"Andy Warhol was
Which
And he was
himself.
cock on the
his
Untitled,
c.
1962, Pencil on Paper,
29 x 2i in/74 x 58 cm. Estate of And) Warhol
a reward
if
me
to
me
you
give
New York and
in
me
just can't
reporter at the Serpentine,
I
never
knew he
and Jon
fight,
many
to
everybody saying,
"And I
was
it
a
offered
him
me. That was before Christopher slapped Jon
to fall for
water pistol
did so
with some of those paintings
a souvenir of this special night.
just stood there taking
it
because he
be slapped. the party holding his camera above his head, sending off flashes like
left
It
was
like
he was seeing himself
Saatchi guy
who wanted
buy the Marilyn
to
He's
off.
Went home and took some valium which
number
TV
I
looking unglued, the one Chris took in Paris about the time
he could get Jon Gould
Chris fireworks.
might have been,
said to this
kind of English
this
happy he depressed me. He kept charging up
so
right in the face after the
wanted
it
because he helped
just wasn't true
"Hi, I'm the photographer, let
photograph of
which
wall,
good friend of mine
a
and
in these long shorts
was hurt because of what he'd
I
ugly paintings."
it.
Makos was running around
Chris
tweed jacket
put his foot in
really
if
still
such
a kid.
Thought about ringing
didn't work.
he could pay
for
it
that
over four years, but his
wasn't in the book.
Thursday, September
7,
1989 — London
Just lallied around, feeling blue.
Did
a
dog painting
"OH,
in 5
minutes.
I
had
this picture
and
I
used the tracing machine
LOVE BEING PLASTIC, I'D LOVE TO BE A MACHINE, WOULDN'T YOU?" I
that projects the
image onto the wall and
I
put the paper where the image
is
and
I
trace.
"Warhol's Five minutes.
influence has Friday,
been so strong
that Picasso and even Pollock
be distant,
September
Woke up
feeling
machine have
slowing down.
1989 — London
bad
Went
my
off to the
biography,
was doing
a
guided tour thing.
to start, getting
impatient like a
— Bradln Block
average age 17.
Which
\merican
2."
How
Hayward where Victor
chthonic gods."
World War
on some news program saying how
after seeing this creep
my
can something that you do by tracing
spiritual value?
Victor said
58
8,
really
paintings were devoid of spiritual values.
today appear to
timed myself. I'm
I
I
is
just great,
was "the
single
Couldn't decide
artisl ol
mob
if
Bokris, that
A
little
I
thought
most important that
in the suit
who wrote
whole crowd of kids was waiting
scene. There are kids at
because
guy
I
all
my shows
in
for
him
England,
only got on with old people.
artist in
the world to appear since
was better or worse than being "the greatest
the twentieth centurv
- and
I
mean
that!"
which was what
this cute
ANDY WARHOL
Norman Rosenthal guy give
him the name
Then
I
was on
my wigmaker
great artist distress
is
and tosses
art."
Maybe he
ring
him
to
there were 3 fakes of
know why in his
I
mine
there.
signed them. Victor saidT^A
own mind
that cause
him
great
Like painting was, you know, like taking Quaalude.
thinks he's about
six feet.
But
I
think he's just got
in his pants.
kept talking about
swear words. (Laughs.) You the world
I'd tried to
short Victor was. But he stands like he's a Colossus with his legs apart
his quiff back.
bongo drums
don't
I
And
person able to confront images
how
sweet.
HOWARD JACOBSON
but he was out.
didn't say anything.
and then turn them into
forgotten
He
a
I
He was
television.
Victor led the kids into another room.
Electric chairs.
I'd
of
said
BY
and cursed.
I
how
ill
know —
really don't
I
was
not
as a kid
"Mama"
remember
and how the
or "Papa," but
that.
first
words
"Blow
Then he kept
I
ever said were
job." Victor said
saying
I
I
saw Five
suffered from
Coke
Bottles, 1962,
Sillzscreen ink
"romantic fever."
I
didn't
understand what he meant so
I
asked the
girl
standing next to
me
on synthetic polymer
paint on canvas,
16.x 20 in/41 x 51 cm.
who was about
12,
but sweet, with long legs and a boy's
ass.
And
she said that Victor was
Private collection
eca Rt«.uS.P*T.a*r.
59
" WRI
11-
Rs
ON
AR1 ISTS
Then he
saving "rheumatic fever."
Andy Warhol,"
like
"Now
said,
move
we're going to
CORE
upstairs to the
of
was an apple or something.
I
Victor started to get hysterical, throwing his hands about and tossing his hair so hard
thought
"He was pale and sickly, intensely
private
about
his
background, and professed cherish
to
birthday. is
.
fly off.
"The Atom
Andy was drenched
.
Bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on Andy's
in death.
.
the
.
American dream
is
mean such embarrassing
He was just
too goo-goo.
everything."
I
writing
down. He'd written, "America dropped the Atom
all
it
present from
Then
stuff.
17th
the American death, this
—
Warhol's vision... These are religious paintings and of course political
boredom
and value
would
it
A
Bomb on
they're
guy next
me was
to
Japan as a birthday
Andy Warhol."
Victor started to talk about that program of
discussed me.
"When
Victor said,
want
"I
I
hear these arseholes on
to puke,
telly
TV
last night.
saying
The one
Andy Warhol
that
can't paint,"
because they look so stupid and sound so stupid."
We
all
'nothingness.'" stood back a few steps because Victor looked as though he really was going to puke.
—U.S. News and World
"Some critic called me the Nothingness Himself... and that didn't help my sense of
Report Inc. 1987
existence any. then i realized that existence itself is nothing, and i felt better. He doubled up and too far foyer.
down
head almost touch the ground, which fortunately was not
for him. Afterwards
he signed copies of Warhol: The Biography ($26)
The biography - meaning, you know, you wouldn't
kids he nearly art
let his
and
puked over queued
to us," Victor said,
but
I
for his signature.
don't
remember
himself - Victor Bockris - he was giving, that's
Every time he signed a book he looked couldn't stop thinking of fever.
all
Anyone would think
I
was an
to call back.
who were
messages on
The
last
time
I
all
much
pizzazz
at his
call
watch
of the
And
anyway,
it
$26
a shot giving.
as
he was a big hurry. and
if
was
- London
their
was here
nice and recognized
you have so
60
left
you
lot
gives himself completely to his
giving myself to him.
if
A
industry.
abstract kind of day, the sort you
known and
"Andy
on the others.
in the
the busy places he had to be next, talking about romantic
Saturday, September 9, 1989
An
piss
want
to
block out. Rang everyone
answering machines. Stayed I
was mobbed. Truck
me and waved. Now nobody
and then no one
calls
drivers cares.
I
I'd
in waiting for
ever
someone
were usually the ones It's
funny, you think
and then you know you
aren't anything.
ANDY WARHOL
to
Then
church.
worked hard
I
guessed he was interested
in like
help, so
wrote
I
He
said
Wondering why
for
him
Bianca and diet
God was
to like pills
the best doctor.
him an "I.O.U. One
to
Not the young one with the bulge
talked to priest.
surplice but an older one.
go to for collagen.
HOWARD JACOBSON
— London
Sunday, September 10, 1989
Went
BY
I
me and
in his
talked about things
I
and Coke. Told him the best doctor said veah but
to
sometimes he needed
Art."
never
I
painted God. Tried to ring Saatchi
do him
to say I'd
God 72
times on
monthly installments, but
number
his
wasn't in the book.
still
—
Tuesday, September 12, 1989
London — New York Watched TV. That guy
Salvo
who
was
spirituality
who
Show on
the Late said
on.
lacked
I
And Donna de
curated the Modess and
Shoe Show, and Trevor Fairbrother
who was
me
called
a provocateur,
and Paul Taylor —
great,
- from Australia or
New
which hot
he's
Guinea
or
somewhere, and someone called Ignatieff
— he was moody — who was
supposed
to
be the chairman but
kept on interrupting and
have
this
he laughed
the
He was
wished they'd got Fergie or
Queen Mother
me
intellectual,
in all the right places.
Anyway, the creep on
to
feud going with the
spiritualist guy.
I
seemed
kept saying
to talk instead.
who was down I
was
trivial,
empty, and banal, like as though he really knew me.
monologue, kept using
dumb meets Packed few hours
I'd
this tool
word, saying
And Donna de
all artists
use things as
Salvo, who's a walking tools...
but
it
was
just
Telephone, 1961, Oil on Canvas, ~~ 70 x 54 in/1 \ 13" cm. Estate of Andy Warhol.
stupid. for
Concorde ($3,000). And couldn't stop thinking how
great
it
was
that in a
be back home, watching the Today Show.
61
W'kl
ON
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fS
Paula Rego by Germaine Greer
Women's
paintings are rarely powerful, for the culture of the west has no
power of femaleness. Paula Rego
representational language to express the
and that power
a painter of astonishing power,
is
is
undeniably, obviously,
Paula Rego Born Rego
in Portugal in left
i
93 5,
Lisbon in 1952
stuih at London's Slade
School of Art. She returned to Portugal with the British
and
painter Victor Willing,
triumphantly female. Her work
the} lived together there
fundamental hot,
London strong
From
in
in
and heavy
first
evidence that
I
have seen that something
our culture has changed; the carapace has cracked and something is
The process
welling through.
one's breath for fear that
before settling permanently in
the
is
to
Rego was born
in
some cataclysm
Lisbon
in
will
in Rego's
prevent
work
its full
is
so dramatic that
living,
one holds
development.
1935; from 1952 to 1956 she went to the Slade. Her
first
1976, keeping Portugal.
ties to
the beginning, Rego's
work
is,
as
one expects,
diffident, derivative,
academic, self-conscious, but from the outset
she demonstrates an engagement with the surface, a sensual interest in paint
which
itself,
is
earh drawings, paintings,
and
combined
collages
elements oj
fair)
tales
belied by the tyranny of the palette knife
images of women and animals, creating surrealistic
well have
seems
seemed
to the
to this observe, at
young any
artist to
rate, to
scenes with strong psychological undercurrents.
~^M
i
/
Because drawing has always been a fundamental part of her work, priutmaking comes naturalh
to her,
later
use of inscrutable collage.
SflriSflT
\\^Mu/y
be a struggle
for control of her visual
What may
personal vision in acceptable
f«*_
V^VV
series
language
be an effort to present a violent and subversive
wLg"
decorative terms. For a
//
technician as adroit as Rego
and she has
produced several etchings
and her
with
of
nothing
- "Nurser) Rhymes, and "Pendle
is
easier than to create
"Peter Pan,
elegant hieroglyphs that
Witches."
seduce by the grace of their
Rego's figurative paintings
are exhibited in major
drawing.
museums and galleries. She has received main awards for her work, and both the Tate Gallen in London and the Centro Cultural de Belem in
naif straight jacket of The
Birthday Party, 1953, and
Celebrated in her native Portugal and in Britain, she
finest of
among
once
she escapes from the faux-
Lisbon have featured
considered
of line
that she demonstrates
retrospect nes of her work.
is
The range
Under Milhvood, 1954,
the
contemporan
would be
gratifying even
painters. fi
sZif^-y. Aida. 1983, acrylic on paper.
without the color that
full
spectrum of
Rego manipulates
with a confidence rarely
if
94 x 80 in/240 x 203 cm. fhe
62
Artist's
Collection
ever found in British
artists.
PAULA REGO BY GERMAINE GREER
The
affirmation that this sensuousness
represents
the anchor of Rego's
is
subversive perception;
is
it
the
justification for the astonishing icons of
sparagmos,
dismemberment
ritual
of
the male god by the female visionaries,
encoded
that proliferate, always in
form, in Rego's work of the
Germaine Greer
sixties.
With
Rego
often discussed in the
is
the publication of
The Female Eunuch
in
1970, Germaine Greer
vocabulary of Freudian surrealism,
became one of the most important voices in the
and the overt content of her work
feminist movement.
encourages
this
kind of transliteration, Born
but in fact her imaginative world utterly unlike that of the
is
Viennese
Melbourne in 1939, moved to England to
in
she
study at Cambridge. While writing for journals
middle
Rego breathes the
class;
and
teaching at the University of
Warwicki she lectured on
dangerous
air
of the region
where
the sexual freedom of
women. The Female
species overlap; under the overhang of phallocentric culture she consorts with winged
quadrupeds and eloquent
birds.
Her painting
knowing, genital and self-pleasuring;
it
refuses to grow
up and become
rejects the superiority of
Eunuch
mind on which
Freudian
all
Her premise
Eunuch theory
is
based. Centaur, 1964,
is at
once
drawn
a highly sophisticated pastiche of motifs
from Picasso and the Catalan primitives, invested with
all
the flattery that such imitation
established her
career as a writer.
discrete, self-
is
The Female
in
that
women
are
sexually repressed, deprived
of the creative energy needed for achieving independence
implies,
and a mordant
upon such pretension. The icon
satire
and full
of man-horse, horseman,
selfliood.
This
sexual passivity, a role
cabalero, cavalier, knight-thug
dissecting table.
What
is
spread over the picture space
like rabbits' guts
on
a
foisted
should be hard
is
soft
and what should be
soft
is
hard; scrotal shapes is
sag and
mumble
on
women
by history
and by women themselves.
over gun barrels and battering rams.
The
beasts of burden,
women among
characteristically
associated with castration.
hence the
title.
them, respond with passive aggression; the horse hind-quarters are jitterbugging or Greer's approach to
collapsing under towering absurdity. Similar contradictions are expressed in
manner
in Warrior, 1965,
and
less effectively in
more headlong
feminism has evolved over the intervening thirty years
Samurai, 1982.
of her
The
essential character of Rego's
work
is
already established. Invariably the subject
book, {in
involves interaction
between sentient elements; the
spatial context
is
theatrical, the
light
upon
a cyclorama.
The
light
laid
source
is
on
in interpenetrating strata, like the play of
invisible, as if
hidden
in the flies. Living
her most recent
1999), states that
women's success world
background suffused with tender color
life;
The Whole Woman
is
in a man's
not progress since
the price has been the
denigration of female values.
tableaux are erected on plinths and daises, standing clear of the artificially limitless
background
Of
like creatures
on
a stage.
the hundred works in this year's exhibition organized by the Centro de Arte
Moderna, with the collaboration of Ruth Rosengarten from the seventies,
six
of
them gouaches from the
in
series
Lisbon and Porto, only nine date Contos Populares Portugeses,
Above
left:
71x51 1974—75. These works, though in some ways related to Goya's
Proi?erbios, are clearly
Angel, 1998, pastel on
paper mounted on aluminum.
in/180 x
BO cm.
Marlborough Fine Art Ltd.
63
W'RI
11
RS
ON
AR1
is rS
influenced by English illustrators, most obviously (and lamentably in
Rackham. The black work becomes
line that
Rego used sparingly
as a defining
my
opinion) by Arthur
and linking device
in earlier
a confining border, so that areas of vivid jewel-color are seen like cloisonne or
stained glass in a chased grid. To perform this exercise in rigid self-censorship Rego's supple
and expressive
line
is
thickened, broadened, and flattened in pointless and self-defeating
imitation of obsolete illustrative techniques. This period in Rego's artistic development
The Barn, lOt
/
c >
94
,
acrylic
on canvas,
70x190 cm.
Marlborough Fine Art
h4
Ltd.
PAULA REGO BY GERMAINE GREER
seems
me
to
at least a retreat
from
Criatura Encarnada, 1981, acrylic
on paper, 30 x 22 in/76 x 56 cm.
her into
own
scale
and preoccupations
something rather
embroider}'. is still
The
there but subordinated to so
impact It is
is all
diapering that
but frittered away.
possibly relevant here to
point out that Paula
widow
like
disturbing imagery
much embossing and its
Rego
is
the
whom
of Victor Willing
she
met, was immensely impressed
and a
Private collection.
fell in
student
love with while she at
by,
was
the Slade, and lived
with until his death in June this year (1988). For
most of her career
Willing's closeness has in
her painting. At
Portugal first
first
been evident they lived in
where she bore three children, of
whom
the youngest was born in 1961. In the
years of their relationship, despite Willing's generous
her talent, Rego found
it
very difficult to
work
at all. In
encouragement and recognition of
1962 she was given a grant by the
Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and from 1963 she divided her time between Portugal
and London, becoming a member of the London Group
in 1964. In
1976 she decided
to
"We
interpret the world through stories everybody makes in their own way sense of things, but if you have stories it helps." . . .
"She has always liked the
directness of
drawing, disliking make her home
in
London. Toward the end of the seventies, when her youngest child had
the paintbrush reached relative self-sufficiency she began tentatively to work on her old defiant scale; the
because breakthrough acrylic
is
on canvas, Rego begins
that the
medium makes
now
transparent color is
placed
possible.
her at one remove to
work on paper with
The brush
that
all
the speed and concentration
draws the defining
from the surface; line of the initial
sketch vibrates like Goya's burin, skipping across the paper; layers and smudges of
process
it
signalled in Criatura Encarnada, 1981. After a rather uncertain initial use of
shimmer over each other with
perfectly visible, the result
extraordinarily engaging, moving,
is
a
new
a frightening life of their
own. The whole
kind of rhetorical power; the images are
and unnerving.
with pastel the fingers themselves
are the brush."
—John McEwan 65
W'RI
11
RS
ON
ARTISTS
It
is
usual
when
discussing Rego's work to inquire into the source of her vast fund of
personal imagery, which turns out to be the possible to press-gang
Rego
same
as everyone else's, her childhood.
into the ranks of the Freudian surrealists but to
that her motifs are closely related to a non-literary female tradition
Rego herself fables Half Ant - Half Lion. 1982, acnlic ~~ \ 22 in x 56 cm.
theme
is
the fact
exciting.
acutely aware of the other culture, hence her long love-affair with popular
and proverbs, but she might be surprised is
my mind
much more
is
It is
often encountered in such
to
know
women's poetry
that her "carnival of the animals"
as has survived. Like
Rego who uses
on paper, 30
Private collection.
human female
figures
on the same ground and on the same scale the
as her animal characters,
women
members and
poets see
women
as
of this "inferior world,"
identify with fleeing hares
wander
or horses free to fields
in the
while "the tyrant iMan
does sleep."
If
Rego has not seen
Maria Sibylla von Merian's
Surinam sketchbook,
for the
Hie Return
playful crocodile of
of Croquenitaine, 1984, virtually a quotation
is
from
it,
the
recurrence of the motif must be a sign that there
an alternative
is
symbolic structure appropriate to the self-defining
distinct
female
(as
from feminine)
imagination.
approach
Though
to the
the
medium
is
sharply contrasting, Meriam's
animal and insect world
is
very
like Rego's; creatures torture
each other with exuberant innocence, while the superego
and bound.
looks on, gagged
I
can think of no other example in
European
subversion;
it is
still life
had
dead
revenge
to
the painter.
66
art of this
as
risen
if
kind of
the animal
from the
itself
upon
PAULA REGO BY GERMAINE GREER
accessible sources of Rego's imager}' are to be found in
The most
animal cartoons and commercial killed
by the
art,
the Vache qui
The laughing flower
terrifying.
and the
Half Ant Half Lion, 1981,
as in
like
the wicked bugs
and so on. Rego makes of the pulp culture by which
spray,
housewives are daily confronted something
sometimes
rit,
becomes
new and phantasmagoric, truly disquieting,
even
face used to sell scented disinfectants
a suffering cabbage, looking
on
in tears as a
descendant of Bugs Bunny realizes with some surprise that carrots are alive.
Once more Rego mounts Showing
Little Girl
Off,
her tableaux on an invisible stage. In
1982 and Going Out, 1982, the picture plane
limited by an area of blackout as
is
the action was being carried out on
if
an apron or on the sunny side of the bullring;
Cabbage and Potato
in
and The Sick Sparrow, 1982, the dark element
is
suggested quite
adequately by a single stroke of black at the margin of the picture.
1983 Rego undertook a series of large works, 94 x 82 in/240 x
In
208 cm, on paper, named possession, are
after four operas.
on the paper, using
inspiration for these in
which
roles,
a similar
a
technique
drawn
her
rapidly without pentimenti
brush loaded with a single
may come
among them some
is
directly
used
from
a British
to portray
color.
The
Museum
animals playing
papyrus
human
of Rego's most often used characters, the
and the dog musician,
striped cat,
in
compendia of her personal imagery, extraordinary
collections of ideograms apparently directly
These, which remain
for
the "Animals in Art" exhibition at the
example. The papyrus was part of
Museum
1977—78 which may
in
have triggered the flow of unforgettable animal images that Rego began to
produce
of Goya.
in the eighties.
More important probably
The Sandman, 1985, contains
Sueno de
la
are the Caprichos
a direct reference to Goya's El
Razon Produce Monstros. The use of animal motifs
of saying the unsayable goes
back
in Rego's
work
at least to a
way
as a
major
work of 1965, Stray Dogs (Dogs of Barcelona).
The germ in
which
of
much
for the first
future
work
time there
is
is
to
be found
no hint either
in
in the
opera
series,
drawing, paint
treatment or spatial organization of the closeness of Victor Willing.
The bad
girls
make
Top: Looking Out, 1997, pastel on
paper mounted on aluminum,
their first
appearance,
lifting their skirts to appall
unwary passerby, manipulating
71
x51
in/ J 80.x
BO cm.
Marlborough Fine Art
gravely attentive animals.
Paul Rego discovered Dubuffet and
I'art
brut as early as 1959, but
it
was
a long time
on paper mounted on aluminum,
43x39 before her
who has
own work
already
reflected the realization of
come through
Ltd.
Above: Untitled No.4, 1998, pastel
what form
anti-art
could take for an
artist
in/ 110
x
WO cm.
Marlborough Fine Art
Ltd.
the indoctrination of conventional art school teaching. Rego
67
WRITERS ON ARTISTS
virtually incapable of
is
an ugly
line or
an
inelegant juxtaposition, and too sane to at the
of
obsessive space-filling that
most outsider
although
art,
I
is
typical
would argue
work of the seventies comes
that the
work
close
times to this kind of compulsiveness. By
at
entering into the imagery of the bestiary of
childhood, Rego discovered a
which
in
to express
her
own
unrepentant outsider and for all
new
language
status as
finally
once and
overcame the eclecticism of her
artistic
beginnings. In the Vivian Girls
1984-85 the bad
series of
reaches
girl's
rebellion
most strident expression;
its
and humorous birds tangle
sensitive pigs
with insensitive female
humans and
lecherous vegetables in
crammed works
that read in episodes like medieval serial illustrations of religious legends.
quotations of the clever still
girl
there; motifs snatched
The
student are
from Bosch and
Arcimboldo serve functions of which
their
inventors can hardly have dreamed.
No
artist
has
made
on canvas than Rego
better use of acrylic
x 70 in/242 x 179 cm, works, unless Dancing Ostriches from Disney's
Rego herself
in the
95
in these four large, it
be
works immediately following, The Bride, At the Beach, and Paradise,
all
Fantasia, 1995, pastel on paper
mounted on aluminum, 59 a 59 in/ ISO x 150 cm. Marlborough Fine An Ltd.
Never has the spontaneity and
of 1985. in these
hymns
of unholy glee.
brilliance of the
The bouncing
the stereotypes of femininity tossed
figures
medium been
dashed
upon the white canvas
better exploited than
off in transparent blots are
as
if it
were
a sheet.
The
all
holy
phallus appears only as a limp, bad tempered sea serpent, a half peeled banana, a turkey
neck, a green slow worm.
One
is
reminded of the tallow
isolated organs that the faithful offer for spiral,
which
making
a
for
immolation purposes
burning
effigies of
at Fatima, especially in Rego's
signifies the gut.
This
conscious connection, by the way, but that she
unselfconscious popular stereotypes.
foreground
of
The
dismembered limbs and
striped cat
who
is
is
use of the
not to say that Rego
is
drawing on the same stock of
appears in the center of the
At the Beach, can be seen by the un-innocent eye as the ultimate expression
of the revolutionary conspiracy of the lower orders to replace
man, proud man.
j
— PAULA REGO BY GERMAINE GREER
The
possibilities of lart brut are limited
beyond them. The 1986
new all
series of large
the paintings of meninas,
is
filled
little
all
with single animals shows a
type that Rego uses for this, and indeed for
and her
self-portrait
above
all,
the meninas are stocky,
with sleeping energy, in indirect commentary on the boneless
collections of seductive surface planes that represent
Although the meninas
girls
very like the type favored by Artemisia Gentileschi. Like
Gentileschi's Esther, Judith, Susannah,
and
images of single
The monumental female
poise and candor.
heavy, swarthy,
and by the end of 1985 Rego had already passed
wear the insignia of
little
women
as objects of aesthetic desire.
girlness, decorately patterned
garments,
shoes, and colored gew-gaws in their hair, they are dangerous, intent, calculating,
intelligent.
The dogs they work on
whether they
rest their
are subtle
paws on the knee of
chained, or gaze impassively under a
a
and moving icons of defenseless girl
with a cut-throat
girl's lifted skirt.
the larger works that follow, but the energy
and
These works
razor, or
sincerity,
wait to be
are less ambitious than
fierce concentration of their execution
Dog Women - Waiting 1
47x63
makes them
if
anything more impressive.
""
for Food,
994, pastel on canvas,
in/120 x 160 cm.
Marlborough Fine Art
Ltd.
—
69
ON
WRll IRs
1
ARTISTS
The
he Policeman's Daughter,
acrylic
eight
most recent works are
on paper on canvas, S4 \ 60
Fine Art
make
those which will
in/213 x 152 cm. Marlborough
name
Rego's
l.ui.
a household word.
the magic
If
Marquez
realism of Gabriel Garcia
could be transferred to paint,
what is
it
would look
this
is
The imagery
like.
apparently completely factual,
except that scale
distorted in the
is
power and recognizable
interest of
motifs appear in incomprehensible
The
juxtaposition.
wears mistletoe
Little
in
Murderess
her hair; a tiny
pelican stands on a painted chair
behind
her,
and ah
obscured by her of
all
ox-cart
skirt.
these motifs
is
is
half
The relevance
as easily
explained as that of the green
ribbon the garrotte
and the doffed nightshirt that
spills off
"Agressions,
victim in his only vulnerable
resulting from this
dominance,
provoke violence and,
in
personae of the is
matched,
The ambiguity
full
who checks
in the
intent
Fascist order, or both. She, like the cat,
light;
must
provides the tension in
be found
force of the mystery. Outside
window, as
image derives from the
to
brilliant as a searchlight.
the
live in
Two
if it
is
ultramarine
Again the young
were goose-stepping.
mocking
either serving or
girl is
in other
the outdoor scene in the
obvious; polishing a jackboot held at an angle as
The same ambiguity
or surpassed,
Daughter does without the ideographic clues
night, but the only light falls aslant the is
to point out
moment, naked and abed. The shock of the meninas
paintings of this series, except for the silhouetted cat
woman's action
against the
seems ridiculous
projected by the massiveness of her dark dancing form.
is
Tlie Policeman's
It
about the same subject, the ginstiziamento of the
foreground; instead the setting carries the
the
pictures, violence
story
gloating expression
is
holding as a
the bed in lieu of a corpse, but the solidity
and directness of the technique here discourage pedantry. that Gentileschi's great icon of Judith
girl is
a
her master's house and eat his cream.
Girls with
Dog; the
girls
are apparently
by playing but
we cannot
tell if
they are dressing or undressing the unfortunate dog.
They
the violence done themselves are fussily accoutred in figured prints, smocking, bows, and pinnies (pinafores),
by the artist in
achieving the final image of
the picture."
— 70
Victor
\\ tiling
and the
tiny collars that
Rego uses almost invariably
like stylized neck-irons.
sado-masochistic order are used several times in this series, beside plucked flowers and It
is
not often given to
fruit,
hammers
Emblems
of various kinds
here a daisy and an unbroken jug, elsewhere
women
to recognize
themselves
figs
and
of the lie
tulips.
in painting, still less to see
thru private world, their dreams, the insides of their heads, projected on such a scale and
1
PAULA REGO BY GERMAINE GREER
so immodestly, with
such depth and
feminists hardly dared to hope that a
color. After the violation of
woman
painter could reassert woman's mystery and
restore her intactness. Rego's paintings are full of shuttered
vessels of
Balthus keyhole vision,
windows, closed doors, and
ambiguous content. Her female types smile mirthlessly
grin of the
in a
new version of the
Maenads. Her paintings quiver with an anger and compassion of which we have
The
Little
acrylic,
sore need.
Now
that she has hit her stride, let us
hope
that she will run
and run.
Murderess, 1987,
59 x 59
'nil
Private collection.
50 x
1
50 on.
WRI ERS ON ARTISTS I
Larry Rivers by Peter Jenkins
LARRY RIVERS WAS a PRECURSOR OF Pop Art. Jasper Johns' shown by Leo was the Larry Rivers
first
Castelli in 1958.
group exhibition of the Pop
becoming known. Rivers had painted
Born Larry Grossberg in the Bronx in 1923, painter and
The Sidney
Janis 1962 show,
at
Crossing the Delaware in 1953. In 1960 he painted the
were
New
"The
first
Realists,"
about that time, they were
artists as, at
famous, and
his
flag paintings
the time notorious, Washington
menu
Cedar
at the
Bar, the
sculptor Larry Rivers began
painters'
his career as a jazz
saxophonist.
He
Greenwich
Village drinking haunt,
painting in 1945, studying at
Hans Hofmann School, and with William Baziotes
became
influential
among
New York
Becoming a
in the
same year
his
Buick Painting which
the British Pop artists such as Peter Blake and Allen Jones. In
the
at
and
took up
the early 1960s, Rivers was painting
Camel
cigarette
and Dutch Masters cigar packs, and
University.
part of the
GUESS I'VE always liked the idea of being an artist.
"I
New
York City art scene in the early 1950s, Rivers
>">
shocked
both the traditionalists and the pro-Abstract Expressionists
with his figurative paintings that were freely Expressionistic in style. His subjects were cliched old-
master paintings and banal
from advertising, which were said to have paved the way toward the Pop Art movement. His stand-up
had been using stenciled words
in his pictures.
According
Hunter of Princeton, "He was undoubtedly the
first
Sam
to his biographer, Professor
American
or vernacular objects in a larger artistic context." Yet Rivers
artist to
was never
use so-called Vulgar'
a wholly paid-up
objects
member
of the
He seemed
Pop movement,
good person
a
if
movement
to talk to
it
was, nor of any other school or movement.
about the history of
New York's
post-war
art world,
and
treatment of the familiar painting Washington
so
I
visited
him one Sunday
in his studio in
Southampton, Long
Island,
where he mostly
Crossing the Delaware garnered him distinction
lives,
surrounded by family and retainers.
in the art world.
Rivers set out as a professional sax player, his hero Lester Young, In the
1960s Rivers continued
to explore, creating
and multimedia.
and
the emigre the
to study
under Hans Hofmann,
German
painter
who became
the great mentor as well as a leading exponent of
as Matisse, Picasso,
New York
School of Abstract Expressionists.
I
asked whether
Hofmann had been
disappointed in him as a pupil.
relief sculptures that
He
used images from masters such
and
Leger.
Rivers has exhibited extensively in the
and abroad.
guessed
so,
although
Hofmann by then had
world and was painting furiously against
lost time.
way
He
of
making
a living in order to paint.
US
lost the
urge to bring a message to the
Teaching had become
didn't insist
on
stories
lot
and
of literature at the time, and didn't
just
making shapes and
lines
know how
and things
for
him
chiefly a
his pupils painting abstractly,
but Rivers had tried for a while "making rectangles and things" but found reading a
72
He was persuaded
In the
990s, he created a series of
foam
in 1945.
took up
working with
theater set design, videotape,
1
when he was twenty
first
painted
sculptures, collages, prints, as well as
painting
and
to square
like that."
it
absurd.
"I
being interested
was in
LARRY RIVERS BY PETER JENKINS
Peter Jenkins in 1934 in
Born
Buckinghamshire, England,
-.3r
i
writer
and broadcaster Peter
Jenkins
known for
best
is
his
political essays as political
K~
wjt
2J
columnist and political editor for the
Guardian and
Independent newspapers where,
he gave an
said,
it is
"insider's
view of
politics to
those on the outside.
was educated
at
L niversity
He
"
Cambridge
and
at the
University of Wisconsin.
On
Jenkins
The
the author of
is
Battle of
Downing
Street
and Mrs. Thatcher's Revolution:
The Ending
the Socialist Era.
.3
He
wrote for the theater
of
also
—
his
political play Illuminations,
was performed
[LS'MA/jf
1
at
London's
He
Lyric Tlieatre in 1980. .
was the drama
critic
for
Spectator from 1980-83,
and
a writer for the
television
comedy
UK
series
Struggle in 1984. Toward the end of his
life,
began writing
art criticism
for
Modern
In the
Jenkins
Painters.
UK, he was
designated "Columnist oj the Year" for several years
running, and
named
"Journalist of the Year," by
Granada
Television in 1978.
Jenkins died in 1992
All the
same, he had taken a
the idea that they
went
made
lot
from the Abstract Expressionists. For example,
size. "I
loved
big paintings. All-over paintings. That wherever they started they
right out to the edges.
I
remember
that
I
had
difficulties
with paintings where
I
would
Cedar Bar Menu 1, I960, on canvas, 48x35 in/121 x 89 cm.
oil
be interested
in the object
— maybe
a table or a person
- and then wondered what you were
Collection of the Artists, Courtesy
supposed
to
do with what's behind them? Paint a wall?"
Marlborough
Gallery,
New
York.
7
I
WRITERS ON ARTISTS
many
"There were
several of them.
he knew a
paranoid. sat
I
was actually
I
friendly with de Kooning,
about certain kinds of
lot
only person
things about the Abstract Expressionists
didn't like
When
was Jackson
I
liked.
I
and he was
knew them. a very nice
admired
I
man, and
both of the United States and of painting. The
history,
Pollock,
who was
between
a mixture
a bully
and a
he was drunk, he was very loud and insulting, but when he was sober he
with his head in his hands, bent over and sort of broody. So he wasn't very interesting
but, otherwise,
liked
I
them
a
lot:
Philip Guston, Franz Kline
—
knew
I
of those people."
all
\
Washington Crossing Delaware.
We
graphite and charcoal on linen, ~ x 9 ft/212 x 284 cm.
many
J
953,
had begun by talking about Abstract Expressionism because
it
has been said so
oil,
Museum
of
Modern
Art,
New
times before that Pop Art was a reaction, a conscious reaction, against Abstract
York.
Expressionism by then grown decadent and effete.
"Not that
in his case," said Rivers.
was what
doing things
I
"4
later
did, but, truthfully speaking,
like
I
it
had
dawned on me
my own
George Washington Crossing the Delaware
of things like Buicks strangely
"Maybe
and cigarettes
enough - was
still
sort of
in the late '50s. Sure,
I
that
it
was possible
agenda. Don't forget in 1953,
didn't
do
and it
Gorkyish or Abstract Expressionist,
I
started
was doing
flat;
if
I
my
that
style
all sorts
-
you wanted
to say
LARRY RIVERS BY PETER JENKINS
i
that.
don't
I
know
if
you'd
call
Gorky an
Abstract Expressionist, would you?
Anyway,
Gorky with the smudges
like
I
and everything
was
that there
painting on
So you could say
like that.
a certain style, a
my
way
of
may have come
part, that
out of Abstract Expressionism.''
"But I
felt
so
have a program. Sure,
didn't
some people were
that
and
attention
I
I
maybe
I
little
jealous or envious
- but
of the abstract painters I
—
wasn't getting attention
was a
I
getting
was
the truth
thought what they were doing was boring. They weren't saying anything about anything.
French Money, 1962,
oil,
charcoal and collage on canvas,
me
They'd been telling
for ten years
about
how wonderful and
interesting shapes were."
36 x 60 in/92 x 152 cm. Private collection, Courtesy
I
wondered
himself, or
when Johns came upon
if,
was seen by
others, as
don't know," said Rivers.
"I
making
At the time
days.
- and
he'd always
I
we saw each
was
break with the abstract school.
Mountain College. other
me
to
come
- not
so
known
a little bit better
wanted
a conscious
think Jasper was very influenced by
studied under Franz Kline at Black He's a friend of mine;
the scene with the Castelli show, he saw
So, I'm not sure,
much
that he
Duchamp. But he
I'd
been
in
Gallery,
New York.
"I
also
hard to know.
it's
now, but especially
was -
Marlborough
in the early
New York
longer
over to his studio and see what he was doing. So he
MAYBE I WAS A LITTLE JEALOUS OR ENVIOUS OF THE ABSTRACT PAINTERS - BUT THE TRUTH WAS I THOUGHT WHAT THEY WERE DOING WAS BORING."
"...
knew what
obviously
about
it,
act as
if
and
it
J
was doing.
Now
I
don't
know what
influence
I
really don't
remember, because he hadn't seen flag wasn't bad.
them any notion of
his
he had something
much
of
We
it.
"I
in his
hand
what he does, because
yet.
that
I
When
like that,
he got into his numbers, then
combine
— Frank OHara
The
you couldn't get from
was good, very good. Nowadays
he's trying to
EVEN CRAZIER."
that he could
think Jasper got better as he went on.
But those targets and things
hand - not
None
THOUGHT HE WAS CRAZY AND HE THOUGHT WAS "I
never spoke
know."
But what influence had the Johns show had on Rivers?
that
had.
wouldn't have been very commercial for Jasper Johns and Leo Castelli to
Johns had been influenced by me. So
American
I
I
I
began
to see
don't think very
certain things that have
been
75
WRITERS ON ARTISTS
around
for a very long time,
and everything he adapts
something
is
seen before. Its
I've
got something, but something's gone too."
New York
Could he remember when the word Pop had entered the vocabulary of the art
world? "At the time of the Sidney Janis
saying. Later Parts of the Body: English
Vocabulary 1963,
oil
and
on board,
didn't invent
I
it.
show
heard that Lawrence Alloway had invented I
don't
much
Pop
in 1962. 'So that's
Art,'
and then
it,
I
I
heard people heard that he
care about those things."
collage
And
it
was applied
to
him?
60 x 40 in/152 x 102 cm. Private collection.
"Not
right away.
But we had gone
to the
show
at Janis
we
well, but
—
remember
very
it
- and were having
did go
afterwards and
don't
I
somebody
said to
drinks
And
me,
you
did George Washington, of course,' and they
my
started to talk about
doing
this
paintings as
kind of thing.
And
it
been
if I'd
made them
very nervous because, don't forget, at that time the Abstract Expressionists were
New York.
strong in
Art to
want
become
to say,
It
took a few years for Pop
new
the
very
still
art, a
movement
if
you
but already they were beginning
to feel intimidated."
Had he artists in
the early '60s, did he consider himself a
part of their "I
Pop
identified himself with the
movement?
kind of liked them.
I
thought they were
humorous. They weren't creating
a
new
they weren't knocking anything down;
world,
maybe
they were directed against the Abstract Expressionists, but
each of them had got to still
it.
I
his
don't think so;
own
history of
think
I
how
he'd
For example, Jasper's earlier works
looked more
like
Abstract Expressionism
than Pop Art, and Rauschenberg never looked
Pop
like a
he got
artist,
so
I
don't
know how
the hell
in there."
Another
critical
Art was inspired by a
commonplace was spirit
that
Pop
of anti-materialism or
anti-commercialism. "You
76
mean because
thev took commercial
LARRY RIVERS BY PETER JENKINS
and made subject matter out of
things
experience. People
know about a
lot
an influence on
think that was because
I
know more about newspapers and ads and
of other things.
me
it?
As
than anything
look back,
I
I
something you didn't even think consciously about. materialism.
If
people say that, they're
was
part of people
I
s
things like that than they
think that Hollywood had
The mo\ies were
else.
it
just there, part of
don't think
much more
my
of
existence,
Pop Art was about
anti-
of
full
because they're Americans and none of
shit,
them were monks." "For instance, Roy Lichtenstein was reallv
about something he'd been looking
at in
comic books. Are we including Lichtenstein in this
anti-materialism? Roy lives
down
look back, i think that Hollywood had much more of an influence on me than anything else." "as
i
the street here. He's got a big house, he's got a ranch in Scotland, cars.
any of that horse It
was
don't
I
want
to
shit."
has been often said also that Pop Art
a quintessential manifestation of the
Sixties, the
youth culture, drugs, the rapid
obsolescence of fashion and ideas, and other cliches. at
hear
Had he
felt that
he was
all
the
living
an unusually heady moment? Yes,
he had, but he wasn't clear
how
it
had affected
his work.
Did being interested
in
The Greatest Homosexual, oil
popular culture
make you
a
Pop
artist?
He had
painted Washington Crossing the Delaware
80x61
reading
War and
Peace. Tolstoy
had made an extraordinary novel out of Napoleon
invading Russia, and Rivers had tried to think of something comparable in American history. "So, essentially,
what
I
did
was react
Washington Crossing the Delaware
is
to
part of
does targets and another guy does comics.
War and some
Peace. Later
great
Americana
it
in
gets to
me
that
which another guy
964,
in/203 x 155 cm.
Hirslihoni
after
J
on canvas.
DC.
Museum, Washington
WRITERS ON ARTISTS
he pointed
"Take another example,
on the wall of
his studio.
box, but finally
Rembrandt
in
I
"Was
that
to a large print of
Pop Art? In the
got to do the cigars.
modern
Staalmeesters, T\\e
society.
Sampling
something which has
to
The
I
one of
first
his
ones
I
Dutch Masters paintings
just did the cover of the
was making some comment about the use of
painting
is
the Syndics of the Draper) Guild {De
Guild
Officials at the Drapers
do with drapery and put
it
on
at
Amsterdam). So they take
a cigar
box and you're supposed to
think that the kind of technical proficiency or perfection that these draper}- guys had they're putting into our cigars. ironic, so that's
"But Dutch Masters oil o)i
I,
J
963,
I
really
funny
me
to
about
that, really
did.
had a copy of the Rembrandt,
secondhand furniture shop. So
I
used that
a fantastic reproduction to
work from. The
I
got from a guy in a
cigar box itself
was much
canvas.
40 x 50
in/ 102
Cheekivood
x 127 cm.
Museum
Sashrille. Tennessee.
78
I
what
There was something
more "Pop. Thevd scraped out
all
the color from around the figures and
I
could have
of Art.
done something
like that.
So where does that put me? In one way
it's
Pop because I'm
LARRY RIVERS BY PETER JENKINS
f= taking as a subject something that's
—
definitely out there
a cigar box,
one of
the commercial aspects of society. Yet at
same time I'm
the
investigating
in
it
another way, thinking about Rembrandt. I
feel
I
know do
practically
And
that painting so
could
I
by heart."
it
then Pop Art was said
an anti-personality
to represent
at first
cult, a
reaction against the artist as romantic hero.
And
Warhol had soon become
yet
them
the greatest personality cult of
What had he thought a
genuine
all.
Was he
of Warhol?
showman?
artist or just a
"Well, he stabbed at a lot of things
and some of them were good.
and knew how
things done,
done
fast
OK and thing a
I
and on a
shock
was,
it
don't think
Newman
to get
I
still
what
how
but
influential,
I
soup
can do —
still
I
So, Barney
paints twenty feet of blue,
know what
"He
first
stupid. People say
Andy Warhol comes along and
feet of
them
think his
meant anything.
it
got
He was
large scale.
liked him.
was kind of
He
says,
and 'I
can paint twenty
I
cans.'"
didn't
seem
to
be that
interested in painting with his hand,
although
I
think he
may
actually have
made some movement on some silk
screens, although
who made Then
I
know
of those
the guy
the silk screens." there had been the notion
among
the Pop artists that the painter should stay
Dual
Filter,
1961,
oil
on canvas,
38 x 25 in/96 x 63 cm.
out of the painting.
Private collection.
"Yeah, well that's something else.
no
sort of narrative
everything. to
It
A
painter like
Ad
Reinhardt, he didn't want a
—just black. Step up to the painting and
doesn't
make mention
of anything at
Japan and see one of their gardens
made
all.
of sand
And
it
clears your
that's
OK.
and stone, and
it's
It's
mind — like if
story,
of
you go over
wonderful to be there
79
WRITERS ON ARTISTS
lliston of Russian Revolution,
J965. wood, silksereen,
oil,
charcoal,
photomechanical
reproductions,
and pencil on
canvas, paper, metal, plexiglass,
am
ftberboard,
161 x 399 in 409 x 1014 cm.
Hirshhorn Museum, Washington
DC.
and suddenly not be thinking about sex or food or you
to
sit,
It
had
in
and they have
- and
who — seemed
it's
good. Well,
some
painters have that:
I'm beginning to understand to Rivers,
common was
on
why — would
reflection, that the
that they painted
flat.
To be
Ad
most important
80
ol
intelligence.
It
became
the
single trait the
sure, Ellsworth Kelly
had affected how people saw the things around them -
maybe Mark
Reinhardt,
never show with other people."
but he hadn't wanted to be associated with the real world.
some kind
a special place for
and everybody's doing the same — contemplating nature or sand, very quietly and
respectfully
Rothko,
cars,
had painted
The Abstract
lines, colors,
same thing with Pop
Pop
artistsj flat,
Expressionists
and shapes forming |
paintings: people started to
LARRY RIVERS BY PETER JENKINS
'That was the beginning of a beautiful FRIENDSHIP.
reason
i
The
had
wanted to meet Larry was that, based on the little knew then, i
i
had decided he represented the
most dynamic conception of
what be
it
an
meant to artist:
much handiness, restless curiosity,
sophistication (hip),
a
life
and
an art both going full
tilt,
and the nerve to sustain a daily
overload of
what was then called the absurd
look at things in a different way.
"But this was chiefly because of
more
at the painting.
look at
And
what people did on that differently,
I
don't think
"Essentially
only
it's
as
when something
what they were up
to,
think today,
I
what came through
in the '60s
flat
it
how
surface.
will
have
when we
and
all
While
much
at
look at
it
again, we're
that talk about
the time
it
it.
We're
made people
going to look
see things a
to look
and
see.
I
mostly,
to
little
at
i
would
later realize, of
a frenetic self-regard)."
of that kind of effect today.
changes that you begin
those guys."
no longer going
really
though the conceits of an age weren't available
else
(the spillover
they painted. For some reason you're looking
at that time.
think
it's
clearer
It's
now
—
Bill Berltson
WR1
It
ON ART Is
KS
S
1
Otto Dix by Michael Hofmann
T
Otto Dix
HE ENGLISH HAVE LONG DREADED GERMAN ART to
(literature,
painting and music) as sure
be dreadfully ponderous, slow, involved, and pedestrian." Bertolt Brecht, to the
members
of the Berliner Ensemble, 5 August 1956.
Painter/printmaker Otto Dix
was born 1891 and
in
Untermhaus
later
in
apprenticed in
UNSPARINGNESS,
While fighting World War I. he drew a
applied in
aits.
series
Germans
of brutal scenes
SCHONLJNGSLOSIGKEIT,
appreciate
geography as
much
it
IS
A
- and an English
GERMAN
vice.
It is
as taste: an island begs to
VIRTUE - though not
all
probably a matter of
be spared, by definition. The blue
revealing his abhorrence of war. In attitude a moralist,
Dix was influenced
German Expressionism and
b) the
movies on the Kurfiirstendamm unsparing, too, though not in a
Dusseldoif Academ) of Fine
where he produced a
war drawings.
Later, he
masterjulh painted
depictions of
German
societx,
including Berlin's frantic nightlife,
and became known
for his bitter social/political criticism. The Nazi government declared him
"degenerate" in 1933 and
forbad him
to teach.
The
Gestapo arrested and imprisoned him
In the case of these big
my
initial
show
is
appreciate. Dix
is
certainly
unsparingly.
shows by great and one — not
all
distinctive artists
—
which
of
Dix, despite
the paintings are on the walls. Dix had two of
briefly.
necessary to experience painting, that is the sense of sight, that
modem
colors and forms as living
sees
the public the
"depravit) of
doubts,
it
"Everybody thinks they know what art should be. but very few of them have the sense that is
In 1937, theNazis, intending to
Otto Dix
based on the
series oj etchings
to
art of
way the viewers of the blue movies would
painted ugliness, and, being German, he did
After the war, he attended the
turned
themselves as unsparing. The
Expressionism
of the 20th century.
Arts,
sell
earh
b)
reality in the picture."
art,"
mounted an exhibition entitled "Degenerate Art"
which showcased the work of 200
confiscated
contemporary
1925
his best years,
to 1927, in this
same
Berlin;
he painted the same
human
types you
artists,
including Dix. Later, the
see on the streets
now
or looking at the paintings, and in a similar atmosphere. For at the
\azis destroyed man) of
Dix'*- paintings.
From 1946 in
until his death
miles of wasteland, beginning just outside the
1969. Dix exhibited
The content work had became more
internationally. oj his
beginning of 1992, Berlin seems to be just coming out of a war. The city
mystical in
its
busiest square in Europe,
beginning.
a derelict
lot.
In the
From
their
new premises
and
with the Potsdamer Platz, once the
damaged
squats in the form of product
of miles
East, reconstruction
names on top
is
of reprieved concrete
orientation.
blocks.
82
Commerce
now
museum
is full
the banks proclaim, incorrectly, "Investment
is
an
art,"
=
OTTO D1X
and, unoriginally, still
in the
is
On
for sale.
Hundreds
of thousands of Russian troops are
the howling Stalinist expanse of the "Alex," the Alexanderplatz,
pavement gambling and
also the deepest, fruit,
doesn't smell."
process of being withdrawn. You see their brown outsize caps and their coats
and binoculars there
"Money
HOFMANN
BY MICHAEL
posters,
a spot of black market.
and are attended
to first: coffee,
The most
superficial
newspapers (especially the Bild Zeitung,
and pornography. The incredible scale of the Stasis operations
apparent; a quarter of the country tears itself up, the rest looks on, advice. All this reflects
on Dix, and he expresses
it
wants are
is
is
becoming
concerned, gives Michael Hofmann
with his paintings of whores and
in Germany in 957, Hofmann was raised in
Born
cripples, his gray proles
and louche
portraits: social dislocation,
impatience, submission,
J
England and false glitter,
hymn
and the inadequate healing powers of capitalism. The person who penned the
to lost opportunity
on
a
BMW hoarding that began Gestern abend stand hier
US.
in the
Graduating from Cambridge 1979, he moved
'ne
work
London
in to
as a freelance writer,
reviewer,
knackige Alte ("Last night there was this tasty old bird...") was Dix; and so was the Polish
to
and
translator.
He
published his first book of
couple on the bus, mother and daughter, telling each other about the food, pulling out a
poetry,
Nights in the Iron
Hotel, in 1983 followed by
tub of chocolate pudding as proof, a dark fake fur coat with white highlights, and the kind
Acrimony and Corona Corona. The poems in his
of golden ringlets
hundreds of
Germans (and no doubt
years, the latest
and not the
Poles, too) have painted, goldsmith-fashion, for
least of
them "Otto Hans Baldung
1999
collection
Nowhere
Approximately
deal with
loss.
Dix," as his
Hofmann
friend Grosz called him.
has also translated
man) works from the German, including a novel b) his father 1
The Film and Kafka's The
Gert Hofmann, Explainer,
Man Who
Disappeared. His
poetry reviews
and other
writings have appeared in the
London Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, The New York Times, and The Times. Behind the Lines, collection of these essays, was
(7
published in 2000.
His
many honors
include the
Cholmondeley Award, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, the
IMPAC
Dublin Literary
Award for translation, the PEN/Book of the Month Club Translation Prize,
and
the
Independent's Foreign Fiction Prize.
He was
selected for
promotion as one of Britain's "New Generation Poets."
Hofmann
is
poet Lavinia lives in
married
to the
Greenlaw and London.
The Temptation of St. Anthony (with the head of Christ), 1 937, mixed media on wood,
60
x
60 in/149
\
149 cm.
Zeppelin- Museum. Friedrichshafen,
on loan from a Private
collection.
ON
Will IT RS
The War, 1932, predella,
ARTISTS
Triptych with
Otto Dix was an
protean as any
artist as
this-
century, with the usual exception of Picasso;
mixed media on wood,
man who
mid right panels: 80 x 40 in/204 x 102 cm,
a
center panel:
thirties
left
80 x 80 in/204 x 204 cm; predella:
24 x 80 in/60 x 204 cm.
Kunstsammlungen Dresden. GemaMegalerie Nene
got through the range of current -isms very early in his career,
found himself painting
in
Old Master
style, like
and
in his
the pupil of Cranach, Diirer, and
Griinewald he occasionally claimed to be; an impressive, unsparing, and unlovable the
German
tradition of
accuracy the sublime, and the unbeautiful. Dix was a
artist in
member
of
Standi idie
no groupings of any significance
for
any length of time; he had no particular
affiliation,
no
Meister.
close associates (Grosz not very close); his
any movement, unless
Neue
it
name
is
not inevitably connected with that of
be that of Verism, a rather obscure offshoot of Neorealism, and
Sachlichkeit coined largely to ,
accommodate and account
for
and eccentric career was nevertheless almost wholly contingent, passing political and economic change. of any other
German
artist this
German
history
shaped
at
his
Dix himself. His wilful the mercy of every
output more than that
century; the lovely, rather decorative pen-and-ink field
postcards he drew during the First World War; the watercolors that kept himself and his family fed during the
German
have sold; his portraits alarming
<>(
(his triptych
84
Inflation,
in oils in
portraitists; a
when nothing more
the late '20s,
when he was
austere or expensive would
the most soughtafter and
handful of brave and ambitious large-scale allegorical paintings
The War, The Seven Deadly
Sins,
The Triumph of Death) done before and
OTTO D1X
immediately after 1933 and
coming
Hitler's
to
Dresden
phase
is
after the
War.
And
which
in
an
and
opposition to what
sounded
one of them trying
enough of
to
this, let's
off.
to join the Party,
And
so on.
they seem to say
who
When
metaphor
be
kind of
left-wing
in a
is
is
the stor\
Einstein
had
many commentators,
political
— Carl
<>t
is
with
than his would
soldiers, industrialists,
enemy. His pictures are
Venus
in Gloves, 1932,
mixed media on wood,
10x8
in/25
x 20 cm.
Private collection.
not "These are the
is
how
it
was.
of his work)
Where
what he depicts. The prostitute
is
to
not a
but an actual prostitute.
for capitalism
subject-matter.'
His contemporaries
finally sa\ing, I've
Grosz draws and paints
Grosz uses caricature and metaphor, Dix refers you the reality of
to
painter of
sells his services for a living, identifies
clear: to depict the
is
Goya wrote on some
and "This
it
essentially
about his
though, are Zerrbilder, distortions, an exaggerated, not an embattled
oppressors' but (as
have seen
and Di\
be proving himself to be more
in fact
priests, the intention
Feiiulbilder. Dix's,
What
this.
go to the brothel. But the brothel, according to
Could Dix not
and
raises certain questions
and explained themselves, but not Di\. There
persuade him
be recruiting sergeant? politicians,
work
going on, but he never elaborates on
is
a highly politicized location: the painter,
the prostitute.
of Dix's
methods. At each stage, he seems
his
is)
reactionary
summary
yet even this lightning
carried cards,
"I
"(Otto Dix
and Peasants' State of East Germany. Each
was created.
it
effectiveness, his intentions,
reality.
Lukes he
chronologically distinct, and refers you to the political, social, and economic
circumstances
tacit
the Workers'
in
HOFMANN
power; the landscapes he painted during
the Nazi period as a form of emigration; and the Christs and Christophers and did in
BY MICHAEL
If
the pictures are political, they are so in a less narrow
and
purposeful
less
change
is
way
In particular, their relation to
very questionable.
There
is
a kind of
many
perversity in
What made him (the title of
unwisdom, ambiguity, and
of Dix's attitudes
settle
on "the dead and the naked"
one of the studies on him)
preferred subjects in the '20s? a religious painter in
godless East
as his
could he become
personally religious
in the '50s?
—
What accounts
uncontemporarv appearance of so
of his work, like the tiny
Gloves of 1932?
How
- though not
Germany
for the rigorously
much
and subjects.
somber Venus
The overwhelming tendency
in is
for
an over-literal interpretation of the subjects, to infer
Dixs standpoint from them. Most famously,
this
is
Carl Einstein's put-down of Dix as malender
85
WRITERS ON ARTISTS
= Reaktionar
am
linhen Motiv, ("a reactionary painter of progressive subjects"); but
as true of political
was
still
and
religious interpretations of Dix. Late in his
when Germany
life,
divided, he lent himself, wittingly or not, to splendid political-aesthetic wrangles
between East and West. Neither bone of contention.
bitter
just
it is
side really
had much use
he did make a
for him, but
would not have been
In fact, but for the re-unification, there
one, but two, Dix exhibitions! I
believe the arguments about
of Dix's art
is
him
are too intellectual
and too
With
a desire to abash or confront or be unfashionable.
background, his severe provincial training, and his four years
theoretical.
his working-class
War
in the
At the root
machine-
as a
Left: Self Portrait with Carnation, /
972,
oil
and tempura on panel,
gunner, he reached his thirtieth year in 1920, and no contemporary style or practice in
art
29 x 20 in/73 x 50 cm. Detroit Institute of Arts.
was unable
to
impress him. The Expressionists painted the world in primary colors; to him it
seemed gray and he painted
{Working Class Boys,
accordingly
it
Woman and
He
Child).
never gave anything for the French or for
Cubo-
abstraction. His experiments with Dada,
Futurism and a merely photographic realism were all
gifted
the
and promising, but of short duration.
way he worked
alone,
on
was
terrain that
eccentric, and
with
whom
The he took
own, often
he had any relationship were
were
had been dead
or they
his
sometimes incommunicable. The
his students, or they
local
Dresden
painting from which Dix generally said
his beginnings
one and a student.
is
It
his
1912
and
a
seems
at
its
the past and
yet
style,
with
it is
a real its
it
identification with the traditions of its
agnosticism toward the present.
could be a Martyr or a Saint or an
86
common
moment. And
accuracy and painstakingness and
Man
found a
not an exercise or pastiche. In
self-portrait,
Young
to
complete anachronism, perhaps 400
living style of the
proclaims
twenty-
once a beautifully
years out of date, with nothing in
any
Self-Portrait
when he was just
and achieved work on which
career,
painters,
for centuries.
with Carnation, painted
solid
he was almost always
later,
away from the moderating influence of
others,
artists
In
of
1
500 or
so,
It
Unknown
but a twentieth-century
OTTO DIX
self-portrait
—
target to his
opponent
never! Dix
mouth self,
down-drawn:
is
an early maturity
1915, he painted a Self-Port rait as Target.
Henry
glowering, watchful, a
it is
Hals
at
age.
a picture of
The
some
He
looks serious,
eyes are deepset, the brow frowns, and the
more generous and open
sort of victory over a
painted corduroy.
in the drab, armoring, magnificently
A
an
nail),
meet
emblem
his portraitist
-
himself!
The
DISTURBING OR
carnation (Nelke, also a clove, un clou, a
of pain, mortality, the Crucifixion
(I
don't
know
and
is
further characterized by
it,
as
he
is
even as he holds
it
by the blue background — not a natural sky blue,
but a heightened ethical blue, a rather sweet blue like a sugared almond.
This very early picture anticipates Dix's later practice: an unfashionable finish perfection, both exaggerating
OFFENSIVE SUBJECT
the exact iconography),
has dropped into his hand from another century; he seems unaware of
Dix's use of
"...
helmet
might go over the string} fringe. You feel sympathy for the young man, putting on such a stern face to
HOFMANN
standing half-sideways on, like a duellist presenting a small
is
(in
BY MICHAEL
MATTER, it,
DISTORTION AT TIMES BORDERING
ON THE GROTESQUE, AND HIS OFTEN
and
and suggesting the use of props and one-color backgrounds
HARSH, STRIDENT
COLORS MUST
"Stop bothering me with your PATHETIC POLITICS - l'D RATHER
;
i
BE
SEEN AS A
NlETZSCHEANINSPIRED AESTHETIC
GO TO THE WHOREHOUSE."
|
OF
HIS USE
STRATEGY, INTENDED (Dix says
somewhere
that everyone has a personal color: Anita Berber's hot red; Sylvia von
Hardens cool pink; the drapes, blue-green and German shepherd
Hugo
this
time holding a photo-lens
Ohjektiv). Dix stressed the importance of
a portrait-painter, especially said
VIEWER TO
Photographer
Erfurth with Dog), objectivitv tending towards caricature (this last perhaps signalled
by another portrait of Erfurth, is
in Tlie
Dix's are all different.
—
the
German word
impressions — which seems to
one with such long drawn-out processes
he preferred to paint strangers.
paint just one type of face
first
—
Where manv
face
is
for
a terrible place,
among
Dix's
someone once
and
that
is
the impression one has from Dix: a keen, instinctual, almost doggish sense of alienation
from other breeds, faces
succeeded
like smells, different disturbing, unforgettable.
in capturing one's initial feelings of alarm, fascination,
of the disproportion
in his portraits to
combine the vehemence of
impressions with a studied and permanent form (his Lasurtechnik,
of paint
a sense
and strangeness of other people's features, before habitual looking
makes them acceptable. But he manages first
Dix has obviously
and repulsion,
and varnish,
if
I
understand
demanding the making of
it
correctly, generally applied
full-scale cartoons beforehand).
This
is
many
thin layers
on wood, and the basic tug or
contradiction in his work: quick reactions or "low" caricatural subjects, executed in the
most
lavish, durable,
and
historically dignified way; the colossal
-
ironic
— discrepancy
AND
ISSUES
FEELINGS IN A
CRITICAL,
DETACHED
— Sarah O'Brien Twohig
contemporaries — sang,
CONFRONT
MANNER."
Dix used - and
as
twentieth-century portraitists seem to
think of Schiele or Beckmann,
The human
for lens
me odd
TO FORCE THE
" WRI
1
1
Rs
ON
ARI
In
1
S
between technique and content, the twentieth century through the eyes of the fifteenth Take the painting Nelly with Toys of 1925. Dix paints
or sixteenth.
daughter
his two-year-old
an Infanta by Goya or Velazquez. His characteristic pink and green palette,
like
often used to repulsive effect,
is
here kept pure. Nelly's outrageous ribbon
is
a crown,
"Dix combined her ball an orb, her jumbled and anarchic tower (her stare challenges the viewer to say
A THOROUGHLY it's
wrong) a scepter. Even her collar and cuffs might be ermine. Her
'REALISTIC' APPRAISAL carelessly
OF THE BRUTALITY OF MANKIND WITH A CRITICAL
AND
ARTISTICALLY
from their blue whites; her chubby mouth
chased by the painter
it
would be
to
like
is
Botero
Her dark eyes
trotters.
an imperious
Old Master technique
in the
radiates the wilfulness, poise, beauty,
RADICAL ATTACK." —Jill Lloyd
on the sumptuously grained table
fat fingers like
her
curl;
own
curls are lovingly
The
that Grosz witnessed.
and peremptoriness of the
blaze
little girl. If
portrait
she spoke,
say "Off with his head!"
The 1920s were set pieces like To
Dix's decade: with his portraits, his pictures of prostitutes, his big
many
Beauty and The Metropolis; he supplied
make up The Warseries
those years. At the same time, in the 50 etchings that
produced possibly
his best work, and, with
subject. Again, the delay
is
of the enduring images of
(1924), he
Goya, the strongest visual response to the
medium and form
characteristic, necessary for the finding of a
with which to communicate his quick impressions.
What he
sent back from the Front at
the time, in the form of his decorative field-postcards and the watermelon-pretty spatter of his watercolors
apologies for
The same
must have dismayed him by
this:
serenity
and merriment. The
Concrete Trench with Flowers (1916), Shell Crater
quality in Dix that
memorable,
its
made
like
titles
are veiled
Blossom (1916).
his early Self-Portrait with Carnation so austere
and
his will to create strong effects, his unsparingness, his aversion to color as
"The war was a horrible thing, but there was something tremendous about it too. i didn't want to miss it at any price. consolation, drove
him
to
rework
his
wartime experience
absolute technical mastery and freedom.
The War
later, in
black and white, with
series of etchings has
an enormous
range: from white to black, from fine, representational lines to an acid fuzz of pain
and
decomposition, from parodic sketching to papers that might have been stained by war
The 50
etchings
a pattern of
seem
to
III, 7,
recruited for the anti-war that his
in
no particular
white receding craters,
corpses on wire, and
was
be
the
II,
dawn
movements
2, a
order.
Among
the best in
gas attack by night,
over a field of bodies. of the 20s
work was wehrzersetzend, or
liable to
- and
II,
opinion were
9, a lovely
The War
Dix's
my
itself.
series
I,
patterning of
was quickly
main trouble with the Nazis
weaken the
instinct to self-defense; but
have more sympathy with the view that finds these images neutral, horrific, yes, but not
88
4,
I
OTTO DIX
evaluative, not
condemning, not propagandistie. The tone
is
once again one of
"I
BY MICHAEL
HOFMANN
have seen
and "These things took place."
it'
war
Just as Dix's
The
prurient either. as
not censorious, nor are his pictures of prostitutes; they are not
art is
Dix was twice taken
fact that
to court for
obscenity
is
absurd;T>ut just
absurd was his defense - which years
later
made him
still
burst out laughing
—
that
these were deeply moral pictures, warning of the dangers of corruption
and loose
living.
I
simply cannot see Dix as such an infantile
and
moralist. In his self-portraits
photographs, Dix always preserves a
demeanor of the most tremendous
Even on the cover of
earnestness.
book he made
slicked back,
nephew "Muggeli," he
for his
draws himself in
a picture-
smoking, hair
profile,
brows furrowed, mouth down —
and you wish he would
once.
relax, just for
In fact, though, the po-faced, puritanical
image
misleading. Dix didn't spend the
is
20s glowering on the sidelines. Other
photographs show him wearing make-up and a
monocle
he danced so well he
for Carnival;
thought of doing
for a living with
it
he was a dandy
his wife:
who sometimes
took payment in the form of
new
he participated
a suit of clothes;
shoes and in the
of scenes he depicted in To Beauty
Metropolis.
(many of to
them
When
whom
not),
his
kind
and
whores
he didn't preach
Gladstone.
like
My
he painted
were
Martha
point
is
that
I
don't think there
anything too considered,
let
is
alone too Nelly with Toys, 1925,
comprehensive, about Dix's subjects: his work doesn't add up to an anatomy of the society of the time, \\ hat like,
it's
good
and no
wouldnt
—
still
for
I
look
many
an indictment of
can't say myself.
different!"
like to
there were
less to
at.
that
But
"It's
it.
I
do
Dix was provocative
Even among
it
what
I
do!" he said. "Say
anyway. Because
artist:
he liked
his watercolors
were unsaleable because of
-
to
I
to paint
know
what you that's
21 x 16 in/54 like.
what
it
was
oil
and
tempera on wood,
x 40 cm.
Otto Dix Stiftung, Vaduz, on loan to the
Galerie der Stadt, Stuttgart.
what he knew people
which he looked
to
make
his living
their subjects: old people, ugly faces,
89
WRI
II
RS
ON
\RTISTS
suicides, murders, foul prostitutes.
It's
easy to pick
out the ones that might have sold: slight and cynical skits
on bourgeois happiness. What
interested Dix
almost
was
which seems
ugliness,
When
like a creed.
he
"I'm not that obsessed with
said, later in his life,
making representations
of ugliness. Everything I've seen
only succeeds in confirming
its
suggesting a kind of esthetique
argued
is
in the poetry of
Many
German
close to
art
is
first
he
beautiful...;
importance by
dit
mal,
which
I've
and writing anyway,
Georg Trakl and Gottfried Benn.
of Dix's paintings are truly horrible,
creepy: the
him
to
impression, under the
vile,
many
varnishing layers, like an insect Trapped in amber.
And
yet they have a kind of beauty, too,
beyond the
skill
with which they were painted.
The
watercolors
are surprisingly
messy and sloppy and
spirited:
Mieze, abends im Cafe with an ocelot round her shoulders, a lapdog burrowed into her crotch, toying with a green beaker with flame-red
The
fingernails; the luscious red-on-red Sphinx;
Suicide, with his red tongue (Dix's joke?) in his
is
tie
wan room.
In the oil-paintings, arresting
and loosened red
what
is
again and again
the contradiction between a flawed or
even disgusting face or scene and the perfection of
its
execution:
illustration for
Still Life
some
with Calf's
of Benn's
Head
(like
Morgue poems),
Three Women, Elderly Couple, Three Prostitutes the Street, the disturbing
Nude
an
lying
in
on Fur. These
Top: Sphiav 1925, watercolor,
20x21
and other paintings
in/51 x 52 cm.
can't
be reduced to coded or simple statements. The ugliness
in
them
Otto Dix Stiftung, Vaduz, is
Liechtenstein.
Above:
Nude Lying on
tempera and
oil
Fur, /932,
a continual
and
willed, yes, finely controlled vibration; the curtailed,
minced-pork-and-
parsley palettes; the opulent backgrounds; the heroic, classicizing postures and
on canvas,
mounted on wood,
arrangements; the array of physical types and physiognomies; an airless glow in the
39 x 56 in/99 x 141 cm. Scottish National Gallery of
Modem
painting, pallor
the Opposite page: Three 1926,
oil
71x42
and garishness together.
Art, Edinburgh.
Women,
on wood,
more Dix puts
-
in
by draperies, carpets,
the worse
velvet, veils,
it
gets.
It
seems
There
is
that the a
more there
is
in
each painting -
kind of incremental nausea provoked
marble balustrade, carpentry, jewelry, ribbons,
hair, flesh
in/181 x 106 cm.
Galerie der Stadt, Stuttgart.
in
the Three
Women
of 1926.
It is
as
though Dix had found
a
way
of depicting ars longa,
_ 90
OTTO DIX
the
-
"beautiful"
showy -
or at least the costly,
contaminated by the
is
hideous human.
It is
become
nerves had
HOFMANN
annihilating glimpse.
vita brevis in a tiny,
The
BY MICHAEL
though one's
as
sated and couldn't
bear to touch another gorgeous velvet or
diaphanous
silk,
or see another piece of
veined marble or porphyry. These props for
cheap erotica become,
Dixs
in
Not the
hands, the catalysts of disgust.
least disturbing part of this picture
others (say the
Nude
Lying on Fur,
and is
the absense of any reciprocal thought
on the part of the model, or any mutual awareness
Each Drx
—
if
figure
there are
— and
more than one.
this
true of
is
exists solipsistically
for his portraits
seem not
worst, the
to
them; and
nude
is
of
The models to
be aware of
themselves, not to know what
happening
all
is
so, at its
very
assimilated to her
her hair dribbles blondly into
it,
fur,
her
foreshortened wishbone legs beg to be
cracked open, she becomes a stupid
cow or a piece of meat
(is
that the
"statement"); and in the eerie 1937 portrait of
Jean-Jacques Bernauer, the
model becomes an
aristocratic
wax
mannikin between the carpet and the tapestry.
Everything
texture in the in the Atelier
end
is
and
texture,
inert, as Still Life
is
shows, w here a
mouldering stuffed
doll
mimics a
live
and pregnant model. Dixs biggest, most ambitious paintings tend to be the ones
impressed by: they dilute his portraitist, reality is
I
am
least
ability as a
diminished bv
91
WRITERS ON ARI
IS!
S
Triumph of Death. /934, mixed media
<»i
allegory.
The Triumph of Death
is
platitudinous; Metropolis
is
much
less
than the
sum
of
its
wood,
71 a 70 in/ 180 x 1~H cm.
Callen der Stadt,
parts,
and much
less
than something
like
Diego Rivera; Flanders and the other war paintings
Stuttgart.
are better in their black
and white versions
in
the
War
etchings.
The
religious paintings
and
landscapes of later years are fey and uninteresting, except perhaps in the way they extended Dix's range
<>l
creepiness. St
birds each time you look at
steam
92
o\
Luke Painting it;
the
Madonna seems
Dix himself as St Luke looks
some Everglades - an appalling
picture.
to contain
more hidden
like a Florida dentist in the
The landscapes
are lurid, never-never
pink
OTTO DIX
landscapes under never-never meteorological conditions
Northern European manner (out of Brueghel,
somewhere
that landscapes didn't interest him,
Dix's career
brief, inexplicable,
the
in
and these have
had ended here, he would be seen almost accidental
HOFMANN
Dix said
war paintings by
onlv the mildest historical interest, as If
etc.).
BY MICHAEL
default. as a
phenomenon who
lit
up
one decade, the 1920s, and did nothing else of note. Admittedly, the later
work
exhibition, but there
is
in
not very well represented in the
is
enough there
to
make
a different case,
the form of three heavy, bold and expressionistically painted
the Self Portrait as Prisoner of
portraits:
Perls of
of 194",
Dr
1966, and Self Portrait with Marcella of 1969.
of these
is
painting
I
the most mo\ing
know of
turquoise, but
Dix's:
- perhaps
w ith black and
wouldn't spread; three heads
numbered,
in
searchlights.
camouflage
It's
the only
Fritz
The
first
mo\ing —
dark wintry colors, green, blue, ocher. gray breaking through
everywhere, the paint applied
his
War
in little flecks as
—
gear,
or
one
w ith
a tragic painting,
in
though
two mirrors —
a suggestion fo
it
grizzled,
camps and
more Christian than any
of
professed Christian work, perhaps with something of the Odyssey about
too.
it.
The
Self Portrait with Marcella. 1
other two are lighter: suit,
Dr
Perls with his
curb Jew
and mustard and cream background,
a
ish face
and curly body posture, purple
969,
oil
34x 27
quick and wise piece of work — one survivor by
on plpvood,
in
87 x 68 cm.
Otto Dix Stiftung, Vaduz.
another: and himself with Marcella. a granddaughter, the colors of \outh and age, a light yellow and green to his
own
dark
blue and maroon, the possessiveness of age, the old fingers holding this handful, a kind
of crazy Bellovian joy in the eves, the whole thing under a child's fantasy of a tree. All three
seem
me
and
great paintings, simple
sure,
w ith
a
to
new and wonderful
sense of color, "color no longer space, line no longer explanatory," giving a likeness
and even
preserving the element of mockery
Self portrait as Prisoner of War.
1947, mixed media on hardboard,
- can
this
be true? - that
24x21
in/60 x ^4 cm.
Otto Dix Stiftung, Vaduz on loan
accompanied Dix
all
his
life.
to the
Galerie der
Stdilt, Stuttgart.
93
\\
Rl
ON
fERS
ARTISTS
Henri Matisse by Jed Perl
The
Matisse retrospective which opens this September (1992)
City's
Museum
Modern
of
numbers
plus large
Art
of sculptures, drawings, prints,
New York
Some 300
an enormous undertaking.
is
at
paintings
—
and paper cut-outs - are
Henri Matisse leader of the Fauve group
\s
of painters thai included
Andre Dentin and Maurice de
laminck, Henri Matisse
\
rejected the soft tones of the
Impressionists, favoring brilliant colors,
brushstrokes,
included in the show that has been organized by John Elderfield,
Modern's drawing department and a curator
The Matisse show comes a Picasso retrospective.
Born
and
in
to practice.
1869,
While
book
his
Irr
the paints,
and how-to-paint mother gave him to
become an
artist.
Against the
wishes of his father, he began to study painting
under Gustave Moreau. Matisse's early
Modern devoted
city
its
entire space to
during the long hot
summer
of
work
reflected
j
j
55
the influence of Paul
Cezanne and other cubists. During the '20s, he began to spend time in the south of France, where he painted
i
. .
however, he was
inspired brushes,
after the
started to paint, i felt transported into a kind of paradise. in everyday life, i was usually bored and vexed by the things that people were always telling me i must do. starting to paint, i felt gloriously free, quiet, and alone.
recovering from a severe illness,
department of painting and sculpture.
That exhibition dominated the
"When
Matisse studied law and
began
director of the
the
style.
France
in
decade
is
powerful
emotionalism of the Fauvist
a little over a
in the
who
1980;
it
left
many
of us feeling that
we were
living inside the fever
dream
that
was
Picasso's
local scenes; there he
received a commission to
brain.
The Matisse
retrospective,
which opens
as the city enters
its
autumn
glory,
presents a
decorate the Chapel of
Saint-Marie du Rosaire near
Cannes. Later
in life
when
he was bedridden, he began
a
of collages which he called "drawings
series
with
cooler kind of imagination.
impact on
-
their careers are
Matisse died in Sice in
and
his
his lifetime,
work has been
exhibited in the world's finest
It's
artists
dominated Parisian
humongous - and taken together
an adventure that begins
museums.
Picasso in 1881
in the
the
art in
first
half of the century
the two giant retrospectives add up to a artistic
universe as
we know
it.
nineteenth century: Matisse was born in 1869,
.
Regarded as pure narrative,
it's
the story of
Fauvism and Cubism, coming before the century's ultimate legendary episodes. In 1905, Matisse
him
94
These two
doubtless have a very different but equally powerful
artists.
he enjoyed international
fame during
will
kind of double odyssey that defines the beginning of the
scissors."
1954. Unlike main
New York.
It
to jangling
extremes - on
a face,
is
first
how
decade
is
art
became
abstract,
and
over, are the odyssey's
pushing the colors that he sees
in front of
patches of green and purple and blue and orange
HENRI MATISSE
shove against one another
Braque) bits of
startlingly, beautifully.
Five years
Picasso (along with
later,
turning solid objects into mysterious, aerial traceries amidst which letters and
is
trompe
loeil play
hide and seek. Yet both heroes have rather complicated and even
ambivalent relations to the advent of abstract
art
- they
feel the birth pains as
-,_'i:iitU///l:v
Even
as
— and
this
is
part of
what
gives this double odyssey
Matisse and Picasso bring European
remains firmly grounded
in the
its
something
~
work
world around them. art.
Matisse and Picasso Essayist
possession.
it
and
at
moments defined
They had
arrived
,
psychological fascination.
art to the brink of abstraction, their
Abstraction was the promised land of twentieth-century discovered
!i
\E~z7 '
traumatic
BY JED PERL
it,
but they never wanted to go
all
the
way and
on the scene when the academies of nineteenth-century
take
Jed Perl and art critic Jed
Perl
and painting
studied art
Columbia University York, attended
at
New
in
Skowhegan
School of Painting and
and graduate
Sculpture,
school at Brooklyn College.
He now
covers the
conteniporan
The New
art scene for
Republic. His
books include Paris Without
End:
On
French Art Since
World War
I
and Gallery
Going: Four Seasons in the Art
Often
World.
critical of the
"official" art world, Perl
frequently champions
acclaimed
more
believes, deserve
attention. Tliese
themes surface for
Modern
and other
in his writing
Painters,
Partisan Review,
New
less
who, he
artists,
The
and The
York Times Book
Review, and in lectures art schools,
at
appearances on
National Public Radio.
and Public Lehrer
Perl
Television's
News
Hour.
was awarded an Ingram
Merrill Foundation
1994 and
in
Editorial
Modern
Board
Painters.
Award on the
senses
of
He
has
also taught art histon at Pratt Institute, the
Philadelphia College of Art,
and
at the Parson
School of Design.
Woman
in a
Ranunculi,
*&A
i
Purple Robe with 937,
oil
on canvas.
32 x 24 in/81 x 62 cm. Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
95
WR11
I
ON
R.S
ARTIST'S
Europe were
in their
decadence, and
perhaps because Matisse and Picasso
were so conscious that things had change, they also
felt
to
and immense
responsibility toward the past. Their figure
drawing can look
like the last
astonishing blossoming of the Western realist tradition: their
draughtsmanship
has an ease, an assurance, a variety that is
any century. These are
rare in
men
whose heroic achievements cannot be separated from the particularities of time
and space, and
in the retrospectives
dedicated to their work, Still
Life with a
Sea Shell on
Black Marble, 1940,
oil
to
room, regarding each gallery as an episode where our hero meets a
new
we
go from room
challenge.
Some
on canvas,
22 x 32 in/55 x 81 cm.
of the challenges are daunting,
and there are moments
in
each odyssey when one wonders
Pushkin Museum, Moscow. if
the hero will
know what
with the heroes'
split
to
do
allegiances
next.
The grandeur
- with
of these stories has something to do
their desire to
understand the new world of
abstraction even as they give a last glorious salute to the old world of appearances. Their slips
"In
its
thoughtfulness,
benign lucidity,
failings often
stand. Their triumphs rest in
manage
STEADY development,
and momentary
to
many ways
The Matisse
artist's
retrospective will have a
historical sources,
1954 — and almost 40 years ago;
utterly refutes the
notion that the great discoveries of modernism were
made by violently
somewhat
death, was itself a part of his odyssey:
admirers gather to
work
itself
upon us
rather
enough
that, in the face of their divided allegiances,
the 1980 Picasso show. That Picasso retrospective,
the
to take a clear
they
remain whole.
and wide range of Matisse's
have to do with an unwillingness
mourn
the dead hero. it
as quite so dramatic
more remote
it
different kind of
which opened
was the coda
The Matisse show
less
in
drama from
that of
than a decade after
which the friends and
celebrates an artist
who
died in
represents a finished period and thus cannot impress
an event. But then again Mattisse has always seemed a
figure than Picasso
-
this
was true even when both men were
alive.
After Fauvism was eclipsed by Cubism, Matisse was never again a star player within the Parisian avant-garde; he
way.
was always on peoples minds, but
By the end of World War
I,
Matisse was living
physical and psychological distance from Paris. to the
in
as a
man who'd gone
his
own
the south of France, at a considerable
While Picasso always endeavored
times - the Ballets Russes, Surrealism, Guernica
- Matisse was
to
respond
relatively reclusive.
rejecting the past."
— Robert Hughes
This
is
by no means a bad thing. Far from
it.
Today many people believe that Picasso wasted
his gifts trying to stay engaged, while Matisse,
who
kept to himself, was enlarging his
Picasso was obsessed with self-promotion, both in art and in pri\
96
was so
great that
even now, decades after his death,
life;
little
art.
Matisse's desire for
has been revealed in print
,
HENRI MATISSE
about his marriage and
its
Of
troubles.
wildly exhibitionist; yet in the
the two heroes, one
hugeness of their ambitions and the lengths of the journeys
— were acknowledgements,
encounters - and their occasional exchanges of paintings their differences, they
all
In a late
"He hears a
intensely private, the other
nineteenth century they are well matched. Their wary, admiring
that they took out of the
despite
is
poem, Iceland
W.H. Auden had
own
about his
this to say
him well known:/But knows himself no
better."
contemplate an eminence can also find that although a person
The
very well.
autobiographical, gives an enigmatic quality. that,
we may
while
see the main outlines
It is
easily,
remain rather obscure. There are careers that are Morandi's, for example
— and
thus in
the unpredictable things that
all
seem
a stranger
relative
life
phenomenon than
consistency of a career and
some sense
can do
consistent
to a person, the
like Matisse's,
many
rarely overtly
long careers
Giacometti's or
when we
consider
homogeneous career may
of contradictions.
Of
course, the
quality are not necessarily related: a genius like
Piero impresses us as having a single, integrated vision. But
complex,
—
easier to know. But
is full
is
we do
beneath or beyond them can
lies
fairly
the career that its
which
art,
also in the nature of
what
who
called well-known
is
very nature of Matisse's
fame:
This describes
paradox of fame as seen from the famous person's perspective, but those of us
know him
that
were going the same way.
Revisited,
a loudspeaker/Call
not necessarily
when
a
huge career
is
highly
The Sorrow of
Kings, 1952,
gouache on cut-out and pasted
and encompasses widely divergent manners — everything from
paper,
1
IS x 156 in/292 x 396 cm.
Musee National
rococo richness to iconic reduction the various aspects
argue that are
most
some
of
BY JED PERL
—
it is
natural that people are tempted to choose
among
d'Art
Moderne,
Centre Georges Pompidou,
Paris.
and
them
characteristic,
most important.
There has always been a
tendency
to explain
Matisse's career in terms of a striving for simplicity. This is
certainly the
been taught
way we have
to regard
Matisse in America. At the
Museum
of
Modern
Art the
focus has generally been on the two stretches in Matisse's
life:
the period
from about 1905 to the beginning of World
War
1
a period beginning with
97
\\
Rl It
Dance
R.S
ON
(1),
J
ARTISTS
909,
oil
on canvas,
Fauvism and ending with some of the most abstract works he ever
did;
and the period of
102 x 154 in/260 x 390 cm.
Museum
oj
Modem Art, New
York.
The man on
the paper cut-outs, in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
Matisse
is
-
of buoyant, simplified color shapes
arabesques of The Dance.
More
the street's image of
the charged-up color of Fauvism, the bold
sophisticated viewers will think of Matisse in terms of the
—
aspect of his achievement that has inspired Richard Diebenkorn's abstractions of such blue-green-gray images as
exemplar of less-is-more;
Nobody could
The Piano Lesson.
he's the artist
who
In both instances Matisse
proves that nature
is
enhanced
as
is
the severity the great
it is
distilled.
love Matisse without loving this side of his personality; but there does at
times seem to be a wilful refusal to see the other side of his personality, the side which glories in the overload of
nuances and halftones and complications that meet him everywhere
he turns. Matisse's most typical subject
is
a
woman
in
an
interior
- an
absolutely ordinary
occasion that he regards with a penetrating attention to naturalistic detail
hundreds of works that he did on collections from
decade
which
for painting
it
this
day
in
and day
impossible to see these paintings in
mounted
al
straight
seems they are fated never
women
gallery shows. "Matisse in
theme went
out,
New York
to
from
- and many
of the
his studio into private
emerge. The '20s were Matisse's
and ever since then
it
has been well nigh
City, save for occasional brief
appearances
in
Nice" - the great show devoted to the work of the '20s that was
the National Gallery in Washington,
DC,
in
1986-87 - made up,
at least to
9S
l
HENRI MATISSE
some degree,
for
what we'd missed. But even
that
show (which was devoted
BY JED PERL
to painting) did
not include the fabulously detailed lithographs of nudes, lithographs that establish Matisse as
among
the transcendent figure draughtsmen of the Western tradition, right up there with
Raphael. Matisse's considerable the '20s
-
And have a
also remains
there are
fairly clear
of the '30s
its
landscape painter - another important aspect of
unacknowledged.
still,
at this late date,
whole periods that remain
baffling.
We may now
sense of the '20s, but as for the fifteen of so years between the beginning
and the
yet to be given
gifts as a
final
period of the paper cut-outs, this
due. This
is
is
and of paintings which, with
their plethora of
calligraphic black outlines setting off areas of acid, high-keyed color, stand (at least so far as I
am
He has a form of extremism
a stretch of the career that has
the period of Matisse's great book illustrations, of an
increasingly freewheeling graphic style,
"He's admirable.
concerned) as Matisse's most hard-to-understand works
in oil.
Many
of
them seem
which forces you
to eat rotten duck or wild cheeses in order
to make sure
your palate
is
expanding
itself
and your
vision
is
getting more
sophisticated."
— Wayne TJtiebaud
The Piano Lesson, 1916,
oil
on
annus, 96 x 84 in/245 x 213 cm.
Museum
of
Modern
Art,
New
York.
99
WRI
ON
II R.S
ARTISTS
almost too casual, too rapidly tossed that
off:
at least,
is,
my
initial
impression. But with Matisse one hesitates to accept initial negative
impressions. So
I
ask questions:
Is
Matisse thinking about painting
new way?
he thinking of the
Is
in a
full
color painting as an extension of a
drawing? Ought one to regard these paintings as a Western version of the
Oriental brush painting? I
the
hope
that the retrospective at
Museum
of
illuminate this half.
Modern
Art will
shadowy decade-and-a-
More than
that,
I
want
to see the
celebrated early years and the equally celebrated late years as parts of a
dynamic
John
revolution. Ironically,
Elderfield's retrospective will only
success to the degree that
be
a
it
illuminates precisely those periods of Matisse's career in of
Modern Art
very
little
which the
has, historically, taken
interest.
Everything that
know about Matisse is
a career in
Museum
I
suggests that this
which reduction and
complication function as pressure and counterpressure. Neither side of the
equation
is
ever entirely absent.
reduction comes to the fore,
When
it is
the
denial of complication that gives the Top: Large Reclining
Nude (The
Pink Nude), 7 93 5, oil on canvas, 26 x 36 m/66 x 92 cm. Baltimore
Museum
of Art,
Cone
Collection.
923— 24,
26x12
oil
in/65
on annus,
k81 cm.
Private Collection.
high-wire tension.
And when
complication comes to the fore,
underlying sense of simplicity that enables Matisse to
simplicity.
I
would say
triumph
if it
in
that
its
large
fit
it is
everything together.
movement
is
If
the I
were
to
simplicity-complexity-
1920-40, the period of complication, remains the stretch that our simplicity-
obsessed age does not really want
It's
100
its
diagram the entire career,
Above: Odalisque with Magnolias, i
simplicity
takes
to
know. The modern show
up the challenge of the middle
the nature of a retrospective of the
will only
be
complete
a
years.
work
of a great master that
we
arrive
with
.
HENRI MATISSE
many
manv,
A gathering of hundreds
questions.
what makes such
attention, but
a
show memorable (beyond
important loans)
institution to secure
The
draw
goers to
was
a genius
career.
own
their
when
who
find very
much
this
mentality,
Matisse I
think
in
his ability to ask the
shaped but not
museum-
shaped but non-dogmatic picture of a great
John Elderfield has learned from Rubin's example.
that
few people
one place
makes
it
hold our
organized the Picasso retrospective
At a time when the very concept of the blockbuster show will ne\ ertheless
to
but they leave that form open enough for
to putting together a
hope — fervently —
I
-
great retrospectives are
conclusions. William Rubin,
came
it
life in art,
fail
the ability of the sponsoring
the intuition of the curator
is
questions that are on the audience's mind.
dogmatic; the}' give a form to a
of works by Matisse cannot
BY JED PERL
maybe none
(or
one time. While
at
I
at all)
am no
is
who
now under question
attack,
one
why we need
lover of the blockbuster
a kind of sense in the case of Matisse or Picasso that
it
simply
Daisies, 1939, oil on canvas,
19 x 28 in/98 x 72 cm.
does not
wanting
make
many
in the case of
to see all of
to
of Matisse
all
our sense that he
is,
Picasso
Matisse
is
is
our withdrawn father-figure. The Picasso
Museum
to
its
carnival atmosphere,
to the artist
Modern
of
wanted us
show
it, it
Art
who was
is
not above
that
many first
for
but
now
we
after
but
if
who
Museum
the
of
proposes to
museum
It is
Here
in
we
is
Art.
us
tell
that, so far as
him
in the
getting ready
That's a
tall
won't be satisfied with anything
the next couple of
more
know about
Xew York we're
some primal experiences.
a far
Modern
are concerned, taught us to love
place.
never
any institution
ever wanted to
all,
Now
giving the full
his secrets.
to bring off,
everything that is,
know
to
must be the
The museum
Matisse
of Chicago.
attic.
treatment to the other father, the one
up
Institute
a part of our recent
occasionally playing the clown or the buffoon.
difficult
An
our exhibitionist father-figure,
was perfectly tuned
quite
reason for our
The
Breughel.
still
own
retrospective of 1980, with
the
much more
despite the 40 years that
We're exploring our If
is
somehow connected
is
separate us from his death, past.
There
Matisse than for our wanting
to see, say all of Ingres or all of
desire to see
earlier masters.
order,
less.
months we're planning
For
to live
inside Matisse's brain.
101
\\
ON
RITERS
ARTIS1S
Marcel Duchamp by David Sylvester
PICASSO SAID THAT HE HOPED THE SCULPTURE OF A BULLS HEAD which he made from parts of a bicycle might
turn
it
some day be found somewhere by
a cyclist
who would
back into a saddle and handlebars and that subsequently the reinstated
Marcel Duchaimp After displaying his sensation-
bicycle
would be transformed
Descending a Staircase in Duchamp became both celebrated and reviled.
on,
back and
forth, for
1912,
Born
parts almost invariably
head and parts of
Normandy
in
into a sculpture again
and then
into a bicycle again
and so
Nude
causing painting
an
That remark would mean
eternity.
wanted us
to
remember
sculptors using found
little if
that a piece of theirs
was both,
say, a bull's
David Smith's avowal of unconcern that the spectator
a bicycle, but
in
1887, into a family of he experimented with
should be able to see from the finished sculpture where the parts had
come from shows
artists,
that there have
Postimpressionism, Fauvism,
and Cubism, rejecting
been leading exponents of the found part
whom
for
the parts, once
before ultimately
adherence
transformed into
one
to
art,
are simply
art.
particular style although he
Picasso's desire that,
maintained a long-term connection with
we do
recognize the source of the fragments of reality which he
absorbed and transformed suggests that he would have
felt
the
same about the
existing
Parisian Surrealists.
art
which he absorbed and transformed —
that
we should be conscious
of the prototype
After the uproar caused by the
Duchamp
descending nude, painted
rarely,
concentrating
instead on assemblages. His
most complex piece 191 5 construction
is
the
The Bride Her
Stripped Bare by
Bachelors with
its
reference
and
to sexuality the occult,
to
own life. The worlis Wheel and Pharmacy
"DADA WAS AN EXTREME PROTEST AGAINST THE PHYSICAL SIDE OF PAINTING."
the artists
Bicycle
were the beginning of socalled "ready-made" art, a concept
composer writing
later.
Duchamp emigrated the US. The Museum
of Modern Art exhibited The Large Glass, and his art,
on an existing tune:
if
don't identify the original, part of the
meaning
to Picasso's art
is lost.
than his
obsession with metamorphosis, and the efficacy of a
what the thing was before
it
was changed.
If
we saw
the avant-garde,
Cinderella's coach
became celebrated by mainstream
that they ca.
Duchamp's Photograph by
6x4
and
six
horses and did not realize
critics.
Rrose Selavy,
1920-21,
had been
a
pumpkin and
be the same coach and horses.
It is
six
mice,
it
would not
essential to the sense
alter ego),
Man
Ray,
of the story that the
meanest things from the kitchen have
in/14 x 10 cm.
Jederman
102
like a
metamorphosis depends absolutely on our knowing
always popular
among
we
Nothing was more central
die Nazis occupied
France, to
a set of variations
It is
whose importance
was recognized decades \\ lieu
and thus of the extravagance of the adaptation.
<
'ollection
been turned into grandiose
things:
if
the fairy godmother had
MARCEL DUCHAMP
turned, sav, a Louis
Quinze chair and
six salukis into a
And
transformation would be less impressive.
made her
godmother. She
wanted
to
make
take a bit of
que ce
soit
art; it is
horses out of pumpkins
oisean").
coach and horses, the
Picasso went further than the
fain,'
horses out of mice, living beings out of living beings. Picasso
wood and suddenly
un
BY DAVID SYLVESTER
it's
when he
said that
it
ought
a bird {"on doit youvoir prendre
not just a question of making what
It is
also a question of bringing
Picasso's transformation of
dead matter
junk into
to
is
to
be possible to
un bout de
bois et
low and rejected into
life.
human and
David Sylvester
animal images entered his work
Tlie influential British critic
around 1930. In his early assemblages from junk of the period 1912—16, he didn't attempt to turn pumpkins into horses, only into coaches.
cardboard and string to
make
a representation of
He
used the
was born
wood and
bits of
London
1924
in
at University
He went
College in London.
on
something which was also made of
in
and educated
become a noted
to
organizer of international
wood and
string
-
a violin or a guitar.
be read as masklike images of
It is
human
true that
most of those constructions can
heads, as can his modeled sculpture of the
period, Tlie Absinthe Glass. Nevertheless, the suggestion of a
human image —
also
contemporary
same
a suggestion
art exhibitions.
In 1951, he curated exhibitions of sculpture by
Henry Moore and drawings
which, after
all,
frequently occurs in his
still lifes
of that time on the
flat
-
secondary
is
by Alberto Giacometti at the Tate Gallery,
The
essential
and persistent
and he
organized exhibitions including the work of Rene
aim when Picasso put junk
Magritte, Robert Morris.
and Joan Mho.
together was to manipulate the material so as to bring
it
onto
After his
first visit to
New
York in 1960, Sylvester's
the plane of
When
art.
enthusiasm for American including Jasper
artists,
Picasso started
Johns, Willem de Kooning,
doing this in 1912, in collages
Burnett
Newman, and Mark
Rothko resulted as well as in constructions,
it
was one of the great moves
in
the
modern
artist's
many boolis The Brutality of
Sylvester's
cult of
include
poverty.
in a series
BBC radio supporting the New York School.
on
Throughout the second
Fact: Interviews with
He
Francis Bacon.
half of the nineteenth century artists
had been concerned
organized an exhibition of
Bacon's work as Britain's
to
contribution to the 1993
reject the traditional hierarchies of art,
such as the idea that noble subjects were better
Venice Biennale, and was
awarded the Bieuuale's
than vulgar subjects. Then, at the turn of the century, there was a rejection of the idea that classical prototypes
were superior
naked savages and collected
in
to all other prototypes; exotic curiosities
museums whose purpose was
initially
made by
anthropological
Golden Lion Award a first for a
Among Britain's
could now be accepted as
art.
But, whatever hierarchies
had been rejected by 1912
as to
his honors are
Hawthomden
made
persisted that the art object itself
still
of special materials produced specifically for the purpose of
argued against
this that art
could be
made
making
out of the stuff of everyday
life.
was
art.
to
be
Collage
Prize
for art criticism, and, in France, the
subject matter and as to style, the idea
critic.
Commander
the Order of Arts
and
David Sylvester died
in
Letters.
in
2001.
When Above: Fountain, 1917/1964,
Cubism turned
to collage
-
and, of course, any synthetic Cubist work, even
when
ready made.
14xl9x entirely painted,
is
conceptually a collage
-
it
was turning away from refinement towards
24 in/36 x 48 a 61 cm.
Private Collection.
103
WRITERS ON ARTISTS
coarseness,
away from the hermetic towards the common. Analytical
Cubism had erected became
a delicate structure of transparent planes, one that
And
increasingly intricate, ethereal, arcane.
language the stuff of which
— an
high art
is
the language
is
a
elaboration and
systematization of Cezanne, a constant reminder of Cezanne's late style.
But when the constituent parts of the structure become cut-out pieces of newspaper, cigarette packages, labels from bottles,
refinement
is
Montagne
of the
common
replaced by the St. Victoire
pieces of newspaper
may
is
not uncertain
something
in daily
is
forth, high
touch, the solitary contemplation
by sorties into Paris
all this is
that the construction
cut-out
may be used
to
and uncertain.
variable is
The
streets.
represent a newspaper or they
represent anything but a newspaper:
What
and so
made
being
out of
use by ordinary people.
At the same time, whereas analytical Cubism imposes a
homogeneity upon everything like that
homogeneity something
in the picture, a
imposed by the brushmarks
of, say, Seurat's
sketches, collage
often uses the strongest possible contrast between' the pictorial elements,
and
this reinforces the idea of
abruptness and plain-speaking as against
the use of an even, measured tone of voice. Again, in place of analytical Bicycle Wheel, 1913/ 1964,
Cubism's exquisite splintering of
reality,
the fragments are
now
larger, broader, flat, frontal,
ready made, height 50 in/1 26 cm.
Hessisches
Landesmuseum,
bold, forthright. In every
way the language
is
plainer.
At the same time, the distinction
Darmstad.
between the two languages
holds true for
applies as
work well
Picasso's synthetic
to most of the
Cubism, and
art after him."
synthetic
—Joseph Kosnth
very
much more emphatic
it
Cubism began
went on looking
as a
way out
of late analytical
like a reaction against
Cubism, somehow made a much smoother
manner preserved
it;
it is
with Braque.
from
a
Cubism, so-called hermetic
whereas Braque,
transition to
it,
and
quite a lot of the rarefied atmosphere of late analytical
Picasso, however, the change from analytical to synthetic
mandarin language
to a
was
in
his
adopting
work
in that
Cubism. With
a resounding conversation
demotic language. Which does not mean that the works
employing that demotic language did not turn out
104
with Picasso than
"And later, following this view, i came to feel an artist might use anything - a dot, a line, the most conventional or unconventional symbol - to say what he wanted to say."
"And what duchamp's
is
to
be even more
difficult
and obscure
MARCEL DUCHAMP
BY DAVID SYLVESTER
than the works which are called hermetic.
The time when Picasso was making first
his
junk sculptures was also the time when
Duchamp made
ready-made materials. placed upside
was
It
down on
a bicycle
objects in man's winning
and
most basic
dominion over the
in distinguishing
himself from the
beasts of the field: the stool,
down
which enables
ground
him
to
and
a location of his choice; the
sit
enables him to
The
around.
off the
turned
and
useless. Picasso took
instruments;
his objects
Duchamp
into useful objects
it
wheel, which
and the wheel are the
origins of civilization,
them both
height
at a
move himself and
stool
wheel
Now, the two
a stool.
objects assembled here are the
earth
from
his first sculpture
Duchamp
rendered
junk and
such
as musical
took a useful stool
and a useful wheel and made them useless. His stool to sit
on
useless because there
is
it;
although
his
wheel
it is still
is
is
no room
useless because,
free to turn,
in contact with anything,
wheel
is
it
doesn't turn
and of course
only useful so long as
it is
a
in contact
with the ground or some further mechanical
component. But the dissociation from
their
normal context which makes the stool and the wheel useless also
One
\isible.
sitting
look at
on it.
it,
makes them more
can't look at a stool while
but
if
one
can't
sit
on
it,
one
is
one can
Moreover, the wheel raised on the stool can be seen
far better
than
when
it's
on
Bride Stripped Bare by Her Batchelors, Even, 1915-21,
the ground: the beauty of the
movement
of the spokes
is
more
visible
near eye
level,
and
varnish, lead foil lead wire,
oil,
and
dust on two glass panels (cracked^
that level
is
also an imitation to our fingers to put the
more important, and the
like a statute
mounted on
stool useless, but neither
more nor
a plinth.
wheel
Duchamp
less useless
than
motion. Also,
in
it is
made
each mounted between two glass panels and five glass
renders the bicycle wheel
art
is.
He
turns
them
aluminum foil, and
strips,
a
wood and
steel frame',
into
109 x 69 in/277 x 176 cm.
things that are there only to be looked parts can
become
at.
Where
sculpture through the force of his personal magic,
saying that bicycle parts can
become
Philadelphia
Picasso seems to be saying that bicycle
Duchamp seems
to
Museum
of Art
be
sculpture simply by being treated as sculpture.
105
WRITERS ON ARTISTS
The bicycle-wheel
simply his inclination as an
(or in
sculpture was an allegorical antithesis to Duchamp's morality as an
whereas the wheel went round and round, Duchamp,
artist):
noble contrast to practically every other professional
repetition.
was
is
artist in history,
preferred inaction to
At the same time, the piece involved an early instance of a gambit of his which
utterly typical
wheel
- the separation
each other from
a distance
and on separate planes — onanism
upon each other the bride and her bachelors
Duchamp
phrased
it,
"grinds his
The composition a
bicycle
separated from the ground; in The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even, the it,
the male and female
machines function separately and without any point of contact, man and
on
The
of entities that are normally connected.
bachelors are separated from the bride. As Robert Lebel puts
Etant Donnes; First - The Waterfall, Second - Gaslight,
artist
nimbus above
is
is
own
for two.
That
upon themselves. ("The
act
woman is
act
upon
to say, to act
bachelor," as
chocolate.")
reminiscent of Titian's Assumption of the Virgin, where the Virgin
clearly separated
from the groping bachelor disciples. The separation
can be seen as a paradigm of Duchamp's relationship with his public.
He was
the bride and
1947, Private Collection, on loan to
Philadelphia
Museum
of Art.
we
the bachelors from
whom
he kept
his distance. Like the bride,
Duchamp was
stripped bare. His audience were
left like
masturbating bachelors, looking up
what he was up
fantasizing about to grips
with him.
and how
it
He
at
to
never
the
him and
but never coming
liked to observe that audience
reached, and he paid courteous attention
to the interpretations
it
made.
Said the masochist to the sadist: "Hurt me!" Said the sadist to the masochist: "No." said:
when
When
Diaghilev
"Etonne-moi, Jean!" Cocteau tried to oblige, but the art world expected
yet again,
Duchamp
said
No.
Duchamp
to astonish
When we
it
had been
talking earnestly for nearly half a century about the
implications of his having said No, he surprised us
from beyond the grave, with the revelation that he
had worked secretly from 1946
to
1966 on
major as The Large Glass: Etant Donnes; Waterfall,
Second — Gaslight.
It is
a piece as
First
— The
a structure in
which
an antique wooden door has a pair of peepholes through which
we
are able to look at a tableau vivant
realized with remarkable illusionism in a variety of
media.
What we
see through the peepholes
dilapidated wall with a very large hole in
landscape
106
in the
it
is
a
revealing a
foreground of which a naked nubile
MARCEL DUCHAMP
lying
girl is
leaves,
on
a prickly
BY DAVID SYLVESTER
bed of dead twigs and
her legs spreadeagled, her outstretched
hand holding up a lighted gas lamp. She, unlike the Bride, really skin,
stripped bare, stripped to the
is
mound -
even on her prominent pubic
and the depilation statuary;
it
not that of academic
is
serves to provide
and uninterrupted
view of the display offered by the spreadeagling of the legs.
The head,
in contrast,
is
virtually
concealed, through being excluded from the limited view
we
get of the scene. This
gesamkunstiverk includes sound of a distant fountain
—
the
murmur
which apparently issues
from a waterfall gushing and shimmering in the sylvan landscape beyond.
As The Large Glass
is
Duchamp's most
complex and ambitious painting, Etant Donnes is
most complex and ambitious piece of
his
assemblage. Halfway through the span of
its
long, secret realization, Picasso quickly put
together his
own most complex and ambitious made
piece of assemblage: Les Baigneurs,
Cannes
in the
summer
of 1956 almost entirely
out of bits of wood.
Now, Les Baigneurs
belongs
with a quantity of
stylistically
in
wooden constructions
emphatically frontal
looking like ethnographic art which the artist
had been making
for
40
years;
it
differs
from
its
predecessors only in being far more
Etant
Donnes;
Waterfall,
expansive, with
its six
over-life-size figures spread across the scene,
making
large
detail, interior,
pigskin, candle,
rhetorical gestures
and broadly demonstrating principles of construction by presenting
sizeable rectangular
empty frames (redolent
driftwood (redolent of the beach): it's
on
a
much
it's
like
of the studio)
many
among
in:
it is
place apart and beyond our reach,
What completes a
it
it is
unique,
is
Italian
Renaissance.
and
twigs,
paint.
Museum
of Art.
different in every
it is
immovable,
can be seen by only one of us
the analog)' with The Large Glass
major masterpiece of the
1946-66,
other Picasso assemblages except that
grander scale. Etant Donnes, on the other hand,
an elaborate piece of staging,
Gaslight,
the irregular bits of
conceivable way from the bicycle wheel and those other objects put in a place
about
Philadelphia
- The
First
Second -
The
is
that Etant
painting has
its
it
we walk
occupies a
at a time.
Donnes too evokes affinity
with Titian's
107
WRITERS ON ARTISTS
painting of lite Assumption; the assemblage has an affinity with sculpture
— by
similar sculptures
Bernini.
Duchamp's presentation
— two separate
of a reclining female figure in a
place apart in which she seems to be undergoing, or to have just undergone, crisis calls to
mind
where a woman frame.
The
Bernini's sculptures of St. Teresa
in a state of ecstasy
latter
work has the
alone, the former in that
—
it
is
shown
some
searing
and the Blessed Lodovica Albertoni,
in a setting
within a complicated marble
greater resemblance to Etant
Donnes
in that the figure
is
includes an element analogous to the flaming gas lamp held aloft
the flaming golden arrow held aloft by an angel.
Now, these scenes of
Bernini's are
designed to be seen from one particular point of view: as Wittkower says of them, "the carefully contrived framing devices almost force position.
"And
this
is
precisely, but
upon the spectator the
correct viewing
without the "almost," the effect of Duchamp's
peepholes. Duchamp's primary motive for having the peepholes, he told his wife, was to From
or
By Marcel Duchamp or
ensure that the work should have only one spectator
at a time:
he hated the thought of a
Rrose Selavy or The Box in a Valise, 1943, leather
and mixed
work of
art
being viewed simultaneously by a mass of people,
felt
media containing hand-colored collotype of Vierge, 1938),
15 x 14 x 3 in/18 x 36 x 8 cm.
of looking at
—
it
(felt this
especially at the time the Metropolitan
the very icon which he had virtually
made
his
it
degraded the experience
was showing the Mona Lisa
own). But an undeniable result of that
{closed).
Philadelphia
Museum
of Art,
strategy
is
the imposition, as with Bernini, of a viewpoint determined' by the
artist.
Louise and Walter Arensherg Collection.
108
Wittkower sees Bernini's need
to
do
this as a
consequence of
his insistence
on
•
MARCEL DUCHAMP
depicting
moments
And
of dramatic climax.
high drama, but with the difference that
giving his
of
enduring form to events in the
audience.
They knew
them wrote,
that these
made
a pain that
Etant-Donnes, too, there
Duchamp, while
what
protagonist's body, declines to reveal
in
is
to
popular heroines which were
in a state of utter
her scream loud but with
a sense of
revealing the secrets of his
happening or has happened
lives of
women
is
BY DAVID SYLVESTER
it
infinite
known
totally
abandon were
such
Bernini was
it.
feeling, as
to
one
"DllCHAMPIAN irony sanctified
sweetness that
kitsch as a she wished the pain to last eternally as the angel thrust the flaming arrow into her body
legitimate again
and again. But
figure herself
in
Etant Donnes the story has to be guessed
been using the gas lamp
flaming arrow?
Duchamp
-
For example, has the
at.
perhaps the only in a
fashion analogous to the angel's use of the
legitimate
withholds information mainly by his concealment of the
-
vehicle for art,
THOUGHT TO DISCOURAGE AESTHETICS ... I THREW THE BOTTLERACK AND THE URINAL IN THEIR FACES AND NOW THEY ADMIRE THEM "I
and now the political art-
workers are exploiting kitsch as a
propaganda
medium. This,
FOR THEIR AESTHETIC BEAUTY."
above protagonist's face,
concealment
is
and compounds our frustration by the
achieved.
It
suggests that there
is
tantalizing
way
in
which
that
surely a face there, behind the wall;
it
suggests the possibility of our getting a view of that face through altering our angle of vision so as to see
around the corner;
denies that possibility by allowing the scene to be visible
it
only through the peepholes (a reminder of the
maddening boyhood experience
of looking
through the keyhole trying in vain to see one's sister or the maid undressed). Since the onset of the romantic movement, freedom. In our time freedom has
The
artist's
and make
position has
a five-minute
become
is
read.
It
as saying to
he
whom we like
his;
Given the modern
at
it
I'm
movement."
"Stand up over there
say:
who
is
amused
I'll
give
you
want there
to
that
it
be three or four or a thousand
he wanted there
artist's
to
was
all
very well half,
but
possibilities of
be one.
freedom, Picasso gloried in the possibilities
uncertainty.
how he
quoted by Francoise Gilot
some Pollock reproductions
unconfined and unambiguous self-revelation; audience, and with
if
the political art
his public.
he wrote half the poem while the reader wrote the other
for his part did not
work of
and
by
patron saint of
for total
develop an attitude of not taking responsibility for
Matisse while looking
interpreting a
to
attitude totally repugnant to Picasso,
for Valery to affirm that
that
someone
artist
what makes Duchamp a
— Hilton Kramer
have made a demand
be demanded of the
is
once over-indulgent and uninvolved, has been an
to the artist to
was an
that of
to
speech about anything you
a present." This approach, at
encouragement
come
artists
all,
Duchamp handed on
The Dionysian and
it
opened
for
the freedom to the
the Apollonian.
109
WRITERS ON ARTISTS
Stuart Davis by Jamie McKendrick
TAKING A JAB AT Abstract Expressionism, Stuart Davis wrote of Owh!
In
San Pao:
"It
Idealism give off the
1951 painting
his
has been scientifically established that the acoustics of
Human Sounds
of Snoring, whereas Reality always says
Stuart Dams Born
Philadelphia in
in
1894, Davis's
encouraged
artistic
his interest in art.
He began
studying with
Robert Henri, leader of the
"Ash
Can
'Ouch.'"
The
Owh
and Ouch of
his brash, abrasive colors,
and of the
strewn-about
jarring,
parents
elements of his geometry have kept the sound of snoring safely
at
bay throughout his long
career as a painter.
School." and
Davis not only overlapped themes, structures, and words in paintings which were
exhibited five watercolors in
1913 Armory Show. Impressed h) die avant-garde work of the show with its stylized form, objective order, and use of
this realist style in the
color,
first
show
New
in
York in 19 1~. he turned
and
to
pictorial elements with
a period of
decades. His basic egalitarian ethos regarding subject matter
legitimized the use of commercial wrappers, labels, billboards, household utensils, storefronts,
series,
example,
though
in the
jazzily
own
paintings, as can be seen, for
semi-abstracted Percolator of 1927, which reappears structurally unchanged
heightened
in color
and with the addition of words
in
Owh!
San Pao 24
In
years
later.
The premise
that essentially nothing
is
unacceptable as material for the painting so long as
it
comes from the
boldh
outlined objects. In the
"Eggbeater"
own
but also to a dramatic degree reworked images from his
to the
geometric visual language of Mondriau. During the 1920s he moved toward minimal
less
sometimes over
'),
and, by extension, the recycling of the forms within his
his work.
synthetic cubism
on a
art,
concurrently ("diads
Davis radically
changed After his
made
he focused
abstract approach
and an increased clarity form and color.
of
surrounding environment, obviously also includes his
own
which have entered It
was
paintings
that environment.
also Davis' nature to be
During the depression of thel930s, Davis painted
murals for the
WPA
edited for Ait Front magazine.
Becoming
reflective
about his work as well as
and self-reflexive,
and reabsorbing the
politically active, he
followed the communist line until the
1940s when he
tinned his enthusiasm
structures of his
own
painting was a
natural opportunity to explore
and
to jazz.
His work of this period explosive with color
is
extend the frontiers of his
art.
and
rhythm. For the next twent)
There are certainly
lulls
and
years before his death in 1964,
he incorporated jazz into
dissatisfactions to be
met
with.
The
lyrical paintings.
series of canvases, for example, set in
Owh! 1951,
\\
hitne)
In San Pao,
oil
Paris during the late '20s
have a
thin,
on canvas.
52x42 in! 133 x 106 cm. Museum of American Art,
New York.
decorative, Dufy-like quality, as
though the creative
air
of the artistic
STUART DAVIS
capital
had reached him pre-digested
exchange of studio earlier,
crucial
assumed
a
life
visits,
found them "too
"Egg Beater" of
own.
its
in the
odd
should so deeply need the urban
of
London
grounded
in the everyday,
air
of
America
whose irreverent paints resemble no one
saw
at the
Armory Show
else's."
Karen Wilkin
"homegrown Cubist
a
His early works do markedly resemble the
1913, displaying an
in
his
whose geometry has
to fire his imagination. is
commended
"American Art Desert"
that self-confessed exile in the
begins her perceptive catalog essay with the claim that Davis
paintings he
tap water. Leger, on an
but to Davis' delight
realistic,"
series, abstracts
It's
manner
BY JAMIE McKENDRICK
initial
Bom Expressionism
— van Gogh, even Munch — then proceed,
as
though
in
McKendrick
Jamie
predilection for
an accelerated
in Liverpool, the
McKendrick has
poet/editor
had a nomadic teaching career, including four
"I
don't want people to copy
years in
He
Matisse or Picasso, although it is entirely proper to admit their influence. i don't make
Italy.
poems
writes
that are
sensitive questions of cause
i
and
effect
on the nature of
things. Recently published,
Sky Nails Poems 1979-
1997
is
a selection
from
his
three published books of
The Sirocco Room, The Kiosk on the Brink, and The Marble Fly. "The
paintings like theirs. i make paintings like mine."
poetry,
marble fly"
refers to
an image
on a Pompeian wall-relief that, to
McKendrick, fuses
the classical
learning curve through
Cubism
1921, he was already producing
And
forms and Matisse's cut-outs.
to Leger's tubular
work which was undeniably
his
yet by
and natural
worlds. His intricate
poems
involve both the natural
own.
and
unnatural, the personal and
The
so-called "Tobacco
Still
Lifes" of that year, including his
famous canvas Lucky
impersonal.
He
uses
references to transportation, Strilie, live
up
in his career,
entirely to the latter
where he chances on
artistic certainties, as
title,
a
moments
representing one of the most fortuitous
manner and
subsequent movements
subject
in his
way
in
work expose
advance of his retreat
his
own
from
this
such as Darwins Voyage of the Beagle, the first airplane,
and
into space
spiders sent
on Skylab,
relate metaphorically
radical
and innovatory
series
which, with
Warhol's Campbell Soup Cans by
its
some 40
emblazoning of brand names, predates
years.
Throughout
his life as
an
artist
the natural world.
and Lucky
heavy smoker, tobacco brand names, cigarette packets, cigar adverts,
etc.
have a
Strike, 1921, oil
centrally than in this
addressed, these
oil
1921
on canvas,
33 x 18 in/85 x 46 cm.
Museum talismanic presence in his work, but never
to
with
of Modern Art, Neiv York.
more
series. Frontally
paintings on canvas give the
impression of collages, though on an exaggerated scale.
The
strong color contrasts of Lucky Strike, the
complementary red and green waves and
circles to
which the
stripes
broken by
lettering conforms,
have a dense rhythmic unity, and yet
we
simultaneously recognize the flattened packet
become
strangely
and serendipitously monumental.
Ill
WRITERS ON ARTISTS
In the year following this series, Davis doubles
of his
own
lucky
back
as
if
unsure of the underlying premises
and produces crude apprentice work
strike,
manner
in the
Cubism, some ill-carpentered versions of Braque's Gueridons.
seems
It
as
of Synthetic
though he was as
yet unsure that he could give himself the go-ahead without securing the pictorial lessons of
tt
what see other words
paint
i
in
paint the American Scene." i
the European masters.
colored
still lifes
in america,
i
And
yet these experiments lead to the bold, black-outlined, bright-
and 1924, of utensils and
of 1923
Patrick Caulfield's canvases of the 1960s.
series.
which depicts
perhaps the remedy
Framed by black and
sloping top and nozzle
bulbs which look remarkably
like
These mundane household objects culminate
repellent masterpiece, Odol, ("It Purifies"),
light
is
a
product for oral hygiene
a
smoking habit and the Tobacco
to a
purple, the
Odol
flask with
its
squatly
mass-produced odalisque transposed from the
Turkish bath to an all-American bathroom - or so neat background of checkered white and green
we guess from
tiles
of lines (white against purple, black against white)
the
and a slanted cube
which represents
either a medicine cabinet or the beveled edges of a
bathroom
Never again would Davis be quite so uninhibitedly
full-frontal in his
approach
many
brand logotypes, exactly the celebrating.
other Davis paintings which feature labels and
raises the obvious but
artist's
relation
was
to the
still
perplexing question of what
machine-age products
Almost 40 years on, Davis took
as a precursor for
mirror.
nor so joyfully vulgar in his color scheme.
to the picture-plane
This, like
in a
little
his art
is
pleasure in being seen
Pop Arts deadpan reproductions of the
industrially
produced, insisting that his procedure and aims were entirely different. Is
Odol, 1924,
oil
on canvas,
design or
is
there in Davis a provocation
he asserting a belief that any subject
which conflates high
is
art
and commercial
equally interesting (or for that matter
24 x 18 in/61 x 46 cm. Crispo Collection.
equally boring) from an
committed
as
an
artist's
activist
standpoint? As a painter steeped in Marxist theory and
during the Depression, Davis undoubtedly
felt
these were
questions that mattered:
An It
art
of real order in the material of paint doesn't say "Workers of the World Unite."
doesn't say "Pasteur's theory has
doesn't say "Buy in color-space."
112
Camel
many
cigarettes."
It
human
beneficial results for the
merely says "Look, here
is
a
race,''
and
it
unique configuration
STUART DAVIS
Davis' Visa (1951)
and
his lifelong
perhaps pushes his interest
brand names
obsession with lettering to the extremest
reworks a canvas of the previous year called
point.
It
Giant
Still Life
CHAMPION
which consists almost
Picabia's
Jenne
Fille
L'Homme (1919)
may be
word
a buried allusion here to
Americaine as spark plug, just as
"Eggbeater" series there
want
entirely of the
Little
taken from a matchbook (smoking again) which
advertises spark plugs. (There
doesn't
in
BY JAMIE McKENDRICK
is
a possible reference to
Why
figured as an eggbeater).
to sell
Camels, content
to
which the graphic designer has used
is
in the
Man
Rays
who
Davis,
reproduce the lettering
Champion
to sell
Little
Giant spark plugs? Davis claims that he used words "because they were part of urban subject matter.
matchbook was
singularly uninteresting
.
.
the design of this
and
it
was the
"For a number of years jazz had a tremendous
on my
influence
thoughts about art AND LIFE." challenge of the lack of interest.
.
.
rather than the direct
-
stimulus of a subject Visa
'
that spurred him.
The
catalog entry for
shrewdly speculates that Davis was aware of
included) as a passport and
was intended
Visa itself
year Davis
There
s
clearly
a it
commodity
for the
that crosses frontiers
in the
Venice Biennale.
glint to the painting in this respect,
also alludes to the
-
Sao Paulo Bienal, and the next
would represent America
smug
own
art (his
though
American product destined
for a global market.
Does
this
mark
Top: Apples and Jug, 192i,
oil
on
composition board,
a
moment
of self-doubt as well as self-satisfaction?
What makes
the artist so different from
21 x 18 in/54 x 45 cm.
Museum the graphic designer
whose
original (and boring) logotype
he
is
of Fine Arts, Boston.
content to exploit for his Above: Visa. 1951,
own not uncommercial ends? And how, given
the above,
is
the artwork distinct from the
40 x 52
Museum
commodity whose advertisement the international market place? self-referential
The
artist
appropriates
when both
is
of
oil
on canvas,
x 132 cm.
Modern
Art,
New York.
pass into the
painting fabricates a teasing visual conundrum, with the
phrase "The Amazing Contin-uity (note the discontinuous hyphen) added to
the right border in Davis' unique ribbony or crepey script perhaps referring to the
work
in/ 102
recycling with admirable parsimony the earlier canvas; but equally
it
way
his
draws attention
113
\\
RJTERS
ON
ARTISTS
Landscape with Garage 1932,
oil
Lights,
to the
problematic continuity between the industrial product's advertising design and the
on canvas,
32x42 in/81 x 106 cm. Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester, Neu>
artwork York.
itself.
Despite the knowing verve of this work, and of others from the
seems something schematic and over-determined about period through the '30s when, despite the his great If
American
demands
it,
which makes
me
'50s, there
prefer the
of his political activism, he painted
cityscapes.
the Parisian cityscapes are disappointing, they nevertheless helped Davis develop a
pictorial
language (and in his case the word
the ever
more conspicuous motif of
is
only partly metaphoric, since script
his signature
— continues
- including
to operate in his paintings as a
key compositional effect) which was responsible for some of his finest paintings. Landscape with Garage Lights manages to
make an
intriguingly dissonantal
jumble of Gloucester, Massachusetts' industrial waterfront. astonishing
-
a fish-processing plant, a coal tower, factories
poles, petrol (gas)
pumps with
curly proboscuses
Its
harmony out
of the maritime
childlike inclusiveness
and warehouses,
and a cafe awning on the
is
boat, telegraph
far right like a
limp hand reaching for a row of bottles underneath. There's even (unusually for Davis) a
114
STUART DAVIS
faintly
scumbled human
figure at the railings looking out seawards.
broken up by angular sections of black and by
areas of color,
crosses, delight in their angles
equivalent for
COAL
it,
of another.
The word FISH has
while the last upright of the
H
seems
a fishbone
it.
The CO.
actual, find a
it's
it
though leaping back into the black sea underneath. Although the exhibition paintings,
it
would have been interesting
some
to see
composite
the master of
is
the bright,
adorns as
multicolored
exclusively of
of Davis' lithographs from this period, a
"An artist who has traveled on a steam train, driven an automobile, or flown in an airplane doesn't feel the same way about form and space as
"Davis became
occluded by a mast,
have slithered out beyond the wall
to
and
of one sign echoes the
perhaps because
I,
large, flat, bright
parallel lines, curves,
and contingencies and toy with the
rather than feeling obliged to describe
The
BY JAMIE McKENDRICK
one who has not."
picture...
he gave
color a marvelous freedom. That
is
what (Donald) judd
liked so
much about davis
and that
is
why
he considered him
a great painter. medium which must have
assisted
him
greatly in this
new and
bolder use of black. i
The
arrival of
entirely agree."
Abstract Expressionism would displace Davis somewhat from the vanguard of
— Rudi Fucks
American painting. Although he found the Abstract Expressionists too introspective,
saw
nevertheless that period
during the '30s,
when
his
own
increasing
the plethora of urban
life
commitment
to abstraction.
But
it
was
impelled him towards an abstraction which
he both enjoyed and resisted, that he achieved some of his finest work. Perhaps most successful of
all is
New York
under Gaslight (1941), which
career, putting together all his favorite
are garish
urban elements
under a whitened chrome green
sky,
is
in a
like a
summa
gaudy stage
we understand
that
it is
set;
of this stage of his
though the colors
night time by the
New York oil
from window's and shop-fronts, which compete for attention with their signs and (mainly
Israel
32x45
smoking) advertisements. The lettering
is
as playful
varied as ever, the
M in ROOM curtailed as
enough room, the
D
chipped
DENTI[ST]
in
mood
like a tooth. Its
sensed he was about to variations of his final
is
move on
itself
if
in/81 x
Museum,
114 cm. Jerusalem.
and
there wasn't
dented or
valedictory, as to the
under Gaslight, 1941,
on canvas,
black hulk of one pier of Brooklyn Bridge in the background and by the white illumination
if
Davis
bold abstract
two decades. And yet the
improvisatory, jazzlike quality of this painting,
and the
extraordinary classical intelligence that shapes an order
from inner
city clutter
representational color,
and from clashing nonis
what makes Davis one of the
finest twentieth-century painters of
urban experience.
115
\\
ON
RITERS
ARTISTS
Salvador Dali by Sister
PREJUDICE
IS
Wendy
Beckett
ALWAYS DANGEROUS. Equally dangerous are principles firmly asserted but
A
in practice denied.
basic principle of art criticism, here firmly asserted,
is
that the j]
and the quality of the
personality of the artist
art
have no essential connection.
We
Salvador dali The
world's most
famous
may warm
to the
mental balance and moral decency of a Rubens or a Corot; we may
Surrealist painter, Salvador
Dali,
was born
He
1904.
in
Spain
in
attended the
Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid where he formed
alienated by the self-obsessed anxieties of van
is
to
speak
ideally).
or
Guido Reni;
They can have no bearing on how we
purely personal to ourselves. this
Gogh
Fortunate Giotto and Vermeer about
yet these reactions are
view- the
whom
feel
so
work (although known, and
little is
influential friendships with
the poet Federico Lorca
and
filmmaker Luis Bunuel. Experimenting with various
whom we
can therefore see with untrammeled eyes. Where we do know some so-called
the
Modernist
styles in the
about an
facts
artist,
it is
often hidden from our conscious
mind how subtly our
objective
1920s,
became involved with and the Surrealist avant-garde, and he disco\ ered the work of Freud which initiated him into the
judgement may be skewed by prejudice, either
anarchist politics
In Salvador Dali's case
it is
against.
We
for or against.
have
to strain to see
him through
a
dense fog
7
world of the subconscious. He then collaborated with
Bunuel on two Surrealistic - Un Chien Andalou and L'age Dor.
films
In the '30s, Dali produced
paintings of deformed or metamorphosed commonplace objects placed within
landscapes reminiscent of his
of gossipy incident, nearly
all
of
it
initiated
by Dali himself and highly productive
to his
"at the age of six i wanted to be a cook. at seven i wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been growing steadily ever since."
i
Catalonian homeland. The
image
of the melting
appearing
The
Persistence of
(1931)
is
all
watches
in the painting
the best
known
of
and
self-promotion led to a break
US where
liis
we can
look at his work,
we have
become
needs desperately
to
disentangled. Dali seems to have been like a small child
be noticed.
He
sought out the shocking:
if
spitting
mother's image would attract attention, he was a prolific and boastful
upon
spitter.
his
who
dead
Again, like an
his flamboyant
with the Surrealists. to the
actively to seek to
Surrealism.
Dali' s gradual indifference to politics
career in terms of publicity and financial success. Before
Memory
anxious child, he reveled in bodily fluids and the more lurid consequences of death.
He
He went
he cultivated
mocked
friendship and fidelity and clearly regarded himself as above
all
rules. If
Franco was
eccentric image.
abhorrent to the right-thinking, Dali espoused his cause; he praised Hitler for the same From 1950
to
1970, Dali's
paintings focused on religious
themes. In the final his life,
he returned
where he died
in
-\ears
to
of
Spain
1989.
show-off reasons. His famous remark to the effect that the only difference between himself
and ring.
a
madman was
16
was "not
mad,'' that
it
was
"willed paranoia," has a sadly hollow
Jung, in his adolescence (like Dali, child of an autocratic father), also played the
game, though never
]
that he
to
such bizarre lengths. In
his
mad
autobiography he recalls hearing himself
SALVADOR DAL1
~ ,
discussed by his parents, and suddenly realizing that the
was slowly slipping into snapped out of edge of
sanity. Dali, less fortunate,
was insane
Artistically, this
how
near he had
come
he
Jung
it is
impossible
in the clinical sense.
should not matter
work (think of The
to be.
Richard
at all.
Dadd
is
an example of an
Fair}' Feller's
Master
is
Strolie in the Tate) that
artist
who
a neat, tight intensity is
and
his "instantaneous
and hand-done color photography This phrase, not inaptly
describing his style, was, of course, a very lowly
form of
life,
meant
to
whom
Beckett
South Africa
in
in
1930,
Beckett decided early to
become a nun. Urged by her to exasperate, color
photography being considered
father to
only a notch or two below the Salon art of Meissonier, another
Dali smirkingly proclaimed allegiance. But something profoundly fearful,
for
first
get an education,
studied at Oxford, then
slie
went
model
Wendy
Sister
oddly reminiscent of
Bom Dali
WENDY BECKETT
to sliding over the
disappeared into his game-playing, and
created from within the painful recesses of homicidal mania; there in his
a highly perilous one:
madness, since we become what we pretend
real
his fantasies, but never forgot
not to feel that he
game was
BY SISTER
South Africa
to teach in
5 years.
1
When
her health
became fragile, she returned
something escapist and,
in the
most
literal
meaning,
sick,
drew both
artists to protect
themselves against reality by cunningly perfecting their technique. Yet
Dadd
is
England, where she
an interesting
in a trailer
artist.
His fantasies have a genuinely intriguing
earnest. Dali's, however, hovers
validity.
The game he
on the edge of falsehood, or so
it
played, he played in
seems.
It is
a
obvious that he
a
of solitude.
life
In 1980, she began studying
deeply disturbed man, and that these disturbances are visible in his painting.
The same
is
true of
Van Gogh, but with what
a difference!
lives
and pursues
on postcards
art reproductions is
to
a Carmelite monastery in
and
in boolis.
Her down-to-
earth obsemitions were
Van Gogh reaches past
published in British journals,
his
unbalance, incorporating
it
into his vision.
He
is
communicating through
his panics
and her
in the mid-'80s she first
book,
Women
wrote
Contemporary
Many
Artists.
titles
have followed. Commenting
on the pictures
an
at
attention of a
art
drew
exhibition, Beckett
BBC
the
camera
crew filming the feminist writer
Cermaiue
Greer. This
lead to Beckett herself being
filmed and. eventually, to a
BBC
program featuring her reflections
on
art.
Despite the hugh success
of
her
books and television programs, Beckett leads a disciplined and
contemplative
life.
She wakes
and
at 3 a.m., attends mass,
prays seven hours a day,
allowing only two hours for her writing
ami
studies.
She
writes
pnilificalh about art,
sometimes annoying the
art
establishment with her
commentaries. Never shying
from moralizing, program she
in
one
stated, "You
have
a cold heart, Degas!"
Birth of Liquid Desires, oil
and
38
x
1
93 1-32,
collage on canvas,
44 in/96 x 112 cm.
Guggenheim
Collection. Venice.
1
i
WRITERS ON ARTISTS
and delusions, passionately urging them into some
and shudder, the shapes of
"He
is
the modern
is
tree, earth,
sort of order.
The brushstrokes
and cloud swing with emotion, but the
of a longing for integration that will not be denied.
We
are
leap
total effect
awed by van Gogh's courage,
his persistence, his seriousness.
painter best With
known to
Dali, there
seems
to
be no fight
at all.
His delusions and fears are dear to him;
the he makes
his art out of
them, self-indulgently
It
was not always
so,
and
this
is
the great
general public." importance of the present exhibition. As he grew
—Jose Faerna
into the self-pity
work
and
self-love of
(a sinister parallel
early
been. Dali girl
Femme Couchee, oil
1926,
is
work
madness, and his
art
all
like the
the
gifts,
and further
degenerated with him. The early
here with the far greater Miro)
Augustus John, Dali had
An
older, Dali slipped further
is
incomparably his
finest.
Like
but nothing to say with them.
1925 Girl Standing
at a
barely twenty-one, as prodigious in his
Window shows what might have way
as his compatriot Picasso.
has an objectivity, an attention to the world outside the
artist's
The
selfhood, that gives
it
unusual force. Dali had many problems with women, with
his long-suffering sister (said to
be the model here), with backsides,
something contrived about the
hair, illusions (there is
scene outside the window and the cloth with
its
semi-transparency), but none of this
is
on panel,
11x16
in/28 x 41 cm.
Salvador Dali
Museum,
Petersburg, Florida.
118
allowed to dominate. Rather, his secret difficulties are used to
make
the images
St.
functional,
much
as Picasso's
tempestuous emotional relationships are invariably put
to
SALVADOR DALI
good
purpose. This exciting talent
artistic
Conchee of the following is
rocks, as
crucified.
if
makes one
year. It
not a likeable one: a young
The image
giants through
even more evident
is
Her bulk and
its
is
WENDY BECKETT
Femme
what Dali could have been.
sigh for
woman
in
BY SISTER
spread-eagled on mountainous
sheer heft are reminiscent of the female
whose depictions Picasso distanced himself from what he
considered a rapacious wife, yet the influence has been integrated.
It is
a very
"Sometimes i spit on my mother's portrait for pleasure." clever painting, the perspective as convincing as that of to
which
seems
also vaguely alludes. (It
it
to
Mantegna's Dead Christ,
be impossible
about Dali
to write
without art-historical references cropping up with annoying frequency). She
modestly concealed, in This
to luxuriate.
this strikingly unlike the
girl is
and ambivalent
clenched, the other clean, to
is
relaxed,
which our attention
There
is
in her
and
is,
merely there, splendidly
Femme Couchee, Still Life
attraction for him,
why
La Revolution
and De Chirico, up
originator,
one hand
nor about Girl
is
to
then
this
is
and
so. In
most famous
all
the very
Surrealiste, Breton, the its
Sister. Yet
best known.
and he employed
was
at the
all
real,
with
his rights to liberty. its
To
Dali, harassed
it
The
his verbal skills,
number
first
of
movements
visual practitioner,
man
recounted their dreams, with the telling comment: Only the dream leaves with
by
of 1924, nor the magnificent
in 1925, Portrait of the Artist's Father
from inconsiderable, to explain
the Surrealist magazine,
If
lit
directed, not her half-averted face.
is
of course, as a Surrealist, quintessentially so, that Dali
movement had immense far
came
later
the great wedges of her feet, spotlessly
Window, nor the limpid Le Corbusier-like
drew
is
emotional condition.
it is
nothing surreal about
pastiche of Ingres he
which Dali
in
not meant to startle us, challenge our putative
puritanism, or disgust us by her blatancy She the steady light
images
is
™
and obsessed by the menace of the
threatening responsibilities, this must have been irresistible.
He
set
himself to
Top: Portrait of the
and
enter the
dream world and create
solely
from within
its safeties.
The
irony
is
that the
dream
Sister,
19x13
Mmeu world, the true
freedom of the imagination, does not open
This was at once evident to Freud,
whom
Dali,
to self-conscious
an avid reader of his
texts,
manipulation.
expected to
.Artist's
Father
1925, pencil on paper,
in/49 x 33 cm.
National d'Art de
Catalunya, Spain.
Above:
Still Life,
1924.
oil
on
canvas.
and
fascinate,
in
which, indeed, he succeeded.
What
interested Freud, however,
was
49x39
in/125 x 99 cm.
Fundacion Federico Garcia Lorca,
precisely the difference
between the poetry of
the will: as he wrote to Dali, "It
conscious. interests
While
is
liberty
and the manipulative fancies of
not the unconscious
in the pictures of the
I
seek
in
Madrid.
your pictures but the
Masters - Leonardo or Ingres — that which
me, that which seems mysterious and troubling
to
me,
is
precisely the search
119
WRITERS ON ARTISTS
Invisible Sleeping
Woman,
Horse, Lion, 1930,
oil
for
unconscious ideas, of an enigmatic order, hidden
in the picture.
Your mystery
is
on canvas,
20 x 26 in/50 x 65 cm. Musee National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou,
Paris.
manifested outright. The picture This
is
own psyche The shows
shrewd as
is
but a mechanism to reveal
criticism. All in Dali
he understands
Invisible Sleeping
it,
as
Woman,
his skill at this manipulation.
"When
i
is
indeed contrived, a
opposed
to
how
it
The
picture
paint,
concern in his
to Dali
and
is
brilliant illustration of his
may have
truly
Horse, Lion an image he painted is
about his
own
been.
more than once,
cleverness,
how he can
the ocean roars.
Others merely paddle play with shapes, etc. There
itself."
a multitude of
in their bath."
concepts present,
his friends, but dull stuff to those
thought processes. The connections between
who
all
doubtless of absorbing
are not particularly interested
woman and
lion,
woman and
horse,
horse and lion (images arise from both Stubbs and Gericault's lion-attacked horses) seem to us to
120
matter less than the superbly painted desert sands with the great central
pillar,
SALVADOR DALI
BY SISTER
WENDY BECKETT
truncated but eery, and the strange blue ball and the other scatterings of the scene.
These things matter because, whatever
their
supposed significance psychically, they are lovely themselves. Here, as from :
I
now
on, Dali tried too hard,
and the aesthetically important the extras, not the
main
in
bits in his paintings are
On
actors.
occasion, he struck
it
.
coming across an image
lucky,
that
profoundly poetic.
is
I
Even those
who most
themselves
dislike Dali find
haunted by the Persistence of Memory and those melting watches. This
is
an image that one can spin
round, explaining exactly
The
circles so affect us.
to the writers' interests,
why
many
theories
those limp and sagging
theories
may
differ
and where one sees
according a fear of
impotence, another sees a fear of mortality. But fear strongly is
communicated, with
communicated
is
to
its
corollary, that
some degree
is
whatever
controlled.
It is
a
deeply disagreeable painting, and in that highly typical of this deeply disagreeable painter, but
work of
it is
a
marvelous
art.
Conquest
Dali wrote triumphantly, in "The Irrational,"
an essay that
(1935), that:
"My whole
of the
slightly postdates this exhibition
ambition
is
to materialize the
images of concrete irrationality with the most imperialist fury of precision...
in
order
Top:
The Persistence of Memory,
1931,
that the
world of imagination and of concrete irrationality
may be
as objectively evident,
9x13
oil
Museum of the
same consistency, the same
communicable thickness
durability, of the
as that of the exterior
same persuasive,
world of phenomenal
cognitive, reality.
It is
in
we ponder this
is
what one wants
to
communicate: the concrete
The
sadly, is the actual point of
what he so earnestly wishes
to
on canvas,
20x31
in/51 x 78 cm.
Private collection.
What,
"communicate,"
of the mentally sick are of value only to themselves.
Dali had, as his exhibition conclusively reveals, the talent necessary to
imaginative truth, that which
who
York.
"concrete irrationality"?
The musings
lets
grief.
New
Above: Le Someil/Sleep, 1937,
irrational subject."
confusing imagination and irrationality that Dali comes to
of Modern Art,
and
oil
important thing
on canvas,
in/24 x 33 cm.
him achieve what
in
is
at
the center of
all
great
art.
But
creatively, or at least, only half-lived, is
sadder
still.
Someone
No
artist
is
communicate
that real
his self-absorption rarely
theory should have been possible to him.
die young: Massaccio, Keats, Giorgione, Mozart.
The tragedy
We mourn
like Dali
who
the gifted
died young
ever needed a Salvador
more
than Dali, but he was never fortunate enough to find one.
121
WRITERS ON ARTISTS
Damien
Hirst
by Will Self
Damien Hirst Bom in Bristol in 1965, Hirst
1986
came
to
London
to study at
he
there,
to talk to
me, the susurration begins. The leavened minds of those-who-wait —
gallery workers, a photographer,
presence, the afflatus of what
in
may —
or
an
may
editor,
not
Calls are despatched to try and ascertain
Goldsmiths
While
College.
A
BOUT TWENTY MINUTES BEFORE DAMIEN HlRST ARRIVES AT THE SERPENTINE GALLERY
like
me —
and
— be
are agitated by his pre-
his genius.
where the errant
he has been sighted here, there, and everywhere.
I
artist
has got
to.
Pimpernel-
imagine some sort of incident room
organized and promoted
an exhibition of work in a
"Freeze,"
map
of Central London, with
little
colored lights moving about
it,
showing the
relative
students'
Loitdon warehouse. Tlie independence, spirit, and media savvy of the show became the starting point
entrepreneurial
for the "Young British Artists
Movement."
Internationally acclaimed, Hirst consistently interprets
recurring themes of art the
-
meaning of life and the
inevitability of death.
He
handles his explorations of mortality with originalit) and wit. Best
known
his series
is
of dead animals preserved in
formaldehyde and enclosed in glass cases, the
forms
ironically similar to exhibits in natural history
In 1995, a
museums.
New York gallery
banned a Hirst piece of a dead cow and bidl copulaiing by means of a hydraulic device.
New York
The
Cit)
Health Department stated that gases
explode
from decay might
if
it
were sealed or
"prompt vomiting among the visitors" if
it
were
not. In
1999 the Brooklyn Museum incurred the wrath of New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani
when
it
presented the
exhibition "Sensation"
containing Hirst's work.
In
1995 he won
Britain's Turner Prize.
122
.k
DAMIEN HIRST
positions of Hirst, his critics, the buyers of his work. Possibly
BY WILL SELF
could be entitled: Moving
it
Toward the Inevitable Impossibility of a Meaningful Encounter. Or somesuch. "He's definitely coming," reports a head, poked round severed by
-
the door
jamb of the
among
the waiters. There
him by
his critics:
television
another,
is
kitchen where
staff
we
to
draw
a banana," says
appearance by Hirst, "and then he couldn't do is
A new
wait.
partially
agitation
generated
is
discussion of Hirst's antics, the put-ons that have been tried on
"They asked him
"Damien
- and apparently
someone
it..."
referring to a
"That's not true!" counters
Will
a brilliant draftsman."
Hailed by
I'm
smoking moodily
like J.G. Ballard's
in a corner,
and reflecting that
this
concept of the "Blastosphere," as described
phenomenon in his
is
somewhat
Self
critics as a
brilliant satirist in the vein
of Swift, Will Self writes
experimental work of
with a mixture of realism fiction
The Atrocity Exhibition. The Blastosphere
is
the implicit shape of the
way matter
and absurdity on
is
the
spiritual emptiness in
perturbed by an explosion.
It is
explosion as follow from
"We
it.
atemporal: are
all
may just
it
as well precede the fact of the
waiting in the Hirst Blastosphere, and as such
inevitable that events, dialogue, thoughts even, should reflect the Hirst anti-aesthetic
contemporary culture. it is
From
—
his
debut story
The Quantity
collection
Theory of Insanity a quotidian elision
between the
surreal
A
and the banal.
in
1991,
Self has used his wit "as a
crowbar," one reviewer
worker shows a suit-wearing
gallery
man
carrying a
wrote, "to pry open the
clipboard into the staff kitchen. She says, "Over there,"
craclzs in
our culture. " Selfs
subsequent novellas and
pointing at a part of the room, and he replies
"Mmm,
novels include: Bull,
mmm..." and notes something on
his clipboard.
They
My
even
acknowledging the presence of the waiters.
I
A
Cautionary Tale, Grey Area
and Other leave, without saying anything further, or
Cock and
Idea of Fun:
Great
Stories,
Apes, Tough, Tough Toys for
wonder
Tough, Tough Boys, The
Sweet Smell of Psychosis,
what the man with the clipboard would look
and
like
his latest,
Dead
How
the
Live.
floating in a solution of formaldehyde.
And
then he
arrives. There's
Winning awards and
an almost audible
achieving recognition in
thrumming
both the
that precedes the door being opened, an
UK and
the US,
Selfs honors include the
onanistic strumming, the essence of
up by
this proposition:
the image of the it
It is
Emperor
which
is
summed
and the Geoffrey Faber
better to masturbate over
if
he has no clothes on, or
John Llewellyn Rhys Prize
Memorial Prize is
preferable to stimulate yourself discretely knowing
in Britain;
My Idea of Fun was named a New York Times "Notable Book of the
Year.
"
He
also
applies his outrageous
that he
is
tightly
sheathed?
imagination
In this sense Hirst's entrance to the kitchen
to
is
analogous to the way Ashley Bickerton's Solomon Island
journalism
The London Observer and The in his essays
for the
Independent, and for Esquire magazine
Shark - one of the exhibits Gallery
sensibility. Hirst
PVC,
current Serpentine
show "Some went Mad, Some Ran Away"
Hirst has guest-curated
in
in the
is
- impinges on the
hammerhead-down,
rubber, and leather,
London, Self now
that
in
resides
there with his wife
and
viewer's
tightly
in the
US. Born and raised
children.
encased
and already garnished All photographs «/ Will Sell
with the fatuities of those
who
observe and
comment
Damien
and
Hirst by Jon Mikol.
123
WRITERS ON ARTISTS
upon him.
Fatuities that are as ordinary
and perverse
as the
coconuts and plastic bags of
Scope mouthwash that dangle from Bickerton's shark. What's immediately apparent he
artists
On
Damien Hirst's
works
in
the
"Sensations"
thought
what they
that Hirst has a genuine charisma. Like
concerned with the interplay between
their capacity for proprioception.
He
fish;
and so they quit
We
wander out
spatial
embodiment and
like
an ultrasonic whine on
a school of
it.
into the gallery to look at the work. Conversation
that's
examine
details of the various
did in
annoyed
that
some
individual's senses of
many
manifests this as an aspect of his being: his being-in-
the-room acts on the flustered gaggle of waiters
exhibition: "i
is
is
is
works rather than commenting on their
desultory.
totality.
of the myriad plastic tags that stipple the surface of
Angus
Hirst
We is
Fairhurst's
BIOLOGY LABORATORIES, IN
NOT
JUST HOPE THAT I CAN BE KIND OF like the Beatles. I really like that "I
MUSEUMS OF ART."
— New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani
KIND OF MODEL. I LIKE THE WAY THAT WITHOUT LOSING INTEGRITY THEY COULD CHANGE THROUGH FASHION AND NOT LOOK BACK AT THE '60S AND VOMIT WHEN THEY SAW WHAT THEY'D DONE." Ultramarine Attaching (Laura Loves Fish), have been removed. of
my
days as a shelf-stacker
Abigail Lane's forth
J S'py,
at
two
I
remark that
me
reminds
Sam's Bargain Store in Burnt Oak.
glass eyes
impaled on freestanding hanks of brass wire,
from us both a warm recollection of the girder-impaling-eye sequence
Verhoeven's film The Fourth
it
Man, and we go on
to bat
calls
in Paul
back and forth anecdotes about
other instances of bizarre discorporation, both real and filmic.
Another Lane floor
-
calls forth a
this
time a
full-size
waxwork
of a naked
man
dialogue on the sense in which a sculpture can
of the distant provinces, the forgotten Datias
and Hibernias of
his
crouching on the studio
make
own
the viewer aware
body. "Actually, you
know," says Hirst, "the genitals of the sculpture are modeled on the real genitals off the subject."
And we
make pressed
stand for a while, thinking a bout the sensation that the cold stone would
against our
own
scrotal sacs.
Hirst talks about his interest in depicting "points of light tells
set
in space."
This he
me, was most of the inspiration behind creating the spot paintings, where the aim
up
a
kind of visual humming, a titivation of the
calls forth
124
moving
from
me
a lengthy effusion
on "points of
air
is
to
above the surface of the canvas. This
light in space," that
runs
all
the
way
DAMIEN HIRST
from the nature of the retinal after image, through Zeus appearing the experiences of Terence
McKenna,
in a
shower of
BY WILL SELF
gold, to
the Californian drug guru, on dimethyltriptamine.
Hirst grunts noncommittally.
And
indeed, as
does Hirst pav very his
we
tour the exhibition attention to the
little
work, he doesn't even conceive of
certain
it
it
way
becomes
that art critics are describing
in the
merhat not only
increasingly clear to
same terms. For him the
and categorizing
ascriptions of
works as "gestural," "expressionistic," or "conceptual," are quite void.
What
interests
him
are the details: the
way
that the butter curdles in Jane Simpson's
terminal bird bath In Between, a brackish fusion of brass, butter, halogen bulb, and refrigeration unit; the implications of stress set
up
in
Michael
Joo's
miscegenations of metal
construction and Disney or scientific
iconography; the
Slominski
s
way
Untitled
-
that
Andreas
a bicycle
garlanded with bags of impedimenta far
from being
difficult to
assmble, in
fact arrived at the gallery "ready to
wheeled out of
crate"; the exact ratio
its
of formaldehyde to water that
own animal
for his
the fleece of the
Away from It's
why
so
I
he uses
He seems
remark on the way
golden bubbles are trapped
that little
into
works.
when
most engaged
be
lamb he incorporated
the Flock.
easy to see
many
in
—
-
talking to Hirst
art critics
should have
seized
upon him
as grist to their
word
mills.
They want
his apparently
gnomic
comments on
his
work
to
be genuinely
gnomic, evidence of a trickster mentality that teases the cognoscenti. critics
who contemplate
like clever
The
Hirst's
art
work
are
children placing with one of
those stereoscopic post-cards: they flick it
this
way and
Emperor
that, to
alternately
Thus they get
show that the
naked and adorned.
their kicks.
In fact, Hirst quite clearly thinks
about his work in just the
125
.
WRITERS ON ARTISTS "-=3
straightforward
way
that
shows Self attempting
Self:
What
moment
is
I
he says he does. Pace
to schematize,
this transcription of
and Hirst quite properly
our dialogue, which
resisting.
thought was interesting about the way people are writing about you
that the art critics have to describe your
a
work
in their
^^
own
—
arcane language
one which are doing.
them
the
at
what you
prettifies
And
that does for
an
for at least half
article.
Hirst:
They do
fucking time.
doing
it
.
all
it
the
they've
.
for years.
.
.
been
There's
nothing more boring. They say:
You go
in,
you see
a
thing... blah, blah, blah, just
fucking describe Self: But
is
this
seems
it
what you're
it.
me
to
that
really interested in
dark side, this anima,
the ingressability and internality of the body,
way
and the
that culture refracts that
experience. Your art kinaesthetic,
it's
is
very
about the
internal sensibility of the body.
Hirst:
I
remember once
getting really terrified that
could only see out of
Two
little
my
fucking holes.
really terrified
by
it.
I
eyes. I
got
I'm kind
of trapped inside with these
two
little
things...
Self: Pinhole camera?
Hirst: Yeah, exactly.
When
I
attempt
to outline
towards
a
more
Yobbish
is
visceral. There's
and
I
like
some kind
of epistemological development in his work,
"visceral" approach, Hirst says,
an idea of
"I
reality that
think I'm basically getting more yobbish.
you get from working with
real
animals
.
.
formaldehyde."
126 .,
DAMIEN HIRST
And we go on
to discuss the technicalities of
suspending animal carcasses
what the solution comprises, how he finds out about Hirst tells me:
what
ridiculous
"It's
do.
I
I
can't believe in
- but
it
might reasonably stand as the motto of any serious contemporary
misunderstands
upon the
poised this
is
own suspension
queasiness as his own. This
the role of the artist for his
own
critic,
critic
have
What
is
And
to."
this
the critic
be continually
to
"Whatever he
attempts to appropriate
think they
furthermore, wishes to appropriate
content
as well.
be deceived by the ironic
a mistake to
It's
because the
is
The
of disbelief.
I
artist.
that the imaginative condition of an artist like Hirst
fact of his
formaldehyde:
in
and so on.
properties,
its
hall of mirrors that Hirst's
work seems
much
Hirst.
While
true that Hirst
it's
sculpting in social attitudes as he
attitudes
is
Myshkin-like in
its
-
like
Warhol —
is
in physical materials, his
is
an
who
artist
approach
is
in
is,
I
see
him
that we can't.
to
Something
present; to be distracted, like the waiters in the kitchen at the Serpentine Gallery, by the
"phenomenon" of
BY WILL SELF
unknowably,
as
irrevocably british:
to those
formed
lack of guile.
in
the
primordial Hirst: Id love to be a painter.
love those stories about
I
Bacon going
into a gallery
one of his paintings was being sold for £50,000 ($70,000), and buying But you can't really do that with a shark,
it
would take
a
whole gang of
it
and
men
where
just trashing
interstices it.
with
between
Johnny Rotten's
ground-down
sledgehammers.
teeth; steeped in Self: That's
why
I
brought up that
Mach
man who immolated
thing (the
burn a sculpture by David Mach). Because what would you feel
like if
himself trying to
somebody came
Thatcher and
in
Catholicism; and destroyed the workr Surely,
it is
part of a coherent vision
and you would
feel as if
hammered on the someone had hacked
off
your arm?
anvil of England's
"It's
can't believe
i
Hirst:
I
don't really mind, because
object can look after
what
ridiculous
itself. It will
I
it
- but
think the idea
probably
last
is
i
dreaming and lost
do. have to." i
more important than the
object.
EMPIRE."
—Jeny Saltz
The
long after I'm dead. I'm more frightened of
being stabbed myself. You can always get another shark. In the course of our conversation Hirst describes
Warholian: working with assistants
who
many techniques
are inadvertently
that are explicitly
"pre-programmed
';
attempting to
generate "randomicity" in the spot paintings; the idea of a machine for producing "great art works." But while
it
may be
wholly independently
- they
too
much
to
assume
are, after all, very
doubt that his formulation of them
is
that he has
much
stumbled upon these concepts
part of the air
we
breathe
arrived at with a certain freshness. Hirst
— is
there's
no
a naive
rather than a sentimental artist in Schiller's formulation.
The comments
that Hirst
makes
that are
most interesting disavow
his refusal to articulate a
127
WRITERS ON ARTISTS
coherent vision. that
what
collage
.
.
Of
people he remarks: "They just want to
fat
really interests
d'you
.
know what
basically the same.
when you make
a
You would come
collage,
It's
work
liquid
We
brings the)..
"the visual
and
the mental into
- you
described
- two
perfect balance."
it
don't really
to
thus: "Just
is its
that's
.
doing
As an
decide whether
would be
and
it
need the shark
it
"I
my own work and
artist
like
it's all
the group thing
is
you have these constrictions, floor.
.
.
Well,
I
a perfect sphere in the center of a room.
would
just be there.
.
I
.
love the refractions of
huge volume of
just love the reflections in the
I
think
goes on the wall or the
it
at all."
new
He
work, entitled Couple Fucking Dead Twice.
two tanks, with no formaldehyde in the other
up more space." He opines
purely formal properties:
why
in space.
With the shark
to discuss Hirst's
one tank, two
in
.
shapes
and walk around
in
went on
.
of a perfect art piece
light in the liquid pieces.
(Hirst, in his best
mean
I
work you have
My idea
hate that.
him about space
fill
them, and there are four cows
in
-just stood upright, and the other one goes on
its
u
And
they'll just rot. By the end there'll just be a mess of putrid flesh and bones."
— Roberta Smith
back, giving
it
a really tragic, slow fuck. They're
By the end
just rot.
there'll just
both cows, so
it
And
doesn't matter.
be a mess of putrid flesh and bones.
I
just
want
they'll
to find
out about rotting." There's an eloquence in this description that underscores his
importance of the inspiration for him.
He
agrees readily enough
the impetus for the creation of such works
imagination in the his
own work
He
is
first
place.
But
this
far
more interested — both
Groucho -
later drinking at the
more,
serial killers or flab?;"
these niggling and
appearance and
trite
queries
reality that is
platonic forms of his sharks, don't
want
to
art-critical speculation,
a very ordinary
they've
128
...
him
that
he can be driven toward intellectualising
lying
on the law outside the Serpentine
in putting to
me
it
Gallery,
is
a
would hazard
I
dim
a guess that the
and
"Which do you hate
teasing choices:
need
reflection of the very real battle
to
who
throw up
between
always going on outside the cave of Hirst's mind, as the
cows and lambs, are carried by
in the flickering firelight.
subside into the kind of waterbed of rhetoric that supports most
any more than
I
want
my
prose to
become
accumulation of material objects ("They do
been doing
see a thing
suggest to
"Are you an optimist or a pessimist?;" "Are you someone
sees the glass half-empty or half-full?"
I
I
the fact of their having arisen in the
as far as
is
when
the
or defining an aesthetic.
much
But
is
comments about
for years... There's
it
all
a fancier description of
the fucking time...
nothing more boring. They
blah, blah, blah, just fucking describe
it.")
William
say:
You go
Empson
in,
you
described the
DAMIEN HIRST
BY WILL SELF
introductory copy that prefaces exhibition catalogs as: "A steady iron-hard jet of absolutely total nonsense."
The this.
"Some Went Mad, Some Ran Away"
catalog copy for
"An urge
to bring order to
random
flux of experience
history."
What
all
exemplar of
Richard Shone's essay kicks off with a statement of mind-bogglingly discursive
universality:
to
a perfect
is
are
we
— has
to gather
chaos - the search for meaning
existed as a fundamental
from
this?
That
I
just as
all
is
an
art
conundrums
bracket and contextualize the fundamental
space and
this
human
all
seemingly
motivation throughout
show
of
in the
that
somehow manages
human
experiences, for
time?
think not. Rather, this kind of bombast
is
an aspect of what
I
have alluded
to above,
Wittgenstein memorably remarked on the impossibility of a meaningful musical
criticism,
on the basis that
it
was
otiose to
describe one language in terms of another,
completely alien language. So the excesses of
contemporary define
and
fix
attempting to
art critics in
the
work of
artists
such as
wrong-headed and
Hirst, reflects a
truly
pretentious attempt by manipulators of
language to reduce formaldehyde, flesh and bone, to
some chintzy philosophic
we have seen
In literarv criticism
phenomenon attempt by
the
of Deconstructionism
critics to hijack the
and
this
is
— an
mantle of the
own scrawny
metaphysician for their shoulders;
abstraction.
what we are witnessing
here as well.
Shone goes on
to characterize Hirst as
"riding freely through the grasslands of art,
finding nutrition in the I
hope only one
company
of his kind."
thing, that that "kind"
continues to be artists as interested in the physicality of art as Hirst
the pallid poetasters of tangible
own
who
is
himself,
and not
see his enactments
chutzpah as a springboard
for their
aesthetic ambitions.
Empson's phrase Hirst's art
is
because Hirst
so correct in terms of is
creating "steady
iron-hard jets," not uttering them.
129
WRITERS ON ARTISTS
Cy Twombly by Phillip Hensher
APIECE OF CANVAS, SOME TEN FEET BY SIXTEEN. Over bare canvas, canvas,
some
circles,
looking for
An
scribbles. all
illegible
the world as
or a thin
wash on
word, perhaps in a scrawling hand; some if
someone has taken
fistfuls
of paint and
Cy Twombly The
ground them into the canvas; great smears of red and pink and brown paint, poised
abstract painter
Cx Twombly was
born in
Lexington, Virginia, in 1928.
From 1947
1951 he
to
empty space which might be random,
a joke.
canvas, hanging on the wall.
sky, or earth, or just
might be unfinished - though what painter
It
It
in the
might be
starts a painting like this?
-
studied at the Boston
Museum
School, at
or unstarted.
It's
called Tlie
Triumph of Galatea.
Washington and Lee
and at League in
University in Virginia, the Art Students
New York. He
also studied
I
has
am
left
some time
writing this
Berlin
after the
New York. The
and
great canvases have left the
with Abstract Expressionist painters at Black
Mountain
College in North Carolina,
noted for
for a
matter of months, they seemed to
protectively against
ills
involvement
its
in the avant-garde.
memorialize
Twombly's innovative,
in their
their solicitous
and
enormous retrospective of Cy Twombly's work
endow with new windows, new
injuries, the accidents
own happy
basement
and
in Berlin
light.
which,
Wrapped
disasters of their careless world they
accidents of paint, they have already journeyed back to
and well-insured owners. The radiant Empire of Flora
is
back on the
walls,
non-objective style of
painting and drawing
developed during the
when he employed
squiggles,
calligraphic lines, words,
numbers —
unique
a
I
suppose, of Dr. Erich Marx; the three canvases of Hero and Leander are conferring their
'50s,
and
style
sometimes described
as
beauty once again on the unimaginable drawing room of their anonymous private owner,
whose luck has nothing
to
do with
Neue
hanging on the walls of the
his
undoubted wealth.
I
do not know what
Staatsgalerie in their place;
I
is
now
do not care to imagine
it.
"handwriting" or "doodle art."
His work conveys the sense of the epic with its references to literature
Twombly
and mythology.
traveled the world,
North Africa with fellow-artist and friend
But or
in writing
remembered,
I
about an exhibition which can no longer be
am
visited,
but only imagined,
not altogether indulging in critical perversity. Rather, there
appropriateness in writing about these canvases in retrospect, and
is
a strange
recommending them only
visiting
Robert Rauschenberg.
He
lived there for a time, as well
as in
Spain and
Italy,
where
Their subject
to the imagination.
memory and
is
imagination
has gone by taking on the appearance of ruins, of the
on the monuments of men.
graffiti
itself;
they memorialize what
and wreckage which time, about them only
unintending,
visits
when,
normal purposes, they have disappeared, once more, from the view of
It's
right, then, to talk
he finally settled in 1957.
for all
Twombly's work has been exhibited internationally.
He
retrospectives,
among them,
Whitney Museum of American Art in 1979, and at at the
the in
everyone, and describe Twombly's work, not in a
Museum 1
of Modern Art
994. His work
is
which could never
reflect their spirit,
but in a
mood
Cy Twombly was born institutions of
in
memory and
of
1928
Washington and Lee
in Virginia.
University,
reflection.
His
home town was dominated by two
where
his father
was an
athletics coach,
in
public collections worldwide.
and the Virginia Military
Institute.
We may guess
duty played some considerable part
30
spirit of anticipation
has had several major
that the ancient virtues of
in his upbringing;
we may
honor and
care to speculate,
still
CY TWOMBLY
more
wildly,
Some time
on the part these values play
in the 1940s,
and Sheldon Cheney's
A
Twombly came
into contact with Jean Cassou's
artist in Virginia. Pierre
with enthusiasm for the modernist path.
make assemblages;
relocation to
Rauschenberg, and
new
A
forming his stern and sybaritic masterpieces.
in
Primer of Modern Art; the Sears Roebuck
bv lessons from a Spanish
New
An
book on Picasso,
art kits
Daura. The young
were replaced
Twombly was
fired
admiration for Kurt Schwitters drove him to
York brought him the friendship of Robert
horizons.
period at the Black Mountain College in 1951 marked the end of Twombly's years
and the
Dubuffet and of the
art of
energy which quickly
first
recognizable Twomblys. Painted under the influence of
American Indians, these canvases had a
made Twombly's
reputation. In 1952. he and
ferocity
7
Hensher
Phillip
Hensher of apprenticeship,
BY PHILLIP HENSHER
1965.
in
born in London
iras
He was
educated at
Oxford and then
and instant
at
Cambridge, where he wrote
PhD
his
Rauschenberg traveled
dissertation
on
eighteenth centun painting
to
Europe and
to
North Africa; there
and handsome, facing a monumental
is
a
photograph of the 24-year-old Twombly gaunt
Roman
skxwards. In North Africa he admired the
and
satire.
From 1990
to
199b he was a House of
hand,
Roman
its
forefinger pointing heroically
remains, and the geometrical
Commons
clerk.
art of Hit books include the novels
simple tombstones.
A joint
exhibition of works with
Rauschenberg
in
Florence - "tufted
Other Lulus (1994), Kitchen
hanging pieces' the
Arno
at the
— drew from
their
end of the show.
experiences; the pieces
seem
to
have been
dumped
in
Maugham
In 1953. the two artists held a major exhibition at
1998
Eleanor Ward's Stable Gallery in
New York,
and
(1996),
after a long-deferred stint of military
award. Pleasured
and
a collection of
short stories.
The Bedroom
I
7
Venom
which won the Somerset
',
of the Mister's
He
Wife (1999).
also wrote a libretto to
Thomas Ades 1995 opera, Powder Her Face, which has been performed around the world, recorded b\
and filmed by Television.
He
EMI,
BBC
is
also a
regular contributor to
The
The
Spectator,
Independent, and other British newspapers.
Hensher
was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in
1999, mid serves on the
Council of the
society.
He
is
the youngest writer to be
included in A.S.Byatt's
Oxford Book of the English Short Story and
in
Margaret
Drabble's Oxford
Companion
to English
Literature.
The Geeks, 1955,
oil-based house
paint, colored pencil, lead pencil
and 43
\
pastel
on canvas,
50 in/ 108x 127cm.
Daws
Collection.
31
WRITERS ON ARTISTS
I
>^
/P r
*
/
—
Ferragosto
III,
1961,
oil paint,
;-
wax
and lead pencil on canvas, 65 x 79 in/165 x 200 cm.
service,
and
a job
teaching in Virginia,
Twdmbly
left
America
for good.
Since 1957, he has
crayon,
Daws
lived
more
or less permanently in
praise
which
rightly
That's one
way
biographies, and
and
New York
putting
it.
This life.
painting, exhibiting,
and accepting the honours and
his way.
of putting
Twombly,
—
it
one biography. But
we may
retrospective,
and
it;
when we walk around
his
work
may seem an
of the artist like
come
Cy Twombly was
or anything;
132
Italy,
Collection
is
a single life
the results of one man's work, as in the Berlin
feel that there
another. This
is
what
might seem,
Jackson Pollock, who,
is
another way of
born; he began to paint; he learned nothing from anyone, it is.
unlikely account of a painter's
a particular
can have many
is
a painter
romantic idea. like
who makes It
life,
and especially of
this painter's
a definite appeal to a particular idea
may be tempting
to
compare him
Twombly, makes an apparently almost
to a painter
irresistible
appeal to
CY TWOMBLY
Looking
the viewer's interest in the artist. into a
contemplation of the artists maneuvres
follow a series of actions;
because
we
the painting
see, or
we understand, we
can guess
in
we
are drawn,
placing paint on canvas.
how
feel,
it
We
seems, apparently
the paintings were put together,
the order of brush-strokes; and having understood
at,
was physically produced, we are
In other words,
itself.
these paintings,
at
led,
we
BY PHILLIP HENSHER
how
"Twombly, unlike
many of the
suppose, to understand the painting
because the physical act of painting
is
explicit, the
viewer
is
Young Turks
led to
suppose that the metaphysical acts and decisions which precede and follow the
who
movement
for their old
of the brush
must
also
be
explicit.
In a 1961 untitled painting, for instance, the texture
is
so painterly that
one can quite
reconstruct the steps which led up to the final canvas. In an encrusted scrub of
literally
excremental brown in the bottom
right, or a burst of
purple in something approaching a
It
master,
knows
how to
express
dispassion with a
heart shape in the center, placed with casual intensity over an intermediate cloud of tainted pale paint, the viewer imaginarily places himself in the position of the artist.
little painterly
can be seen
that, at
the top of this beautiful painting, in executing one of his favorite motifs of this
period,
two red adjacent
take him
PASSION." —Jed
brush - or perhaps
because
I
it
said this
fist
circles,
- and the second, on
can be seen how,
appealed
Twombly painted
to a
tempting
it is
the one on the
left
Perl
with a fully loaded
the right with a meager scraping of paint; and
assume
to
romantic idea of the
artist.
that
we can understand why.
These canvases inevitably lead us back
Left to right: Three Studies from
the Temeraire, 1998-99,
to the artist himself,
and ask us
to
contemplate not just
his brushstrokes,
but his heroic
left:
endeavors. But in few painters action
is
there such a gulf between the explicitness of the physical
and the hermeneutic mystery of the
final
work.
The sense
can understand such painting, because he can understand more, and he will be
left
comment on Twombly -
contemplating the gap "I
could do that" -
is
in his
how
it
is
made. But
is
that he
a
moment
on
100 x 80 in/253 x 202 cm, 103 x 80 in/261 x 202 cm,
center: right:
of the viewer
oil
canvas,
102 x 11 in/260 x 195 cm.
With permission
oj the Artist.
understanding. Here the philistine
not altogether absurd; the philistine might
133
— WRITERS ON ARTISTS
He
very well be able to put together a Twombly-like canvas. not, however,
understand
it
once made.
The unanswerable question to
"but what does
Twombly's greatness, and when
suffers as a
could
mean?"
it
can be answered,
it
consequence. Hero and Leander (1981
I
is
\)
is
central
think the art a cycle of
three canvases (or perhaps four: in Berlin a scrap of paper was
appended on which Twombly's inimitable hand had scrawled the wp
lines He's gone:
exceptionally beautiful work. In the
Leander drowns — and the single
amorous
in bubbles/All his
first
breath).
canvas,
polychrome wave,
a great
It is
an
we may assume, and
like a shout,
word "Leandro." The two remaining canvases
plot the
after-events of the drowning. In the middle, the savage greens are
muted; scrapings and drips are in the
aftermath of
In the third canvas, the its
calm course.
I
small ripples and collapses
black monolithic streak
a catastrophe; a
bottom of the canvas casts
if.
like the
the
at
pall over other, smaller events here.
its
drowning
is
done, and the world resumes
cannot think of many more perfectly beautiful
paintings than this third one;
it
has something of the quality of
Turner's Petworth landscapes. Both the scale of the brushstrokes
~^^fejj^^ -
»
lg ni^&.
Huh**
and the spectrum are severely
limited; but there
evenness and serenity about
which transcends the self-imposed
it
is
a ravishing
limitations of the means,, the technique.
But, beautiful as
it is,
there
is
something
slightly unsatisfactory
about the Hero and Leander cycle; one knows a its
meaning. The strength of
elements.
Why
is
it,
again, lies in
its
the painting a triptych; what
separate panels? Are
we
little
too
much
inexplicable lies
between the
looking at sea, or sky, or neither, in the last
panel? These, and the inexplicable beauty of the almost blank canvas, are the mysteries which
and Leander, Above, top to bottom:
Hero and Leander oil paint, oil oil
paint |
(Part
It's 1),
a typical
Twombly paradox
I
think, detracts
make
from
it
its
value.
that the least eventful of his paintings
is
also the
most
7984,
based house paint,
explicit in its
meaning. Most other paintings of his are almost over-emphatic
in their
paint sticki on canvas,
imagery. Characteristic shapes recur from painting to painting.
Hero and Leander
onward, the tumble of imagery
oil paint, oil
paint
last
profound; the story of Hero
66 x 79 in/168x200cm.
oil
about
(Part 2), 1984,
is
From
the late 1950s
frequently punctuated by rough suggestions of
based house paint,
paint sticki on canvas,
architecture
- most frequently windows,
as at the top of
Leda and the Swan (1962). In
61 x 81 in/ 156 x 205 cm.
Hero and Leander oil paint, oil
(Part 3), 1984,
based house paint on
canvas, 62 x 81 in/156 x
205 cm.
All courtes) Gagosian Gallery.
34
The School of Athens (1961) the architectural imagery turns related works from 1969, the
windows
to arches; in a
group of
simplify into concatenations of boxes. Heart
shapes are almost obsessively regular over a very long period; a radiantly playful,
—
CY TWOMBLY BY
PHILLIP
HENSHER
enormous, untitled canvas from 1968 has a flock of them, inscribed one on top of another,
Swan
and
are
striking
is
becoming canvas.
all
floating over a subtly
much more
aggressive,
all
modulated gray ground. The hearts
pointing in the
the Olympia of 1968, where the
word
same
MORTE
direction,
seems
in
Leda and the
and inwards. Most
to struggle
towards
a heart; a struggle fulfilled in the distorted heart in red at the top right of the
These heart shapes are related
to the sexual
iconography which, as has often
been noted, recurs throughout the work, and to the other symbol of fecundity, flowers.
Leda and the Swan, i960, oil,
Flowers are the theme of the marvelous Kingdom of Flora, but more recently,
Twombly
crayon, pencil on canvas,
76x80
in/ 194x
203 cm.
Courtesy Gagosian Gallery,
has returned to
them
in
such paintings as
Summer Madness.
New
York.
135
WRITERS ON ARTISTS
Untitled, 1967, oil-based house
These recurrent icons have
and wax crayon on canvas, 60 x 68 in/1 52 x 1 73 cm.
a painting with a clear
and
clear
often, specific meanings.
But they only rarely endow
paint
Daws
and
meaning. Leda and the Swan
single
is filled
with sexual images,
Collection.
but
its
apparently direct meaning
possible meanings.
comedy
The window
is
enriched, and,
at the top,
I
think, veiled,
by a wealth of other
and the surprisingly Loony Tunes anarchic
of the great explosion of feathers are finely ambiguous.
One might
absence, the uncovered blank at the top left-hand corner of the canvas,
motif
in paintings of this period, in this particular position;
just as with the hearts, penises still is
the inscription of the
of the painting.
heart of his mystery.
J6
just as
is
much
one can note recurrence of
a this,
and windows, but not ascribe meaning. More ambiguous
title
And when we
note that the
-
or rather, the
way
look at the writing in
the
title is
inscribed
Twombly we
are led,
I
at
the bottom
think, to the very
CY TWOMBLY BY
There are few paintings
Twombly's work without any writing
in
in
The
title
- Leda +
the
SWAN
has been written
hand corner of the painting, before two quick scrawls have nearly
right
two words. Obliteration there
is
the
word
MORTE
of death's opposite, love.
at
is
the lower
obliterate- the last
always intimately connected with writing in Twombly; again,
is
in
Olympia, beginning
Another canvas,
its
transformation into a pre-verbal symbol
TJie Italians (1961) neatly includes
box, and, ringed repeatedly, the rest of the canvas
its title
in a
imagery from which
a riot of irrational
is
more
baffling.
increasingly writing
i
'
]
is
at the rational
The
end of the writing
from the 1960s, are a
now comes
rectangles, grids, triangle,
of architects,
on the teasing edge of
and
form of elemental
in the
and especially
circles,
paintings...
"suggest a primordial,
which crop up
N,
V,
in the
H
U,
such as crosses,
signs,
and
X
marks,
emergent elements of
up by countless
generations
on the walls OF THE
Mediterranean."
alone or in words, appear
I,
mumbling, built
—Martin Gayford
legibility.
the teasing edge of legibility; but falling off that edge, rather than clinging on.
Twombly's apparent concern with writing his paintings,
is
really a
monument - do
the subject of obliteration
One
itself.
They
with white on black.
for the obliteration of writing.
obliteration
not do so lightly
the Olympia, the
but in order to explore
quite large group of Twombly's paintings
communicating with
and smears which come before
is
his class; they are the loops
writing, or after.
A number
returned, at low or difficult points in his career, to these paintings.
manner which he painted
,
—
painted
resemble the marks of chalk on a blackboard, but they
strikingly
are not the writing of a teacher
struck lines
concern
which use so recurrently the images of
ancient and illegible graffiti on a
this
much
are
which bears no meaning. Frequently,
sort of writing
written language. Letters, notably, A, E, K,
And
Twombly; other messages
thoroughly obliterated. As Kirk Varnedoe remarks of the paintings of 1955, the
residual figuration
On
in
somewhat resembling the marks
figures,
Twombly's
libidinous
an individual letter occasionally struggles.
These are
HENSHER
them, or which do not
draw on the image of writing, without themselves including writing. Leda and the Swan perhaps the clearest instance.
PHILLIP
at the
end of the 1960s and
early
of times,
and
Twombly
The masterpieces
1970s
are, to
in
borrow a
phrase from Barthes, the degree zero of his paintings, which wipe out meaning like a
classroom duster, which obliterate writing so thoroughly while evoking
and overwhelmingly, they are called If
in
one were
to look for
What
Western painting.
countries, are painted
pilgrimage to Mecca.
used in the journey
is
it:
an analogy
in
could be called,
Untitled. for
Twombly's works,
they often resemble
is
I
don't think
it
could be found
the huge illustrations which, in Islamic
on the facades of the houses of those who have carried out the
With
little
obvious attempt
at
composition, the means of transport
itemised and represented in individual icons. Like these, Twombly's
works represent the steps on his journey in small, iconic form; true, the
it,
like
them, they represent the
metaphysical journey undertaken only by the brave inadequacy of their form, and
Twombly,
their sceptical, heroic rejection of their
own means.
137
\\
Rl
1
I
ON
RS
\KI ISTS
Paul Cezanne by Patrick Heron
MOST PROFOUND EXPERIENCES OF WHICH WE ARE CAPABLE
THE
consciousness a precise oVe, time, and place. the
summer
- and then only
of 1962
The evolution of Cubism was largeh due to Cezanne, one of the most important oj
modem Born
to a
.\ix
all
painters.
hoped was the direction of the sacred mountain.
We
we swung round
it
.
.
and there
the sublime version at the Courtauld.
I
were already outside the town when
was, even more to the
and already framed by the boughs of three pines, exactly
a slight valley
prosperous Jamih in
a corner to the left.
never visited Aix-en-Provence until
I
an hour, heading the family car in what
for
Pall Cezanne
invariably burn into our
Not pine needles,
left, at
the top of
Cezanne saw
as
it
in
or bark-encrusted bending boughs,
en Provence in 1839,
Cezanne secure
but separated, single,
led a financially
life.
square-tipped brushstrokes
dry,
it
was
that
hung
in the air before one's
As a student, he
formed a friendship with Zola that was to be his creative impetus. He studied at the Aix School of Design, at the same time satisfying his father b\ studying law. In 1861 his
eyes. In rhythmic ranks, vibrating gently in all directions, they
color
which miraculously
formed
solidified there in front of one, in the so-recognizable opalescent
atmosphere surrounding the mountain over there! Rose, ocher, already saw the paint
strata of separated
embedded
violet,
and
cobalt...
one
in the air!
father consented for him to join Zola in Paris to enroll at
had slammed on the car brakes
I
as
we rounded
bend
that
sudden
into the
full
view of
the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, but
was
his application
rejected.
Discouraged, he returned
Aix
work
to
at his father's
banking firm. Unhapp) he went again Pissarro,
1874 Impressionist
the pine needles.
met
at the
and
at the
from
this spot
for so long.
We'd even skidded,
slightly, into
later,
wandering
a
few
feet
above the road,
I
was confronted by
marker which
- unnecessary
said, very simply, that
Cezanne had painted the mountain
as information; but excellently reverential as a salute.
How
"DO NOT
BE AN. ART CRITIC, BUT PAINT, THEREIN LIES SALVATION."
the flatness of
Cezanne
and
same time,
spatialit)
a crucial
development of
step in the
had known
exhibition.
the picture plane.
created flatness
A moment
a new-ish limestone
Impressionism emphasized an immediate confrontation with the world,
I
there,
1
to Paris,
and exhibited
Cezanne subject
the breathtaking
to
abstract art. After the dealer
Ambroise Yollard exhibited
his
good
it
would be
if
Aix would
now remove
years to the very crest of this most
the gigantic cross mistakenly added in recent
famous of
all
mountains
in the history of painting.
paintings, public interest in
Cezanne's work began. The Salon d'Automne of 1904 devoted an entire exhibition
room
I
looks
Pans,
like.
Each
generation recreates what
artistic
it
is
to dictate to us
what the world
believes to be the natural appearances
to his entries.
of
Never
have always claimed that painting's prime function
the world, sometimes radically, sometimes only slightly, but nonetheless decisively.
A
entire!) comfortable in
Cezanne
returned
to
Aix
periodically to
isolation in nature
work
in
ill.
is
mandatory
everything and anything
In the fall
of 1906, he was overtaken b\ a storm while out painting.
became
given version
and died
we have
learned,
external
reality.
more
The
is
at a
given time.
largely a
What we
complex,
a
imagine
weave of
to
be the "objective" look of
textures, forms,
or less unconsciously, from painting,
and
colors
which
and have superimposed upon
actual "objective" appearance of things (of anything
and everything)
is
m«
PAUL CEZANNE BY PATRICK HERON
something that does not
-
exist
or rather,
it
exists as data that
complexity and subtlety, in the variety and multiplicity of floods in
upon the
retina
from the outside world
which the human eye learns
is
It is
exists. It is
configurations.
What
assuredly
some
sort or other. Historically,
it is
painting that persuades the eyes of a generation to see
swarms of ragged dots of disparate color overlying the none
literally infinite in its
an amorphous cloud of visual stimuli into
to inject a favored order of
painting that supplies that order.
its
is
where
entire scene, indoors or out,
painting that persuades another generation, elsewhere, that every solid
object inhabiting the visual scene, in
which we move, must have a black outline around
it.
One is
painting, yet again, that licensed certain generations to believe that the entire landscape
Heron
Patrick
It
of the most prominent
War
of Britain's post-World
of the
St. Ives
II
and a leader
abstract painters
community' of
painters until his death in
1999, Patrick Heron also revealed his talent as an art critic.
He
wrote essays
arguing against the need for
pure abstraction in modern art in his writings for
New
Statesman and The Nation,
among 1947
critic
From
other journals.
1950. he was the art
to
for
During
New
Statesman.
Heron's
this period,
luminous
still lifes
interior scenes
and
show
the
influence of Matisse and, later,
of the Abstract
Expressionists.
He was an
innovator of the concept of denial of the picture plane,
emphasizing the flatness of the surface by
means of
simple shapes and floating
work he
color. In his later
used horizontal bands of intermingling color that
hare reference
still
to the
traditional landscape.
Simple
forms dense with color appeared, and his color
consisted of various browns. solid objects,
It is
whether near or
far,
continuum of colored mists. Yet
painting that cajoled the eyes of yet another age to see in
all
terms of nothing more formally definite than
all
became
richer
and
more organic.
a
these configurations nevertheless have been extracted
out of the infinity of possibilities which comprise the visual scene.
So when Cezanne resolved visual strata of
seen.
fragmented brushstrokes lying
realities into
parallel to
countless groups of delectably ordered
one another he was magnifying something
But the stacks and shelves and clusters of square-ended
parallel brushstrokes are not
an invented arbitrary abstraction: they are the intuitive magnification of fragmented stratifications
world.
which
And no one
his
remarkable eye saw hinted
at absolutely
everywhere
in the visible
moment
left:
1879-82,
mistakes their origin and function. Seven short square-ended parallel
brushstrokes stacked by a rapidly moving brush, side by side, do not for a
Above
allude to
29x36
Rocks
oil
in/73
at L'Estaque,
on canvas,
x91 cm.
Museo de Arte de Sao
Paolo, Brazil.
Chateaubriand Collection.
139
WRIRR.n ON MIT1S
1
S
several separable objects, lying next to
Cezanne,
texture, in st. ic
is
each other,
for instance.
No: the ubiquitous surface
almost always comprised of these clusters of quickly stated, dense
kings of separate brushstrokes; each group of strokes often largely consisting of one
color.
These
strokes, these clusters, are not so
much
descriptive of the colors
of the forms they evoke as of the spatial position those forms
occupy
and textures
in the subject.
The
separate brushstrokes forming these
came
clusters thus
into existence as a
space-creating plastic device, and one of
immense
They
originality
and power.
are frequently totally at variance
in color
and
in texture
with the color
and texture of the actual surfaces of the natural forms they describe It is
and evoke.
as space-creators that the uniquely
Cezannian hatchstrokes are so
immensely powerful: so powerful,
capacity to carve their
fact, in their
way
in
into the illusionistic spaces of the
painting that they frequently
seem
to
exist purely as space-creating devices,
and almost,
as
I
have been saying, to
have relinquished the capacity to Mont
Sainte-Yictoire seen from
Bellevue.
1
882-85,
oil
unfailingly evoke with unbelievable certainty.
26 x 33 in/65 x 82 cm. Metropolitan York.
Museum
reveal specific colors or textures in the natural subject matter, which, nevertheless, they
on canvas, of Art,
New
The most profoundly
influential of
all
Cezanne's innovations has, of course, to do with
the relation of the surface of a canvas to the myriad illusionistic depths into which sections,
all
all
the
the brushstrokes, however minute or large, lead the eye. "Space in color": an
overwhelming sense of depth through surface color - depth of an apparently very precise and physical distance from the spectator's eye, back
sensed through and
to a resistant plane
behind the equally palpable, physical plane of the brushstrokes on the surface of the canvas.
depth,
It is
in
always a double sensation everywhere, a double awareness of two distances, in
every section of the painting: you
physically painted gestures
know the precise distance
know
the physical distance from your eye to the
on the surface of the canvas. But in illusionistic
at the
same
depth behind and through that
instant, flat
you equally
statement to
the forms which the painting evokes with such an overwhelming sensation of actuality.
There
is,
therefore, a spatial counterpoint in
certainty: in every
through to
140
a
second of your
eye's
Cezanne, and
encounter with
it
too
is
his surfaces
of a revolutionary
your perception sinks
thousand different stops and planes of a thousand different
sizes,
each plane a
PAUL CEZANNE BY PATRICK HERON
different brushstroke,
all
these planes and strokes creating a mosaic
stroke or plane tending, of course, to
lie
- and each and every
parallel to the surface of the canvas.
It is
one of the
profoundest sources of the overwhelming sense of visual harmony generated by Cezanne this sinking of the
space, each
eye through the surface-shape to the further stop deep in illusionistic
one of which
exists at a different distance
imagined a thread attached
would be of
to
a different length;
each and
and
ever)'
from the eye of the spectator.
a
a relationship
between
all
space
—
measurements
is
will ever paint
and these relationships to those planes
deep
like
immense sense
of
harmony generated
in
and measurements
into the surface,
any
measurements
no one
will ever have his
thus a counterpoint everywhere in a Cezanne canvas between
across the surface
Cezanne...
because
in
these relationships between the different depths of recession are
themselves a most potent source of the
Cezanne. There
"NO ONE
these differing lengths of
thousand measured depths, away from the surface,
illusionistic
one
plane leading back to your eye, every thread
thread, these "eye-beams" of different lengths, assuredly exists;
between
If
peculiar
visual gifts." in
—Marsden Hartley
depth, at right angles through that surface and into the illusionistic spaces of the painting.
But put
like that,
a hyper-intellectual
"But
As
I've
Eliot's
with some
mode
gotta use
Sweeny
difficulty, in words,
the impression
unamenable
to
possibly created of
of consciousness? Nothing could be further from the truth.
words when said.
And
I
talk to you."
the flavor of words
is
intensely anti-visual. Strictly
speaking, painting cannot be written about. Visual experience strictly
is
words of any kind.
.
.
But one can
hint,
is
purely visual; and
with luck, at the patently
real realities of the eye.
La Montagne Sainte-Victoire, 1 885-87, oil on canvas.
c.
26 x 36 in/67 x 92 cm. Courtauld Institute Galleries, London.
14i
WRIMR.s ON AR1 IMS
Gulf of Marseilles, seen from 90, oil on canvas,
llu' I
staque
I
12
40
\
An
in
-
v
SO x 101 cm.
Institute oj
Ch
"Cezanne, seeking
to
'revive
Poussin
contact with NATURE,'
TRANSFORMED
The Gulf of Marseille Seen from I'Estaque (c.1886) involving the sea of
movements
all
One
time.
of the brush
which
is
could stare
all
is
surely one of the greatest landscapes
day into that blue area of a hundred
the sea, feeling again and again the
of
tilt
its
great
LANDSCAPE INTO surface below one, feeling panoramic distance in a plane of blue
which nevertheless
rises
THE FULLY up
into one's face
-
as
do
all
areas in Cezanne. That "empty' blue of sea
is
an astonishing
PROXIMATE foil rising
CORPOREALITY OF factories
THE PIGMENTED
AND
SURFACE
FOUND THAT DESIRE
WITHOUT
OBSTACLES COULD EASILY BE
DEATH OF
—John
THE
below (below meaning
nearer!): the
and again form 45-degree angles, merge and emerald softness of the is
emptiness of the sea, which all
trees
between.
is
And
this
red,
consummately
which again into the olive
whole band of immaculate complexities
both "nearer" and "above" and "behind" and "beyond"...
simultaneously. In painting there
is
a relativity
about
all
spatial positions:
no
spatial
relationships are fixed into a single rigid reading.
Now
a
still life
houses, rocks, pines still lifes,
lifes
- The Blue - has
a
Vase (1889-90). If each object in a
are as tangibly definite
1 he subject ol
-
as defined spaces
and bind together
all
Cezanne landscape -
form as carved and definite and weighty as the objects
so equally, perhaps, one can feel that the spaces
instant separate
-
between
Cezanne's paintings
is
space.
all
And
in his
objects in his
as the open-air spaces
a tree, a gable-end, a rock, a
delimit and define the space between
142
wedges of ocher and pale
their sharpnesses so
and
roofs of houses
so wonderfully conceived as lying horizontally "beneath'' the great horizontal blue
DESIRE."
Elclerfielcl
up above the consummately stated sharp geometries of the
which
mountain
still
at the
same
in his landscapes.
those solids which, by their presence,
and surrounding them
all
- whether landscape
or
PAUL CEZANNE BY PATRICK HERON
still-life
objects
-
are not
more
solid,
not more tangible than these shaped aerial spaces
which separate them. The spaces between the
And
solid!
Cezanne's paintings are themselves
these spaces between things are as solid and as individually shaped as those
things themselves. This
Cezanne
solids in
is
is
the source of the unprecedented unity of design of which
the discoverer and great exponent.
alloverness, of the
It is
the source of the overwhelming sense of
unprecedented aw areness of the picture
surface, of the altogether
new
evenness of emphasis, of the extraordinarily original equality of parts throughout their design
which features from one end of
his canvases to the other without a break.
a paradox: the formal equality of
all
And
here again
is
parts, the equality of spatial compositional pressure
throughout his paintings, which has infected and dominated almost every single major painter
coming
after
him, this allover-ness and evenness of emphasis did not in any way
preclude his discovery of a whole range of utterly novel compositional arrangements. For instance, the compositional geometry of
Hie Blue Vase could serve Braque or Picasso; even
The Blue
Vase,
canvas, 24 x
as late as
Ben Nicholson, the wonderful asymmetric geometry
learning verticals
not passed
its
and horizontals had
"sell-by date."
on the left-hand edge; the
The
two
parallel horizontal
at
Muse'e d'Orsay,
oil
on
x 50 cm.
Paris.
still
half-bottle
shape which
a
tall
cubist L; the
bands which cross
the very bottom of the canvas, running off
completely
distribution of rigid
889-90,
in/61
hand edge two-thirds
way down, making
of the
its
1
slightly leaning
vertical of the pale rigid upright
turns off into the right
of
20
it
both sides, but with their
right-hand ends slightly higher than their left-hand ones, so that the darker ocher
band
is
slightly wedge-like; the
two halves
of the whitish-blue plate, emerging
on either
from behind the blue vase not quite
side
matching
in their position, right
and
left,
as
they pass behind the vase, thus perfectly
preceding the famous Cubist device which fractured so
way. life
.
.
many
circular forms in just this
in all these instances this great
still
was the forerunner, by decades, of so
many
of the sensations at the heart of the
Cubist movement.
But The Blue Vase also shows Cezanne developing a further great discovery, and one
143
\\
Rl
fERS
ON
ARTISTS
which has influenced
One
could
call
it
his greatest successors.
all
the development of a multi-
directional perspective,
and the abandonment of
that single perspective
which had reigned from
the Renaissance.
developed from a purely
It
instinctive experience of the searching eye
endlessly contemplating natural appearances:
was no
there
theory.
But the
sort of intense
visual contemplation of the scene, indoors
which allowed
out,
be influenced equally
itself to
by everything that displayed
— never
field
limiting
itself in
the visual
interest to a single
its
dominating form on a neutral ground,
—
this
new
and
for instance
wide ranging gaze was capable of savoring
sensation of
abandonment,
reality. It
as
have
I
a
resulted in the final
said, of that
boring
Renaissance perspective system which drew
all
receding lines towards a single "vanishing point"
on the horizon. Instead, the moving eyes projected
own
their
when,
so that
the
left
own
vanishing points wherever they focused; for instance,
of this blue vase,
perspectival system;
between objects which
21
the avenues It is
as
if
it
is
your eye dives off
it
to
projects or creates
its
own
little
its
avenue
slightly at variance
with
finds to the right of the blue vase.
the eye of the spectator itself projects
separate avenues leading to separate vanishing points wherever
the Top:
The Maison Maria, 7895,
on canvas, 26 x 32 in/ 65 x 81 cm. Kimbell Art Museum,
composition.
And
left
one of the by-products of
it is
it
and
focuses, to the right
and above and below
this roving eye,
all
to
the objects in a
which projects so many
oil
variants of a perspectival system into various parts of a
Cezanne
painting, that
upends
it
Fort Worth, Texas.
\bo\e:
House
in
Near Gardanne,
planes everywhere into positions which are more approximately parallel to the picture-
Provence, /
886-90,
oil
on
These multiple planes, which face the spectator
surface.
frontally
canvas, 26 x 32 in/65 x 81 cm.
Henry and Rose Pearl man
were the
brilliantly
novel
means
for generating
and
entirely
new
everywhere in Cezanne,
pictorial
space
-
Foundation, Inc.
Cezannian space! And, a
much
in passing,
one should note
Still Life:
Flowers in a Vase (1885-88),
starker forerunner not only of the Cubists but the Constructivists too,
similar blue vase holds a nest of extremely
complex flower-forms,
the left-hand center of the painting. But apart from these very
in a
where a very
concentrated area, in
complex flowers, the painting
144
Ik
PAUL CEZANNE BY PATRICK HERON
consists solely of three wonderfully
and half a
large bare tabletop.
The
empty
flat
areas representing two sections of a wall
straight edges of the visible corner of the
met
tabletop are extremely sharp, and are
at right
empty
angles by an equally sharp vertical of
the wall. That such razor-sharp geometry as the edges of this table and that wall could
have emerged is
a
at a
time
when
the world was
in love
still
with Monet's soft clouds of color
"Will anyone ever
measure of Cezanne's amazingly advanced audacity - an audacity which Monet
appear again
nonetheless himself revered.
with so peculiar
Another great landscape painting, Houses
my youth
(1879-82). In
I
in
Provence - The Rianx Valley near I'Estaque
pored over a very bad black and white reproduction of
painting in Roger Fry's great pioneering book on Cezanne.
I
first
and almost
this
saw the painting
itself,
unbelievable a 45
faculty for years
later, at
the National Gallery of Art in Washington;
I
remember
a
shock of surprise -
dividing surprise at
its
color, at
surfaces, a paleness
many
of those
I
what struck
me
as
ridges in terms of
which
in
any other of
-
everything, that
is,
and
making logical all
the features of the
his landscapes, this entire painting
realized in terms of those parallel ridges of parallel brushstrokes,
angle of 45 degrees
sensations
realizations of
rock emerging everywhere through the dry grass, have been realized.
To an extent perhaps unmatched
color
all its
described to myself as silver - a silvery lightness of tone permeating so
immensely weighty planal
hillside, the ridges of
an extraordinary bleached paleness over
all
gathered
at a
is
them? has anyone ever placed this
leaning
color more
except the houses and the sky where, quite
reasonable with
suddenly, very different brush-weavings obtain. Their surfaces materialize in very- different terms: their brushstrokes are virtually disguised as such, merging in the
flatter,
more of a sense
smoother
of time and measure than he?"
—Marsden Hartley
Houses
in
Provence - The Riauv
Valley near L'Estaque, 1879-82, oil
on canvas, 26 x 52 in/65 x SI
cm. National Gallen of Art, Washington D.C.
145
\\ Kl
I
I
RS
ON
AR1 IM
S
evocation of the almost windowless walls, on the one hand, or in the atmospheric softness of vague clouds, on the other.
does tend
to dazzle
canvas. But total
of
its
all
its
The
summer
intense light of the Provencal or Mediterranean
and bleach; and the heat of the day unquestionably radiates from
preeminence, as a pivotal work
absence of the linear or the
soft
in
Cezanne's development,
and feathery
enormously emphatic and sure and
or the atmospheric
plastically
towards the bottom edge of the canvas,
is
the almost
from the vocabulary
powerful diagonal brushstrokes. Almost
surfaces, evocative of the entire hillside, consist of these
virtually parallel diagonals; only a very small
lies in
this
immensely emphatic and
group of curvilinear strokes, just right of center,
an exception. Certainly
this painting represents a
degree of abstraction that was entirely novel and one that was not repeated by any other artist until
the floating rigid strokes of Braque's and Picasso's
Cubism
Hardly ever does Cezanne repeat a theme - repeat a subject, times, but composition are
is
virtually
thirty years later.
yes,'
many
of course,
never repeated; nor are the organisations of
color.
There
no cases of Cezanne imitating Cezanne. And almost every time, there are the most
daring departures from what one had thought might prove to be habitual constructions of
one kind or another. For instance, features,
all
profiles in a
if
one ever assumed that the "drawing" of
Sea
at L'Estaque,
Musee
1
883-86,
oi/
on
forms,
all
mature Cezanne would almost invariably consist of broken,
straight lines, fractured stuttering lines,
cum as, 29 x 36
all
how
I'Estaque (1878—79), for in this painting an
utterly surprised
unbroken
one would be with The Sea
at
curvilinear, waving, snake-like
in/73 x 92 cm.
Picasso, Paris.
treetrunk springs from the bottom right-hand corner of the canvas and curves
up and across
its
way
to the very top
left-hand corner
—
continuous
a
line of great
elegence and
tension. But
no broken
its
right
lines in
drawing; no planal facets to
break up or disrupt the continuity and smoothness of this exquisitely
undulating
waving trunk-form.
It is
the sort
of bare, swiftly drawn, upwardly
curving treetrunk which Corot or Derain (forty-five years later!)
would
love. Yet
here
it is,
combining with the equally curvilinear trunks of two other trees to
form a great gateway
through which
we
look
down
to
the opaque blues of the uptilted
14^
PAUL CEZANNE BY PATRICK HERON
sea
— and down
to the
incredibly complicated
geometries of roofs, gable-ends,
and chimneys there below.
week
for a
in l'Estaque,
One
could gaze
into these
immensely complex yet
totally
resolved geometries, both soft
and sharp, which are the roofs and wall-ends and chimneys and gables of l'Estaque - gaze, that
is,
into the
hundreds of
merging or differentiated tiny brushstrokes, sharp or smooth,
wet or
drv,
which creates these
images on the canvas.
And
as
Cezanne's greatest
in all
paintings
— and
this is a very
Farm
one indeed - there
great
is
a
wonderful luminosity here. The richness of the dark
boughs through which the multiple blues of the
—
these form a nest of
of
in
Normandy, Summer
(Hattenville), 1882, oil
on canvas,
20 x 25 in/50 x 66 cm. Courtaidd flat, flat
sea shine upward, the pinks and
ochers and reds and violet-browns of the minutely geometrical sharpnesses of buildings below
grill
warm and
sharp, cool
and
soft,
all
Institute,
London.
those
advancing and
"When a
picture isn't realized, you pitch it in the fire and start another one!" receding colors and forms, which
roaming eyes
one's
visit
lies at
the lower center of this canvas, at a point which
and recross more than any other part of the painting.
set out in this essay to try to present
I
of the visual realities of the world
we
something of Cezanne's revolutionary awareness
inhabit. Spatial color generated out of flat surfaces of
an almost unparalleled richness and complexity, yet a complexity so organically unified final
presentation that each painting, in
total,
in its
has an overwhelming simplified thrust and
naturalness. In pursuit of an attempted elucidation of, for instance, Cezanne's spatial color, I
find
I
have ignored completely the portraits and very considerably the
both these subjects provided Cezanne with challenges and inspiration
still lifes,
too. Yet
— and success —
equal to those of the landscape.
14"
WR1
ON
Ri
11
IRTISH
S
Howard Hodskin by William Boyd
1906. February.
PAUL KLEEhaveWRITES succeeded
IN HIS DIARY:
lively.
Howard Hodgkin London in 1932, Hodgkin studied at the
Born
(
I
"My work
in directly
in the studio will
transposing 'nature' into
grow considerably more
my
style.
The notion
of 'study' shall be a thing of the past. Everything shall be Klee, regardless of
in
amberwell School of Art
whether impression and representation are separated by days or moments.''
in
London and the Academy
I
wonder
if
a similar revelation
was ever experienced by Howard Hodgkin
in
of Art in Bath.
about 1975,
if
he suddenly knew,
instinctively, as
Klee
knew 69
years earlier, that
Visually stimulated by Italy,
henceforth "everything shall be Hodgkin." Certainly the marvelous exhibition that was in
Morocco, and India. Hodgkin's paintings are
combinations
and
reality,
of
memory,
abstractions.
Using asymmetrical patterns
and
strong, decorative colors.
he incorporates remembered
-
details
patterns, items of
clothing, the light
and space
of a particular place
work.
An
-
in his
Expressionist in
that he blends psychological intensity with aesthetic
Hodgkin
considerations,
is
concerned uith the surface quality of paint.
Hodgkin has taught at both the Slade and the Chelsea School
was
oj
Art in
London and
residence at
artist in
Oxford from 1976
He
to
1977.
served as trustee at the
Tate Gallery from 1970 to
1976 and at the National London, from 1978
Gallery, to
19X5. As well as receiving Britain's most prestigious
award
in art, the
in
i
Turner Prize
985. Hodgkin was
knighted in 1992. His
work
is
part of
collections in
permanent
museums
throughout the world. including the q)
Modem
Metropolitan
Neu
Museum
Art and the
Museum
(udlery in Washington.
and the S«o Paulo Museum, Brazil.
1
+s
in
York, the National
DC,
New York
and moves
to Fort
Worth and then Dusseldorf
imply that 1975 was the watershed.
later this year
(1996) seems to
.
HOWARD HODGKIN
I
BOYD
BY WILLIAM
was, serendipitously,
reading Klee's diaries as
was
I
visiting the exhibition
and generally thinking about Hodgkin and
his
work. This happy accident
provoked a series of parallel reactions
William Boyd in Ghana in 1952,
and Born
cross-fertilizations that
and screenwriter William
wouldn't necessarily have
Boyd was educated
and Glasgow, and
been made otherwise.
where he
Klee and Hodgkin are not
yoked together that,
commonly
say Vuillard-Hodgkin and Bonnard-Hodgkin more
are. It
in the
the
noi'elist, critic, journalist,
later taught
1980
way
in
which
from
1983.
to
His darkly humorous
proved an
Nice
at Oxford,
fiction,
critics describe as "a
fine balance of satire, black
interesting
way
of looking at Hodgkin's
work from
a different angle,
and
comedy, and horror,"
in the light of a
his
different exemplar. For simple instance, the idea Klee floats in the extract
"impression and representation" being separated by days or
quoted above of
moments seems
view that
reflects
life is
completely unpredictable,
most banal
that even the
a succinct
people are challenged by
definition of the
modus operandi
that
Hodgkin
also avows.
The impression -
He draws from
fate.
the private
and
culture, science,
memory —
event, the
transfigured in paint on
is
wood
as representation, although
its
final
and
recent politics,
writes imaginatively
about the conflict of cultures.
THINK A LOT OF PEOPLE IN ENGLAND ARE AFRAID OF PICTURES WHICH HAVE VISIBLE EMOTIONS IN THEM. THEY FEEL CALMER IN FRONT OF PICTURES "I
The novels —
A Good Man and
Stars
in Africa,
Bars, Brazzaville
Beach, The Blue Afternoon,
and Armadillo — deal with destiny
and how
his
characters cope with
Boyd
it.
writes for newspapers
and journals, he reviews
WHICH ARE
PLACID."
fiction for the
major
"representation"
may
take years, rather than days or
moments,
to
be
finalized. In
won
Hodgkin's
literar)'
may be
on the viewer, or
entirely lost
is
so enigmatic as to have an
are the W'hitbread
awards. in
identical effect, or
may -
simply
often be quite as oblique as allusiveness
-
are oddly
— have been rendered
Hodgkin and,
in
set beside his,
Hodgkinian - and hint
at a
shapes and color tones. Klee can
Klees
titles
the
prizes he has
the Somerset
case the original afflatus
London
Sunday Times. Among
and
Maugham
He now
London, and
is
editorial board of
lives
on the
Modern
Painters.
possess a similar hazy
hidden meaning rather than describing
the painted image. Klee: (examples taken at random) Contemplating, Blossoming, Uplift and
Direction
(
Glider Flight
) .
Hodgkin:
Self-pity,
Above: Writing, 1991-93,
Writing, Talking about Art
oil
Klees remarkable diaries prove salutary and humbling reading
in this the
day and age
on wood,
46x55
in/1
16 x 138 cm.
Private collection.
of the artist
on
fast track, the artist as snake-oil
salesman, the hype-master with limited or Left: Talking
nugatory formal
skills,
the one-smart-idea peddler.
We
42
pages the fascinating record of a great
artist's
growth:
its
almost unbearable deliberation,
about
art,
7
975.
oil
on wood,
see in these candid and beguiling full
a
50 in/106 x 127 cm.
Private collection.
149
\\ Kl II
RS
ON
ARTISTS
of struggle, laborious self-education, b)
other arts
-
literature
moments
of despair
and doubt, of inspiration provided
and music - and we are reminded of the old definition of "genius"
as being the infinite capacity for taking pains. Klee's sheer diligence, his
search for that
Hodgkin's
moment when
own slow and
doggedness, his
"everything shall be Klee," are powerfully reminiscent of
steady development, of
learned and scholarly undertones;
its
there
a further parallel in Hodgkin's
is
comparatively late flowering.
That evidenced
it
has indeed flowered
clearly
is
in this collection of paintings
spanning two decades — two decades of work, moreover, that display an astonishing
homogeneity and occupy
a near perfect
plateau of success.
The nature and
of this consistency
is
in
extent
quite clearly revealed
two similar paintings: The Hopes
and Patrick Caulfield
in Italy.
The
at
Home
first
was
painted in 1973—77, the second in
1987-92. In both pictures we see gathered together what
we might
call
Hodgkin's
painterly vocabulary, the key Hodgkinian tropes. Left: Patrick Caulfield in Italy,
1987-92.
oil
Two
things strike the viewer
immediately: the framing effect, a dark inky green in The Hopes, black in Caulfield, and the
on wood,
44.x 58 in/110.5 x 146 cm.
glowing lambency of the colors the frames surround. The frame, of course, achieves several
Private collection.
ends.
It
"offers" the painting;
colors in the frames space.
It
it
defines
its
edges;
first artist
who
and the painted framed surface are
and not
and complements the
a decorative afterthought.
it
were, setting back
commonplace and were doubtless
painted a border around his picture or set
wooden frame. Hodgkin, however, has made itself
color offsets
creates, too, a trompe loeil effect of, as
the painted area. These visual consequences are
understood by the
its
it
it
within a
almost his trademark: the painted frame
integral to the
whole
effect of the composition
Almost without exception we view Hodgkin's pictures
through a painted framing device. Klee too, interestingly enough, was very conscious of where his picture ended
—
took pains pointedly to establish the picture edge (often achieved in his case by a form of
mounting). In both Klee and Hodgkin the rationale behind this practice can be thus: the
more evident the frame - the more "edged" the picture — so the more discrete the
image becomes. The concomitant idea of a cinema frame pictures are resolutely bounded, border.
ISO
summed up
The gaze may
hemmed
not wander,
it
is
in.
Nothing
is
precisely focused.
is
entirely
implicit
wrong
here.
beyond the
These
picture's
HOWARD HODGKIN
And
within that frame Hodgkin spreads or stipples his refulgent color tones.
has to be said,
mood, that -
highly seductive.
is
to
put
These
very crudely
it
are paintings you covet, that boldly
- you want
to steal (no higher praise?).
achieve this effect from time to time, but few can sustain Matisse, Braque,
Sam
Francis are
some modern
tribute to Hodgkin's mastery of color that time
it
artists that
The
effect,
Man)
artists
over a whole body of work:
come
to
mind, but
it
is
'belong'
he
is
untamed
a
by convention,
and again one finds oneself entranced,
he
is
unafraid of
feeling
My pictures really
FINISH THEMSELVES. This
is.
would claim, the
I
instinctive,
initial
almost physical,
I
the
'gift
—
?5
- he has of tears.'"
Julian Mitchell
response to a Hodgkin painting: immediate and
find,
provoking an interior shout or laugh of recognition that
has worked so swiftly upon you.
this sorcery
to any
artistic movement,
ravished by the intensity of contrast, of counter-posing, and harmonizing color and hue.
U
BOYD
"He doesn't
it
change your
BY WILLIAM
It is
not simply a question of electric
ultramarines offset by Naples yellows. Hodgkin can work his magic with a limited palette, too.
pistachio green
The
paint
A
picture like After Degas
and a chestnut brown and is
is
completely beguiling, plaving with a
managing
to
applied in certain basic modes. There
is
yet
glow as
if it
were
lit
from within.
the splodge, or dotted, or
Afterwards. 2000,
oil
on wood,
30 x 37 in/76 x 91 cm.
stippled effect
and then there
ogee or section of a curve
is
what might be termed the smear,
or swathe, often a gentle
Anthom
d'Ofjuy Gallery, London.
in
which the history of the painted gesture can be read.
The loaded brush passing
wooden ground,
over the releasing
its
thinning paint to
reveal colors beneath. This
apparent spontaneity
now know,
is,
we
the product of
possible years of reflection
and afterthought and
removed from the
is
far
aleatoric
frenzy of the abstract expressionist.
However,
like
the abstract expressionist,
Hodgkin's painting can often
be described as "gestural," but
it is
important to
establish that the individual
151
\\
Rl
1
I
Rs
ON
ARI ISTS
gesture has been studied, rejected, and reapplied slashing of
some tormented
in the simplest way, freshly
greater confidence with color.
is
oil
we met?
is
at
most
blurrily present or
not the impromptu
possible to capture every natural
from
a
heavy reliance on the graphic in
Hodgkin's work
rely only
is
if it
—
object
is
almost
a figure, a
on color and tone
to the contrary
-
to achieve
were simply
all
that the titles
why
he appends
not call
a matter of designation?
every Hodgkin the totality of the "impression" the painting conveys
is
But
152
sometimes
significantly,
sometimes
in a
minor way, by the
title
in
adulterated,
the artist gives to
to
them
19 x 25 in/49 x 64 cm. Saatchi Collection, London.
last
his ends.
985-88,
on wood.
to a
hugely stylized in the paintings of the
designed to have an effect on the whole. Otherwise
Composition no. 168 or some such, 1
shift
no doubt — whatever protestations
his paintings are
Haven't
it is
By 1975, the graphic element
two decades. But Hodgkin does not
There
and tone
subsumed by the process Klee describes above. The drawn
window, a tree -
is
and immediately."
This was Klee documenting his slow
entirely
times and
id.
Klee, 1908: "By using patches of color
impression
many
it.
almost
HOWARD HODGKIN
(Again, this
Hodgkin has consistently individualized paintings by the
titles
aware.)
his
he bestows on them.
has the effect of a lens twitched
this
into focus. In
as both
title,
Duchamp and Joseph Beuys were
Sometimes
BOYD
an old trick - even the banal can
is
be rendered portentous by a suitable
Marcel
BY WILLIAM
Red Bermudas,
for
example, crude
columns of beige and red suddenly become the bottom half of a sunbather. The Venice
Bed
In
in
makes the painting immediately
Whereas Haven't We Met? Of
semi-figurative.
Course
title
We Have
or Burning the
Candle
at
Both
Ends remain impenetrably private references. This form of
an
titling
can
also,
irritating affectation.
viewer
is
it
must be
said,
The innocently
stymied, redoutably bogged
be
ignorant
down
in his
ignorance, denied the significance that the painting clearly holds for the artist and a few
A
privileged others.
and nobody
The
late
and explained
flat
be
likes to
is
fostered,
left out.
Bruce Chatwin was the subject of a
Hodgkin painting
The
sense of exclusion
its
inspiration
1960s and not exhibited)
(of the
genesis and key points de repere.
was
a
dinner in Chatwin
s
minimalist
decorated only by a Japanese screen and "the
arse of an archaic
Greek marble kouros." Mr. and
Mrs. Hodgkin and a couple called the Welches
were the other guests. "The result of that dinner,"
Chatwin wrote, "was
a painting called Japanese
Screen in which the screen
itself
pointillist dots, the
appears as a rectangle of
Welches
as a
Top: In oil
pair of
gun
turrets,
while
I
am
the acid green smear on the
turning away in disgust."
left
Bed
in Venice,
J
984-88,
on wood,
39x47
in/98 x
1
19 cm.
Private collection.
Chatwin
gives a further insight into Hodgkin's approach:
shambling round the room,
fixing
in his
it
memory
I
remember Howard
with the stare
I
came
to
know
Above: Small Japanese Screen
so well.
oil
Chatwin
also elucidates another painting called Tea,
which he explains
as "a seedy flat
or
Japanese Screen, 1962-63,
on hardboard,
16x20
in/41 x SI cm.
Private collection.
in
Paddington where a male hustler
is
Hodgkin may not encourage us figurative titles is to
element
make
in his paintings,
us do exactly
telling the story of his life."
to
attempt an interpretation or
but there
this. In fact
I
is
to try to
seek out a
no doubt that an important side
think this tendency
is
effect of the
a distinct advantage
even
153
\\
Rill Ri
ON
ARTISTS
though we are frequently balked and defeated. There
is
a figurative undercurrent in
Hodgkin's work, sometimes strong, sometimes subtle, and the paintings, even the most
seemingly abstract, benefit from It is
urge to investigate and decode.
this potential
an instinctive and natural process,
in
any event. The eye and the mind
unconsciously seek to arrange and interpret the phenomena they encounter, and particularly those things deliberately presented to
them, a category that includes abstract paintings hanging in art galleries. This natural
human
urge has to be curbed
voluntarily or by
element
some formal
in the painting, if
are to respond to
judge,
it,
and appreciate
it
we
solely,
purely, in terms of
shape, color, and
composition.
Hodgkin's paintings
—
with their knowing allusiveness, their
and
taquineries,
their
representational
shadowings — encourage us
to look
deeper, to go beyond the aesthetic
thrill
to see if there are
more
initial
profound chords
What we
works of
where
art
analytical curiosity or
common
try
be struck.
are talking about here
particular stimulus
Chez Max, 1996-97, oil on wood, diamerte: 70 in/177 cm
to
and
is
a
to certain
visceral delight cohabits with
even analytical imperatives. The two
Private collection.
responses are not mutually exclusive, they can exist separately and can be present fortissimo or piano. But in Hodgkin's case
I
find that
generates a potent need to understand said that the first response to a is
more going on
in a
work of
what
how art
have described as the aesthetic
this thrill
thrill
was brought about. Vladimir Nabokov
should be with the nape of the neck, but there
Hodgkin painting than mere spine
reaction that functions on deeper,
more cerebral
deliberation. 1 he best of Hodgkin's paintings,
54
I
tingling.
levels, too,
There
is
a complexity of
and that demands further
and there are many of them, provoke
this
HOWARD HODGKIN
response, and this explains.
pleasure quotient
- and
think, both the
I
unique frisson
same
Klee's art functions in the
way.
it
seems
me:
to
and reveals complexities of more profound and complex
there are
-
delivers
it's
BOYD
sheer
ultimate seriousness.
its
Klee-Hodgkin thesis too
work
his
BY WILLIAM
far.
I'm reluctant to posit
marked differences on the graphic
tenor.
Hodgkin
level, for
both delights on a simple level
it
I
don't
want
push the
to
as a late twentieth-centurv Klee:
example. But time and again the
"The only way an artist can communicate with the world at large is on the level of feeling." correspondences illuminate and odd will
harmoniously; reasons for admiring Klee
be found to be similar to the reasons for admiring Hodgkin. For example. Klee. in 1915:
way out as
affinities elide
of
my
ruins.
I
had
one occasionally does
have long had
"I
to fly .And
in retrospect.
Abstrakt mit Eriuuerungen:
flew.
I
Thus.
this
remain
I
I
am
war inside me... And
in this
work my
ruined world only in memory,
'abstract with
memories.
could be the cipher to unlock almost
it
to
all
of Hodgkin's
work. That combination of private event, recalled and eventually transfigured (with
words, with music, with paint), forms.
One
tranquillity,
the deep source of
is
much
artistic
endeavor
in
many
art
thinks of Wordsworth's definition of poetry as "emotion recollected in After \isiting David Hockney.
and, indeed,
to poetry that
it is
one can
go, in
my
opinion, to find a key to
1991-92,
oil
on wood.
x 24 in/49 x 62 cm. Barclay* Bank Collection. 19
Hodgkin s
particular
alchemy
Klee and Hodgkin choose as that function of the
memory
mind w hich
provides the motor for their
art.
The
American poet Wallace Stevens was obsessed with another transforming
pow er of the human mind - imagination
—
and, in
oeuvre
is
many
respects, his entire
a sustained meditation of this
unique power and how irradiates,
reshapes,
it
and adds value
of appearance. Stevens
s
to the
poetry
world a
is
combination of a highly seductive w ord-
mongering and manipulation "the '
aesthetic thrill"
i
coupled with
this basic
concern, this serious contemplation of the faculty that
lies
behind
all art
and, as
155
.
WRI
II R.S
ON
AR1
IS is
Stevens would have
known Stevens poem
meaningful
all
it,
called
human
existence.
Bouquet of Roses
There
in Sunlight
(it is
is
a short, not very well
one of many that could be
chosen) which analyses the emotional charge that comes with seeing something beautiful, that tries to establish "what exactly if
you
like).
is
Taking the sunlit vision of the roses as
Say that
is
it
crude
a
And
We
Of yellow In
is
a
feel and, therefore,
In our sense of
much
it,
as first color
room.
is
not real except fertilest red,
and of white,
lies still...
- one can almost imagine the Hodgkin
painting
begins:
it
.
can't think of a better description of the effect of looking at a
I
Grecian Urn,
to a
consequence of the way
our sense of the
which the sense
starting point
its
Ode
as they are
else in the sunlight of the
yet this effect
(his
effect, black, reds
Pink yellows, orange whites, too
To be anything
moment
going on" in that
Howard Hodgkin
—
version of Bonqnet of Roses in Sunlight
but what
poem
the
lifts
beyond mere apt description
the awareness
is
of the defining interaction of the
human mind. And
of
course the very experience itself has. in
distilled
in a
turn been
and reconstructed
work of
Stevens says
art. Life,
—
to
put
it
very straightforwardly
—
is
not truly real "except in
our sense of is
what great
it."
And
art
this
both
understands and
acknowledges when to
Memories, 1997-99,
oil
tries
of our sense
on wood,
47 x 69 in/120 x 17Scm.
life.
A
similar process to the
seems
to
me -
of
Private collection.
event the
-
is
going on in
or a view or a
way we
feel"
Klee describes
it,
one that Stevens elucidates -
a highly
Howard Hodgkin's work: an attempt
moment
or an emotion
- rendered
from "impression
to representation is
)
The
also, as
flat
conscious one,
it
to fix the quiddity of
significant
through the manipulation of pigment upon a
provides an elemental and intense pleasure but
1S6
make sense
it
by
"a
an
consequence of
ground. "The move," as
finished result,
when
it
works,
Stevens says later in the poem.
.
HOWARD HODGKIN
BY WILLIAM
BOYD
Like a flow of meanings with no speech
And
of as
mam
meanings
is
So
beyond the
At the in their
risk of
own
men.
.
what makes them seem
...this
far
as of
rhetorician's touch.
sounding
like a rhetorician
way, a contemplation of what
it
is
I
would claim to
be
that Hodgkin's paintings are,
human -
a celebration of
complexities accruing in the act of being alive, sentient, and conscious. are ancient
- not
to say timeless
exceptionally rare:
it
- concerns
of
all
Of
all
the
course these
serious artists, but art that can do this
deserves to be richly celebrated.
is
In a oil
Darkened Room, 1999-2001,
on wood, 12 x 13
in/
31 x 33 cm. Anthony d'Ojfax Gallery,
Loudon.
WRl
11
ON
KS
ARTISTS
Edgar Degas by Julian Barnes
Great
artists attract base prejudices; base but instructive. Jean-Francois
Raffaelli,
1880-1924, painter of the Parisian suburbs, claimed
Degas was an
Edgar Degas
was someone who "must
Although frequently categorized as an
-
Impressionist
his paintings
were shown in several of the
dislike
one of Degas' models: "He's sitting
combing my
hair."
"seeking to render ignoble the secret forms of
women"; and
a strange
Edmond
in
1894 that
Woman"; he
evidence Raffaelli reported the words of
gentleman — he spent the whole four hours of the
de Goncourt (who had
his
own
sarcastic doubts about
Impressionist exhibitio)is
first
— Edgar Degas His work
stands apart.
reflects his interest
and studio
in interior light
work, and in compositions that took
advantage of
the advances of the time in photography.
He was
horn into a wealthy
Parisian banking family in
1834. At age 21, he attended the Ecole des Beaux-Arts,
hut dropped out to study
tlie
work of the Renaissance masters in
work was
on the Bellini,
after
Italy.
His
style
and
earl)
based
historical,
of Mantegna,
Ingres. In
meeting Manet
Degas abandoned
J
865,
in Paris,
historical
painting and turned to more
contemporary images - the ballet, opera, the races at
Longchamps, boudoirs,
He
brothels, cafes,
and
prostitutes.
continued these themes
throughout the IH~0s and /880s. In
gouache,
oils,
watercolor,
pastels, charcoals,
monotypes, and sculptures, his figures
appear
to
be seen
as if "through the keyhole"
from a
voyeur's standpoint,
captured in natural poses with an emphasis
on the wa)
the) relate
to interior settings.
After 1890, his eyesight failing.
Degas worked almost
exclusively in pastel. in
158
artist
in
Pans
in 19/
He 7.
died
Degas, as about everybody else) noted
down
these charges in his journal and added, as a
.
EDGAR DEGAS
him by the
clincher, a story told
Degas
writer
a pair of sisters as mistresses.
of Degas' "lack of
women
plainer- Can't get
in his art.
to
address the subject of
is
a critic of our time, Tobia Bezzola:
is
up; hates
(Raffaelli
women; behaves oddly with models;
guilty.
was
at
Woman, which perhaps makes
Nor should we laugh knowingly
the time announcing his intention
Here
his motivation easier to read).
Julian Barnes
known whether Degas had
no evidence
it
Case closed, defendant
such century-old crassness and envy
not
one time had shared with
Hennique's "sister-in-law" had apparently complained
at
"It is
at
amorous means."
Could anything be rubbishes
Leon Hennique, who
BY JULIAN BARNES
Born
sexual relationships with
that he did... .[His] series of
women;
any
at
rate there
monotypes depicting brothel scenes
1946
England,
in
at Oxford,
Barnes worlied as a
the
is
in
and educated
lexicographer for the Oxford
most extreme example of the mixture of voyeurism and abhorrence with which he
English Dictionary for several years before
reacted to female sexuality
and
a reviewer
becoming
literar) editor 1
for the British newspapers
The New Statesmen and The Sunday Times. For the
U
Truth is never ugly WHEN ONE CAN FIND IN IT WHAT ONE NEEDS."
New
Review, he wrote "The"
infamous gossip column,
"Edward Pygge," and from
1979
to
1986, he was the
television critic for the
London Observer. In 1980, Barnes published
Or,
if
you prefer an even more catchall version,
Shoiv. Paulin
went
to the
Degas exhibition
listen to
at the
own Tom
our
Paulin on The Late
his first novel,
National Gallery with the foreknowledge
Parrot,
that the artist
Metroland,
and, in 1984, Flaubert's
which was
shortlisted
for the Booker Prize.
was anti-Semitic and anti-Dreyfusard:
Treating the themes of "I
wondered how
this
would
affect the paintings.
You
can't see
and
in the paintings,
it
I
history, reality,
and
truth, his
present oeuvre consists of
thought, Well,
I
should be admiring their beauty, but then
I
from reading
realized
this
eight novels, a book of short stories,
study of Eliot [by Anthony Julius] that misogyny and anti-Semitism are closely
and an
collection.
connected, so that what
we have
in this exhibition are
women
contorted poses.
in
essay
Among
the
awards he has received
.
in his
career are the Somerset
They're like performing animals; they're like animals in the zoo. There's
deep hatred of women, and something
like a
I
thought what does this remind
concentration
camp
me
of,
and
some deep,
Maugham Award,
the Prix
Medicis, the E.M. Forster I
thought
Award, and the Shaliespeare
doctor has created these figures... I'm inside the
Prize.
His most recent novel,
Love, etc. continues the ."
head of someone who's
a deeply, deeply hateful person.
theme of his 1991 novel It Over. Under the
.
Talking
This
is
a masterly application of the biographical fallacy; "admiring beauty"
is
obviously a
pseudonym Dan Kavanagh, Barnes also writes crime
suspect business best got out of by discovering that beauty's creator was someone you
novels,
wouldn't employ as a childminder.
The show which provoked
this outburst of effervescing
at
and he
work on a
is
currently
collection
of essays.
Puritanism was
at
London's National Gallery
theming of work, resourceful
in its
shown), and of exactly the right
working obsessively
at that
assembly
in
1996. As an exhibition
(late
size. All this is to
Degas
is
one end:
it is
wise in
its
widely scattered, and rarely to
show
a great
and aging painter
border-crossing between Truth to Life and Truth to Art, pushing
constantly at and against form and color and technique.
Most
single-artist
shows tend
to
be
The Tub, 1886, cardboard, 24
cherry-picking jobs: the best example of this or that particular phase of the
artist's
Louvre,
pastel
on
x 33 in/60 x 83 cur
Paris.
159
\\ 1111
I
IvS
ON
AR1 IMS
"development," the canvases
in
which the painter plays our
not actively misleading, but they are subtly deceptive as a succession of lottery
if
we
favorite tunes.
Such shows
therefore view the
are
artist's life
numbers, of wins and losses - masterpiece, dud, dud, semi-
masterpiece, dud, masterpiece.
The
artist's life,
as Richard Kendall's exhibition cleverly
demonstrates,
more
is
be
likely to
a matter of obsessional overlap,
of ferrying back
and
forth, of
process rather than result,
journey rather than
Many
arrival.
of the works are on
tracing paper, for reasons both
aesthetic
-
tracing paper takes
pastel particularly well practical: the
- and
image proposed
(rather than arrived at) can be
copied again and again. Copied, that
is,
in order to
be reused and
redeveloped, or even reintegrated into an entirely different
composition. That twist of the
Women Combing Their 1
875— 76,
oil
Hair,
canvas, 13 x 18 in/32 x 46 cm.
Hie
hip,
throw of the head, splay of the feet may turn up again sometimes on the same wall,
on paper mounted on
sometimes two rooms away. The pose or gesture segues from charcoal
to pastel to oil to
Phillips Collection,
Washington,
DC.
sculpture (the role of the sculptures
—
not cast until after Degas' death
—
is
nicely enigmatic:
"Oh! Women can never forgive me; they hate me, they can feel that am disarming them. i
i
show them without their
coquetry, in the state of animals cleaning themselves! >5
were they
sufficient
paintings, or
all
unto themselves, made to help the paintings, developments of the
three?). Is
it
sentimental to sense an anger behind such fretful and
unceasing investigation of certain forms? out, that light (given Degas'
be seen,
160
still
forms
to
An
artistic anger, that
encroaching blindness)
be pushed further.
is
is,
fury that time
running out, and
still
there
is
is
running
more
to
EDGAR DEGAS
Time. Degas spent four hours combing a model's the
norm might have been -
The
drink afterwards.
coming out of
get your kit off,
one evening and turning
you never saw sloping shoulders
of a great artist.
its
a
strange gentleman,
that pedestal,
and how about
to his
is
a story of
when a
quick
Degas
companion with the complaint
that
in
the tiny aside
It's
Goncourt reports
the remark, confirms
and seeks
hop on
What
"strange gentleman" was always looking. There
a party
society any more.
hair.
BY JULIAN BARNES
its
justice,
explanation habits
of physical breeding over several
generations; but artist,
rather than the novelist,
social observer
has seen
it.
noticing,
is
The
Degas — the
is
it
and
- who
art critic
Degas tone,
worth
it's
one of complaint.
story remains
unannotated
by Goncourt, but the complaint
presumably an
is
one; a
artistic
and
realization that the great
fundamental shape which was the subject of so paintings
many
of his
was changing,
not
if
exactly before his eyes, then
within his lifetime
- and would
continue to change thereafter.
Four hours (and
this
was only
one four hours among many); informal hair
-
hair with
Degas knows how another
is
tuggingest
combing
it,
moments
also so malleable
a
hair
its
how
in
show
is full
of
moments which
is
"seen." Intimate,
Seated
Nude from
behind,
combing her hair, c. 1897, charcoal ami pastel, 28 x 28/71 x 71 cm.
holds her hair to
comb
it,
how
she supports
it
when
Kunsthaus, Zurich.
she alleviates scalp-strain with a flattened palm a the
of the business. But (truth to
and metamorphic
sometimes appearing
it
that
it
melting into truth to
life
seems eager
to take
art) hair is
on abstract form.
In
many
echoes and plans against the twists and cascades of the
to trade places.
There
one image, where the maid's water-jug — posing
space of the head, while the head
itself is
is
even a kind of jokey visual misleading,
as a
bunched up
hair
- occupies
the
ducked down forwards.
The modern female body represented
A century on, we
hair
down.
woman
of the after-the-bath pictures, towel,
this
in a state
of intimacy by and observing male.
have become more self-conscious spectators; queasiness and correct
161
Will!
1
R.S
ON
ARTISTS
thinking have entered the equation for
some. The
artist also
helped things
along with his much-quoted statement
"Women can
that:
never forgive me;
they hate me, they feel
them.
I
am
I
show them without
disarming their
coquetry." Perhaps extremely coquettish
women
hated him for his
art;
perhaps
whom
the models he shouted at (but
he also treated with "enormous patience") corn.
On
they had earned their
felt
the other hand, as Richard
Kendall acutely demonstrates, often
women who were
the
was
it
first
purchasers of these scenes of private
grooming. that in
a strange coincidence
It is
two of the
finest recent exhibitions
London have both had female
self-
absorption as a central theme: the other
being the Vermeer. This
isn't
an easy area: we
all
import our prejudices. At the National Gallery press view
J
878, pastel
portraying flesh at
its
most robust. His
ballet
museum
ran into a
director
who
were
about "the decay of the
all
whereas Singer with a Glove.
I
it
said he thought the pictures
seemed
me
to
that
flesh";
Degas was
dancers are no longer sylphs and nymphets;
on canvas, 21 x 16 in/53 x 41 cm. Fogg Art Museum,
Hanard
but even their states of exhausted resting (that hands-on-waist, backstrainy can't-wait-for-it-
Lnhersif}. Cambridge.
Massachusetts. Bequest Collection of
to-end pose) are predicated upon a
vital
physical
life. Is
my
this just
prejudice? As
it's
my
Maurice Wertheim.
prejudice to differentiate between the misogynistic,
and the
which
it
seems
which Degas may or may not have been
to
me
remark needs immediate
qualification, of course
women," he was painting
a picture,
otherwise
let
whole, not.
stand.
it
something you
make him
Do you
Would Degas'
the
to dispute
more attending
women. That
(when he painted he wasn't
"loving
filled his
mind), but
constantly and obsessively fret at the representation of
"lack of it)
that Degas, plainly loved
and the picture was doubtless what
dislike or despise? "For
condom buying
62
art, in
life, in
each
man draws
amorous means"
have made him observer.
(if
the thing he loathes"?
true
a misogynist?
- and Not
there
is
On
the
recent evidence of
necessarily:
it
might even
EDGAR DEGAS
The
"voyeur"? But that
artist as
voyeur can also
earn,-
is
exactly
what the
artist
should be: one
the sense of hallucinatory visionary).
The
painter
who
who
BY JULIAN BARNES
sees (and
tortures his
models by forcing them into uncomfortable poses? Except that he also used photography,
and memory; besides, history.
The
if
the body could get there,
brothel-depictor
these monotypes
seem
to
me
who
thus
let slip his
it
had
clearly got there before in
"His BATHERS
its
"abhorrence" of female sexuality? Yet
to reflect all the jollity,
ALWAYS SEEM TO
boredom, absorption, professionalism,
HAVE BEEN CAUGHT IN
"Women think in
MOMENTS OF NO
little packages.
IMPORTANCE,
understand nothing about the way their minds work. they put every subject into an envelope,
CHOSEN APPARENTLY
i
AT RANDOM FROM
AN
MOTIONS, WHILE
is
in Lautrec's brothel
assembly
line trade, the tone
no more abhorring than
it
work. Perhaps Lautrec's reputation as a merry figure marginalized by
dwarfism - and thus on a moral
level
with the marginalized prostitutes
— works
for him,
ATTITUDES OF
TRANSITION, NEITHER
THE ALERT STANCE
OF PREPARATION
NOR THE
whereas Degas' reputation works against him here. The graphic output remains the same either way. But
if
you can look
at, say,
Degas' La Fete de
la
HIS
DANCERS ARE POSED IN
in this
OF
AND
GESTURES
label it and it's finished... little packages ... little packages." and "work" of those engaged
INFINITY
TRIUMPHANT
Patronne and see only
ACHIEVEMENT OF A FULLY EXTENDED
ARABESQUE."
—Karen Wilkin
The Tub, 1886,
28x28
pastel
on paper,
in/70 x 70 cm.
Hillstead
Museum, Farmington,
Connecticut.
63
\\
KM
t
RS
ON
ARTISTS
abhorrence of female
Another
line of
then
sexuality,
reproach
is
I
suspect you are in deep
to suggest that the
critical trouble.
frequent averting of the face in the later
paintings indicates quasi-pornographic intent. All arguments imply their reverse: you might
equally argue
(if
you wanted
to) that
painter/spectator, aloof in her privacy
the averted face
is
woman
that of a
and self-involvement. More
ignoring the
to the point, this
portraiture; or at least, not portraiture as the depiction of revealed character.
I
Millinon Shop. 1879-84,
In-
mi canvas, 59 x 43 in 100 v
\n
of the
body
end of
a lifetime's
not
portraiture
search which had begun with a devotion to
oil
Ingres, 1
as form, the
It is
is
and with
Ingres' instruction to the
young Degas, "Draw
lines,
young man, draw
10 cm.
Institute qj Chicago.
Mr. and Mrs. Lewis L.
Memorial Collection.
lines."
Degas
at
one point owned
Ingres' Angelica Sailed by
Ruggiew, as well as a pencil
Cohurn
study for La Grande Odalisque.
How
far
Degas' art took the representation of the female
164
:.
EDGAR DEGAS
BY JULIAN BARNES
body can be seen by looking at
these two works in the
(London) National Gallery's concurrent "Degas as a
There we have
Collector."
the
nude
as line
and
finish,
depicted in exalted splendor
even
when
suffering. In the
pencil study
we
see a spine
as architectural as the keel
of a Viking ship, a svelte
bum, and
a breast which,
despite what the turning-
away posture ought done
for
it,
keeps
silicone splendor.
Ingres, that
to
have
its
Chez
mammarial
is
marmoreal; chez Degas, the breast has the mobility,
A Woman and
slope,
fall
of real
Of
life.
course, male artists depicting the female
nude
are
bound
to
i
865,
with Chrysanthemums,
on canvas,
oil
28 x ISinlll x 92 cm.
get
it
start
in the
neck nowadays from someone or other (Lucian Freud had probably better
Metropolitan
wearing a neck protector). Idealization or naturalism? "Should poets bicycle-pump the
human
heart/Or squash
preferences and principles
The could,
if
yes, here
The same goes
flat?"
it
- though they
is
about hats.
it
are, of course,
show includes
early section of Kendall's
you were plodding, see
for artists
as another
not a portrait,
equivalent of flesh.
And
it's
not about work,
in its plain
with Chrysanthemums. This
is,
TJie Millinery
away But it's
more
properly,
it
Whenever
I
see this painting
you think you know what a portrait of flowers than you or
foreshadows what
we
form, at color, at the
I
is?
see
still
more
vividly
expandable
that's
(of
New
Havemeyer, The H.O. Havemeyer collection.
1879-84). You
because
this is
is
for
a painting
the
recalls Degas' great portrait
I
woman
Woman
"He
of, this
possibilities of
to paint a
picture whispers.
and hauntingly
in late
is
at once
looks out of frame to the
hear a challenge and an implicit question:
There are more ways
have even dreamed
of Art,
Chrysanthemums with Woman: the sunburst
of flowers occupies the center of the canvas, while the spectator's right.
Shop
about hats; here fabric
boldness of design
Museum
Request of Mrs. H. O.
only current.
example of the "averted-face" approach;
the milliner with her face half turned It's
and the body; we have our current
York.
woman and
And
Degas: the
in this
artist
a
bunch
respect
pushing
human form and movement.
If
utterly familiar
and remarkably enigmatic."
it
at
— Karen Wilkin
he was
unforgiving of his models, he was no less forgiving in his expectations of himself, and of
what
art
could see and show.
165
\\
ON
Kl II R>
\R
Jasper Johns by Trevor Winkfield
THERE APPEARS TO BE NEITHER RHYME NOR REASON why good given time. Take Russia in 1915:
art is
who would have suspected
at
any
that in the midst of war,
one of the most conservative and repressive societies then
in
produced
existing, a society
Jasper Johns One
of the most influential
disintegrating from
own
its
lack of imagination, Kasimir Malevich could have
wrenched
of the Abstract Expressionists,
Jasper Johns ultimately rejected 'he
form
himself
to create
images that were simple and
commonplace, while at the same time ironic.
settled
ignored his freezing apartment, his dire poverty his meager food rations, and
free,
down
elements are
Suprematist compositions?
to paint the first
On
the other hand,
when
all
the
nothing seems to happen. Japan, after 1950, blessed with unparalleled
in place
wealth and a curious, acquisitive middle-class lusting after wallcoverings, failed miserably to Born
1930
in
Georgia, he
in Augusta,
left
New
for
any contemporary
initiate
art
of value (to the extent of having to import
it).
power of
All the
York in 1949, but was soon drafted into military service.
Returning
to
Neiv
Victorian England, too, only squeaked forth the Pre-Raphaelites and the Royal Academy.
York,
Jasper Johns,
he established friendships with Rauschenburg, the
choreographer Merce
Cunningham, and
the
in
who
rose to
prominence
1958, has had a career which
A
the Japanese model.
after his first
show
at
Leo
Castelli's in
New York
glance seems a product of the perfected version of
at first
country (the United States)
at
the height of
mercantile and
its
composer John Cage.
military
He
power (1947-65), secure
in its material
achievements, with a small but influential
painted his first flag
picture in 1954,
and extremely knowledgeable
and
intelligentsia, seeks to legitimize its
new
wealth by patronizing
exhibited more of these flags
-
along with paintings of numbers, and letters
targets,
-
at his first
many
"One works without
one-man show. Gallen show.
Tliis Castelli
believe,
marked
the
THINKING
beginning of the Pop Art,
HOW TO WORK.
??
which eventually Johns developed into Minimalism. His reductive images of si mhols and objects
familiar
the
arts.
Of
course,
helps
it
when
there's a
bushel of talent awaiting patronage, a bushel
focus on the painting as an
and of
object in
itself
rather
moreover firmly ensconced
than a representation
longer
of an object.
is).
fabricate
A
its
in a city affordable to artists (as
generation of Abstract Expressionists had finest paintings prior to this
Johns' major exhibitions
include a retrospective
at
Museum in the Museum
which reaped
its full
benefits,
New York
somehow managed
upsurge of patronage, but
and ultimately
its
then was, and alas no
it is
to survive
and
Johns' generation
poisoned chalice. For around the mid-
the Whitney
New
)ork,
Ludwig
in
National d Art Moderne in Paris, the
1960s
a
new bevy of wealthy
opposed
to middle-class art lovers)
muscled
into
the American art world, their eyes formed by film and television rather than the old masters,
llavward (-alien.
London, and the Seibu
Museum
oj Art,
Tokyo.
and
for the
most part unable
easily assimilated
movement,
While one doesn't warn
166
collectors (as
Cologne. Musee
to differentiate
as
good from bad
art.
Bauhaus abstraction had been
For them, Pop Art was an for
an
earlier generation.
to denigrate the simplistic liberating effusions of
Pop,
its
legacy
JASPER |OHNS BY TREVOR WINKFIELD
(and that of of recent
its
successor, Minimalism) forms part and parcel of one of the most paradoxical
American achievements: the ascent of proletarian Pop represented
Stylistically,
a
usurped the old
art
between dealer and another capitalist
now
numskull
in favor of
trudging through the West.
around of huge sums of money which Pop ushered
world and imposed an artist shifted to
industry',
by purely capitalist means.
massive surrender of complexity
homogeneity, signaling that great ennui of the imagination Financially, the reckless throwing
taste
art
in
market mentality where the relationship
one between dealer and
became
collector. Art
just
Trevor Winkfield
with aesthetics more or less thrown out of the window.
A Simultaneously criticism suffered
a
massive
degenerated into bad journalism, or worse, pseudo-esoteric twaddle.
happened,
it
was only
and
loss of nerve, refused to take the lead,
a matter of time before
contemporary
art,
Once
British painter living in
New
York City since the
1960s, Winkfield was horn
this
had
following on from
in Leeds in
He
944.
1
attended the Leeds College
modern
of Art and received his art,
could
rubric
itself
be gobbled up by that strange commercial hybrid "gallery
more bad
art
was churned out - and
sold
- during the 1980s than
art."
at
Under
any time since
the reign of the nineteenth-century salons. Artists by and large were reduced to
purveyors to the trade and any art managing to escape
its
been associated with writers,
and
mere
homogenization tended
to
M.A.
from the Royal College of Art in London. He has long
this
his idiosyncratic
works
of art have appeared on hook covers for the poet
be
John Ashbery.
buried by the dross. Thus, by the early 1990s,
New York,
its
eyeballs exhausted, found itself Winkfield's intensely hued,
in the parlous state in
with nothing
much
which
Paris
had found
of interest to display
the mid-1950s: a plenitude of galleries
itself in
and the glum
realization that
American
collage-lilze paintings are
made up of seemingly odd
art's
personal allusions to events
Golden Age was well and
and
objects, but a persistent
viewer can find narrative
truly a thing of the past.
Through dissolution
in them.
Fragmented images
of people, animals, objects,
all this
and patterns form a kaleidoscope on the canvases,
and venal
and
mayhem, Jasper Johns has
the effect
is
a distinctive
melding oj formalism, surrealism,
and Pop Art.
sailed apparently unscathed, a
bemused
survivor,
Winkfield has won the
perhaps the
Award
explorers gravitating around
the Abstract Expressionist/Pop axis.
Some had
died,
in Art
from the
American Academy of Arts and Letters and a Pollock-
only one, of that gifted slew of
Krasner Award.
He
to live, paint,
and
New York while
continues write in
exhibiting
his paintings in the
still
and
in
US
England.
others took early mental retirement, content to
^^^B
^£^-V>—.
A* .jdir-!'
endlessly recycle their early
formulas (which were formidable - nobody can dismiss the sheer visceral
impact of early Warhol and
Target with Plaster Casts, i
Lichtenstein).
Those
still
alive
95 5, encaustic and
51x44
more
or less spent their later
cull
canvas with objects,
in/130 x 112
Private collection.
cm
New
York.
16:
WRin
Ri
ON
ARl'IM
s
careers wasting their oxygen. Johns alone has cleaved to his self-imposed role of research painter,
one of that endangered band whose password might be Kant's
where
am," and whose
work
is
I
first
requisite
be perpetually dissatisfied by the direction their
to
is
no longer know
"I
taking at any given time.
This discontent
is
one reason why so many American
have dedicated a
artists
special niche to Johns in their pantheons. He's remained, despite his
on
a quintessential artists' artist,
a
commercial success,
par with Marsden
Hartley and Willem de Kooning, admired at the same
time as they are plundered by
He
tastes.
is,
one of the
in fact,
influential of
American
contrast, has
had
little
least imitated
artists (Pollock's
despite
back
work - the
all that's
solitary's
in the
- the
being painted. Only first
show
— which
a
aspect
brings us
in
and numerals —
of defiant solitude as
Few saw them
when
while they were
they emerged as a group in
1958 did they enter public discourse,
and then with alarming right painter at the right
emerged
like). It's this
flags, targets,
same mood
Malevich's white fields.
Johns'
beyond
Malevich.
Johns' early work
were hatched
work, by
dedication to research
going on around him
full circle to
but most
to offer later generations
concept of what "greatness'' can look of Johns'
widely divergent
artists of
in the 1980s,
rapidity.
Johns was obviously the
time (unlike
who were
all
those
who
the wrong painters at
the right time). This ready acceptance was due in no
small measure to Johns' ability to render the
achievements of Abstract Expressionism comprehensible De\ice Circle. 1962,
oil
on canvas,
to
an audience more amenable to figuration. This coming together of figurative subject
40 % 30 in/102 x 76 cm. Ilie
Baltimore
Museum
of Art:
matter with an abstract handling of paint marked a historic breakthrough, and
still
seems
Purchased with funds provided by
Hie Dexter M. Fern Jr. Trustee Corporation Fund and by Edith Fern Hooper BMA 1976.1
one of Johns' most memorable reforms. Forty years
later,
these early
emblems have only increased
their
magnetic
luster.
.
One can flat,
easily reconstitute their original appeal, a paradoxical
banal imagery (whose iconic starkness bespeaks America) married to a sensuous,
idiosyncratic handling of
one
union of opposites. Their
as a terrific
pigment -
accomplishment
a
for a
melding of public and private faces -
young
painter.
The works
giddy arrogance of early Seurat and Picasso,
when
and would change the way people looked
the world.
Shorn
ol their
weeping
veils of
at
still
vibrate with
those painters
knew
all
strikes
the
they too could
encaustic droplets, the flags and targets might be cast
JASPER JOHNS BY TREVOR WINKFIELD
as forerunners of Warhol's masterpieces for
morons of the following decade. But retaining the veils signaled Johns' rejection of reductive
modernism, which the dead-end of
in turn
allowed him to bypass
Pop and continue along
visionary road he's spent the rest of his traversing, albeit with
many
a feint
that
life
and stumble.
This repudiation of his early success - a
triumph based on monolithic imagery confining autobiographical intrusions to the action of the
- erupted
painter's wrist
Circle
in
1959 with Device
and Out the Window.
In these paintings,
the confines of the canvas for once restrictive.
The
seem
too
patient, contemplative brush-
away
strokes are ushered
to
make room
for
vociferous pattering wind-bursts looking to
The
over onto the wall.
paintings stop being
monologues and become conversations, Johns had taken
spill
Duehamp's
to heart
though
as
insight that
it's
Target.
the viewers, replete with personal
J
958,
oil
and
collage on
canvas, 36 x 36 in/92 x 92 cm.
histories
and
their
own
interpretative skills,
who complete
the painting. Johns' target surfaces
Collection of the
artist;
on loan
to
the National Gallery of Art.
had looked
as
though they were guarding the images beneath, not only clamping them down
but trying to hide them -
From the
early
subsumed violence
Washington,
personified.
1960s the images bubble
to the surface,
break
free,
and
start
parading Three
around, beckoning the viewer to follow. three of Johns' paintings for the
he saw the second show
in
It's little
Museum
of
wonder
Modern
secular altarpieces he'd lionized, he found tableaux (trash cans) into
which everything had been tumbled.
Many
these later paintings, executed at a time
Johns was claiming exposure of
my
"I
feelings,"
spoons, cups, brooms
They're
still
don't
-
a
that Alfred Barr,
Art from the
first
who'd purchased
show, blanched
when
want
have
of
when
my work
to
be an
literal intrusions:
Flags,
J
958,
encaustic on canvas,
n \\
a
4b in/78 x 116 cm.
hitney
New
1960. In place of the
which had the quality of bins
DC.
Museum
of American Art,
York.
•***•••*
**•*••••*•
**********'
itit 4 7 •* ********) ****••** xx ^+ ******** ^^ w * ** •*•***** i
jcit
*
**********
whole pantry of images.
bedecked with
petrified wax, evoking
troops of nerves circulating beneath, as though the paintings' real lives, as ever, took place out of sight.
Here Johns
(a
ravenous reader of poetry,
whose work contains numerous references
to
169
WR1 fERS ON ARTISTS
Right 4>
iShi
\
1977 color
S.iv.irin
Jicct
lithograph,
Published
14
1
\
89cm.
sheet
Limited Art
i niversal
b\
us.
Opposite page, top: Periscope (Hart
I rane),
48
m
1963,
oil
on canvas,
170 x 122 cm.
Collection of the the National
artist:
Museum
courtes
of American
Smithsonian Institution.
Art.
Washington,
DC.
Opposite page, bottom: Voice 2 (detail).
1971,
oil
and
collage on
canvas, three panels, each
72
\
SO in 183 x 127 cm.
Kunstmuseum,
Basel.
"Jasper
Johns
usually locates
the beginning of his
career as an
artist in the years
1953 and 1954,
WHEN HIS
HE
WAS
IN
EARLY TWENTIES,
AND WHEN, HE HAD DECIDED TO
^6^
STOP 'BECOMING' AN poets such as Frank O'Hara, Hart Crane, Ted Berrigan, and Tennyson) consciously or
ARTIST 'BE
AND
ONE."'
— Nan Rosenthal
unconsciously succumbed to that well-worn but not the thing
itself
but the effect which
surrogate self-portraits, as soldiers,
it
still
potent Mallarmean notion of painting
produces. Seen in this
some have hinted? Are
Johns
Has Johns'
own
life
work been
the targets
the body parts, corpses, skulls, sleeping
wooden beams, and bloodied bandages evidence
of our time?
light, are
of the strangest religious painter
a struggle to erect a crucifixion
without painting one?
intentions have remained skilfully shrouded in ambiguity. In the interviews
and remarkable sketchbook notes, we're supplied with
elliptical clues rather
than the hard
JASPER JOHNS BY TREVOR WINKFIELD
facts that lazy-bones crave. There's
Johns,
no simple
He
always overlaid with "Either/Or."
it's
don't put any value
"Yes''
the
Museum
Modern
of
on
limits
His mercifully reticent biography offers few clues as in the
to Jasper
himself asserts:
on a kind of thinking that puts
approach the work. At one point
"No"
or
things."
how
to
"1
to
chronology running through
Art catalog (one of those unnecessary rib-
crushers so beloved of contemporary curators) the compilers are so
stumped
for interesting tidbits they're
as the entry for
October
reduced
to
such small potatoes
1983:
7,
Front Stony Point, Johns writes to Castleman denying rumors he
he has broken his cleaned
leg.
He
adds that the monotypes are being
how
Goldston, and that he will soon decide on
b) Bill
to
tear these prints' margins.
One
can,
I
suppose, dismiss these non-events. But reading between
their lines
we can
been
on the canvas, not
lived
detect that the important part of Johns in the
life
has
world outside - which gives his
inert slabs of encaustic a terrible poignancy.
A
problem which such a devotion creates
and loneliness many for
hours
at a time,
artists
day
in
main reason so many abandon the
decade
out,
boredom
the sheer
when confined
experience
and day
is
to their studios
after decade.
It's
the
task, or start talking to themselves.
THINK A PAINTING SHOULD CONTAIN MORE "I
EXPERIENCE THAN SIMPLY INTENDED STATEMENT. 55
Johns, about the time his paintings stopped being monologues and
became conversations (1960), with
studio fever mounting, adopted
the clever strategem of taking up a team activity in the form of
printmaking.
The
revivifying
impact apart - maneuvring raw
lithographic ink jolted his paint into chromatic overdrive
-
it
led,
by
the end of the decade, to an increased flattening of the paint surface.
With
his passionless
"Screen Pieces" of 1967—8 one suspects he
no longer meant what he painted. As their Pieces" were
more about
print than paint.
become
a
flatness than
By the time he came
moody topographer
titles
suggest, the "Screen
hidden depths, more about to paint
Decoy
of atmosphere, but
in
1971 he'd
little else.
171
WRI
I
1
RS
ON
\RTISTS
It's
what
clear he'd simultaneously run out of ideas of
and how
to paint
to paint.
three interchangeable panels of Voice 2 (1968—71) illustrate the color crisis he
the
same
time.
experiencing
at
has
rudimentary grasp of
it's
at best a
often been said
It's
color.
true he rarely puts us in a lather with he's always
we
beg
I
— Johns has
to differ. He's a
cunning arrays of
used color so
leave Matisse,
it
tacitly
wonderful
tints the
—
agreed
The
was
While
colorist.
way Matisse
does,
When
doesn't overpower his ideas.
on the other hand, often we're
he
that
left
with a
stunning crimson glow, and an empty head. Voice 2 does, however, betray Johns' lack of self-confidence in his innate
was
color sense to an alarming degree. Originally, each panel
painted primary red, yellow, and blue (remnants of these colors
mementi mori along the edges of the Canvases).
act as
-
primal state
ensemble was felt
still
compelled
to tone
monochromatic gray very
much
a
1970 - the whole
visible in slides taken in
a prismatic riot. Alas,
shadow
it
down by
overlays; so
of
its
Johns
In this
lost his
nerve and
reverting to his usual
what we perceive now
former
self, still a
is
masterpiece,
not ruined but muted.
At
this
each decade Green Target, 1955, encaustic on newspaper and cloth over canvas,
and saw
60 x 60 in/152 x 152 cm. Museum of Modern Art, New York
second,
Richard
ability to capitalize
S. Zeisler
Fund.
stars
a car
in his career),
coming towards him. Covered
at the turn of
Johns was driving on Long Island
in cross-hatchings
and glimpsed only
for a
fortuitous dazzle supplied subject matter sufficient for a decade's mining. This
its
and
impasse (impasses occur regularly
on apparently
trivial
occurrences (witness his dream of painting the
stripes, or the casual suggestion
by a friend that he paint
a pet)
marks him not
Not
only as a willing sponge but draws attention also to his relative lack of imagination. that there's anything
And
wrong with
besides, painters by
and
musicians and poets, they of finding
and refining
The range shufflings
a
that
- many
large aren't the
come
most imaginative
few subjects, and Johns
slots into this
may be narrow
and myriad interpretations. Just
enough, take on the gravity of planets
creators;
as
but
all
that
we can
get (Voice 2's buried
archaeological evidence) paint's ability to depict to the
is
made
a bird's-eye
spectrum being
explicit in the
and disguise
at
the
it's
to
a matter
of things perfectly.
runs deep, sparking endless
Cezanne's apples, contemplated long
in their orbits, so
one which becomes
it
scheme
Johns can transform a green view of the roof of a tower,
multiple floors receding into the wall behind. This awareness that what not
compared
on the imaginative totem. Mainly
pretty low
of his subject matter
target into a whirlpool,
find Picasso too overpoweringly protean.
same
this concept's
we
its
are seeing
is
most tangible
works from 1980 onward. Thanks
to
time, previously secret layers are hauled
surface yet retain their unfathomable ambiguities. Autobiographical elements such
JASPER JOHNS BY TREVOR WINKFIELD
as the floor plan of his grandfather's
house are earpeted by ladders, bod} shadows,
segments of sidereal spaee. stick men, and Picassoid eyeballs. finally
declaring his
to
life
he an open book
...
if
only
we can
It's
find
Laboring under the label Greatest Living American Painter
as
though Johns
him on the
(a
is
shelf.
burden which should
be returned to the Guinness Book of Records) cannot have been easy
for Johns.
He must
"In part it connects with duchamp's idea that an artist has
only a few ideas and he's probably right. One's range is limited by one's interests and imagination and by one's passion." often have
felt
he'd been transformed into one of his alleged self-portraits, a target.
Certainly he's received a
Great Painting.
isolationist
who
more than
Much
his fair share of brickbats
better to think of
him
as a
when
Remarkable
has never stopped painting his best work.
he's failed to deliver
Painter, a
maverick
Map, 1961, oil on canvas, 78 x 123 in/198 x 315 cm. Museum of Modern Art ,
New
Y<>rk_
173
S WR1
I
1
ON
R.S
AR.
Robert Motherwell by Norbert Lynton
"Every' -picture
one paints involves not painting
others.
"
Robert Motherwell to Frank O'Hara,
1965.
Robert Motherwell Motherwell, horn in
Washington State
in
SHOWING A MAJOR MOTHERWELL EXHIBITION IN SPAIN MAKES GOOD SENSE.
19 IS,
Ashton curated
for the
it
Tapies Foundation
in
Dore
Barcelona and there, carefully,
credited with introducing
is
sparsely hung,
the term "Abstract
He
studied painting briefly
at the California
School of
Fine Arts in Sati Francisco, received his
BA from
Stanford University, and studied art histon at
Columbia
whose atrium allows gallery supported
it
air
and space and
light,
coming down from
on unusually slender, modern, cast-iron columns.
few Tapies up there, and go up
to see
new
a
One
ceiling above a
could glimpse a
them. Motherwell was never a "matter painter"
building images out of heavy, dense materials
- he
when
usually works thinly, even
paint
University.
Meyer Schapiro to become a painter.
Motherwell
is
considered
the leading exponent of
Abstract Expressionis)}i in the US. Extremely prolific,
he worlied primarih in the
medium
of collage. In 1944 he was invited to exhibit at the
looked both strong and enticing, especially in the main gallery
he was encouraged
Tliere, b)
it
US.
to the
Expressionism"
Guggenheim
"Art of
Fhis Century" exhibition in
Sew York - a moment
seminal
"Regardless of the medium, whether it is in Eliot or Picasso or a TV THIRTY-SECOND ADVERTISEMENT, I THINK COLLAGE IS THE TWENTIETH CENTURY' GREATEST CREATIVE INNOVATION."
in his career.
Employing a range of methods including drip-
Motherwell abandoned gestural
and-spatter,
expressionism in the late
goes over paint - but there powerfully,
is
a real kinship
between the two
Both use blacks
artists.
and ochers and white, and sometimes inscribe ancient signs
call abstract.
Both have a
vivid sense of scale. For Tapies, very
much
in
compositions
alive, to
we
welcome
'60s in favor of "Color Field"
painting using pure color
Motherwell,
who
died in 1991, to his Foundation
is
a fine act of collegiate
homage. From
devoid of emotion.
March Motherwell exhibited paintings
and
prints
extensively throughout the
US and
abroad. His
can be found qj
Modem irt
the
at the
Art in
work
Museum
New
the exhibition will be in the Reina Sofia
Museum
in
Madrid,
in beautiful
more impersonal
room there and
Many
spaces.
The dozen
the result
or so paintings that
were omitted
in
Barcelona
but
will find
must be an even more persuasive show.
of Motherwell's best paintings refer to Spain.
We
tend to think more of his
links with France, his
deep and somehow essential regard
for
French Symbolist poetry and
of Fine Arts in
Boston, and mam other museums. He died in 1991.
literary theory as well as
Journals
174
May
York,
Institute of Chicago,
Museum
to
his
in Paris,
French painting.
He
wrote his
art history thesis
on Delacroix's
Grenoble, and Oxford. From 1944 on he edited that famous series of
ROBERT MOTHERWELL
source books, "The
He
Documents
Modem Art,"
of
wrote several introductions for
it,
inevitably looking
because
was not about
it
modern
principles of
to
art,
who
are good with words. Marcel
Surrealism appeared in the series too, a surprising choice
yet altogether right
and timely
for the light
most important book
Historically the
art.
French material.
of exactly the sensitive, slightly chancy, entirely
stimulating sort one hopes to get from spirited artists
Raymond's From Baudelaire
first to
throws on the
it
in the series
is
the
exceptionally large one dealing not with resonances and silences but with "anti-art," as
was called
when
1950s: Tlie Dadaist Painters and Poets, published in 1951
in the
the
it
Dada
NORBERT LYNTON The
movement had could
all
but disappeared from modern
perhaps
art history,
to leave
what we
Modernist "pro-art" unchallenged.
call
NORBERT LYNTON
BY
and writer
art historian
was born
in
educated
in
1927 and
Loudon
Birkbeck College and
The
exhibition's multilingual catalog includes an important essay
by Professor Ashton
Courtauld
Institute.
at
at the
He
has
taught at several colleges and
who knew Motherwell School, and to
many
over
many
New York
years, witnessed his activity as part of the
universities, including
the most multicultured of American critics. She writes about his attachments
is
things, stressing his enduring regard for Spain.
He
heard Andre Malraux speak on
School of Art, and the University of Sussex, where
he
War
the Civil
in
was beginning
San Francisco
in
to paint seriously, in
and married a Mexican
love with
1937.
He
actress,
is
soon discovered Spanish poetry. Just when he
some months
1941, he spent
met various
sorts
in
Mexico, where he
now
Professor Emeritus
of the Histon of Art.
fell in
and degrees of Spanishness but
Leeds
College of Art, Chelsea
During the 1960s, Lynton was the London correspondent for Art
also
had contact with Spanish refugees from Fascism. Young Motherwell, of
partly Scottish
International,
1965
stock and born in Aberdeen, Washington (his father was Robert Burns Motherwell
II),
a
to
for London's
critic
The Guardian.
From 1970
student of philosophy,
and from
1970, the art
to
1975, he
worked for the Arts Council
psychology, and art history
-
of Great Britain as the Director of Exhibitions.
unavoidably international subjects
York in
- had
1
940
settled in
to
history further
^^^^
ML New
art
jugMWj
under Meyer
'
York.
L
^fl
in
and near
:
j
)
i^^
'
9 Il^JI
He
is
on
the editorial board of
Modern
jgJWB
He now
lives
Painters.
and
writes in
Brighton, England.
v
V n
New
Yale Dictionary of
Erika Langmuir. "
f
to the Surrealists sheltering
from the war
recently co-authored
Art and Artists with
painting part-
time and Schapiro introduced
him
has written widely on art
of the twentieth century,
The
pursue
He was
He
and
T Schapiro.
m.
V
'1
Ji
Motherwell said he spoke
pidgin French with them; they
1 found him young and eager, responsive and helpful.
It
iHH
was
*
^ jjL
ftST* 1
'
l
\Mlx-
JH flttf
Jw
**» the un-French Surrealist Matta,
J
from Chile
officially
but from '
just about
who
told
everywhere
in effect,
him about automatism
and drew him down
to
Mexico
W V
IB
11 H
Personnage
(Self-Portrait), 1943,
collage of Japanese
and Western oil, and ink
Papers with Gouache,
on paperboanl, 41 x 26 in! 104 x 65 cm.
A W'
Guggenheim Collection, Venice Solomon II Guggeheim Inundation,
New
York
.
175
WRITERS ON
\R1 ISTS
in
1941, to black, reds, and ocher in sunshine
and popular celebrations of death. The unsettled and resettled him.
York with the Picture with
first
He
visit
returned to
New
item in the exhibition, Spanish
Window, and began painting
Spanish Prison (1941-44;
iMOMA, New York).
Dore Ashton touches only Motherwell's isolation
Little
among
lightly
on
the leading
Abstract Expressionists, even once he was exhibiting mature of them.
She
work and was paraded
refers to
as
one
Harold Rosenberg's words
about "eoonskins" and "redcoats, identifying the
new
painters of
New York with and the
those un-
uniformed
guerillas
practicing
European maneuvers, with the square-
traditionalists,
bashing English soldiers, useless
That was
She
also
a useful
in the wilds.
and entertaining image then.
mentions Philip Rahv's distinction with
American
literature
the family of
between palefaces,
Henry James and
of Eliot,
and
descended from Emerson and
redskins,
Whitman.
How
did Motherwell, aware of
these tropes, see himself? Spanish Picture with Window,
1941
.
oil
Beginning
in
1960, David Sylvester's interviews with the major
New York painters
were
on canvas,
42 x 34 in/107 x 86 cm.
Modem Art Museum hort Wortli. Texas.
broadcast by the Third Programme, including one with Motherwell. Sylvester titled
of
"Painting as Self-Discovery," aptly
enough according
American painting and Motherwell's particular wanted
to publish the text,
also stopped speaking of
Motherwell wanted
to the general
interest in it
image of the new
automatism
etc.
retitled, to "Painting as
automatism preferring the
it
When
Metro
Experience."
"free association" to refer to the
He
way
of
drawing on his unconscious. At the risk of oversimplifying the situation, alone among the heroes of Abstract Expressionism, Motherwell stood for peripatetic, experience-gathering activity, in
the studio
and outside
it.
Motherwell's colleagues, Rothko, Pollock,
Gottlieb, de Kooning, Guston, etc. accepted the role of pioneers. Pollock's
Kooning's paintings fitted the coonskin/redskin image. Rothko's, not,
the
though they adopted, and
unknown and
could do so more
They were
176
risking
all
brilliantly
Still
Still's,
Still,
and de
and Gottlieb's did
amplified, the associated cliche about venturing into
while focusing their work on one kind of image. That Rothko
than
Still
while Gottlieb
became boring
is
another matter.
serious, thinking, learned painters, ambitious for art as well as for themselves.
ROBERT MOTHERWELL
Motherwell associated with them
1948
in
Artists."
the running; he certainly organized the lectures, by John after
it
de Kooning, and Gottlieb, and
for the
WPA,
suspect Motherwell did most
Cage and
ol
others, that people
to twelve years
at university a university
younger than Rothko,
art was an aesthetic, ethical,
and
and Guston were merely two or three years older than
society. Pollock
Motherwell but painting professionally from the mid- 1930s. Motherwell was better
a
"For Motherwell,
student while they worked
developing a new awareness of each other and wondering about the place of
modern
high art in
1
closed in 1949.
Motherwell was youngest of the group - eleven Still,
NORBERT LYNTON
forming and running the short-lived but
in
famous school they entitled "The Subjects of the
remembered long
BY
ultimately
spiritual force."
off,
— Stephen
Aldiss
true that every artist HAS HIS OWN RELIGION.
It
is
V)
and perhaps too eager all,
to join in
producing new journals and be a spokesman
not out of playboyish self-regard but out of missionary zeal.
reluctant
America was
to see
any virtue
and young Motherwell volunteered
him
do
it.
I
art.
A
lot
them
have forgotten
of basic teaching
how
was needed,
suspect the others used him while not taking
entirely seriously. It
—
to
new
in the
We
for
would have been wholly against
even, or especially, highbrow ones.
fully related to life as lived.
some
his nature
Not
and desire
to set close limits for his
"self-discovery" but "experience": he
work
wanted an
Motherwell worked out many of these ideas and developed
of the imagery for the Spanish Elegy series in Possibilities (1947-8), one of the
art
The
Guillotine, 1966. oil
acrylic
on canvas,
66 a 50 in/168 x 127 cm.
sequence of avant-garde journals he helped Baudelaire
to
Surrealism in which Marcel
Raymond speaks seem echoed
edit.
in
of experience in terms that
Motherwell's
art:
Experience becomes a sense of certainty that penetrates one's
being and state
stirs
one
lilze
whole
a rei'elatiou
—
a
of euphoria that seems to give the
world to
man and
he possesses'
persuades him that
it."
For this to happen,
Ravmond goes
on, one has to
accept the free play of received sensations and "not to place
them
in a logical
framework." John
Dewey, developing William James's thoughts on pragmatism, in 1934 published Art as Experience.
Its title
alone must have stirred
Ashton
also quotes a passage in
From
Israel
Museum,
Jerusalem.
and
WRITERS ON ARTISTS
young Motherwell,
as
Ashton implies; perhaps
also
Dewey's notorious statement, "the true
that
which works."
Our
habit of identifying
"Elegy" series
— images
themselves readily counter to the
way with
career.
man
him with the
do imprint
our memories — runs
himself and to his inclusive
Masterful though
art.
was neither
in
that
his goal
it is,
the series
nor the culmination of his
There are other
series, quite as
is
series: the
"Open"
dramatic on occasion but
involving another kind of exploration; the series of "Je t'aime" paintings, explosions of lyricism Elegy to the Spanish Republic
that stand
up well
to those epic statements;
more than one
series of collages,
many
of
No. 172 (With Blood), 1989-90,
them
Acrylic on canvas,
displaying his attachment to scraps of France (Gauloises packets, envelopes from the
84 x 120 in/213 x 305 cm.
Nouvell Revue Francaise, printed and written words
Denver Art Museum, Denver.
maison/nuit
la rue,"
on
a collage
and
in
French such
a large painting, references to
as
Eluards "Jour
la
Mallarme, and so on);
paintings incorporating figures in varying degrees of directness; the "Iberia" series of primarily black paintings; discrete series of calligraphic paintings on paper and of images
drawn
Iberia No. 17. 1958, oil
on paperboard, 11 x 14
in
I
27 x 35 cm. Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.
178
in
response to favorite pieces of writing
brilliantly
represented here by ten pages
ROBERT MOTHERWELL
A
BY
NORBERT LYNTON
La Pintura No.
12,
1971-74,
and charcoal on canvas, 108 x 120 in/274 x 305 cm.
acrylic
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo,
New
from
his
Dedalus Sketchbooks of 1982;
a large range of print series, usually
between major painting campaigns and including
1968-72
in
response to Raffael Alberti's poems
A
a fine suite of etchings
done
York State.
in spurts
done during
La Pintura. The Spanish poet, who had
thought of being a painter, wrote delicately but also with hypnotic rhythmical insistence
about paintings, about colors, especially black, in ways that Motherwell found confirming
on
a
good day and This
one to
is
list
a stimulus to action
when
were
his spirits
low.
could go on and probably should. Trying to see Motherwell's work whole,
overcome by
its
be indulged. "Here
variety over a is
ground bass of challenges yet
to
God's plenty," as Dryden said of Chaucer. In a
freedom of search and expression was associated with one path per looked open, directionless even, to a
fault.
patented brand-images, Gottlieb,
trapped by his
own
best work.
Rothko kept
seemed
the lesser Abstract Expressionists (as they to repeat
be met, preferences
Still,
to
his earlier
me
artist
work
then, and
New York where
still
he must have
secret.
of
and the color had artist
kept grave
do) were content
COMPANY."
we know,
—Mar)' Ann Caws
Kline, particularly Pollock,
The 1959 Tate show made
Some
"For years the
felt
Francis and Guston look as
though they had settled on their brand-images, but they soon moved on. The horrified response to Guston's radical redirection of his work the dismay that had greeted de Kooning's
"Woman"
in
1970 was an amplified version of
series in 1953.
Both were sinning
179
WRI
I
I
Rs
ON ART IMS
"my way" convention.
against the
constancy
seemed
in
the
relevant, in Monet's Waterlilies
essential
it
to the
collages adhere to
new world
was Cubism
European ways,
No
that
had
to
his large
and the
Cubism; others
They
paper a
collage fragment on painting
hoard,
not.
If his
Both
sorts
Nachtmnsik and the
are his Eine kleine
one complains of Mozart's range, we don't associate authenticity
Someone should study
Figure in Black (Girl With
are rooted in Matisse.
quasi-monochrome paintings do
epic.
the rise of this obsession, that every
the
be overcome.
music with one tune or one form. And the Motherwells are not
Stripes), 194~, oil with
Cubism was
of expansive, neither centered nor episodic, painting.
are intensely personal, the lyrical
Jupiter Symphony.
on what
again, by focussing only
contracted and hardened.
art
of Motherwell's paintings acknowledge
belong
it
and Kandinsky's apocalyptic "abstracts" of
European
to
European modernism, and
Some
had on hand prominent examples of such
work of Mondrian, and then found
1913-14. American references
Many
New York
in
"Masterpieces."
all
work by
major
a
"masterpiece" (forget the true meaning of the word). In this exhibition one
breathless by the most august paintings, including the "Elegy" and the
has to be
artist
knocked
is
"Open"
series,
and
24 x 19 in/61 x 48 cm. National
Museum
of
American
Art,
some
of the almost entirely black paintings referring to Spain (including a
intimate one,
tiny,
Smithsonian Institution. Washington,
DC.
a
superb
little
N^MHfe.
thing a
more self-important
w«^
^w^^ ^^H^
might well have been embarrassed
artist
There are also Ten Years
Aft er
-
Ama —
Threatening Presence (1976)
reaching well beyond the
They
more
involve
such as The Voyage:
large singletons,
(i96i) chi
color
'
Crede
(
1
962) and
real adventures,
artist's
—
by).
there
range is
at that time.
always more
color in a Motherwell than reproductions allow one
- and they show him
to see
what we begin
furthest from territory.
He
at his
called
some
of
most aggressive,
to think his particular
them monsters.
Between the two extremes come radiant interventions, neither lyrical nor epic, but
responses,
and
would seem,
in that sense
Italy
(
it
more out-turned. Summertime
)
is
such
a one.
making us imagine
in
The
title
overburdens
it,
a specific source. Also, there
not one ocher but variations on ocher, and with
them come glimpses
The most Hollow
Men
have seen
Now
ISO
and a moment,
No. 7 (In Golden Ocher)
1961
is
to a sight
it
it
of red.
surprising painting
(From
was
T.S. Eliot) (1983).
reproduced, but
it
his I
The
know
I
hadn't registered.
haunts me. Motherwell had always included
ROBERT MOTHERWELL
references to figures in his armory, with Picasso and Klee (Girl with Stripes) (1947)
is
in
mind. His Figure
in
BY
NORBERT LYNTON
Black
indicated by black
bands that may have come from Klee's
late
work; his
Doonvax with Figure (1953) makes me think of Las Meninas
as
mediated by Picasso. But Orange Figure
with Interior (1953) suggests other stimuli. figure, a
truncated torso reduced to midritt.
abdomen and
thighs,
is
unmistakably female and
painted with lust as well as awe. date point to de Kooning's in
Here the
Her
"Woman"
and
fleshiness
series, first
seen
1953. She pre-echoes a hea\y pink figure on a
much
larger scale
and
Feminine
(1988—9), her form defined and divided
II
a
larger canvas in
The
by black lines which summarize the body almost
beyond recognition yet catch are left uncertain exactly
its
what
is
sexual appeal.
presented,
shoulders and arms, or legs and groin, or both, and hints of breasts.
The
We
interior
some
of
brusquely
Doorway with
Figure, 1951,
casein on tan wrapping paper
mounted on masonite, 48 x 40 in/122 x 75 cm.
Denver Art Museum, Colorado.
Orange Figure with /953,
oil
Interior,
on canvas,
\ 24 in/5 I x 61 cm. Modern \n Museum of port
20
Worth. Texas.
181
\\
Rl 11 RS
ON
ARI ISTS
I
N
\V
The Hollow Men (From Eliot),
J
T.S.
supplied
in
the 1953 painting, perhaps derived from Matisse,
is
here replaced by an
983, acrylic, charcoal and
pencil on canvas,
entirely
Motherwell expansive firmament of blacks and off-whites.
88 x 176 in/224 x 447 cm. Private Collection.
With The Hollow? Men {From
T.S.Eliot)
we
are in another world.
As
often, the title
surfaced as the image developed. Motherwell kept poetry and other books in the studio, to read between bouts of painting.
He
painted with reading in his head where others work
"One of the most striking of abstract art's appearances is her nakedness, an art stripped bare." accompanied by music. He always valued American-English Stevens; Eliot perhaps
became more important
painting, in alluding to Eliot's
82
to
him
1925 poem, refers also
poetry, especially Eliot
as the years passed.
and
But of course the
to the situation Eliot addresses: this
is
;
ROBERT MOTHERWELL
a political painting
homage
more than an
to a piece of writing,
though
it
"men" occupy much of
this painting,
The
as both.
nearly fifteen feet across, yet are
its
"More than
almost
swiftly,
any other artist
dismissively outlined in thick charcoal
and brushed ocher the
in cursorily
left, in
since vasari,
with diluted
There are denser areas on
acrylic.
black and red, and there
band of yellow
at the
is
a
continuing under is
think, Robert
Motherwell situate the art
rest,
including the thin black overpainting at lets
I
undertook to
bottom. These
underline the slightness of the
the top which
movement
This repressed red
participated
part of the message, the context in
which these wobbly
the scene. In front of the painting
main response was hate-filled lines
to
and
in
the larger
dominate
figures
in
WHICH HE
us glimpse the red it.
NORBERT LYNTON
act of
perhaps we should sec
weakest element,
BY
structures of
my
them, to those
history.
a
he played
triple role,
their conjunctions.
as thinker, as Weightless, gutless, the "men" hang in the nightmare space of the painting.
maker and as
It
intermediary, in the is
now
that
I
can name the
memory
transformation of they stirred: they are Motherwell's perhaps unconscious answer, by very different means, to
Duchamp's Nine Malic Molds
in TJie
Large Glass.
elaborately crafted painting confront the
Eliot's early
modernism that
poems and Duchamp's
same world.
The Royal Academy's panoptic American show
of 1993, "devised from a
European
standpoint," excluded Motherwell even while emphasizing the quarter-century from
Abstract Expressionism to Conceptual Art as defining the US's "essential contribution to the art of
our
time.''
To
rhetoric of leaving
identify' that
home seems
contribution with what can in itself
now seem and
took place in new York in the 1940s AND '50s. n
—Arthur Danto
adolescent
immature. The exhibition found room,
in
some
instances a lot of room, for Haring, Holzer, Peter Kelley, Koons, Sherman, and others, clever professionals working their chosen seams without finding to
use no harsher word,
artists as
in the
company
Johns, Ellsworth Kelley,
much
in
them and looking
slight,
of the best Abstract Expressionist painters and such
Nauman, and Twombly The
only excuse for excluding
Motherwell would have been that three or four canvasses could not have done justice this
profound as well as mobile
artist.
which seems odd, almost obscene,
I
to
suspect his European connection kept him out -
in this little
would-be great world of ours.
IS-!
W'KI
1
ERS
ON
ARTISTS
Mondrian
Piet
by Bridget Riley
AN
artist's early
interests,
artist
Born
in the
S
Mondrian took an
Netherlands in
interest in art.
early
To please his
earned a degree in
family, he
of
is
which
inevitably
made up of a mixture
are compatible
of tendencies
and some of which
and
are in conflict.
As the
picks his way, rejecting and accepting as he goes, certain patterns of enquiry
MONDRIAN
PlET ~J
some
work
emerge. His failures are as valuable as his successes: by misjudging on£ thing he confirms
something
even
else,
if
at the
time he does not
sense, although
Mondrian may sometimes
development
of use
fail,
know what
something else
that
is.
In that
he never makes mistakes, everything
in his
education, but after beginning a career as a teacher, he soon left
His first exhibited worlis were
-
and contributes
There are two conflicting
pursue painting.
in the
is
to that
development.
the profession to
Dutch
still lifes
in
nature.
colors with intention
He
to light.
- "temperament"
as
an
artist's
in the
own
sense given to the word by
particular
and ineradicable
traditional style
landscapes and
subdued
Baudelaire and Cezanne
temperament,
traits in his
to then exhibited
with the Postimpressionists
m Amsterdam's
One
a feeling for
is
rhythm, which quickens
to the pulse of life
be connected with his positive sense of the new; and the other
balance, which
is
at
is
and seems somehow and
a love of order
the root of his search for unity and fullness. Both these
traits
can also
1907
Quadrennial Exhibition. afterward producing "TJie
Red
Cloud," a rapidh slwtched
drawing dense with
color.
Mohdrian moved to Pans 1912, where he was
in
"Art is not made for anybody and at the same time, for everybody.
is, }?
influenced In the earl)
Cubism
of Picasso
and
Braque. Mondrian
experimented with
approach
to
his
have an obverse
side: the lively quality
may
lead to an extreme
dynamism and
own
Cubism. Along
fragmentation, while the insistence on order can sometimes turn into a bland and almost
with three other painters, he
founded the art movement and journal. De Stijl. The movement strove lor purit) and rejected external subject matter:
it
restricted pictorial
language
to the straight line
and
and color to the three primaries and to the noncolors white, gray, and black. Mondrian called the
schematic statement. These two temperamental qualities ebb and flow throughout the various preoccupations
styles of his
development — now one
in
ascendancy and then
the other, until they slowly find a resolution in the late abstract works.
The
early landscapes painted in
Holland are predominantly tonal
in treatment
and
right angle,
style
have
a low-key,
Mondrian
in
lived for
London
and buildings reflected
in
water produce
self-
field of vision
up
York,
two years
to
where he develop his
Neoplasticism
Evening
light is
frequently chosen and there
is
a
marked
interest in visual
phenomena
1938,
before settling in
continued
his
character. Trees
contained symmetrical images which cut the recession short and pull the close.
Neu
moody
"Neoplasticism."
Leaving Paris
in
and
bordering on the apparitional.
The
tree in
Evening on the Gein with Isolated Tree (1908),
from calling on natural similitude, looms over the dark shape of the reflection like
some ominous
sign;
and
in Trees
river
on the Gein: Moonrise (1908) the
style until
death in 1944.
bank and
are treated as a spectral frieze spread flat against the light of the
moon.
far
its
five trees
PI
This up closeness
is
carried further in a choice of subjects in
Domburg (The Red "Indeed view is
it
realist painter," says
normal perspective and therefore cannot see
in
BY BRIDGET RILEY
In his Trialogue
(1910—12)
about the The Mill
at
Mill) (1910):
find this windmill very beautiful, particularly
I
MONDRIAN
which the sense of an
unencompassable presence and an overpowering scale dominate. Mondrian, under the guise of the "abstract
ET
it
or
now
draw
that
it
we
are too close to
normally From here,
it
very difficult merely to reproduce what one sees."
The
final painting
Bridget Riley
conveys the sensation of something grand towering up above the One
spectator's viewpoint.
of the few British artists
have
to
won
award
The
recurrent subject of
the Premio
at the Venice
Biennale, Riley, a pioneer
Op Art,
of
sea and dunes pro\ides a
enjoys an
international reputation.
theme of
vast,
London
was horn
lack of
College of Art and the Royal
in
and educated
openness.
The
differentiation in gives a singular
Her first was
prominence
horizon line and
reverberations.
By stacking
in
solo exhibition
London
color, creating the x'isual
equivalent of energy. Works
from the
and differences, Mondrian
early '60s feature
small triangles, ovals,
and curved, creates a fluctuating,
verticle,
black and white. In the late '60s,
very early on
colors,
she began working in
adding rich coloration
to the
black and white.
have been a
special attraction to trees
Riley's recent
and
work includes
an installation of a to the pictorial
problem of
how
sky,
and
its
offices at
Canary Wharf in London.
Her work foliage or
large-
scale sculpture comissioned
by Citibank for
branches,
and
horizontal lines, painted in
inpalpable envelope of space.
to
1962,
best-known paintings
Riley's
and
seems
in
which she began
capture the intensity of light
divisions of different weights
there
Goldsmiths
at
to exhibit widely.
its
and interlocking horizontal
From
1931
in
College of Art in London.
such motifs
after
to the
She
uncentered
blossom interact
in
and
and interpenetrate. Being
has been exhibited
Europe. Japan, Australia, recently in
at the
New York
Dia Center.
essentially a subject that Riley currently lives
cannot be treated
and works
in
London,
Cornwall, and France. "realistically,'
the tree offers a
marvelous pretext for the fabrication of a rhythmic structure of shallow recessions
and advances that have
nothing to do with the void and solid of the original motif. The potential of to
be
fully realized in
little
or
this subject
was The
Mondrian's Cubist work.
But before that Mondrian discovered
color. It first
Mill at
Domburg (The Red
Mill), 1910. oil
entered his world through van
Gogh
59x34
on canvas,
in/150 x 86 cm.
Gemeenteniuseum,
and Divisionism. Both the vibrancv of autonomous brushwork and the abstract intensity of
Collection,
Slijper
The Hague.
,85
wRi rERS ON ar:
color contrast for
must have appealed
to his feeling
rhythm and dynamism. In Evening; Red
Tree (1908) the sensation of evening light has
shed
moody
its
aura,
and Mondrian
crackles the painting into
life
fairly
with equivalents
of red and blue and short energetic
brushmarks. From there
it is
to the liberating of color
from any descriptive
only a small shift
or representational function. This Fauvist
approach can be seen
same
year.
The
Mill in Sunlight of the
in
dazzling heat and light of a
midsummer day
is
recast in stabbing strokes
and blotches of red and yellow shot through with pale blue and
violet.
But Mondrian's development
one of
a
not simply
young painter finding out what
a
and how from
is
to paint
it.
to paint
Like van Gogh, he comes
Dutch background deeply involved with
religious matters,
and
fulfillment as an artist
in a similar
way
his
inseparably connected
is
with transforming these roots. The parallel striking
because
basis as alien
it
shows
that even a cultural
and unsympathetic
to artistic
aspiration as fervent Protestantism
necessarily an obstacle.
whether an
artist is
predicament to
is
It is
is
not
a question of
strong enough to turn this
to advantage.
Van Gogh was
able
transform his religious zeal and empathy with
the people working in the coal mines into
preaching sun. in
a virtual gospel of the
Whereas Mondrian, who
theosophy and
all
power of the
initially
engaged
sorts of attempts to
reconcile philosophical speculation with Christianity,
had
to discover in the basic
properties of painting the
him
that allowed
to fulfill his spiritual quest.
The
crucial painting in this context
Evolution (1910-11).
186
means
It is
is
something of an
PIET
embarrassment
to
many people who
claim that Mondrian
is
love
Mondrian
and not
a symbolist
serves as the basic reference point. In fact
really it
as an abstract purist;
an abstract
artist at all, this
expressive works such as the Eternal Feminine and the artist
would ever dare
risk
for those
something
New
like this;
Olympia. it
to
BY BRIDGET RILEY
who
painting
deserves neither of these responses.
unique and revealing failure on an imaginative scale only comparable
well-behaved
and
MONDRIAN
It is
a
Cezanne's early
No
fashionable or
takes an unselfconscious
and
Above: Evolution, 1910-1
uncompromising imagination
to
go to such awkward lengths. Over and above
pictorial shortcomings, the failure of the to
make
a universal statement about
life
work
-
is
objective. In Evolution
a task of
dimension
its
obvious
Mondrian attempts
traditionally only
accomplished through the agency of Biblical subjects and Antique mythology. The fact
whole sphere of representation was no longer available had been an essential main-
spring in the formation of for
Modern
art in the
nineteenth century. Mondrian had to discover
himself that literary symbolism and personal invention could not
make up
for this loss.
70 x 34 in/178 x 85 cm, 72 x 34 inl183x88 cm. Gemeentemuseum, Slijper Collection, The Hague. Left:
creation of a
common
social language
does not
lie
within the scope of an individual
The Red
oil
on canvas,
28
a
Tree,
1908 -10,
40 iu/70 x 99 cm.
Gemeentemuseum, The Hague. Bottom 1908,
The
on
center panel
Top that this
1, oil
canvas, triptych: side panels
Left: Mill in Sunlight,
oil
on canvas,
17 x 14 in/44
\
14 cm.
Gemeentemuseum, The Hague.
and the lack of such a basis has It
to
be accepted by Modern Painting.
would have been almost impossible
for a
young
artist to deal
with this gigantic-
IS"
Will
I
1
ON
RS
AKII
n 1
S
problem on
own, particularly when
his
was completed, Mondrian pioneers, the
"A MONDRIAN IS
WITHOUT
TOLERANCE.
NO
ELEMENT CAN
BE
CHANGED,
as
left for Paris
Modern movement had
living in a provincial context.
Soon
after Evolution
where, through the daring and brilliance of
already begun to
make
its
response to this
its
crisis.
Just
van Gogh had found liberation in the Divisionist approach to color that nineteenth-
century Paris offered him, so Mondrian, following a similar pattern of emancipation, found a
key to spatial organization through Cubism
contemporary
critics
in
twentieth-century Paris. However, as some
observed, his interpretation of
Cubism was
His work was recognized for being "extremely original
mark
the
MOVED, ADDED,
that
it
bore
if
temperamental distinction, while
Cubist "laws of volume" (Andre Salmon) - that
OR SUBTRACTED paintings
— drew
in
is
much
clearly very
his
own.
conception" (Leo Faust) and for his
to say the
complete indifference
to the
remarkable flatness of his
the criticism of other reviewers.
WITHOUT In Paris
REFORMING THE in
WHOLE."
Mondrian worked
first
from the
latticelike
drawings of trees done previously
Holland and then from small, diagrammatic notes he made of the planes of interior walls
exposed
in the
demolition of large houses near his studio. These walls bore the remnants of
— Tom Lubbock
"Intellect confuses intuition.
55
the wallpaper and paint that had once decorated rooms on each floor and presented patches of color placed haphazardly visual field,
subdued
colored grays, or
colors: the
muted shades
Cubist paintings that were
his
abstract
the
way
new in
a flat surface.
and provided Mondrian with a
articulate planes of lightly
on
to
Both motifs were treated close up,
classic
the
which he could
loose, informal grid within
warm-cold binaries of
filling
Cubism,
his
own
of red, yellow, and blue. Ultimately the two aspects of
prove most important to the development of his later
work were the dynamic relationships of these areas within the picture plane and role assigned to the spectator in assessing these relationships.
which we "read" the paintings
is
That
to say, the
is
a constituent part of their formation.
Within a few years Mondrian had absorbed influences from three seminal movements of
Modern
sort
art
- Divisionism, Fauvism, and Cubism. The impact was
out this experience he needed time and reduced exposure to the Parisian
returned to Holland for the
unable to return
summer
to Paris until
of 1914,
1919 when
it
and when the War broke out
was
over.
to find his
between the human
own
and the "moody" quality of emotion with
Emotion expresses
is
more outward than
mood and
the
the most basic color.
188
had taken place
footing with greater certainty. In 1915 he
spirit in its role as a
like. Spirit
in
art
expressive
spirit. Spirit
He
August was
made
in his
work,
a distinction
builder within the realities of an artistic its
scene.
This enforced break enabled him to
take stock, to reflect on the various phases and changes that
and gradually
To
clearly very strong.
dependence on external
medium
reality.
constructs, composes; emotion
constructs most purely, with the simplest line and
PIET
In Holland
Mondrian
at first
continued with the facade motifs, now based on the church
Domburg, but the dunes and the sea soon exerted strolling
a
walk beside the ocean,
sketchbook out of
his
reality
and came a
This gradual
shift
late in the evening,
pocket and
he worked over that suggestive
from
We
little
made
at
have a friend's account of
under
a radiant, stain
sky he took a
a scribbled drawing of a starry night. For days
scribble. Every day
he took a tiny step further away
tiny step nearer to the spiritual evocation of
from an emotional response
beautiful series of preparatory drawings leading
up
it."
(Autumn 1914)
to a spiritual realization
to Pier
gave
and Ocean (1915).
rise to
the
In the final
painting an immensity of sensation opens up; one feels oneself surrounded by the sparkling stillness
take
on
BY BRIDGET RILEY
with Mondrian on the beach:
"On tinv
their pull.
MONDRIAN
and the rhvthmic movement of some boundless continuum. Here Mondrian's a
lines
wider range of functions, they act as breaks, points, and accents. At one stage
the development of Pier and
Ocean Mondrian thought of adding
color,
Pier and Ocean. 1914, charcoal and white watercolor
on buff paper,
35x44 in
but in the end he
Museum
in/88. x 111
cm
Modern \ri, Mrs. Simon Guggenheim Fund. New York. qj
189
WRITERS ON
\R1 ISTS
decided against
However,
it.
in the very next
A
painting, Composition 16, he did precisely that.
pervasive gray with red, yellow, and blue patches
sometimes adjusted crosses,
sometimes
light,
— support and and
darker, but always
contradict the beats,
intervals of the lines.
Slowly the work loosens
what Mondrian and begins
-
to
its
moorings
refers to as a "given in
make
its
in
Nature"
way autonomously. Color
planes are simply arranged on a white ground, gray lines are added to provide a context for the spatial
movement
of these planes without
The
destroying the dynamism. regular grids
introduction of
was strongly objected
such as van Doesburg
for
to
by friends
being repetitious and
denying composition; but Mondrian defended
them on
the grounds that he reworks the regular
division considerably,
and
in the
case of the
"Checkerboard" paintings he maintained that
he achieved contrast through the weight and disposition of his color planes. However, he also
had reservations about
his direction, as
he
later
admitted, for being too "vague": "The verticals and horizontals cancelled each other; the result
confused; the structure was
During Composition with Trees oil
II,
1912,
wrote and published The
Neu
j
lost."
Holland Mondrian
this period in
Plastic in Painting (1917) in
was
which he
sets forth his criteria.
on canvas,
39x26
in/98 x 65 cm.
Gemeentemuseum, The Hague.
Part speculative thinking, part soliloquy
much
to
and part
reverie, this
confuse as to enlighten his followers. However, although
complete framework with
Mondrian uses
all its
offer important clues in themselves.
comprehensive
On in
it
as
does not provide a
reference points in place, the expression and definitions
One
gets nearer to the nature of his
endeavor by starting from these basic terms than by trying find a
book has done almost
to grasp
an overall system or
theory.
his return to Paris in
June 1919 the effects of
this reflective
and withdrawn period
Holland soon became apparent. Of Composition A; Composition with Black, Red, Gray,
Yellow,
made quest.
and Blue (1920), on which he worked a painting that pleases
Although,
in
me more
than
for the best part of a year,
all
my
previous work...
the light of his classic period in the '20s this
It
he
said: "I
have
now
has been a long
work can be seen
as
190
—
.j
P1ET
transitional,
The
it is
more revealing
man) ways than those
in
MONDRIAN
BY BRIDGET RILEY
highly accomplished paintings.
peculiar flatness of his pictorial space that had already been observed in his Cubist
work
is
now developed and
some advance, some recede; and up the same
taking
The
clarified.
this
spatial position
is
color planes take up different positions in space
not a simple matter of a particular hue always
wherever present.
It is
a
question of context. Take the
three yellows, for example: the yellow in the top right corner
is
on
a different
plane from the
yellow in the center, and both of these are again on different planes from the yellow
lower
right.
Although one customarily thinks of yellow as a
have varying visual weights - that than the central yellow, which lower
right.
up
take
is
to say, the
in turn
block
light color,
in
the
these three yellows
appears slightly heavier
in the top right
weighs visually more than the yellow rectangle
therefore, do
These three yellows,
-
in the
two principal things simultaneously: they
and
different spatial planes
thev exert pressure through their different weights.
The same
and the
to the reds, the blues,
blacks,
and of course
to the grays
and whites (although there perhaps
applies
less easy to see).
it is
This
brings about a field of forces in
which the various weights and planes are building up dynamic relationships
and tensions.
Such dynamism could
easily
lead to a sort of visual anarchy. But
Mondrian practices
a
form of
ordering that he later referred to as "the equivalence of the dissimilar."
The
disparate visual qualities
each as
in itself
completely
or
"real,
he would say "determinate -
are balanced in
such a way that
they both build a whole and yet retain their individuality.
"I
have just got that large work
right,"
he writes to van Doesburg
Composition A: Composition with Black, Red, Gray, Yellow, and
about Composition
A
"I
made
that blue square
on the
right
and changed
that yellow
one on
Blue, 1920,
oil
on canvas,
36 x 36 in/92 x 92 cm.
the
left to
seen
it
white;
like this."
I
painted over the
And
gray,
the black, and the white;
as the final result shows,
an "equilibriated relationship"
is
I
wish you could have
he altered the painting again. In
achieved which,
in his
this
way
Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna,
Rome
words, "most purely expresses the
universal, the harmony, the unity that are proper to the spirit."
So anxious was he
to
191
WR]
I
1
RS
ON
ARTISTS
preserve the individual characteristics within this unity that he worried for quite a while
about the intensity of the large red in the lower sure that
it
ought
to
be so
totally
Eventually he decided to leave
Gradually
it
becomes
it
homogeneous.
left
of the painting:
In theory
it
"I
am
not absolutely
should be, but
in practice...?"
alone.
clear that this abstract
way
of ordering forms the content of
Mondrian's work. His paintings are not symbolic or transcendental, but perceptually accessible and plastic in the sense that he builds up a structure of relationships that
places us, as spectators, in an analogous
We
"equilibrium."
are invited to participate
in a visual interplay
forces,
between weights,
and tensions held together by
balance that
is
a
neither symmetrical nor
systematic. In a remarkable essay of 1923,
"No Axiom but
the Plastic Principle."
Mondrian describes
this
balancing
between the individual elements and dynamic unity
as the plastic principle
purpose of his
art in a
"everything the
is
relativity,
seen
period
'relatively'
their
and
when .
.
.
Moreover
the mutability, of things
creates in us a desire for the absolute, the
immutable." Far from resolving conflict by offering a
new
this
"absolute," he
turns the in-built contradiction into a
dynamic relationship that becomes something of an absolute
which has
to
in itself
and
be re-discovered and
re-
established: in each particular instance; that Composition with Red, Blue,
is
to say: painting
by painting.
Composition with Red, Blue, Black, Yellow, and Gray (1921) shows with what awesomely
Black, Yellow, and Gray. 1921, oil
on canvas,
simple means Mondrian can achieve his objective. There
is
no
explicit center to the
16 x 14 in/40 x 35 cm.
Gemeenemuseum, Hie Hague
painting,
and yet the peripheral events do not
drift apart.
With
their differing
characteristics they form a correlation of forces that hold the square in tension, being
both open and defined
at the
same
time.
As the body of Mondrian's mature work grew throughout the 1920s principle gave rise to a
tremendous richness and
variety.
this plastic
Quite apart from changes
in the
proportion of the rectangular canvases and the dramatic shift in orientation of the lozenge paintings,
Mondrian pursues, alongside these changes,
a
number
of themes in the almost
P1ET
serial
manner he had sometimes employed
tensions that can hold an
Tablou
I;
empty center
in
the past.
He may
MONDRIAN
BY BRIDGET RILEY
explore the weights and
as in the painting just described; or the reverse, as in
Composition with Red, Black, Blue, and Yellow (1921), where the linear divisions
and the
cut across the central area the color weights
visual forces are turned inside out, as
and planes, being well within the
pictorial field,
it
were. As a result
provoke relationships that
concentrate or diffuse attention. Other areas of investigation include an even greater reduction of his already simplified means, such as the black bands of varying width with just
white planes of varying
proportion; or compositions
with only one or two color planes
occupying the spatial
compartments provided by the linear divisions.
For a long time this period
was regarded
as the zenith of
Mondrian's achievement.
monumental
Certainly the stability
and grandeur
one side of
reflects
temperament.
his
However, the other, the feeling for rhythm, assert itself
and
lively
was soon
to
to increase
dramatically the dynamic element in his first
work. In 1932 he
made
his
"double line" paintings,
among them Composition
with
The
Yellow and Double Line.
rapid
repetition of the horizontal line
adds a new and different quality of plane, a kind of outlined band, to the relationships in the painting
- and one
Composition with Red, Black,
so
Blue, and Yellow, 1921,
subversive that
Composition interval
C
it
puts the stability and coherence of the painting at
But when, as
in
oil
on canvas,
41 x 39 in/103 x 100 cm.
(No.
Ill;
Composition with Red,
between the two
lines,
and the plane thus created friction of the
risk.
"double line"
sits
is
Yellow,
and Blue 1935), he widens the
the ambiguous duality of this
more
there to
pictorial field in half
and
is
in
relationship
easily with others in the painting. stay, as
Mondrian
is
is
reduced
However, the
obviously fascinated by
rhythmic potential and repetitive insistence. In the following
Composition C; Composition
new
year,
Gemeenemuseum, The Hague
its
1936, he painted
Blue and Yellow. There a centralized black vertical cuts the
repeated to the
left to
form a "double
line,"
while a pair of
193
\\
Rl
n
R.S
ON
AR1 ISTS
horizontal "double lines" (with
wider but equal
slightly
intervals)
crosses these verticals, setting up virtual flashing points at the
intersections. But
now Mondrian
tackles directly those aspects of repetition that perhaps
most problematic
seemed
to him: the
accumulated intensity of the overall
dynamism which
threatens to diminish the "particular" at the "universal."
expense of the
By adding
a large
yellow plane and a small blue
one he introduces
a strong
asymmetrical bias that checks the evenness of the rhythm. In
he
left
1937 - the year before
France for England and
New York —
he made
Composition of Lines and Color, III
(Composition with blue), a
most beautiful painting Composirion with Blue, oil
J
937,
reconciles the increasing role he
was giving
to
rhythm with
a
new sense
that
of scale and
on canvas,
32 x 30 in/80 x 77 cm. Gemeentemuseum, The Hague.
tectonic strength. Generated by various black verticals
and
movement
their intervals, the
"The colored planes, as much by position and dimension as by the greater value given to color, plastically express only relationships and not forms." sweeps across the painting and
is
counter-movement of horizontal the painting.
up
194
As
brought
to a
complex rhythmic close on the
intervals modifies
deep blue rectangle
it
A
subtle
and harmonizes the drive and tempo of
a finishing stroke an implied diagonal
for attention by the
right.
descending from the top
carries, the only color
left is
pulled
plane in the painting.
PIET
During the
last
few years of
explorations which
governed his work
his
life,
spent
in
more and more amounted in the '20s. In his writings
New
York,
Mondrian
in
BY BRIDGET RILEY
carried on with his
to a reversal of the priorities that
and
MONDRIAN
had
conversation he insisted repeatedly on
"dynamic rhythm" and "creative destruction" by which he meant the transformation of the actual elements
- the
basic colors and lines
expressive dynamism. His
seems
to
sum up
last
his entire
-
completed painting, Broadway Boogie-Woogie (1942-43),
endeavor
in
one amazing statement. Earlier tendencies such
those revealed in Pier and Ocean, the "Lozenge," and the "Checkerboard" paintings are integrated with interests striving for It
"The strongest
into the "purely plastic" agents of an
which previously seemed
to contradict
and exclude them. The
constancy and immutability coexists with the love of rhythm and movement.
can be taken as a proof of Mondrian's rigorous and somewhat antiquated
impression as
how
may
be, they shine
among
frail
and modest
their physical
the best work of this century with a unique vitality and
straight he
how
effort to
appearance
of
was as an artist, once he'd found his path, and
achieve the "equilibrium of the universal and the particular" that his paintings have not
been rendered obsolete by history However
is
he made
straightness
and which is
seem rich endless,
mvsterious timelessness.
a hard thing
to achieve."
—Matthew Collings
>
I Broadway Boogie-Woogie, 1942 \3, oil on canvas, 50 x 50 in/127 x 127 cm.
—
Museum
of Modern Art,
New York.
195
WRI ERS ON ARTISTS I
Georges Seurat by Craig Raine
METERS BY THREE METERS, BATHERS AT ASNIERES FILLS ONE WALL -
TWO
difficult, ironic
della
Georges Seurat Born into a well -off Parisian
was
family in 1859, Seurat
enough
masterpiece.
Francesca fresco, as do
to hint at higher things;
quasi-meditative
— and then
it
its
Still,
hazy colors recall the faded pigments of a Piero vivid yet flat figures.
The scene
gestures towards the contemplative,
insists
it
Its
a silent,
is
monumental
it is
composed and
on what Matthew Arnold called the object
as in itself
able to pursue an artistic
career free of material worry.
it
really
Bathers at Asnieres
is.
is
the suburban scene in a trance of torpor.
figures are not
Its
After stitching at the Ecole des
Beaux-Arts, he spent his
naked but nearer
spiritually
a banal vacancy. Seurat evokes the idea of epiphany, a
entire, brief life in Paris,
summers painting
except for
on the Normandy
transfiguration of the ordinary, then settles for a mildly hedonistic vapidity.
He was
too
coast.
intelligent a painter to exaggerate or sentimentalize his subject matter. Rejecting the formlessness of
Impressionism, Seurat
combined certain elements of the movement with the structure of Classicism.
modern
life,
but one
who
He was
a painter of
ignored Baudelaire's stipulation to heroize the stove-pipe hat and
the pipe-clayed spats. Seurat's preferred note was tougher, ugly, accurate, secular, ironic.
He
In Fellini's film
La Strada (1954), the Clown
is
killed
by Zampano,
when
the Strong-
became the leader of the Neo-
man meets
Impressionist group that
his teasing rival
by chance on
a
deserted road.
The Clown,
in mufti,
is
repairing
included Pissarro, Signac,
a flat
Gauguin, and ToidouseLautrec. first
Upon
Baignade, Asnieres, in the
the
Paris Salon of 1883, the jury's
all)
it
a
few blows
in a ragged, realistic fight.
The Clown
caused him
to
he
Clown lies
looks at his wrist
down and
dies.
and complains
That watch.
that the
Strongman has broken
men
dies
separate,
his watch,
then
Bizarre, less symbolic than comically incongruous, a
himself with the young
who
independent painters
later
formed the Societe des Artistes Independents. During the next two years, he laboriously,
Island of
which
from color.
The Grande
pedestrian interpolation at the
Modernism
moment
of pathos,
it is
refuses to edit in the interests of afflatus.
also a perfect
The process begins with
Jatte,
his painting,
was displayed
uncompromising
practitioner.
When Emma
infinite fine points o\ I
Flaubert,
the
emerge
solid masses
example of modernism.
its first
almost fanatically, painted
A Sunday Afternoon on in
The two men exchange
only because he bangs his head against the metal corner of his car: the two
Une
major painting,
rejection of
tire.
entering his
when
it
Bovary's
arsenic poisoning enters
its
at the
Independents show
in
1886,
final
phase, her daughter
brought the attention of
Berthe
critics to Seurat.
\\
hen he died
vety
young
at
is
brought
to the
bedroom. The burning
the age oj thirty-one, Seurat left
onU seven major
paintings.
candles remind the of
Bathers at Asnieres, 1884,
oil
canvas, 79 x
100 cm.
/
18 in 201
x
National Gallery, London
196
on
New Year's
woken
early,
little girl
Day, of being
of
gifts.
Her
eyes cast about, looking for
GEORGES SEURAT
BY CRAIG RAINE
Craig Raine Raine was born
in
England
1944 and educated
in
Oxford.
He became
Quarto
in
at
editor of
1979 and was
poetn editor 1981
at
to
the
Faber from
1991.
His worfis include the poetry
The Onion,
collections
Memory, and Rich; libretto for
her stocking, cubist with presents, depending from the mantelpiece. Her innocent, infantile
Electrification of the Soviet; a verse
egotism takes Pathos
place with the other infantile egotisms gathered around the deathbed.
its
stayed, impurities are unflinchingly reported, the grotesque
is
is
given
A
drama 1953:
Version of Racine's
Andromaque; and
due.
its
a
an opera The
a
Haydn
collection of essays,
A
and the Valve Trumpet.
Ironies are treasured.
Martian Sends a Postcard
Home, perhaps Raine's bestknown collection of poetn. is
say they see poetry in my PAINTINGS; I SEE ONLY SCIENCE.
"Some
written from the perspective
>5
of an alien, describing the
Philip Larkin thought that photography epitomized this tendency to
and inconvenient: "But
o,
photography! as no
art
is, /
established
him
as the
founder of a group dubbed "Tlie Martian School of
embrace the awkward
poets.
and disappointing! that
Faithful
of Earthlings. This
lives
work
"
The
title
poem
is
described as "ingenious,"
records
Dull days as
/
dull,
and
Like washing lines, and Halls-Distemper boards..."
argument
that, to the
is
/And
hold-it smiles as frauds,
And
will
will not
not censor blemishes
inviting "a certain element
/
of self-congratulation in the
My
censor blemishes.
reader
heartbreaking beauty of the preparatory drawings, Seurat, in the
Raine currently teaches
and
of the drawings
is
cognate with photography, though
from
far
photography's vaunted accuracy of finish. In a dozen or so early drawings Seurat's technique
describe
it.
mature
rapidly.
When
it
Using the texture of the paper
crayon develops
its
image as
if
arrives
unravels them."
English literature at Oxford,
finished picture, brought blemishes. Deliberately.
The magic
who
it is
we can
incomparable. Let
me
is
the editor for the
literary
magazine Arete.
see
try to
as a central part of the process, Seurat's conte
the paper were light-sensitive.
photographic detail enlarged to a grainy shimmer.
More than
The
results look like a
Top
usually the process of
Left:
Seated Nude Boy: Study
for Batliers atAsnieres.
drawing seems
to
be preserved
in the finished drawing.
And
the process
is
13 x 10 in/32
brass-rubbing: textures
worn
it is
sculptural in
summon up
patina,
still
its
emphasis on shape, on outline rather than
the surface of polished granite
presening
—
line.
And
its
its
precious
883
—h
x 25 cm.
National Gallery of Scotland,
Edinburgh.
not a high, machined polish, but a Top
irregularities.
1
conte crayon on paper,
also akin to
Right: Detail from Batlters at
Asnieres, 1883-4.
19;
\\ Rl
fERS
ON
\RTISTS
chalk drawing of Seurat by his art-school contemporary Ernest-Joseph Laurent
A good shows
already a
by contrast,
us,
how
little
moved beyond convention, where what
species of spiritualism.
by the
store Seurat set
The woman
is
distinguishing feature a downcast eyelid of the paper, yet utterly authoritative
is
captured
-
and
which
a detail
precise.
what
seem
draw on the paper. This sense of finding images
a record of discovery. Seurat finds
MICHALLET watermark
out vertically in the top
left
aura, as
indistinct,
is
That eye
is
the
is
Reading has
though drawing were
there in outline, granite, granular, her one
drawing to
Woman
line. Seurat's
is
almost an accident
there within the paper.
is
is
The
reading, not resting.
He
doesn't
reinforced by the presence of
in several drawings. In the portrait of
Aman-Jean
it is
picked
of the drawing.
Portrait of Aman-Jean. J883,
Not
conte crayon on paper,
25 x
J
9
tn/62x48cm.
Metropolitan
New
York.
Museum
of Art,
all
the early drawings are uniformly successful. Locomotive, for example, tries to
make conte crayon work
like charcoal.
The enlargement
effect
in
is
abeyance and
in spite of
the conveniently obnubilated subject, the texture
curiously perfunctory and the
is
smoke
stylized
Walking
a particular failure. In
in a Field,
problem of
Seurat addresses the
total texture
ground, foreground.
He
- background, middlefavors overlaid wispy
which can stand
lines, a little like fiberglass,
for
cracked earth, scrubby vegetation,
brambles, texture
-
Two Men
non-representational way. As
in a
because
it fails,
so clearly a device
it is
but without the
clever, relatively versatile,
conjured out of the
inevitability of the granites
paper by his conte crayon.
These granites are particularly
at
once monumental,
where the human
figure
is
in
question, and capable of the subtlest inflections
manages
-
as
when,
to specify a
for instance, Seurat
heavy
the cloak of The Nanny.
twill material for
As
a technique,
perfect for textures, and eventually
marginalized other interesting
experiments —
like the
Gris-like rendition of
it is
it
stylistic
penciled ur-Cubist,
Woman
Seated on a
Bench, or the worn dry-point quality of the charcoal sketch, The Seamstress: the Wall.
These explorations
A
Painting on
are broken off in
GEORGES SEURAT
BY CRAIG RAINE
favor of the sculpted
conte crayon, where the
image seems
to
seep out
of the paper like the
legendary veronica.
The technique has its
limitations.
make
for
It
some
can
difficulty
with a thing as intricate as the ear.
Aman-Jean's
portrait has
wonderful
back
spikes of hair in his
crown and a linen cravat
whose white weave
is
almost palpable - and yet his earlobe
the size of a
is
small mastoid. Seurat has given his fellow-artist a thick ear. Apart from that, it is
a
whose
marvelous drawing, effect
is
at first
The Bridge
academic - though a glance
at Seurat's early
charcoal study, Standing
Man, Hands
1
886—7,
oil
at
Courbevoie,
on canvas,
18 x 22 in/46 x 56 cm.
Outstretched, merely emphasizes the extraordinary distance
work (with stain)
its
and the
graphic, ragged prepuce
and
its
cock and
essentially suggestive later piece.
granular and shimmers in a
a
way
The
between the
balls the
Portrait
earlier,
meticulous
London.
dark shade of furniture
ofAman-Jean
that anticipates Seurat's pointillism
is
deliciously
— though
pointillism
is,
"Whereas others
the art of HOLLOWING A SURFACE Painting
Courtauld Institute Galleries,
is
painted cohesive
??
fragments of a
complex society, of course, a theory of color.
Here the dots
are created by the surface of the paper.
They
are
Seurat painted brought out rather than brought there by the crayon. Later the dots are put there by the point of the brush: Seurat's Bridge at Courbevoie
is
fully-fledged pointillism,
Bathers at Asnieres has a single pocket of touches to the hat of Echo. Pointillism, for laborious application, can create a
permanent spontaneity of
society fragmented
whereas
into disparate all its
effect because, as viewer,
you
are as aware of the representation as of the scene represented. In Bridge at Courbevoie,
smoke emerges from is
a
background chimney
like a gyre of
so minutely speckled, you half feel that the marks
midges. In
may just
fact,
individuals."
—
Ricluird
Thomson
the whole picture
take off like a host of insects.
199
WRITERS ON AR1
ISTS
The nine drawings
for Bathers at Asnieres are a miracle of obvious,
unsurpassed, immediate beauty, classical and perfect. They are unforgettable and flawless. In particular, there
is
a previously
unknown
drawing, Study for "Bathers at Asnieres," which materialized (the mot juste for Seurat's technique) recently.
understanding of Seurat's the
final
grand
The drawing oil,
though
same argument from Seated Nude Boy which
is
it is
is
crucial for a proper
possible to
deduce
part of the holdings
"Originality depends only on the character of the
drawing and the vision peculiar to each artist." of the National Gallery of Scotland. idealized heads. Very
little
else
One
can begin
thinks of Michelangelo's to
compare with
Seurat's frank
pursuit of balance and beauty, poise and perfection. .In the drawings,
both figures are naked, more boyish, The Echo: Study Asnieres, 1883 paper, 12
—
f,
conte crayon on
effect, idealized.
The
genitalia of the standing
x 9 in/31 x 24 cm.
Yale University Art Caller),
New
slighter,
vulnerable
- and
edited for
for Bathers at
Haven.
his tilted, boyishly sturdy waist
scalloped. Adolescence
more
fragile
- curved
boy are
invisible. Instead, the
emphasis
is
on
and one prominent buttock, muscular and pleasingly
on the cusp of manhood. The seated nude, on the other hand,
is
shoulders, narrow neck, a long slim thigh. Knee, calf, and complicated
Detail from Bathers at .Asnieres, 1
883-4.
hands have been until
silently
you look
censored to keep the simplicity and balance. Not that you notice
at
the final
One argument
oil.
suggests that Seurat effects an elision of this classicism with
the realities of contemporary Asnieres. is
I
think this idea
is
wrong.
What
takes place
not an accommodation, but rather a repudiation of the idea of classical
-
perfection
in favor of the task of painting
figure
is
deliberately
lip
The knee
calf, a
down
into an
have gone. In their place
In the final picture, both
is
difference.
and systematically deprived of beauty —
coarsened, the nose enlarged, the upper turns
life.
The swimming costumes make an enormous
these figures are clothed.
The seated
modern
amputated
a pair of cotton
an ungainly
flap.
The hands
his profile
reappear.
stump. Beauty, texture, intricacy
swimming trunks and
a hairstyle like a
ginger wig. Echo's buttocks are out of sight underwater and clad in a costume too.
The
figure
decisions
from Ovid has been metamorphosed into an ordinary urchin. These
show exemplary
To forgo obvious thai poetry
200
artistic
courage.
beauty, irresistible beauty,
should be a criticism of
life.
is
never easy. Matthew Arnold wrote
Oscar Wilde misinterpreted
this to
mean
GEORGES SEURAT
that art
was
a series of cosmetic
meant by
really
"criticism,"
improvements on
whether of an artwork or
object under scrutiny, but describe
stand with Arnold, even flatter reality. Seurat's
if
life
it
accurately
-
as
in the interests of beauty.
life,
it
was
really
that
this involves uglinesses of every kind.
conte crayon confers a
twilit
What Arnold
should not remake the
it
The
is.
BY CRAIG RAINE
greatest artists take their
It isn't
the business of art to
charisma on Hats, Shoes and
Undergarments, not to mention a pair of elasticated boots. But he could also see these items as
in fact reality,
they really were
-
Bathers at Asnieres,
banal, ob\ious, devoid of poetry, but
the truth of their ordinary ugliness. In the final
oil,
redeemed by
their irrefutable
the boots have their loops restored
and they move, with that one touch, from the abstract world of shape
canvas, "9 a
1
J
884,
oil
on
18 in/201 x 300 cm.
National Gallery, Lo)idon.
into the welter of
seams, stitching, shoe-horns, polish, and welts.
When
Claudio Abbado had been with the Berlin Philharmonic
screened a documentarv point, "It
in
which the conductor rehearsed
he interrupted her playing to
should be an ugly sound,
great art
is
There are
tell
a
young
for a year, the
BBC
\iolinist protegee.
At one
her she was making a particular passage too beautiful.
he adxised. Seurat's great picture
not necessarily synonymous with beauty. There other, less ob\ious satisfactions.
is
is
love
a similar discovery
and there
is
-
that
sex.
Think how powerful the idea of obscenity
is.
201
WRI fERS ON
\Ki
Bathers at Asnieres offers of
immense formal
them orchestrated by the
satisfactions,
who
figure of Echo,
are echoes of other things.
example, mimic the
Those loops on the
flick of red hair at the
a self-
is
many
conscious synecdoche in a picture where so
all
things
boots, for
base of their
owner's neck. His half-visible straw boater parallels the
submerged
a
figure with his
back
to us.
Then
there
is
the
Originality depends
only on the character of the drawing and the vision peculiar to each artist." reclining, bowler-hatted figure in the foreground, little
spaniel mirrors
its
master: both are looking over their
shoulders and presenting a profile. picks up on
its
picture's
The
dog's long tail
trousers.
also the lynch-pin of
which runs
triangle of sail
sail to
is
The
two compositional templates.
a triangle
the right.
brown
master's long
This figure
on the
whose
one of the
He
(echoically) from the left to
is
the apex of
background
the other triangle of
sail to
left-hand side of the triangle runs from the
the bowler-hatted figure, through a series of
echoing intermediate figures - a stretched-out figure pink
shirt,
in a
then two figures both with raised knees, then
the stretched figure of the bowler-hatted dog-owner.
The
right-hand side of the triangle runs from the bowler-hat to the right-hand triangular Top: Young
Woman
Powdering
Herself. 1888-9, oil
Above: The Posers (small version), 887,
oil
is
turned, and the wherry with
its
on the bank,
two passengers. The
river itself
forms a further, overlapping triangle, whose apex
is
the bottom right-hand
Institute Galleries.
University of London.
7
whose back
via the bather
on canvas,
Yl x 32 in/95 x 79 cm.
Courtauld
the submerged figure
sail,
corner of the painting.
which
is
a
The base
of both triangles
is
the background bridge of Clichy,
shared horizontal. These two triangles echo each other as they overlap
like
on canvas,
16 x 19 in/19 x 48 cm.
old-fashioned W, which was
a
double
V.
Berggruen Collection.
In addition there
202
is
a
second compositional shape which counters the picture's
an
— GEORGES SEURAT
tendency
to
tilt
The
to the right.
The
us back into the picture.
too.
the
in
sandy shape
as well as in the
From Echo the eye moves
to the figure
man
'
i
\
t
i
*
t.
1
i
bowler
is
is
make
a flattened ellipse.
the "wig," and back to Echo.
in
Study for The Posers, /S87-7888,
the
The man
imm^
on canvas, 6
in
the
\ 9 in
oi/
24 cm, Musce
6 a
d'Orscn. Paris.
^^^^^—^—a^—^—
to Seurat
H|
composition.
to the s
attitude lies in
''"•/a
Vw*"*^^tr»»l
Pil
1
B*»C 'UL
clearly intended to invoke
3^r
.
1^^ ~**^rf J-' JJ^**
(equally clearly) exist also in relation to
f. "\iw^
2t-
La Grande Jatte, which apparently forms whole wall
in this painting.
Jatte looks, in fact, like a
^^^^-«
A ^B*
%
j.
'^^^8
m 4
Br
B iw^^^Sfa
La Grande
window —
'
l -'^j'W.
^^L*
*
^Er*
a .
w indow — through which we
picture
J
of his
the Tliree Graces, but the models
a
figures
Small Version. Here the
Posers:
models are
,
^^
The
— an
The rim
We
internalized, formal.
and central
The key The
the ellipse, like a ring of Saturn.
a further, echoic, mini-ellipse.
Echo, then, silent
it
bent elbows bring
with his back to us. to the figure
.
template and partly an echo of entire ellipse in himself.
in
is
his
the elongated green (of rushes- of grass-) in the
if LU fn inis
w~\\ LU upitu i
skiff, in
hands and
raised
of the riverbank.
straw hat with raised knees, to the r»Air or knf ic t~\ t)'t \\ dow ler-ndL IS pdILl\
Echo has
controlling shape here
see this shape in the wherry, river,
figure of
BY CRAIG RAINE
1
'
^B^KT
'
.'
can see the fully-clothed, parasol-
\
"
\
:,-
> .
i
H
'
i^B * ^
,
£j?
«
bearing Parisian public. Alongside there •4
are these
nude women who
Sp^
£ B^i£ oJl
are
183
k<
surrounded by the clothes they have taken
off, their
shoes and their parasols.
Sf'
%•&
:
1
These models, then, are not the Three
sfc,
like
those at the edge of the
Seine, ordinary to
jjr
is
is
^^^^^^^^^Hu^JUE :
-**9'
8?
'
women who just happen
have taken their clothes
classical
tfW^^^^^^^^^^C^^^B 1
Graces, Seurat insists; they are ordinary
women
^Sw
present
in
off.
The
Les Poseuses but
it
'x
^
»
Sa ¥
iff
1
*
present only to be ironized by a great
painter of
modern
life.
capable of classicism "poetry
Seurat was
s easy,
familiar
'"*^S-
B^t^ww^
i
Vv
but he preferred the more
] arduous task of depicting the truth, the
whole
truth,
and nothing but the
truth.
203
ON
W'RlltRS
ARTISTS
Tracey
Emin
by David Bowie
SHE
CAME TO DUBLIN DID TRACEY Emin.
the smell of old leather.
at the
Tracey Emin drawings, paintings,
in
Born
1963,
in
up with ten thousand others
to get a
ten-second squint
handful of patients from a nearby psychiatric hospital helped
One
tall
skinny gentleman stood by a fifteenth-century all
the while intoning his
mantra of "NAAW-peer-NAAW."
She came
generate attention and controversy on both sides of
up
and loved
library at Trinity
harp, alternately rocking backwards and forwards then revolving slowly
personal experience,
London
walked around the
and
photography, inspired from
the Atlantic.
A
lined
create an atmosphere of benign hysteria.
Emin's installations,
sculptures, videos,
Book of Kelts.
We
We
shimmied
like a
to the gig at the
Olympia did Tracey. She rocked backwards and forwards and
disco-queen (which she nearly was once). Possibly screaming her mantra
in
Emin grew
Write
this;
Draw
this." If
Margate, a town on
the south coast of England,
with her twi)i brother Paul.
She studied painting
me and my
land with
confessional
is
Her
in nature.
the length and breadth of the
at the
Ro}al College of Art.
Emin's work
she wanted, she could travel
disclosure
is
band.
Everyone from stage hands musicians immediately
to
fall in
evident in works such as
Everyone
have Ever Slept
I
love with her. She's so
With 1963-1995, which features a tent embroidered
with a
of 102 names,
list
charismatic, she sends off sparks.
including her brother Paul
whom
with
in the
We
she "slept " while
included
provoked the
ire
of New York
when shown Brookhn Museum in
\la}or Guiliani
first solo
<
1998
show
,
was her
in the
contained the piece
Iman
takes
US.
My
some photos
of us looking out to the far
small
Mes
Every Part of Bleeding,
Liffey
side of the water
the Fall of 1999.
Emin
U2-owned
Clarence Hotel on the River
group
in the
exhibition Sensation that
at the
stay at the
womb. The work was
and two
throw themselves
girls
into the shot.
It
"Are you a model?," asks
Bed
exhibited at Britain's
Turner prize in 2000.
Emin
has exhibited in German\,
the smaller one, of Tracey.
Tracey laughs. "Make your
japan, Great Britain, and the
US and continues work in London.
to
mouth do
this,"
and makes
orders the
a grimace.
obliges. '"Naw, you're
Photos oj Trace) In
204
Iman.
Emin and David
Now
girl
Tracey
no model.
send
me
copies of
pictures to
me
house
them
will ya,"
TRACEY EMIN
and they nonchalantly wander off picking up Tracey and
now
is
a childlike excitement that at last people will show, in a gallery,
and fag-ends of her
crannies,
life.
never knew her before this year, but
1
someone highly charged with
is
have a
full
personal
hotel,
talk.
I
There
Back inside the
their previous conversation.
BY DAVID BOWIE
on Balthus
as well as proffered opinions
life
interviews with
Damien
("a dirty old
man,
I
for her
my
a pervert"),
Hirst ("You're obsessed by him") and her sponsorship contract with a
rather exotic alcohol brand.
hour companion
hopes and dreams
relationships, her
me
see in front of
1
Within 30 minutes of meeting her
solipsistic overdrive.
run-down on her newest intimate
who
the nooks,
all
The
David Bowie latter
seems
it
is
extremely important to her as booze
a 24-
is
to her life.
David Bowie's
talent
and
ever-evolving musical
and
personal style secured his
love her fractured energy
I
and could
and
sit
listen to
her for hours. Although her
status as a rock/pop icon.
viewpoints, tastes, and interests are standard and unvaryingly those of any eighteen-year-old art
Born
London
in
in 1947, he
fronted various bands in the
student,
slowly
it
dawns on me
that she
is
in fact a
34-year-old
woman. Her
The
elastic lips,
famous broken
natural youthfulness
1960s achieving success as a solo singer-songwriter with
is
exhilarating.
She
is
also extraordinarily sexy.
more seductively
closed eyes, deliver one of the
interesting faces in British
teeth,
art.
and
think
I
I
half-
can look
1969s Space Oddity, an eerily
modern science
single,
at
her face for even longer than
identified in this
I
can
listen to
her
She wants very much
talk.
modern world, but time and again she
reveals a
be firmly
to
fiction
unique among
tlie
music of that time.
deep fascination with passions His postmodern personas of
from another time — Munch, Schiele, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Giotto, narrative painting.
She
says her
into this at
all. If
work has been compared
anyone springs
to
mind
to
it's
Joseph Beuys and Andy Warhol.
the 70s began with the futuristic rock-star martyr
I
don't
buy
concept
The
Rise and Fall of
Ziggy Stardust and the
William Blake as a woman, written by Mike
Spiders from Mars. Other
Leigh. There
is little
sarcasm, cynicism, or even intended irony in her work.
It
has
little
of the
mystic hippiness of Kiki Smith or the Fuck You diffidence of her best friend Sarah Lucas.
early '70s releases include
Diamond Dogs and Young It
Americans.
has more of the construct of the conciousness, that
first
self.
The dawning you find
realization of self
of late eighteenth-century self-
in early
nineteenth-century self-portraits.
Or
maybe, even, a Mary Shelley of Margate.
Br the
found
at
smashed
Gugging Hospital
in
glass-splinter effect echoing the deeply dysfunctional
Vienna, the bastion of working "Outside"
artists, or at
work Lart Brut,
acting with his noted debut
Her
little
museum
in
Waterloo
reflection of the nineteenth century
A few curating his
Emin
is
"I
not so
of the John Soane house and
museum.
films of the early '80s
produced three Top 20
He
hits.
continues to release
upcoming "Masterworks
at the
Royal Academy," belatedly acquired a single 1995
names, only a few weeks ago. This doesn't seem
make up
to
inducted into the Rock and Roll Hull of Fume.
imply a
Mod-Brit
a full set of
Amusingly, this piece having acquired an almost iconic status set
all that,
there
is
is
used
to shelling out.
an earnest and serious folk-story
that pulls an audience in completely
When
I
in front of
saw
a recent
one of Tracey's video monologues. There were
their cheeks.
Now
that's art, Jim,
but as
Having her
telling quality to
hers in Toronto, two girls in their early twenties were sitting
down
more an updated
The Man
Fell to Earth. Bowie's
albums, and in 1996, was
Charles back considerably more than he
work
a '90s absurdity, but
am" reverberations
passion for her work, but rather a need to
said
much
others, but only a few, also have an ambivalence toward her work. Charles Saatchi, in
piece, her tent with lovers'
Artists.
Nicholas Roeg's
Who
fringe.
Eno
produce Low, Heroes, and
Lodger, and he ventured into
in
Lausanne, the Vatican of
Bowie
collaborating with Brian to
There's also the
late sei'enties,
joined the avant garde,
we know
show
of
mesmerized
tears
running
it.
205
WRITI
R.S
ON
AKI ISTS
DB:
how does only knowing
So,
Which
alphabet feel?
half the
up, and he wakes up a grown-up the next
TE: Only knowing
half the alphabet. Well,
do know the whole alphabet except i
learned the value OF LOVE -
AND
THAT'S A
actually put
in the right order.
it
I
morning.
TE:
can't
can see
I
I
this
I
was
DB:
been
in there
once
wanted unless
feel
you're
any
in a while. Is there
often feel like that.
I
think that's what happened to me.
what happened
That's probably
going into "Pseuds Corner" immediately.
You don't
very strange wishing
at this
machine, and he wishes that he was a grown-
half do you
prefer anyway?
"From you
ground
fair
I
thirteen, yeah. I'm the happiest I've ever
whole of
in the
DB:
Is
life
now
34 and
at
I
contentment or do you
a sense of
it
my
about being a woman.
really like things
dyslexia involved?
me when
to
GIFT FOR LIFE"
— Carl Freedman
TE: When
I
dyslexic, but
was.
I
I
Except
if
certain...
eighteen.
TE:
I
went
I
in fact
And
theory like
And do
leave school at
"A" levels. But
I
didn't.
at sixteen.
I?
TE:
much,
i\ot
TE: Oh God
no, fuck,
actually say
was
I
Not much!
want, so
I
not a
is
find a
wouldn't
I
that ambitious, but other
problem - whatever
way
my
art is just part of
do.
My
to do,
first
time in
with
who
who
I
I
my
around
life
am, and
am, and
me and
really
I
especially with it's
just
it,
art,
what
I
being able to do
is
and
being
that's
if
am. And the thing about
being happier than
it's
-
me and
idea of success
I
my
of being able to achieve
don't actually think
I
ambitious then
no.
-
well
I,
people might think very differently. But
what you want
You're older than me.
DB: Am
have strong ambition?
still
ambition
at thirteen there's a
mean most people
was out
was
obviously was quite clever.
you leave school I
I
I
to school basically
come up with some
that because
said
don't actually think
just never
they had to
DB:
was seventeen they
I've
ever been now,
that I've I
seem
come
to
it's
terms
be accepted
to
the
for
have a good group of friends
I
that
makes me
feel good. So,
got quite meaningful really
DB:
But those friends that seem
to gravitate
toward you, are they friends that you've acquired since you've become popular as an artist,
or
were they friends that you were
amassing before you became popular?
TE: Some
of
them were
before, like
Sarah Lucas, Carl Freedman, Gillian Wearing.
I
knew them
knew me when people
before.
I
mean
just thought
I
they
was
completely mad. The Tracey Emin Museum
DB: Much
of the time
I
feel a little bit like
DB:
But
all
three of you were thrust into
Loudon, 1996.
Tom
Hanks. Did you ever see Big? Well,
Hanks
in this film
wakes up one day -
thirteen years old - and he
206
makes
a
Tom
he's
wish
at a
friendship, no?
of your art?
TE:
Yeah.
— more by
the circumstances
TRACEY EMIN
DB:
So what about prior
artist?
Do you
Well,
my
four
really.
But
we have
like
DB: What TE:
that period?
best friend Maria, since
my
she's like
sister.
It's
1
was
almost
does she do?
She's antiques
-
well not antiques, like
-
she
bits
Mow
in
an autobiographical way.
when
but
it
literary, like
work.
I
realized that
1
had some value, you
mean?
does she read?
TE: You mean
read as a person.
DB: Does
know
she
always worked
I've
TE: When
by her eye as well.
lives
TE:
using your writing in your
of furniture and stuff.
DB: So
genre?
became more
deco, pre-war artefacts
art
an autobiographical
DB: OK,
same blood.
the
nouveau,
art
bom
have friends
TE:
you becoming an
to
BY DAVID BOWIE
.?
.
the whole alphabet?
DB:
Yes.
TE:
Well,
first
of
You Forgot
all I've
to Kiss
My
Soul,
2001, Neon,
TE:
knows the whole alphabet, veah.
Yes, she
She reads
She probably reads
a lot actually
a
always written.
always kept a diary since
I've
was fourteen. I'm
a prolific letter writer
I
- the
46x55
in/116 x 141 cm.
Courtesy jay Jopling/White Cube,
London.
book a week or something. But then with
sitting there, isn't she,
and
about
stuff
book
didn't read a
DB:
I
till I
you
didn't say
TE: You
her antiques
all
her, reading books.
me
you shouldn't say about
she's just
But I'm -
not reading.
said,
- and
"You
1992
in
I
did a philosophy course for two years, and that really sorted out a lot of things in
previously
Edvard
didn't read.
you
letter writer
head regarding contemporary
I
was about seventeen.
did, last night,
most obsessive
all
I
because
art,
could think about was
Munch and
frescoes, Giotto,
like
and
I
my
like
said Byzantine
early Renaissance.
My
don't read."
head had stopped working. There was nothing
DB:
artistically that filled
TE:
I
I
was
just being provocative.
didn't read until
And then from seventeen week
1989, and the
till
reading that after that
I
I
philosophy —
read a book a
I
last big
major bulk
did was esoterics, and then
stopped reading
basically.
But
you
'89
- would
I
that be the period
really started to discover
your
when
own
style
to '90
pregnant and
had an abortion and
everything.
up
in
I
I
stopped
living.
I
was when
art,
1
smashed
1988, and then
I
just
the skip (trash) in 1989,
I
stopped
stopped reading, all
my
paintings
threw a load
and then
I
hadn't been explored before...
when
I
started looking at early
music a
lot
philosophy course,
contemporary
art,
I
so
I
started to understand
more, and
when
I
did the
started to understand it
opened up
a big space
realized that anything could be art.
I
my
kinda opened up a part of
It's
the conviction and the belief behind what you
was I
it
Renaissance paintings,
and
TE: No, 1989
stopped
like
classical
of work?
I
mind which It's
read occasionally.
DB:
up, and then after
doing the philosophy course - modern
was seventeen.
I
it
in
destroyed
do — the essence of where it's
more
like a
1992,
I
everything in 1990.
DB:
DB: And when
TE: That
did you start working within
looking work.
asked people to invest
potential,
coming from
so
conceptual idea, even though
make conceptual
don't
it's
which
I
in
my
And
I
in
creative
found...
Very modern. wasn't supposed to be a piece of
20;
.
WRITERS ON ARTISTS
>
was out of
that
art,
like illustration.
DB:
desperation. (Long
pause.)
mean you
I
must have had time in your
you've been so low,
when
everything
list
that either you're going
of 28?
to die or that this
and does
in
And
my
(XIV), 1990.
profoundly and
it's
those
at
is
feels like,
just carry
at certain
times
me
to
work
is
as
an
illustrator.
His
extraordinarily strong.
It
when he
only 28
I
quite
moments when
died.
we go through
doesn't matter. Shall
a
of great painters that were dead by the age It
demean
the
work he did do
really matter,
if it
puts
doesn't it
it
into any
kind of perspective? Probably not, because the hold he has on people seems to be essentially
some
of
what
The hard image. The
life that's
happened
My Abortion
TE: He was
the choice you think
on.
more
has a fantastic eye for layout and design.
DB:
and then you
you're not going to like
see Schiele
so terrible that given
what death
After
He
-
find his painting really murky. just
is
I
see
I
pencil and ink
when
life
-
this
A
it.
Well
TE:
Yeah, but
I
art
now embraces.
cult of personality.
think with Egon Schiele
you've got this problem. Because his work's
natercolor on paper,
8x
10 in/20 x 26 cm.
Courtesy Jay Jopling/White Cube,
everything gets shook up and everything gets rediscovered.
It's
almost
like a
new me
or
reproduced so often, the general public take it
as a.
..
London.
DB: A
something.
graphic logo almost?
What's really good about the word 'art' is that 'art' is a word like 'love,' or 'god,' or whatever.
many things it's taken me a long time to come to terms with that."
It transcends so
DB: I
I
felt
probably
much
very felt
every day was intolerable and
that living itself
was
a
burden that
I
prepared to continue hoisting upon frail
shoulders. Yeah.
doing as a trade
or.
.
Do you
.?
You
TE:
...
As opposed
Munch's Scream,
wasn't
in cartoons.
my
DB: Oh,
small
see what you're
Expressionism.
that picture?
Munch. Not I
think
is
lot.
all
a bit
TE: A
Especially Schiele and
Expressionism.
almost
passe'-
Some
kind
of,
of
it
almost
for
tell
Yeah,
example,
it's
like
it's
used even
you something interesting
many people know
this?
do you think of when you see
noise
coming from the
coming from the
DB:
to...
Yeah, go on.
DB: What
Yeah, a
I
about that - not
TE:
like early
shall
Renaissance, and also, to a certain extent,
TE:
20S
70s.
like that in the late
. .
hills
and
it's
fields.
That's interesting, because not
many
TRACEY EMIN
people would say that. Most people would
and
saw and wrongly, that the figure in the
Heckel and people
painting
DB: Munch made
notes prior to making the
like that,
them quite
find
I
just too base or something.
love Heckel,
I
TE:
Yeah.
Yeah, whatever, but...
DB:
love his
I
woodblock
Love Poem, 1996, applique prints. Again, I'm
blanket, 96 x 96 in/244 (
wanted
to
the reaction to a scream, so the guv
is
painting, suggesting that he
capture
in a
manner
TE:
Yes. but
of speaking he's the screamee!
hear in your head.
I've
Carl [Freedman] and
got a love
poem
you
for
across
Eveiy part of my body
m) mouth,
is
screaming. I'm
lost.
And
DB: A TE:
about having
Don't you think that
screaming? but
when
it
And
it's
sex,
screamers.
but a love poem.
when your whole
terrible
goes aw ay
come back
it's
when
bodv's
happens,
it
and you
like a loss
it
DB:
Staying on your influences for a second.
Do you shun styles of
the
again.
more technically
aspiring
work, like high Renaissance
come up
to today,
pretty sound,
a very
somebodv who's
or,
to
technicallv
such as Freud, who one could
seems
because technique
be pre-eminent
to
in
what
that
work
represents?
TE:
mind saying
it.
what
I
do.
DB:
I
would take
I
get I
as a
it
drawings actually can
I've
I
been drawing since
1982.
DB: What
about the word
"Art?" Botticelli against Manzoni's shit in a tin-can. Is the "Art"
word big enough
to
encompass both works? talk
about the alchemy of
both of those things. You could wax
much you
"YOU ARE THE UNRIVALED BEARER
OF YOUR
yeah.
DB: Does alchemy word
lyrical as
as
like,
TE:
apply as
much
as the
GIFTS.
art?
you
Yes, but
I
that. yeah.
DB:
DB:
TE:
Is it
TE: The I
do not
when
I
a feeling of vulnerability?
thing like,
is,
to start with.
the majority of Expressionism,
think about
really big
Expressionism
it,
showing of
it
I
don't like.
I
saw
a
in Brussels last year,
OWN
YOU DO
WITH A HEART
wouldn't use the word alchemy,
AND A GREATNESS is
that "art"
or whatever.
think like
I
see, what's really
"art
Yeah, at least in Freud
'ube,
good
THIS feel dismissive of just
(
I
TE: But you can
want
to
painter.
mean
little
x 244 cm.
hite
that's also
be quite sophisticated now,
about Tlie Scream.
thousand million
It's
them, I'm not
TE: My
part forever belonging to you."
that's
\\
relate
1
don't
Jopling
compliment.
million pieces.
Each
to
J(i\
don't see anything naive about
be smashed into a thousand
to
h\
\\
maybe
Well,
'ourtes)
London.
accused of being naive, but
the noise continues.
still
About
that
it's:
hand
"You put your
But
scream
also like the
it's
not keen on his paintings.
TE:
reacting to a scream. He's not the screamer,
BOWIE
just don't like loads of people like
I
DB:
scream.
he's reacting to a
TE:
-
doing the scream. But he's not,
is
BY DAVID
It
is
a
good about the word
word
like "love," or "god,"
transcends so
many
MY NORMAL
things.
DISTASTE FOR SUCH
So you're content with the word. Yeah, definitely, but
time to
come
DB: Do
it's
taken
me
a long
CONFESSIONS."
— Gary Hume
to terms with that.
you not think that the word
THAT CONQUERS
"art"
is
so offputting to the majority of people?
TE: No,
I
don
t
think so, not anv more.
I
209
\\
RUT
R.S
ON
ARI ISTS
think that's changing. Definitely.
me what
asked
I
do,
I
say I'm an
If
someone
not primarily a literary based nation.
much.
without any hesitation. Art's for everyone.
too
DB:
aware
I
saw
been thrown around
that's a cliche that's
artist,
a recent statistic that suggested
think
I
far
think we're incredibly visually
I
actually.
We
always have been.
that the history of British painting
think
I
is
extraordinary. Every century a great
of
fist
brilliance has thrust through the old
* * •III
>EA weve AIL
"
*
sew
sixteenth-century repression. Always there
rm-:
E
*
has been a great painter.
TE: Turner
DB: Do
BIRDS BIRDS B«?D5
'
Fuck offDAcK
.
N
*
for one.
you know where the word
came from?
"Impressionism''
TE:
Tell
DB:
After Monet's gang's efforts at capturing
me.
the spirit or impression of Turner's light on
1&
BQBlDCia^.
?^PlHAT you
water,
Monet
did a
little
manifesto signed by
the others which said something intention
phenomena
the
form
to create
is
of light,
been preceded by the Turner." Hey,
seed of modern
r
iDBnQQBaaDa
TE: What's
.-,:
or.
living so.
DB: -
knowing we have
illustrious
FRIENDS
:
it
not fucking French
ro^K
bit
is
was through experience
I
was, but apparently,
really believed
a
it,
that he
pub, the middle of
at the top
died Buskin
many people go
to galleries
and
art
of
Yeah, he was a randy old bugger...
was
and
that as
the
mate!
art,
three-story house in Chelsea,
Trace) From Margate,
—
..
TE: Yeah he
0J]
and
Mad
Monsieur
so brilliant about Turner
the fact that
i rtflD IDOL '
movement and
in
|l
idqdb H EftBUBB G|| AN,DnTMisoiT
S
it's
"Our
like:
was
heard
I
had
this
a house,
and the bottom
it
his studios.
was
a brothel
And when he
came and destroyed
all
of his
erotic drawings and...
L\ en one's
Been There, 1997, applique blanket from clothing provided 8
5
lr\
friends
a 105 in/21
5
x
,
26" cm.
Courtes) hn Jopling/White Cube,
museums
TE:
as go to rock
Yes, but also with art
thing that
-
Britain's
DB:
shows and clubs.
more
it's
such a recent
literary based,
but
Yes,
Buskin certainly did
Turner also lived down
Puggy Booth.
He
in
that,
but
Margate as Admiral
had, of course, a
masked
London.
now It's
it's
becoming
to fashion to nice looking,
example.
DB:
210
based as well.
becoming more aesthetic with everything,
from furniture for
visually
I
don't agree with
life,
he was
down on
living
with the
the coast.
strange, randy
little
I
widow Mrs. Booth
mean he was
guy Working
quite a
class
and a
bit insecure.
you there.
We
are
TE: Margate. Another
great connection
.
TRACEY EM1N
there.
Me
and Turner.
DB: Wilde
have to wear
it.
That
is
who want
mask
a
made
punishment."
their
by becoming the anonymous
Ironically,
some
to create
DB:
before.
So you put high value on
DB: Why?
of his most seriously
TE: Because
the
it's
breakthrough paintings.
moment
TE:
DB:
Is
artist
not creating
Yeah, but imagine tying yourself to a
mast
to
head of
know what a storm.
about
art is
feels like to
it
mean,
I
me
the
in
hat
is \\
really. It's like this risk thing;
pushing yourself
like
that to
be
which
to a limit
it's
a
more
traditional
moment
another kind of
work?
in his oyyn
TE:
is
of something.
For themselves,
beyond your own notion of existence.
yeah, but not for the rest
DB: So
of the world.
TE:
that's art for
you?
DB:
Yeah.
DB: How
about
artists
who
don't use a life/
experience approach.
Would you dismiss
TE: Xo, because
did that,
lot
my is
if
I
I'd
it?
waste a
more important
me
to
forward to what I'm doing, not
to look
Because,
Curry, for instance.
you get somebody
Do you know
like
Ken
work -
his
the Scots painter? Well, he's very technically
accomplished. Incredibly proficient.
be
- who was not
exactly,
Now
let's
even better,
really corny. Tintoretto, no,
Titian
world that also
work, no?
you know, he
had parties and everything, quite
a socialite,
but he had a serious approach to painting and doing a good job. Not so
much
want
[I
to
more people
suggest that
&
Gilbert say,
a
is
Vermeer show than say a
are doing.
DB:
because there
it,
flock to see a Turner or
complaining about what other people
start
isn't
That's very general
appreciates that kind of
of time and a lot of energy looking over shoulder. What's
originality?
TE:Yeah.
Admiral Booth, Turner gave himself the
freedom
making something which has already been
in
"Those
said,
George, but
Traceys off and running!]
TE: No,
I'm talking for
the whole world. I'm not talking about the people
who happen
me
be patting
to
on the back
at
the
moment. The thing that
if
is
you've got a
message and you want
about
Top: If
it
I
could just go back and
start again,
expressing himself
TE:
or.
They
to
.
Yes, but I've got friends
who do
BY DAVID BOWIE
that.
be heard, you have
to find a
communicating which
way
of
excites people,
7
995, monoprint,
26 x 32 in/65 x 82 cm.
and
for
Courtesy Jay Jopling/White Cube,
London.
do
get up, they go to the studio, they
me
it
wouldn't be worth doing what
did
I
if
I
Bottom:
Good Smile Great Come,
2000. C-pnnt. their
work but
DB: They do
just re-created
they...
extraordinarily accomplished
paintings.
TE: it's
Yes,
I
can paint
paintings.
and then they go home
not like that for me, and
been. Basically,
fifty...
I
it
again.
But
never has
don't think there's any point
something which was done
I
can do
woodcuts, 'cause
I
really really
good Heckel
did
as a student.
not a student any more
student of
life if
it
-
you want
well, we're to
put
it
i0 x 31 in/76 x 78 cm.
Munch
good Edvard
Courtesy Jay Jopling/White Cube,
London.
But I'm
all
a
like that
-
211
\\
Rl
1
I
ON
R.S
AKI ISTS
me
but for doing,
J
DB:
have to reinvent, re-create.
I
DB: So
it
comes back
question. You sound a
who
artists
one person and thats me.
have be excited about what I'm
same
TE:
TE:
called "the original."
"Sometimes
i
just
get embarrassed
AND A
BIT
frightened and
TE:
want
don't
No
doesn't care.
Rembrandt's fucking
But he was working
(chuckles).
it
anything.
are a lot
DB: Rembrandt Yes,
argue about
We're not going to get into a fight or
(Long pause.)
TE:
to
but the biggest influence in
life, like
brilliant.
experiences - not what
my
day to day but
in a very
my
how
make sense
I
life is
I
my
do from
of the world
think, tracey, or whatever.
traditional style.
give
it
a
rest!
a
But bloomin
HAD TO COME TO TERMS WITH MY FAILURE AS AN ARTIST... LHAD TO FIND A WAY FOR MYSELF." I
where'd the
'eck,
fun
be there?"
— Paul Noble
TE: But he had Look
a fantastic sense of
at his etchings, all the
dressing up and everything.
DB: Fame
humor.
ones with him
TE: Fame
What was
DB:
when he was doing
through his mind
going
in a frame. in a
frame (laughs).
Because - what your work
whether you
that?
like
it
or not,
Other people weren't doing those kind of
personality,
things at that time. Also,
hub, and because of
really really like
I
Flemish and Dutch Master painting... the narrative and
like
I
I
like
what was
something
is
Yes, of course.
mean
I
in
it
a lot of
traditional
work -
Things
me
And
for
to
the
my
my work
terms with artist that
I
my
was
traditional type artist, I
was
way
just not very
for myself.
failure as
an
at
I
was
it.
I
feel,
works
much more
to
quite interesting.
critics
would
has a what-you-see-is-whatit
-
it's
not for
way because
in a different
of a sense of
there
what you called
alchemy, or complex symbolism, about his
was
work. With you
that it.
to find a
So what I'm talking about
is
it's
not like that, so
becomes much more subject.
it
of a personality based
Anyone can empathize with your
strong life-story
It
call
artist.
just crap at
had
library,
instance like Beuys or whatever. His- thing,
had
trying to be
and
good
I
it
is
you-get kind of honesty to
drawings or whatever.
are quite personal.
Your
context or gallery-
art
what some
deeper context,
can actually have the appearance of
come
work has been dragged out of the
doesn't have
for you,
way?
in a traditional narrative
TE:
literary pursuit.
showing context, which So there
Yes.
a celebration of
autobiographical
its
its
autobiography into an
going on.
DB:
because of
is
becoming,
is
almost out of the area of memorabilia and
looking at the
paintings and working out exactly
212
I
more dismissive toward me.
DB: i
more of them
I'm sure a lot
Yes.
DB:
what would be
in
understand. That's good then
I
isn't it?
dismissive of
little bit
work
don't
to the
Yes,
line.
personal experience. I'm not being judgmental
TE:
about other people, I'm being judgmental on
who've had... Gilbert
Yeah, but there's been loads of people
&
George...
I
is
TRACEY EMIN
5
BY DAVID BOWIE
\x
tiWiliTT
V X-
DB: TE:
she keep churning this sort of stuff out for?"
I'm not attacking you.
Gilbert
say van
Gogh
&
George, Andy Warhol,
Gogh. More people know
cut his ear off than
-
let's
that van
know the
of his paintings.
DB: Of course
I
-
they do yes, yeah
yes, but
they're not quite so obviously the subject of their
own
even
in their
DB: TE:
titles
work. Gilbert
&
George
nearly, but
work they themselves
cyphers standing
in for
are only
obvious.
it's
obvious,
Cause my
die.
the other thing
life
she going to do,
into rich people's
swimming
DB: What
DB:
Forget critics.
work have currency.
don't forget
listen to
them because
what people have got
I
TE:
like to
to say,
and
if
people have a derogatory point of view about
what
I
do then
interested.
And
I
want if,
to hear
why
I'm
you know, "How long can
DB:
Loudon.
until
now
all
this
what's
pools with
champagne?
People, critics...
I
was,
'uhc.
make work about jumping
TE:
TE:
life
it
(
know - and
oh well she made
is,
Jopliuo/W hiu
bit.
keep doing
I'll
keeps, you
work about how hard
bottles of
themselves.
it's
My
monoprints. Courtes) Jar
(chuckles) Yes, the longevity Yeah,
You Forgot to Kiss 27 April -26 Ma) 2001,
Installation:
Soul,
they're saying
is
how
long will her
Yeah. I
understand
that.
tangent here, because point.
I
I
could go off
it is
at a
an interesting
think you're not the only one that this
happens
to,
I
think there are a
lot
of your
2\
1
\\ R.I 11 R.S
ON
\R!
particular generation
what "we
in
who
that there
the
much more
statement, the
first
YBAs
is
to
now
privileged position because
getting
the rock industry" call a backlash.
There's a feeling that you haven't got
are
no
real
make
sit
on
laurels,
to give apart
first
show —
you
from the
ambition or desire
art. It's
among
more about going
to
have a radio
I'd like to
what I'm interested
that's
write
in doing.
I
don't see art as just a visual thing.
DB:
shock or whatever,
moment
novels. At the
I'd like to
That's an interesting point though,
Tracey is it
If
you go ahead and do
a radio show,
word
very important to you that the
attached to
TE:
art
is
it?
Yeah, Tracey Emin, the
has her
artist,
radio show.
DB:
Yes, but the thing itself, the event,
important that
enough
it's
considered
art? Is
it
that Tracey
Emin
gets a radio
did a radio
show
I
TE:
If
how
the format of the radio
radio
show would be more
I
is it
not
show?
would actually say
show
like a
is
and the
kind of
sound piece.
DB: So doing
there's not going to
show
a radio
like
-
be a sense of you
"I'm doing a radio
show," like in the "ironic event."
TE: No,
wouldn't be ironic.
it
really sincere.
Everything that
It
I
would be
do
is
totally
sincere.
DB:
So
it
"Oh
road said, Big Wheel. 1995, monoprint, in 58 a ~5 cm.
and being seen.
parties
OK if people
would be
show" and
that artist
didn't say,
is
down
the
doing a radio
"Have you heard of her
21 x 30
Cannes} London.
Ja) JoplingfWhite
Cube.
TE:
think that
I
because
if
people
worked and the thing I
is
comes through ignorance,
knew how fucking hard we
fact that I'm 34. This
stupid. I'm a 34-year-old
life,
believe
whim. thing.
but
I've
in, to It isn't
worked
do what just a
woman. And
hard
believe
I
little bit
214
actually,
1
at
in. It's
what not a
of a fashion
ceases to have
currency, I'm not gonna stop doing
me
that artist doing a radio
It
would be
can - I'm
it.
in a
But
a radio
it's
DB:
But
it
was merely
would be a radio
show?"
I
know
TE:
it
was
Yes,
art.
OK if
i
it
didn't
do ?)
That's
OK,
right? It's
like
Time Out. Time Out did the
seaside issue and sent
whatever, and there nice
was thought
absolutely fine by me.
it's
that piece in
DB: -
it
show? That they
TOTALLY SINCERE.
really
And when my work
hat's just
TE:
Everything that IS
my
-
show, yeah.
haven't actually ever sacrificed anything in
«
I
YBA
latest art project
little
me down
it is
-
picture.
to
Margate or
TRACEY EM1N
TE:
Trace} in her bikini with the donkeys at
Margate beach and
come home
a yes I've
DB:
was very
nice.
TE:
and that two pages
Yes,
something fantastic
DB: So
it
TE:
was
be
it
just
my
my
like
It's
party.
was the
like
I've
done and
seemed
it
was only
it
the '60s
in
were allowed
to
a recent
It's
That's because of
It
got written about in the press
event of the year.
art
do things, and
I
things, the event of
mv
belief
And
of existence.
The
way
something happening,
for
The
art
I
you
to
do you
see yourself in ten years?
changed
that.
I've
my mind
about that because think a
lot
of people in
life
have
I
art school."
TE: Ooh,
Yeah.
TE: And
if
conscripted?" "Oh,
DB: Where
art of living, the art of
And everyone can do
you have done
would have gone
it's
behind
feels like a fantastic piece of art.
"What would
hadn't been
birthday party, the
fuckin' birthday party. But just the
which
DB:
artists.
TE:
you know
that
not important that nobody else does?
Karaoke
being.
and do the things
seriously.
Well,
thing.
It's
it
to battle hard to get
the conscription
TE: No.
me
had
phenomenon.
Yes
DB:
a bit of a class thing really.
that a few working class lads
me.
to
more important
it's
had was
I
art?
it's
in
that
piece of art to me, because
like a
be taken
it
it's
Is that I've
into college
thought that was lovely actually,
I
- but
You know.
kind of thing.
DB:
terrible
BY DAVID BOWIE
used
I
imagine that
to
I
wouldn't be here and be quite romantic about
Self-portrait,
20U1, reclaimed wood
and sparrow, 144.x 140 in/366 x
J
56 cm.
Courtesy Jay Jopling/White Cube,
problems because they don't have a door.
it.
They
DB: The
Loudon.
and be true
DB: if
and think
don't have a place to go
freely
TE: Something
to themselves.
[I'm completely lost
now
as I'm not sure
the birthday party being written up as an art
good thing or
is
much
easier to be an artist in Italy or France
or even
TE:
DB: into
it
bad
thing.]
It's
Germany, because the windows and
doors thing was broken
than
a
was
in
down
a lot earlier
earlier
perceptions was accepted a
on the continent than
Britain. That's the
was
it
way
lot
in
I'm feeling pretty
never been very good
DB: NO!! Oh TE:
Yeah,
somehow
at
really?
always
really!! I've
outside of
be
this to
one place where we
it.
felt
Well,
in print,
but
I
that
I
was
don't really
++++++++++++
really
is
-
this
is
I
think part of
going to sound so
we'll leave that alone.
TE: Thev were art?
And
I
asking
was
for?"
It's
what the
why
me
is it
are people
doing
coming
it's
in
art. If
an
like: "Is
if it isn't
sitting talking to
obvious that
hell
questions
saying, "Well,
what are you doing it
I'm not Anglo-Saxon.
the problem
DB: OK -
it
lagged behind.
TE: But
I've
part of the
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
think the idea of doors as being a
new
good, that
- become
now
sun or something. But
want
England.
Yes. I
like that
conforming and becoming part of society
event
a
Baudelaire gag?
it's
me
it?
about
not art
art gallery
to look at
art
I
and
mean
215
WRITERS ON ARTISTS
people don't
around and
sit
say to Jarvis [Cocker, lead
band Pulp]
singer of the it
"Is
making of
of the
else.
-
know
I
presence
in the
it.
what Turner touched on
that's
because he did something else other than just
Let's think of
somebody
something magical happens
art,
between the mind and hand
DB: And
music?"
DB:
true sense of
were
his so called realistic paintings
what you mean, but you
imbued with
a metaphysical subtext that gave
need somebody...
them.
made them much more than
TE:
what they were.
iKETS
BUMD -ALMOST
BLIND -SHE
WAS RELIEVED
WAS OVER
IT
Well,
art?
is it
mean
I
those things actually
DB: John Cage
They're so powerful.
is
Or even
a perfect
TE: View
early
Underground when
DB:
It's
with a magnifying glass as well.
it
quite touching that there
they were just making
spiritual fetishism attached to
noises [taps cutlery!]... but
art.
is it
TE: Well
that
struggle to free themselves from their frames.
Velvet
Terrible, 2001,
think of
.
somebody experimental.
example.
Something Really
let's
.
music?
Music
is
even the
anyway
art
—
Everything
there's
owning
know who
I
will
All
art.
something about
it,
some
real superstitious act of
collectors
a
is still
kind of buy stuff
applique blanket,
95 x 80 in/240 x 202 cm. Courtes)
]
Jopling/White Cube,
Music's the highest form of
DB:
make
It'll
hoping that
art, isn't it?
grown man swoon.
a
some
they stand close enough to
if
it
of the transcendent perception will rub
London.
TE: But
there re people
lives in the
New
They're not
artists.
more
Brilliant
her forte; her
DB:
Yeah!
age and class
example here. Finnegans Wake.
Um.
TE: William
Art, as far as I'm
concerned.
Both.
deals with their lives
life in
general:
love, death,
the whole damn THING..."
—
the great ones. But, you get
happen
syndrome.
TE:
Well,
I
looking at
it
Collins (chuckles).
Well
I
TE: Coing back
(all
book and was sued. They said
it
didn't sa\
it
important.
And
I
it's
once had
were important,
would follow
Teaching.
I
alchemy
in the
Loads of
in the first place.
teach
who
in
like
mine,
it?
Would you
allow
your tradition?
and
at colleges
are doing
my
there's
kind of
thing.
DB: How do
you
feel
about that?
TE: Uhm. OK. 'Cause
they'll
won't they, and get their
laugh)
to the idea of
my work
definitely with
should hope not.
a lot of people
Collins, yeah.
be good,
something
the martyrs-
It's
won't be the same will
it
DB:
Morgan
to
them.
that
people can make work that looks
TE:
had
that's
coming from
Iman: Joan
a
know
to
it,
this idea that things, visually,
that people
Iman: She wrote
and get near
Lisa,
absolute masterpieces.
TE: Joan
go and see the Book of Kells, or
relic
but
all
and they don't actually create
was so bad. But she won. They
216
Mona
special will
it's
wanted the money back because they Stuart
the
there's that feeling
but not as important as the essence of where
Burroughs.
TE: Those were
on them. You know
the experience the viewer goes through
artists.
others and they write books and novels
and
it's
You're saying facility with technique
TE:
DB:
It's
sorts.
has never been
off
when people
whatever,
produces craftsmen rather than
boundaries of
their
They're picture makers.
"Specialization
art crosses
all
Forest painting horses.
like a craft, or a trade or
an industry of
DB:
who spend
DB:
I'll
see to them.
own
grow out of style.
it,
TRACEY EMIN
TE:
sort that
I'll
DB:
one
one
Just leave that
DB: Oh, come
out. to
me.
Isn't
rather
it
nice to think that you've contributed to they'll
TE:
his
what
when
I
went
into colleges
Id remember that I'm talking to someone
Yeah.
DB:
You're probably a
TE: Well
not
DB:
Can't even talk about
TE:
I'm
shoes and things.
DB:
You're
DB:
man Munch.
we're talking about
Frequently I'm talking to kids 30 years
younger!
Can you imagine
that?
Some bands
quite astonishing.
You know
I've
album. Mostly young American bands though.
DB:
really,
was phenomenal.
Duchamp
I'm
Munch.
school
more
into...
My man Munch.
more Munch than Duchamp.
My
There's a book for you.
Klein.
Yeah, he's great.
TE: He
first
day he
know. Munch.
TE: Yves
DB:
talked to
my
think of Scary Monsters [1980] as
it's
I
it
to the
and
any...
if
there's quite a lot of difference at that age. art,
him -
TE:
person
me and
who's fifteen years younger than
pure playfulness, right up
died, that aspect of
become?
Yeah, well
on. His adventurousness
BY DAVID BOWIE
died
W'hat
I
love his work.
when he was
is it
Automatic Orgasm, 2001,
twenty-eight.
applique blanket,
104x84
about twenty-eight-year-old
in/263 x 214 cm. r
Courtes}' Jay ]opling/\\ hite
But
it's
satisfying.
be older and
.
Well,
artists?
That was kind of
sad.
I
mean
Cube,
Loudon.
have actually kind of created a
it's still
some
quite like to be an old
students
DB:
dead
its a different feeling to
environment with your w ork.
certain
TE:
to
.
come
can
I
tell
years away, but
woman and
I'd
have
in for tea in the afternoon.
you who you could do that
with right now, the next time you go to the
be
States, but you'd better
getting
The
TE: that
up
fast
because
there. Louise Bourgeois,
she's
down
in
Village.
was being inteniewed and
I
would
I
like to
meet
her.
I
I
was saying
just bet she's
-
have you met her?
DB:
Its
one of the things Iman and
going to do
when we
get
back
next time. She's very old now. in
to
are
I
New York
Her
last
show
Milan was stunning. Absolutely fantastic.
TE:
\\
hen you look
at
her work, you don't
think that this has been
made by somebody
who's 90, you've got no idea. Even
in
her old
work you have no idea when she made
DB: The
it.
guns of the twentieth century The
Duchamps, the Burroughses, the Louise
P
'
A
II
Bourgeoises, Picassos.
TE:
I
don
t
like Picasso.
21
.
WRITERS ON ARTISTS
he
should have carried on working and
really
these not very good paintings.
terrifically talented.
studio, I'd just
TE: Maybe he
make something
he could
thought he'd gone as far
But when
go.
time to go
it's
day,
it's
like a failure.
don't know.
Don't you think so?
me.
for
so glad that
I
didn't really
survived any of those things
think
I
how
long ago
was
it
that
valued...
I
DB: About
DB:
We've covered
to
said
2001, wooden cabinet,
103 x 33 x 36 in/261 x
London.
Jci}
I
swear
I
do now.
I
almost
it's
wouldn't be doing
I
like
all
wouldn't have
I
denying
in life
what
at.
DB:
stick with Expressionism
last
TE:
night
- going back
DB:
Yes (laughs).
Yeah, I
I'll
I'll
at that.
TE: Oh,
of the reasons that you
DB:
destroyed your work was that your painting
knock
knock
did
they wanted
to a
83x91
cm.
down
would never
get
me
on the
television.
said to
you was
or being
you
sitting
talking to
can
I
you "Oh,
tell
I
I
Heckel
off a
for you.
off a Kirchner for
somebody,
a..
like Kirchner.
Yeah, he's good, he's fun to paint as
well.
who
I
did a couple actually. For
really loved
him.
I
did
them
somebody as a present
Jopling/Wfate Cube,
TE: What
I
if
I
one Christmas.
hadn't
destroyed the paintings then I
wouldn't be here sitting
talking to you now,
DB: And
I
meant
up with,
that
is
do, therefore, a
TE: But it's
would
I?
to follow
people
you with your painting,
like
for your pleasure kind of thing,
with your music
it's
like you're
satisfied.
means
really personal thing.
It's
dialogue with yourself.
TE:
DB: Not
Yeah, definitely. it's
anything for the
TE: No, because for
know what
do
But
I've
I'm doing
genuine reasons.
don't I?
done
shown? I'm very
I
know
the end that
in the past
that
I
make and
coming up
I
is,
what
makes
sense to the point where
am
proper
art?
like
And
it's
I
now, because otherwise
in
just a
you having a
shouldn't be
into the visual stuff that
make. I'm quite purposeful about the
result?
it
always
Whereas with the painting
what you to
whereas
pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing, never
an end?
DB: So
218
if
30 sees),
monitor,
Courtes)
me, but
in
I
you're naturally good
actually.
ground
something we've already talked about
One
and
can do you any number of Heckels."
a lot of
one thing
certain extent.
[40 mins
— wow.
Twenty-six
of the
decided to stop because
I
then - I'm good
twenty-six.
TE:
Oh, you
73?
old were you in
to
failed all the time
have the heart
the things that
was twenty-eight.
TE: So how
end
beautiful by the
So
eight years ago,
myself. I'm having such a great time now.
And when
and would want
in
hadn't done that seven years ago, you know,
so fickle, Tracey I'm
It's
go to the
I'd
depressed and depressed and feeling
DB:
I
walk
would have
I
I'd feel
DB: Not
Baliff,
and
time to go.
TE:
DVD
would have always been surrounded by
not given up the ghost, because he was
as
The
I
do. I've got another
March.
My
I
stuff
show
ninth in two years.
TE: Where?
DB: Oh, Marconi floors of
TE:
It's
in
Milan. Three or four
it.
not
Marconi?
-
is
that his dad?
Is
it
Joe
.
TR.ACEY EMIN BY DAVID BOWIE
DB:
Yeah.
TE:
Joe Marconi?
as Balthus For instance"
DB:
Yeah, Joe Marconi.
TE: They
don't
Fun
1
the
It's
TE: Oh, cause
DB:
I
same
DB: Do
gallery.
met him.
swimming
got a
really.
DB: Uh? swimming
DB:
Yeah. Well, whatever.
TE:
TE:
In Milan. Yes this
that too
because when
I
pool.
really interesting
is
met him, he
said, "If you'd
interested in doing something with me..."
in
I
be
And
"Well I'm interested in going shopping
Milan" -
let's
So the idea
like
is
like their thing, their
did their
Goya lot
"Tracey of
amazingly
get our priorities sorted out.
like
is
actually don't really
much. But
came
to the
ICA
more interested
Milan's a long
me some
way
for a
in his
swim
isn't it?
quick one-liners. You don't
tell
to think
real
when
it
you don't want
TE: Good,
DB:
I
people. Generous spirited.
DB:
Mark Quinn.
(Laughs) I
respect
and
him immensely I
for giving
really, really like
Mark.
DB: What
do you think of the work?
TE: Some
of Mark's
work
I
like.
I
I
up think
really liked
to
crazy.
I
he cast
was
Amsterdam when he was showing
Bridget Riley.
TE: Appears
Conversation with
in
in
those in
My Mum, 2001, DVD, TV
chairs,
and table, 40 x 16 x 13 in/101 x41 x 32 cm. Courtesy Jay Jopling/White Cube, London.
be a good woman.
DB: Glenn Brown and I
bronze — baroque and
like one-liners.
Collings
Generous
his exploding bread pieces that
to.
life."
—Matthew
two children's if
like
herself in
about
you one thing
auction. Yes.
he's a great person.
Yes, well, I'm
I'll
want
about them. Exceptionally generous,
TE:
go to Milan and go
I
DB:
have to
is
Children with mutant genitals?
drinking,
Give
me
think they have a
just
shopping and stay over and use his pool.
gallery.
to
the myth of
DB:
He's got a
said,
work
fun together.
TE:
I
their
- when they
stuff- but now
pool as well.
-
know you
Devils ai Wars
Yes, he's lovely.
TE: Hes
they now? Not as morally repugnant
appropriation,
suppose.
TE:
think he's probably one of the best in
I
his field.
DB: These Gillian Is
are very personal
and Sarah. Shall
TE:
Yes,
it's
suppose.
separate the two?
I
unfair to put the two.
it
I
.
unfair.
DB:
Gillian.
TE:
Exceptionally close good friend
I've
been friends with
for years
she became friends with
people wouldn't touch
DB: Wyndham TE:
I
me
and years and
at a
time
when
with a barge-pole.
Lewis.
always thought he was a bit of a
DB: Chapman TE:
me
whom
fascist.
brothers (laughs).
Individually, they're really crap artists but
together they do pretty good,
I
think.
219
.
WRITERS ON ARTISTS
the Hilton, don't like
can seem naive
"She
about the
pitfalls
of expressionism to
a degree that
thought they were really good.
I
Mark's work, but
all
I'm also an admirer.
fairly
conservative, his work, recently.
TE:
I
think in a
to the
brink of being a really bad artist."
— Jonathan Jones
trestle, plants,
TE: Antony
And
Well,
DB:
is
mean,
I
DB: What
met
my
fucking
personally
I
one of the most
produced
spiritually this
Nauman's
stuff
It
was already
Yeah.
When
they're not so figurative.
much
more... actually like the concrete
they re
me what
you ask
Chair
[a
think of
I
then?
Nauman
do you think of Bruce
TE: Fucking
TE:
when
My
then?
prefer things
No,
don't
DB: What
Whiteread's
bigger.
Beatles.
no more
is
sculpture].
Nauman
Bruce
True
TE: Oh,
much
TE: Why
DB:
Do you know I
decade -
Nauman
1965
that one?
Case for an Angel} that one.
in
concrete castings best.
do you think of -
it's
Nauman, but
than Bruce
work and
say that piece of
I'd
there in Cast of the Space under
the most loveliest, generous
like his
I
I...
most of Rachel Whiteread's
Gormley.
talk-a-holic person I've ever life.
TE:
stuff?
brilliant.
One
of the top artists.
.
DB: Top man. TE: Top man,
yes
—
no, brilliant artist.
wooden
ladder,
103x33
looking
way Mark's work always
uplifting sculptures
monitor,
it's
Nauman
instance.
Oasis to
think that
The Perfect Place to Grow, 2001. wooden birdhouse, DVD,
think
has been.
DB: Antony
brings her
think...
I
DB:
I
I
x 64 in/261 x 83 x 162 cm.
cube
things.
DB:
Don't you think they're a
Fantastic. He's influenced so bit '60s
and
many
people...
bet he's really good fun as well.
I
Courtes) Jay Jopling/White Cube,
London.
Nauman. Knees
of Five
Famous
Artists, for
DB: TE:
He's great fun.
Yeah,
I've
never met him, but
I
bet he's
great fun.
DB:
met him
I
last year.
He's "Stetsony"
you know, jeans and jacket with cowboy. He's
he's a
like a...
-
fringes. Yeah,
Clint Eastwoody
kinda guy.
A
TE:
cowboys. Sarah Lucas? Partner
like
I
very
down
to earth guy.
in crime.
DB: Is
Yeah, Sarah Lucas. Partner in crime.
that
TE:
it?
Yeah.
DB: Hume? TE:
Gary's a fucking good painter.
Hume Gary
is
the only art
Hume
got. I've got
It's
That's interesting.
TE:
It's
DB:
I
a small one.
it's
my home. A
the only thing
I've
Which one?
It's
really small,
it
looks
weird flower.
thought
TE: But
in
nothing else on the walls.
DB:
like a really
220
painting.
have up
I
Gary
it
might be.
not a flower, but
it
looks like a
TRACEY EMIN
And
flower.
When
the wall.
crying
the only thing
it's
Gary gave
was so touched.
I
I
me
to
it
the mirror
which
on the
is
a mirror with... scratched
is
started
1
beneath
man
the face of a Neanderthal
is
floor
Mat. That's good.
really looks like
got work, but I've got videos as well
-
I've
I've got
by Lisa Maypost, one by Georgina -
a video
and videos are easier because
I
me
for
everywhere. Angus Fairhurst. love Angus...
I
DB: How
Expectations'?
TE:
They're pretty low. Don't
have any expectations about
them up on the
DB:
Is this
TE:
DB:
Angus were
DB: TE:
know who
don't
I
Colin
is
either. Is
go,
DB: Oh
and you
fine (laughs)... they're
it's
They might be people
interesting people.
you'd like to look Self are
at.
two guys who came out of the
all
time.
them through customs.
from Nuremberg with
my
come
Egypt?" .And
from, did you said,
I
"No
A
said,
my
tent."
to us?" tell
And
I
said,
said,
I've
you want
to
and you
come from
you take anything?
DB: They must TE:
DB:
It
They
tent."
my
"Well no, not
it
it.
It's
up
have loved
said,
to
show
really,
the
but
names
I
will."
that.
No,
his
hand-
seem
Trace}'
it
my
I
have Ever Slept
siesta
48x97x85 ml 122x245x215
cm.
terrible
Damien? She did needlepointed
and
I've
TE:
It's
got a
wool.
I
things
it
his
I
tapestry.
in
Iman made
for
She
in a box.
It's
lamb
irony of course
It's
see you. You
from a drawing that
little
it's
I
did something with
lamb
better than the
mean
have Ever Slept
detail.
Do
can't fall asleep.
time that
first
when
I
have that together. Well,
first
of
the
through and
television
It's
With 1963/1995,
expect you to be able to write
me -
context gone.
comes up on the
to
I'll
grenades in his case and they were going it
I
know one of the
DB: The had
I
asleep?
perfectly in Celt the next time
art, it's
was funny, yeah.
But, Barker actually
It's
Top: Everyone
With 1963/1995, 1995, appliqued tent, mattress, and light,
Above: Everyone
you're excited
"Do you want
open
so amusing.
Well I'm off for a kip then.
come from
ever slept with from 1963-1995.
me
K
don't
I
pre-show habit Eve adopted since
fall
"Where
said,
said, "It's
you exactly what's on
everyone If
They
I
it
i
DB:
young
of tent?"
bone.
\
Courtesy Jay Jopling/White Cube,
you got there?"
"What kind
a
is
TE: Can you
I've
"A
take the fish out
being with Iman.]
DB:
said,
and
wife re-enters the room.
Nuremberg." They went, "Oh!, and what've I
they
London.
and they
tent,
"What've you got there?" They did you
week
the other
And
know why we found
'60s.
and then
came through customs
it
say, "It's a fish,"
you have
[My
I
a live fish,
"What's that in your bag?"
Clive Barker cast six hand-grenades in bronze
TE:
-
and taking
when you
Clive Barker and Colin
tried to take
talking about
through customs.
that the right answers?
no,
me and
Yeah, but once
in a bag,
know who Colin Self
band?
his
bringing a fish
is.
Self.
don't
I
Clive Barker
Low
are they,
walls or anvthing.
TE:
I
love his drawings.
them.
Clive Barker.
like his
1
band Loir Expectations, and
to collect,
don't have to have
guns
screen... there's
TE:
have a piece of
work by Mat Collishaw which which
up on
got
I've
BY DAVID BOWIE
is
I
made
so beautiful.
in a box.
that
it's
made
in
so delightful. All the cold just this pretty
little
picture,
wool.
221
WRITERS ON
A.R1
Duane Hanson by Andrew Motion
L
ife
is
Like
That
Duane Hanson now
His hyper-Tealism
recognized throughout the world, Hanson's interest in the realistic presentation of
human
form was evident
He was
earl) on.
Minnesota
No,
life is like this
- one moment
outside,
the next: a white hush and people inside drifting. Just
glancing round
it's
not clear
smoothness against the
to a
explorer
is
law.
And
scouring the jungle of his
a flyhair,
desperate for a mouthful of sugary sweat.
horn in
and
in 1925.
at
who
is
alive
and who
is
only pretending.
But no, there
is
no moisture of any kind.
the age of 13 he created a
wooden
three dimensioned
version of Gainsborough's
The Blue Boy
using
butcher
his mother's
knife as a tool.
not like that, you see;
Life
is
One
reason
it's
like this.
they look tired, these ones
no one can quite decide about. Tired is
During the tune he studied at the
My God,
not the word. Take this one here,
the gallery stooge.
He
is
why
they might be so tired
they have died and used
leaning so hard
all
work back towards
trying to
is:
their energy life.
The
life
Cranbrook Academy
of Art, the trend in art
against that wall at the
end of the day
where
their old clothes
and jobs are
still
schools was toward abstraction;
Hanson "1
of his experience, to
had
said
school and heard you to
he modem...
his shoulder has almost melted.
went
1
didn't
realh warm up until Pop Art made Realism
He
that jogger.
lost his shirt
Or
take
Look: here
and now has one
foot bare,
rubbing his
His finger ends look scarred.
sole.
Florida in 1965,
are
treads of his trainers (sneakers)
is
rendering of a dead pregnant
which
his breath
He began
creating
sculpture in casting molds
taken directly from his models' bodies which he
then embellished with clothes, to
Sew
and
York in 1969
began
to
exhibited. to
hair,
props. \J
work inspired
critic-
be wideh
He
return
Florida in 1973
"
he worked until his death in 1996.
back before
reliable luggage.
He
has assembled a smooth body full
of food,
well-bitten nails, bruises, even, as
provoked strong public reaction.
it!
a tourist fallen out of thin air
worn
foot long mixed-media
a piece
made
head heavy but wedged among
he sculpted Abortion, a two-
woman,
they have so nearly
one red hand
and getting
The black to
And
on something
legitimate again."
Moving
waiting.
he loomed
flying on,
DUANE HANSON
large again in
what he had
SAL-VAY-SHUN.
lost.
How much
And
he must hate
until then: just staring off.
The
staying dead.
glass eyes
which never blink and are
Then
what about
again:
body
his
not eyes at
which trundled all
the
her cleaning trolley
and
and took care
(cart),
and to
and
up one of
its
detergent bottles,
it
is
like to die
stay dead,
back from the
stare levelly
other side
align every
in fact
all,
but have seen what
way here from the grave wheeling
fill
ANDREW MOTION
a miracle,
It is
almost.
BY
Andrew Motion
full
As
of knowledge they cannot speak.
Britain's Poet laureate,
Andrew Motion
Knowledge
has
advocated bringing
just so, rinky-dink in their plastic
I
inherit
audience, especially
now understand
yellow apron.
to
Or
poor man, so spent by the
this
hot
I
must keep
to myself.
And
of course
I
When
of a paper-bag-lunch alone in a
I
eventually leave here,
to myself. Life
nameless place,
is
like this.
did you think?
I
What
shall
keep
it
Motion
in 1952,
studied at Oxford with the
poet John
F idler and
taught
else
Hull
at the universities of
and East Anglia, taking time between the two positions
he would ignore anything you cared
journal
to edit the
him.
to tell
young people.
shall.
Born
boredom
wider
poetr)' to a
merely by looking but
Poetry Review.
His arms are thin but their sheer weight
is
Motion's recurrent themes
such
of isolation and
his
elbow-skin has crumpled
in
1978. The collection
includes the
Salvation.
appear
The Pleasure Steamers,
an elephant's.
like
loss
in his first collection of verse,
You could say that
to
him,
poem
which describes
villagers in the
for instance,
Inland,
7th-century
1
wake of a The poem
devastating flood.
though that
is
not the word either.
received the Newdigate
SAL-W-SHUN. More
like that. Bigger.
feels its
Prize in 1975.
When
a
mind
Motion's critical worlis
and biographies are
way
portraits of those
exhaustedly along the whole length of
its
influenced him, such as
Edward Thomas and
body
Larkin
and knows that
it
can no longer
—
He
has written the biographies
A
Philip Larkin:
travelers are stuck
their
Philip
poets he believed to
have been undervalued.
continue alone.
When
often
whose work
between
homes
Life,
Writer's
and The Lamberts:
George, Constant
&
Kit, for
which he won the Somerset
and wherever they're going,
Maugham
Award.
and threatening to enjoy
it.
Or when
in their
they are lost Far
journey
left:
filler,
and admit the better not to
logic
is
to
decide
like that, like this:
i
988, autobody
mixed media.
life size.
left:
next. Salvation.
&
Saatchi Gallery, London.
know
what happens
Traveler,
fiberglass
Not
Queenie
II,
1988,
polychromed bronze, with accessories, life size.
Gallery,
Saatchi
Louden.
223
\\
Rl 11
ARI IMS
ON
R.S
Richard Billingham by Nick Hornby
HOWEVER ENTHUSIASTIC YOU FELT about Charles much
"Sensation,''
of
was unlikely
it
any pejorative sense, or
Richard Billingham
Bom up
in
who would
at least,
I
you
to detain
don't think
argue that any successful work of
Saatchi's traveling exhibition
art
I
do:
for long.
I
mean
don't
presumably there are
should provoke
at lea'st a
break
that in critics
in a gallery
1970 and brought public housing
in the
Birmingham, England, Billingham began to use a cheap camera to
An
visitor's stride,
and that therefore works such
as Sarah Lucas's
dirty mattress,
and
banana, and oranges) are comprehensive
one with the
naturel (the
projects of
gather material for his
failures.
You see
it
his'n'hers melons, bucket,
coming, as
were, from the other side of the room; you snort
it
- with
undergraduate paintings. His family and the banality of everyday existence were the subjects of this work.
Michael Collins, the photo editor of London's Sunday Telegraph,
and aesthetic
existential
despair,
if
you are Brian Sewell, or with amusement,
normal person - and you move on. loved
Au
naturel,
which means
demanded much more
of
that
me and
problem with
don't have a
I
I
loved
it
more than
I
that.
if
you are
For a few seconds
a I
have loved other works that
turned out not to repay the
effort.
discovered these powerful
Even
photographs and instigated
if
they do nothing else
- although
actually they
do plenty else - the
the publishing of
Billingham's celebrated book, Ray's a Laugh. In this
dark family album,
nothing
is
concealed
—
photographs of Richard Billingham do detain you. You might not want
you might think, when you see
to
be detained;
his pictures of his battered, bewildered, distressed,
and alcoholic father Raymond, and of Elizabeth,
his
enormous, tattooed mother, that
not the violence, hopelessness, or the mess.
Almost every rule of is broken in the
you'd rather wander off and look
at
something funnier, or more beautiful, or
less real
(and despite the proliferation of blood and pudenda and intestines elsewhere in
photography
photographs. Images are blurred, overexposed,
human
grainy; the
subjects
are marred by a red-eyed glare.
lying
He
takes
some
"Sensation," nobody could describe the is
simply not an option, not
about, too
to
it
much
if
going on, too
shots
on the floor. There's a
bizane humor
show
The
first
you have any curiosity
much
to
had a very
viewpoint I
when
1
thing to think about
is
all:
there
is
too
much
to think
the rights and wrongs of these pictures, because let
alone parents like Billingham's, would
wonder whether
it
were possible
to justify
snapping their moments of distress and
elitist
was young.
sculpture were the best." But
power of this series of photographs, many of which the
at the
at
off
be a
plastering
them
all
over the walls of the Royal Academy. You could argue that Billingham
thought that painting and
were shown
Wandering
all.
photographer, Billingham states, "I
can't.
narrative.
anyone who has ever had parents of any kind, Never unending
But you
as sober).
and
Museum
is
unfortunate that he
people Lott,
in a
way
is
a
photographer: the immediacy of his
that writing never can. Tobias Woolf,
Mary
and Katherine Harrison, among many others, have
all
medium seems
to expose
Karr, Blake Morrison,
Tim
displayed and analyzed their
of Modern Art in 1997, is
obvious.
parents' crises
and
failings in recent years,
distance even while trying to writing, in other words,
tell
but prose mediates and transforms, creates
you things about
whereas photography
is
a character's
real life.
innermost soul.
But of course that
is
It's
a
only
one of the
RICHARD BILLINGHAM
tricks
Billingham plays on you, because part of his
convince you that
this is life
unmediated - an
Spend enough time with these
art
artistic
HORNBY
BY NICK
to strip distances away, to
is
device in
itself.
pictures and eventually you realize that their
complexity and empathy answers any of the questions you might ask of them and their creator: there's nothing exploitative going
;
on here. Empathy
is
not to be confused with
"My father Ray is a chronic alcoholic. He doesn't go outside
Nick Hornby (
and mostly drinks homebrew."
lapluring the voice of a
sentimentality, however: whatever else
it
is,
work
Billingham's
is
not sentimental.
Hornby
generation, writer
One
of the
who
is
a
deals with the
theme of obsession. He was born in England in 1957,
and became a teacher and a
most
striking
photographs
in the
by the lavatory his eyes cast
weary self-acceptance. His
"Sensation" exhibition shows
down
fly is
so that he
seems
to
undone, the soles of
be
Raymond
sitting
on the
in a state of philosophical
floor
journalist before turning to literary writing.
and
his sneakers are facing the lens; the
His 1992 childhood memoir. Fever Pitch, a stud) of
toilet seat is
broken, and
some
indistinct bodily waste
- puke? blood? -
is
trickling
down
obsession, families, identity,
and
the outside of the bowl.
It
was never going
neutral gaze doesn't overweight
it,
to
be
a pretty picture,
and consequently
it is
but Billingham's
allowed to take
its
pitiless,
place in the
life
Some
his first
High
ongoing narrative of his parents'
around
class, revolves
soccer.
compare
critics
work of fiction, work
Fidelity, to the
off.D. Salinger; the novel
together.
was made into a movie It
takes
some
talent,
and some nerve,
impeccable judgement that impresses one
to
be able to do
first
of
all. It
this,
and
it is
Billingham's
would have been easy
2000. the
for the artist
Among
in
other works
1999 novel About
Boy, and his
How To Hornby
is
a
latest release
Be Good.
also writes for
British journals
— The
Sunday Times, Times Literary Supplement,
and
Literary Review.
Untitled. 1994,
SFA4
color
photograph mounted on
aluminum, 20 x 30 in/50.x 75 cm. Courtes) of Anthony Reynolds ('•alien.
London.
9?S
WRITERS ON ARTISTS
"Flash into the
Mom and A British
face of
Dad.
FAMILY ALBUM SO
COOL THAT
I
CAN
AND HEAR WHAT GOES ON SEE
BETWEEN THE FRAMES."
—Robert Frank
Untitled,
J
995,
SFA4
color
photograph on aluminum,
47 x3J in/120x80cm. Courtesy of Anthony Reynolds Gallery,
London. to let these pictures
become
self-pitying
possible in this domestic climate?
- what
- but they
sort of
childhood and young adulthood
are not: there
is
too
much
tolerance.
Nor
they angry, hectoring, or loud. Even the pictures depicting violence, a violence born,
presumably, out of alcohol and despair, don't succeed in turning the collection into a
campaign about
226
this or a plea to the
government
for that.
is
are
RICHARD BILLINGHAM
It is
hard to be definitive about
how
Billingham pulls this
off,
but his insistence on giving
Untitled, 1995,
BY NICK
SFA4
HORNBY
color
photograph mounted on aluminum,
Raymond and pictures
Elizabeth, his two leads, equal attention
become
the portrait of a marriage as
and the
alienation,
artist is at
pains to
show
much
is
certainly wise, because then these
as
an analysis of
that this marriage has
domesticity and evidently peaceable companionship, as well as sitting over a
print dress,
jigsaw (a brilliantly realized shot,
and her tattoos coming together
Raymond and down
Elizabeth sitting watching
their fronts, the family pets in
their context, these
But there
is
moments
urban
of calm
the other stuff. Elizabeth
with the jigsaw pieces, Elizabeth's
an orchestrated
TV on
all
its
social despair or
riot
floral
of synthetic color);
the sofa, a roast dinner on their laps, gravy
between them; even the spectacular shot of Ray
hurling the cat violently through the air
Given
in
this,
is
a strangely matter-of-fact, life-goes-on
moment.
photos are rich and strange.
blood on the walls
in this
household, and Billingham shows
quite literally in the case of one photograph,
which depicts
it
to us
-
a thin claret trickle apparently
emerging from one of those cutesy mass-produced portraits of a mannequin that you used to
be able
to
buy
in Boots.
There
is
more
action here than one might expect to find in a
selection of family snapshots: three of the pictures in Billingham's "Sensation" selection deal
with violence or
its
41
x62 ml 105 x
158 cm.
Courtesy of Anthony Reynolds
immediate aftermath, and the changes of clothes
alert
you
to the fact
Gallery,
London.
WRITERS ON \K
Untitled, 1994,
SFA4
color
not a sequence, but simply part of an ongoing domestic pattern. That Billingham
that this
is
was able
to take the pictures at all
photograph on aluminum, 31 \
47 in/80 x 120 cm.
is
a clear indication that physical
abuse
is
an organic part
Courtes}' of Anthony Reynolds Gallery,
Loudon.
of the day;
Raymond and
Elizabeth would, presumably, have preferred their spats to take
place away from their son's lens, but in the end were unable to stop themselves.
There
U
is
an inherent and perverse fascination, of course,
in seeing
grown people knock
My mother Elizabeth
hardly » DRINKS BUT SHE DOES SMOKE A LOT. lumps
off
immense
each other, and the fascination
vehement disagreement. Elizabeth has
and there
is
a sense that this
appears to be offering
Raymond
In the rest, however, there
saddest photo of the
lot is
is
match has ended
intensified by Elizabeth's obviously
in a score
it is
fist
around
a
his
draw - Elizabeth even
no doubt who the victor has been or
of an angry Elizabeth,
must have been
a bloody nose. Ray's scars are
a paper hankie in a gesture of concern
and understandably trepidatious partner:
228
is
physical power. In one picture the couple are resting after what
particularly eye,
in this case
and
will be.
reconciliation.
Perhaps the
raised, threatening her utterly defeated
the closest Billingham
comes
to direct
RICHARD B1LLINGHAM
articulation of despair,
his
HORNBY
only because Raymond's expression has, for once, not been
if
mask
neutralized by the blank
BY NICK
head and toppling head
of drink, and
first
towards the
we can floor,
him
sec
there
is
clearly.
Even when he
no indication of
feeling,
is
out of
and
Below: Untitled, 7995,
SFA4
color
photograph on aluminum,
maybe, you
can't help reflecting,
it's
better that
way
41 x 62 iu/105 x 158 cm. Courtes) oj
"This book Ray's a
Laugh.
my
about
is
"My
close family," Billingham writes on the dustjacket of his
Raymond
father
is
a
chronic alcoholic...
My
book
mother Elizabeth hardly
\iitliinn
Re) nolds
smoke
a lot.
She
likes pets
and things
that are decorative.
My younger
rallery,
Bottom: Untitled, 1994. color photograph on
drinks but she does
(
London.
SFA4
aluminum,
20 x 30 in/50 x 75 cm. Courtesy of Anthony Reynolds
brother Jason was taken into care
There
is
mistaken
1
1
but
is
now back with Ray and
Liz again."
Gallery,
Loudon.
words
a tone to these
that could be
when he was
for
blankness, just as the
photographs could seem blank
one couldn't be bothered at
to look
them hard enough, but
this collection
warmer than about
love.
if
actually
much, much
is
that:
clearly
it is
Richard Billingham,
one would hazard, loves
his
parents, but they are not loveable,
not in the most straightforward
sense of the term.
Hence
the
careful neutrality of tone, the refusal to allow his lens to
become clouded with
pity or
anger or disgust: he knows that
enough of
audience
his
will feel
those things anyway, and that actually the truth
complicated.
The
is
a lot
last
more
picture in
the "Sensation" exhibition shows
Raymond and
Elizabeth cuddling
on the bed, and
it's
a kind of
optimistic ending to an unsettling, extraordinary until
show -
you see Raymond's eyes,
focusing somewhere in the
middle distance, and you wonder
what he has seen.
2?9
\\
Rl
ON
ERS
1
\R,
Robert Rauschenberg by Bryan Robertson
ME, RAUSCHENBERG
FOR
of those
American
HIGHLY PLACED among the most enjoyable and admirable
IS
artists
half of the 20th century.
who
To place him
Robert Rauschenberg Born
in Texas in
Academie Julien
art at
example, are his contemporaries.
An
Ellsworth Kelly and Jasper Johns,
in time,
imaginative energy, generosity 'of vision, and
breadth of handling through the uninhibited execution of ideas
in different
dimensions
in Paris, the
Kansas City Art
and
for
1925,
Rauschenberg studied
achieved prominence internationally in the second
Institute,
and media
activate
all
of his work. There
is
nobody quite
like
Rauschenberg
in twentieth-
Black Mountain
at
College in North Carolina.
moved to New York and worked on window displays for Bonwit Teller and Tiffany while attending
century
art;
more than touched greatness many
apart from his originality he has, for me,
In 1949, he
the Art Students League.
times. at
As
I
have recorded before,
when Rauschenberg's
Whitechapel (London) - an augmented version of
which won the Grand Prize
for painting
— we had
first
his
big retrospective
show opened
1964 Venice Biennale exhibition,
to ask the local police to help control
Although he played an important role in the transition of Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art,
Rauschenberg 's
"I
MYSELF.
categorization. His first works in the '50s
WORLD BY I WANT AN OPEN COMMITMENT
REFUSE TO BE IN THIS
art defies
were collages
FROM THE REST OF THE PEOPLE."
overlaid with textiles,
photographs, and torn
A feu produced
newspaper clippings. years later he
1
"combine paintings" —
the crowds waiting to get into the gallery every day and
jamming
the
pavement
outside.
assemblages of painted
and found materials and coke - which are ironic in
surfaces
such as bottles
theme.
The show caused
a sensation,
packed with people reacting with warm enthusiasm
to the
light bulbs
Monogram
1959K a
7
i
paintings and the newly invented Combines,, that bristling mixture of painting with free-
955-
stuffed goat with a
around its middle, is a well-known example.
standing or interlinking solid objects.
Among
other exhibits, the
show contained the
tire
notorious Bed, in which the pillow, sheets, and folk-art cover of a neatly
bed had been drenched
in paint,
In the early '60s,
Rauschenberg produced
silk-
in
which
a stuffed
ram
and the whole up-ended on the
tightly encircled
by a black
tire
wall;
was placed on
made
single
and Monogram,
a painting that
screen prints in black and
white and later in color. During the '70s and '80s he
worked on lithographs and
covered a mobile wooden
trolley.
The show was
particularly appreciated by younger artists
seeking a sufficiently broad opening between the Scylla of Abstract Expressionism and the
other graphic arts with a
focus on collage and on
wins
to transfer
In 1998,
Museum
new
photographs.
The Guggenheim put on
its
Charybdis of Pop Art.
Back then
in the '60s, after a close relationship
a short period in adjoining studios,
through the '50s
when
they worked for
Rauschenberg and Johns were invariably bracketed
largest
exhibition ever with four
together, like
Colquhoun and MacBryde
or
Minton and Vaughan
in
England
in
an
earlier,
hundred works by Rauschenberg.
230
post-war, decade, or as
Newman
and Rothko were linked, meaninglessly and confusingly,
ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG
and Johns appeared
new
to
nerve, to
invoke fresh territory in
But
it
ROBERTSON
Both Rauschenberg
later on.
touch a
BY BRYAN
seemed,
art.
also, that the
hard-won connoisseur's
art
of Johns tended to close
things off for a younger
Bryan Robertson One
however much
generation,
of the most important
figures on the
they might admire those
scene,
delectably painted early
agent
London
art
Bryan Robertson was
born in 1925, son of a wool
who was
a compulsive
gambler. As an asthmatic
maps and
while
targets,
child, he spent long periods in
Rauschenberg's work
bed studying art books
and reproductions.
created a
more
and open
situation, with
extrovert Robertson became a juniorage of
editor, at the
The
the magazine
loose ends
still
alive
with
1947
leaving in
to
9,
for
spend a
Upon
year in Paris.
possibilities.
1
Studio,
his
return to London, Robertson
Much
later,
worked
a rather
briefly at the Lefevre
Gallery before moving to
depleted traveling exhibition of Rauschenberg's
Cambridge, England, in 1949,
work
to
run the Heffner
Gallery where he presented the first exhibition of
arriving at the Tate Gallery
modern French painting in
1981
many
fell flat
because too
of the richest key
exhibits
Cambridge.
in
In
1952
at the age of 27,
Robertson was appointed
had been extracted
Director of the Whitechapel
one by one as the show
Gallery. There,
he presented
a sequence of exhibitions
toured European venues, on
grounds of
alternating younger British artists
fragility,
or for
with the work of
celebrated older
elsewhere.
What was
left
In
1969 Robertson
Whitechapel for
London was
a thin show,
director of the
University of lit
-
left
become the
to
Roy
R.
Neuberger Museum, State
unimaginatively hung, indifferently
and more
established figures.
more urgent deployment
New
York at
Purchase, remaining in the
a
position for five years before
depressing situation for
returning to the
he currently
those of us asked by a new
generation to explain what Art
is
all
lives
UK where and
writes.
the fuss had been about a decade back at Whitechapel.
intensely vulnerable to indifferent handling: you cannot
make
a third-rate artist look
BED,
9 5 5 combine painting: and pencil on pillow, quilt, and sheet, mounted on wood 75 x 32x7 in/191 x 80 x 17 cm. Museum of Modern Art, New York. 1
,
oil
first-class,
but you can make a
first-class artist
look second-rate through frowzy presentation.
Artists don't like to hear this, with their basic mistrust of
middlemen, but
it's
true.
23
\\
KM
1
RS
ON
MITISTS
When
Rauschenberg
first
came
to
recorded an interview for Monitor,
IT,
Rauschenberg
KNOWS HOW TO GET THE PUBLIC ALL
HOT AND
BOTHERED"
—Jed
Perl
district then, not the
chair or a steel
me
in the '60s for his
Huw Weldon's TV arts
Whitechapel show, we
program, and installed the show
along Brick Lane in search of food - a rougher
we wandered
together. Breaking for lunch,
"NO DOUBT ABOUT
London
bourgeois Banglatown
it is
Rauschenberg's Combines, with
today.
window-frame or a light-plug and chord attached
quite
new
While
I
in
idiom and sometimes seemed a
was brooding on
all this,
bit wild, like the stuffed goat
we were suddenly confronted
and car
the front of a
tall,
with the
in the street
multi-story building, itself painted in hectic colors and plastered
me how
intensely an
world around us
if
we
artist's
work can appear
steep ourselves in
Since that stirring
first
exposure,
it
it
life. It
down
hasn't always
in
it
But
I
met him by chance
in the
Jasper Johns retrospective in the
fall
saw the next day and which moved
crowd
of 1996.
me
the
been easy
- and
me
moment, because my admiration
in its strength of feeling.
and permeate the
to
keep
in the
touch with
in
70s,
'80s,
and
and
at a
new
of his
own
depth, by
its
originality
Rauschenberg's
art
had been
slightly
by an elegantly executed but rather tame, cut-and-dried exhibition of recent work Fondation Maeght
at St. Paul
de Vence
in
1984. That
show
—
I
all
lot to
shaken
at the
60 x 120 in/153 x 104 cm. Courtes) of PaceWildemtein.
early
show, which
Seeing such a heart-warming show meant a for
it
MOMA New York Gala opening of the
He reminded me
intensely,
over again at that
at
over
sufficiently.
Rauschenberg's widely dispersed work and multi-faceted exploits '90s.
all
was pure Rauschenberg and
to spread into life
and believe
still
tire.
spectacle of a vast and hideously decorated wardrobe slowly being lowered on a rope
taught
vegetable-dxe transfer on paper,
had impressed
with their freedom of handling and rich, gutsy play with dimensions, but they were
with lurid posters. Here was a Combine in action, in
Chain Reaction (Anagram), 1996,
to a canvas,
a
of tidily presented printed
ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG
BY BRYAN
ROBERTSON
images, collaged onto vertical
Canvases and schematically colored
en
serie,
me
gave
the feeling that
Rauschenberg had perhaps gone into
manufacture -
assumption,
like
on
verdict based
The Pace
a
dangerous
any other hastv a single show.
exhibition of
exploded that notion with
1
996
a
vengeance: Rauschenberg's Anagrams set extraordinary
images from across
the world in fresh juxtaposition, with
an intensely moving eloquence
who
everyone
felt
bv
saw the exhibition. The
big, individually
complex
batteries of
mood, scene, and event —
a
new
fusion of painting, drawing, staining,
and transfer technique, deploying printed imagery - made
me
Whitman, Charles
think of
Fusion (Anagram),
[detail),
1996,
vegetable dye transfer on paper,
Ives,
Robert Frost, dos Passos, and John Ford. They conveyed a strong and urgent sense of
61 x 145 in/154 x 368 cm.
Whitney Museum life,
work, existence, endeavor, endurance; of America in the world, and the world seen by
a sensitive in the big
to play I
Johns
and poetic American
Johns show
at
at the
end of the twentieth
MOM A seemed to run out of steam from the '80s on, or
around self-consciously and somewhat set this dispiriting
at
thought
artily
down because
the expense of Rauschenberg, whereas
around: Johns his earlier
is
marking time, always
work - we
live in
hopes — w
His energy was evident not only exceptionally strong
century. In contrast, the
in the
it's
I
hile
of
American
Art,
York
work
at least
with rather thin pictorial ideas.
been fashionable
believe
intelligently,
New
it
for years to extol
should have been the other way
and with good
will
everywhere
still
for
Rauschenberg has forged dramatically ahead.
1995—56 Anagrams, but
work made through the
last
also in a
wide range of
decade, as so forcefully set out in the
uptown and downtown Guggenheim shows of 1997. This exhaustive and exhausting retrospective
was not easy
to digest: too big, of course, but
essential bigness of heart, sheer nerve, to take risks all the
and generosity of
something about Rauschenberg's
spirit
-
at
one
time - seemed to need this vast exposure. As an
himself runs to excess on occasion, or
and the show supported that
idea.
It
at least to a
was
level his willingness
artist,
Rauschenberg
super-abundance of energy and
a salutary lesson to
ideas,
experience the immense
weight and range of his achievement, and depressing to find how very
little
of
it
we had
seen in Europe during the past three decades. Rauschenberg has exhibited in China, Japan, all
over South America, occasionally in Europe, but not in
London
or Paris.
233
Will
11
RS
ON
ARTISTS
Although the work uptown suffered, as
Guggenheim, from the of major pieces
spiraling
more than held
and sloping viewing conditions, their
as moths'
and looked
A
own.
magnificent Dante drawings, for instance, set out in a side gallery
serious art does at the
all
number
large
made
in
a
number
of the
1959—60, were clearly
as magical as ever,
images as delicate
wings breathed onto the paper - taken together, among
Rauschenberg's grandest works. The 32-foot long Barge of 1962—63 was also decently presented, in the isolation that this masterpiece in a separate gallery just
demands,
above the entrance lobby of the museum. This
sequential work of joined panels has never looked better: an intensely
dramatic, tightly structured
gamut of incident and scene explodes,
implodes, and hangs suspended in a deep blue, gray, black, and white
space of printed imagery set against painted sections. The way that violent
brush-marks seem
to unfurl
and expand
in contrast to the tighter,
more
condensed, printed images, reflects the unfailing balance achieved by The Central Pit of Malebolge, The Giants, 1959-60,
Rauschenberg
for Dante's Inferno, solvent transfer
scale scene to the small
Canto
xxxi:
in his selected
photographic material, which always switches from the
and particular figure or incident. In
large-
mixture of associations,
its
on paper, with colored pencil,
gouache and
pencil,
15x12 in/37 x 29 cm. Museum of Modern Art, New York. Barge, (detail, right side) 1
962-63,
oil
and silkscreened ink
on canvas,
80 x 386 in/203 x 980 cm. Collection of the
234
artist.
references,
and painted and printed imagery. Barge seems
as Night Fishing at Antibes
But
it
was
for the '40s,
and Blue
to
Poles
me
a
key work for the
became
for the '50s.
was the range and wholly individual nature of work shown
Guggenheim
that
seemed
to take
on
a special energy
'60s,
in the
and eloquence of
its
downtown
own.
It is
pleasure to add that a good deal of this enlivening work was also the latest in date, a
a
ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG
revelation for everyone in terms of vitality, color, light,
paintings had been
made on
and these - apart from the
and
scale.
gleamingly reflective surfaces,
reflective spatial ambiguity
brilliance of high-keyed very fresh color.
Seen
a
steel,
buoyancy and the specific
shown
the context of the theater pieces,
in
which seemed
downtown
installation
Rauschenberg art
to illuminate his
is,
- and
-
the recent work took on another dimension
oeuvre as
memory
referred us back in
preeminently, from
What emerged
whole.
a
a performer,
first to last,
springs from the essential character of performance,
spontaneity, swiftness
The
— speed —
its
very clearly from the
some uptown works -
to
and
that the
whole of
is
probably, in
his
labor for Pope Julius in the Sistine
an active
participant ITS
as old as the
OWN
AN ACTIVE
PARTICIPANT -
Chapel meet some of
THE
—
we
arrived at a situation in the
when, on the whole, we preferred our
artists to
creations separated from their untidv begetters terrain of
an
suspect, flashy notion.
composer
An
art gallery.
On
as performer,
interpreting his
own
artist
working
first
be confined
from Paganini and
we
to studios,
with their
and neatly corralled
into the neutral
performing
was
in public,
the other hand
half of the twentieth century
still
Liszt,
a highly
enjoyed the stirring spectacle of the
through
piano music with unmatched
in public,
to
virtuosity.
Rachmaninov
in the '30s,
Ravel played his Piano
IN
WORK"
Billy Kliiver
the conditions and requirements of performance. But with the decline of that inspired level of patronage,
in
ENVIRONMENT,
AS
some ways,
work
AND THE VIEWER
directness, apparent
concept of patronage and commissioned murals, ceiling decorations, or altarpieces
some aspects of Michelangelo's
as
that
is
animation, and lightness of touch.
idea of the artist as a performer
"He has always seen his
nearby on film and photograph - Rauschenberg as a performer, choreographer, and designer of sets, costumes, and lighting
ROBERTSON
big transfer
copper or stainless
like
- had
Many
BY BRYAN
WRI
1
I
ON
Ri
ARTISTS
Concerto in
G
all
over Europe around the
same
time,
and Stravinsky conducted Le Sacre du
Printemps and Les Noces everywhere - but these examples really do no more than extend into our
"Rauschenberg
wants to
his
More
works
time the examples set by Mozart and
recently David Tudor and John
of the artist or
the means
be
own
for stimulating
composer
as self-interpreters.
Cage brought another dimension
as performer, with only half a piano, or the piano wires taped, or
absolute silence, so that the concept of "a performance" by the
composer was extended
into a
neo-Dada
territory of anarchic or absurdist theater.
At the same time, Happenings and Events materialized in
and doing,
and
finally the rather less
encounters that
and
installation pieces, rehearsing or presenting
leave the viewer
political,
CHANGED."
I
but
still
a
believe that
Le Mystere Picasso
Kliiver
to the notion
in a recital consisting of
thinking
—Bilh
Haydn
and then painted
New York and
elsewhere,
engaging sequences began of conceptual performance works conceptual arguments, formal,
social, or
kind of performance. it
in
was
Picasso's startling appearance
1951,
on camera
when he made drawings with
a big picture
behind
glass, also
in Clouzot's terrific film
colored light in a darkened
room
on camera, which most dramatically
brought to everyone's attention the idea, freshly delivered, of the
artist as
performer —
which, until that breathtaking moment, had been extremely suspect. Around the same time,
Jackson Pollock was improvising with paint, mesh, cord, and assorted collage behind glass
-
bits
and pieces,
also functioning steadily within the camera's gaze as the
a
work
developed - for Hans Namuth's film that used also a collage-like, very spatial score by
Morton Feldman. This was the essence of inspired improvization
Monogram, and
i
955-59, combine,
oil
collage on canvas with objects,
42 x 63 x 65 in/107 x 161 x 164 cm. Collection
Stockholm.
236
Moderna Museet,
at
work by an
artist in a
ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG
BY BRYAN
ROBERTSON
performance which disclosed a radically
new
approach to
technical and spiritual
art that also
ancient usages. differently, as
A
invoked
little later,
and rather
an imaginative extension
of the ancient idea of follies
- but
brought out of the private estate and private patronage into the participatory-
world of public performance and state sponsorship -
came Christo and
team of workers with the
his
floating
islands, fences straddling a continent,
and wrapped bridges and buildings.
Rauschenberg came out of this,
all
not in any sense of obligation or
adherence
to direct lineage, but simply
through being a highly sophisticated, exceptionally gifted
working then the
in
young
Manhattan
'60s,
artist
in the '50s
and
with an imagination
sympathetic to the notion of spontaneity. Abstract Expressionism
had helped clear the
air. If
his art
was
unprecedented from the beginning its
range, attack, energy,
then the water had
in
and character,
at least
been
partially tested. In the late '40s,
he had
studied at Black Mountain College in
North Carolina under Josef Albers. (Rauschenberg once gave
me
a jokey
explanation for his early "White" paintings: "After months of Albers
s
color theory,
I
Curfew, oil,
couldn't even think about color any
more and
I
made
the 'White' paintings." But then he
i
958, combine painting:
paper, fabric, wood, engraving,
printed reproductions,
and printed
paper on canvas and wood, with
went on
to
make
paintings, even
the "Black" and the "Red" paintings... In this sense, Rauschenberg's
when
less directly
conceptual than these early works,
may
also be seen as
performance pieces.) At that time he began a potent friendship with the choreographer
Merce Cunningham, the composer John Cage, and with David Tudor, who was
busily
putting music, and notably piano music, through the wringer. This group of friends, inspired by Cage, precipitated and staged at Black
Mountain the
first
Happening.
four Coca-Cola bottles, bottle cap, and unidentified debris, 57 x 40 x 3 in I 144 x 100 x 7 cm. Private collection.
WRITERS ON ARTISTS
Rauschcnberg has of course been an
Cunningham, Tudor, Johns and performance all
in the
axis,
US,
integral part for long periods of the
which has played such
as well as serving as a fund-raising
central impulse
performance.
No
other
and identity of
artist in
all
for
improvisation and
is
the twentieth century has also been a dancer and an It's
an odd concept as well as unique:
about paying attention about the extremely dangerous possiblity that you might be art."
"My art &
Susan Weil, Untitled (double Rauschenberg). c 1950, exposed blueprint paper,
83x36
agency over the years
Rauschenberg's work
experienced performer on stage and a choreographer.
Rauschenberg
dance, stage design,
kinds of artists fallen on bad times.
The
Right: Robert
a vital role in
Cage,
is
in/210 x 92 cm.
Private collection.
can you imagine considering,
Below: Pelican, detail of Rauschenberg's costume. Judson
Dance 5,
Tlieater:
1963.
new
performances of Leger or
kind of hybrid being could only have surfaced in the '60s,
Concert of Dance
America on Wheels
rink,
Matisse as dancers'? Such a
in addition to their paintings, the
roller-skating
Washington, D.C.,
May
and
in the
US. Of course Rauschenberg was not
a great
dancer or even a particularly good
9,
one, but he had
enough physical
grace, control,
and stage presence
to.
knew how
hold his own, and he
to
move
or stand in
on
relation to other dancers stage. Like other
Americans,
Rauschenberg had absorbed
some
of the instinctive feeling for
casual, inconsequential gesture
and movement
in
dance which
Martha Graham had been the first to set
against her
more
formalized and hieratic use of stylised
movement. And most of
his stage
appearances come
under the heading of performance rather than dance, often involving nothing
more
complicated than standing up
and
sitting
down
in a
kind of
musical chairs sequence is
one memory
I
— which
retain of a semi-
danced Happening
at
the
New
York Armory, with Rauschenberg
238
ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG
BY BRYAN
ROBERTSON
and the marvelous dancers Yvonne Rainer and Steve Paxton walking from one group of dancers to another, or climbing
up and down
ropes. Physically
demanding
perhaps, but not really dance. But he certainly danced well
enough on occasion, notably
in his poetic
extravaganza of 1963, Pelican, in which with other
dancers he appeared on rollerskates and wearing a parachute.
More
weightily and resoundingly
Rauschenberg has and
all
also designed sets
and costumes
the lighting for dozens of stage works,
them pure dance choreographed by
some
of
himself, but
mostly for the choreography of Paul Taylor. Merce
Cunningham, Viola
Brown, w ith
Farber, or Tricia
other works presented as performance pieces for
himself in association with various dancers, or on stage with fellow artists
- such
as Tinguely, Niki
de
Saint Phalle, or Frank Stella. If
Rauschenberg always brought an inspired
element of play into his stage work as a performer, alone or with others, or as a designer of sets and lighting, this
extended
element was more
in his
concern
tightly
focused and
for assemblage: in the big
Oracle of 1962—65, for example, the grand "five-part
assemblage with
five
concealed radios; ventilation
duct; automobile door on typewriter table with
crushed metal; ventilation duct
in
washtub and water
with wire baskets; constructed staircase control unit
housing batteries and electronic components; and
wood window frame with these assemblages
seem now
rather
undimmed
involving
few of
marooned
time and place, but others transcend their with
A
ventilation duct."
moment
verve, notably those constructions
neon and other
light forms.
Those which
don't quite pass the test of time perhaps
Wallace Stevens's verdict on
free,
fall
under
unbridled
aestheticism; "The essential fault of surrealism it
in their
is
that
invents without discovering."
Always animated bv Rauschenberg's instinct
for
239
\\
Rl
1
I
Ri
ON
AR1 ISTS
spontaneity
is
his lifelong
use of photography and the printed image.
He
Black Mountain in 1949 with photographic blueprints, and some of his
photography was
nobody
in this
like
Walker Evans without the people; but since those
experimented
own
at
early
early excursions
century has used printed images - our daily visual world currency - as
Rauschenberg has presented and re-deployed them over such a wide range of references, from harbors and markets and shantytowns
anonymous
athletes
techniques
in
moon
landings, from images of
and dancers. Nobody has worked harder
printmaking
itself.
Nobody has used
setting printed imagery
and painting
Rauschenbergs sharply
instinctive placement.
Events occur Master Pasture (Urban Bourbon).
to
at different
in
to
pioneer innovative
collage so grandly or sumptuously,
in tense relationship,
speeds
to
JFK
and nobody
else
can touch
Rauschenbergs work, but are composed,
counterpointed, reconciled, within variable spaces: the blank, anonymous space of white
1989. acrylic on mirrored
and enameled aluminum. 121 in/246
Private collection.
>40
paper, inhabited
and therefore atmospherically or psychologically nuanced space, neutral
x 307 cm. space, space as color. His unerring
flair for
placement and structure combine
to give a
ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG
BY BRYAN
ROBERTSON
Immerse, 1994, acrylic on canvas,
The
highly personal dimension to each composition.
Grace
writer,
Paley,
has spoken of
121 (
her refusal to use a single plot line in her stories because "the absolute line between two points... takes
hope away. Everyone,
all
The open destiny
of
-
life
that's
deserves the open destiny of
real or invented,
Rauschenberg, despite
his early disclaimer
\
436 in/307 x 1,107 cm. Merce
'reated as set for
Cunningham Dance Company's Joyce Event; subsequently used as
life."
about
set
for Merce
Cunningham Dance
Company's Events. Collection
of
the artist (diver images courtesty of
wanting
to
He
work
in the
space somewhere between
and
Aaron Siskind Foundation).
life.
has also a distinctly American sense of placement, with
presence
— found
and extending
placement
is
all
nineteenth-century American
in
the
way through
also happily at
work
Schwitters, for instance, or other
the clue to
all
art in
in
American
He
and leave them freshly revealed
in
authoritative
This highly individual sense of
in the
to
work of
do with the
collagists like
artists.
Rauschenberg's work
be seen as a supreme animator.
own
and has nothing
folk-art
placement and space
European
its
the paintings of Peto and Harnett,
to Motherwell's collages.
essentially cubist-derived sense of
If
art
is
can bring
performance and spontaneity, he must also to
new
disparate objects and elements
life
edgy coexistence. Are
- which
the printed images
all
he has always either photographed himself or collected personally over the decades -
some kind of an eye on the world?
A
damaged planet? An eye on the world
of our
propaganda, or any narrow position.
deeper
Combines and Urban Bourbon
stress
certainly,
for the better use
but without any time or use for
What Rauschenberg communicates
Whitman, Robert
Frost, Charles Ives, dos Passos,
have particular attributes in mind which
comes
mankind? Another plea
is
something
in himself.
In referring to I
report on
to
I
sense very strongly in Rauschenberg's
mind because
of the global reach of Rauschenberg's imagery and
are in Frost's poetry sharp, single
activity;
of an ethical reference, of a virtue, a
beyond
life
their
lived
own
still
its
underlying
Robert Frost, because there
images of landscape or place - a few
and a porch - which are natural images but
vulnerability that stretch
or the 1989
on mirrored and enameled aluminium. Whitman
on people and the interdependence of human
or a chair
new Anagrams
transfer paintings, from Barge through to the acrylic paintings
and John Ford,
trees, a
back yard,
have some built-in feeling
and endured,
a
physical presence.
permanence, and
a
Dos Passos comes
to
241
WRITERS ON
\R1
IS IS
mind because new
sreels,
magnum opus
of his pioneering use in his
which punctuate the long
of the
Camera Eye
US - many years
fictional narratives of the
Doctorow's Ragtime also brought the interactions of history, with
"He opened art
famous personages,
engineers, socialites,
All-About-Eve
continuum of
more
distinct parallel exists,
all
else;
rubbed shoulders
with
less
success
THAN THE INCONGRUOUS ELEMENTS
IN
HIS ART."
— Brian O'Dolwrt^
Ives,
who made
NO
IS
art
even
and the
own musical
his
LESS
TO MAKE A PAINTING WITH THAN WOOD, NAILS,
TURPENTINE, OIL
Utopians,
what
An
SUITABLE
collectors,
and heaven knows
.
between some aspects of Rauschenberg's
"A PAIR OF SOCKS
dancers, instant
groupies,
believe,
I
music of that other authentic American genius, Charles
trade unionists,
swingers, art
and development of musical
phrases with their equal emphases that you find in Messiaen's Chronochromos
politicians,
foundation
anonymous workers and
into a continuous present.
simultaneity, not unlike the nonlinear structuring
assistants,
scientists,
its
before
Rauschenberg fractures and dissolves our sense of time by presenting us with a
to entry by a motley crew:
actualities, like
AND
FABRIC."
collages to parallel, in simultaneity, the multiple impressions, sensations,
sound heard
in
everyday
continuous present
example of
this
in
life.
Robert Altman's early masterpiece, California
official
Bill
is
another
Gates.
Rauschenberg biography
events, organizations,
studios,
in recent catalogs
reminds us of a number of
and foundations which have perhaps passed England
impressive and personal to this
up of
Split,
very American: the radio call-ins were an American invention
It is
and so are the products of
setting
innovative use of multilayered soundtrack based on a
eager but also quite coolly rigorous reaching-out to record a multiplicity of
sound and sensation.
The
The
and memories of
artist, in
by, all
of
them
addition to a lifetime of steady production, travel,
and very hard improvisatory work on tour with impoverished dance
companies, involving transcontinental
travel.,
The Rauschenberg Overseas Culture
Interchange (ROCI), begun in 1984, was an evolving exhibition of over 200 works by the artist,
based on his
visits
and collaborations with
"global peace-seeking odyssey of art
and information,"
sculptures, paintings, video tapes, prints,
the qualities which
mark
artists
the differences
and
as
it
and photographs
among
artisans in
many
countries. This
has been called, included that "reflect the artist's respect for
the various cultures of the world."
The
eight-year tour included exhibitions in Mexico, Chile, Venezuela, China, Tibet, Japan,
Cuba,
Moscow, the former USSR, Germany, Malaysia, and Washington's National Gallery of Art. Before
this, in
1966, to coordinate and clarify his experiments with electronics,
Rauschenberg co-founded, with the electronics engineer
Billy Kliiver,
and Technology (EAT),
artists
to
promote cooperation between
Experiments
and engineers. The
in Art
five-part
construction Oracle (owned by the Centre Pompidou, Paris) materialized, with other works,
ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG
ROBERTSON
BY BRYAN
2»
N
~
i
from
Rauschenberg
this collaboration.
also
founded and directs Change
Inc., a
nonprofit
Above
Left: Illustrations for
Dante's Inferno, Canto
organization,
now
And
a Robert
twenty-seventh year, which provides emergency funds for
in its
Dark Wood of
artists.
transfer
there
devoted artist:
is
Rauschenberg Foundation, started
to projects that will increase public
in 1990, also a nonprofit entity,
awareness about subjects of
Error,
7
I:
on paper, with gouache,
wash, pencil, and watercolor. 15 x 12 in/37 x 29 cm.
vital interest to
medical research, education, world hunger, global enhancement of the
the
Museum Above
arts
of Modem Art,
to subsidise
dance companies and choreographers
New York.
Right: Illustrations for
Dante's Inferno, Canto
Rauschenberg has of course helped
The
958, solvent
II:
The
Descent, 1958, solvent transfer on paper, with cut-and-pasted paper,
over the years, and donated a formidable
them
slight or
number
of outstandingly beautiful posters,
merely turned out for the occasion, for innumerable good causes, apart from
dance, and including the work of the United Nations.
and backed and promoted, Rauschenberg seems
commitment
none of
at a
watercolor, wash,
and
pencil.
14 x 11 in/37 x 29 cm.
Museum
of Modern Art,
New
York.
From what he has done and made
a protean figure with a global reach
and
time of increasing narrowness and tight specialization, and yet he retains,
always, his sense of intimacy, personal discovery, liveliness, and a distinctly individual touch
and energizing flourish
The Anagrams, that space
between
relation of art to
tell
art
life is
absence of a belief
for everything that
in
me and
he handles.
that as he gets older, he life,
of the
to
first
may
also perhaps have
moved out
of
embrace another viewpoint of Wallace Stevens: "The importance especially
God, the mind turns
to
its
own
in a sceptical
age since, in the
creations and examines them, not
alone from the aesthetic point of view, but for what they reveal, for what they validate and invalidate, for the support that they give."
243
W'Rll ERS
ON ARUMS
Heron
Patrick
byA.S. Byatt
THERE WAS AN ELEMENT OF CHANCE, OR GOOD FORTUNE, about Heron early,
in
so
I
went
my
portrait. Claire
Tomalin had invited
me
to
into the National Portrait Gallery to browse,
lunch and
I
was
and bought some
Heron
Patrick
Bom
to paint
the choice of Patrick
Leeds in 1920,
Heron became one of Britain's most
prominent
abstract painters
and
postcards of Heron's portrait of T. S. Eliot, which
admire. Over lunch Claire asked
art I
doubtful;
felt
I
feel that
if
I
is
one of the modern' portraits
I
most
would be painted, and we discussed possible
whereas film has changed and enlivened the novel
in
painters.
many
critics before his
death in 1999.
ways, photography has had a sad effect on the
Studying at the Slade School,
at several
examples of more or
art
of the representative portrait.
less realistic portraits,
and
felt
unsure.
I
said that
We
looked
what
I
he began painting in the Art
- luminous still show influence of Matisse and
Informel lifes
the
style
and
would
really like
would be
interiors that
of the Abstract Expressionists, especialh Rothko.
An
innovator of the concept of
an abstract
portrait, a
modern work, Heron.
What
like the
meant was
I
denial of the picture plane,
Heron used simple shapes and
that
I
would
like a
Heron.
floating color to emphasize the flatness oj the picture suiface.
In the late 1940s, he
expanded his horizons, becoming a leader in the St.
community of abstract and revealing talent an ait critic. From 1947 to
lies
The English
painters
admire are the
I
most
colorists,
Heron and Hodgkin, the elegant, the flamboyant,
painters as
1950, he wrote the
those
who
reject the native
art reviews for
New Statesman
in
which
suspicion of brightness, and
he argued against the
emphasis on pure abstraction in
modern
delight in Matisse's
ait.
revelation of color as form. Heron continued
to paint.
using horizontal bands of color with reference to the traditional landscape.
later,
them
partly
what they do
because
the opposite
is
Simple
forms dense with color appeared, and.
love
I
of verbal narrative, an art-
large
color surfaces, as in the
Long Cadmium with Ceruleum in Violet.
form that
can't
be reduced
painting
During the 80s. Herons color became even more expansive and organic.
to,
or adequately described
in,
words.
I
that
Heron had painted two
portraits: the Eliot (1948),
somber cubist construction - Braque-like - and his work,
and
clear colors
244
knew
a beautiful yellow
and
a
a very
which
is
a
good likeness both of the man and
and blue Jo Grimond, giving
a sense of the
minimal amount of visual information perfectly deployed.
man I
in
didn't
two
know
PATRICK HERON BY AS. BYATT
then about the Herbert Read which hangs
visually inventive. Claire, rather to
Patrick Heron,
the idea.
my
surprise, said that
and Charles Saumarez Smith
when
nevertheless startled and delighted
The lunch went
was exactly what
I
well. "You
wanted.
I
(the director)
existing photographs that reappear in
from time
life
was enthusiastic.
I
have lunch
to
portrait,"
he
said.
I
was to discuss
said that that
being photographed, and to hate the
to hate
my
to their subjects,
would be worth asking
it
Heron agreed
Patrick
do want an abstract
have come
the National Portrait
Grimond seemed appropriate
Gallery (London). Both the Eliot and the
and
in the director's office in
to time.
When
I
first
One primitive people
who
thought photographs were
theft,
I
Byatt
A.S.
read about
thought that was an elegant fancy
of England's foremost
contemporary
writers, A.S.
Byatt was born Antonia
Susan Drabble
DO NOT FIND MYSELF 'DESIGNING' A CANVAS: DO NOT 'DRAW' THE LOZENGE-SHAPED AREAS OR THE SOFT SQUARES. AND THESE FORMS ARE NOT "I
in 1936, in
Known for
Sheffield.
erudite novels, Byatt
her also
is
a distinguished critic.
I
and
essayist,
lecturer.
Often bedridden as a child, Byatt fed her hunger for fiction with the novels of
Dickens, Austen, and Scott.
REALLY 'FORMS' AT ALL, ANYWAY, BUT SIMPLY AREAS UNDER MY BRUSH WHEN I START TO TRY TO SATURATE THE SURFACE OF THE CANVAS WITH, SO TO SPEAK, VARYING QUANTITIES OF THIS COLOR OR THAT."
She went on literature at
and
to
study
Cambridge
attended Bryn
later
Mawr and
Oxford.
In the 1960s, Byatt taught at the
Central School of
Art and Design and,
later,
literature at University
College, London, before
becoming in
1983.
a full-time writer
The
Garden
(1
Virgin in the
978), added
"acclaimed novelist"
to
her reputation as
an interesting observation.
I
now
feel
the opposite of a photograph. Patrick
it is
an exact description of
Heron
my
experience.
work
said that he preferred to
I
in the
scholar
wanted
absence
I
went
and from memory. That suited me
to visit Patrick at Eagles Nest, his
reaches of Cornwall,
in
March 1995,
for
him
too.
and Angels I
the US,
won
the Booker Prize in 1990,
in the far
make some preliminary drawings.
to
990), a bestseller in
England and
house on the Penwith peninsula
critic.
Byatt's novel Possession (1
of the subject,
and
&
Insects, her
1991 novella, was made
slept
into a film in 1995.
in a
white room with a red Heron and a howling gale outside, visited the Tate, learned a
great deal about St. Ives,
and the
Among
saw the sea and the stones and the
St. Ives artists,
garden. Being at Eagles Nest turns the visitor into a primarily visual creature.
It is
Byatt's
Freedom, a study
a very
novels of
English house, but the spaces and the white walls are inhabited by brilliance. There
many
is
Iris
to a painting I
head of the
stairs; in
one room
whose rounded rectangles echo
its
of
ol tin-
Murdoch, and
Passions of the Mind, a
a
selection Of
striped painting at the
critical
works are Degrees
6'SSUVS.
a non-functional television sits next
screen.
found myself thinking about the exact color of that screen, as
I
found myself, as the Left: Portrait of T.S. Eliot, 1949,
Atlantic dark descended, holding
my wine
glass
under the
light
and studying the
ellipses,
oil
on canvas,
30 x 25 in/76 x 64 cm
the transparency the bubbles.
The many-colored
sea,
seen from the bedroom window, and
National Portrait Gallery, London.
245
\\
Rill Ri
ON ARUMS
windblown garden,
the huge stones in the
are not parts of landscapes or seascapes.
They
are forms, spaces, relations of light,
dark,
and
The world
color.
is
and
solid
dissolving there.
on the
Finally,
us reluctant,
last
be drawn.
sat to
I
evening, both of I
recognized
an anxiety before the blank paper which corresponds to the writer's anxiety before the
blank page - only
in the case of a portrait
this anxiety is
doubled; both
are anxious.
like to
I
and
sitter
watch, to take mental
notes, not to be observed watching.
an object, large and heavy.
like
suddenly began to scribble charcoal,
made two
artist
I
felt
I
Patrick
sat.
with
furiously,
or three sketches,
and
then a more prolonged one, drawn, rubbed out,
drawn, rubbed out, drawn, rubbed out.
And
there,
a
shadowy
from nowhere, was a presence, person with a blank face,
solid
but recognizably myself.
what
like a portrait of
my
it
looking out.
as
it
felt to
feels
look out of
from inside
visit
there was a long gap,
and then Patrick wrote and progress and
felt
said
End
in
because
I
I
"in
went back
June 1996 and spent two
days sitting in the studio. shirt,
he had
he should work
the presence of the subject." So to Land's
said,
The watcher watched.
After that
made
I
He had somehow
head, from inside.
drawn the body
looked,
It
like the
I
put on a green
way
it
makes
my
eyes green. Patrick lost a purple scarf, and
kept mislaying a most glasses case.
brilliant
The canvas had
purple
to
be moved
frequently along the studio wall because Patrick's
eye was distracted by marks
Ben Nicholson
246
years earlier.
left
by
PATRICK HERON BY AS. BYATT
recognized the delaying of work.
I
saw that a blank white canvas
I
intimidating than blank writing paper. Patrick mixed paints
staring at the blank canvas. I
watched, from inside
my
The
he would take a stab
trellis
a delicate
shadowy mauve,
about Ben Nicholson, brush
in
a
hand,
they arrived, were done suddenly and
fast.
head. Patrick would always smile apologetically, and both of us his face
would
and then
at the canvas,
a
square head appeared, and a decorative
of flowers. Various faces,
mauve, existed
delicate
then were w iped away.
and
to
for a
shadowed
in
moment, and
was fascinated by how
I
expunged forms continued
the ghosts of the exist
much more
detached, slightly furious look, and
set into a
A
me
told
when
paintings,
would laugh nervously, and then
rush.
He
sharp green.
scarlet, a rich blue, a pale
-
is
make
to
the subsequent versions
more complex and
substantial. Purple
Patrick's favorite color. It is
is
not mine. But
I
became entranced by the shadowy half-depths of that particular
canvas.
It is
mauve running
unfortunate that
I
across the
am
allergic to
spirit (solvent),
so that as the canvas
swimmy, so did
my
head.
less
that
make me
at least
anxious about small vanities; Patrick
noticed,
and reproduced unerringly the way
hair bulks
my
had supposed
I
an abstract portrait would
became
above
my
head, which
square jaw, and the mascara
because
I
don't like
my
I
I
my
don't like,
put on
eyes without
it.
He
devised a rapid twirl of spiky paint to represent this, in
various versions.
The
prettiest small oil
sketch he pronounced (rightly) to be not very
like. It's like
what
I
was
as a student,
Self- Portrait, 1951. oil
I
20 x lb
protested sadly. His gaze I
is
mild but accurate.
He
National Potrait Galler): Loudon.
looked doubtful.
did not go back to Eagles Nest for over a year. This
visit
was made with Charles
Opposite page: Autumn Garden, 7
Saumarez Smith
in
benign weather.
When we went
into the studio everything
had changed:
956,
oil
72x36
on canvas,
in/183 x 92 cm.
Collection of the
various
new
portraits
were hanging on the walls and newsprint photographs of
from the The Obsewer, holding a match, one by
a
St.
Frenchwoman, one
George's flag
me -
artist's family.
one
an England-Germany football (soccer)
at
of the very few
on canvas,
in/51 x 41 cm).
I
like,
muffled
in hat
and
scarf,
were
attached to Patrick's pinboard. There was a new, elegant small portrait, in Matisse-like colors,
which made something decorative of the square jaw
in a
square canvas, and had a
24;
WRM
I
R.S
ON
AR1 1M>
Christmas Eve, 1951, oil
shape of the brow and eyes, done
on canvas,
72 x 120 in/183 x 305 cm. Coitrtes}
Waddington Gallen,
London.
good
There was
likeness.
a
much
simple line and two dots, that was nevertheless a
larger, paler painting,
with a quite different version of
myself, with animated talking hands next to an animated plant, a minimal pretty presence.
There was the curious
how
original charcoal drawing,
conversational considerations. Patrick
and
his
temperamentally
on the beauty,
side
of
not the
SUBLIME."
— David Cohen
a lot of
A
I
that that
work was done,
mass was
was an
I
didn't like
illegitimate objection. is
I
I
and
notebook about redness.
He
and not
was more
asked
in authority.
at
me what
I
just a
home,
color
I
was
became more and more
didn't recognize.
solid.
feeling just about
too,
I
masses made up. feeling that
to
my
at
home
in
I
felt
was
haunted by an
in the studio to
in a red
become
be unobserved but was being looked
eyes were, and
was interested
it
found myself making notes
enough
an
could see that the way
and stared more concentratedly and
thought 1
I
a short story to be written about being oneself.
in
was representative and not
was encouraged by Charles'
watcher who wanted
were unusual because when
It is
quick fierce rushes between long
didn't like the creature the
unacknowledged and unloved emanation of
Patrick
have increased
as the figure, in so far as she
interesting, but
not enough of a likeness. There
writer again
in
substantial seated figure
was worried,
abstract, represented a person
color created
to
daughter became excited by the way solid forms spaced themselves
illusory perspective.
"Heron was
which seemed
can be such a good likeness.
a featureless face
Over the next three days
248
in a
I
said green.
intently at
He
my
said that
something the whole of the
iris
a
at.
features.
my was
eyes visible.
PATRICK HERON BY
He
said, quite
suddenly and decisively,
and painted
sitting figure in cobalt blue,
scribbles
Many
and zigzags on the body.
time to
try
and out
a series of
it is
in
strong primary colors.
many heaps
faces,
what went over them. Trailing green leaves and
and
This
filled in.
applying
much
red
sills
added substance
and zigzags were traced
a very expensive red, said Patrick,
at
want
I
metaphor.
w ith poised brush
the canvas
like a dart
and
don't belong with that
I
What was happening was
same time
brilliant, of
making
a
what had been
mud, adding
color after color.
It
solid,
w
a
pattern with a figure in the left-hand half of hair, like
sword-
to write a toreador placing a
stroke but feel both he
was
back into chaos again. over in
my head
a
think for a
We
was
finished,
moment.
looking at
it
from
It
I
I
crude
its
know what
did not
had not been
and now
there, it
to
to a different
and we went backward and forward, a distance
curious experience of as
stirred
a desperate milk."
both stared. Patrick moved
wall of the studio,
little like
from Wallace Stevens' Notes
a line
compoundings come /Warmed by it
ild
found myself reciting over and
I
Towards a Supreme Fiction, "the real must from
When
and
He made
it.
watching order out of chaos being deliberately
itself,
their ghosts
of the allover patterning he had started out with.
thrower -
was.
complex blue patterns and
extravagant swoops and sweeps, undoing
He dances
at the
a
from the tube, one you can't buy any more.
it
He made
is
trellises,
BYATT
of hair, appeared briefly were
wiped away, were redone, again with the odd impression that to
He made
A.S.
looked at
I
began
I
had a
becoming
settling into shape,
it
it.
and close up.
to read the fierce
expanses of color as masses, saw that the pink of the face of the figure
was dark because
with a yellow blaze of light behind
it
it.
was
contre-jour,
The energy
the
brashness, the uncompromising splashes of primary color represented what
I
had wanted
The oil
in
an abstract portrait by a great
colorist.
But they represented something else as
well.
Staircase,
1
954,
on hardhoard,
72x48 in/183x
122 cm.
Private collection.
They were body
in
a painting of the writer, of
a sea of
light
Wallace Stevens'
and
muddy
Supreme Fiction comes
brilliance.
how
The
I
feel
raw,
when
mind
often
when
I
start
churned color
center that existed before
to
I
we
work, a vanishing, watching
is
like the
primary chaos of
breathed. Stevens' Notes Towards a
look at Heron's work, and did so
more
precisely in the world of Land's End.
249
WRITERS ON ARTISTS
we
There was
a
muddy
There was
a
myth before the myth began.
center before
breathed.
Venerable and articulate and complete.
Mostly
I
associate
Heron with Stevens
"coulisse bright-dark, tragic chiaroscuro
"Judged alongside
thins our northern blue." But the
transatlantic I
rivals like
kenneth
Noland, Olitski,
have always
"When you open
felt that
for the
elegance of their reds and greens, for the
/And comic
muddy
center
is
color of the rose," for the "yellow, yellow
there too.
Heron's work was about the act of seeing.
your eyes, the entire visual
field
He
wrote in 1969:
(which opening them reveals
to
you)
Jules
and
Ellsworth Kelly, Heron's style seemed organic
and vulnerable."
—David Anfam
^^^hk Portrait of A.S. Byatt: Red, Yellow,
Green, and Blue, 24 September 1997, oil on canvas, 38 x 48 in/97 a 122 cm. National Portrait Gallery, London.
J
7
Mi
1
V
250 1
PATRICK HERON BY
consists of
world
we
one thing; and that thing
is
color."
His paintings are about
how we
AS. BYATT
construct the
see out of this flood of color. In his essay on Bernard Leach, he gives one of the
best descriptions
I
know
"As a painter,
I
can
of the desire to begin
work on
sequence of sensations: the sudden
testify to the following
apprehension of the form of
a
new picture
a painting.
is first
my own
registered, in
case at any rate,
"Your tactical as a distinct feeling of hollowness:
of the
diaphragm
physical fact.
I
is
am
and
somewhere
to locate this sensation
mistake
not to indulge in a pretentious whim:
noting possible subjects
all
in the region
it
is
merely
to
acknowledge
WRITE SO
day long, every day quite involuntarily.
Thus
see a subject:
I
up
it is
a subject (or to
remembered
when and
I
am
I
my
brush
rapidly to spread
is
in turn,
FIT IN
PUBLIC'S
DUMB OX."
seems
—Herbert Read
upward and outward
muscles of one's
until the
one
which,
WITH THE
IT
PAINTER AS A
uncomfortable
sensation in one's middle grows into a sort of palpitation,
BY THE
CONCEPTION OF THE
begin with this hollow
feeling. Next, this
NOT DONE DOES NOT
subjects simultaneously)
So
PAINTING... IT
REAL PAINTERS -
variety of
ready for action with
palette.
IS
be more precise, of
up an immense
calling
ABOUT
question of calling
a
INTELLIGENTLY
when
not a question of painting
it is
was to
right-handed!)
right
become
arm
(if
agitated by
a flow of electric energy. This energy in
one's
arm
because
is
it
the prelude to painting
can only be released by
grabbing a brush and starting to paint."
The almost anonymous but recognizable figure of the "primary-colored painting"
is
related to the
drawing, and gives its
me
the
first
charcoal
same
feeling,
with
sketched features and dark presence, of
something painted with a sense of what like to
be inside
When studio
I
my
it is
head.
Charles came back to the
watched him go through the
process of registering the painting as a kind of unfinished chaos, it
and then begin
to see
as a form, a representation, of a writer in
a sea of light.
251
WRI fERS ON
ARUM
s
Henry Darger by John Ashbery
G
IRLS
Henry Darger When Henry Darger
ON THE RUN
died in
1972, his extraordinary art
was discovered.
Among
the
room on
debris in his
Chicago's North Side was his lifes
work — twelve volumes
I
A
great plane flew across the sun,
And
the
ran along the ground.
girls
of 19,000 single-spaced typed pages and watercolors entitled
The
The sun shone on Mr. McPlaster's
face,
it
Story of the Vivian
What
Girls, in
is
Known
as
the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian
War Storm, Caused by
They're getting closer,
when he was four,
Darger s mother died giving father became debilitated, and Darger was taken to a state institution, where he
Jiis
Throughout
worked
at
was
can't stand
I
But you know, our fashions are
Only
briefly,
it.
in fashion
then they go out
Soon
birth to a stillborn sister.
lived until he
out of here, Judy said.
the
Child Slave Rebellion. In 1896,
Let's get
And
stay that
they
way
for a long time.
come back
Then
in
17.
his life,
For a while. Then, in
he
menial jobs and
The Realms. The paintings in The Realms
a million
years, they go out of fashion
attended Mass as often as five times a day. At 19 he began
maybe
And
stay there.
writing
Laure and Tidbit agreed,
consist oj pencil drawings
which he traced from booh, comics, and
With the proviso
that after that everyone
children's
would become fashion
newspapers, then painted with waten
Again for a few hours. Write
Frequently disturbing. Jus
of
little girls.
Subjecting
creatures to terrible
now,
Tidbit said,
imager) and words sometimes depict the lurid mistreatment
it
Before they get back. And, quivering,
I
Ins
trials,
took the pen.
he
would then rescue them. Before he died Darger wrote his autobiography.
History of
My
The
Life.
Drink the beautiful tea Before you slop sewage over the horizon, the Principal directed.
OK,
it's
calm now, but
it
wasn't two
was green
like
an elephant's.
"
HENRY DARGER
JOHN ASHBERY
BY
^.
minutes ago. I
am no
And
if
I
What do you want me
longer your
was
I
wouldn't do your bidding. That
this planet,
Comes
Henry
a cropper,
And burns on Declared
it
Henry,
serf,
You think you can lord
On
to do, said
it
is
enough,
sir.
over every last dish of oatmeal
said.
But wait
till
my
ambition
whatever that means, or bursts into feathered bloom
the shore.
a treat,
Then
the kiddies dancing sidewise
and the ice-cream gnomes slurped
John Ashbery
their last that day.
Perhaps the most widely
Inside, in the twilit nest of evening.
honored American poet of his generation, John Ashbery
Something was coming undone. Dimples could
feel
Surging over her shoulder like a wave of energy.
And
it,
then
—
in 1927. in the
It
was gone.
No
one had witnessed
it
so
Dimples took
off for the city,
He began
will live in,
which was near and wholesome.
and thank us
to write
considered avant-garde.
but herself.
There, with her sister Larissa, she planned the big blue boat
That future generations
was
1950s - work that was
Educated
And
1
New York,
horn in Rochester,
for. It
at
Harvard,
Columbia, and
New York
University, he has
a poet, a critic,
worked
and an
as
editor.
twitched His 1976 poetry collection
At
its
steely moorings,
and seemed
to say: Live, like life,
with me.
Let the birds In a
wash over them, Laure
snowstorm, except
said, for
what use
to call attention to distant tots
are earmuffs
Convex
Self-Portrait in a
Mirror
won him
Prize, the
the Pulitzer
National Book
Award, and the National
Book
Critics Circle Prize.
His more recent collection,
Houseboat Days, has been called "the most original
book of poems of the 1970s. His poetry is often compared to
other art forms,
specifically to abstract
expressionist painting. Like
an expressionist
painter,
Ashbery' s poetic images
convey a sense of movement. Ashbery's influence on poetry
has been vast, as evidenced by the multitude of those his style. He has won numerous awards and
embracing
honors, including two
Guggenheim fellowships,
a
National Institute of Arts
and
Letters
Award, the
Pulitzer Prize, a
McArthur
Foundation fellowship, and the Robert Frost medal
from the Poetry Society of America.
The storm
is
coming. This
strawberry the
little girl is
in her hand, decal detail (left
and
is
not a
carrying
watercolor,
hand)
30 x 125 in/77 x 317 cm. Collection Art Brut, Lausanne, Switzerland.
253
\\
Kl
I
1
Ri
ON ARUMS
At Jennie Richie. They mingle
Who
And now
have strayed.
the big
Mother warms them,
with the child prisoners and in the absence of the guards they overcome to get them to quit
work and
follow
them next
morning, decal mid detail
xvutercolor,
Accepts them,
nervous predicates they
for the
Howling, their adventure nurses
To something
On
like health.
right half)
24 x 108 in/60 x 275 cm.
And
stands up, only to
Far from the beach-fiend's
back
itself
the fifth day
back into
fall
are.
it
takes a
little
blancmange
hammock.
a
Courtes) Kioxko Lerner. I
told
you
it
was coming, cried Dimples, but look
Another big one
And
they
all
on the way!
is
ran,
out.
and got
out,
and that was that
for that day.
Just as a good pianist will adjust the piano stool
Before his
by turning the knobs on either side of
recital,
Until he feels he
at a
is
So did our friends plan
They would
get to
proper distance from the keyboard, their day.
cutting, gluing, stitching
into view.
elaborate. Persnickety Peggy
after a leisurely breakfast,
Other days
was frequently
it
was more of
a pain,
at the heart of things,
Her
strength often an inspiration to the others, though offset by her tendency to brawl
And
generally
Though.
Where
A
Little
make by
a
nuisance of herself. The other
little
only sky had
girls
took this in
the house was rising
hung
before,
good berth. That was before
And
2S4
Sometimes,
work immediately,
As the model came entrancingly
Or more
it
ruined everything. But
I
and
it
Tommy
am
seemed
like
good news,
took over
getting
ahead of
my
story.
stride,
HENRY DARGER
Sometimes
to
wake up
in the
morning was enough. They began feeling
Lecture plans were discussed, and a gleaming white envelope, shocking
As the dawn, would be sealed by two or three That's better,
On
rain\'
no one would
say,
and
that's
would be impossible
it
The more
Or was
The
in its purity
of them. There,
how they
got
down
to business.
realizing, a little half-frugallv.
Moss
to ever go outside.
on moss;
drips
interesting-smelling exhibits have been packed away.
adults
who have
turned the steep corner into childhood.
are ripening.
pitcher of sangria darkens and deepens. So
Until
better.
there a terminus, sadly, deep underground? This, only children can know,
And some Plums
JOHN ASHBERY
days they would stay indoors
Watching the chase of drops on the pane,
How
BY
it
was past time
become
to
it
was ever
"normal'' again. Tell
it
this way,
to the
That day! Already the verandas are awash with trouble, and
neutered pets
color, the darts
seldom miss
their mark.
Heidi and Peter dissolve
Something says Us, then
we
in the crystal furnace;
too late to change,
it's
what
will see
To have had a son back But the unthinkable
is
it is
made
now
better to let
it
come toward
of.
there...
common knowledge
now.
We
must
let
down
a ladder
At Jennie Richie. Out in the
open they view the clouds of a
So the others may attach
Only
I
think we're.
.
.
their boats to
It's all
coming
it,
and
nearer.
in that
way we
shall
be saved.
storm coming, dead, watercolor
and collage, detail (left half) 24 x 109 in/60 x 278 cm. Collection Art Brut, Lausanne, Switzerland.
r
3&
^^MBMM-
255
WRITERS ON ART1M>
Constantin Brancusi by Paul Bailey
THERE'S HIS NAME, TO BEGIN WITH. native Romania, you si.
At
Hearing
it
spoken
would probably assume him
to
for the first time outside his
be of
Italian origin:
Bran-cu-
and curators have either ignored or
least three generations of art critics
Constant™ Brancusi Born
in a small village in
Romania
in
was schooled
876, Brancusi
J
in sculpture in
been unaware of the circumflex above the
1
and the
cedilla
beneath the
"s"
(which
is
not even available on most fonts in this country).
Bucharest before settling in Paris in
"a"
The
we
great sculptor
persist in calling Brancusi
is
known
in the
country of his
904.
birth as Brancusi,
which
pronounced Bruncoosh. That
is
final "i" is
never voiced. In
Paris,
There, he was influenced by the contemporary Parisian "primitives" Picasso
where he spent most of
Gauguin, and he soon
I
in clay to begin
chiseling in stone. His first
major commissions during this
period were funerary
monuments - The Prayer at Dumbrava Cemetery; Bouzau, Romania, and The Kiss, Montparnasse
artists
make
this
pedantic point because
it
was once made
to
me, by
English in Bucharest. She expressed mild irritation on hearing
went on
to
me
a professor of
and
refer to Brancusi,
observe that the majority of intelligent people have no trouble with French
"There hasn't been any art
Cemetery; Paris.
Like other
Constantin Brancusi was deprived of his
life,
distinguishing accents several decades ago.
discarded his technique of
modeling
his long
and
Art
of his time,
Brancusi rejected the realism
is
just beginning.
yet.
5?
and embellishment of sculptors of the nineteenth century:
Reducing
in eliminating
his forms ornament and
superfluous detail, he created
names, which are often accented. sophisticated Romanians, of
a simple matter of education, of course,
It's
whom my
friend
is
one, are saddened
—
to
and
use no stronger
streamlined birds and fish that manifest purity of form
and appeal
word - by the
fact that
we
in the
West have
little
knowledge of
their cultural inheritance.
to the senses.
Our
Italianizing of a national genius
is
a small, but telling, indication of a larger
In 1937, the National \ \
omen s League of Gorj
unfamiliarity with the roots of his subtle,
commissioned Brancusi to produce a monument in
honor of Romanian troops who fought in World War I. Tlie
work Brancusi produced
for the Tirgu, Romania,
consists of three sculptures,
Unlike Eugene Ionesco and the maverick philosopher Emil Cioran, both of
wrote
Paris in 1957.
"
whose
French, Brancusi was always a slightly reluctant Parisian.
brilliant
company
It
was customary
musings are
full
of contradictions
into a Carpathian
shepherd on the
he was well aware, but the conceit just
-
liked to
for
remark that he preferred the
of a Carpathian shepherd to that of a novelist or intellectual.
bumping
were
256
in
whom
Ionesco and Cioran to dismiss the Romanian peasant as a "savage," though Cioran -
his Brancusi died in
spiritual, art.
site
and was called a "climax of the sculptor's career.
and profoundly
two gifted Romanians
is
who
Champs
typical of his
The chances
of
Elysees were pretty remote, as
mordant nature. Ionesco and Cioran
deliberately turned their backs on a heritage they
CONSTANTIN BRANCUSI
came
to regard as primitive.
His Endless Column, in
remaining
to the
anonymous
art of
village graveyards that
generations of peasantry.
It is
have watched artisans caning and shaping them certainly have understood
embarking on
what the poles
possible
escaped Nicolae Ceausescu's bulldozers,
the eerily beautiful "death poles" that rise out of the earth heavenwards. Brancusi
would
testify.
various manifestations, owes nothing to the sculpture of the
its
Renaissance and everything to see, in those
Brancusi did no such drastic thing, as his finest works
in
Hobitza
signified
in his
- the
would
childhood, and he
soul of the dead person
journey.
its last
BY PAUL BAILEY
Paul Bailey Critics describe Bailey's
Hobitza, where Brancusi was born in 1876, Oltenia.
The
is
in
the region of Wallachia called
Oltenians were accustomed to building their
own wooden
fiction as exhibiting
sensitivity
houses, designing
without
sentimentality.
and making the furniture they needed. The
local
genius for carving elaborate door frames,
He
writes
about isolation and personal catastrophe in a minimalist
gates,
and columns —
a talent nurtured
expression during Brancusi
and developed over centuries — was
still
finding
style that
s
is
and
austere
London
Bailey was born in
1917. In 1967 he
in
formative years. His great-
published his
grandfather Ion had been
pure.
At
novel,
first
the Jerusalem, about a
j
woman's
responsible for
many
wooden churches
in
of the
an
life at
institution
for the elderly. Subsequent novels, Trespasses,
and around
A
Distant Likeness, Gabriel's
Lament, and Sugar Cane.
Hobitza, while his father worked
deal with breakups,
as a carpenter before taking
isolation,
mental
illness,
suicide without
possession of a small piece of
and
making
absolute tnoral judgements.
land. Brancusi's ancestors Bailey has also written short
produced tapestries and exquisite
and
stories, plays, essays,
biographies, including a
works of embroidery with which to decorate their cottages, but
memoir— An Immaculate Mistake: Scenes from
it
Childhood and Beyond. is
collection of fiction
now
attracts collectors
/;;
1995, he edited of a
the Oltenian carpet that even
and
nonjiction,
Book
and
The Oxford
of London.
antique dealers. One, or perhaps
more than one, of these carpets
Among main
honors for his
work, Bailey has received an
must have hung on the wall
Arts Council of Great
in
Britain
the living
house. (the
room
of his family's
The designs
hoopoe
is
writes
New
Statesman, The Observer, the
London Sunday Times,
and flowers,
He
regularly for the
are of birds
a constant),
Award and an E.M.
Forster Award.
and beasts, but there are
the Daily Telegraph.
He
lives in
Loudon.
abstract patterns, too. Brancusi
was obsessed with birds throughout his career, refining
The Bird bird:
the Bird in Space into a shining
in Space, 1925, bronze,
72 x 18 in/184 x 45 cm.
base. 7 in/1 8
cm.
National Galler) of \n.
bronze that seems to be already
Washington, D.C.
WR1 ERS ON AK1 IMS 1
which
liberated from the pedestal on
"death poles" a bird
The
early
literature. It
brigandry Istrati
life
is
perched
at the
permanently poised
it is
very peak,
of Constantin Brancusi
the
head leaning forwards, ready
its
whose chronicles
Istrati,
Romanian peasants were very popular
in
France
perfectly natural.
He
The
style.
most cynical
capital,
restaurant.
Europe.
city in
Brancusi's two-year trek,
French
and
it,
yet there
is
much
of
on
it
could have described
Istrati
from Romania
foot,
to the
where he earned money by washing dishes
And he would have
in a
written with a delicate
who "came
to
charmed accident:
sculpture" by a
was eleven years old (Brancusi cleaning and dyeing shop.
I
recalled),
working
in a
had straightened out and arranged
everything so well in the shop that the owner said to me,
know something you started working Stradivarius.
made said,
a
'30s.
and innocence, and sustained
understanding and appreciation of the boy
I
and
of love
best passages in his books are totally unaffected,
believed, as did Brancusi, in goodness
that belief, for a while, in the
to depart.
in the '20s
taught himself French and then taught himself to write fiction in
nothing Gallic about his
of the
the stuff of a certain kind of Romantic
is
might have been penned by Panait
among
On some
for flight.
I
will not
and made
be able
a violin.
I
to
I
a violin!"
I
discovered the secret of
hollowed out the wood.
wonderful sound. After
do — make
"I
The
violin
the violin, the
owner
boiled
I
made
it.
"You must be a sculptor."
And
so
it
had
to be.
Every monograph on Brancusi
reveals that he studied at the School of Arts
and Crafts
in
Craiova, then at the School of Fine Arts in Bucharest, where
he won many The
Kiss.
height:
1 1
1907, stone,
the young
Romanian was
prizes. In Paris, his
briefly the great
work impressed Rodin, and
man's pupil. But only
briefly:
he
confined
felt
Muzeul de Arta,
Craiova, Romania.
Rodin's studio; he needed to get out from under the that
was
emerge
to
in the next
few
shadow
years, in particular
headstone of the grave of Yanosa Sasevscaia
in the
the
man and woman
stone,
it
are conjoined spiritually
has been noted by
sensitivity.
The
fact that
it
and
critics, is coarse, yet
The
of a
huge
Kiss of
tree.
The
sculpture
1908 which crowns the
Cimetiere Montparnasse, shows him
returning to the sights and shapes of Oltenia. The Kiss
is
as ethereal as
physically.
the effect
adorns a grave has inspired
is
much
The
it is
sensuous, for
carving of the rough
of an extraordinary speculation, but
I
favor the
notion that Brancusi, given his upbringing in the Orthodox faith, looked on death as a part of
life,
as a fact not to
be shunned or sentimentalized. In
later
(1912) and earlier
(1907) versions, the lovers are virtually indistinguishable in their state of oneness, with a single
:^s
in
in/28 cm.
eye between them.
CONSTANTIN BRANCUS1
BY PAUL BAILEY
Giacometti accused him of creating "objects," and Henry Moore pronounced that he was overrated; the latter's
was
right, to
judgement can now be taken with an ocean's worth of
Giacometti
salt.
an extent: Brancusi did fashion objects, but they are objects of surpassing
beauty. In his old age, he
wanted
his objects to
"Simplicity
is
be viewed alongside each other
in his atelier,
not an objective
i
BUT ONE ACHIEVES SIMPLICITY DESPITE ONE'S SELF BY ENTERING INTO THE REAL SENSE OF THINGS."
IN ART,
Left: Little
his workplace. Thirty years after his death, that studio says,
by Renzo Piano -
is
open
to the public,
who can
-
"reconstituted," as the brochure
study or contemplate those objects of
60 x
he would have wished them
"Almost"
to.
is
appropriate, since his studio
13x15
New
No.
1 1
Impasse Ronsin has been reconstituted behind
close to the Centre Georges
Pompidou.
Initially,
glass in the bunker-like building
the spectator
is
confused by the sheer
mass of sculptures, and by the necessity
in/152 x
33x37
cm.
R.
Guggenheim Museum,
York.
Right:
at
Girl,
including base.
Solomon a lifetime almost as
French
1914-18, oak,
Adam and
Eve, 1916-21,
wood, height: 89 in/227 cm.
Solomon
R.
Guggenheim Museum,
New York.
to
consult the charts that identify them. What's
more, eveiything looks so clean, so preserved, so safely kept
There
away from contaminating hands.
no dust, no
is
gradually,
one forgets the dividing
the famous objects
Endless
real disorder.
Column
-
But then,
and sees
glass,
the Cock, Bird in Space,
(not as endless here), Mile
Pogany, The Kiss, Leda,
et al
-
in
happy
unity.
They represent
Brancusi's achievement in
purity which
in itself a reflection of the
is
anonymity of the as a child.
art that inspired
He bequeathed them
all its
and moved him
to the
French
nation, together with his library, his records, the
Guaneri tunes,
violin
and the
on which he played Romanian tools with
folk
which he made not only
the sculptures but the furniture he used
daily.
He
constructed that limestone fireplace, the chairs
and
stools, the bed, the
wooden
pots.
affords his admirers the spectacle of
Room
3
hammers,
saws, adzes, the entire array of equipment he
259
S
\\ Rl
I
I
R.S
ON
AR1
"
I
S
T
employed
as a
working
artist. It
ought
to
be messier than
it
is,
but the imagination can
provide the missing creative chaos.
Brancusi
left
Romania
Second World War.
"Wherever he
in 1903,
In Paris,
and paid eight short
he cooked Romanian dishes
visits to
in the
the country before the
two studios he occupied on
Impasse Ronsin, and frequently wore an approximation of peasant dress.
It
would be
was, everything
had to
white. he
wore
white,
beard
his
was then already white. he had
two
white dogs
that he fed with lettuce floating
in milk.
my memory of Brancusi
IS
ALWAYS OF
AND OF BRIGHT AND
WHITENESS HIS
SMILING EYES."
—
Isamit
Noeuchi
Sleeping Muse. 1910, polished bronze,
6x 11x7 in/16 \ 27 x 19 cm. Centre Georges Pompidou. Musee National dart Moderne,
260
"Nude men in sculpture ARE NOT AS BEAUTIFUL AS TOADS.
be all
Paris.
tempting to picture him as a naif son of the picture, but
he was
of the passion
and
infinitely
soil,
more complex. He
intellect (a quality
)5
because he did not discourage such a is
Romania's greatest visual
he was too modest
to dwell
on
artist
by reason
in conversation)
he
brought to the business of reshaping and revivifying the images of rural Romania — the Byzantine icons (think of the bronze Sleeping Muse), the wayside crosses and "death poles," the ornately carved gates and columns. To
Bucharest, with utensils,
is
its
rugs from Oltenia,
to appreciate out of
molded with
his
own
its
religious paintings,
in
the Village its
Museum
the
in
pots and pans and other
what everyday beauty and simplicity Brancusi carved and
peculiar vision works of universal
he kept those artefacts
visit
altars,
mind, and never saw
"primitive" or other terms signifying artlessness.
fit
to
meaning and importance. In
demean them with words
like
exile,
CONSTANTIN BRANCUSI
was not
Yet he to
remain
BY PAUL BAILEY
a nationalist. His decision
in Paris
He
evidence enough.
is
was friends with the poets Tudor Arghezi and Lucian Blaga, but could not endorse
Romanian
Blaga's sanctification of the
peasant. In the years between the wars,
Romanian
that the influence of
and
art
began
intellectuals
was robbing
French
writers
to
worry
literature
and painters
of a national identity. Blaga spoke and
wrote of the wisdom of the peasant,
which had endured since the Roman invasion of Dacia.
It is
hard, now, to
understand precisely what the poet was
-
envisaging
Edenic
idyll,
some
a return to
maybe. Brancusi, conversely,
He
looked to the future.
used peasant
as his source material, to
reinvented.
The
past
and considered, not
He
letter.
type of
also
is
to
art
be expanded,
to
be examined
be recreated to the
acknowledged the truth
behind Ionesco's wariness of those aspects of
Romanian
culture that glorify savage
events in her long and chartered history. Above
He
Ionesco was fond of Brancusi, and amused by his lack of worldliness.
liked to recount
41 x
how
little
when
use Brancusi had for the telephone, even
the sculptor was
and
ill
in
right:
need of
5x12
up the dreaded instrument, he chose
of friends in order to receive their assistance.
He
to fling stones at the
hobbled out into the
windows
street with his leg in
in/ 103
on wood and stone
Solomon help. Rather than pick
The Cock, 1935,
polished bronze,
Neiv
x
12x30
cm.
base.
Guggenheim Museum,
R.
York.
Above
left:
The
Sorceress,
1916—24, walnut,
plaster
on one occasion, instead of doing what every other sensible
invalid
would have done.
39x25x
19 in/100 x
64x48
cm.
limestone base.
There was no calculation genuine. figure
He
did not
upon squat
write of an artist
temptation. spirits to
suflet
is
a
The
in his perversity, just as his indifference to colossal
end up
as his detractor,
Henry Moore, ended
figure for international businesses
who
height: 6 in/5 cm.
diameter:
up, manufacturing squat
How
pleasing
it is
for
me
to
loved his work, and working, above every other distraction or
loss of integrity, the desire for praise
cope with or combat.
word you
and banks.
wealth was
will
It is
common
hear on the janitor's
there, in the lyrical, soaring, aspiring objects
country he escaped from
in
in lips
and fame, were matters
Romania
- and
for
in/28 cm. Base,
1
920, oak,
height: 15 x
39 in/38 x 98 cm.
Solomon
Guggenheim Museum,
Xcu
R.
York.
for lesser
people to talk of the soul —
Brancusi's soul
he has given
1 1
Shown on Oak
to the
the flesh but did not desert in the
is
there,
undoubtedly
world beyond Romania, the
spirit.
26
1
\\ ill
ON
RS
1
I
A.RTISTS
Giorgio Morandi by
Hustvedt
Siri
HAD JUST ARRIVED AT THE PEGGY GUGGENHEIM GALLERY
who accompanied me,
daughter Sophie,
I Giorgio Morandi
We
with her sketch book and pencil.
Morandi's
settled herself
had come
on the
My
eleven-year-old
room
floor of the first
to look at the exhibition of Giorgio
work, from 1950 to 1964 (the year of the
late
VENICE.
IN
artist's
knew
death), and Sophie
that
Italian painter, draftsman,
and printmaker, Giorgio Morandi yeas born in 1890 Bologna, where he lived
in
most of his
life.
In
he began studies
we were either,
going to be there a very long time.
and
as
I
stood in that
first
room, trying
discovered reproductions of
Cezanne's work, which influence him
throughout his
come
Gallery through the other door and
somewhat bewildered expression on
I
was
seeing,
I
other room,
heard an
I
heard her answer him
who
to the first paintings last,
his face
and called
to his wife,
an accusatory voice,
in
apparently had entered the
"I
looked around him with a
"More
told you. They're
THE
the 1920s, with artists of the
Metaphysical school. From
range oj colors consisting
jew
the same!"
VISIBLE
WORLD, THAT
5?
IS.
the motifs oj
and etchings lifes in a muted
his paintings
oj a
all
the
interests me the most is expressing what's in nature, in
paintings were exhibited
still
From
bottles!"
with the Futurists and. in
acre
empty
"What
closely aligned with a
particular art movement, his
1930 onward,
wasn't
it
life.
Although Morandi was not
first
what
to digest
exchange between an American couple. The husband,
at the
Bologna, and while there, he
to
Gallery wasn't crowded, but
1909
\caderin oj Fine Arts in
were
The
I
don't quote this couple to
make fun
of them, but rather to begin with
succinctly pointed out. In his last years,
what they so
Morandi mostly painted the same
things,
and he
objects arranged
did paint a lot of bottles.
in subtle relationships.
He
did not, however, paint only bottles, and yet the man's
Gradually increasing in abstraction, his paintings
became
simple depictions
objects in these canvases are often bottles. Almost every
in
at the
artist
fame began after he
grew,
to
won
and
object.
things
Near the paintings were small
-
a cigar box, for
Grand
in these paintings
Venice Biennale. In the
included the names of some of the other
example. But the boxes and cylinders that accompany the bottles
do not scream cigars or matches or
salt. It is
impossible to
know what
The is:
first
"What
question
exactly
am
I
when you
look at Morandi, which
may
also be the last question,
looking at?" This question brings up the further questions,
"How
SOs he retired from
public
time his
life to
to
devote his
should
I
look?" and
"Where should
I
look?"
One
could argue that nearly every painting,
painting until
death
in
1964.
both representational and abstract, go to the heart
262
texts that
they are without being told.
Prix
for painting at the 1948
late
bottle,
his
spread abroad
the
one
Acadenn
Fine Arts. His reputation
an
at least
to
1956, was a professor oj
printmaking
work includes
although there are paintings that feature a pitcher or some other quickly identifiable
Morandi taught drawing Bologna, and from 1930
as
resonates with the experience of seeing the work, because the most recognizable
oj
geometric shapes.
oj
comment
increasing!)
ol
the work.
The
elicits
these questions, but
I
think with Morandi, they
identities of the artist's bottles, vases, cups,
and boxes
GIORGIO MORANDI
are recessive, by
the sense of pull
but
which
them
mean
I
as ordinary
away from you
that as
named
you look
at
HUSTVEDT
the objects before you on the canvas,
things diminishes over time.
into another spatial dimension, a
The
objects
seem
to
second world that you recognize,
This impression of otherness continued to grow as I
my
should rest
eyes.
beautiful as a whole, there
spectator to
work
is
It
I
looked.
I
kept asking myself
turned out that as quiet as these paintings are and as
something
restless
about them,
too,
and they challenge the
unpacking the curious relations between the objects
at
in front of
Sim Hustvedt
him.
Bom
Among vases,
SIRI
content has changed.
its
where
BY
the
and
paintings
first
works
a pitcher.
and
is
in the
show (catalog no.l, 1948—50)
is
a configuration of bottles,
(The canvas includes the fluted white bottle that recurs
in a
number
in
Minnesota
in 1955,
Hustvedt was educated
Olaf College and
St.
of
Columbia
at
at
University.
featured in the show's single early painting, one from 1916, which despite She published a collection
the similarity of content demonstrates starkly the distances Morandi traveled during his career.)
The white
poetry,
Reading
1983, and in 1992, her
bottle
is
flanked from behind by a yellow bottle on the
left
and
a rusty red
work of fiction. The 1996
first
or terracotta-colored vase
on the
right. Directly
beside
it
on the
right
is
a small white vase,
Blindfold. Hustvedt's
The Enchantment
novel,
and between the yellow and the red object
is
a
dark gray pitcher that has been turned away
of Lily Dahl, presents the
coming of age
from the viewer and
mouth
of
to You, in
is
of the red vase,
barely recognizable. Except for a small open space of light near the its
darkness
fills
up the
entire space
between the adjacent
story of a
Marilyn Monroe-like aspiring actress in an
things. exploration of the
In the gallery, clearlv the relations
I
sketched the shapes
in a
mysteries of identity.
notebook, a simple act which brings out very
between the neighboring forms. The
pitcher's handle follows closely but
The
title
piece of her 1998
book of essays, Yonder, explores the spaces between "here
and
there,
"
which, for
Hustvedt, are Minnesota
where she was
Norway
raised, the
of her parents'
home
youth, and her
New York
in
today
City.
Hustvedt's poetry has
appeared in
The
Paris
Review Anthology, her stories in
Fiction,
Ontario Review,
and Best American
Short Stories, and her essays in
The
Art of the Essay:
Best of 1999,
among
She currently writes in
She
is
lives
New York
married
The
others.
and City.
to the writer
Paul Auster.
Still Life,
1948-50,
oil
on canvas,
15 x 18 in/38 x 45 cm. (cat.l
I
Private collection, \vnice.
263
WR1
I
I
ON
R.S
ARI IM
S
not exactly the line of the yellow bottle's neck; the small white vase imperfectly echoes the
curve of the fluted bottle.
"Exquisitely mute,
bottle.
compositions nonetheless reveal it
is
bottle,
is
side of the red vase
in the
shapes of the bottles have been
undoubtedly a symmetrical object
When
you look closely
at
it
in the studio
becomes asymmetrical
you see that the side which borders the small vase has been shorn of
blackened area marks the space between them. perception cannot account for
is
to read
It is
The
very dark.
light
its
fullness
it.
This
is
and shadow of
The
not an imitation of sensory experience.
would never produce such blackness.
Morandi has invented
and the recurring black and deep gray places
it,
Bniun
accentuate what the
artist is after,
which
them — the drama
is
these things are closely best.
The
bound
fluted white bottle
in a
is
of their relations. Although normal perception tells
rear of the yellow bottle:
pulled close to the object that appears furthest from
flirts
in a
at
by
it
darker gray shape that nearly touches the
with proximity.
on canvas,
14 x 16 in/36 x 40 cm.
25 Private
it
us that they touch, that
tells
space where separations and distances are muted
an inexplicable long gray shadow, which ends 9 53-54, oil
in the paintings
not only to render the things themselves but
us that the pitcher stands behind the white bottle, the paint
i
and
in."
the spaces between
cat.
for their
to read out
— Emih
Still Life,
made
of the white
the lower bulbous section of the white fluted
diffuse gray light that illuminates these paintings
as
moves along the neck
just as real
easy
What
on the canvas.
a
that
Furthermore, adjustments
neighbors.
Morandi's
The lower
It
can be argued that these objects create
a
formal arrangement that plays with
collection, Venice.
abstraction, that
mimesis
is
secondary to the space of the canvas
Links have been
itself.
made between Morandi and abstract artists, including Rothko,
Albers, Judd, and Mondrian.
While
it is
easy to see these
connections, particularly to
Rothko 's luminous canvases and to
Mondrian's development from
his architectural trees to his
famous rhythms of primary I
grids,
think that the project Morandi
undertook
for himself
is
finally
very different from that of painters
who ended up
in a
thoroughly abstract space.
Morandi stubbornly
resisted the
debate about abstraction that raged around him during the years
when he
canvases.
264
He
painted these
stuck to his bottles.
GIORGIO MORANDI
In a radio interview in 195". he said, "For
me
nothing
is
more
abstract. In fact,
is
surreal,
believe there
I
nothing more abstract than
BY
SIRI
HUSTVEDT
nothing
reality.
This curious statement contains a paradox. Morandi first
says that nothing
is
abstract: everything
that reality itself
is
So which
think
is it?
I
and then he says
abstract
it
is
abstract.
is
not either/or, but both
—
an almost mystical statement about the problem of seeing.
What
and that
I
see and paint
is real.
reality looks like this
—
paint the real
I
abstracted.
Morandi
did not hold himself back from the Abstract
Expressionists out of
temptation.
resist
in their terms,
experienced as
some conservative urge
He
simply did not see the world
and he wanted a truth
to
what he
to paint
about what he saw. But
what was he seeing?
The
overall visual effect of the paintings
is
one of
a refinement that nearly aches with
Still Life,
10x11 subtlety.
The
colors, the light, the
things on a vanishing table or shelf create an
little
impression of an exquisite, cerebral distance, but the fact paint,
when you
up
stick your nose right
is
to a canvas, there
that
is
when you
(cat.
1959,
oil
on canvas,
in/25 x 28 cm.
37) Private collection, Venice.
get close to the
something rough and suggestive
about the way the objects are painted. The canvas shows through. The lines that delineate the objects
wobble and wave. These things do not compose geometries or systems.
In a
painting from 1953-54 (cat. 25), Morandi essentially divided his canvas in half, although the
upper gray portion of the painting bottom. The group of objects bottles,
is
when you
accommodates the
other,
vision suggests should
in fact longer
together.
it.
It,
too,
is
a
how
The
it.
It is
as
left is
rumpled,
hard object that
by the three boxes, shown as pure
flat
The
Three boxes, two
is
how one
thing
pushed by the cup which ordinary
the cup were a soft, not a solid, body.
The blue
have been drawn, not painted. The bottom rim of
proportions squeezed by the things on either side of
not hard.
is
itself.
its
if
at the
tops of the bottles actually touch the line of
the line of the blue bottle
be behind
which divide the painting
gray-brown counterpart
its
look closely at the row of objects, you see
bottle's lines are sketchy, as if its outlines
the white cup to the
than
entirely located in the painting's lower half.
and two cups are grouped
division. Again,
is
The
illusion of
depth
is
undermined
in the
canvas
rectangles that repeat the two large rectangular spaces
red box to the right
is
so blurred that
it
appears to
vanish into the table, occupying a zone between thing and shadow.
Before
I
went
to Venice,
something that originated Giacometti
I
in
Karen Wright, the editor of Modern
the
mouth
Painters, told
of David Sylvester, the art critic,
greatly admire. Mr. Sylvester
is
me
whose book on
reported to have said that he thought
265
WR]
I
1
R.S
ON
\RTISIS
Morandi's
late paintings
were more closely related
the cityscape of Bologna than to
comment
astute
me
with
still life.
to Venice.
painting with the three boxes does
The
between sky and ground, even
carried this
I
division in the
seem more
linked to a horizon than to any table top. line
to
closely like the
It is
The
in its coloring.
boxes and bottles have an architectural feeling to them, as
do the objects
in
many
of the canvases.
The
painting
with three boxes in front of three bottles and a pitcher (cat. 33), for
example, might be of towers behind squat
buildings. Apparently Sylvester
was not alone
in this
Carlo
insight, for in the catalog's introduction, the critic
Ludovico Ragghianti
is
interest in
"...wholly architectural, so
so that
it
than of
still life is
quoted as saying that Morandi's
should prompt us
And
bottles.''
much
think of cathedrals rather
to
to illustrate this point, the catalog
shows us a black-and-white reproduction from the Pinacoteca Nationale in Bologna of the city held in the
hands of St Petronius. Still Life,
J
956,
40.5 x 35.5 cm.
oil
on canvas,
cat.
Trento, Mitseo d'Arte
coutempormiea Rovex^eto.
hands of the
saint the city
is
- reduced
miniaturized
a powerful image, for in the
still life.
33
Moderna
The
e
colors in
all
the paintings are colors you see
when you walk
the streets of almost
di Trenot e
any
Italian
town, hues baked and lightened by the sun - green and blue shutters, yellow
and stone,
walls, old terracotta turned pink,
white-gray to sooty black. alterations.
These are the
question then becomes, lifes?
Why paint
a hill rise light
up
And
there
colors
if it is
really
alters everything
in clarity
and evening
light
is
uses,
window
his
little
bottles
dustier
you
his
and he did paint many landscapes. But the
see. Buildings vanish
light of
its
makes
glare
it
high noon. Morandi's
in,
city.
why
paint so
Why paint
and dustier
until a
window
still
behind clouds. The sun makes disappear. There still lifes
are
is
morning
haunted by
The mutable landscape Morandi saw reality.
The
to get
heavy film blurred their outlines became the obsessive focus of a
real. In
and outside. Just
many
a city as
and objects he worked with and carefully tended by allowing them
these
still lifes,
we
are neither outside nor inside, but both
as the mysterious light that shines
the effects of natural light on things but
on
blues and grays and cloudy
every day was part, but not the end, of an idea he had about
man's quest for the inside
sky, too, its
what you see out your window?
weather, by the forms and colors of earth and
from
varying in shade from a pale
landscape you are interested
while on other days
and the
lots of stone,
the changing
Morandi
objects instead of
Weather
bottles?
266
to a
It is
to cut, alter,
is
not natural
and change sunlight,
to
on these objects
light.
produce
Morandi used
is
influenced by
a system of veils
in the studio a strange, eternal
GIORGIO MORANDI
illumination for his dusty
manipulated
light for his
own
That Morandi looked and architecture of
the ghostly cities that
at
own
his
things.
little
August when
and loved the outlines
seems obvious, hut
cit\
suggestively behind his
lie
museum
some
that contains
paintings
left
in
streets, this
of the world's greatest
empty of people.
strangely
is
we
Accademia. Even
crowd the
tourists
HUSTVEDT
purposes.
visited the
I
SIRI
He
paintings are also cities of paint. Before
Venice, Sophie and
BY
I
have been
there four times, always at peak season, and each
time the Accademia has
most of what
is
its
perhaps
my
eyes. Giorgione's
was
were alone.
Looking
had
little
time,
favorite painting in the world, Giorgione's I
found myself looking
is
and
rushed
I
to look again at
The Tempest. After spending
at the
into clearer focus.
still lifes
Giorgione painting again did not make
me
believe that
but rather that the weird city in Tlie Tempest
it,
For example,
in
little cities
Giovanni
that appear in the
is
I
nil
3J
mi canvas.
cm.
36) Private collection, Milan.
The
Morandi
a particularly
background of Renaissance
The Madonna of the Meadow,
Bellini's
both mimetic and abstract, of the world and not of
Accademia,
\
new
the
at
National Gallery in Washington, the city in the distance creates a harmony of spatial forms is
(cat.
1958,
in/21
at the dead city in the background of that canvas
topped by two curious cylinders further to the foreground, with
mysterious example of countless
which
Still Life,
not a real city but a mixture of classical towers and Venetian rural
referring directly to
Italian painting.
We
columns and rectangles brought Morandi's
The Tempest
buildings.
I
8x12
at the strange wall,
city of
curiously abandoned. In
rooms Sophie and
hours with Morandi,
and
felt
read in the catalog that John Berger
felt
show
at
After
my visit
to the
the
Bellini, as well as Piero della
Museum
Modern
of
first
glance,
Morandi's objects appear to be the detritus of domesticity, a
the presence of the Renaissance in
Morandi and made general comparisons between him and Francesca, in his catalog essay for the Italian
it.
"At
collection of things once
in
Art in 1949.
daily use, but Architecture in Renaissance painting was of course increasingly influenced by the
discarded either actual vision of the painter. Bellini
was asked
to
put Paris in the background of a painting
because they have and
said he couldn't
do
it
because he had never seen
it.
But architectural forms
in
Renaissance painting, particularly early Renaissance painting, nevertheless served a
went beyond the merely seen. And
idea of
harmony and order
affinity
between Morandi and the formal abstractions of Renaissance
that
these late canvases of Morandi, are not bottles
I
they did not even seem like
still lifes
forms that evoked idea rather than thing. The object into
some
deep
painting. Looking at
kept thinking of the words behind, under, beyond. These
and vases and cups, and although they may suggest
either. After a while,
in this lies the
suffered some kind spiritual
a
city,
they are not cities
any more.
It is
as
if
bottle, cup, cloth, vase
I
were seeing
of damage or because their
contents have been exhausted."
— Karen Wilkin
- recedes
larger mystery.
26'
WRITERS ON ARTISTS
When
looked
I
at the series of six paintings
from 1952, which
yellow cloth and were hung together in one room,
were having
mute conversation with one
a
some
remains as an anchor on the right
include a
the canvases
The white
another.
ridges less evident in this series than in
its
felt as if
I
all
fluted bottle,
of the other paintings,
them. The striking yellow cloth
in all of
remains front center. The cup and cylindrical vase are constant anchors on the
What changes
left.
vase.
A
the object between the flanking white bottle and
is
brown form, described
as a basket,
is
replaced by a green bowl in
others, the
hue of which changes dramatically between two canvases, from
dark green
in
one
to a
much
these two canvases there
yellower tone in the other
(cat.
an additional object, an extended cylindrical
is
white form that appears behind the white bottle. In the
happens
14 and 15). In
series, the shifting
space between white objects, from one brown
in the
from one green
to another.
"between-ness"
itself,
made me
It
think that Morandi was exploring
asking what constitutes a border? In the canvas with
the paler green bowl (cat. 16), the bowl seems to tip upward.
behind the white cylinder
downward
found
this
is
is
Its
edge
outlined in a deep gray, which continues
to divide the yellow cloth
distinction that
to another,
nearly erotic in
its
and white cup,
a fine dark line of
closeness. After looking for a while,
I
darkness between cup and cloth obsessively interesting, more
interesting than the objects themselves.
Nevertheless, the yellow cloth announces
itself in
these six paintings are the only ones which include
it
the show, because
as an element.
I
asked
myself whether the cloth was folded identically from one painting to the next?
Had
the folds changed or had Morandi merely shifted the angle of the
cloth as a whole? I'm not sure.
The
every change would have been
made both
sensibility of the painter suggests that
Significantly, the cloth itself— its creases,
contrast sharply with the other objects.
ones. Above, top to bottom: Still Life,
7
952,
oil
14
\
i
15
1952,
in/41 \
oil
on canvas,
46 cm.
1952,
oil
The
appears to fold slightly in
Renaissance painting,
to the countless
fall,
fold
and knot over architecture, but especially over
small rounded knot of cloth appears and reappears in canvas after canvas during
high Renaissance painting. Even the most cursory look at Pontormo's Deposition, for
Civiche Raccotte d'Arte,
shoulders and arms, and then there
is
the roselike
tie
or knot of material looped around
Christ's hips. This rose of cloth hides Christ's genitals in
and Crucifixions.
268
(cat. 17)
on canvas,
14 x 16 in/35 \ 40 cm.
Milan.
to
not a soft body next to hard
example, shows countless examples of folded cloth draped sinuously over heads and
Still Life.
16
was drawn back
It is
Mattioli Rossi collection,
Milan.
cat.
I
examples of drapery and clothing that bodies.
cat.
Again
brown basket
shadows, interstices — does not
Private collection.
Still Life, lf>
cloth.
material of the
carefully.
on canvas,
14 x 18 in/36 \ 46 cm. cat.
harmony with the
The
and
deliberately
An example
innumerable
pietas,
of this knot in a painting with a classical
entombments,
theme may be seen
in
GIORGIO MORAND1
Titian's
Rape of Lucretia (Tarquin and
rose of pale cloth lies
between her
A
Lucretia).
BY
SIR!
HUSTVEDT
•
legs.
surrounded by the deep shadow where her thighs meet. While
Morandi
is
would be far-fetched
it
to say that
referring directly to any of these
paintings, the cloth evokes these other cloths in
the delicacy of the painting, as well as in the
sensual pleasures of looking at fabric. In Morandi the spectator
threshold
is
invited to consider the nature of
itself,
and another -
the boundaries between one body
all
bodies
- both inanimate and
animate. Just as Morandi bottles,
he
is
not painting cities as
not painting the
is
human body
objects either, but the world of the flesh far
from these paintings as one might
think. In the strange give
among forms the deep
is
as
not as
at first
and take between and
in the canvases, in the often barely perceptible
shadowed crevices and the mysterious
softness of their material, these things
us think about the physical world, and from that meditation "thingness" and about what
The
is
there and what
simplest examples of a thing that
is
wrinkling or folding inward, in
we
make
Still Life,
They both include
the
not there.
is
at
once present and absent occur
shadow
in
two
of an object
beyond the borders of
center of the painting. All cast shadows backwards and to the right, but then, at the edge of a
shadow from something
else that
we
can't
Left: Still Life, 1952. oil
x 22
{cat.
in/43 x 56 cm.
18) Private collection.
Bologna.
Below tin
Right: Still Life, 1953, oil
canvas.
12 x 14 in/30
see. Exactlv
how
this object
could cast a shadow
in that direction,
considering the illusion
on
canvas,
17
is
on canvas,
begin to think about
the canvas. In one (not reproduced in the catalog), two bottles and a cylinder stand in the
the canvas, just below the line of the table,
oil
]
Below
paintings from 1957.
1952,
lb x IS in/41 a 46 cm. 1~ Private collection. cat.
(cat.
x 35 cm.
19) Private collection. Cuneo.
269
WRI ERS ON \RT1S1
s
I
created in the painting about the angle of
more
subtle, but to the far right
we cannot
another thing
"This dialogue
-
tug of war
-
or
and the
elemental
lies
at
the heart of
MORANDl'S WORK."
— Karen
a gray triangular
is
shadow
that appears to float out of the side of the bottle
and
a watercolor,
between them
is
things.
It is
its
neither
impossible to identify this
left. It is
A
is
show the same two
bottles.
drawing
The space
The black
the site of intense focus in both.
occupant of space but not a thing as the bottles are
a sober
shadow nor
on the
respectively,
differently shaded, but is
(cat. 30) is
that implies the presence of
position in terms of conventional vision.
from 1958 and 1959
rectangle of the painting
The second example
smoky gray-black rectangular form
the small white vase viewed in earlier paintings, and a
between the objects and the
object. Indeed, the difference
space that separates them increasingly loses \\
mystery.
canvas from 1959 (cat.41) shows two similar pale bottles,
form, and impossible to penetrate
between the specific
A
see.
light, is a
its
significance as you look at that dark form
ilkin
in relation to
what
philosophical one.
is
around
The
lines
it.
The growing focus on
we draw between
the spaces between objects
the objects
we
see and
product of our vision, a vision determined by the living language
we
a
is
with are the
live
use, a language that
has profound and changing cultural meanings. To simplify this statement in terms of painting,
one can say that
different
from a cup
cup
a
painting done in 1390
in a
done
in a painting
in 1998.
is
The
conventions, the language of looking, the perspective
we
use to
decipher meaning, have changed. Giorgio Morandi
is
in the
conventions of seeing.
It
makes
Cezanne who had
them again
as
if
lift
from visual experience, but there
is
almost 7
V
S
cat.
.
oil
on canvas,
light that
like after-images:
last
in
Morandi something
paintings in this
not
is
show
are
those blots of shape and color and
remain even after you have closed your eyes to the things themselves. In the
last
x36cm.
30 Private
collection.
between objects and empty space, between
paintings, the relations
between the edge of one thing and another
is
the ghostly white bottle
Looking
at
is
actually
Morandi's work,
I
felt a
lingering Platonism that
art,
may
well
believe nothing
is
more
one wonders
come from
if
it.
the
past, that great translation of Pauline Christianity into
these paintings feel more real than the things themselves: "For I
air,
Where does one
that stands beneath
which reinvented Platonic thought through the events of the
fact,
form and
last painting,
coming out of the dark one
overwhelming power of the painterly
solid
persistently questioned.
thing begin and another end? In the exhibition's remarkable
270
to see
off the veil of convention
beyond the present moment that
Cezanne. The very
in
down,
Morandi shares Cezanne's
for the first time.
acute attentiveness and desire to
found
12 x 14 in!'31
perfect sense that he loved
a related desire to strip things
belated, something
Still Life,
business of subverting the
surreal,
more
life
me
abstract than reality."
of Jesus.
nothing
is
The
ideas in
abstract. In
GIORGIO MORANDI
The legacy
of Christian thought
the deep marks
it
has
-
everything
that there
is
that
what we see
is
a
not
is
spiritual
dimension
But the thought may be turned around as
whatever one may believe about spirituality
it
The
physical world
seems its
is
mysterious, and the longer and harder you look at stranger
Morandi bottles.
becomes. Of
it
felt that
He
this
much
I
am
to
well:
undeniably true that the idea of an object creates reality to a large extent.
HUSTVEDT
something more lurking
behind the merely physical - a life.
SIRI
Among
far-reaching.
on the Western soul
left
among many people
feeling
is
BY
the
it
certain:
he was painting the world
in
did not feel that by reducing the
those
numbers
of
the objects he painted he reduced the range of his
On
vision.
the contrary, the very narrowness of the field
became the
vehicle of his
Still Life,
12x21 liberation. This
is
a
modernist position. As for Giacometti, as for Beckett
(to give a literary
example), reduction opened up possibilities that inclusiveness did not have. things,
yet another
who
lives in
a relative term.
before he
both America and
knows how
Italy.
to swim.'
speaks directly to the
it
that path
A
Paris.
few
friend of mine, Bill Corbett, reported to
Carone was with Morandi
was one of
to
come
artist's
aesthetic.
He may
restraint, patience, repression,
have found his path
to
in
in
admiration,
freedom, but
and suggestion. His canvases are is
to look long
important, because the light that
and hard. In the end, they create
know what
make
to
of Morandi, and for an
eleven-year-old she has a very good eye. In the Accademia, she pulled
visit,
and
I
filled
me away
from
"..WHOLLY
ARCHITECTURAL,
SO MUCH SO IT
SHOULD
as she stood spellbound before them.
"I like this
THINK OF
CATHEDRALS RATHER THAN
with Tintoretto's huge canvases. She remembered them from
watched
IS
PROMPT US TO
paintings in this exhibition are also the works of a man's maturity and require a
Giorgione to the room
INTEREST IN STILL
THAT
a
between thought and the senses.
certain maturity in the spectator. Sophie didn't
MORANDl'S
LIFE
out of them reproduces very poorly. These canvases reveal themselves slowly
surprising tension
an earlier
Venice Biennale
The utterance was apparently not made without
and reward the spectator who bothers
The
at the
comment from Morandi: "He just jumps
controlled and masterly. Looking at the actual paintings
seems
Center Pompidou,
second-hand story which comes from Nick Carone, an American painter
1948, and de Kooning's work prompted this
but
a
944, Oil on canvas,
you get everything.
Freedom, however, remains
me
From
1
in/30 x 53 cm.
OF BOTTLES."
museum —Carlo Ludovico Ragglianti
better than the other one. yet, if there's
different
one thing
Mom,"
I've
ways of getting
at
case, the path to that truth
she confided to
understood about
me
art in
the world and what
later.
general
I
did not argue with her.
it
we experience
was by the way of "more
is
as
And
that there are thousands of its
truths. In
Morandi
s
bottles."
271
WRITERS ON ARTISTS
Jackson Pollock by Martin Gavford
THE EARLY 1950S, AROUT THE TIME JACKSON POLLOCK WAS PAINTING BLUE POLES, the
IN
architect
Tony Smith asked him what he thought was the
North America. By that Jackson Pollock
Museum
stage, the
of
by Picasso, Miro, Matisse -
rich in masterpieces
Modern
artists
Creating a unique visual language. Pollock explored the
Met and
greatest
Art in
work of
art in
New York was
who meant
already
At the
a lot to Pollock.
Then
the Frick there were correspondingly magnificent old masters.
there were
expressive process of painting
using trowels, knives, and
numerous American paintings
that he might have considered
- not
least the first great
dripping paint to create intricate, intertwined lines.
He was born in 1912 in Wyoming, and grew up in California. In 1929 he moved to
New
York to study at the
abstracts by his contemporaries
Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko. But he
mention any of those. Without hesitation, he replied "the Orozco mural College."
Now, why on earth should he have chosen
Well, clearly
it
was
a painting that
had made
at
didn't
Pomona
that?
a big
impact
at a
formative
moment,
Art Students League with the
Thomas
regionalist painter
who
Hart Benton
Pollock with a rhythmic,
dynamic composition. In the '30s, Pollock was inspired h, epic, large-scale
murals of the
Mexican painters
Siqueiros,
Orozco, and Rivera. Pollock's
themes became mythic, focusing on gesture and
emotional content.
produced
of 1930, before he
first
set out for
New York,
Pollock had driven out from Los Angeles to the
Claremont, 30 miles away,
to see the painting,
Clemente Orozco had recently completed over twenty feet high,
filling a
at
little
town of
Prometheus, that the Mexican painter Jose
Pomona
gothic arch at the
College.
end of the
be launching himself into space, pushing with his arms
It
was huge, the main
refectory.
at the
figure
Prometheus seems
to
confining edges of the arch.
It is
a powerful image, though not
one that many people would drive 30 miles
to
interested in the
role of the unconscious in the painting process. Tlie work he
in the earh '40s
eliminated
summer
He was
also influenced by Surrealism.
and became
before he could have seen any of those other things. In the
influenced
all
see these days.
From photographs,
with a dash of Tintoretto thrown
in. It
would not have much, you might
think, to interest
recognizable
imager) and focused on ever-larger canvases with
the intuitive master of gestural abstraction, already hailed by Life magazine as the
successor of Picasso.
It is
interwoven, fluid lines that
extended into
looks like a rough and ready pastiche of El Greco,
it
infinity.
Pollock
an awkward, out-of-date-looking image, a byway from the
mainstream of the history of
Mexicans Orozco, Siqueiros, and Rivera are perhaps
art (the
gained public recognition
when Peggy Guggenheim gave him a one-man exhibition at the Guggenheim
Museum
in
7
the most attractive representatives of the socialist painting of the 30s, though most
people today wouldn't think that was saying much). But then, Pollock's
own
life
and
943.
experience of Pollock's struggle with
alcoholism and depression
fueled a turbulent
art
did not follow the orthodox path.
His training, such as
it
Thomas Hart Benton, whose
was, was mainly as a student of the bombastic regionalist style, in
the words of Robert Hughes, "was bad in the
way
relationship with his artist-
wife Lee Krasner. In 1956 he
that popular art can
sometimes be
...
flat-out, lapel-grabbing vulgar,
unable to touch a
died in a car crash.
pictorial sensation
without pumping
it
up" (and
pumped up
is
exactly
Benton's male figures look, half way between Michelangelo and
Tom
what many of of Finland). Benton's
JACKSON POLLOCK
most substantial surviving work, Missouri,
Hughes
feels, gives a
in the
House Lounge
all
of the State Legislature of
sense of Benton the man, "his worship of the
Renaissance and his eornball humor, his
self
GAYFORD
BY MARTIN
confidence and the anxiety
late
that's written
over these huge posturing figures in their buckling space. In addition to admiring the
work
Huck Finn-meets-Schwarzenegger with,
and
for a
It
.w\l\
sitting at the feet of this strange
of a master. Pollock also spent
while was influenced
Alfaro Siqueiros.
of Orozco,
by,
another, wackier
Mexican
some time working socialist realist,
David
Martin Gayford
wasn't a standard route into the modernist avant-garde; nonetheless
Martin Gayford
there were those secret.
that
"What
is
who wondered whether
this
odd background might be
interesting about Pollock," observed
he came from very bad influences
like
George McNeil,
part of Pollock's
author,
is
a critic,
editor.
He
studied philosophy at
a fellow artist, "is
Benton and the Mexican muralists and other
and
Cambridge, and
art history
Courtauld Institute of
at the
London
University.
prolifically
Writing
about art and
music, he contributes regularly to London's Daily
Telegraph and the Sunday Telegraph, the Independent,
and
also to exhibition
catalogues for the Tate Gallerj' galleries.
and other
art
Since 1994, he has
been the
art critic for
The
Spectator. With his co-editor
Karen Wright, he edited the
Grove Book of Art Writing.
He
currently lives
and
writes in Cambridge,
England.
Reflection of the Big Dipper,
1947,
oil
44 x 36
on
in/1
Stedelijk
(
'anvas,
1 1
x 92 cm.
Museum, Amsterdam.
273
\\ Rl
fERS
ON
ARI ISIS
anti-painterly influences,
negatives and
made them
and
yet,
somehow,
into a positive.
It's
in a
kind of alchemy, he took
a mystery.
The
rest of us
all
the
were following
the right path, and therefore the magic didn't issue."
"But however
strongly influenced
So what
rare alchemical ingredients could Pollock
Benton, and co.? vigorous,
if
—
as
it
First,
have picked up from Orozco,
simply that they painted murals, covering huge areas with bounding,
now seems
to us
- somewhat
crass designs.
A
mural
is
the alternative to
Pollock was by
an easel painting: not a portable, frame-bound piece of furniture, but an image so big and
Surrealist ideas
powerful that -
or
and Tintoretto painted murals, some of the time
by Benton's
hardy expressionist style, he
never
wholly entered INTO THE discussions
and
controversies
which occupied so many of the
other
artists.
he always retained
his
love
for the vast expanses of the
which
far West,
to
he liked
traverse
in
an
old automobile as he
had done
as a youth."
— Herschel
B.
Chipp
Untitled, c 1945, pastel
and
enamel on paper, 2b x 21 in/65 x 52 cm. n-Bornemisza collection, Lugano.
painting,
it
if it is
good —
it
dominates the space
was frequently proclaimed
at this
it
occupies. Michelangelo, Tiepolo,
at least,
time by the
and so did critic
Pollock.
The
easel
Clement Greenberg, was
a
JACKSON POLLOCK
dying form - and Greenberg, of course, was the
more than any other championed the work of indeed built his career on doing
critic
BY MARTIN
GAYFORD
who
Pollock,
so.
That does not, of course, necessarily mean that he
knew how and why
came about — though
it
his
judgements of quality were unerring. Asked whether
Greenberg had understood
"Not
his work. Pollock replied,
a thing" (expletives deleted).
But on the question of
large-
scale mural painting Pollock
and Greenberg were
one.
at
Interviewed on a radio program in 1950, Pollock took a
though
similar,
less messianically prophetic, line.
"Painting today seems very Five or six of
doing very
seems
some
some kind
is
- aw ay from -
of wall
Pollock's
"unusual dimensions,"
to
for
own works were
not."
have a chance,
"Can vou
explain,"
I
into
of
which Pollock answered
example. "But," he continued, I
-
the easel
William Wright,
in fact of "an impractical size
— whenever
are
wall painting.
this point the interviewer,
remarked that some of
were
New York
work, and the direction that painting
vital
sort,
very alive, very exciting.
contemporaries around
be taking here
to
At
my
vital,
do
that they
— nine by eighteen
"I
it
feet,"
enjoy working big and
whether
it's
practical or
Wright then asked, "why you enjoy
working on a big canvas more than a small one?" But actually Pollock couldn't. "I'm just more
Free Form,
7
946,
oil
on canvas,
x 36 cm. Modern Art, New
19 x 14in/49
at
ease in a big area than
am on
I
something two by two;
I
feel
more
at
home
in a big area.
Museum
of
York.
Hie Sidney and Harriet Janis
An
interesting point
emerges from
desire to paint on the scale of a wall.
this:
There
is
and
Rhythm
still
or One:
to sell, that
do, for that matter.
Number
3
1
(in fact, at
-
all
it
in the full
what he should have been painting
two by two or smaller
imperative, an inner urge, this it.
On
was exactly what
to
know ledge
collectors
that they
generate sales was
one point Pollock was persuaded
to
as
wanted
Autumn
would be hard canvases
lots of little
do just
Collection.
the contrary, in
So when Pollock painted huge pieces such
he was doing so
,
artistic
nothing practical about
practical terms the easel painting wasn't dying at to buy,
an
it is
that,
which
helps explain the large quantity of small Pollocks around).
Pollock was right to trust his impulse to work on a huge scale. paintings, One:
Number
31,
Number 32
(1950), and
your feet and form the climax of his work. scale, the
seems
to
No
Autumn
is
the biggest
Rlnthvi, which
lift
you
off
photographs can duplicate the effect of
almost physiological effect of a painting so large
envelop you. There
It is
a difference in kind
it fills
your visual
field, so
big
it
from an easel-sized picture, a difference
2~S
\\
RJTERS
ON AR
that
Mark Rothko put
his finger
on (though
his largest paintings don't
great Pollocks). "Small paintings since the Renaissance,"
measure up
Rothko announced
to the
in a lecture at
the Pratt Institute, "are like novels; large pictures are like dramas in which one participates
"(Pollock's
works
Looking
in a direct way.
at Pollock's big paintings,
one understands exactly what he meant.
are) exciting
a
and unusual... I
don't
UNDERSTAND THEM,
IS
HAPPENING HERE."
—
Piet
the floor i am more at ease. i feel nearer, more a part of the painting, since this way can walk around it, work from the four sides and literally be in the painting." i
BUT SOMETHING VERY IMPORTANT
On
Mondrian
You look to act
at a small painting as at a tableau, a toy theater; if a painting
on you; you may even get the impression you might enter
is
big enough,
.
.
.
we
are faced with a highly
between seeming
menacing, repelling.
It
to
like a megalith. It
first
Lavender Mist: Number
1.
7950,
enamel and aluminum paint on canvas, H~ x 118 iu/221 x 300 cm. National Gallen oj Art, Washington,
276
DC.
it is
is
a
a landscape,
verses of Genesis." (A Barnett
other hand, Sylvester finds, "gives us a sense of being where
oil,
kind of
presence
be receptive, intimate, enveloping, and seeming
plays with us as the weather does, for
over us, recalling the imagery of the
"a
ambiguous presence which seems, on the one
hand, ethereal, empty, on the other, solid and imposing, that alternates
starts
it.
Writing of Rothko, David Sylvester remarks that his paintings create confrontation
it
we
are
to
be
looming up
Newman, on
which somehow
the
JACKSON POLLOCK
makes us
rejoice in being there,"
heightens, through the intensity of the presence of
"it
its
Number
BY MARTIN
32, 7950,
GAYFORD
enamel on
canvas,
our sense of standing there.")
verticals,
What
sensations, then, does a big Pollock have to offer?
You are confronted not with
106x 180 in/269 x 458 cm. Kunstsammlung NordrheinWestfalen, Diisseldorf.
a megalith as with Rothko, or a vertical "zip" cleaving the painting apart, as in
but with a space pulsing with energy, of paint,
all
made up
springing and flying together.
We
Newman -
of endless filaments, tentacles, and flecks
might be confronting a star map, the nerve-
paths of the brain, a tangled primeval forest. These paintings don't seem to confront you
you
or fix
When Number it,
and
it
this: "like
vibrates
—
and
most of
do
it
you're taken it
you
Number and
Pollock's paintings,
it
it,
just sings. There's a lot of space in
you're basically
still
overwhelmed by
the tactile and optical sensations being so rich and so straightforward and so
in the
end on top of
like that.
It's
that
You
you know how
it
was done, and you know how
was. You are overwhelmed by the fact that
it
impossible not to be affected by
maybe deep down with
feel free.
The
uplifting, elating, a release into space.
and everything, but when you see
straightforward a physical release just to
is
talked to Frank Stella last year, he described the experience of looking at One:
I
31 like
the feeling simple,
your place; the feeling
in
just feel free in a
the metaphor, the
way
it.
it's
You are absorbed by
dream
of freedom.
When
possible
it.
is
you look
accompaniments of
Number
32, there
is
If
ICE."
— Willem deKooning at
that you'll almost never be."
the point of balance, in the others, especially
frenzy, also traditional
THE
And
epic Pollocks offer a mountain top high, but with a dangerous undertone.
31
'Jackson broke
One:
violence
a bacchanalia, as well as euphoria. Beautiful
WRITERS ON AR1
ISTS
.is
the smaller paintings are, they are not so overwhelming
feet
by almost ten comes close.
Autumn Rhythm,
- though Lavender
in particular,
seems
to
move
Mist, at seven in front of
your eyes, the tentacles of paint, flickering, swirling, and shooting across the canvas. One:
X umber
31, in comparison,
is
denser, less dynamic, a galaxy in
single, endlessly intricate unity
— hence
after the execution of the painting,
Autumn Rhythm: Number 1950,
oil
the fitness of the
one of
Pollock's
because a prospective buyer wanted a better handle than
unmemorable, randomly assigned numbers. The
105 x 207 in/267 x 526 cm.
Museum
of Art,
New
Number 32
brings to
mind much more
York.
rather than the slow ballet
Hans Namuth. Those
we
clearly a
dance -
stark,
monochrome
a euphoric affair of leaping figures
see Pollock himself executing as he paints in the films of
figures really
do seem
to
have been
in Pollock's
imagination
-
the
bacchanalian chorus more or less materializes in other works, such as Untitled (Cut Out Figure),
Summertime and Out of the Weh.
Like the late
Monet
Waterlilies, these big Pollocks
paintings. Their blend of extreme complexity
can also
strike
one
as cosmological
and sheer happenstance corresponds
to the
twentieth-century view of the universe post-Einstein, post chaos theory: not a macrocosm
contained
in a
a
which was cooked up long
30,
on canvas,
Metropolitan
title,
which one goes wandering,
microcosm - everything there
is
reflected in a stretch of water
- but
the
JACKSON POLLOCK
macrocosm
(Whether Pollock had anything
itself.
like that in
mind
is
BY MARTIN
GAYFORD
impossible to say;
chaos theory was not formulated until several years after he died.)
The
surprise of the Pollock show, however,
1950 (One: Number 31
permanent display
at
among
in particular is
MOM A).
the three great paintings from
his best
The revelation
is
known
pictures, hanging in the
the University of Iowa
at
Guggenheim decamped
to
Venice
except those
who journeyed
This, just as
much
a canvas
more
which has
or less since
in 1947,
Miss
to Iowa.
years before the
was
his break-
"all
over" picture for
main drip period of the
and
late '40s
The Guggenheim Mural was painted with
early 50s).
contemporary
in
America and the only one
as his first drip paintings,
had been doing the occasional drip and
some
powerful painter
unseen by any
through work (indeed, the exhibition demonstrates that he ^13
"The most
the mural that he painted at the very
New York apartment -
beginning of 1944 for Peggy Guggenheim's
remained
isn't
who be
promises
a major one
it
was done
but
it
in
one
frantic, inspired night
and extreme
a brush,
something one just
can't get
is
tinctured also it is
astonishing, a dionysiac release, a thrilling change of gear, as
when
the show was at It
Pollock's earlier
life,
proceeded
artist
in orderly stages.
It
it
artist
consisted
of rushes of manic productivity, interspersed with long periods
when
of block
spent of his
much
little
It
was done, and the
was
total creative inertia,
also the only occasion
asked him to paint a huge painting. There were a few attempts
mural commission
Or
rather,
it
for Pollock, but this
artist
of his time drunk. Adural was the cause of one
most agonizing, drawn out periods of
extraordinary eleventlvhour escape.
or nothing
followed by his most
when someone
later
was Peggy Guggenheim's
on
actually
to arrange for a
idea.
was the idea of her prescient and luckless adviser Howard
Putzel,
even more than Greenberg, was responsible for discovering and fostering Pollock's
He
it
was,
who persuaded Peggy Guggenheim,
look at his work, and finally as a gallery artist
- aided by
a
very
much
for
her
new
who,
talent.
against her better judgement, to
famous accolade from Mondrian -
on a retainer of SI 50 a month. As an additional part of the
commissioned the mural
with kandinsky
and
Surrealist
inspiration. His
represented an amazing leap forward. Pollock was not an or
work
MOMA.
not only looks like a change of gear; for the
whose work,
Miro's
post-cubism,
again this
from reproductions -
one stepped out of the rooms containing
Picasso's Cubism
and
has a great deal of the dancing energy, the visceral
—
of
- apparently
and day session -
force of the largest drip paintings. In reality
is
a Gothic, morbid,
disciple not dripped, except for the odd accidental spatter
to
to take
him on
deal, she
apartment, because Putzel wanted to discover
name
is
Jackson
Pollock."
— Clement Greenberg
WR1 ERS ON ARTISTS 1
"whether a larger scale would release the force contained Initially,
it
did nothing of the sort.
his studio in July, 1943.
nothing but look
at
it
He mounted
(there
is
a
it
The on
in Pollock's smaller paintings."
canvas, nine feet by twenty, was delivered to
a stretcher,
and
photograph of him doing
for
so).
month
after
month
did
Meanwhile, many other
paintings were produced, on the absolute verge of complete abstraction, but not quite there (arguably, of course, that goal
Woman
never reached by Pollock or anyone
Cuts the Circle, Guardians of the Secret, Pasiphae. November,
supposed
made
is
to
be delivered, came and went. Nothing happened, or
studies
and sketches, but nothing "made the leap"
Pollock's mistress
and wife
to be,
came home
else): Tlie
when
the mural was
rather, Pollock struggled,
into the grand scale.
frequently to find
Moon
him
Lee Krasner,
staring at the white
expanse, "getting more and more depressed."
Peggy Guggenheim became displeased. She
by the day
in
January on which a party was to be held
$150 might disappear. Mural, 1943-4 (dated 1943),
panic. oil
on canvas,
Then
set a deadline: the
Still
at the very last
in the
mural must be ready
apartment, or else that
nothing happened. The day approached, Krasner began to
moment —
catalog to this exhibition that
is
so the story goes,
and
it
is
a story according to the
supported by the evidence — Pollock began to paint, and
96 x 238 in/243 x 603 cm. University of Iowa
Iowa
City. Gift
Guggenheim.
280
Museum
of Art,
worked
all
night, finishing at nine the following morning.
"I
had
a vision,"
he explained
of Peggy
much
later. "It
was
a
stampede
...
cows and horses and antelopes and
buffaloes.
JACKSON POLLOCK
Everything
is
charging across that
But that
obvious
isn't at all
Mural (though given the or think
one has found,
bulls head there).
clue,
it
goddamn
when you is
BY MARTIN
GAYFORD
surface-."
look at
possible to find,
a rearing stallion here, a
What
Pollock has painted
the stampede, but the frenetic energy of
it,
not
is
the
rhythmic turmoil. That's what's there on Peggy
Guggenheim's twenty-foot canvas, overwhelming
bound
sight
- Pollocks
to a far higher
zAfter that,
au(.\
it
is
art raised at
power than ever
he did nothing nearly
an
one
before. as strong lor
two more years. There followed, as happened
Tintoretto, Paradise (detail), 1446.
cyclically in Pollock's career, a period of
Hall of the Great Council in the
depression, inertia, drunkenness, degradation, long periods of doing
followed by others of feeling around. In retrospect, ingredient.
Mural has the volcanic
Olympian pow er. For
that,
course, or rediscovered
But
to
it,
energy, of, say,
he needed in the drip
to find a
it
seems
Number
new way
little
clear than
painting at
Palazzo Ducale, Venice.
all,
he needed one more
32, but not the musical grace or
of working.
He
discovered
it,
of
technique.
understand what he w as searching
for,
and why,
Mexican
it is
helpful to go back to the
muralists.
One
thing Pollock
could have got from Orozco's Prometheus
was
a
The
sense of heroic visual scale.
other, in a word,
"He
was the Renaissance.
There were Renaissance paintings galore in
American
many
collections,
Pollock certainly saw, and in
-
Signorelli, Tintoretto,
of
which
some
cases
and El Greco,
for
Thomas Hart Benton. But
what he couldn't see much of because
it is
in
wouldn't even have seen largest late
Rubens, or
much
Delacroix -
scale.
i
FIRST
know
of
to have got something
positive
from the muddiness
He
of the Delacroix's
profoundly characterizes a
great deal of
American painting."
— Clement Greenberg
Lion Hunt in Bordeaux offers an
analogy to the ferocious I
America,
impossible to transport, was
Renaissance painting on a huge
painter
THE
of color that so
example - copied during the time he studied with
is
vitality
of Mural.
But the Mexicans were working,
in a
rather crude, secondary fashion, in that tradition.
So too was Benton.
2H
WRITERS ON ARTISTS
one thinks about
If
it
moment,
for a
however, there were obvious analogies between the Renaissance
—
or
more
precisely, the post-
Renaissance and baroque — mural tradition,
do.
We
and what Pollock was
to
tend, casually, to think of
Renaissance painting in terms of the perspective box, a stage with
orthogonal tramlines shooting off to a point. But that
is
much
truer of
easel paintings than of the great
£
succession of murals that begins
with Michelangelo's Last Judgement, Number
1,
1948,
oil
and enamel
and wall-sized Tintorettos such
as those in the Palazzo
Ducale
in Venice,
and continues
on unprimed canvas,
through Veronese, Rubens, Pietro da Cortona, Tiepolo, and so
68 x 104 in/173 x 264 cm.
Museum
of Modern Art,
New
down
York.
Those paintings often inhabit something much more akin
to
to Delacroix.
an "all-over design" —
famously an attribute of Pollock and some other Abstract-Expressionists — an arrangement of figures, piled
and perhaps animals,
up precipitously
Veronese,
Da
in
floating or swirling through the sky,
much
Cortona, or Tiepolo, they
easier to
fill
tough guy though he was, Pollock harbored - in addition
to genuine - a
soft spot for
mumbo jumbo."
— Kirk Varnedoe
lost
above our heads (Francis Bacon once
through the disappearance of angels; they
Such
late
made
Renaissance and Baroque
Every good painter PAINTS WHAT HE IS.
paintings, naturally, is
make
virtuoso use of foreshortening, but the other necessary technique
the ability to transform the
human body
into a rhythmic, gesturing entity that
can take
its
part in a grander design, a rhythmic whole.
To do high
this
window
one had, as Delacroix once put
it,
to
be able to draw a
man
falling
from a
before he hit the ground. In other words, the figure had to be analyzed into
dynamic essence,
The anatomical
details
in this tradition
by Benton,
could be added
who
protege, Harry Jackson,
later.
was, as all
Jackson Pollock was taught drawing somewhat
Hughes
that.
remembered him
its
Otherwise, the whole design would never flow.
in a flowing line or two.
the end, Pollock was fascinated by
notes, obsessed by the late Renaissance.
At the height of
talking
this
"my goddamn
triumph, in the ear off."
He
To
late '40s, a
"analyzed
Tintoretto in great detail, explaining the composition of this and that; what he was doing
282
it
")">
psychological difficulties
rise or circle
the upper halves of pictures).
U
"Hard drinking
or soaring,
tangled heaps on the ground. In the case of the ceilings of
remarked on how much painters had so
plummeting
— JACKSON POLLOCK
me
was bringing
Ham." But
if
pure
Tom
Benton was
highly,
drawing
very good at It is
it
is
effortful, clumsy,
GAYFORD
to Jack. Jack to
unpleasantly, accomplished in this mannerist style,
if
Jackson Pollock just wasn't very good figure
Tom
Benton: Venetian Renaissance to Tom.
BY MARTIN
at
it.
He
couldn't quite get
it,
try as
he might. His
crudely vigorous. And, in the end, the fact that he wasn't
probably turned out to be a boon.
not true, as
is
sometimes claimed - I'm
afraid I've
made
the claim myself
-
that
the masters of abstraction had been, before they reached that phase, masters of figurative art. It
might have been the case with Mondrian and Malevich. but wasn't particularly true
of Kandinsky.
Of
the great American abstract painters, only de Kooning and Ellsworth
Kellv could be considered brilliant draftsmen in the conventional sense.
looking at the early work of both Rothko and Pollock,
- though
is
What
strikes one,
how cack-handed (awkward)
it is
both cases having considerable power.
in
Particularly in the case of Pollock, that
was probably
a spur.
He was
oppressed by
Untitled (Naked c.
the fact that he "could not draw"
- one
of innumerable anxieties that
hung over him.
But,
J
938
50x36
10, oil
Man
in/127 x 91 cm.
Tate Gallen, London.
just as the
young Matisse simply could not turn himself
into a salon artist,
somehow
couldn't get the
Jackson Pollock couldn't be a Instead, he built
up
it.
Thomas Hart Benton.
huge head of
a
hang of
frustration, a
frustration that perhaps helped fuel his terrible
drunken rages and three-day binges. Untitled (Naked
Man
with Knife
a horrifying picture
because
violence and anger.
It
madman, and perhaps
it is
so
from 1938-40
is
crammed with
could be the painting of a it
was. Pollock was regarded as
unhinged by many people who met him, and ended up in
an asylum taking a cure for alcoholism a couple of
years before this painting was done.
More
disturbingly,
he was known to threaten friends with knives and,
one case, an axe; he ended up
in
killing not only himself,
but also an innocent passenger in a car accident that
might well have been deliberately induced.
But Naked the
way
Man
With Knife also shows Pollock on
to solving his graphic problems.
quite difficult to
the picture aggressive
work out
- except
-
or
that
exactly
it is
how many
what
It is
is
actually
happening
in
something nasty and
figures are involved.
That
is
because El Greco-oid musclemen of Benton's world are in
the process of turning into a system of arcs and
with Knife),
on canvas,
WRITERS ON ARTISTS
To work
vectors of force.
he needed hints and help from the
this transformation, of course,
masters of orthodox Modernism, Miro and Picasso particularly.
There are one or two pictures from the
Red and Blue —
early '40s
was
-
float
on a
flat
background of
in its
hugeness (eleven feet by 25),
and
its
color.
its
he asked him
"to step outside
Pollock's stylistic progression, like that of
He was
affair.
doing drip paintings, small ones,
{Compositions with Pouring force,
still
to
him
in several obvious
many
I
and
II,
most
for instance).
When
make
and
in
a
a
Pollock,
ways
later
intense dynamic drama, expressed by a tangle of curving lines.
artist
how
Guernica, which Pollock saw in 1939,
black and whiteness (echoed by
stand in front of Guernica, heard an
characteristically,
Pollock learned
appearances - can take on
very clear in a painting such as the She- Wolf (1943).
trips to
1
and an important painting
his introduction to Picasso,
Pollocks) is
and
all
Untitled {Blue {Mob} Dick)), and
From him,
that almost look like pastiches of Miro.
wandering, apparently random line - a doodle, to personality
—
Its effect
on one of many
rude remark about
it,
fight."
was not
artists,
1943, before the
But the Mural
by step
a neat step
Guggenheim Mural
itself, for all its
churning
has the laborious, congested feeling of pictures such as She -Wolf or Pasiphae. It
took another three years for him to
make
the crucial leap. In the interim,
figures
come and go — making
slightly
absurd appearance
for
in
example, more impressive
Matissey Accahonac Creek
These alternate with
all
a
War, in the
series.
over
abstractions such as Sounds in the
Grass of 1946.
But
it
was not
until the first days
of 1947, in a clear, cold light just after
New Year's Day
that Pollock put
it
all
together and began to pour and drip Convergence: oil
Number
10,
J
952,
paint,
on
of the
most amazing ugly-duckling-into-swan-performances
a larger
and
larger scale,
from
sticks
and brushes and chicken-basters.
It is
one
on canvas,
94 x 155 in/238 x 394 cm.
in art. All the effortfulness,
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo.
laboriousness, the sense of congestion that graceful, air-borne.
A
Suddenly he
is
hang over
his early
work
disappear.
flying.
great deal of investigation has
gone into the possible imagery that underlies these
monumental biography Jackson
classic Pollock abstractions. In their
Pollock:
An American
Saga, Naifeh and White-Smith argue that, hidden behind those skeins of paint
primal scenes of Pollock's early
life
He becomes
-
lie
the
the occasion on which Pollock and his mother in their
horse and buggy were threatened by a bull, and so forth. Pollock himself told Lee Krasner
284
JACKSON POLLOCK
that, just
before he started the drip
paintings,
he would paint images,
BY MARTIN
GAYFORD
"heads, parts of the body, fantastic creatures," then cover "veil
them
up,
the imagery." In the drip paintings, he told
a friend,
he was not
the paint," he object,
some
"just
throwing
was delineating some from
real thing,
a
distance above the canvas." That Portrait
image might suggest another and another. "He painted
like a
machine," according
Nick
to
oil
and a Dream, 7953,
on canvas,
59 x 135
Carone, a fellow Long Island It
was
a conscious,
artist,
machine was clicking away on another
"but the
unconscious dialogue." Lee Krasner insisted that he never ceased
be a figurative painter, but his figuration was drawn landed."
He
a
in the
air,
Dallas
inJ 149
Museum
x 342 cm. of Art.
to
forms that then
"aerial
himself called his paintings "memories arrested in space." Computer imaging
of the paintings he carries out in the least,
level.
he began with recognizable
Hans Namuth
human
Most of the
films confirms that, in those cases at
forms.
paint
i
use
a liquid,
is
flowing kind of paint, the brushes i use are used more as sticks rather than brushes - the brush doesn't TOUCH THE SURFACE OF THE CANVAS, But surely the point
is
IT'S
that the imagery
was
JUST ABOVE.
veiled, that
the paintings are hugely suggestive of this and that, as
had found a way
to depict the
without the figures. In
and presence of
bounding
parallel,
classical art
I
it
isn't
and architecture
a
way
make out - though
easy to
describe above. In effect, Pollock
vitality of a certain
Rothko found
5>
kind of figurative painting,
to recapitulate the simplicity, frontality
in abstract terms. Pollock
removes from mannerism and the baroque; Rothko recognized himself
developed
at several
in the frescoes of
Pompeii and the doric temples of Paestum.
The essence improvisation.
"I
"they just come."
of Pollock's
don't
method
know where my
He may
WORK
WERE UNDERSTOOD, CAPITALISM
OPPRESSION
AND
WOULD
DISAPPEAR."
in the drip paintings
paintings
"If THIS
come
was
that
it
from," he told
was an extended
— Burnett Newman
Clement Greenberg,
have used those figures as a starting point - as a jazz musician
might use a song or blues - but where did he get to? Well, to an enormously more
ambiguous, freer place, neither inside nor outside, not merely landscape - which, by the
285
ON
WRITERS
ARTISTS
way, he loved
Every good
- nor just psychic
artist
what he
paints
In this improvisatory
destructive dissipation
self-expression. (Pollock said "painting
but then he also said,
is,"
method - and
is
a painter
subject
mistreatments,
of course, but
difficult to say
to pass out at i
wonder whether his work does
filled
- Pollock resembles
that
mistreatment."
—
Newman
of Pollock,
and
his contemporary, the jazz
self-
musician Charlie
and amazing debauchery were perhaps
"come out of the studio
which, of Parker and Pollock, was the more
work
like a
erratic,
("I
wet
have seen
rag"). It is
cantankerous, or prone
unexpected moments; but Pollock was the more unsettlingly
nutty, the
more
with aggression. Invite him to dinner, and he would, probably after a long period of
gloomy
silence, upset the table, insult the other guests, destroy the crockery
and drive
off
dangerously into the night shouting obscenities.
not contain the seeds of
nature.")
related to the extraordinary levels of concentration required by their
him," said Barnett
to various
am
also in his absolute originality
Parker. In both cases, the impossible behavior
"Jackson Pollock
"I
self-discovery.
is
Artistically,
both Parker - known as Bird — and Pollock flew and flew until they
happened before
crashed. But Pollock's artistic crash
November
Philip Hensher
25, 1950, the day that
Hans Namuth's
his actual one.
occurred on
It
color film of the artist at
work was
"There was a reviewer a while back who wrote that my pictures didn't have any beginning or any end. he didn't mean it as a compliment, but it was. it was a fine compliment." completed, and he
fell
off the
wagon. For
a
couple of years he had been more or
less off
the booze, and on tranquillisers. That night, he went back to the bottle, and upturned the table (a favorite trick). After that,
You can see the '48/49, '50, as the paintings of that,
'5
1
are figurative again,
he was back
to finding his is
work through endless
In other paintings,
before in his career, in
286
way
up, higher and higher through '47,
like a fresh
as in '44.
-
One
Then
exultant. bitter,
but
style alternates
apart from the poles
crash.
still
The black
impressive. After
with another
- but one
that
was forced
repainting, rather than smoothly unfurling as Pollock's conscious in synch. It
it is
has the encrusted, congested feel of the early '40s
One: Number 31 or Autumn Rhythm.
back
a return to a compulsive image
more
Up and
and smaller - dark,
a drip painting
paintings, not the lyric flow of
looks
or less downhill to the end.
work becomes more expansive and
and unconscious worked
is
was more
trajectory in his work.
haphazardly. Blue Poles to
it
to Picasso
—
as in Portrait
- eyes metamorphosing
Head from 1938-40, and Eyes beginning;
it
looks like an
all
In
and a Dream. Ocean Grayness
into whirlpools
—
that
cropped up
The Heat from 1946. The Deep
white
Ryman from
a decade later with
"
JACKSON POLLOCK
» a
chasm
black
in
it.
Did so
much,
because he drank
Pollock's art decline
or did he drink so
much because
lost
lay,
and no doubt Kirk Varnedoe
the thread of the painting?
that psychoanalyzing the at least
some
dead
is
hard to
It is
right to sax
a fool's
is
he
game.
obvious that Pollock was on
it is
manic depressive
sort of
The Deep,
in
it.
had
But
GAYFORD
Clement Greenbergo
thought he was "on to something but just missed
BY MARTIN
and
cycle,
that
everything he did was intuitive, visual, non-
According
verbal.
to his
Jungian analyst, Joseph
Henderson, he was "basically uneducated [though] highly intelligent,
he appeared, but to express ideas
was
it
much more
...
so than
His inability
all intuitive.
went both ways - he couldn't
absorb words, and he couldn't use them, but he
picked up the subtlest nonverbal signals." Pollock seems to have been regarded as a bit of a
bumpkin
circles,
but
in
Abstract Expressionist
we might
have functioned
One wonders
ask
how Caravaggio would
in that hyper-articulate milieu.
whether, as
much
as in his
multitudinous hang-ups, the clue to Pollock's great paintings
awareness. his friend if
is
to
be found
"When Jackson
nonverbal
in that
looked at something,"
Nick Carone remembered,
he were getting into the pores of
minute molecular structure of
it;
it,
"it
was
as
the most
the level at which even the most insignificant thing, like
The Deep, 1953,
oil
and enamel
on canvas,
an ashtray, has
life
and
is
constantly moving."
87x59
in/220 x ISO cm.
Musee National
At any returned, as too
ill,
rate,
whatever the vision was,
he
and too depressed at the
to
make another
beginning of
'56,
leap.
Many
do
it.
I'm
What
about forty by
gonna paint
had forgotten
it.
Perhaps
it
would have
the painter
people tried to get him to do
Conrad Marca-Relli urged him
even bigger painting, bigger than the biggest he'd done before. big one?
lost
d'art
Georges Pompidou,
Moderne
Paris.
did after previous periods of searching. But by then, Pollock was too drunk,
it
near the end,
in the early '50s
all
sixty?"
a big one."
about
it.
It
For a
moment
"Why
so.
Very
to paint
an
don't you paint a really
Pollock was fired by the idea: "I'm gonna
But the next time Marca-Relli saw him, he was drunk and
would have been marvelous
to see that painting.
287
s
WRITERS ON ARTISTS
Chaim Soutine Tom
by
Walking the Stairs - but where they seem
M\\
trees van
Chaim Soutine i)ito an Orthodox Jewish communit) in Lithuania, in
Born
Chaim
1893,
he an
to
to
attend the
at all a
Kokoschka would've recognized
secondhand garden
only these trees are ecstatic dionysiac deeply unsettled oily
He
and ocher and deadened raw
yellowgreen - ding}' deliberately dingy
is
the look and
Una
\
School of Fine Arts and then left for Paris, where he lived in porati.
it's
as bent as the trees
artist despite
his family's objections.
managed
say
isn't to
or
and
the stairs are outside in a stormy garden
Sutin,
gallicized to "Soutine"!
wanted
which
Gogh
as wild
Paulin
working in
Georges Rouault's studio and digging ditches to support
himself while studying at the
texture they have
- remember
Faulkner's Tlie Wild Palms} well these
are wild poplars or beeches or chestnuts
- but maybe
the poplar that rubber) tree 7
is
most
likely?
Ecole des Beaux-Arts.
and from poplar
to
populace
is
only a short step
Soutine painted with a
manic
intensity related in
style to
German
Van Gogh and
Expressionism. His
and
abstract landscapes lifes
appear
to
be expressions
of his ethnic background,
to his roots in his paintings.
J
their
way
in
which turns
all
those swirls into street action dustups
still
but he never referred directly
In
crowd or the mob have elbowed
so the
to
923, a wealth)
which
isn't
perhaps as farfetched as you might think
for as
Canetti points out the crowd has
-
the sea rain rivers forests corn
fire
many symbols
wind sandheaps
and treasure
American, Albert Barnes, bought several of Soutine paintings, establishing
so the trees are flames that'll either attract, a
crowd
him
among
collectors and pulling him out of poverty His work was included in the 1937 Paris Exposition des Artists
or represent already the
which means
crowd they
attract
that the cobbled foamfleece in
Hopkins's Wreck
Independents. is
a street or a
square where halfbricks cobbles
Soutine served in the French
anm \\
during World
War
1.
bottles
and stones
hen the Germans occupied France,
life
as well as petrol
became
bombs and metal
bolts are flying
dangerous for him and other jews. Soutine
managed
to
hide with the help of friends, but Gerda Groth, his lover,
was deported
to a
for
Hopkins attended monster meetings
in
Phoenix Park
and knew
a fellow priest
who watched
the
concentration camp, and he
never saw her again.
from an
illness in
He
died
Communards
1943. rise
288
up
like the
rooks
in
Rimbaud's Les Corbeaux -
CHA'IM SOUT1NE BY TOM PAULIN
that
but
armee etrange aux if
I
why
the trees are a crowd in action
maybe is it
cris severes
lescalier
means
suppose
in
both cases
I
read
it's
first
as
like
man
means both? and why
it
climbing?
- Man Walking
just a mistranslation
the ting tang tonk tunk of two slightly
—
maybe
inside/outside?
man walking which
are these steps called stairs?
the Stairs
definitely
is
odd
wrong notes
do a tobacco for faire un tabac that
have a
is
hit or /
you ask for je vous en prie
Tom
but because I'm in the National Gallery in Merrion Square
Paulin
Although he was born I've
no means of knowing
and check
— book?
it
in the
till
I
get
back home
book on Soutine
that
Tom
my
pal Jamie has Belfast
maybe then
well the huge Catalogue Raisoune
in
Leeds, England, in 1949,
find out
I'll
if it's
Paulin grew up in
and considers himself
Northern
the climbing the
Irish.
Educated
at
Oxford, he went on to teach
walking man's back and his face
I
can see and
he's
if
coming
or going over
in the
US
at the University of
Virginia
what might be
a bridge or
an
air bright
thoroughfare crossing a stream or a pond
- maybe
a pontifex or
pontoon but whatever
and
universities of
Nottingham
at the
Reading and
UK.
in the
it is it
Known
makes me uneasy
one of the "Ulster
as
School" of poets, he currently teaches literature at Oxford.
because
stormtossed this in a way nautical garden
this
Pa id ins first collection of
has such a closed in such a claustrophobic feeling
and the climbing
man
is
hunched
poetry,
A
State of Justice, in
1977, was a Poetry Book
or contorted in
and the
Society Choice
some way
winner of a Somerset
Maugham
- has he so he
his
hands
may be
tied
behind his back
like a prisoner?
Memorial Prize for
taking a last look over his shoulder?
collection,
-
it
He
award.
received the Geoffrey Faber
second
his
The Strange
Museum. Other works
could be the Bridge of Sighs then transposed
include Fivemiletown, his
to nature?
fourth volume of poetry, and a
The
play,
garden
is
more than nature
just as the Bridge of Sighs
is
more than
though of course
a
Riot Act:
A Version
of Sophocles' Antigone, staged in Ireland in 1984.
a stone opera
Seize the Fire, a version of
man
just as the
climbing the steps or the
stairs is
more
Prometheus Bound, was produced for
man
than a
in the year
-
like a
climbing
television
is
nineteen hundred and twentytwo
prisoner or a refugee this man's been told
— walk!
Paulin currently directs the
trees oily shapes colors
Theater,
everything in the painting
is
unhappy
is
coerced
television
as a
BBC
program The Late
Show. His next poetry
or coercive
collection, it
Handbook,
the spirit of the painter that represents
The Invasion
will be published
in the fall of
the
Day
and appears
regular guest on the
except within
His
The Wind Dog.
Derry-based Field
and everything - stormy
.
most recent book of poetry
2001.
man
almost as though he's the Wandering Jew
who
has been
ordered to act the part of a felon
Man
desperately treading a treadmill in a circus tent
oil
Walking the
on
i
Stairs,
1919-22,
a
32 x 26 in/82 x 65 cm.
that a bip
wind has blown
into rips
and
tatters
National Gallery
of Ireland.
289
WRI
1
I
RS
ON
ARTISls
Jean-Michel Basquiat by Harland Miller
CANT RECALL
New York,
old
I Jean-Michel Basquiat
but
twenty-one while
New York
The
HOW LONG AGO
JUST EXACTLY
must have been over
it
I
was out
that
I
IT
a
WAS
that
made my
I
first visit
decade ago now, because
I
out to
know
I
turned
there.
arrived in
back
in say
1
986 was
a different
New York
from the
Basquiat was born in
Brookhu
in
I960
into a
one you
arrive in
nowadays, and, equally the London
I
from was also a pretty different
left
Puerto Bjcan-Haitian family
who encouraged
his early
While in high he and a classmate,
place from the one you leave now. (Though the differences in
New York
are probably
interest in art.
school,
New
Al Diaz, used City's
D
train as a
canvas for
They signed
their graffiti art.
greater,
due
mayor
to
has undergone in the mayor, and
this
here.)
last
couple of years - not
least of
which, of course,
seems unlikely that Ken Livingstone's going
it
the paintings with the
acronym "SAMO." and
campaign, than any of the major changes London
Giuliani's clean-up
York
So while people
London openly wonder where
in
to
is
getting our
own
have the same sanitary effect
the sparrows have gone, so
all
character, along with short
poetic phrases,
became
their
New York
people in
must
wonder where
secretly
all
the
bums have
gone.
I
do.
recurring theme, receiving
Anyway,
attention in a Village Voice article in
I
was
Chelsea
at
art
school
the time of this
at
first visit. I'd
managed
to get
1978. The next
year, Basquiat's collaboration
some dough from the
art history
department
my
for
ticket.
This was on the understanding
with Al Diaz ended.
In the early 1980s, Basquiat
became prominent
New
in the
York club circuit.
During
this period, the
penniless artist painted on
an) available surface until
he achieved his
first
solo
exhibition, held at the
Annina Xosei result
and
Gallery. Tlie
was a commercial
critical success that
catapulted Basquiat into
was seventeen, i thought i might be a star. i'd think about all my heroes, charlie parker, jlmi hendrix. i had a romantic feeling of how people had become famous." "Since
i
. .
the worldwide art scene.
In 1983, his
chosen
work was Whitne)
for the
that while
was there — or rather
I
it
was the
purpose of
sole
my
being there -
I
Biennial. In the eight-year
span of his mature work,
research
my
thesis.
The
Basquiat's subject matter dealt with black
Hispanic
identity,
and
blending
words and images in expressionistic drama. After
figuratively speaking
-
subject was the transition of graffiti art from the street
into the gallery.
I
think
I
got the
England on the subject.
Toop, and a
New York
I
had
a
-
dough because back then - even
though the phenomenon had been and gone — there was available in
would
still
very
little
information
few books: Subway Art, Rap Attack by David
he died in 1988, the \\
hitney
Museum
organized
Times Magazine
article
with Jean-Michel Basquiat on the cover.
He
a major retrospective.
was
sitting
midst his studio scene, rocking back
in a chair
and looking
straight at camera.
His elbows were resting on his knees and his hands came together, fingers touching to
290
IEAN-MICHEL BASQU1AT
make
a steeple.
He was
wearing
a
Comme
he wasn't wearing any shoes or socks. really
need
it,
magazine by
a
as
I
got the photo
I've still
retain a strangely vivid impression of
it
in
mature student on our course whose name
de Lotbiniere. As his just got
des Gctrgons black suit, white shirt,
name
back from the
I'll
somewhere, though
m\ mind.
1
1
tie;
don't
never forget was Christopher
suggested, he was a reasonably international character who'd
States.
He handed me
mag
the
with great gravity as
it
Sundav was...
well,
it
to say, take a artist
being on
Harland
wasn't an idea even, not as tar as I'm aware anyway.
Bon;
Basquiat was in fact the main focus ot idea
was
to
my own
go out there, meet him somehow
few questions. In truth.
I
MILLER
was given the
look what's going on over there. At that time in England the idea of a young the cover of a
and black
HARLAND
BY
thesis,
,\ni\
hadn't really worked
it
and
1
ultimately
out.
suppose, looking back on
maybe
see
if
I
it,
could ask him
the
in
Miller England,
in Yorkshire,
1964. Miller studied
ai
the Chelsea College qj Art
a
moving
before
New
to
York
and, subsequently, living in
New
Orleans, Paris. Berlin,
and now London.
To Thirty
Arthur, Stick established
Down
Slow
Miller's novel
him
as
one
0}
the great comic novelists of his generation.
unconventional
An
rite of
passage novel set in workingclass northern
England
the early 1980s,
in
captures
it
the climate of the era
and
the region. Miller's Litest
hook
Was
First
I
Was
Afraid.
I
Petrified deals with an
acute case oj obsessive-
compulsive disorder.
In his various jobs, he
litis
been a T-shirt printer for rock bands, a model, and an escort. life
Miller uou pursues as
an
artist
continues
and
to write.
Pater, 1982, acnlic
and
oil
paintstick on canvas,
84 x ~2 in/213 x 183 cm. Private collection.
2 L)
WRITERS ON ARTlsTS
"If
Cy Twombly
and Jean Dubuffet had a baby, and gave
it
up
for adoption, it
would
be
Jean-Michel"
—Rene Ricard
Untitled (Diptych).
1
984-8 5.
and Xerox collage on paper mounted on pliistic panel.
acrylic
90x93 Courtes)
x 237 cm. Cheim and Read.
in/229
I
had one address:
\\ illiamsburg to
To
a girl
from back home
become an
She'd said
artist.
get the keys for her apartment
in Yorkshire called
I
was
I'd
first to
Lucy who'd moved
be very welcome
to sleep
to
on her
floor.
go to the restaurant where she worked
checking coats. The restaurant was the then - the then, mind you - extremely fashionable
Odeon.
292
It
was downtown on West Broadwav and Duane.
JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT BY HARLAND
Inside grail
it
iti
was another world. Outside
it
was another world,
everywhere, streets in a bad state
oi repair, old
and
trash eans characterized by late night crashings
hangings and scuttling in
London
rats.
at that time.
A juxtaposition
was
It
you never saw
"His
managed some
To describe
extra flattery to both.
number
.
.
I
that this spot
dividing cell of
our
could actually refer you to any
way
of
It
it.
was
future-past.
Embryos with
of similarish spaces in London, but at the time
there was nothing in the
is
the continually
some way
vou now, well.
STUFF
a glass-fronted restaurant,
so the two worlds interconnected in
to
MILLER
ALL THE
strange, then, to
CROSS-REFERENCED 4
U
WANTED TO BE A STAR NOT A GALLERY MASCOT.
Ihi/vN CiI»i«m'i*
FEATURES IN PLACE.
I
BUT THE STASH
>?
1
""rav; a lt';„ i.
WAS TERMINATED BEFORE MATURITY.
iMfef
see Lucy making her
way toward me, and
moment
for a
I I
was \\
"Harland," she greeted
totally disorientated.
armly enough, but had
setting
up
little
me
emphasizing
the place
time to chat as she was busy
IT
TO ALL
GROWN-UP."
—David Bowie
was
relatively empty,
still
great size, she guided
its
LIKE
HAVE SEEN
for the evening.
Though
SHOULD
me
over to
some
bench-seating that ran along the length of the shining left
me
in the corner.
returning to her station she got
me
a beer, hailing the
fenestration,
and there she
handsome barman. "Hey Anselm, England. Anselm'll get you
this
a drink,"
is
she
my
Before
friend from
"What do
said.
you want?"
"Uhmmm" "Why I
don't
nodded.
you have one of these Dos Equis?"
I'd
never heard of them but
I
nodded.
Anselm, the handsome barman, opened "You're
from England?"
He
it
for
me.
down
smiled and nodded
at
the idea as he inserted a lime into the bottle neck. Again,
fourteen years on,
don't see
I
him nodding and smiling any more
at the idea of
someone
being from England.
As
I
waited
I
given on the plane. the
manner
resumed an I
article
I
was reading
in the
English newspaper
was reading from the middle pages, holding
of a distant father at the meal table,
when
it
I'd
been
out in front of
me
in
a black man's finger appeared over
293
WKI fERS ON ARTISTS
the top of
the face of a smiling
man
looking
smart-suited guy of about
"He had to
live
up
to being a young prodigy,
which
is
out. "Yeah,"
Anselm! get
I
a kind of false
sainthood."
— Keith Waring
said.
I
me and we
He
.
.
I
—
fifty-five?
the paper.
looked up into
I
He was
high up on his bar stool.
"Are you English?" he asked
me
a
straight
swiveled on his bar stool, clicking his fingers up high. "Hey will
you —
he's
from England."
He
swiveled back round to
began an easy conversation. half
way through my second Dos Equis when
Waving over
arrived.
onto the next barstool along. her
down on me from
fifty?
.
guy a drink
this
was about
woman
down
and, hooking into the spine, gently pulled
it,
at
We
couldn't place, she had
how
"Yeah,
did you
—
my
host, she
came
right
good-looking blonde
a
up and kissing him eased herself
were introduced, and although
detected a slight accent
I
in
mine immediately. "Yorkshire?"
?"
"I'm from Manchester," she cut
in.
am not a Black artist, AM AN ARTIST.
"I
)5
I
As she'd looked so American, almost surprise,
more
Prestwich,
We
I
when
so
seem
turned out her
New York.
I
whose work
main point of
shrugged and said I
liked, for
sister lived
round the corner from
artist's
likelihood of
anybody all,
my
my I
what
narrative
was over
college thesis,
—
the
to try I
I'd
just
met
in a
man
discovery,
me what was
asked
I
and do an interview with
added.
bar back
new
chat by this
I'd call
I
remember
name, because, coming from England
mention the
or any artist at
came
as she'd crossed the bar, this
my
as a
sister, in
to recall.
talked on, galvanized into
this is really the
-
it
Rhoda
like
as
I
home knowing
clearly
was, the
barring Picasso and Leonardo da Vinci, or
how
name
maybe
doing over
young
a
I
in
artist
didn't bother to
there
was no
of any
young
felt
I
and then - and
possibly
artist
Hockney
or
Gerard and Jean-Michel Basquiat,
New York,
1985.
Rolf Harris.
The couple looked asked the
name
"Oh, well, Basquiat,"
unhopeful.
I
at
me
of the it's
a
for
more, and then
artist.
guy called Jean-Michel
pronounced
it
slowly for them,
The couple exchanged
nodded knowingly then began "You've heard of
still
glances and
smiling.
him then?"
I
asked.
"Yes," said the smartly dressed black guy,
"I'm his Dad!"
For a think
294
I
moment
I
couldn't take
must have broken
into
in,
then
some vaguely
I
JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT BY HARLAND
disbelieving laughter,
which he
1983-84,
Untitled,
color Photocop)
picked up on and, swiveling round
on his
stool, called
MILLER
and mounted
acrylic
/>(/"
on canvas,
47
out to the
(
\
Win
'ourtes)
(
lis
\
71 cm.
'heim and Read.
barman "Hey, Anselm. What's m\
name? "What-" "What's
my name?"
he
repeated.
Anselm, polishing
a glass or
something, paused and answered. "Er - Gerard."
"No," said the man, "What's
my second name?" "Oh
he seemed
..."
a passing fly as
if
to swat at
"Oh
to say,
that,"
then answered, "Basquiat."
Gerard swiveled back round
me, organizing
his
series of genial
movements
hands into
say "Well, what did I
can't help
to say that
—
I
it
I
tell
of
as
if
his
what was
really
him saying
this,
lifted the
words over
wasn't that
It
didn't believe him, but seeing in
I
amazement - something
seemed
me
on
to follow
straight
away
posture
in
it
to merge
absorption of
Manhattan." In
mv head and
I
my
that suddenly his attention
followed round just in time to see the I
remember
streets, the
newspapers,
by
out or the window. "Look! there's Jean-Michel now!"
unmistakable figure of Basquiat speeding by on a racing bike.
was wearing a
my
of doubt, he sought to dispel
phone book, we're the only two Basquiats it
his
is
imagery from the
but I'm obliged
was caught, and he pointed past
He
ability
to
you!"
adding, "Look us up in the
memory
strength
a
was flabbergasted.
arrested in
"Basquiat's great
to
tv with
and
the
spiritualism of his
Haitian heritage, injecting both
very well that he
into a marvelously
jumper (sweater), and took one hand from the handlebars
royal blue v-neck
intuitive to
wave
in at us,
then he was gone.
understanding of the language
JUST TO CONCLL DE THIS STORY - though Basquiats invited
me
go round for dinner
got pretty drunk that night
chuffing Brooklyn.
I
never
to
my
point
-
the
When woke I
made
it
round
at their place the next night, saying that
could ask him
I
all
up
it
for
the questions at
some
was already dark
again,
and ended up back
the card with the Basquiats' address on and
cheques.
no longer relevant
of modern to
"Jean-Michel was coming too and I
it's
I
girl's
I
I
wanted then."
place
was
way out
I
—Je m ft
Deitch
jet lagged, I'd lost
had no money just Thomas Cook
dinner and
in
painting."
travelers'
never got another chance to meet Basquiat.
29 S
WRITERS
ON
ARTISTS
Willem de Koonin by
Berkson
Bill
LOOKING AT AN EARLY DE KOONING CALLED SUMMER COUCH IN THE EARLY Denby "a
WilleiM de Kooning One of the leading figures of Kooning arrived
in
as a sfoirmrai in
New
—
York
192b from
He
worlied as a
compositions settled
there were sharks in that wind!
teeming
Rotterdam, where he was
born in 1904.
wind blowing across the
their overall
Abstract Expressionism, de
when
told how, in the '40s
Woman
I,
the painting was done, de Kooning had intended
surface'' to
in.
The
— and
Edwin
'60S,
keep the parts of
painting's furniture
a finely tethered,
his pictures off kilter while
scheme admitted an undertow
wobbly balloon.
Similarly, in the
an eventful composure seems the whole point of the image's
Rudy Burckhardt's documentary photographs
of the painting at different stages
arrival;
show
that
house painter and then painted murals on public buildings for the
the objective was to get the elusive figure to declare herself, to
uncertain space. (Not to be tiresomely iconological, but
De '
sit still in
an otherwise
WPA. if
you know your chairbound
Kooning's themes of the
figures
and
Madonnas by Duccio, Cimabue, Giotto
human
30s focused on both
abstraction. His
semi-realistic figures
Once
with.)
were
and ragged-edged. one man show in 1946 - a series of black and white abstractions
et alia,
you know what de Kooning was wrestling
she had plunked herself down, the woman's eyes and smile flared accordingly.
distorted
After his
first
notable for their torn edges,
IS
and
splashes of paint,
seemingly spontaneous
markings - he
became recognized
you're an artist, the problem TO MAKE a picture work whether YOU ARE happy or not."
"If
in the
avant-garde art scene.
Woman
After exhibiting in the Venice
I
got
down without
style.
The goddesses we know from Western
de Kooning said he wouldn't want
Biennale of 1950, de Kooning turned his attention to
Kooning said of himself:
"I
to, "sit in style."
Instead, they take
up
culture don't, as attitudes.
De
have to have an attitude."
expression istic paintings of
women, focusing on
Throughout
then-
his career, in writing
and
talking,
de Kooning can be spotted using
this
roles as sexual partners, as
word, one of his multi-purpose words (others are "marvelous," "space,"
maternal figures, and as destructive forces.
"absurd"), In 1968, de Kooning returned to the
Netherlands for the
opening of his retrospective
Museum oj When he died in
at the Stedelijk
Amsterdam. 1996, he
left
behind four
decades of work held in private collections
respected
and
museums around
the world.
Right: Photographs
Rudy Burckhardt
h\
of Six States of
Woman
I,
1950-52.
and
this
word
"attitude"
changes
in his
usage in
much
the
"light," "ordinary,"
same way
certain
W1LLEM DE KOONING
shapes change according
them
how he
to
BY BILL BERKSON
tilts
or the colors they wear. In 1949,
in a talk
about movements
from
art as distinct
his
own
Kooning
painting, de
said:
someone who makes
How
it.
it
-
life
"An
of
artist is
He
art too.
started
modern
feelings for
and the professional
tradition
invent
in
didn't
'the hell
Berkson
Bill
with
and
Poet, critic, teacher, it,
is
it
The
obvious that has no progress.
idea of space
change
if
is
sometime
has been active in art and
given to him to
he can. The subject matter
Berkson
curator,
literary
worlds throughout
The author of
his career.
in
fourteen books of poetry,
the abstract attitude.
is
The
He
space.
fills it
attitude never
with an
including Saturday Night:
Poems 1960-61, Shining Enigma Variations, Blue Is the Hero, and Lush
comes
Leaves,
from himself alone." it
didn't intend "attitude'' in the
Columbia at the
more I
recent, negative sense of affecting a nastily argumentative stance.
believe,
is
closer to the
one
He
York City in 1939.
should be obvious that de
Brown and
studied at
Kooning
New
he was born in
Life,
Here
in classical
dance vocabulary, having
to
De
Kooning's sense,
and
Universities
New
York University
Institute of Fine Arts.
do with how parts of During the
the body are arranged: for example, lifting the body from the toes of one foot,
Berkson
'60s,
wrote poetry, edited, and
up and
taught literature workshops
outward, with one leg out behind and bent - a balancing that lasts only a couple of seconds or
(from Webster's Tenth): "a
...
act, like
has to be regained.
it
state of readiness to
respond
Or
Mercury's classic one,
and more
else,
in a characteristic
The
at
New
School in
New
York and at Yale. In 1970 he
to the point
way
moved west
to California
where he edited the
to a
magazine Big Sky. In the
stimulus (an object, concept, or situation)." Here
is
de Kooning on
how he
works,
he returned
'80s,
and contributed mercurially, told a
TV
from scratch:
interviewer:
be able to get out of
"It's
"I
a
see the canvas and
necessary
1
begin."
evil to get into
And
for the affective part, as
the work, and
it's
he
to
many
journals and anthologies
including Artforum,
pretty marvelous to
Modern Paper,
it."
to writing,
Painters, Art
and American
on
Craft.
Since 1988 he has been the
De
Kooning's great old friend was Edwin Denby, the poet and dance
the artist in the '30s
West 21st
Street,
when
critic
who met
corresponding editor for
Art in America.
his kitten
wandered
off the fire escape into Edwin's loft
on Berlzson's
and Edwin then found out who had been playing Louis Armstrong,
many awards Thomas
include the Dylan
flamenco, and Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms on a phonograph with the volume turned
Memorial Award for Poetry
and grants from
the Poets
Foundation, the National
f
&
I
v
Endowment for the Arts, and the Artspace Award for Art Criticism. He has taught and directed public lectures at the
San Francisco Art
Institute since 1994.
Above:
Woman,
I,
7950-52,
Oil on canvas,
64 x 58
Museum
in/ 193
x 147 cm.
of Modern Art,
New
York.
297
WRITERS ON ARTISTS
way up seems
next-door building. Nowadays, the idea of art as a form of social behavior
in the
lost in the
Denbys memoir
mists of time.
of de Kooning in the 30s, written in
hometown New York
1957, conveys the feeling of simultaneously making and inhabiting a culture during the depression years; as the stuff of manifestos but as
"WlLLEM DE
paintings of his
It's
little
his
something extending from what Baudelaire called work.
in the
impression that Denbys writings on de Kooning are too
observed, although for
A
many
writers of
my
little
known, or
else too
generation they long ago settled into the
couple of excerpts should give you the flavor of them:
New York
In the presence of
the end of the '30s, the paranoia of surrealism
at
looked parlor-sized or arch. But during the war
only a few years of
my
category of basic texts.
generation, but he did so for
conveys the understanding that attitude matters, not
"temperament" — an everyday sensibility manifest
Kooning painted some of the best
it
me
Bill told
he had been walking uptown
STRETCH MY ARMS AND WONDER WHERE MY FINGERS ARE - THAT IS ALL THE SPACE I NEED AS A PAINTER." "IF
very long
CAREER."
—Hilton Kramer
I
one afternoon and
corner of 53rd and 7th; he had noticed a
at the
peculiar gestures in front of his face.
A
butterflv
nature
had attacked the Parisian poet
man
to a
is
Talking to
For
me
the middle of
and
Bill
to
Budv
many
for
vears,
I
found
the after-image (as Elaine de Kooning has called
reminds
me
is,
sense
is
a
I
am assuming
seems
In 1951, de
to
me
means
to
wherever
my
seems
make me peaceful
spirit
The
becomes
allows
me,"
me
T.
J.
Clark
of the ways people
of oneself, or others, or of one's
to be,
and I
ones
in early
didn't
in
be ashamed. The joke of
everyday
life,
art
and no better
in that the expression of character the
and
later ones,
Museum
though the scope of
it
of
Modern
Art in
New
and
York on
course of which he famously said: "Spiritually that
is
I
am
not necessarily in the future... Art never
always seem to be wrapped in the melodrama of
came home
Berkeley on
to
me
afresh thanks to a talk given a
Hans Hofmann and
Clark shrewdly pinpointed vulgarity as a positive factor
and he
to
it is
prodigious.
in the
or pure.
in
later
his talk at the
force of those sentences
few years ago by
it,
became one
depression pictures have kept
one knows what
that
same kind
of the
Kooning gave
Abstract Art
fun with
So hospitable
did not see with a painter's eye.
it)
Bill's
make one ashamed
resemble the
the performance in later ones
vulgarity."
I
magnanimity more steady than one notices
justified. Bill's early pictures
to
New York.
of the beauty that instinctive behavior in a complex situation can have, mutual
surroundings either.
picture has
The beauty
a moral image.
actions one has noticed that do not
"\\ hat
in
fighting off a butterfly.
of genius.
behave together, that
in this
was Breton and he was
It
man who was making
in
abstract expressionism.
Hofmann's
mention de Kooning's "melodrama."
It
art.
struck
He had
me how
a lot of
correct he
WILLEM DE KOONING
was about some degree de Kooning and
down
as ex-Europeans,
Rothko, as well. In
to early
more
the middle, or
(whose trouble, Clark
"Tenth Street")
literalK at the
was
in
\
another wax
to Clyffbrd Still,
ulgarity divided the
midtown mark: "uptown"
New
and maybe
York School
artists like
Newman
he was "never vulgar enough") or Rothko, and most
that
were never
artists like
and
the intrusion of
fact,
says,
especially Motherwell,
being crucial to Abstract Expressionism - especially to
ol vulgarit)
Hofmann
BY BILL BERKSON
the
in
same league
vulgarity-wise with
"downtown"
(or
de Kooning, Krasner, Kline, or even Pollock (although Pollock
was supposed be aligned with the tormer "uptown" group).
Be
aswim
that as
all
American
in
may, the word "vulgar" means one thing to the keen
it
slang,
and something
else to an astute English art historian
Dutchman
who
quotes
on the topic not from de Kooning hut from Jane Austen, John Ruskin, Matthew
liberally
Arnold, and George Eliot. Strictly speaking, "vulgarity" of vernacular energy wafting in from street level of
little
where the action
assumptions of
is. It is
—
or call
- has been
a
it
simply any rude sampling
constant sign in Western
art
what everybody knows, as against the cloistered, protectionist
- behaving
official taste. Oil paint
as
it
does -
is,
or can be, "vulgar enough."
Untitled, 1961, oil on canvas,
80 x 10 in/203 x
As de Kooning sensibly
poems speak
O'Hara's \Tjlgarity"
and argue
alive as the vulgar."
was the reason
recalled, "Flesh
oil
paint
Daws
was invented." Frank
of "love's life-giving 1.
r
'
1
78 cm.
Collection.
j
for a poetry "at least as
O'Hara once met de
Kooning hurrying back
to his studio
on Tenth
Street with a blue box of Kleenex under his
arm:
"I've
been out buying some environment,"
de Kooning
said.
was part of de Kooning's genius
It
to
invent a kind of English as well as a vocal pitch perfectly suited to
he had
at
communicate the
any particular moment. This
"beautiful lingo" (as Robert it),
a kind of
emitted
calls
urban American Mandarin
gorgeous malapropisms
dumpling" -
like "I'm
no countrx
bumpkin,"
for "country
but conflating
I
"Humpty Dumpty" and
guess,
He once
Rudy
told
"What you do when you
paint,
I
"ugly
- and some wonderfully accurate
redoubling.
full
Rauschenberg
stubby staccato bursts, allowed for
in
duckling"
attitude
%>
Burckhardt:
you take a brush
of paint, get paint on the picture, and you
have fate" (that
is,
"faith"
with a Dutch accent).
299
\\
Rl
1
1
R.s
ON
AR!
makes sense
It
George Balanchine, the other
that
closest to Denby's heart,
just de Kooning's
women
music and long-legged American
tastes in
Denby
would share not
artist
but what
and "force of expression"
called "a love of style"
that
could not be divided and that just got more limber with age. Balanchine's neo-classical court dance in Agon, set to Stravinsky's score, premiered in 1957, the
Kooning's "highway" pictures. As
same year
Denby described
as de
"Agon
it,
shifts traditional actions to
an off-balance balance on which
they swiftly veer. But each
move
top pitch. Nothing
grace
way out on
retracted.
is
a
character
trait
as
extended
The ardent exposure
...
noted early on
Clement Greenberg
In 1955,
is
is
that of
O'Hara remarked, in the
is
de Kooning
pride"
literature.
identified de Kooning's
"Luciferian pride" with an ambition that "were he to realize all
at
a limb."
"The subject of Agon,
-
large or small,
it,
other ambitious painting would have to stop for a while
because he would have
set
limits for a generation to
its
forward as well as
come." Were he
to realize
Kooning/Lucifer, the fallen rebel archangel forget that the
name
Lucifer
means "bearer
backward
its
— and
it,
let's
of light"
de not
— would
upset the tidy cosmic order of Greenberg's dialectical
"modernism," which
is
pretty
much what happened
ultra-modernity of de Kooning's wayward
As the years went Untitled, 1970, oil on vellum
by,
in the
art.
Greenberg was more and more
pains to qualify and corner de Kooning's achievement. This titanic struggle (for such
at
it
mounted on canvas,
72x43 in/183 x 108 Daws Collection.
cm.
was)
is
paralleled by anyone's attempt to nail
down
the ultimate quality yes or no, of de
Kooning's individual phases or works. Without abjuring for an instant whatever critical
powers
I
might possess,
I
would argue
that de Kooning's paintings both oddly
and
regularly
U
Flesh was the reason OIL PAINT WAS INVENTED. work
to defer or
sit still
for
it.
render achingly provisional any such judgement.
When
There was
much
less
discussion of the late pictures
300
paintings just won't
the tallies were in on the 1994-5 retrospective, no two critics agreed
on which were de Kooning's best years, best paintings, or where fallen off.
The
>3
his level had,
if
ever,
agreement, in fact a kind of across-the-board stalemate,
shown
a year later.
A de
Kooning can be
in
just as vulnerable
W1LLEM DE KOONING
as
any other painting
to context
and disposition.
It's
process transfers to the viewer. Your principles just
Susan Rothenberg recently with Matisse
because
I
is
don't
that
I
to analyze
and forms." Analyzing
like his airs
a
him.
when 1
just
he's
- but
of
down
fill
with them.
When
Balanchine died
painter,
way he put
it
on and
standards the
way Hofmann,
internally, favoring the
to the contrary tugs
the airs of their eras so utterly that you feel lucky to be contemporary in
1983, one admirer took the news as proof positive of
some phase had come and gone,
chilization"; certainh
that full anv more. \\ ith the
the remnants of which
end of de Kooning's able-minded
one painting culture, perhaps Western-style painting
itself as
life
At the San Francisco Art
students: "Painting
Institute, a few years back,
seems an old man's business. After
focuses on
streets
and to
on the
downtown
was to witness a vision whose even
eclipsed his
own
SHADOW."
—Robert Raiischenberg
as a
accumulated and it
Alex Katz told a group of
a certain time you're out of
you just paint masterpieces." The sense of "masterpiece" here it
50s
early '60s, see Bill
for
sustained in de Kooning's hands, runs out. Unless, of course, you take the attitude that doesn't.
-
opening out rather than
exposed
is
4
"In the I
aura
artists
would never be
the
logic.
Some
end of
like
I
of what they might show or become, one
ones own sensational
"the
good painting or a bad painting
a
that
"The problem
of critical timing, or even necessity, and certainly, consistency Just as
de Kooning's pictures contradict themselves the closing
the skids.
de Kooning puts you up against a certain tenuousness
my
BERKSON
the "slipping glimpse" of his
done
know
not of critical standards exactly (he doesn't trouble instance, does)
hit
if
told of having similar troubles with Matisse:
can't ever figure out
know how
as
BY BILL
is
it,
and
professional and precise;
condition of impersonal mastery not on the object as
artistic activity in a
having anv value other than as evidence of that condition. painting has been, can be, and simply
is:
"Here
is
De Kooning showed what
the song,
it
goes
like this."
Or
like
on annus.
easel
Untitled XIX, 7985,
oil
cm.
one
77x88 in/20 x 224 Daws Collection.
of Denby's sonnets:
Alex Katz paints his north window
A
bed and across the
City day that
I
street, glare
within know
Like wide as high and near as far
New York Itself
School friends, you paint glory
crowding closer further
Lose your marbles making What's
From
in a
name -
it
it
regathers
within, a painting's silence
Resplendent, the silent roommate
Watch him.
not a pet, long listen the stone heartbeat
Before
glory,
When
he's painted himself out of
De Kooning
it
says his picture's finished.
301
WRITERS ON ARTISTS
Ed Ruscha by Julian Mitchell
SOMETIME
THE 70s, knowing how much
IN
me back from
producer friend brought
The Sunset
Ed Ruscha Born
Nebrasha
in
in
1937,
Ruscha's early interest was
Strip.
photos of both sides of the
There
is
work of Ed Ruscha,
a film-
unfolded, a montage of black-and-white
even numbers on top, odd numbers upside-down below.
street,
no written commentary,
liked the
Los Angeles a copy of Every Building on
when
27-foot long
It's
I
it is
simply the Strip in
all its
sun-soaked melancholy, the
cartooning; as he matured, he
was intrigued with Surrealism
houses, shops, bars, hotels,
and the Dadaists. After studying at the Chouinard Art Institute and at the school for
billboards.
Walt Disney
illustrators,
he
filling stations,
Ruscha must have taken
his pictures in the early
few cars about and even fewer people. What he was
eventually settled iu Los
Angeles, where he taught
printmaking
at the
University of California.
car showrooms, restaurants, banks, parking
plane.
It's
like a
Western town
and everything behind than a film set
it is
A
in a way.
after,
morning, because there are
he has
storefront plane of a
The famous
just nothing."
lots,
said,
"was that storefront
Western town
is
just paper,
heart of Hollywood, then,
is
no more
itself.
After achieving prominence
with collages similar to those
of Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, Ruscha later
"When I began
my paintings were of words which
produced paintings consisting of
words and images that were
simultaneously obvious and
ambiguous. During the '60s
and
'70s,
materials
were gutteral utterances like Smash, Boss, Eat. Those words were like flowers in a vase"
he used unorthodox
-
chocolate,
blood, medicine,
and gunpowder —
to create silk-screen prints. In
the '60s, he also published his
unique book
projects,
painting, all
Some
Los Angeles Apartments and Thirty-four Parking Lots in
A
Between two empty
Los Angeles.
retrospective of
Ruscha 's
work was arranged by the San Francisco
Museum
Art in 1982.
A
and above
Donen's movie Arabesque. able to find
of Modern
traveling
lots,
my name,
It
Hollywood. But Ed Ruscha
my
was
though
I
first film,
doubt
the
is
a car rental agency,
it;
artist
is
a
huge sign advertising Stanley
and with a microscope you might
writers famously don't count for
who
much
just
be
in
has best captured the aching thinness of
exhibition, beginning in
2000, went
Museum
to the
in
D.C., the
Hirshom
Californian city
life.
To have
my
Museum
of
say.
I
Contemporary Art, Chicago, and the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford.
feel
it
gives
me
real
Ruscha was born
in
one of
his
in
LA
street cred, for all
Omaha, Nebraska,
in
its
books delights
me more
than
I
can
empty worth.
1937, and grew up in
1956, aged nineteen, he and a writer friend drove to later
celebrated in song and a
TV
Mexico, Arizona, and California. to
302
movie
Washington,
him and, according
to
most
series. It
LA
The journey took them through
probably
still is.
City. In
from Oklahoma along Route 66,
was the most important thing
critics,
Oklahoma
that
Texas,
New
had ever happened
ED RUSCHA BY JULIAN MITCHELL
In
one of three excellent
America before going
now
a ghost of
its
Ruscha lour years the landscape It
was easy
to
articles in the catalogue of the big
to the
Oxford
MOMA
former
sell.
later,
was awed by
1
in
I'm sorrj to hear
was overwhelming. The imagine onesell back
a
could through the barren wilderness;
its
Ruscha exhibition
that traveled
2001-02, Kerry Brougher says Route 66 it.
Making more
or less the
is
same journey
as
astonishing desolate beauty. The sheer size of
light
was pure, the heat
hundred or, just
violent, the colors amazing.
years, a frontiersman
30 years
earlier, as
Okies, desperately struggling towards the promised land
pushing as
fast as
he
one of John Steinbeck's Julian Mitchell in England in 1 935,
of California.
Born
There was nothing thousands of years of
soft or
human
the climate unforgiving. But
European here, no sense of
occupation. I
loved
it,
I
On
a
world that had been tamed by
the contrary, the landscape was often hostile,
loved the sheer inhumanity, the sense that
human
Mitchell was educated at
Winchester College and
at
Oxford, where he began his writing career in 1961 with the novel Imaginary Toys.
known
Best
as a playright,
the prolific writer has
succeeded in including
many forms,
noi'els,
television, film,
He
the theater,
and
radio.
achieved success in 1977
with the play Half-Life, hut it
was the 1981 drama
Another Country
that
brought him critical acclaim, including the Society of West
End
Theatre "Play of the
He
Award.
Year"
later
adapted the play for film and
went on
to write screenplays,
including Vincent and
Theo, August, and Wilde.
He
continues to write for
the screen
Howl, 1986,
78x64
in/1
and
acrylic
98 x
J
stage.
on canvas,
63 cm.
Private collection.
303
WRI ERS ON ARTISTS 1
life
- and
there wasn't
run motels a
much beyond
- was extremely
precarious. There
few flimsy structures above
the whole
lot
would vanish.
was
In the
main
I
felt free
24
HOUR
Most
I
painters, faced with the
or something worse
My
yet
Britishness
arrived in
LA
I
found
- and
all
night:
intensely exhilarating.
it
was vanishing away
in the rear mirror
ready to begin an altogether
new
life.
cinemascopic grandeur of that landscape, simply
though David Hockney brought interpretation to Rocky
floor,
from Los Alamos,
on and off
a sign flashed
SERVICE. And
of class, upbringing, culture.
with every Burmashave billboard.
—
street of Globe, Arizona, not far
where horribly apocalyptic things were being done,
GLOBE MORTUARY -
on the desert
a thin layer of concrete
only needed one good tornado
it, it
Mormon-
truck stops and gas stations and diners and
wilt,
his individual
Mountains and Tired
Indians. (There are also his later photo-montages of
And
desert roads.)
some powerful from inside mirrors.
in the '60s
paintings of
cars,
Alan d'Arcangelo did
empty highways seen
sometimes through rearview
But Ed Ruscha
is
the only
artist
who
captured the experience of driving what he
has
calls
the "continuously moving, mindless miles," the idiot banality of billboards
Standard Station, Amarillo, Texas, 1963,
oil
rushing toward you, the
spiritual
emptiness of the paper towns, the anonymous comfort of almost identical gas
stations.
He
on canvas,
65 x 124 in/1 65 x 315 cm.
Hood Museum
of Art, Dartmouth
their
College, Hanover.
did
it
companion
become almost Route 66.
It is
through his emblematic paintings and prints of Standard stations, and
piece, his
first
too famous, for far
photo-book, Twenty-six Gasoline Stations. These have
work
of his later
little
refers directly to the journey along
more about what he found when he
arrived in the land
where the
promises usually turn out empty.
Ruscha had seen very few paintings before he went
seemed "an almost
painting itself
to
LA, except
latter
"Ruscha's is
work
not beyond A
BIT
OF
which
at first
first
art at the
most interested him.
He
Chouinard Art
felt
seemed nothing more
Jasper Johns, Target with Four Faces.
reproduction in Print Magazine but
it
It
damn
oil
Institute in
painter was
LA,
it
was the
frustrated by Abstract Expressionism, then to
be done with
was only
a one-inch
it.
And
then he saw his
by two-inch black-and-white
showed him the way forward. As Neal Benezra puts
MYSTICISM."
"In Johns,
—
turned that mastery against the soul-baring ethos of the Abstract Expressionists." Ruscha's
Kerr) Brougher
only other
met the
Ruscha found an
art
artist
who had mastered
encounter of equal importance seems
artist at a
Duchamp was
304
and commercial
the dominant genre; there
and
obsolete, archaic form of communication." "Newspapers,
magazines, books, words [were] more meaningful than what some doing." Studying fine
in reproduction,
"a
show
in
Pasadena
in
1963.
He
the processes of painting but
to
very
have been with Duchamp,
much
it,
who had
when he
liked the ready-mades.
non-painterly person in a painterly world." After Johns, Rauschenberg, and
]
|
'
Duchamp, he
tradition, free to
The !
from
felt free
artist.
liberation took various
V
forms. As well as the Standard Stations series, searchlights,
some with
some with
1 1
%
%l/ H 0r
Western
torn
pulp novels, some with stuffed
Uw olives.
1
he did the 20th Century Fox logo. equally large, equally commercial design, also with searchlights. his versions of the
Hollywood
in
As with sign,
I 1 OVER IN VALLEY VIEW 1
it
1
gives off the air of having nothing
behind
it.
Meanwhile he was
He
doing his photo-books. .
he thought of the
title
BY JULIAN MITCHELL
all
own
be his
RUSCHA
ED
also
claims that
of Tuentx-six
LIVE
Gasoline Stations, and imagined the cover, before
the photos.
he went out and took
(He draws
his books,
before or after making them, and he
draws their contents, the apartment buildings etc., as well as
photographing them. There
is
no
sense of one form of recording being
more important than first
book can be read most simply
LA
a record of a journey from
Oklahoma, with the gas plot points
AND
another.) This as
back
^
nw
Kirwi w raw
to
stations as
Hk,
on a road map. Someone
Above, top to bottom:
has worked out that Ruscha must
Golden Words, 1985, dry pigment and acrylic on paper, 40 x 60 in/ 102.x 153 cm. Collection of Frito Lay
have been driving 400 to 500 miles a day,
which
are other
is
about
ways
right.
to read
it,
But there
YOU
1
and the
Corporation. I
Live Over In Valley View,
pastel
deadpan presentation leaves you find your
own.
the driving the
the book
is
Is
it
conceptual?
w ork of
art,
of
to
21 x 29 in/54
AND
it
may be
975,
x
73 cm.
Private collection.
Was
We're This and We're That. Aren't We?, 1982, pastel on paper, 23 x 29 in/54 v 73 cm.
which
a record? Neville
Wakefield suggests
1
on paper,
Private collection.
a secular
form of the Stations of the Cross, a
ME
You and Me, 7 985, dry pigment on paper, 23 x 29 in/59 x 74 cm. Private collection.
305
WRITERS ON ARTISTS
symbolic Calvary of a lapsed Catholic.
buy
don't
Ruscha has
that myself, but
certainly used religious ideas Political ones, too
the book Royal Road
I
and images.
- perhaps. For he threw an
Test,
old Royal typewriter out of a car traveling at
90 mph, then solemnly photographed
and recorded the an important
result as
if it
had been
A
scientific experiment.
joke? Yes, of course. But wait a minute,
why
Throwing
window,
a Royal out of a car
defenestrating saying, this
own
some other make?
a Royal, not
him
or her? Is
California,
is
history here,
we
Ruscha
we make our
don't
want any of
European baggage - out the
that old
window with
my own
it?
Or
is
this just
me, with
European baggage? Either
old
way, the book
is
typically enigmatic.
Thirty-four Parking Lots in Los
Angeles, Real Estate Opportunities,
Some
Los Angeles Apartments, and the other Rancho,
60 x 54
i
968,
in/ 152
oil
on canvas,
x 137 cm.
Collect ion of the Artist.
photo-books contain apparently random, apparently
artless, usually
black-and-white photos
of utterly banal subjects. Together they encapsulate the whole spirit of that sweaty, gasolinetainted,
unmanageably
Magical? Yes.
large
One
and
it.
go back
I
I
still
of Ruscha's teachers
rather ride around in a car in
whenever
but
lonely,
still
LA
drive
magical,
was Robert
than do anything
else.
when he
first
got there in
unlike the ones Ruscha
and the
first
I
1964-65 and drew
is it.
who once
said he'd almost
understand that completely, and streets simply for the sake of
Hockney caught some
street signs
of this
and apartment blocks not
was then drawing and photographing.
However commercial art,
Irwin,
around the endless anonymous
There's nowhere to go, nothing to see, the driving
feeling
city.
his training,
thing to strike one
is
Ruscha quickly mastered the techniques of
how much he was
still
fine
influenced by the Abstract
Expressionists in his early work. Boss, for instance, seems to be challenging Rothko,
with
its
bars of
painterliness called
him
when he
306
a
somber
becomes Pop
The influence
less important, the
artist,
took on Little
color.
of
New York,
words and
though, quickly evaporates,
their typography
more
so.
People
because he sometimes used imagery from comic books, though
Orphan Annie,
it
was the "Annie" and
its
typography that
ED RUSCHA
interested him, not the
little girl
or her plight.
those mostly shadows.)
The Pop
label also
and Ranch),
came from
for instance, are traditional oil
in globs of goo.
There are \er\ few people
I
on
cam as
Move
but look as though they're painted
wonder whether Ruscha was aware
of
Edward
model of the building where the characters
Fire
and the buildings begin
to either side,
is
like a
to leap
Albee's pla\ Tin) Mice, in
are
li\
work, and
in his
his exceptional skill at illusion. City
The celebrated Los Angeles Count) Museum on
exercise in perspective.
ing catches tire at the
Renaissance
"He can take
and
an image and,
which
rear. (\
a scale
same time
through changes
as
OF COLOR
the building itself?)
He
BY JULIAN MITCHELL
AND
didn't like being called a
he seems regularly and genuinely
Pop
artist.
It
made him "nervous and ambivalent," and
have distrusted his
to
own
gifts.
Just
when he seemed
SUBTLE
ADDITIONS OF to
IMAGERY, CREATE have achieved success as an
he came back
oil
painter he gave up painting altogether for two vears.
A it
was not
to oil
and cam
as but to peculiar stains
is
wouldn't
in
for another.
is
He
be pinned down. even whited out
No his
suspect he
for a while,
BRAND OF Pop, it
reinvented film
titling in
His liking for
of the tatty
film, his love of the
back of the
H
myth
of the movies,
of the
Hollywood
at the
painted from behind.
which takes
wigwams
He its
same
time.
The sunset
can be found everywhere.
Hie Americans, which contains
it
a totally
is
Hollywood sunset backdrop,
even more Hollywood when the sign
uses grainy cinematic effect in pictures such as the
image from countdown film
are reproduced as though in a badly
a picture
But Ruscha made the sign his own,
sign.
invoking nineteenth-century sublimity by giving
and loving
who
the '50s and 60s.)
Critics have pointed out a debt to Robert Franks'
9,8,7,6,
— Laura Jauku
writer has pointed out, they are like words in film credits, huge on the screen,
detached from ordinary use. (Ruscha attended lectures by the famous Saul Bass,
ironical
and Conceptual art." Surreal,
and they had seemed absolutely
essential to his art, free-floating images, suggestive but troublingly imprecise in meaning.
As one
HIS
PARTICULAR I
sooner does he master one form, than he abandons
words
THAT
equalized egg yolk on satin; Very Angry
cherry stain on moire. Are the materials relevant to the subject?
like to
SERIES
on unusual surfaces. His
FURTHERS
rueful joke about beach sex, SiiuJ in the Vaseline,
People
When
worn
leader, or
End
is
series or
Western, where a pair of
print of a silent Western.
The Back of Hollywood, 1977, oil
But words have usualk mattered more than cinema images. Commissioned by Miami-
on canvas,
22 x 80 in/56 x 201 cm. Vlusie d'arl Contemporain, Lyon.
W,
\\ Rl 11
Ri
ON
Boy Meets
ARTISTS
Girl,
7
987, acrylic on
Dade
Public Library, Ruscha
came up with
a
quote from Hamlet: "Words Without Thoughts
canvas, 72 x 72 in/ 183 x 183 cm. Prix-ate collection.
Never
many
to
Heaven Go." The words now
circle inside the
paintings and drawings, like the belt of Jupiter.
context in which they're said father, as
he
rises
from
is
not.
failed prayer.
They
are
dome
of the library,
killing
308
go to
through
They look simple enough, but the
to
be forgiven, but couldn't bring
himself to genuine repentance. Hamlet, watching and not knowing to
float
spoken by Claudius, murderer of Hamlet's
He had wanted
pardoned Claudius, and wanting him
and
hell,
has just
this, afraid
- dramatic
irony!
-
God may
have
refrained from
him. The citizens of Miami-Dade will no doubt take the words as they receive them,
ED RUSCHA BY JULIAN MITCHELL
but I'm sure Ruscha. the ex-Catholic, means them- in as man) ways as possible.
The black-and-white tack.
They
acrylic pictures he did in the
are often wordless, or have the
he does, very somber
as everything
covering the sun
what
in
lor
tells
him when
a very traditional
am
and
interesting than his other work,
shoulder and
is
glad the
The
white, and you feel
is
scribbled over the grid
in
all
have no idea, but
The his recent
came up with
in the exhibition
large postcards, only there are white
One just
"Blast Curtain
";
to Bo)
looks over his
Meets Girl.
It
is
a
lights.
graffiti. \\
hen Ruscha
Five to Eleven, an astonishing airbrushed in front
of
it.
\\ hat
it
means
has three of
mountain peak paintings. They look
across them.
comes and
a terrific picture.
it's
room
last
find these less
that electricity challenging the
clock with a long cane, like a fishing rod. apparently floating I
1
cloud
seen from above, defined b\ street and car
romance and celebratory
just an excuse for car-borne
reverted to black and white he
says
time to move on, moved him on
its
LA
stars
religious. [Sin has a
metaphor.)
man he
blue night scene, the grid pattern of title is
out. They're as skillfully painted
sometimes directh
a\m.\
Ruscha
words whited
1980s were another change of
like
words written
says "The"; another has
the third has the
LA
street grid
superimposed, with "Sunset just where the setting
sun
lighting the top of the mountain.
is
challenger
beaut\
T
is
Is
he saying, the old notion
we have
dead,
know. Enigma
is all.
new one
a
Is
of
it
sublime
LA?
in
a
I
dont
Across the room are two verj
large sprav paintings of
what could be desert sand.
1
both crisscrossed with other versions of the Los
Angeles
grid.
to interpret
—
These Metro a
Plots
seem much
easier
wonderful new version of what
Ruscha has been painting
for nearly
40 years -
the joy of driving, the aridity of the journey the
thinness of the culture lovely tawdry
romance
Ruscha can draw
when you
arrive, the
of LA. like
otherwise, in graphite or
an angel,
gunpowder
lost or
or anything else that
comes
to
hand, and there are
The Mountain, 1998,
acrylic
on
shaped canvas,
many
beautiful drawings in the show. But he's ambivalent about drawing, as about
76 x 72 inll93x 183 cm. Private collection.
evervthing. Pencils appear in several early works, often broken, as though the artist wants to
break with fine
art,
or
is
dissatisfied with his dealings with
it.
An example
is
the early
Xoise. But the true noises of Ruscha's world are of a car door slamming, an engine starting, a
man on
his
w av
to
somew here new.
$09
\\
ON
RITERS
ARTISTS
Jules Olitski by Jules Olitski
WHEN
WAS YOUNG
I
would be
and the Jules Olitski Olitski
was born
in Russia in
would
1922, a feu months before the Soviet government.
me —
oh,
How
I
me what
for
What
others.
my
would make my
it
a Kahnweiler!
He would
me
never occurred to
living
was
the one
who
the legendary one had been for Picasso, Gris, Braque,
Kahnweiler could bring tears
Starting out in 1940
was executed by
his father
love
LONGED FOR KaHNWEILER: MY KAHNWEILER,
I
a scan' question:
my
to
that
I
understand
and he
art,
eyes.
would make money out of
my
art.
from making
art,
that
didn't feel, apart
I
my
mother and
Olitski' s
grandmother soon emigrated
I
was much good
at anything.
Times
are different now; given our current art scene,
with the child to the US, settling in
Encouraged
an aspiring
BrookUn.
artist
might well expect a quick mix of fame and fortune arriving around the
in art as a child,
he eventually studied
at the
same time
as his or her pubic hair.
National Academy of Design
For myself,
and the Beaux Arts Institute; he earned an M.A. from
Sew
I
York University.
saw myself
in
I
foresaw tough times, even martyrdom. Like a sponge,
Rembrandtesque
light,
while in surrounding shadow
impatient to feed. But Kahnweiler stood by me, and
Now
when my
art
I
soaked up angst.
art critics skulked,
triumphed, as
it
was
considered one of
America's leading color field
was expressionist, but soon he began
to
destined to do, and
fame and fortune and an adoring Jean Harlow were mine,
he was there, old and bald as a
saint.
I
imagined Paul Muni
in the part.
experiment with
What
stained paintings, leaving large areas of canvas bare
and saturating shapes with dense
finally, finally,
work
painters, Olit ski's early
He
color.
soon
my
art to
I
did not foresee was what
be turned down. In
a piece
value in long years of obscurity,
abandoned shape altogether and used rollers and spim guns to create what have
because nobody
is
if
I
it
w ould
time after time, year after year, for
wrote for Partisan Review
in 1978,
one doesn't go insane or become
looking, the habit of fooling
been called the first entireh
feel like
I
said:
"There
is
suicidal, in that, simply
around and trying things out gets
ingrained.
." .
True, but there must be a better way.
abstract versions of
As
Impressionism.
Throughout the '70s, Olitski
'60s
known (and
and
was one
of
art dealers
America's most influential painters. His
work was
of Art
mounted
never
learned along the
way
for
that there
or likely will be, a Kahnweiler.
Even the
I
suspect,
was
not a Kahnweiler.
of Fine Arts
Many years
Olitski continues to paint in
greatest cause of
and
exhibits internationally.
first-rate
Andre Emmerich,
Daniel Henry Kahnweiler,
real
produced a full retrospective.
his Florida studio
is,
friend
I've
a
one-man exhibition in 1969, and in 1973, the Boston
Museum
- my I
he never came.
know) some absolutely
still
example — but
chosen for the 1964 Venice Biennale. The Metropolitan
Museum
for Kahnweiler,
expectations with
age
reality."
- and even now
in
my
I
am
a slow learner.
mid-sixties, every
My
ago
I
heard someone
human
misery
lies in
say:
"The
confusing
childish fantasy lasted well into middle
now and
then,
I
am haunted
by
its
ghost.
IULES OL1TSK1 BY JULES OLITSKI
my
when
I
was
I
wasn't necessarily aiming tor a
in
early thirties
and then would be enough I
first
one-man show; one
lor the
time being.
I
m\ Kahnweiler.
earnest for
just
or
two paintings
wanted
in a
told myself
I
group show now
a loot inside a door. That's
wh.u
between dreams
told myself, I
m
began looking
I
had come back
one-man show
was divorced.
I
New
to
\ork after two wars
in Paris,
gallon on the rue St. Julien
in a tin\
le
on the Gl
land had had m\
Bill
Pauvre. called Galerie Huit).
1
had brought my
my
infant daughter to
parents in
Brooklyn to be taken care of euphemistically as they put
until,
it,
"\ou could get back on your feet." I
was close
to
cold-water
broke and living
believed
anyone
had much of
I
Kitchen.
flat in Hell's
don't imagine that
in a
1
knew
1
a future:
I
sure as hell didn't.
Somewhere
I'd
read that
peanuts could provide most, all,
not
of the nutrients anyone
needed I
if
lived
said,
I
reasonably healthy.
to stay
on peanuts and coffee. As
was close
to broke.
I
I
had
an army disability pension, but
most of
went
it
my
the care of I
my parents
to
daughter.
liked peanuts
and
for
Much
as
coffee, sooner or later
I
would
Above: Embarking, 2001, acrylic
and
get hankerings after meat, drink,
on canvas, 34
cigarettes.
tubes of stealing
I
oil
stole.
I
stole art supplies.
paint.
I
stole canvas.
I
from the rich and giving
filching a five-cent details in
my
I
filled
the deep pockets of
stole books.
to the poor:
Babv Ruth. While
mind's eve,
1
I
I
of this was fun.
was numb. There was nursing a coffee:
was on the
I
I
was scared
all
the time, even
Whv
didn't
planned bank robberies down
I
\
40 in/102
Collection of the
\
86 cm.
artist.
to the
when
most exquisite
always saw myself, right in the middle of everything, pistol
a cafeteria
in
floor.
climb out of the hole
on 42nd Street where
couldn't sleep in the cold-water
floor. I'd find
overcoat with
fancied my;elf a sort of Robin Hood,
me.
hand, fainting away from terror on a cold marble
None
my army
flat.
I
I
would
At night
book bindings chewed and wet when
I
was
in?
sit at
rats
I
know why.
don't
a table
all
took over;
came home
at
1
night
my
mattress
daybreak.
Left:
Demikov - One, 1957, and dn
spackle, acrylic resin, I
did
make
a stab at honest work.
I
got a job as a "barker" standing outside the Victoria
pigment on canvas, ?
movie theatre
in
Times Square,
in a
uniform
a
Libyan general might envy, chanting.
in/94 \ 94 cm.
Private collection.
J]
WRITERS ON ARTISTS
"Feature begins in five minutes ...
was so good
I
When
callers
named
dealer
they'd paid for
try I
my
drew
it
inside answering the phone.
was about,
I
made up
off accidentally as the hero fainted
was not the one described on the phone.
my
to begin
I
was
a blank, a
Or
monotonous blank. "We
don't
I
thought
I
need you, we
the refrain was varied with, "You're good, but
— he
is
rescued by
artist.
we
I
chose four paintings
went
I
57th Street, to
to
might have more of a chance. don't
don't
need you, we don't need
need
you.''
decided to
I
try
Why not?
gallery.
My appointment No
fake plots: usually
fired.
career as a professional
luck with the lesser-known galleries where
an important
ten.
work
to
could just about manage to carry - two under each arm. Off
I
you. "
me
feature begins in
...
Kahnweiler, played by Paul Muni. People complained that the movie
The time had come that
set
immediate seating
...
with Jean Harlow; sentenced to die in the electric chair for
artist in love
bank guard - the gun went
killing a art
manager
at this that the
now
going in
asked what movie was on and what
about a starving
an
...
Charles Egan Gallery on East 57th Street was for a
at the
one was around
Mr. Egan appeared, drink
until
He
hand.
in
me
offered
bit after
one.
I
"The time had come to begin my career as a professional artist." was the
figured this
sort of thing
even better when he looked
to bottom:
remember
de Kooning and a Franz Kline
a
as
good
958, spachle, acnlic
resin,
dr\
pigment on canvas,
60
\
and
hand
to say "I'm not
among
walls.
others.
gonna take you on."
A
as
good
group show was on;
But that was as good
When
I
asked
why
as
any of
as I
it
got,
not since
I
was
was
as cheery as the sliver of ice shrinking to nothing in
"Who needs you when
I've
got them?" Again that
said
something about how
I
wave
at
the walls.
could use some encouragement, that
I
wasn't a kid, that
47in/152x 122 cm.
Collection of the
Whore
artist.
I'd
been around "and
be
in a
just
knowing
my
paintings are here, in a gallery
—
all
I'm asking
is
to
of Babylon, 1958,
spachle, acnlic resin,
and
dr)
pigment on canvas. 73 a 59 in/185 x 150 cm. Collection of the
Moliere's Chair
artist.
-
and dn
pigment on canvas. "1 a ~4 in/182 x 1S~ cm. Collection of the
group show," but nothing doing.
"How
He
wasn't taking on any artists that year.
about next year?"
"No."
Three, 1959,
spachle, acnlic resin,
artist.
"Two
years, three years
—
five years.
I
don't care
how
long
it
takes, just so
I
know."
"Sony." "Well, that's just
goddamn
Poor Charles Egan. drink and just wanted
me
I
discouraging."
must have exasperated him. Maybe he was dying the hell out of there.
took a weary step back and closed one eye, as
312
on the
at the paintings
-
as "these guys,' his reply
his drink. I
a
good beginning that got
paintings and said, "Not bad, not bad
He waved
Late Madness of Wentworth, J
my
these guys."
because he went on Top
at
A
Kahnweiler might have done.
He
if
to
looked
like
measure
for another
he hadn't slept much.
me -
to
measure
me
for
He what?
JULES OLITSKI BY JULES OLITSKI
The tomb
unknown
of the
artist"
"Don't bullshit me," he halt grinned. "You'll quit painting quit.
can
I
tell
Sure,
I
the half of
it
thought, the son of a hitch
- where's
vulnerable than
There
I
me;
to
had
I
the other halt it
if
me
of the
do, while
was
I
So what?
fie
same
I'll
keep painting but
I
left
feeling a bit
alone,
art dealer
more
earlier.
Nagy Gallery on West 57th
was working with Tibor I
more
only
that's
remain grateful
to
at that
time.
He
Street.
did
him. Not that he was going to
I'd
he said
it;
been
What he
was standing
did
there,
on the phone and
to get
show von? Yon won't
artists in
from
along.
all
don't
no one sees the work? The power of the
dozen minutes
just a
met John Bernard Myers,
be one of the
getting
right.
future took a promising torn at the Tibor de
that gallery. Far
much
is
seemed awesome.
something none of the others had, and let
I
just looking at yon."
was coming home
My
if
call
Elinor Poindexter: "There's a
young
artist here.
As you know, Tibor
very good. isn't
think he's
I
new
taking on any
artists,
and since you're planning
open your own be looking painters."
for
gallery,
He made
He
you must
good new
Mrs. Poindexter to studio.
to
told
a date for visit
me
my
Mrs.
Poindexter had been the mone\
behind the Egan gallery but that she'd
become impatient w ith Third Day, 2000, acrylic on
Egan's drinking habits. It
was
canvas,
turned out that she herself was no advertisement
fine
by me. She was a handsome
her background. nervous. After
We
all,
drank
woman
know me, and
she looked at
the neighborhood
looked and finally said she didn't understand any of "I'm frightened. I'm afraid to
another look.
I'll
make
Temperance League, which
with the look and feel of upper-class
a hell of a lot while
she didn't
for the
a mistake.
my I'll
my
money
work. She seemed
was
40 x 48
in/ 102
x 122 cm.
Private collection.
in
fluttery,
scary.
She looked and
in the
summer and
paintings.
come back
take
decide then."
Dismaying, but there was
still
hope.
The summer was
five or six
months away.
I
could
313
W'RI
1
I
Ri
ON
A.RTISTS
do
between now and then. And who knows, she might
a lot of painting, terrific painting,
turn out to be the Bride of Kahnweiler. I
worked
like a crazy
man.
worked day and
I
me
without sleep. Gallons of coffee kept bouts of work
I
fancied
my
night, often days
awake; the paintings kept
and nights
me
time -
at a
fired up.
Between
future with the Bride.
my
This time she would really see she would too,
fall to
her knees. Finally
for
?
it
right:
to that effect.
Mr. Poindexter, Elinor's husband.
me,
would be seen.
art
would be seen. Bishop Berkeley had
be perceived" - or something
was
my
work. Enraptured,
a loving older brother, or
maybe
I
"To be
to
is
learned there
Maybe he would devoted uncle;
a
I,
could see the two of us pursuing exotic creatures
be, I
in
worked like a crazy man. i worked day and "i
night, often days
and nights at a time without sleep. Gallons of coffee kept me awake; the paintings kept me fired Mongolia.
One
house where
day, far in the future, the Bride
— we would journey
Mr. Poindexter
was born.
I
one afternoon on
until,
up."
All in
to
a boiling
a terrific six
summer
She looked
"Now
I
know
She anyone? Celebrations: Pink and Blue,
2000, acnlic on canvas,
44 x 24
in/1
12 x 61 cm.
Private collection.
didn
work
t
know anyone. Her
didn't look quite right.
Bar! That's
lit
up.
Now
to
know
the boys.
paintings will change."
it
Who
she
knew how
Become
"I
artists
I
to
won't risk showing you."
hung out with?
knowing anyone had
Bill,
was not
be kind. She wanted to help. Did
were the
My not
I
everything and this time she was certain.
for sure," she said.
tried to
where they hang out - Jackson,
you can. Get
314
face
at
months
day, Elinor
Poindexter returned. To be or not to be, indeed. be.
me and
Snovsk and find the
was
all, it
and
to help
to
part of the scene. That's
Go
know
told her
be the reason
me. "You must go
Franz, the boys.
I
I
to the
I
my
Cedar
there as often as
how
it's
done.
And your
JULES OLITSK1 BY JULES OLITSKI
I
knew about
Cedar
the
Street Bar.
had long ago -decided not
1
same reasons she was now urging me As things turned dealer.
was with her
I
The letdown
much
gave up.
Times Square.
and
In
through the night.
my
overcoat,
the
left
I
I
out,
my
enough
as
state,
capped
There were times
window
the
One had an
if I
me
a long time.
one movie
a lot of booze.
my
not use the two years
New York
by going to
will be,
cursecTsilently.
I
me
field jacket.
A
I
fiasco.
might have gone out floor.
had
I
1
dismal
was by the Bride of Kahnweiler
hadn't lived on the second
Why
always
pretty
day a boyhood friend named Hal Dareff turned up.
idea.
me and
become my
my army
slept in
1
apartment when
in that
I
alter another; three got
shoes to cover the holes.
it
the
only to go to the movies along
feet inside the sleeves of
put newspaper inside
to
the steps that day and out of the building,
flat
drank
and
legs
She became dear
gallery for seven years.
of that day stayed with
much
to.
out, about five or six years later, Ellie Poindexter did
down
but watching her go
go there - for
to
on the GI
left
become
University. "Get a degree,
He
Bill
a college
Deep professor."
could kid
I
sat
so,
as the family
new
among
I
W.
handsome I
drank myself
Post,
at night.
the moron;
my
my
lot for
two years by going
enough,
all
to school
that Hal Dareff
wb
acrylic
on
30 x 40 in/76 x 102 cm.
Collection of the
aiiist.
a
and getting the
had proposed became
seemed insane and
my
a
new baby
was pushing
thirty-six.
wife, reclaimed kid, I
dealer during the time
art
To save time and subway from the downtown artist
I
and
fares,
NYU
had met
I
It
was
a
new
life.
I
endless, and thought
campus.
in Paris,
I
I
Long
was taking courses attic
brought his brother Lou to liked Lou.
A
to time.
his next
New Talent
show. After he
another
New Talent
show.
A
left,
few vears
I
He
said
my
attic.
attic,
he really
was that drawing was
believed
every fleck
spatter
and
in
and
and loop
drip of the
painting."
—Matthew Collings
gallery
something of mine would be featured
waltzed around the
later
painted
slow-speaking
he definitely had the Kahnweiler stamp about him. His
show s from time
I
"What
everywhere,
at
on Greene
loved going to school.
I
Island
daughter, were living in
had moved into an
director of the Peridot Gallery, a very good gallery.
New Talent
Socket, 1999,
canvas,
me, was the
future, they told
of the art department at a liberal arts college out on
sensitive, meditative type,
Me? As
I
silly.
Reginald Pollack, an
Lou was the
kids, at the least
Sometimes both.
old stone house in Northport.
University.
more
wife, reclaimed daughter, college professor.
and we,
Street, a stone's throw
had
dummy,
had but one experience with an
New York
remarry, and have
the professors at faculty meetings that
became chairman
called C.
maybe
could become a college professor was a laugh.
attractive. Incredibly
Master's degree,
I
I
the idea of escaping
money was
of suicide.
a
idea that
kid,
or death in the electric chair.
r
Even
real:
The
was regarded
Bill
my
could then reclaim
live better.
Bowen
GI
I
in
but Lou never put on
he died.
315
WR1 fERS ON AR1
ISTS
I
grew
No if
Maybe
a thick skin.
one gave
you did or
my
up on
damn —
a
it
was
a defence, a kind of protective device.
wouldn't give a damn.
I
didn't go for
my
work.
It
had nothing
I
future; like a horse with blinders,
would not matter
would keep
I
a dedicated handful of collectors, types like the
Not
to lose.
Cone
that
going.
With
More
suddenness
a
to the point,
I
had
I
had not foreseen,
Gertrude
sisters,
Why not
in Partisan
One
She wasn't
in.
Her
day
I
I
Review.
for art materials.
felt
I
Once
I
was
Back
give Kahnweiler another shot?
57th Street and the galleries on Madison Avenue. old thing. Nothing.
gave
had become respectable.
I
and money
a studio
painting better than ever.
me
I
imagined
I
and Leo Stein, Shchukine and Morosov, Barnes, Quinn, etcetera. imagined Clement Greenberg writing about
me
to
to
same
again the
had an appointment with Betty Parsons.
secretary looked at a pad. "Gee, I'm sorry. Miss
Parsons must have forgotten. She's gone for the day."
Not the end
of the world,
I
said to myself as
I
waited
at the elevator.
At that time the Parsons Gallery was on the same floor as Sidney Janis's.
The door opened and Sidney
get lucky. Top: Charge of Angels, 2000,
told
I
minute, Mr. Janis, would you look
him how
my
at
I
Janis stepped out.
happened
be there and
to
Maybe
said, "If
would
I
you have
a
paintings?"
acnlic on canvas,
20 x 26
in/51
x 66 cm.
On
Above: Origins Snovsk, 2000, acnlic on canvas,
the elevator down,
I
thought he could have
said:
"Why
don't you
make an
cm.
On
artist.
would
I
the sidewalk
ask an
I
I
swore
Is
it
would never put myself
I
my
work. Terrific!
studio that night, looking around,
thought about that a
I'm good? trying
I
dealer to look at
art
my
Northport. In
something
How come
lot.
in
my
art? In
I
I
in that position again.
felt lifted
up. Free.
I
I'm always turned down, even
when
to
they say
me? What would convince them? So many
figured
had
it
to
Somehow
be me.
I
was
in
my own
way. Yes, that
was
years of
operated on some other
convince them.
to
my
not put
You have
to
hat
I
would take more than
art to
wasn't
None
of this
- but what? I
could have done - something
before an art dealer and say: "Hey!
show my work." No,
wasn't talking about \\
for
there something
my work
it
It
Kahnweiler - but where was the elusive son of a bitch? Unconventional
measures were called
Was
level;
it.
good from bad. They
tell
1
home
drove
what do you do now?
said to myself: so
the dealers: they lacked conviction, they couldn't necessarily
art.
Never again
and nothing had worked.
would apply
316
mail yet," he said and kept going.
appointment?"
45x71 in/114x ISO Collection of the
my
haven't looked at
"I
Collectio>i of the artist.
myself-
had arrived
at
if
was
I
I
Look
I
could not do? That was
at
these paintings. This
could not say such things.
was talking about someone
a crazy answer, bizarre
I'd
it
is
I
could
great
rather boil a goat. But
else ...?
- though
it!
I
had
my
answer.
seemed profoundly
if
JULES OLITSKI BY JULES OLITSKI
reasonable
stomach
the time.
at
1
of sour No's.
full
thought of anything
else.
would invent an
I
had I
would had
I
artist;
to
the
no one could ever see him
artist:
time;
I
Demikov had been permitted Academie des Beaux
around
my one man
have
more dramatic
show: one shot
at
his history, the better.
the flesh but me.
in
a talented
had attracted the attention of Joseph
the
my own way and
fight the dealers in
I
was probably
had
would win.
I
it
I
was
A
all
I
I
a
hardly
asked.
kindjrf ghost
certifiably
mad
at that
hardly recognize myself.
So then: Jevel Demikov,
at
and usual, the conventional ways.
tried the straight
to
Arts.
young Soviet
He became
Stalin.
whose
socialist realist
Stalin's protege.
Thanks
canvases to Stalin,
spend the year of 1950
in Paris to further refine his skills
We
We
happened
showed modern
to the galleries that
artist
to meet.
became
Demikov was
art.
friends.
took him
I
enthralled and seduced. His
paintings turned abstract.
Back home
Moscow he painted
in
Red Army
workers,
his pictures of tractors,
made forbidden
heroes; at night in secret he
buxom maidens, art.
stalwart
Demikov showed
his
On
the First Day, 2000, acrylic on
canvas,
some
abstract paintings to
making what they took rampant cancer the
The for
OGPU
sniffed
be Modern Art. Like
to
spread
cells
was put ashore
one
him but me.
Demikov
on
I
his
He
Brooklyn.
had
to help.
Once
believe
what
kill
I
Hidden
would make the
My plan
The
Soviet
spot. Stalin
Demikov
I
hid
Museum
of
Here was
New
York
art
drove to Brooklyn and
obsessed.
I
breakthrough that
a
scene
spit.
involved Alfred Barr, the director of the
Modern
Art.
and asked
sent photographs. interested himself.
for
He
and would
I
wrote him about the plight
me
a
was
photographs of the work.
wrote and said he was I
please bring
As things turned
gallery to give
He
could hardly
of Demikov. Mr. Barr wrote back, saying he
interested
my
developed; there were a couple of
One
offshoots.
man
in
He had no
him on the
week
a
like a
saw.
I
x 102 cm.
a
brought him food and drink and paint and canvas.
was painting away
in! 122
they got him,
himself was demanding the head of friend in a cellar.
fled.
in
trail. If
they would
said,
48 x 40
Private collection.
and scowled. They went looking
a barrel, he
secret police were
cells of artists
USSR.
over the
all
Demikov, enemy of the people.
to help
Soon there were underground
of his fellow artists.
show
out, I
I
some
didn't
now
I
very
of the paintings to his office, and the artist
need
to follow through.
When
I
finally did get a
wrote Mr. Barr that Demikov had disappeared, probably
317
WR1
1
I
R.S
ON
ARTISTS
A
murdered.
last-resort plan called for hiring
interviewed by
Time and
Life
an
He would
actor, fluent in Russian.
He would wear
magazine reporters.
a
paper bag over his head
with holes cut out for his eyes and mouth. Through an interpreter he would
'The once thin
have to use the back-up plan.
didn't
I
This
Field's
his story.
tell
Demikov's paintings would be reproduced. Maybe something would happen.
Color
stains of
be
is
what
I
did: at the college
scheduled an exhibition called "L'Ecole de Paris
I
early Aujourd'hui."
I
borrowed paintings
for the exhibition
from some of the
any one of which would
my
suit
New York,
galleries in
heyday have
New York
purpose just
fine. In the late
1950s
None
of these dealers
knew me;
know
they took
in
City
was
it
evolved into a amazingly easy to arrange such a show.
memorably fruity of town, new, barely
known. As
far as
I
chaos of pigment, off with
a mixture
like
Paris,
U
and the
i
once high
and
serious
kitschy,
hard to forget."
I
was a
lovely show.
And
there,
my
word.
could have walked
I
cheek by jowl with the
had an announcement of the exhibition printed,
When
I
show ended
the
HAD BECOME I
happened, was the Alexander paintings; I
said
it
listing all the artists.
like a
He
I
He
"Ah,"
Demikov's
I
list
his
copy of the announcement
for his
of artists, "Matisse, Picasso, Miro, Leger, Dubuffet, de
stops short and looks at me. say, "of
story:
course you don't
"Who
is
know him.
how he had been seduced by
Demikov?"
this
He's
unknown
abstract
art, his
in
America."
return to the
I
tell
Mr. Iolas
USSR,
Stalin's
Iolas, a great artist
hiding in a cellar in Brooklyn. You must look at his work." "Well," he says, "I'm sympathetic. I
tell
him
I
"Bring I
them
I'll
them
bring
my
Microbus. "I'm on
my way
to
in."
them
looks closely at each painting.
he taking so long?
What does he
see?
telling myself: this is just the first stop.
turn
Could you bring some paintings?"
in."
bring the paintings in and lean
He
help.
I'd like to
have four Demikovs from the exhibition in
Brooklyn to return them.
is
handed him
it
asked about the exhibition.
tantrum, and the barrel ending up in Brooklyn and, "At this moment, Mr. is
stop, as
»
he would.
"Ah," he says, reeling off the Stael..."
My first
Mr. Iolas was expecting me.
Iolas Gallery.
show and would he
a beautiful
RESPECTABLE.
drove to the city to return the paintings.'
think one was' a Mathieu and one a Dubuffet.
I
had been
files? Yes,
—Robert Rosenblum
me down? Then what? Then
I'm getting old standing here.
-lis
stars of
With a suddenness had not
FORESEEN,
find these
paintings, at
Russian.
It
at
i
Book of Genesis. Whatever they are,
my
was
of saltwater taffy
that treasure.
all
me
the college was out
I'll
He
against a wall.
looks and looks. I'm standing behind him.
What
is
he thinking? I'm prepared
There are
get the
still
other galleries
.
.
.
for a
sure.
masked Russian and Time and
Why
No. I'm
And
Life...
if
they
Jesus
all
JULES OLITSKI BY JULES OLITSKI
Finally he stands, straightens up, turns around, looks
We
He's a genius.
must have
Can
I'm stunned.
want
him. All
to kiss
saying
- my Kahnweiler? to say
want
I
to
throw
"Demikov
is:
my arms
in a black,
around
his neck.
be ecstatic. Ecstatic."
will
I
I
keep
"Ecstatic. Ecstatic."
it:
Mr. Iolas tell
I
a show.''
can manage
I
the eye, and says: "You're right.
in
be? This slim, dark, olive-skinned Greek dressed
it
elegantly-cut Italian suit
me
businesslike. "To have an exhibit,
is
him Demikov paints day and
need more paintings."
will
I
night. 'Til bring a truckful of paintings. Big ones.
Even better than
these. You'll see. Masterpieces.
I
ecstatic, ecstatic.
What
going on, out of control.
"When can
wonderful
a
meet the
I
my
I'm stopped in
thing..." I'm
Demikov.
can't wait to tell
He'll
be
artist?"
tracks.
"Good God,"
you understand?" I'm talking
say, "don't
I
fast
about Stalin and his thugs. "They're out there. They never give up. Demikov won't
come
He
out.
Mr. Iolas look. "I
come
won't
him
to get
he
artist,"
Collection of the
artist.
killed?"
me
looking a bit uneasy a bit goggle-eyed. He's giving
is
must meet the
a
funny
says.
you need are the paintings,"
"All
You want
out. Impossible.
Demikov - Two, 1957, spackle, and dry figment on canvas, 22 x 24 in/56 x 61 cm. acrylic resin,
I
say
"I will
bring the paintings.
I
be
will
the go-between."
"What do you want out
"Me? Nothing. think
I
He's looking at
PO
suggest a
box
leaves the cellar,
don't like the edge in his voice.
try a disdainful
I
chuckle, but
like
the bray of a donkey.
me
the
way you'd look
hope Mr.
can send him the money
I,"
artist.
it
say solemnly
teach
You
me and
away from
how Demikov can
"am only
art history.
selling fake Persian rugs.
use
it if
any paintings
Iolas won't ask). "If there are I
I
gets
someone
at
Demikov's name (though
in
I
I
I'm a professor. I'm not even an
want money?"
comes out sounding
of this?"
trying to help
my
I
he never
sold,
you
friend, a
great artist."
Mr. Iolas has had enough. "No!" he says. "No! artist that
I
did not
not political.
He
he chooses —
in the
know
slipping
highest speed.
I
won't deal with you! Tell your friend
has nothing to fear from me. Tell him
middle of the Brooklyn Bridge
without our meeting, fine It's all
personally
What
away to
artist
My
though he
head
never dealt with a living
I've
is,
at
I
will
I
am
meet him anywhere
midnight,
if
he wishes - but
there will be no show."
feels like a
popcorn machine operating
do? Tell the truth. There's no other way. But
I
at
can't say
it
Rude in English.
I
give a sigh
and
say, "Alors,
Demikov,
c'est moi."
Mr. Iolas answers with a shake
wb
Passage, 2000,
acrylic
on matboard,
22 x 21in/57 x 52 cm.
of his shoulders
moment
and
his
palms up, and a sound, something
Mr. Iolas was not sure as to
About
eight
months
later
who
I
like
"Pouuuuf."
I
think
at that
Collection of the
artist.
was: an escaped Russian or a lunatic American.
Mr. Iolas gave
me my
first
New York
show.
319
\\
Rl
RS
I
I
ON
ARTISTS
Wes
Mills
by Lance Esplund
MAKING
ART
ESSENTIALLY A SOLITARY ACTIVITY.
IS
between the
that difficult interaction
each decision,
Wes Mills Born in
possibility.
weighed honestly, can bring an
The reward
artist closer to a
that
is
personal
whatever that might be. Freud believed that the process transforms aspects of the
truth,
1960, Mills spent
eastern
Oregon on
moved
later
where
artist's
unconscious (the psyche, or soul) into physical form, form that has the power
to
youth in
of his
family's orchard. to
his
reveal truths
and
relieve anxieties in both the artist
and viewer. Kafka likened making
art to
His family
Montana
prayer: "[Both] are passionate acts of will.
...
Art like prayer
a
is
hand outstretched
in the
encouraged by
Mills,
junior and senior high
darkness, seeking for
school art teachers, began gifts."
draw, as he remembers,
to
and
self
isolation of the studio forces
in Tucson, Arizona,
much
his
if
The
some touch where an
In ancient Egypt,
of grace artist
which
will
transform
was working under the
it
into a
hand
strictest of
that bestows
canons,
all
rules
a lot of trees.
moved
Mills
to
intention of pursuing an art
career but, discouraged with the
Sew
working instead
art,
is
as a
cabinetmalier and carpenter. After moving to Taos,
not knowing and how it most near to that of knowing. Drawing can be the moment
state of
York gallery scene,
he ceased making
New
Mexico, in 1993, Mills
began
to
draw
thinking about the
"i like
New York
City in 1982 with the
BETWEEN THE TWO."
again.
j
His work has been
compared to the evocative work of Agnes Martin and to the gestural quality of Cy Twomblys.
Mills'
minimalist, densely drawn, small-scale works contain
summon
were useless
if
in the world.
Only then could he both
the carver could not
the depths of his
fully articulate
and bring
tensions of frontal, profile, and aerial views within the studio of Rubens, after his assistants
had busied
own
conflicted experience
into
harmony the extreme
same composition. Even
in the
grand
his canvases with a multitude of figures,
notations that only suggest the real world. Tlie drawings
seem
to
meditations, that are a blend
of what one
flora,
and fauna,
it
was Rubens, the
and knowing
singularly sensitive
artist,
who
with his
be personal
critic
brush alone brought them
to
all
life.
described
as "ethereal delicacy
and
Making
art is also
about paring down, getting
at essentials.
Each choice an
artist
authoritative presence,"
presented without
title
or explanation.
Mills work has in the
now
US and lives
it
may
In the drawings of
shown widely abroad.
makes, though
bring
Wes
him
that the initial feeling of the
and works in Montana.
what
will
never be.
one
is
constantly aware of what has been lost
-
so
work
is
a kind of palpable
emptiness or sorrow.
A
Mills drawing
Mills,
He
closer to a purer state, also illuminates
slows one down. Each unique, wispy image
is
imbued with
a weight larger than
much
its
so
very
\lissoula,
small scale and lightness
first
suggest.
The works
vary greatly in their look and feel, but each
piece conveys the one-to-one intimacy of a handwritten
320
letter.
As
I
stood with Mills
last July
WES MILLS
Missoula, Montana, studio, going through stacks of drawings,
in his
and from, the work,
as
it
were made privy
I
to
In his drawings of the early 1990s, Mills
move back and
that
forth
I
felt a
surrender
BY LANCE ESPLUND
to,
someone's personal secrets.
was including words and recognizable objects
between personal symbol, pictograph, and
sign.
These obsessively
built-up surfaces resemble ancient wall carvings, children's scratchboards, and the drawings of the insane.
The
pictures have a haunting playfulness and are compelling
enough
one's attention, but they remain vague narratives impossible to decipher, that
viewer
is
aware of the traumatic
stories they
tell.
In the
work of the
is,
to hold
unless the
last five years,
Lance Esplund
Mills has
Writer Lance Esplund was
been divining forms as much
he has been making pictures, draw ing w ith
as
his gut intuition,
born in Dodge in
as
he attempts
of,
to
open up
ever-smaller, internal doors.
or feelings evoked by, those earlier images,
It is
as
if
he has
and abstracted them
distilled the
into vapors
essences
City,
He was
1962.
Kansas,
educated at
the Kansas City Art Institute
and, after moving to
and
New
York in 1985, at Queens
meandering
He
College.
lines.
studied to be
a painter and, indeed,
In these recent drawings. Mills
painted for a time before turning his attention
has been working on small, mostly
to
writing full time.
square sheets of white or off-white
He paper. All of the drawings
have
I
is
a critic for Art in
America and
writes the
York Letter for
seen have been a foot or under
any direction, and the
in
Painters. His subjects are diverse, ranging
tiniest of
pyramids
pieces
seem most
at
home when
to the
from
graphic
Threepenny Re\iew,
them
feels the
delicately.
need
Some
the arts.
Esplund has written for The
held in the palm of your hand,
where one
New
Modern
Yale Review,
the
and Conde
House and Garden, among other publications, and for The New
Nast's
to treat
of the
Republic Online.
drawing surfaces look porous,
like
Since 1990, Esplund has
gray stone; others have a bluishsilver cast, like metal;
taught at the Parsons School
some have
a
of Design.
He
in Brooklyn,
and
The drawings are
made with
with
the painter Evelyn Twitchell,
built-up, soft-white density
resembling shell or
currently lives
New York,
still
draws.
plaster.
are spare.
Most
layers of graphite
and
white powdered pigment. At times,
gum
Mills draws with water and
arabic or by cutting into the paper.
The
cuts,
which he makes
to better
Top: Untitled, 1998, graphite and
pigment on paper,
5x5
unite the space between him, the
in/1 2
x 12 cm.
Courtes) Joseph
draw ing and the viewer, can have painful directness. Often, one first
a
Neu
1
and pigment on paper, 7x7 in/17 x 17 cm. Courtesy Joseph
field,
Caller),
Bottom: Untitled, 1997, graphite is
aware of the emptiness of the
white
Hehnan
York,
and then of the simple,
New
Hehnan
Gallery,
York.
321
WKin
R.S
ON
ARI IMS
isolated built
shape or shapes, line or
up slowly
into dark
lines.
These forms
masses that are
as
are
drawn with
much volume
hairline exactitude or
Some
as void.
of the shapes have
move
the frank immediacy of stencils or cattle brands, but most of Mills' forms and lines
with a start-and-stop hesitancy that suggests complex, conflicting intentions. Lines intersect, separate,
and then join forces
again.
A
sheaf of lines rises
mountain peaks;
like
other forms crawl like snails. Mills' forms, at times, look so tentative as to to alight
like a
skeleton separated from twist in the plane in
Mills,
its
shed
host.
art
turned
in/ 18
tenuous
free-floating,
forty, is
Maine cabin without running water
form
like a
and forms uncomfortably
lines
to lodge, or dislodge, themselves, as
not afraid to pare
down
each one
or electricity.
A
his life either. In
New York.
Private collection.
the prestigious Laura Carpenter Gallery,
While
now
in
bit of a
New
1981 he
which he spent roughing
nomad,
Tucson, Arizona, spent his childhood in Montana, and has lived
Mexico, California, Boston, and
x 18 cm.
These
altogether for nearly ten years, two of
Top: White. 2000, etching,
7x7
skin; a tangle of lines lingers next to a
an attempt, seemingly,
who just
abandoned making
in
be afraid
passageway or bridge that extends and opens up the space.
Wes
a
to
on the page. Occasionally, one senses the displaced or the disembodied: a gray
shape shadows a form
acts as a
seem
in
it
in
who was born
Mills,
Kentucky,
New
Mexico, he was represented by
the Georgia O'Keeffe
Museum,
in
Santa Fe,
Above: Untitled, 1995. graphite on paper, 6 x 6 in/16 x
1
7 on.
where he met and exhibited with Richard Tuttle and Agnes Martin, among
others.
Private Collection.
Currently, Mills
he has chosen writer,
and
is
represented by the Joseph
to relocate in
Helman
Montana, where he
lives
New York but,
Gallery in
with his wife, Tina, an
since 1998,
artist
and
their daughter Ava.
Although Mills collects the work of categorization
and groups, and
older, die-hard minimalists,
talks little of other artists.
or loves, Mills will talk of the difficulty
When
he shies away from
asked about his influences
and necessity of ridding preciousness from
his
or of attaining subtle truths in a drawing, truths that are "felt" rather than understood.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
work
He
will discuss the universality of the
form he has "discovered"
circle, a
his
own
in
work, and he will repeatedly
touch upon the circular interaction
between the and the
line of
lines in a
an
artist's
memory
drawing and the
experience of the viewer. Mills will read aloud from books on
Duchamp. 1999. graphite on paper.
or bring to
my
he owns:
carved spiral and an
a
fingerprint in a
attention objects that artist's
Sung Dynasty bowl;
Neolithic jade burial amulets found in in
20
x
20 cm.
Private Collection.
122
Buddhism
the
mouths
of the deceased;
WES MILLS
BY LANCE ESPLUND
Untitled (detail
I,
^
s
-*-
*. it
nineteenth-century photographs of Egypt; rocks picked up while he was hiking. Mills held
paper,
up one translucent stone, the color of
lapis,
and said that
it
was exactly the color of
8x8
2001, graphite on
in/20 x 20 cm.
Courtesy Joseph
1
Id man Gallery,
NewYork Oregon's Crater Lake; and of another stone, after soaking looked just
A
like "the
wet skin of an
Mills drawing
is
elephant.''
a bit of a tease.
excite in us our desire to
compare.
Two
And
it
in water;
amazingly,
it
he remarked that
it
did.
His mnemonic drawings, the
Memory
Line groups,
very similar lines or forms, almost identical, are
323
WRITERS ON ARTISTS
kept at just the right distance from one another, so that they
another by the viewer's
own
visual
memory and
comprehend each
of
them
be tethered
to
to
one
the tension between the forms' need to
reunite and to separate, both in appearance and in space. fully
seem
The forms
individually (and in order to
are so small that to
compare one form
to
its
"Like the darkness of night
creeping in and out at the edges of a campfire, the space between reminds me of drawing." brother), the viewer
must
Mills' tiny signature
and the hundreds of minutely written words
mountainous shapes Three Bridges, 2000, graphite and white pigment on paper, 7 x 7 in/ 18
x 18 cm.
Courtes) Joseph
New
York.
Helman
get in so close to one, as to lose the twin in the periphery.
in his earlier
work
that
Even
expand into
are best seen with the aid of a magnifying glass.
After spending time with Mills' drawings, one begins to think about things on a
smaller level. Like a latter-day Thoreau, one
may
much
find oneself contemplating varieties of
Caller);
sprouts or
musing over the shadows of
insects.
Looking
drawings, one
at Mills'
not
is hit,
with questions about their meaning but with the immediate tensions of relationships.
There
is
felt
not the dynamic
equilibrium of a Mondrian in Mills' work,
nor
is
there the metaphoric range of an
Arp, but Mills takes us to quiet vistas of his
little
own. The abstract forms
his current pieces invite analogies
in
—
bones, footprints, the phases of the
moon. But the drawings eschew these readings just as easily as they
them. In Mills' drawings,
we
welcome never
we
know where we
began, no more than
know where we
are going. Part of their
power
lies in
the tension felt between
our need to identify and the ever-evasive quality of the works. This ambiguity, like
the trip,
Zen
journey,
is
the purpose of the
not the destination.
WES MILLS
Untitled,
J
BY LANCE ESPLUND
997, graphite and ink
on paper, 6 \ 6
in/1 5
Courtes) Joseph
New
Mills,
whose work comes out
of an inner need to learn
down
drawings almost anywhere. In Missoula, he has pared neutral ground, one
becoming
if
divisions
an
artist is
who attempted
pushing ever inward
solace, could be
his life to
making
to "shake off
.
.
.
filthy
Europe"
if
cm.
Gallery,
York.
art are
but also where he
"Mills'
drawings
trace out the
way
is.
to the (no)place
in the paradise of Tahiti,
where
to find form, as
5
his
aware, both of himself and of his surroundings, he is
1
something of a
between landscape, self-contemplation, and
produce work that speaks not only about who he
Unlike Gauguin, is
But
less distinct.
will inevitably
Mills
where the
and find
x
Helman
through self-discovery one
is
feeling
and
destined
thinking, alike, ultimately to explore the world. But
than in the
soil
where one
first
what better place
to search for one's "significant
took root? Mills' forms
come
will never reach first
but you cannot take the Montana out of Mills. In his drawings, particular quality of the small event In Missoula, Mills
than dwarfing him,
all
suspended under
surrounded by mountains,
is
this
long,
Montana
-
a
I
from a personal necessity,
am
always aware of that
rivers,
an end; will never hit the mark."
a Big Sky.
and grand
vistas.
But rather
—Mark van de While
expansiveness only reaffirms and extends his reach. Mills cannot
easily visit a gothic cathedral or explore the halls of the Louvre.
view of the landscape
form"
But he has a spectacular
mix of golden-rose, lime-green, and black rock. And he has those
sunsets: chorus after chorus of intense color changes, fiery oranges, deep
325
WRMl
RS
ON
ARI ISTS
violets,
and massive, white clouds
Those who choose to the
"For
is
a
kind of remote
MICROSURGERY
IN
WHICH A CHILD SUTURES
HIS
WOUNDS, STITCHING CLOSED THEIR
problems of everyday
life.
in the
1830s, had as
West was won.
People often equate living in the country with retreat
AND SO
AND CHARACTER OF THEIR ORIGIN IN
THE FAMILY."
— Thad Ziolkowski
.
2001, graphite on
paper. 8 x Hin/20 \
20 cm.
Helman
Gallery,
fact,
with the wilderness as a guide, form never
We
famous McCormick reaper and the Colt
much
to
do with "significant form"
as they
revolver,
had
to
both invented
do with
how
the
think of artists as being, like scientists, farmers, and explorers,
the most direct routes.
know how
York.
efficient solutions
through necessity very aware of their surroundings. They are problem-solvers in search of
PATTERNS THAT
SPEAK, THE SHAPE
$26
essential designs of the
Mills
RETRACE,
New
silhouettes.
followed function better. American pioneers have always been modernists: the bare-
LIPS
Courtes) Joseph
most
to live closer to nature learn to find the
from progress and technology. In
Untitled detail
mountain
Mills,
drawing
IN
set off against blue-black
his
is
basically a self-taught artist.
to look at artworks.
But
his
He
is
work has
the
first to
say that he does not really
a formal resolution
and power because
drawings remain for him unresolved until they recreate, and speak
internal tensions. Mills, until
who
There
collects
is
an extreme, hands-on practicality to
Chinese ceramics, said that he never
he held a few objects in his hands, and then
it
all
really
made
this
to, his
way
own
of building form.
understood Chinese
sense. This
is
art
a sculptor's or
WES MILLS
an architect's
BY LANCE ESPLUND
sensibility, a little-b\ -little
touching and building-up of forms that provide entry for viewers and safe seclusion for the
artist.
Being connected to Mills:
connected
is
very important
to the landscape.
to his work, to his experience of the
world. But
if
one
too hard,
tries
all is
Things must flow naturally
lost.
between hand, eye and paper. Mills talks of this
experience
Duchamp
in a
own
etching, a restrike, from Mills' collection. In the
Duchamp
impossible to
the difference
between the
and those
lines in the original
that
mark-out the this
tell
Duchamp added
it is
image to
plate. Mills believes that
confusion was Duchamp's
intention, but, is
print,
more
importantly. Mills
interested in the freedom of those
restrike marks, the straightforward,
unpretentious place from w hich those marks came.
It is
this place, the
making of
a
drawing
Untitled, 1996, graphite
and ink on paper,
without the intention of "making a draw
ing," for
which Mills
strives.
He
works toward
llxll
in/28 a 28 cm.
Courtes)' Joseph
obliterating sacredness
Ultimately, he
back
to a
time
is
when
and preciousness before ever the drawing
attempting to make
art as a
concept did not
practical, outer extensions of inner
interchange, rather than an
Duchamp's Fountain was closer and
"One day
And
exist,
when
I
Nexv
game. Ironically enough,
it
changed
own
':
Gallen;
to go
and pictures were purely part of a cyclical
was ready-made pieces all
Hehnan
York.
that.
I
like
believe that Picasso
transformations of
life
into art
Head, which he described:
took a bicycle saddle and handlebars, put one on top of the other and had a
But what shoidd have happened then was
head. That was fine.
Then
objects
when metamorphosis was
like his Bull's
begun.
was made before "intention
(the urinal out of context) that
with pieces
thrown out the out.
artist's
life,
it
to finding that quality of interaction in his
art into life,
bull's
art as
is
a
bull's head,
out into the
workman would have come
he'd think that
maybe with
handlebars, and then do
it
...
street, into
by and piclzed
would have been
I
shoidd have
a stream, anywhere, but just thrown
that bull's head, he could
that
that
really
it
it
up."
make
a bicycle saddle
wonderful. That's the
and gift
of metamorphosis.
327
.
\\
ON
R.ITERS
A
(v
ISIS
I
Cooke
Barrie
by Seamus Heaney
Barrie Cooke was born in Cheshire, educated at Harvard, and has lived in Ireland since the mid-1950s. For the past four decades he has been an
independent and greatly admired presence among Barrie Cooke Cooke was born in 1931 in England and moved to the
US
Irish artists, painting rivers
and
riverbanks, roots, rain, flesh, bones, nudes, woods, bodies in bogs, fish in (and out of) water, elk horns, algae
-
everything, in fact, that a hunter
and gatherer might encounter
or
as a teenager. After
studying art history at
prospect
for.
And
of this
all
done with
is
muddy
a characteristically
if
opulent palette, as
if
Harvard, he studied painting
Kokoschka.
in Salzburg with
He
la
swam
together in the pigment and strove against each other for
boue and
la
beante
He
is
a painter in earnest,
has lived in Ireland since
1954, and associates himself
control.
up
to his eyes in the
elements and the medium.
most closely with the
From
country's landscape.
Often semi-abstract and expressionist in style,
the
Cooke's
start,
and work have paid into each
life
in Ireland,
he did
ever since.
The period he spent on
in fact live off the
During
other.
his first years
land and an aura of the aboriginal has surrounded
his
own
in a cottage in the
Burren
in
him
Co. Clare, a more
Cooke's landscapes are influenced by the perspective
and gamehunter, turned out
or less self-sufficient fisherman
be
to
definitive: in
one way or
of Ireland, his adopted
home. Beyond landscapes,
another, he has never stopped being out
on
own,
his
at a saving
distance from what
W.
B.
Cooke's subject matter includes nudes seen through
aqueous
Working a
te>i
vision."
in other
No wonder
a
mutual friend put him
who was
patrolman of the marches
media over
much
Yeats used to call "the coteries," as
what Sobel laureate Seamus Heane} has called "Cooke's
to
Ben Gunn
a
as a Paul
Gauguin.
touch early on with Ted Hughes, another
in
become
a
companion on the salmon
rivers of the
north-west and the pike lakes of the Irish midlands every year until he died. Each was a
}ear period in the '70s,
Coolie produced a series of
complete
"bone boxes" made of an acrylic material containing
was
real
and
artificial
fragments.
He
angler,
and
their primary
their collaboration
aim was
to catch fish,
on an extraordinarily bold
but a bonus of these expeditions
set of lithographs. In
each
print,
Hughes'
bone
longhand version of
also
his fishing
poems and Cooke's
big black trawl of loaded landing nets
collaborated on projects with poets including Heane\
and Ted Hughes.
and miscellaneous tackle present themselves so simply and wind on the back of your neck
Exhibited throughout Europe
and North America,
Museum
of
Modern
them.
get to the years of his Irish domicile, the curriculum vitae
is
promising. Here, for example,
is
an extract from an old catalogue: "1951:
An
impoverished
the Netherlands has
summer
in
Martinique, including a brief unhappy spell working in a slaughterhouse,
An
the Hague and the Stedeliijk museums in the Netherlands, and the Municipal Caller) of Modern Art. Dublin. Tlie Haags Gemeentemuseum in
redeemed only by
a first reading of Rabelais."
retrospective
The information
there
may be
sparse enough,
but the suggestion of intellectual eagerness in the context of offal and the tropics gives you a
sense of a
man
already on
to surrender his intelligence
presented a major
328
at
feel a
and public
collections, including the Irish
we
you look
you can almost
his
paintings belong to various private
But even before
as
starkly
paintings 50 years on.
some
-
all
sort of quest,
prepared
to dirty his
hands but unprepared
consistent with the impression a viewer
still
gets from the
1
BARRIE
A
susceptibility to
encroaching
what we might
call
the Martinique factor
-
to lucid
reek of corrupting matter - continues to be
fetor, a
air,
felt in his
"
COOKE
BY SEAMUS HEANEY
lucid waters, an
most recent
work. There has been no dulling of response, the drama of fresh encounters with the world
and with the medium delight in rivers sorts in lakes
and
and
is
as vital as ever.
What
is
being registered
an
is
original, creaturely
rocks, or a corresponding sense of affront at algae
seas;
and what keeps the feeling of first-timeness
lifetime of action in front of the easel, an action his predecessors in the art has
accommodated
where the
itself to his
and pollutants of
alive
is,
all
paradoxically, a
painter's well-schooled sense of
need
Seamus Heaney
proceed without
to
Heaney was born calculation, surrender himself to the
work
in
hand.
Mossbawn,
at
his family's farm
near Belfast, in 1939, the
The demands
know
of art work, after
all,
are strictly contradictory: the practitioner has to
what's called for and yet has to be able to forget himself, and
it
seems
to
me
eldest of nine children.
up
After growing
that
in the
countryside, he attended St.
Barrie Cooke's achievement rests
upon an
ability to
be true
to the
doubleness of that
was inspired
Not
for
him the knowingness of
ironies of belatedness
internalized
travesty
and vandalism: he has been equidistant from the
and ignorances of the come-lately. And yet
knowledge of the
art of the past
probably does count for as
much
to write
poetry of Robert Frost
He
Hughes. in his practice,
where he
Joseph's College,
rule.
an
work
by the
and Ted
published his
in the college journal
under the pseudonym
as the
"Incertus.
actuality of the subject.
As he makes
his
mark, the Rubens he forgets he knows
is
as
Heaney garnered public
important as the river he knows he
is
remembering.
attention in the mid-'60s,
when he was
linked to poets
in the "Northern School" of
The
Irish writing. tie
at
him
early
to his rural
Mossbawn —
his first
poems
childhood
especially in
two volumes Death
of a Naturalist and
He
the Dark.
Door
into
also confronts
Northern Ireland's conflicts
works
like Casualty, a
in
poem
about a Catholic friend
murdered by a bomb
set
by
the Provisional Irish
Republican Army.
Heaney won
the
in Literature in
Nobel Prize
1995 and
was made a Commandeur de L'Ordre des Arts et Lettres by the French Ministry of
Culture in 1996.
member
of
He
Aosdana, the
is
a
Irish
academy of artists and writers, and a Foreign Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Heaney's translation of Beowulf was published in
2000
to great
critical acclaim. Electric
Light
is
his latest
volume of poetry. Roaring oil
Billy's Falls,
2000,
on canvas,
54 x 60 in/ 37 x 152 cm. Courted Kerlin Caller]', Dublin.
329
\\ K!
1
I
ON
KS
Knocknarea 71 \ 85 "/
I
\Ri
2001,
oil
on canvas,
f85x2J5 cm.
Courtesy Kcrlin Gallery Dublin.
Not
that he
is
in the
praise given by that," the
1996,
oil
Kokoschka (with
whom
he worked
master said of one student's particularly
exhibition."
Phvtophthera Infestans
remotest way an academic painter.
And
only recently
I
got from
him
in
He
loves to quote the sarcastic
Salzburg in 1955). "You could frame
skillful picture,
in the mail,
"and hang
it
an
in
—
without covering note
the scrawl
on the envelope was the recognizable spoor - an extract from an interview with Picasso, III,
on canvas,
where Picasso described
his process of repeated humiliation of anything in the
image that
60 x 84 in/152 x 213 cm. Courtesy Kerlin Gallen: Dublii
looked as
if it
were the
slightest bit satisfied with itself or inviting of admiration.
A pursuit
of the true thing through a discipline of
abnegation shows not only in Barrie Cooke's conduct
at
the easel, but in his near indifference to the business of exhibiting. Already in the Martinique inclination to go walkabout
is
in
moment,
the
evidence, and the
impression of somebody not particularly interested in positioning himself for career purposes has been born out
by his demeanor and commitments ever since.
There have been marvelous one-man exhibitions, of course, in Dublin and
The Hague,
in
France and the
United States, and he has figured significantly
330
in
many
BARR1E
group shows of
Irish painting that
chosen habitat continues likely to get excited
be
to
when he
is
far
have heen toured
in Britain
From the gallery and gossip
and Europe. Even circuit,
and
reporting the weight of a big salmon than
COOKE
BY SEAMUS HEANEY
so, his
his talk
when he
is
more
is
Cooke's...
reacting to the latest overprice paid for Irish art by the cub millionaires of the Celtic
tiger.
"figurative None
is
conviction about the crucial work that
art
can and should perform
in
it.
There
is
unequivocally
nothing
fleshy quietist in his stand-off. In tact, there silent
crucial at stake, I
had
something
great activism in his concentration,
to
which and
all life, its
vulnerability
example, Barrie Cooke has inscribed
flows," but
I
is
would say its
it
his
awareness of something
fish-kills
and
oil-slicks.
walls of his
workroom inform the images
indignantly
- on
is
a vision of the inter-
On
is
the wall of his studio,
Heraclitus' declaration that "Everything
And
local rivers
and
lakes,
the concerns that are ob\ious on the
that have figured
the canvases that constitute his by
Heraclitus quote
- Aidan Dunne
answerable.
deliciousness.
Greek
and
and years of
EROTIC."
deepen
which he
and in
to
he also has newspaper reports of chemical poisoning of
and press photographs of
The
for
to describe that "something."
connectedness of for
is
brushwork and rodwork have only served
If
work
of this should be read as indifference to what goes on in the world, or lack of
now
only to be expected from a
—
often radiantly, occasionally
richly coherent oeuvre.
man who
spends
his
time stepping
Knocknarea
73x81
II,
in/185
2001,
oil
on canvas,
x 205 cm.
Conrtes} Kerlin Gallery, Dublin.
331
WRITERS ON ARTISTS
But Barrie Cooke also spends
into rivers.
books -
freshman year
in his
Chinese Poetry
at
text
is
time poring over
Harvard, for example, he studied
as well as Biology
and Art History - and one
book which may be worth mentioning
work
much
in
connection with his
Sensitive Chaos, a translation of an "alternative" scientific
by Theodor Schwenk, published
in 1965.
This has been described as belonging to a tradition "based
on visionary insights bolstered by sustained observation and fundamental belief as liable to talk
a
an underlying natural unity" Schwenk
in
is
about the way bones "flow" into one another
across the particular space of joints as to study the dynamics of river-water pouring over a stone,
community might have been about
official scientific
anthropomorphic elements attraction for
Cooke
principle lay behind
rhythmical and
and however skeptical the
in his discourse, there
the
was
great
in the book's central insight that a all
watery
processes, something fundamentally
fluid.
So the bones and blood of the Martinique slaughterhouse begin to
up with other things observed on other expeditions
tie
undertaken by Cooke 1970s he headed
for
in the years that followed. In the
mid-
Borneo, where the downpours sluicing
through creepers and slicking the tree-trunks of the rainforest brought him to his painterly senses
in a
in the '80s, his jubilation at discovering
new
an environmentalist's
(and fisherman's) paradiso in the rivers of a
canvas, 54 x
60 in/137 x
oil J
on
Irish I,
art.
he permitted himself a kind of epical
in fact,
led to
joy:
images of the Great
52 cm.
Private collection.
Above: Brown Stones
During the 1980s,
New Zealand
rhapsodic reawakening of something celebratory in his
impulse and his Top: Black Stones, 1999,
way; and again
1999,
oil
on canvas. 38 x 40 in/97 x 102 on.
Elk with
its
incandescent horns
lifted
nudes whose sensuality was as drowsy
towards the galaxies
as a seal's
and
like receiving stations,
as cultivated as an odalisque's; flesh-
colored mandalas of mating that could be read as takes on a how-to sex manual or aids to
Courtesy Kerlin Caller), Dublin.
meditation in a sacred
text.
There was an element of proclamation about
waving the banners of nature's kingdom and mustering pollution and destruction
To put
it
which
life
like that, of course,
the recent paintings take up the
its
theme
it
at a
all
sound too
332
waste disposal system
is
seen as a
if
he were
into.
rhetorical
and preachy Many of
point where the relish of pigment and the
recognition of corruption intersect: the seductive glitter and slither at the in a
as
forces for the battle against
on the planet has now turned
makes
it all,
phenomenon
that
is
mouth
both fascinating and
of a pipe
.
BARRIE
COOKE
BY SEAMUS HEANEY
deplorable; the blisters and soft infestations that attend the
process of potato blight are rendered
in all their sinister beauty.
And
the undulations that
yet in Phytophthera Infestans
represent potato
hieroglyph for
drills
could be an allusion to the zig-zag so
life itself;
stones that figure in
III,
some
might not be too
it
out to read the
far
paintings in the current exhibition as a
kind ofYeatsian affirmation that "the stone's in the midst of
all"
-
the stone of geological and psychological obstinacy, of creative,
even sacred, resistance.
Something
I
wrote
in the early
1990s about Cooke
still
applies to this recent work:
His wariness about being co-opted as the celebrator of a given, pristine,
come
pre-economic, extra-political nature has occasionally
images of pollution
to the fore in
.
.
.
But
his belief in the
necessity of reestablishing clean personal contact between each
and the planet ...a
individual
belief rooted in his countryman's
hand-to-hand, hour-b)-hour contact with flora and fauna
Middle
The
with Sweeney the "green
solidarit)'
his spirit presides.
Sweeney may not
Sweeney's story
by a saint and banished
to the
panicky; birdlike creature,
Tom was on
result of this exposure,
figure in the
tells
of a king
woods and
somebody
I
don't think
it
hills,
new
of the
show, but
who was
cursed
turned into a
as intimate with
wind and
King Lear's storm-lashed heath. As a
he became
a
mouthpiece
most enduring and intense nature poetry
and
man"
Irish saga.
actual image of
rain as Poor
.
which
gets painterly expression in, for example, images
proclaim a
.
for
some
of the
in the Irish language,
too fanciful to see Barrie Cooke's sojourn on the wild side of the Irish
Top: Black Stones and Striper,
2000,
landscape as the endeavor of a green
man
redivivus, a kind of
Sweeney come-back whose
oil
73x85
on canvas,
in/185 x 215 cm.
Private collection.
canvases possess the same unmediated quality as the poetry of the original: Sainted
cliff at
Above: Black Stones and Striper
Alternan,
2001.
oil
73x73 in/185x
nut-grove, hazel wood!
II,
on canvas.
185 cm.
Courtesy Kerlin Gallery, Dublin.
Cold quick sweeps of water fall
down
Ivies its
the cliff-side.
green and thicken there,
oak mast
is
precious.
Fruited branches nod and bend
from heavy-headed apple
trees.
333
ARUMS
WR11 Rs ON I
Donald Judd by Charles Darwent
SOMEWHERE IN WESTERNMOST WEST TEXAS, mind
of famines and plagues of locusts
Testament,
Donald Judd and
Sculptor, painter,
drive
down
its
is
Main
a
piece of
little
New York.
in the
kind of country that puts you in
and other of the
stricter
moments
You know you've come across
it
Street. Instead of flatbed trucks there are Volvo estates; car
in the
Old
when you bumpers
writer,
Donald Judd was born in Missouri, in 1928. As a young man, he came to New
are noticeably devoid of stickers proclaiming their owners' allegiance to (a
common
thing in
West Texas)
to
Charlton Heston. There
is
a
George W. Bush,
or
bookshop (an uncommon
York to study at the Art Student's League during the
and
late '40s
He
early '50s.
also studied art theory,
and sculpture Columbia University.
painting,
at
thing in
West
Texas),
and a bookshop that
sells
—
get this
- cappucinos:
possibly the only
frothed coffee to be had between San Antonio and the Rio Grande. At the time of writing, the shop's
windows
inordinately
advertise two sorts of works: the
uncommon
thing in
West
Texas),
Dean
&
Delucca Cookbook (an
and monographs on Donald Judd.
Rejecting the strong force of
The
Abstract Expressionism, his
was
intent in his paintings simplify composition instill
and
to
to
concentrate on
championed same minimalism and
He
simplicity
Marfa. As contemporary
cow town
passing through the half-horse
decided
to stay. Like the
Yorkers,
Judd was
sculpture which this
is
art
myth now
placed his
in
industrial building
wood, metal, and plexiglass
in
1971
when he was
struck by
on
bases,
Judd was
its
charms and
town bookshop, owned by Houstonians and patronized by
Marfa but not of
down by
it.
His
the railway yard
first
—
a
action on
moment
of
moving
New
into an ex-light
TriBeCa
forms directly on the ground rather than
records,
He
a sense of order.
began
place, of course,
to
in the
was
Texan desert -
to build a ten foot
and
used industrial materials
adobe wall around
to
it
to
construct boxlike geometric
keep
modules. These "stacks" were
He
locals out.
then
installed with the spaces
between the units equal
to the
set
precisely
dimension of the
of properties, including
units themselves.
From 1959
ranches and the town's to
1965, Judd
wrote art criticism for Arts
mohair
Magazine and other American journals. During the same period, he exhibited his abstract work,
painted wooden
Red
Oil on
the
from
the other side of
such as the
it.
Walk
Cadmium
Wood,
around Marfa today and
at
you'll see Judd's ghost
York.
everywhere:
in the
dozen or so buildings labeled "Judd Foundation,"
a trust that looks after
work expanded
the boundaries of art, architecture,
and
design.
the
artist's private
estate
and
is
managed by
his son, Flavin; in the excellent art section of
He
died in 1994, one of the most
the Marta Bookshop; and in the faint but perceptible resentment directed by locals at
influential artists oj his time.
people
334
factory,
impoverished townsfolk on
Green Gallery
in \eit
Judd's
about buying up a slew
who
drive Volvos, vote
Democrat, and drink funnv coffee.
DONALD JUDD
Most
obviously, you'll find Judd's shade just outside of town, in a one-time
Fort D.A. Russell.
oil
millions of
stock dipped in the early 1980s
its
co-founder, Philippa de Menil.
oil crisis
and Dia funding
sued the Foundation. Just as
re-christened the Chinati Foundation in 1976,
became
life
not as an
artist
and Meyer Schapiro, he took
Museums
like
but as a
critic.
Trained
When
Schlumberger
for the project dried up,
characteristically,
So what would Judds ghost make of Marfa now ?
Judd began
army base called
During the mid-1970s, Judd bought the base with the help of the Dia Art
Foundation and the
characteristically
DARWENT
BY CHARLES
Judd
he won. Fort D.A. Russell,
Judd's personal fiefdom.
On at
one
level,
it
would be delighted.
Columbia by Rudolf Wittkower
Charles Darwent Born
a predictably
high-minded view of American museology.
in Trinidad in
1958,
Charles Darwent studied
MOM A were crowded, uncomfortable, and forced the art shown inside them
English literature at
Cambridge University and to
fit
in
with their off-the-peg architecture. Worse, they favored anthology hangs - displays
art histon at the Uuiversit]'
He
of London. critic
has been art
of The Independent
on Sunday newspaper since 1998.
He
also
a book
is
reviewer for the
Times
Literary Supplement. His
principal interest
French
1
is
in
8th-centur)' art,
particularly painting in the
revolutionary period.
Darwent in
lives
and
writes
London.
Marfa, Texas, overview. Tlie Chinati Foundation.
Photograph by Todd Eberle.
that put the
some kind
works of several
artists
of art historical likeness.
together in the
To Judd,
this
same space with the aim of suggesting
reduced the experience of American
museum-visiting to an eternity of "freshman English."
wanted
particularly for his
own work - was
What he wanted - and what
a tailor-made building in
which
art
he
and
architecture could interract contrapuntally where discrete spaces would be given over to individual artists,
And
so
it
and
was
installations
that his eve
fell
would be permanent. on the redundant
artillery7
sheds of Fort D.A. Russell.
Step into them from the stinging heat of a Texan afternoon and you'll see why. There
is
just
no questioning the sublimity of the hundred untitled milled aluminium boxes that Judd
A installed there
between 1982 and 1986, nor
their beautv.
Cut
to tolerances of a
few
Sign in Marfa, Texas.
Photograph by Ian McMillan.
335
WRITERS ON ARTISTS
thousandths of an inch, the boxes - each roughly identical modernist menhirs. shifts,
"His art insisted
THAT EXPLORATIONS OF SPACE, SCALE,
AND COULD
MATERIALS BE
ENDS
light filtering
ft/1
x
1
x 2
m-
look at
first like
through the glass walls of the sheds
though, so the invisible differences between the cuboids (a front panel recessed
slight angle, a surface that stands marginally clear of the structure
themselves
exude an look at
felt.
One box
internal,
them
beneath
it)
make some
turns into bronze, another into perspex (an acrylic material);
Manet-ish
light,
others swallow light up like black holes.
It's
hard not
as religious works, altars to a particularly austere vision of the world
and
And
its art.
to the ego.
II:
Judd
als
ihm
shed
The
artillery
German
sheds were used to house
them — Den kopf benutzen
insisted that the minatory notices intended for verlieren!
full
— should be
left
of glinting metal boxes
where they were. The
and
it
may put you
in
prisoners during World
effect
mind
is
ist
oddly unsettling. Look
of an assembly line, or
J
980-84, 100 x 100 x 200 in/
even of
a
church. See the same boxes contained within walls decorated with Teutonic
warning signs and you think of something more
sinister: serried ranks,
at a
maybe
2S0 x 250 x 500 cm. Chinati Foundation, Marfci, Texas.
War
besser
in concrete,
5 untitled
to
"IT TAKES A GREAT DEAL OF TIME AND THOUGHT TO INSTALL WORK CAREFULLY. THIS SHOULD NOT ALWAYS BE THROWN AWAY. MOST ART IS FRAGILE AND SOME SHOULD BE PLACED AND NEVER MOVED AGAIN."
- Xew York Times
1
at a
IN
THEMSELVES."
works
As the desert
3x4x6
the microscopic
DONALD JUDD
tolerances of war, ideology run amok. absolutes,
and
in leaving the
Which makes what
is
DARWENT
think of the kind of egotism that believes in
imperfect world to find them.
happening around Judd's sheds
early October, the unseasonallv
of a mariachi
And you
BY CHARLES
icebound
band and the smell of
streets of
frying burritos.
all
the
Marfa were
more
filled
interesting. In
with the strumming
These emenated from the Chinati
Foundation's annual open house, a tradition founded by Judd himself back in the 'Eighties.
This year, though, things were different. The refried beans may have been the same, but there
"Somewhere a portion of contemporary art has to exist as an example of what the art and its context were meant to be." were
far
more people than
usual,
some two thousand
of them.
Many had
York and Los Angeles. Nicholas Serota, director of the Tate Galleries, had
The reason at Fort Russell
Occupying
a
-
for this a
neon
row of
six
was
flown in from
come from London.
that the bash coincided with the unveiling of a major
installation
by
Dan
new work
Flavin, entitled Untitled (Marfa project) (1996).
one-time doughboy mess huts, Flavin's Marfa project
extraordinary piece of work.
New
Each U-shaped hut has had
its
North is
an
center section walled off to form
Artillery shed interior
with permanent installation of 100
works
in
aluminium, 1982-84,
each work
a kind of cave, passage through
which
is
barred by either one or a pair of rhomboidal gates
41x51 x
72 in/
104 x 130 x 183 cm. Chinati Foundation, Marfa, Texas.
made
out of Flavinish neon tubing, blue and yellow strips in the
first
two huts, pink and
Photograph: Todd Eherle.
337
WR.M
i
RS
ON
A.RTISTS
green
in the
second, a mix of
you are forced
to
all
four colors in the third. To get from one hut to the next,
emerge from the aqueous gloom of
white glare of a West Texas day. questions about the role of
you have forgotten which
is
Among
memory
Flavin's artificially
lit
interiors into the
other things, this inside-outside progression raises
in the
way we
see things. By the end of the sequence,
the real light and which
is
not: a fiat lux
rendered in a few
worth of neon tubing.
dollars
makes
It all
a
good
fit
with Judd's sacerdotal boxes. Both sets of work manipulate
— recessed
architecture to explore ambient light; both use small-scale things
angles
-
sets of
work
to
produce large-scale fit
roughly into
its
date of Flavin's Marfa project
effects.
remit.
is
Although Judd disliked the term "minimalism," both
And
both bear Judd's
given as 1996, this
is
own
imprimatur. Although the
misleading:
its
bare bones were
approved by Judd for inclusion in the Chinati Foundation before his death
was an
planes, obtuse
installation of twenty-three variously titled
in
1994. So, too,
works by John Chamberlain, housed
off-
converted mohair warehouse in downtown Marfa.
site in a
"Old Master painting has j
A GREAT REPUTATION FOR BEING PROFOUND, UNIVERSAL, AND ALL Dan
TFIAT,
Flavin, Untitled,
Marfa
project',
1996,
AND
IT ISN'T NECESSARILY."
detail,
building four.
Chinati Foundation. Marfa, Texas.
All this
when
makes
a kind of sense.
is
do not make an anthology show, especially
not the only piece to have seen the light of day at Fort Russell since the
death of Donald Judd.
Wander elsewhere on
permanent work by other of
artists
they are housed in separate spaces and in different kinds of buildings. But Flavin's
Marfa project
all
Three
artists:
Carl Andre,, John Wesley, and Ilya Kabakov, for example,
them Judd-approved. Between these
teetering horseshoe by Claes
nearby
aircraft
the site and you will see huts filled with
are land sculptures by Richard
Oldenburg and Roni Horn.
hangars as showing spaces
is
A
project to
also in the pipeline.
Long and
make
Then
a vast,
over a pair of
there are the
Foundation's temporary installations, usually of works produced by the various Chinati artists in
residence and thus post Judd's mortem.
Among
other artists to have taken part in
the program are Kate Shepherd, Daniel Gottin, and Andreas Karl Schulze,
whom
Judd would never have heard
A
of
of.
recent piece in Jack Pierson's Issue 4 by ex-Chinati director, Jeff Kopie, suggests that
"the Foundation steadfastly upholds the modernist belief in art for
the work
made
in
Marfa
rejects postmodernist ideas
art's
sake. Nearly
all
of
about appropriation, the impossibility
of originality, and the irrelevance of the artist/author." Nonetheless,
338
some
it is
difficult to see
DONALD JUDD
these vague philosophical similarities as manifested in both,
- and
recreated Soviet schoolhouse
Kabakovs School No. 6 -
say,
BY CHARLES
DARWENT
a
the geometric abstraction of Schulze's paper works as
being more important than the differences between them. Nor. given the messianic motives of Chinati's founding,
Foundation are pre-Judd and some post- him. (This having declared the
Does any Foundation
medium
contemporary
"pretty
Were
of this matter"
have been
to
art
up
set
museum,
much
of the works on show at the
especially true of the paintings,
is
Judd
finished" back in the 1960s.)
the Chinati
as a regular
the answer would
probably have been no; change
a given in gallery
is
and never more so than
curating,
some
easy to overlook the fact that
is it
today.
The
fact
is,
though, that Chinati was set up to be preciselv the opposite of a regular contemporarv
Judds boxes, smallness visitor
its
museum. Like
large-scale effects derived from
- not many
numbers,
little
artists,
much
not
its
curation, tiny
material change. Given Judds
antipathy to crowds in art venues,
Marfa s appeal
a large part of
art
for
it
seems
him
"'
likely that
lay in its Untitled,
remoteness. Even today, the four-hour schlep on desert roads from El Paso, the nearest
8x8x town with an
airport, is
enough
to give all but the keenest Juddites
pause
1980-84, four
units,
each unit
for thought.
16ft/2.5x2.5 \
5 m.
Chinati Foundation, Marfa, Texas. Photograph: Todd Eherle.
But Judds reticence
(or elitism, as
On
Foundation's director, with a problem. the other,
it
isn't.
setting. It
is
a
And
Fort Russell
monument
there's the rub.
to
is
one man and
When
will)
has
left
Marianne Stockebrand, the
the one hand, Marfa
Judd
on museology, an artefact
his ideas
its
for the Chinati's
October guacamolefest and more than
bank balance
it
would
still
The
be
left as
it
was
at the
by,
own
five
right.
on the
That two thousand people
to.)
times that
number
will visit its
Had
the
time of Judds death, there's next to no chance that
is
that, to
keep Marfa
alive,
Stockebrand has had
backing; and to do that, she has had to offer potential investers
goes
in its
in existence.
trouble
things to back.
On
founder's death
at its
artworks this year suggests the ingenuity that has gone into saving Marfa.
Foundation been
art.
died, he famously left his Foundation teetering
between $240 or S400, depending on who you speak
attended
a space for showing
is
not just a collection of mixed works in an unusually arid
edge of bankruptcy. (The figure given varies
you
She has
also
had
the Chinati Foundation
to is
be able
coming
to point to rising to
new
old-new
resemble the very thing that Donald Judd
Judds anti-museological baby may no longer be is
(or at least
attendance figures. As time
hated most - an anthology showing space with a large number of
Judd would have approved of
to attract financial
in
a different matter.
doubt, but
There
is
its
visitors.
The
survival in a
survival of
form that
more than one way of dying
339
WRI
I
1
ON
R.S
MITISTS
Harmony Korine by Ian MacMillan
HARMONY, HELLO from London.
DEAR
doing writing to you, and
checked out
HARMONY Korine At an amazingly young age, Korine. boru in California in
sites
a
trite stuff
bet you get shit like this
all
what I'm
the time. In fact,
I
few of the posts on the message board on one of the internet
devoted to your films and
names sending
I
You're probably wondering
it's
full
of incomprehensible notes from people with weird
labeled "anal cunt" and
"I
drink piss not you," so you almost
1974, has become an established film director,
and
screenwriter,
certainly attract your fair share of
junk mail from
lunatics.
His
actor.
political activist parents
Well, rest easy. For a start I'm a bit older than you and probably far
more boring and
fostered Korine 's intense
sedate than most of those people, and I'm doing this for a reason.
love of the movies.
Korine wrote the screenplays for three controversial movies
about teenagers in the process of destroying their lives
-
Kids,
Gummo,
an issue of an
and the
first
art
I
was asked
to help edit
magazine discussing how film and video have entered into the
person
I
video-based artworks
thought of was you. To be honest, I'm a I
bit
art world,
bored by the plague of
keep on coming across, scuttling around otherwise respectable
and,
Julien Donkey-Boy. Also
museums
like the
bugs swarming out from underneath the
falsely glossy family portrait
directing the last two, he
used nonprofessional actors
which
that kid keeps trying to re-hang in a scene
from your
first
movie.
How much
of the
for these harrowing portraits his
young
siblings acted in
the films). Kids chronicles a da) in the
life
of a violent,
thieving, pot-smoking
teenage slmteboarder whose chief purpose in
life is to
deflower younger
Gummo
girls.
takes place in
Xenia, an Ohio town that
never recovered from a 1970 tornado,
its
people living in
boredom and revolves
poverty. Julien
around the
life
of a
young schizophrenic man, charged with graphic language, casual sex, drug use, is
and
violence, the film
jarring but contains
beautiful visual imager): Korine's idol, the director
Werner Herzog, plays the jilm's comic relief. Korine's man) awards and honors include an
Independent
Spirit
Award
nomination for Kids and honorable mention at the
1997 Venice Film
!-|li
Festival.
pixilated-Renaissance posturings of
Bill Viola, say,
can one person take? Anyhow, what I'm
— HARMONY KORINE
trying to say
is
that
I
think what you do with film, and photography and the writing and
the other stuff you do, get
up
odd
It's
time
and so
to,
is
ol Far
this letter
really couldn't stand you.
I
attempt
should be doing this
I
all
greater interest than anything the majority of these poseurs
my
is
BY IAN MACMILLAN
I
much
as anything.
do you know what. Harmony? For the longest
at all, for
my venom was
think
myself as
at justifying that, to
when you were
strongest
at its
interviewed in the Saturday magazine section of the Guardian newspaper over here. You
seemed
so cocky
and self-assured, with your imagistic novel
and which was bound
to
be
drivel (another
attempt
at the
that
was about
be published
to
A waxing
lyrical
and sometimes splenetic, posing on the cover
like the
skateboarding cat that got the cream.
jealous,
and maybe
I
was, a
little,
but
My
in
don't really think that
I
your Lower Eastside drag suggested
friend's girlfriend
was
it.
I
writer,
was going
into overdrive
and
culture
had taken quite enough of the rags-to-riches
I
and photographer, and
the arts have
been shown on the
my
that
in
bullshit detector
documentary filmmaker,
MacMillan's many films on
was
was more
It
MacMillan
Ian
non-narrative novel, oh please),
BBC
museums and film
and
centers
around the world. They include Skinhead Farewell,
little
boy genius myth that threatened I
realize right now" that the
to engulf you.
about the pulp novelist
problem with writing about you, Harmony Korine,
is
Richard Allen, and the
that
award-winning Big Art
words cannot convey what
it is
you do with images.
A
few months
after
vowed never
I
to
go
One Horse Town
in a
about the
Donald Judd. He made the film recently
sculptor
near another magazine piece about you
and from about the
directed,
first
I
few minutes
put down, "He can walk the walk but he scenes just keep on coming
like
went
to see I
was
Gummo,
the feature film you had
transfixed.
broadcast on British
Do you know
can't talk the talk"? Christ,
can you
also
that cliched television,
Affair,
The
talk.
The Scholte
an exploration of the
bombing of Dutch painter Rob Scholte.
an animated photo album from a warped amateur
MacMillan was
"A MISTRESS IS SOMETHING BETWEEN A MASTER AND A MATTRESS." —from A Crackup
at
the
photographer for Matthew Collings book Blimey!
From
Bohemia To Britpop: The London Artworld From Francis Bacon To Damien Hirst, and he has just
the Race Riots
finished producing Hello
The skinnv
photographer.
kid flexing his muscles, the boy
in the
bunny
Culture, a television series
ears spitting through
featuring
the
sure there was
still
an element of the dislikable preening egomaniac about you
help but notice that your
any of the
cast's or
shots alone least
it's
name was
Collings.
even the
won me
over.
film's title),
And
to
to
(Oh
forgot;
What
they just keep on unfolding and developing, and for
to depict a
bouncing
you don't do commercial work -
w ith these
ball at the
critics
who
unique milieu.
camera
at
to get
If
the
you
to
Gap
ever
do the
ads.
principles.)
say you've got no plot and storyline?
bottom of the screen helping them through
that they're like a pinhole
me
know your Fassbinder and your Godard, but you
make them your own, and how
is it
couldn't
but the sheer beauty and pictorial elegance of these
go for the speedball and crack-pipe market, they've got
wants
(I
opening credits than
in a dramatically bigger type in the
unbelievably stimulating. You sure
know how
I
Matthew
fence, the dark scurrying speckled maggots and flies on the dead white cat. For
mesh
it,
Do
they need a
or what? Don't they see
into your mind, these scenarios etched into our
consciousness the longer we're exposed to them, building up our
own
picture from the
Left:
Gummo.
1997, film
341
WRITERS ON ARTISTS
And
blocks you arrange and rearrange as you edit.
it's all
so beautiful, even through the
gloom. The kid in the bath eating spaghetti, the way you linger on the foaming peak of his hair as his Right and below:
mother washes
it
for
him, the wide-eyed innocence of the child surrounded by
Gummo,
1997, film.
his methane-sniffing parents. You're not really a bratty nihilist at
care about these people.
about surrealism
It's
all,
are you?
You
really
no wonder you get angry when people
in relation to you,
it's
do
talk
just a world they don't, or rather
can't, believe exists.
I
particularly like the scene with the high school jock brothers in
the kitchen, which like
I
think best illustrates
Bruce Weber would sexualize them
my
point.
in sepia, all
Whereas someone middle-aged
homoerotic gaze and American Dream, or a '60s photojournalist would
pour
his "true
grit'' all
over them, you present rather than represent
them. They're just themselves, and camera, but is
to
what
know to
it's
their larking, not
which
exactly
surround
it.
on the cutting-room
now
(I
floor.)
I
bit,
and where
shoot a
lot,
No wonder you
I
say,
that you're not merely
Don't you think
it's
and
to place
and with
it,
that loads of
trick
it
ends up
hardly ever use professional
wet themselves on day one.
as
about for the
can almost picture you directing. "Okay,
probably use that as a direction in
Anyhow,
they're larking
one you've imposed on them. Your
the right
know you
wrestle that chair."
actors, they'd
is
we know
I
take that back
- you would
itself.
one viewing of
Gummo
was
all
I
needed
to realize
good copy. Actually, you're lousy copy sometimes.
just a
little
pretentious to
come
out with quotes
like
— HARMONY KORINE
scene was completed
"After the
vomited
I
bucket
in a
to
appreciation"? Also, a contrived or constructed enigma a point but
the
first
place. Your father
famous
in a
can backfire.
it
was
PBS
for
me most
irritated
a fur trader,
we
interview. Nov*
documentary director
what
It's
know you're smart, Being
was
learn your father
man
think of a better term)
it
b\ being
make up my mind on how
in
a
(I'm sorry,
own
work.
an asshole.
Harmony, but
I
couldn't
and
I
still
a delicate trick to pull off
is
about you
the 1970s, often chronicling poor
in
so don't ruin
a renaissance
to
fine
you told Werner Herzog
characters in the South just as you have done in your
We
show m\ up
is
BY IAN MACMILLAN
successful you are
can't
your non-cinema
in
"Jackson Pollock had a •>?
FOOT
FETISH.
—from A Crackup endeavors.
I
can see that there
is.
at
the Race Riots
as
you are aiming
singularity of vision streaming through
hand
to,
and
it
a pure
even thing you turn vour
thought your fake suicide notes exhibition was
I
simultaneously very gallery
for,
witty, alarming,
was held
and almost an insidious joke on the
However,
in.
can't really judge vour
I
most
recent photographic book because £75 for a tome devoted entirely to pictures of the aging child star
much even
Macaulay Culkin
me, and I'm yet
for a fan like
reinvention of this former hideous
downtown scene give
it
But
if
I
though
entirely
can probably do without, I
don't
text,
the
I
show-off as a credible
me
a
copy I'm willing
to
got
round
in
in either,
nor your unflappable belief that you
it's
more than
A
Crackup
just a great title
was pre\iouslv expecting. The handwritten
and
it's
got that freeform riffing thing that
way you can
deliver a
girlfriend's mother"),
may
All the above:
Gummo,
199'
an avant-garde form.
reading your novel,
at last to
of the
ditto the record of banjo music,
doubt your sincerity
thankfully confirm that
seen
to "get" the ironic
on three black keys from the lower end
one day reinvent the tap dance I
you send
just a bit too
the benefit of the doubt. Your symphonic musical piece
composed piano
figure.
little
is
whole scene
in just
and that combination of
bits
makes
at
the Race Riots, and
and not remind
at all the drivel
me
a lot of
I
you
slept
w
last
have
I
admire
ith his ex-
half-truths, paranoid scribblings,
scenes given a blank twist of banal normality really echoes your
will
Basquiat s use of
his paintings so incredible.
one sentence ("Kevin
can
and
bizarre
film Julien Donkey-Boy.
343
— W'RI rERS
ON
ARTISTS
It
was
a Saturday afternoon
about eight people they
w
*^»v«H:^ 8
.-
tw
fining
seemed
to
in the theater
jTtvf^,^
It
saw Julien so there were only
I
with me, but
all
just shared
ever seen, in the
I've
Dogma
sense of the word. You really took that it
can confirm that
some intense psychotropic
has to be about the dirtiest film
and made
I
have been both moved and shell-shocked by the
experience, like we'd drug.
CAT
all
when
dictate of filmmaking
your own, didn't you? Trust you to take a set of rules
and then make a movie that seemed
as
if
you'd invented them.
found that cloying and oppressive grain of the image into the screen instead of
seeming
like a barrier;
digitally shot footage,
though
cameras and even went
know you
I
to the
miniature cameras on their
him
in a
really
somewhere
chaos, and Let's face
alluring Page from .A Crackup Race Riots, 1998, novel.
.Above:
the
at
I
it,
most
visually startling
"This
re-
original
extreme of having the actors wear
own
bodies.
And
I'm glad you didn't
was schizophrenic but
haphazard Venn diagram of similarly elusive
that
you were imagining
I
think
I
cinema of chance or of
a
celebrate your espousal of "mistake-ist" filmmaking.
Ewan Bremner, an
any movie starring a psychotic
Chloe Sevigny, and Werner Herzog drinking cough syrup
out of a shoe had to have something going for truly the
me
drew
suppose you
anti-archetypes and waited to see what would happen.
read
I
filmed with a variety of
explicitly suggest that the central character
just placed
I
up and messed about with the
transferred and blew
W,U;
literal
but take
it,
it
from
me when
and inventive mainstream distributed film
I
I
say that
it is
have ever seen.
absolutely the worst TIME OF MY LIFE.
is
JJ
—from Suicide Note, A Crackup Well, Harmony, don't
seem
acolyte,
first
it's
what anyone does, but
I
hope
I
don't
look so closely at the moving image again that
you would hate
met you. You'd probably want legendary Fight bigger than
sound
like
think,
I
because you
some sycophantic
only because the precise visual poetry of your framing of the world has
place. I'm sure
Harm
little
me
if
you met me,
to kick the very life
project involves you going
I
care
I've
enough
no doubt
out of me, which
up
to
people
J
is
to write this in the
would hate yon
if
I
funny given that your
in the street, preferably
much
guys like you and me, provoking them until they start to beat you up and
then having a companion shoot a result ol
the Race Riots
guess you're probably not going to give a fuck what
to care
and
made me
I
at
it
on
a
one of these encounters, or
concealed camera. is
It's
said
you were hospitalized
that just another bit of five cent bubble
as
gum from
HARMONY KORINE
myth machine?
the Korine is,
have
1
a lingering
an unseen legend, rather than what
seeking empty exercise. But
hope
could be,
it
that Fight a
here.
now because they would only
I'm going to have to go
you, but a few things before
I
sign off.
found
I
currently
it
misconstrued ultimate-attention-
ma\ be wrong about you
I
Harm remains what
let
I
have been before.
me
many words
have so
a postcard in Paris the other
week
of
to
to
send
it
to
you
as
I
thought
mean
medium. And gave
me
I
know how
this
women
even your most judgemental of connection to you, Finally, it
I
it
was too
watched
under construction.
it's still
Guwmo
w herein
lie
in yet
I
hope
another
into the search engine
the most alarming and
with three nipples that would certainly out-gross you to
critics.
horrid.
word
happened but putting your name
I
couldn't go far
And
enough
to think they say
to find out
what was the
you peddle ugliness.
again late last night before finishing this, and halfway
snowed outside and there was
for the remainder.
that
see that
a listing for a site called TripleNipple.com,
semi-pornographic images of
through
1
you're too strung out to get on with spreading the
don't
I
appropriate, but having eventually found your official
it
website (www.osalvation.com - what a name!) this doesn't
send
Godard
with a quote from him underneath that reads, "Counter vague ideas with sharp images."
wanted
BY IAN MACMILLAN
a halo of gently drifting
Assuming you'd appreciate
this
image yourself,
snow around my I
finally
you have your own anti-archetype: the romantic misanthrope. Keep
it
came
television
to realize
up.
All the best, Ian.
Julien Donkey-boy, 2000, film.
345
6
7
.
—
In
20th-centui}
Judd) 336 12
art
Blessed Lodovico Albertoni
Austen. Jane 299 Automatic Orgasm 217
untitled narks in concrete
5
installation b\
A
2-
6.
Castelli,
Catalan primitives 63
Blue Boy, The 222
Caulfield, Patrick 112
Blue Poles 234
Caws, Mary Ann 179 Cedar Bar Menu 73 Celebrations: Pink and Blue 314 Centaur 63 Cezanne, Paul 12, 17, 94, 104, 138-147, 172, 184, 187,262, 270 Chain Reaction 232 Chamberlain, John 336 Chapman, Jake & Dinos 219 Charge of Angels 3 1
1
10,
Blue Poles 272, 286 Blue Vase, The 142. 143
273 the Flock 125
Bokris, Victor 58ff
Bolton Junction, Eccleshire 25
B
Bonnard, Pierre 149 Boogie -Woogie 12
80, 110, 115. 130, 139, _
Bosch, Hieronymus 68
Back of Hollywood, Tlie 307 Bacon, Francis 127, 282 Bailiff, The 2\8
Boss :>06
Abstract Impressionism 310
Balanchine, George 300f
Bouquet of Roses
abstraction, abstract art 9f, 13, 23,
Ballard,
J
Balloon
Dog 1995-8 47
16611 2^
[76, 179, 183, 230,
4.
1
_
244, 253, 265, 282, 287,
.
296, 298f, 304, 306, 334
4
1
49, 94ff, 98, 115, 130, 138,
.
G
222, 244f, 262, 264f, 267, 270, 280. 283f, 288, 296, 298. 328,
Barker, Clive 221
334, 339
Barn, The 64
Accabonac Creek After Degas
After
M)
1
5
series
284
Barnes, Albert 288, 316
158-165
Barnes, Julian
1
Abortion 208
After \isiting David
Baroque
Hockney 155
Sandro 209 Sunlight 156
in
—Jeff and Ilona 43
Chaucer, Geoffrey 179
Bowie, David 204-221, 293
Checkerboard 195
Boy and the Moon 8 Boy Meets Girl 308, 309 Boyd, William 148-157
Cheney. Sheldon 131
Braque, Georges 16. 95. 104, 143,
Chinese
Chez Max
1
54
ChiAma, Crede 180
310
Braun, Emily 264
art
14
Chinese Mountain Landscape with Boat 9
Chipp, Herschel B 274
Brecht, Bertolt 82
1
Chatwin, Bruce 153
Bourgeois, Louise 217
146, 151, 184, 244,
282, 285
art 43,
Barr, Alfred 3
Botticelli,
Bourgeois Bust
123
Balthus205, 219 Barge 234f, 241
139, 146, 148, 166, 182, 184ff,
Leo 47, 72, 75, 166
Bloch, Bradley 58
Blossoming 149
Away from
_
_
Ewan 344
Afterwards 151
Barthes, Roland 137
Bremner,
Aida 62
Basquiat, Gerard 294f
Breton, Andre 119, 298
Christmas Eve 248
Breughel, Pieter 101
Christopher Ishenvood and
Albee,
Edward 307 264
290-295
Basquiat, Jean-Michel
307
Albers, Josef 237,
Bass, Saul
179 Stephen 177 all-overs 73, 279, 284 Alloway, Lawrence 76 Altman, Robert 242 American Indian art 131 Anagrams 233, 241, 243
Bathers at Asnieres 196, 197, 200,
Alberti, Raffael
Bride Stripped Bare by
201,202
Aldiss.
Baudelaire, Charles 184, 196,
215,298 Baziotes, William 72 Beatles
220
Beaux Art Gallery style 25 Beckett, Samuel 271
Anfam. David 250
Beckett, Sister
Angel 63 Anglica Saved by Ruggiero 164
Beckmann, Max Bed 230, 231
Another Lane 124
Bell,
67
anti-art 43,
12
8,
Giovanni 158, 267
Benn, Gottfried 90
Arabesque 302
Benton, Berger,
Art Brut 67, 69. 205
Bezzola, Tobias
art informel
Artist
Berkson,
Bill
81,
Berrigan,
Ted
1
Beuys, Joseph 153. 205
and Model 36, 37
1
59
Bicycle
252-255
Wheel 102, 104, 105f
Big Wheel 214
Billingham. Richard
Assumption of the Virgin 106, 108 At Jennie Richie Out in the open 255
Birth of Liquid Desires
Richie. The) mingle...
At the Beach 68
Atomic
Am
Bomb
naturel
52
224
Broadway BoogieAVoogie 195 Brougher, Kerry 303, 304
285 Grand Canyon, A 38 Clouzot, Henri 236 Cohen, David 248 Collings, Matthew 40-49, 195,
Brown Stones 332 Brown, Glenn 219 Brown, Tricia 239 I
.
254
224-229 1
17
Birthday Party 62
Black Stones 332 Black Stones and Striper 333 Black Stones and Striper II 333
Kenneth 298f
12-14
Classical art 196, 200,
Closer
219, 315, 341 Collins, Joan
Burke
Collishaw,
1
10,
TJ
Burckhardt, Rudy 296ff, 299 5
216
Mat 221
Color Field painting 174. 310
Burke, Joseph 13 at
Both Ends
Burroughs, William 216
Colquhoun 230 Combines 230, 232 Composition 16 190
W 334
Composition A: Composition with Red, Gray, Yellow, and Blue 190,
Bust of a Woman 20 Byatt.A.S. 244-251
191
Composition
C
(No.
Ill;
Composition with Red,
Yellow,
and Blue) 193
Cabbage and Potato 67 Cadmium Red Oil on Wood 334
Composition C; Composition in Blue and Yellow 193
Cage, John 166, 177, 216, 236ff
Composition with Blue 194
Campbell soup cans 50, Canaletto, Antonio 17 Canto XXXI, Tlw Central
Composition with Red, Black,
1
Ash ton, Dore 174ff
At Jennie
Clark,
Clark,
C
70
Bickerton, Ashley 123f
.
City 307
Bridges, Robert 24
Bush, George
296-301
Don
Bridge at Courbevoie, The 199
Bernini, Gianlorenzo 108
244
Ashbery, John 28, 167,
272ff, 28 Iff
19
Cimabue 296
153
John 9, 267 Berkeley, Bishop 314
1
Bachardy 32
The 68
Bunting the Candle
Thomas Hart
304 Arcimboldo. Giuseppe 68 Ariadne, Greek sculpture 9 Armstrong, Louis 297 Arnold. Matthew 196. 200f, 299 Arp. Jean 324 d'
Her
Buick Painting 72, 74
Benezra, Neil 304
appropriation 219, 338
Arcangelo, Alan
87
Vanessa 21
Bellini, 1
Wendy 116-121
Chirico, Giorgio de
Bachelors 102, 105 Bride.
Andre, Carl 338
Apples and Jug
Chair
automatism 175f
avant-garde art 23, 96, 102,
Abstract Expressionism 17, 24,
My
220
Autiunn Garden 246
Sutumn Rhythm: No. 30 275, 278, 286
A La PintumNo, 12 179 Abbado, Claudio201 Abortion 222 \bsinthe Glass, The 103
Cast of the Space under
(Bernini) 108
1
1
Blue, Pit of
Malebolge, The Giants 234
and Yellow 193
Composition with Red, Blue, Black, Yellow,
and Gray 192
Caprichos 67
Composition with Trees 190
Caravaggio 287
Composition with Yellow and
Blake. Peter 72
Carone, Nick 271, 285, 287 Case for an Angel 220
Blake. William 205
Cassou, Jean 131
Double Line 193 llll 284 Conceptual Art 40, 125, 183, 207,
Compositions with Pouring
—
15
2
1
305, 307
into
Concrete Trench with Flowers SS
ii
Swimming
Pool,
Santa
Monica 28
Contemplating 149
Divisionism 18^.
Contos Populares
Di\. Otto
63 Convergence: Number 10 284 Portugese:;
I
148, 208f. 218, 274, 288, 296,
Doctorow,
242
L.
Dollar Signs 51
Cornell, Joseph 29
Domestic Scene, Broadchalke 31
Corot.J.P.C. 16, 146
doodle
Couple Fucking Dead Twice 128 Course We Have 53
Doorum
art
1
Crane, Hart 170
30
with Figure 181
Cubism
drip painting 279, 281,
244
Cubism |
Of
Cubo-Futurism 86 Culkin, Macaulay 341 Cunningham, Merce 166, 23~tt Curfew 237 Curry,
29,
Ken 21
D
93
284
17
Giorgione 121. 267, 271
Fantin-Latour, Henri 16f
Giotto 116, 205, 207, 296
239 Normandy, Summer
Girl Standing at a
Farm
Girl with Bare Feet,
in
Leo 188
Godard, Jean-Luc 341, 345
Going Out 67 Golden Wbrds 305 Goncourt, Edmond de 158, 161
Duchamp 322
Federico 196
Fellini,
Duchamp, Marcel
40, 42f. 47, 57,
"5.
102-109, 153, 169, 183, 217, 304, 327 Dub, Raoul 110 Dunne, Aidan 331
173.
Good Smile Great Come
for Les
Demoiselles d'Avignon) 17
Feminine 7/181
Gormley, Antony 220
Femme
Gottin, Daniel 338
Couche'e 118, 119
la
1
63
at
180, 181
Eggbeater series
1 1
Einstein. Albert
278
Dareff, Hal 3
Einstein, Carl 85
Of,
Daumier, Honore 16 Daura, Pierre 131
Elegy series 178, 180
110-115
1
1
59
Eliot, T.S. 141, 174. 176, 182f,
244
Eluard, Paul 178
1
337, 338
Italy,
Swiss Landscape
Ford, John 233, 241
Griinewald 84
formalism 24, 29, 167
Guardians of the Secret 280
Fountain 103, 327
Gue'ridons
Four Seasons series 48
Guernica
1
1
Frank, Robert 226, 307
284 Guggenheim mural 279, 280, 281, 284 Guggenheim, Peggy 272, 279 Guillotine, The 177
Form 275 Freedman, Carl 206, 209
Gulf of Marseilles, seen from LEstaque 142
Fourth Man, The 124 Francis,
55
219 290 Graham, Martha 238 Grande Odalisque, La 164 Greatest Homosexual, The 77 Green Target 72 Greenberg, Clement 10, 23, 274f, 279, 281, 285, 300, 316 17 Greer, Germaine 62-71, Gris, Juan 23, 198, 310 Grosz, Georg 83-85, 88 Grotto 49 85, 88,
1
Fourth Love Painting 26
George 299
and
22
25, 26
172 (with Blood) 178 Eliot,
Dan
Flight into lOOf, 142
Eleg) to the Spanish Republic No.
Christ 119
,
Flaubert, Gustave 196
El
Elderfield.
1
Flanders 92
113
Flavin,
Greco 281, 283 John 94, Elderly Couple 90
Death of Constable Scanlon Deconstructionism 129
2
Bottles
Five to Eleven 309
Egan, Charles 312
176f, 179
graffiti art
Figures in Tree 14
Coke
Sam
151, 179
12, 16, 96,
decorative painting 10
Elvis
Decoy 171
Degas, Edgar 16, 117, 158-165
Embarking 31 Emerson, Ralph Waldo Emin, Tracey 204-221 Emmerich, Andre 310
Deitch, Jeffrey 295
End
de Kooning, Elaine de 298
Empire of Flora 30 Empson, William 128f End photo book 307 Esplund, Lance 320-327 Esther 69
320 From or By Marcel Duchamp or Brose Selav}', or Tlie Box in a
Demikov, Jevel 3 1 7f Demikov-One 310
Etant Donnees;
Roger 145 Fuchs, Rudi 115
Demikov Two 319 Denby, Edwin 297f, 300f Deposition (Pontormo) 268 Derain, Andre 94, 146
Eternal Feminine 187
Fuller,
Harlow, Jean 31 Of
Euston Road School 25 Evening on the Gein with Isolated Tree 184 Evening, Red Tree 1 86
Fuller, Peter
Harnett, William 241
Deep Socket 315 Deep, The 286, 287
de Kooning, Willem de 23, 55, 74, 168, 176f. 180f, 271, 272. 277,
283,296-301, 312, 314 Delacroix, Eugene 27, 174, 28 If
—
Device Circle 168, 169
Dewey, John 177f Diaz, Al 290 Diebenkorn, Richard 98 Different Kinds of Water Pouring
I
11
series (photobook)
Free 1
76
French
307
First, the Waterfall,
Second, Gaslight 106. 107, 108f
Ever) Building on Sunset Strip
(photos) 302
Everyone
I
Have Ever Slept With
204, 221
Gummo
Money 75
Freud, Sigmund 63, 66,
Valise
Frost,
(film)
340-3
Guston, Philip 74, 176f, 179
Freud, Lucien 165
1
1
Goya, Francisco de 20, 63, 65, 67,
Figure in Black (Girl with Stripes)
Echo, The: Study for Bathers
Adolph
Gottlieb,
Patronne
2
Gorky, Arsile 74f
Ferragosto 111 132
78
I
Female Nude (study
Fete de
Danto, Arthur 183
DeStijl 184
1
Rudolph 124, 204, 290
Giuliani,
Feldman, Morton 236
Five
Henry 252-255
1
La Corunna
18
Werner 341
Firbank, Ronald 28
Darwent, Charles 335-339
Window
Farber, Viola
First Steps
1
George 211, 213
Godel, Kurt 23
116-121 Disney's
&
Gilot, Francoise 109
Feaver, William 35
Asnieres 200
Dancing Ostriches from Fantasia 68
Dead
1
Fauvists94, 96, 98, 102, 188
Dance 98
Davis, Stuart
Gilbert
Master Stroke
318 Duccio 296
Dadd, Richard 117
Darger,
124, 221
lain -tale painting 10
Faust,
Daisies 101 Dali, Salvador 52,
272, 320
If,
Dubuffet, Jean 25. 67, 131, 292,
Dutch Masters
175,236,302
86, 102,
Theodore 120
Giacomettti, Alberto 97, 265, 271
18
(Hattenville) 147
Durer, Albrecht 84
Dada42,
1
Angus
airhurst,
Fassbinder,
79
Filter
Faerna, Jose
Fairy Feller's
Diyden, John 179
Dual
1
gestural art 125, 15
I
Dr. Fritz Perls
16, 17, 20, 22f, 24, 94,
3
gestural expressionism 174
Criatura Encarnada 6 :
96, 102ff, 111. 143. 146. 180.
1
325, 328
272-287
Gentileschi, Artemisia 69, 70
>
3 If >
The
leeks,
Gericault,
Food o l
for
Dos Passos, John 233. 241 Double portraits of Hockne\
I
Cranach, Lucas 84
104f,' 11
286
Doesbcrg, Theo van I90f
— Waiting
(
12, 196,
Geldzahler, Henry 37
Eyes in the Heat
Cooper, Douglas 20
'
Gayford, Martin 137,
310, 328
Dog Women
(analytical/synthetic/hermetic
Gauguin, Paul
Expressionism 72, 82, 86, 125,
ss
M) Mum 219 Cooke, Barn 328-333 Conversation with
184f, 188, 198.
Evolution 186, 187, 188
82-93
8
1
1
19,
108
Robert 233, 241, 329
Fry,
John 223 8-15, 41, 49 Fusion {Anagram) 233 Futurism 262
209,
H Half Ant -Half Lion 66 Hanson, Duane 222-223 happenings and events 236f \a
in
a Trap 13
Hanng, Keith 183, 294
Harrison, Katherine 224 Hartley,
Marsden 141, 145, 168 and Undergarments 201
Hats, Shoes
G
Haven't
Garrowby Gates,
We
Viet? 153,
dn, Joseph Hill 39
Bill
242
154
236
ad 286 •
I
a
Man
22
341
;
3
1
Heaney, Seamus
Lavender Mist: No.
Janku, Laura 307
328-333
1
276, 278
leidegger, Martin 10
Japanese Screen 153
Le Corbusier 19 Le Mystere Picasso 236
Heisenberg, Werner 23
Je t'aime series 178
Leach, Bernard 251
Henderson, Joseph 287 iennique, eon 59
Jenkins, Peter
Henri, Robert 110
John, Augustus
Hensher, Phillip 130-137, 286
Johns, Jasper 47f, 72, 75,
Heckel, 1
1
rich 209,
I
I
I
Japanese
211,218
18f
art
72-81
leraclitus 331
Jones, Allen 72
Herzog. Werner 343
Jones, Jonathan
Heston. Charlton 334
Joo,
Damien 122-129, 205,221
Hirst,
History of Russian Revolution
80f
Hocknev David 17-23. 24-39,
180. 182
338f
Kahnweiler, Daniel-Henri 310-319
2 If
Home, The 50 Horn. Roni 338 Hornby, Xick 224-229 House in Provence, near Gardanne 1
144 in
K Ilya
Provence
— The Riaux
Kandinsky, Vassily 180, 283 Kant, Karr,
Giant
Little
Immanuel 167 Mary 224
Still Life
Keats, John 121
Metaphysical School 262 Plots
Metropolis,
309 The
281 Mieze, Abends im Cafe' 90 Mill at Domburg, Tlie (The Red
1
Mill) 185
Little
Orphan Annie 306 Ken 290 Livingstone, Marco 33
Miller,
Livingstone,
Milliner) Shop, Tlie 164
Harland 290-295 1
Lloyd, Jill 88 Long Cadmium with Ceruleum Violet 244
Mills,
Tina 322
Mills,
Wes 320-327
Long, Richard 338
Minimalism 153, 338 Minton 230
Looking Out 67
Miro, Joan 118, 272, 284, 318
in
Museum
an
Mitchell, Julian 151,
Lozenge, The 195
Hughes, Robert 40. 96, 272f Hughes. Ted 328f
Kelly Ellsworth 80, 183. 230, 283
Lubbock.
Kendall, Richard 160, 162, 165
Lucas, Sarah 205f, 219, 220, 224
Moliere's Chair
Hume, Gary
Kernan, Nathan 47
Lucky
Mona
Kiata 8
Lvnton, Norbert
Hunter, Prof. Hustvedt,
Siri
Sam 72 262-271
Kingdom of Flora 135 Kirchner, Ernst 218 Kitaj, R B 26f, 39
hyper-realism 222
Klein, Yves 2 17f /
Live Over in Valley View 305
If I
78
1
could just go back and
again 2
start
16, 17, 94, 138,
210 In a Darkened Room 157 In Bed in Venice 153 In Between 125 Inferno illustrations 243 Ingres,
J
A D
Woman,
Lion 120 Iolas,
306
Islamic art 137 Italians,
Ives,
The 137
Charles 233, 24 If
Jacobson,
Janis,
148
~6 1
Sidney 76, 316
of W'entworth
Bellevue 140
Montagne
Sainte-Victoire,
La 141
Morandi, Giorgio 97, 262-271
Motherwell. Robert 175-183.
Kramer, Hilton 40, 46f, 109, 298
299
L
Walking the Stairs 289
Manet, Edouard 17, 158, 336 Mannerism 285 Mantegna, Andrea 158
Map
158
173
Marca-Relli, Conrad 287
Marconi, Joe, 218f
L'Homme
1
1
16
Marfa, Texas, overview (photo) 335
13
Marilyn 50
La Strada 196 Landscape with Garage Lights 1 14 Lane, Abigail 124 Large Glass, The 102, 106f, 183
Nude 100
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia 70 Martin, Agnes 320, 322
Masaccio 121 Master Pasture
(
Mathieu, Georges 318
Los Meninas 181
Matisse, Henri
Lascaux cave paintings 10 it
Laurent Lavend<
(Michelangelo) 282
Ernest-Joseph 198 i
r
53
241, 299
Motion, Andrew 222-223
Mount
Fuji and Flowers 29
Mountain. The 309
Mountains 49 Mozart W.A. 121, 180, 236 Munch, Edvard205. 207ff, 211, 217 Muni, Paul 310, 312 Mural 280 My Bed 204 Myers, John Bernard 313
Urban Bourbon)
N
240, 241
Larkin. Philip 197
Howard 50-61
James, Henry
1
'
Malraux, Andre 175
Man
Harmony 340-345
Large Reclining
Jackson, Harry 282
12, 110, 180,
184-195, 264, 276, 279, 283 Monet. Claude 17, 145, 180, 210 Monogram 230 Monogram 230, 236 Mont Sainte-Victoire seen from
Mallarme, Stephane 170, 178
L'age D'or
Alexander 318f
Irwin, Robert
Mondrian 324
Koons. Jeff 40-49, 183
Krasner, Lee 272, 280, 284f,
Horse,
312
Moreau, Gustave 94 Morgan, Stuart 216 Morrison, Blake 224
I
Kosuth, Joseph 104
16, 101, 119,
Tliree
Malevich, Kasimir 166, 168, 283
Korine,
intimisme 25 Invisible Sleeping
330
—
Kokoschka, Oskar 328, 330 Kopie, Jeff 338
158, 196,
Trace}
9, 22, 27,
Lisa 108
Mondrian, Piet
Madness
Knockarea 7/331
Knocknarea
1
Immerse 241 Impressionism
175-183
from Margate 210 312 Madonna of the Meadows 267 Maison Maria 144
235, 236, 242
Kliiver, Billy
1
MacBryde, Robert 230 Mach, David 127 MacMillan, Ian 340-345
Mad
314 11
Iberia no.
Kline, Franz 74f, 179, 299, 312,
Modernism
222, 273, 284, 338
188
1
art.
43, 169, 175, 183, 187, 196,
M
Klee, Paul 8, 10, 148-157, 181
ISp) 124
modern
Tom 1
Self-
Portrait 33
Love Poem 209
Strike
302-309
Model with Unfinished
307 Tim 224
Kelley, Peter 183
209, 220f
166f, 320, 334,
.
Kelly in the Bush 10
L'Estaque 145
92
Michelangelo 39, 235, 272, 274,
Howl 303
Valle) near
88f,
Michael Jackson and Bubbles 41
Mill in Sunlight 186
Lott,
1
Merian, Maria Sibylla von 66
Metro
Fire
Keene, Charles
Menil, Philippa de 335
Little Murderess, Tlie 70, 71
Los A)igeles County
Katz, Alex 301
1
Meissonier, Jean-Louis 117
Memories 156
Messaien, Olivier 242
Showing Off 67
Little Girl
Kafka, Franz 320
Femme Nus
at
Houses
346
Anthony 159
Kabakov,
Holzer, Jenny 183
Hopes
334-339
Judith 69, 70
Julius,
Hofmann, Hans 72, 298f. 301 Hofmann. Michael 82-93 Hollow Men. The (From T S Eliot)
et
Michael 125 Judd, Donald 115
Julian Donkey-boy (film)
294. 304. 306
Hodgkin. Howard 148-157
Homme
220
Judd, Donald 264,
McKendrick, Jamie 110-115 McNeil, George 273
Leonardo 119, 294 Les Baignenrs 107 Les Demoiselles d Avignon 16 Lewis, Wyndham 219 Liechtenstein, Roy 77, 167 Lion Hunt in Bordeaux 281 Lips 49 Liszt, Ferenc 235
166-173, 183, 230-233, 238, 302, 304
Hero and Leander 130. 134 Heron. Patrick 138-147, 244-251
Mavpost, Lisa 221
Lebel, Robert 106 Leda and the Swan 134, 135, 136f Leger, Fernand 72, 111, 238, 318 Leigh, Mike 205
18
1
3
McEwan, John 65
1
jcune Fille Americaine 113
1
2
3
1
1,
27, 72,
94-
Nabokov, Vladimir 154
101, 109, 111, 139, 151, 172,
Nagy, Tibor 3
180, 182, 238, 244, 247, 272,
Naifeh
283f, 301, 318
naiVe art
Matta 175
&
1
White-Smith 284 1
Namuth, Hans 236, 278, 285f
5
1
Nanny, The 198
Q
Pasiphae 280. 284
212
narrative painting
Pater 29
naturalism 25, 98
Pater.
Xauman. Bruce 183. 220 Ned Kelh paintings 8, 10, 1 1, Nell) with Tms 88, 89
Patrick Caulfield in Itah 13, 15
Neo-Impressionism 196 Neoplasticism 184 Neorealism 84 Neue Sachlichkeit 84 New Hoover Celebris PV, New Hoover Quik-Broom 42
New Ohmpia 187 New York School 299 New York under Gaslight Newman, Barney
Walter 24
Tom
Pelicai
Pelican 23
1
1
Grow 220
Perfect Place to
Periscope
|
Hart Crane
79, 230. 276,
285f. 299
7
1
Personnage
Saint Phalle. Niki de 239
328 Rachmaninov. Sergei 235
Salmon, Andre 188
175
Nicholson. Ben 143. 246f
Peto. John 241 Pharmac) 02
\ight Fishing atAntibes 234
Photographer Hugo Erfurth with
1
Noble. Paul 212
Rainer, Yvonne 239 Rancho 306, 307 Rape of Luc ret ia 269 Raphael 99
Phytophthera Infestans
Piano Lesson, The 98. 99
166.
Picabia. Francis
304
Sorth Artillen
\ude
installation
337
Desce)idiug a Staircase 102
Slide L}ing on Fur 90. 91
Number 1 282 Sumber 32 275,
1
3
Picasso. Pablo 10-12. 16-23. 24. _ 36-39. 58. 63. 2. 84. 94-96.
101. 102-10", 109, 118. 131,
2"". 278, 281
O O'Hara. Frank Oasis 220
189. 195
Pietro
Odol 112 Old Masters style 78, 84, 88 Oldenburg. Claes 338
Pink Panther 45
Ohmpia
Day 317
Number 31
Op .Art Open
1". 138,
196
2"0
275, 277ff, 286
185
180 Interior 181
100
oriental art 19f.
at
Ad
272-287.
Reni.
1
Ricard.
16
Rene 292
Riley. Bridget
Portrait
and a Dream 285 and a Dream 286
Portrait
of AS. Byatt. Red, Yellow,
Green and Blue 250 Aman-fean 198 Portrait of an Artist Pool with Two Figures- 30 Portrait of Jo Grimond 244 Portrait of
Portrait of the Artist's Father
Paganini. Niccolo 235
Paint in
N umber
Sailboats
Paint b\
S umber
Seascape
Paley.
Grace 24
Paper Pools 33 Paradise (Tintoretto
i
281
Paradise 68
Sister
~~
56
&
Portrait of
TS.
184-195, 219
Falls
Robertson, Bryan
Eliot
202, 203
Indians 28. 304
Rosenthal,
337
Seven Deadly Sins 84
Chloe 344
Shakespeare,
W'm 308
Shell Crater like Blossom
43
Nan 170
Mark
93
23
102
Sewell. Brian 224
Rothko.
12
Self-Portrait with Palette
Sevigny,
art
War 93
87
Carnation 86, 88
Rocfa Mountains and Tired
postmodernism 338
Mine
Self-Portrait as Target
203
329
Rothenberg, Susan 301
Pretty Poll)
1
246
Seurat, Georges 104, 168, 197-
230-243
Post-Impressionism 102, 184 Pre-Raphaelites 166
Self-Portrait
Sela\y. Rrose
Rosenblum, Robert 318
244
small version
122-129 149
Rocks at LEstaque 139
Rococo
Standing
1
Colin 221
Self. Will
Serota, Nicholas
Rosenberg, Harold 10. 176
119
Posers, Tlie
s
Self,
h) a
3
Self-Portrait with Marcella
Rimbaud, Arthur 9. 14 Rivera, Diego 92, 272 Rivers. Lam 25. 72-81 Roaring Bilh
Drinking Tea,
Self-Portrait with
230. 306f Portrait
Woman
Self-portrait as Prisoner of
Orozco, Jose 272ff, 281
Out of the Web 278 Out of the Window 169
from behind, combing
Self-Portrait 2
Richardson. John 38
Ouspensky. Peter 9
Seated
Self-Pit)
representational art lOf, 17, 22f,
81. 112. 166. 167. 169. 222,
artists 205 Ovid 200 Chvh. In San Pao 110
310
Return of Croquenitaine, The 66 50. "2. "4. 76-
Sude
Companion
79f
46. 49. 262
Pontormo 268 Pop Art 17, 24. 40.
Box: Stiuh for Bathers
Being Seired
Origins Snovsk 316
Outside
273
20. 78, 205, 212.
Guido
Sude
her hair 161
273, 28 Iff. 307. 340
315
Painting on the
Asnieres 197
Seated
Renaissance 144, 158. 209. 267ff,
299. 314. 343
Orange Figure with
Seated
Reflection of the Big Dipper
Rembrandt
Pollack. Reginald
A
Seamstress, The:
Wall 198
Policeman's Daughter, Tlie 70
132. 168. 176f, 236.
Oracle 239. 243
222
Reinhardt,
Pollock, Jackson 10. 58. 74, 109.
series 178.
Schwitters, Kurt 131, 241 Screen Pieces \~\
Sea at LEstaque 146
Rego, Paula 62-71
Lou 315
4
Schwenk, Theodor 332
304
book) 306
Poindexter. Elinor 313-5
Pollack.
art 1021T,
1
Schulze, Andreas Karl 338f
Red and Blue 284 Red Bermudas 153 Red Tree, The 186
_
the First
One:
Camille
Pissarro,
Plato
135. 13
Schopenhauer, Artur 175, 177
Reclining Slide 19
338 da Cortona 282
127
Schiller. Friedrich
_
Pierson, Jack
310-319
Raymond. Marcel
realism 21. 29. 86, 96, 110. 216.
Piero della Francesca 17, 24. 97,
Schiele,
School of Athens 134
102. 113
Real-Estate Opportunities (photo
Odalisque with Magnolias 100
Olitski. Jules
Maurice 235
Man
294, 310. 318. 330
and Ocean
Meyer 174f Meyer 335 Egon87, 205, 208
School So. 6 339
Read, Herbert 245, 251
196. 26
Ocean Grayness 286
Ray,
230-243. 299, 301, 302,
ready-made
Pier
170, 299f
Rauschenberg, Robert 76, 130ff,
Ravel,
170
Schapiro,
184. 21". 236. 272, 284, 286.
_ 5.
Sariirin
Schapiro,
143. 146. 168. 172f, 174, 181.
Picture Emphasizing Stillness 27
O'Doherty. Brian 242
On
1
54, 61
Samson and Delilah 10 Sand in the Vaseline 307 Sandman, The 67 Santayana, George 24, 28
197-203
Raine, Craig
Nolan. Sydney 8-15
330, 333
127
Donna de
Samurai 63
Rahv, Philip 176
Noise 309
III
Jem
Salvo,
266
116. 121
Self-Portrait
Saltz,
Jean-Francois 158f
Ragghianti. Carlo Ludovico 271,
1
224
Saatchi, Charles 205,
Rabbit 46
Raffaelli.
Jed 94-101. 133, 232
Perl.
Persistence of Mentor)
1 1
S
Rabelais, Francois
-)
1
Ruskin. John 210. 299
R
Pearblossom Highwaj 36
302-309
Ruscha. Ed
20:
1
Queenie II. 222 Quinn, Mark219f
288-289
159,
Paxton, Steve 23 L)
Percolator
Rubin. William 101
Rude Passage 319
quattrocentro art
50
1
270
Paul. St.
Paulin.
5
1
1
88
Mar) 205 Shepherd, Kate 338 Sherman. Cindy 183 Shelley,
She- Wolf 284
10, 80, 176f. 179,
Shone, Richard 129
230. 244. 264. 272, 276f, 283,
Sick Sparrow.
285, 299, 306
Sickert,
The 67
Walter 25
Prometheus 272
Rouault, Georges 288
Sign in Marfa, Texas (photo) 334
Parsons, Betty 316
Proverbios 63
Rousseau, Henri (Le Douanier) 26
Signac, Paul 196
Parts of the Bod}. English
Pupp) 40
Royal Road Test (photo book) 306
Parker. Charlie
286
vocabulary ~6
Putzel.
Howard 2~V
Rubens. P P 116. 28
If,
320. 329
Signature plate (Parkett edition) 48 Signorelli,
Luca 281
349
7
1
1
3
6
1
Simpson. Jane 125
Suprematism 166
Singer with a Glove 161
Surrealism 16, 42, 62f,
Siqueiros, David 2721 Sisley,
Alfred
Sitting
Man
1
Sloinmski. Andreas 125
Small Japanese Screen 153
C Saumarez
Smith,
Two Men in a Shower 30f Two Men Walking in a Field
245, 247f, 251
Washington Crossing the Delaware
Twombly, Cy 130-137, 183, 292, 320
Waterlilies 180,
Tyler,
Si mlics of the
De
Drapery Guild
317
des Artistes Independents
196
304
Untitled (Blue
239
Untitled (Naked
Temptation of St. Anthony (with the head of Christ) 83
The Moon Woman Cuts the Circle 280 The Realms 252 The Storm is Coming. Tliis is not a strawberry 252f The Story of the Vivian Girls 252 Thieband, Wayne 99
St.
Madonna 92
Teresa (Bernini) 108
Stael, Nicolas
de 318
The 249
Staircase,
Joseph 3 1 7f Standard Station, Amarillo, Texas Stalin,
Standing Man, Hands Outstretched
199 Stangos, Nikos 30
Stella.
Stevens, Wallace 155f, 182, 239,
249 by Morandi)
263-271 Still Life in
the Atelier 91
Still,
90, 91
282
239
Tintoretto 211,271, 272, 274, 28
Titian 20, 39, 107, 211,
with Calf's
Still Life:
Women
Tinguely, Jean
Marble 96 Still Life
90
from the Temeraire
Tiepolo, Giovanni 274,
with a Sea Shell on Black
Still Life
Three
Head 90
Flowers in a Vase 144
Clyfford I76f, 179, 299
269
To Beauty 88f
Tobacco
Still Lifes
Tolstoy,
Leo 77
1
1
1
f
Woman
and Direction (Glider
Posers 203
Writing 149
Vasari, Giorgio 183
Yeats
Vaughan 230
You and
Velazquez, Diego 88
You
Venus in Gloves 85
Suicide,
The 90
Summertime 278 Summertime in Italy
Verhoeven, Paul 124
Young
British Artists 122,
Vermeer, Jan 116, 162, 205, 211 Veronese, Paolo 282
Young
Woman
No. 7
In
202
307
340 [video
Z
artist]
Zola,
1
84
—
Triumph of Death 84, 92 Triumph of Galatea 30 Tub, The 158, 163
W
Tudor, David 236ff
Walk Round
W M 21
Tuttle, Richard
Of,
216
322
Twenty-Six Gasoline Stations
(photo book) 304f Tiro Girls with
Dog 70
Thad 326
Emile 138
Zurbaran, Francisco de 16
.
The Ten Years After Vuillard, Edouard 149 Voyage,
214
Powdering Herself
Ziolkowski,
Georg 90 222
Soul 207;
213
Voice! 171, 172 Vollard, Ambroise 138
Turner,
Golden Ocher) 180 Sunday Afternoon on the Island of the Grand Jatte 196, 203
(installation)
Zervos catalog 19f
1
Summer Couch 296 Summer Madness 135
WB. 328, 333 Me 305 Forgot to Kiss My
Vivian Girls 68
Trees on the Gein: Moonrise
Razon Produce
Y
Vlaminck, Maurice de 94
Suenode
la
Wright, William
Van Gogh, Vincent 17-20, 1 16ff, 185f, 188, 213, 288 Varnedoe, Kirk 137, 282,287 Van de Walle Lance 325
Torso 54
Trai'eler
Robe with
Wright, Karen 265
Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri de 163, 196 Trakl,
Monstros, El 67
in a Purple
Ranuncidi 95
Woolf, Tobias 224
109
Visa 112, 113
The
of
Wordsworth, William 155 Working Class Boys 86
Viola, Bill
Study for
24-39
Woman Reading 198 Woman Seated on a Bench 198 Woman with Chrysanthemums 165 Women Combing their Hair 160
325-327
Very Angry People
Subjects of the Artists school 177
10,
296
225-229
Toop, David 290
Stubbs, George 120
166-173
Woman and Child 86 Woman I (painting) 296, 297 Woman I (Six States of), photos
Untitled, various (Mills) 321, 323,
Tomalin, Claire 244f
300
pictures 13
Wittkower, Rudolf 108, 335
Untitled photos (Billingham)
Stokes, Adrian 10, 28 Stravinsky, Igor 236, 297,
Wimmera
Wollheim, Richard
Untitled No. 4 (Rego) 67
Stockebrand, Marianne 339
Stray Dogs 67
Weil)
Untitled (Warhol)' 58
Valery, Paul
133
Still Life (various,
&
V
Tliree Prostitutes in the Street Tlxree Studies
119
Still Life
270
Wittgenstein, Ludwig 129
Flight) 149
324 Three Flags 1 69 Three Graces 203
Frank 239, 277
274 Untitled (Rauschenberg 239 Untitled (Twombly) 136
Uplift
Thomson, Richard 199 Thoreau, Henry 324 Tliree Bridges
Steinbeck, John 303
Wilkin, Karen 111, 163, 165, 267,
Winkfield: Trevor
299-301
Thirty-Four Parking Lots in L.A.
Tlireatening Presence 180
Gertrude 316
with Knife)
Untitled, various (de Kooning)
1
(photo book) 306
304
Stein,
Third Day 3
Man
29, 176, 233, 241
Willing, Victor 62, 65, 67, 70
Untitled (Pollock)
Sphinx 90
Painting the
338
283
Tennyson, Alfred Lord 170
St. Litlies
(Moby Dick)) 284
Untitled (Flavin) 337,
Spanish Picture with
school 139, 245
Whitman, Walt
Untitled (Diptych) (Basquiat) 292
Target with Plaster Casts 167
Telephone 6
John the Baptist 44
Whiteread, Rachel 220
Untitled (Basquiat) 292
Tea 153
Chaim 288-289 Window 176
Wesley, John 338
1
Wlxore of Bab)don 3 1 Wilde, Oscar'24, 200
Sommeil, Lei Sleep
2
Weber, Bruce 342 1
Untitled (Slominski) 125
Taylor, Paul
St.
We? 305
Tapies, Antonio 174
Target with Four Faces
St. Ives
Wearing, Gillian 206, 219
Talking about Art 149
Target 169
Soutine,
Ultramarine Attaching (Laura
White 322
Some Los Angeles Apartments (photo book) 302, 306 Something Really Terrible 216 1
F 12
We're This and We're That, Aren't
Under Milkwood 62 Untitled (Cut Out Figure) 278 Untitled (Judd) 339
Solomon Island Shark 123
Sorrow of Kings, The 97 Sounds in the Grass 284
G
u Un Chien Andalou
T
278
Watteau, Antoine 38
Loves Fish) 124
Staalmeesters) 78
Smith. Roberta 12S
iete*
Ken 33
72, 74, 76f
Watts,
265. 276
Symbolism 187
socialist realism
Warrior 63
Twohig, Sarah O'Brien 87
Smith. Kiki 205
Smith, Ton) 2~2
98
239, 272, 274, 298, 302, 307,
Smith, David 102 Smith. Logan Pearsall 24
127, 167, 169, 205 1
66,96,102,116,119,167, 175,
342 Susannah 69 Sylvester. David 102-109, 176,
22
2
1
80
1
the Hotel Courtyard,
Acatlan 34, 35
War 284 War, The 84, 88 Ward, Russel 13
Warhol, Andy 40, 47, 50-6
1
,
79, !
350
•
Picture Credits Artworks Sir
Sydney Nolan: Death of Constable
New
Scanlon, courtesy of the National Gallery of
Hare
Australia; Kiata;
Tree; Chinese Boat. All
in a Trap;
Figures in
Mountain Landscape with
© the artist's estate/Bridgeman Art
Library; Kelly in Bush, courtes\ of
Nolan
Gallery, Cultural Facilities Corporation; PrettJ
Polly
Mine; Burke, both courtcs\ of the
Gallery of
New
All images
© Succession
South Wales. Pablo Picasso:
David Hockney: Jeff Koons: All
Picasso/DACS 2001.
images
All
©
David Hockney.
images courtesy and
Koons. Andy Warhol: All images
Warhol Foundation
DACS
\ri
©
© Jeff The And)
for the Visual \iis, Inc./
2001. Paula Rego: All images courtesj
of Marlborough Fine Art Ltd.
images
Rivers: All
©
London
.am
1
Lam' Rivers/VAGA, New
York/DACS, London 2001. Otto
Dix: All
© DACS, 2001. Henri Matisse: All © Succession H. Matisse/DACS 2001. Michel Duchamp: All images © Succession
DACS, London
York
2001. Salvador
images courtesy of
Dali: All
Hirst: All
DACS.
Estate of Patrick
Dafnien
photographic rights courtesy of Jon
copyright.
London 2001.
courtesy and
ADAGP,
and
Cy Twombly:
images courtesy and
All
Paul Cezanne:
Out
Morandi:
Howard Hodgkin: All images © Howard Hodgkin. Jasper Johns: All images © Jasper JohnsAAGA, New York/DACS, London 2001. Robert Motherwell: All images
©
Dedalus
Musee
d'Orsay. Tracey
Emin:
© Estate of Stuart
images
Da\is
VAGA,
Olitski: All
All
Olitski.
Kooning
NY and DACS,
images courtesy and
Wes
Mills: All
Donald Judd: Art
London 2001.
© Willem de
Ed Ruscha. Photo by Paul Ruscha.
Duane Hanson: All images © Estate of Duane Hanson/VAGA, New York/DACS, London
London
Mills. Barrie
©
Jules
© Jules ©
images courtesy and
Cooke:
images courtesy
All
© Barrie Cooke. © Donald Judd
Kerlin Gallery, Dublin.
EstateA/AGA,
New York/DACS, London
2001,
photograph Todd Eberle. Degas: Out of
Gallery. Robert
Rauschenberg/VAGA,
2001.
© ADAGP,
and DACS, London, 2001. Willem de
Wes
Rauschenberg: All images
images
All
2001. Ed Ruscha: All images courtesy and
2001. Richard Billingham: All images courtesy
All
Paris
images courtesy of Jay JoplingAVhiteCube.
Anthony Reynolds
DACS, London,
Revocable Trust/ARS,
London 2001. Piet Mondrian: All images © Mondrian/Holtzman Trust, c/o Beeldrecht, Amsterdam, Holland/DACS, 2001. Georges Seurat:
Paris
Jean-Michel Basquiat: Kooning: All images
New York/DACS,
Foundation, Inc.AAGA,
images
All
Pollack: All images
of
of
2001. Stuart Davis:
©
© DACS, 2001. Jackson © ARS, NY and DACS, Chaim Soutine: All images ©
Mikol.
© Cy Twombly.
images
Duchamp/DACS
All Rights
Darger: All images
Kiyoko Lerner. All Rights Reserved. Giorgio
images
Marcel
Heron 2001.
DACS. Henry
Reserved,
© Robert
copyright. Constantin Brancusi: All images
New York/DACS,
DACS,
Patrick Heron: All images
©
Harmony
2001.
courtesy
New
©
Korine: All images
Line.
Artist/writer portraits Sydney Nolan,
pp. 8-9, Sir
c.
pp. 138-9, Paul Cezanne: self portrait; Patrick
1955:
photographer unknown; Peter
fuller:
©
Sandy Edwards
unknown; David Hockney:
Wood;
Richard Wollheim: courtesy the writer
© Ian MacMillan; © Karen Wright pp. 50-1, Andy Warhol: © Patrick McMuUan; pp.40-1, Jeff Koons
;
Collings:
Howard Jacobson:
courtesy the writer
pp. 62-3, Paula Rego: courtesy Marlborough
Fine Art, London; Germaine Greer: courtesy
© Jim Arkatov;
Peter
Jenkins: courtesy Polly Toynbee pp. 82-3, Otto Dix: photographer
Michael Hofmann:
©
Ulla
unknown;
Montan
pp. 94-5, Henri Matisse: photographer
© Tim Lee Duchamp: photographer unknown; David Sylvester: © David Gamble Perl:
pp. 102-3, Marcel
pp.1 10-11, Stuart Davis: photo by Earl Davis.
Jamie McKendrick:
Norman McBeath
S)
pp.1 16-17, Salvador Dali:
Bunuel; Sister
Wendy
©
Fond Luis
Beckett: courtesy the
Self:
Damien
© Jon
pp. 130-1, Phillip
©Andre
© William
Trevor Winkfield:
Lynton:
Hirst:
©Jon
Mikol, Will
© Estate of Andre Waddington
© Fay Godwin © Iman; David Bowie:
Public Domain; Craig Raine: pp. 204-5, Tracey
Emin:
© Iman
©
Nicola del Roscia;
Hensher: courtesy the writer
pp.290-
1,
Soutine: photographer Paulin:
© Barney Cokeliss
Jean-Michel Basquiat: photographer
unknown; Harland
Miller:
© Jonny Shand
Willem de Kooning:
pp. 296-7,
Lieber; Bill Berkson:
©
© Edvard
Constance Lewallen.
pp.302, Ed Ruscha: photo by
Danna Ruscha
courtesy Anthony d'Offay Gallery, London;
pp. 3 10-1
pp.320-
1,
© Sophie Baker © Helen Miljakovich Mills: © Chad Harder; Lance
1,
Jules Olitski:
Wes
pp. 328-9, Barrie Cooke: courtesy Barrie
pp. 224-5, Richard Billingham: courtesy
Anthony Reynolds
Gallery,
© Jonathan
London; Nick
Robert Rauschenberg:
© StigT.
© Karen Wright
© Bob Berry; A.S.
© Peter Peitsch
John Ashbery: courtesy
Cooke; Seamus Heaney: courtesy Faber and Faber
Pilkington
Karlsson; Bryan Robertson:
Giroux.
Chaim
Esplund: courtesy Lance Esplund
Olmos.
Byatt:
© Rudolph
Martin Gayford:
Julian Mitchell:
Duane Hanson: courtesy Mrs. Duane Hanson; Andrew Motion: © Antonio
pp. 222-3,
1.
DACS;
Kid
Georges Seurat, 1883, conte on paper.
pp.230-
/
courtesy Martin Gayford pp. 288-9,
Gallery
Hornby:
Buckhardt
unknown; Tom
pp. 252-3, Henry Darger:
Mikol
CyTwombk:
&
©Adrian
Kertesz; Bridget Riley: courtesy
©Jane Bown
Paul Bailey:
pp.272-3, Jackson Pollock:
Flowers pp. 184-5, Piet Mondrian:
Biasi;
pp. 256-7, Constantin Brancusi: courtesy
DACS;
Morain;
Son Collection, Smithsonian American Art
Museum; Norbert
© Mario de
Husvedt: courtesy Henry Holt and
Company
Corbett
pp. 174-5, Robert Motherwell: Peter A. Juley
pp.244-5, Patrick Heron:
writer pp. 122-3.
© Sir Terence
Howard Hodgkin:
pp. 166-7, Jasper Johns:
pp. 262-3, Giorgio Morandi: Siri
pp. 196-7, Georges Seurat: Ernest Laurent,
Tauris Parke Publishing pp. 72-3, Larry Rivers:
Feary
Donovan; William Boyd: courtesy the writer
©Jim McHugh
© Graham
pp. 24-5, David Hockney:
unknown; Jed
© Julian
pp. 148-9,
pp. 16- 17. Pablo Picasso: photographer
Matthew
Heron:
pp. 334-5, Gallery,
David Berglund.
Farrar, Straus
and
©
Rideal
pp.340- 1,
©
©
Whitechapel Donald Judd: London; Charles Darwent: Liz
Harmony
Korine: courtesy
New
Line; Ian MacMillan: courtesy Ian
MacMillan
© Gezett.de. 351
Quotation Credits 13,
P
Comment The
Russel Ward. A Nation For a
i
IV
Beagle Press, 2000).
\
Life
/
|onathan Cape. 1988)
the
lot's
I
See
I
p. 30.
).
p.
1999.
12. no.l.
On
David Hockney, Hockne)
p. 38.
Andy Warhol and
New
Warhol Diane,
Hackett
Pat
York Riz/oli. 1989).
(ed),
Andy
p. 58, Ibid. p.
60,
"And) Warhol. " .U.S.
News and World
Report, 1987). p.
And\ Warhol and
Pat Hackett (ed),
Andy Warhol
60.
New York
Rizzoli, 1989). p. 65. Victor Willing.
(London: Tate Gallery Publishing, 1997).
p. 65,
McEwen,
"Exhibition Reviews," (London:
Volume
No.
7,
1994).
4,
p.
Diaries
p. 72,
Series p.
Ibid. p. 155. Ibid. p. 149,
Vol.
1,
No.
8). p.
p.
2001).
of Art, 1990).
p.
165. Ibid. p. 166.
Nan
170, Ibid.
171. Ibid.
p.
p.
p.
1999).
p.
177.
p.
177, Ibid.
p.
173. Ibid. p. 174,
Die Collected Works of Robert
Mondrian and Harry Holtzman and Martin James (editors). The New Art and the New Life InCollected Wrtings of Piet Mondrian (London: Thames and Hudson. 1986). p. 194, Ibid. p. 195, Matthew Collings, (London: Modern Painters. Volume 8, no. 3. 1995). p. 197, William I. Homer, Seurat and the Science oj Painting (Cambridge, Mass, 1964). p. 199, John Leighton and Richard Tompson, Seurat and the Bathers (London: National Gallery of London, 1997). p. 199, W''illiam I. Homer, Seurat and the Science of Painting (Cambridge. Mass. 1964). p. 200, John Leighton and Richard Thomson, Seurat and the Bathers (London: National Gallery of London, 1997). p. 202, Ibid. p. 208, David Bowie, "Tracey Emin" (London: Modern Painters, Volume 1. no.l, 1998). p. 209, Gary Hume. Tracey Emin-I need Art like I need God (London: Emin, Brown, Kent, Collings, and Jopling, 1998). p. 212, David Bowie, "Tracey Emin" (London. Modern Painters, Volume 10, no. 3, 1997). p. 214, David Bowie, "Tracey Emin" (London: Modern Painters, Volume 9, no.l, 1996).
Twohig and Frank Whitford, Otto Dix
'London: The Tate Gallery, 1992).
(New Haven:
University Press, 1991 Matisse,:
A
).
Retrospective
94, John Elderfield. Henti
p. (
New
Color" (Time Magazine. July
Thiebaud, "Matisse
No.
Modern
Modern
of
at
1990).
2.
MOMA"
Wayne
99,
p.
(London: Modern Painters,
1993). p. 102. Herschell B. Chipp, Theories of
3.
Art:
Museum
York:
Robert Hughes. "A Domaine of Light and
Art. 1992). p. 96,
Vol. 6.
Yale
A
Source Book
by Artists
and
Critics
(
Berkeley
University of California Press, 1971). p. 104, Charles
Harrison and Paul 1990.
Wood
An Anthology
1900 -
(editors), Art in Tlieon,
of Changing Ideas (Oxford: Blackwell
Publishers. 1992). p. 104, Herschell B. Chipp, Theories of
Modern
Art:
A
Source Book
by Artists
and
University of California Press. 1971).
Critics
Hilton Kramer, "Duchamp's Progeny" (London: Painters,
Volume
No.
6.
Ablume
5.
No.
Feb
19.
Berkele\
Modern
111. Stuart Davis, "Is
3). p.
Revolution in the Arts?" Bulletin of America's of the Air
(
There
a
Town Meeting
19, 1940). p. 115, Philip
Rylands (curator), "Stuart Davis-A European Memoir." Stuart Davis
Milan:
Electra, 1997)
Fiona Bradley. Salvador Dah,
A
p.
16.
1
Dawn Ades and
Mythology (London: Tate
Gallery Publications. 1998). p. 118, Jose Maria Faerna (ed), D
'Barcelona: Abrams, 1994). p
Fiona Bradley, Salvador Dali, Gallery Publications. 1998). Giuliani,
1999i. p
World
A p.
This Week." (New
1
19.
Dawn Ades and
Mythology (London: Tate 120. Ibid! p. 124.
York:
ABC
Rudolph
News, October.
133. Jed Perl. Eyewitness-Reports from an Art
in Crisis
New York
Basic Books, 2000).
p.
1
37,
1.
(The Independent Online, www.peconic.net).
Clement Greenberg, Horizon (London: #16, p.
and and Peter Seltz
12, no.l, 1999). p.
Mondrian (London: Thames and Hudson. 1986).
The
Masters:
p. 188, 8, no.
225, Richard Billingham, "Ray's a Laugh"
(New
Scalo, 1996). p. 228, Richard Billingham, "Ray's a
New
York: Scalo, 1996). p. 230. "Robert
York:
A
Retrospective
Ibid. p.
Voice and the p.
American Masters: The
Myth (London: Thames and Hudson,
AS.
Byatt, A.S.
(London: Modern Painters, Volume
285, Kristine
A
Sourcebook of Artists'
Modem
Painters,
Volume
the
Myth (London: Thames and
"Samo© is Dead: (New York, September
290, Phoebe Habon,
p.
Jean-Michel Basquiat"
Rene Ricard, "The Radiant Child," p. 293, Phoebe Habon, "Samo© is Dead: The Fall of Jean-Michel Basquiat" (New York, September 26, 1988). p. 294, Jeffrey Deitch, "JeanMichel Basquiat: Annina Nosei," (Flash Art #16, May 1982). p. 294, Phoebe Habon, "Samo© is Dead: The Fall of Jean-Michel Basquiat" (New York. September 26, 1988). p. 295, Jeffrey Deitch, "Jean-Michel Basquiat: Annina Nosei," (Flash Art #16, 1982). p. 296, Herschell B. Chipp, Theories of
Modern
Art:
A
Source Book by Artists and Critics
University of California Press, 1968). p. 297,
(Berkeley:
Hilton Kramer, "The Ghost of Willem de Kooning"
(London: Modern Painters, Volume
7,
no.2, 1994). p. 301,
Robert Rauschenberg (Art Journal, #48, 1989).
p.
302, Neal
Benezra and Kerry Brougher, "Ed Ruscha" (Smithsonian
and
Institution
Museum
of
Modern
Art, 2000). p. 304,
Neal Benezra and Kerry Brougher, "Ed Ruscha" (Smithsonian Institution and 2000).
p.
Museum
of
Modern
Art,
307, Laura Janku, "Acquisition of an Archive:
The
Graphic Work of Ed Ruscha," (Internet: ArtResources.com).
Modern Painters, Volume 315, Matthew Collings (London: Modern Painters, Volume 1, no.3). p. 318, Robert Rosenblum p. 318, Jules Olitski, (London: Modern Painters, Volume 13, no.3). p. 320, Wes Mills. Drawing Notes, 2000 p. 324, Ibid. p. 331, Aidan Dunne, "Cooke's Voyage," (The Irish Times, July, 1999)> p. 336, Donald 312, Jules Olitski, (London:
2000).
p.
314, Ibid.
Judd, Chinati Foundation
1988).
242. "Robert Rauschenberg" (Art Journal, #48, 1989).
245.
'
237,
238, "Robert Rauschenberg" (Art Journal, #48,
1989). p. 242, Brian O'Doherty,
p.
Theories and
p.
1
(New York: p.
Fall of
13, no.3,
Rauschenberg"
The Soloman R. Guggenheim Foundation, 1997).
(editors),
(Artforum #20, December 1981).
p.
Laugh"
(Art Journal, #48, 1989). p. 235, Billy Kluver with Julie
Martin, Robert Rauschenberg:
282, Kirk Varnedoe, Essay:
26, 1988). p. 292,
1,
188, Piet
I
p.
279,
286, Brian O'Doherty, American
The Voice and
Hudson, 1988).
(London: Modern Painters, Volume
p.
of Contemporary Art:
Mondrian, Harry Holtzman, Martin James, (editors). Tlie the New Life: The Collated Wrtings of Piet
p.
281. Ibid.
p.
no. 93-94)
"Comet: Jackson Pollock's Life and Work" p. 283, Brian O'Doherty, American Masters: The Voice and the Myth
286, Phillip Hensher, (London:
184. Piet
1
109, Ibid. p. 109,
p.
p.
Xew Art and
1995).
German
Lloyd,
p. 88, Jill
Expressionism: Privitism and Modernity
183, Arthur Danto,
Motherwell (Oxford University Press. 1992).
and Critics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971 277, Joan Ullman, "Willem de Kooning: An Appreciation"
p.
Documents
Tom Lubbock
Beginner."
1998). p. 82. Eva Karcher.
A
Writings (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996). p.
179, Ibid. p. 182. Ibid,
8". Sarah O'Brien
3,
Art:
(editors), The New Art and the The Collected Wrtings of Piet Mondrian (London: Thames and Hudson, 1986). p. 276, Herschell B. Chipp, Theories of Modern Art: A Source Book by Artists
Stj les
Reactionary" in Otto Dix (London: Tate Gallery. 1992). p.
Berkson, "A
Bill
Modern
Life:
(London: Thames and Hudson, 1988).
p.
81,
Painters Vol. 11. No.
York: Rizzoli, 1999). p. 270, Ibid. p. 271, Ibid.
October 1947.
Rosenthal, Tlie
(Modern Dix Benedikt Taschen. 1988). p. 82, Sarah O'Brien Twohig and Frank Whitford, Otto Dix (London: The Tate Gallery, 1992). p. 85, Frank Witford, The "Revolutionar)
p.
(New
274, Herschell B. Chipp, Theories of
New
H.H. Aranson,, "Robert Motherwell" (New-
Abrams, 1977).
York:
Karen Wilkin and Giorgio
Holt/man. Martin James,
155,
Stephanie Terenzi (ed) Tlie Collected Writings of Robert Motherwell (Los Angeles: University of Calilornia Press,
Frank
and the Cultural
Strapaese (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
California Press, 1971). p. 276, Piet Mondrian, Harry
Timothy Hyman, "Howard Hodgkin: Making a Riddle out of the Solution," (Art and Design Vol. 1, No. 8). p. 159, Richard Kendall (ed), Degas By Himself (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1987). p. 160, Ibid. p. 153, Ibid. p. 163, Stephen Phillips and Karen Wilkin, Degas To Matisse: Impressionists and Modernists Masterpieces (New York: p.
Stll Lifes
Source Book by Artists and Critics (Berkeley: University of
151, Julian Mitchell,
14, no. 2,
262, Emily Braun, Speaking
p.
Morandi, Giorgio Morandi: Twentieth Century Master
Timothy Hyman, "Howard 150, Ibid.
260, Ibid.
p.
Press, 1999). p. 264, Ibid. p. 267,
150,
p.
Universe, 2000).
O'Hara. Oft Poet: The Life ami Times of Frank O'Hara New York Alfred A. Knopf, 1993). p. 75, Ibid. p. 77, Ibid.
New York
Politics of
S4" (The Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, 1984).
Drawings of Jasper Johns (Washington: The National Gallery
Painters,
258, Ibid.
Volumes: Giorgio Morandi's
Hodgkin (London: Thames and Hudson, 1994). p. 149, David Sylvester, "Howard Hodgkin: Forty Paintings: 1973-
Paula Rego
Modern
p.
Cezanne (London: Tate 149, Andrew Graham-Dixon, Howard
John
70, Victor Willing, Paula Rego
(London: Tate Gallery Publishing, 1997).
Eric Shanes, Brancusi (Abbeville, 1989).
and the
Hartley, "Art
Creative Art, June 1928).
(London: Modern Painters, Volume
Magazine, February 8. 1993). p. 43, Jeff Koons, The Jeff Koons Handbook (London: Thames and Hudson, 1992). p. 45. Ibid. p. 50,
Patrick
of
147, Jane Watkins (ed)
Design
(Time
40, Robert Hughes, "The Princeling"
p
Painters,
Hodgkin: Making a Riddle out of the Solution," (Art and
R.B.
p. 39,
Retrospective (London: Tate Gallery Publications,
\
Marsden
(New York:
Publishing. 1996). p.
(London:
(London. Thames and Hudson,
It
Art, 1992). p. 145,
Cohen, (London: Modern Volume 9, no.2, 1996). p. 250, Mel Gooding, Heron (London: Phaidon Press Ltd., 1994). p. 256,
no.l, 2001). p. 248, David
7, no. 4,
Cezanne (London: Tate
(New York: The Museum
Retrospective"
Personal Life, 1928"
Nikos Stangos
Photograph) (London: Jonathan Cape, 1988). Kitaj
Modern
William leaver (London: Modern Painters,
$5,
Volume
Wb)
12. no.
A
Matisse:
Photography (London:
35, William Feaver
p.
Volume
Painters.
On
Hocknej
1994). p. 138, Jane Watkins,
Gallery Publishing, 1996). p. 142, John Elderfield, "Henri
John
ife
2". David Hockney,
Modern
16.
p.
of Picasso, 1907-1917: The Painter of London Jonathan Cape. 1996). p. 21, Ibid, p
Richardson,
Mdent
14,
p.
Oralian Painters of the Twentieth
ou K Cintun (Sydnej I
Martin Gayford (London: Modern Painters, Volume
Histor)
1901-1975 (London: Heinemann, 1978).
alia,
-
Foundation
p.
Harmony
p.
337, Donald Judd, Chinati
338, Donald Judd, Chinati Foundation Korine,
p.
341,
14,
and Faber. 1998).
p.
A Crackup
343, Ibid.
p.
at
p.
the Race Riots (Faber
344, Ibid.
Acknowledgements Karen Wright would First,
like to
thank the following people:
Craig Burnett. Without his fortitude, this book
would not have happened, and he seemed
humor
in every'
manv group who rolled up
awful situation. There were
people within the Modern Painters
their sleeves, including Julie Bettridge, Litia Perta.
Anthom
Jay,
Kate Barrette, Shane Waltener, Sarah
Luddy. Tara Richards, and Maria David gratitude to Akio
352
to find the
For design.
Morishima and Herman
Lelie.
Enormous thanks must go
to
Modern
Painters Associate
Hawes
at
Cambridge Publishing Management, who
DK
Editor Linda Saunders for her patient and skillful
helped combine Modern Painters and
editing of the pieces prior to their appearance in this
a fantastic finished product. Finally, I'd like to
book. This
and
in
is
not to overlook the team in
particular
DK New York,
Sean Moore, Barbara Minton, Megan
Patrick
style into
Walsh of Conville and Walsh, UK,
support and enthusiasm.
Clayton, Tina Vaughan, Chris Avgherinos, and Todd Fries,
whose input has been invaluable
shaping, and producing the book.
Sophie Raynor,
(
iabriella Hallas,
in planning,
And thanks
also to
and designer Steve
DK
Publishing would like to thank
additional design assistance.
Gus Yoo
and Crystal Coble
thank
for his
for
for editorial
BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY
"
"
Modern Painters Independently published, lavishly illustrated, and dedicated to brilliant writing with broad appeal,
Modern
Painters has
emerged over the past
fifteen
years as one of the world's leading art magazines.
Whether from rock stars or philosophers, artists, novelists, or poets. Modern Painters seems to and every issue
inspire great writing,
perspectives on the visual arts.
offers fresh
The sheer breadth
of coverage of contemporary culture
Modern
Painters the
and stimulating
art
most
eclectic,
makes open-minded
magazine on either side of
the Atlantic.
"Possibly the
publication to It's
most infuriating art
come out of Britain.
a pleasure to write for
whatever the hell
it,
it is.
David Bowie
"No other magazine has played such an influential role and none since the War has stimulated such debate.
Nicholas Serota Director, Tate
Modern
www.modernpainters.co.uk
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INC.
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our complete product line at
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collection of great writing
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is
art
in your hands, eat
an
its
I
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have ever seen. Yon want
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