Jed Perl on Abstract Expressionist New York

Jed Perl, Art critic at the New Republic, has turned out a review of the Museum of Modern Art's Abstract Expressionist New York (link above). It is on the whole a negative review. Perl dismisses the curatorial work of Ann Temkin and also hits on the theme that the "New York School" is in many ways mischaracterized. Temkin, Perl charges, does not delve into this question, and instead formulates the show for "tourists." We're not sure how much we agree with Perl on a few of these counts, though it is nice to hear someone air them out.

Terry Eagleton on the Task of the Critic

Chardin, Jean Baptiste Simeon, The Ray, 1728. 

Oil on canvas, 45 1/4 x 57 1/2" (115 x 146 cm) Musée du Louvre, Paris

As we observe an ever widening crisis in criticism throughout the visual arts, one that threatens to fundamentally alter the position of the artist in society and banish it beyond all recognition, we turn to the literary theorist Terry Eagleton. His words on the "task of the critic" were first written in 1976 in Criticism and Ideology: A Study in Marxist Literary Theory. 

Here Eagleton lays out a systematic vision for a "Science of the Text" which would pull criticism out of the realm of taste and into a more democratic and emancipatory realm. Rebelling against what he viewed as an elitist, exclusionary tradition of cultural criticism, Eagleton attempts to resolve what he believes to be a democratic enterprise with the "willfully obscure" and subjective discourse of his forbears by examining the languages used to describe the works.

 Eagleton never takes these texts, their traditions, inscribed meanings, and modes of production, at face value. Son of a catholic working class Irish family, Eagleton left Cambridge as aundergrad determined to uncover the entrenched literary establishment that he saw as simply reproducing a class ideology. The theoretical approach to cultural criticism opens these languages beyond their narrow class context, while at the same time dealing with their ideological relationships in a manner rarely as polemical and forthright. 

"How is the troubled passage between text and reader to be smoothed, so that literary consumption may be facilitated? The answer, naturally, is that it is not: the myth of a passage, of criticism as a midwife to the text, must itself be eradicated.... Criticism as the repressive father who cuts short the erotic sport of sense between text and reader, binding with the briars of its metasystem the joyfully pluralist intercourse of meanings between them.... Criticism is not a passage from text to reader: its task is not to redouble the text's self-understanding, to collude with its object in a conspiracy of eloquence. Its task is to show the text as it cannot know itself, to manifest those conditions of its making (inscribed in its very letter) about which it is necessarily silent. It is not just that the text knows some things and not others; it is rather that its very self-knowledge is the construction of a self-oblivion. To achieve such a showing, criticism must break with its ideological prehistory, situating itself outside the space of the text on the alternative realm of scientific knowledge."

                                           -Eagleton, Terry. Criticism and Ideology: A Study in Marxist Literary Theory (London: Verso, 2006) 43.

Pepi, Vincent, 1001 88', 1988. Watercolor, 11 x 15''

The Ending of History...has its counterpart in the field of the image.

In September 1986 Jean Baudrillard delivered a talk to a symposium held in Vancouver, Canada entitled Hot Paint for Cold War on the topic of Hot Painting and the inevitable fate of the image. This essay was collected in an Reconstructing Modernism, a volume edited by Serge Guilbaut that also included contributions from T.J. Clark, Benjamin Buchloh, and Thomas Crow. The essay specifically links the cooling off of history, the media, and abstract painting. After reading the following snippet from an exhilarating essay, Baudrillard would have had some choice words for recent developments in new media and its simultaneous suppression and stimulation of culture. Below, Baudrillard connects the collectively experienced post war trauma , the shocking perversions of the nuclear age, and the mass acceleration of culture to 'fate of the image', which was inevitably abstraction.

Richard Miller's translation:

"The ending of history through historical excess, by surpassing history, has its counterpart in the field of the image. We must bear in mind the effect on the collective imagination during and after the last war of the many violent and ghastly pictures that conflict produced. Events and, of equal importance, their representation--above all visual--gave rise to deep trauma throughout the world. The war increased the images potential for violence, it led to a hitherto unknown outburst not only of events but also of the way those events looked...the very excess of those images killed the imagination. It became in a way impossible to imagine and represent such horrors, such excesses. The human mind had nothing equivalent to them, reaction to them was impossible. So at the time, because of the impossibility of such things being conceivable, there was a brutal cooling off of the imagination, of feeling, with a parallel cooling off of history. Abstraction--in painting too--emerged from that impossibility of conceiving, of representing, such an outrageous and monstrous history.

However, this abstraction of the 1950s, was not subtle, analytical, experimental, classical--I would almost say felicitous--abstractionism of the prewar period. It was a desperate, nervous, pathetic, and explosive abstraction. It was the very abstract image of the cold war itself, for the cold war is abstract, it is something suspended, it does not breakout, it is simultaneously conflict and deterrence, just as pictorial abstraction is simultaneously forms and forms deferred, a play of signs and a violent dissuasion of the signs of reality. In a word, if the cold war represents a balance of terror, abstraction too brings a kind of terror to bear upon reality and its representation; it suspends events and denies appearance. It is a terrorist gesture, hot and explosive ( here we are referring to "expressionist abstraction"), but it also a part of an overall deterrence. Of course this is true of Pollock, not of Klee or of Kandinksy. The "hot" abstractionism of the 1950s is far more gestural and savage than it is geometrical and calculated. It is no longer an analytical deconstruction of the world, a non-figurative mathematics of forms. It is a vehement manifestation, a challenge, a shout--expressionist in the sense of expressing, expulsing, in the sense of the exorcism, the conjuration, of the rejection and the violent bodily extraversion of the world by image. "Classical" abstractionism is far more intellectual and critical. The later version is not critical, it is not really a denunciation, it is a holocaust of painterly signs, a holocaust of the world by the image, somehow reminiscent of the bodily holocaust of the extermination camps and of the imminent nuclear holocaust (from holocaust to hologram)."

-from Baudrillard, Jean. "Hot Painting: The Inevitable Fate of the Image" in Reconstructing Modernism: Art in New York, Paris, and Montreal 1945-1964 ed. Serge Guilbaut. MIT Press, 1990. p. 22-23

If reaction to the horrors mentioned above was impossible and the human mind had nothing equivalent to use to represent it, then where does that locate the genesis of the ideas which brought about the horror,such as the atomic bomb, making the image of war, and abstraction? Are these not creations of the human mind? How can we have collectively authored something for which we have no equivalent apparatus to react? It is not as if they were some aberrant acts of God. Real, live, rational beings took part in their creation. So why should we have come so haltingly up to them without a workable response? Baudrillard implies that these shocking events were out of our control and then forced back upon a body politic that lacks real agency of responsibility for our own production.

Moving on, I wonder if Baudrillard takes the violent gesture of the paint too literally at face value. Had we not considered the sometimes muted and transcendental, almost zen psychological milieu that the painters operated from? Nonetheless, this selection from this essay is very insightful piece of analysis of a time in the history of art that continues to be hotly debated and remade for the historical uses of each new generation.

Connoisseurship in the New York Times

At the NYT, Ted Loos discusses the plight of connoisseurship inside the academy and a small group of historians, curators, and collectors who seem to be interested in bringing it back. We hope to host a discussion of the notion of connoisseurship: it's advantages and drawbacks, its adherents, and the very definition of the term.

Seeking the ‘Eye’ for Art

Topics:

1. What are the differences between formalism and connoisseurship?

2. Is the critical landscape already in one sense predominantly beholden to connoisseurship?

3. Who are some critics that reject the connoisseurship tradition and how are they viewed by the public?

4. Why is connoisseurship perceived to be elitist?

5. Is it correct to see historicism, cultural studies, and most theory-based discourses as directly oppositional to the tradition of connoisseurship?

Kendell Geers

Art Notes recently happened upon Kendell Geers' statement from "Handgrenades From My Heart" at Galerie Rodolphe Janssen, Brussels. He makes some shrewd points, though we are still figuring out where his work lies in relation. Read the full text here.

"Contemporary Art has painted itself into a corner. The old Avant Garde's demand for constant renewal can no longer compete with the market demand for fresh blood, novelty and the dictates of fashion. The classic art historical concept of Movements and Manifestos have been superceded by seasons and sensations. Artists are as a result no longer judged by their historical resilience but according to their most recent auction sale. A young unknown Indian or Chinese painter can now be "ranked" higher than Duchamp or Manzoni according to the ubiquitous top 100 lists that proliferate in Art Magazines polluting the space between the advertising and advertorial. The reality of the contemporary art market demand is that artists have neither the time nor the opportunity for real structural renewal, nor the space for philosophical growth and development. Instead of interrogating history or killing their idols, artists, and their market, seem content with slight of hand aesthetic adjustments and cynical asides."

How invigorating would it be to see Geers' work compliment some of what he has expressed above? As he explains in the essay, his pieces are meditations on "negative space," that "which lies outside or around the subject, image or form, generally unnoticed but essential in framing our perceptions." We understand the formal relationship, as he takes great care in articulating the notion of 'negative space.' Maybe he confuses it by seeing it as "the empty space between letters, the unspoken invisible silence between words..." Is not that more of an issue of graphic design?

I suppose exhibiting work in a gallery does not count as a "cynical aside" and is somehow separate from the "contemporary art market demand." He is represented by Yvon Lambert in Paris, no less. Though his head sculptures (above) seem to correlate nicely with his polemic. He explains below:

"The sculptures embody a channelling of form in the negative space between intention and desire, between thought and form. Shunning the superficiality and ego capitalism of contemporary trendiness, I decided to instead embrace the shamanic praxis of Joseph Beuys, weaving into it the spirit of artists like Cesar, Orozco, Nauman, Klein, Benglis, Manzoni and Bourgeois."

Writing about your own art is a tricky thing. But you've got to admire Kendell's audacity.

Notes on Art: Kandinsky and Mondrian

What the great artist Wassily Kandinsky taught us in his wonderful book; "On the Spiritual in Art" was that the harmony of which Mondrian spoke is vital. The spiritual in this case has nothing to do with religion; but has to do with nature. Therefore we start with the point (a dot) , and go on to the line which takes us joyously to the plane. Thus Kandinsky's "Point and Line to Plane".

- Vincent Pepi

On White II, 1923; Oil on canvas, 105 x 98cm, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris

Louise Bourgeois

Nature Study,  1984-94, 87.6cm x 44.5cm x 38cm


We are not sure how this went down in the NYT office, but when one is handed an assignment for an obit for someone like Louise Bourgeois, it has got to be a daunting task. Here is Holland Cotter's deft handling of the subject. A fitting tribute to the artist.

Holland ends with a quote from the artist:

“I have a religious temperament,” Ms. Bourgeois, a professed atheist, said about the emotional and spiritual energy that she poured into her work. “I have not been educated to use it. I’m afraid of power. It makes me nervous. In real life, I identify with the victim. That’s why I went into art.”

Jed Perl on New Hartigan and Tworkov Journals

The New Republic art critic Jed Perl reviews two new volumes of artists’ writings. The Extreme of the Middle: Writings of Jack Tworkov and The Journals of Grace Hartigan: 1951-1955 have appeared in publication. Perl starts out by referencing “The most enduring myth” of the Abstract Expressionists, which is that they “were dumb geniuses, instinctual beings, know-nothings who somehow stumbled into poetry when they picked up a paintbrush.” This is an interesting problem with these artists, and Perl highlights a few gems from the two artists’ journals to disabuse us of the notion that the Abstract Expressionists were these sorts of naïve poets.

....There is a fine passage in Tworkov’s journal, when Elaine de Kooning has commented that Léger’s work “makes everything done here look neurotic,” and Tworkov begins to worry that his own work “seems very neurotic,” and then reflects that the same can be said of “Cézanne, Soutine, El Greco, Watteau, Giacometti.” You see the mingling of anxiety and exhilaration with which artists were confronting a rapidly expanding scene, one that threatened bohemian camaraderie even as it brought the promise of a growing market for their work. Worldly success remained a complicated thing, as we are reminded when Hartigan comments of de Kooning in 1955 that “he is famous, and such a great and mature artist, and he is penniless.”....

But where exactly do the roots of this myth lay? Hadn’t Still and Newman stamped out meditative manifestos themselves? Perhaps they weren’t as coldly rational as their European contemporaries…or it could simply be that larger anti-intellectual strain in American arts and letters brushed over the self-awareness of the Abstract Expressionists. Of course there are the know-nothings, like Pollock, and even Still (the buck-eye painter) to a certain extent. And then again, statements about myths surrounding this group also point out a historiographical error, one that lumps together several disparate lives in a category of “the Abstract Expressionists,” as if the same type of urge drove each of their work. Closer consideration reveals that they quite interestingly drew upon varied sources and impulses but arrived at a similar stylistic result. Jed Perl is not outwardly committing this particular error, and in fact he uses this myth in the beginning of his piece to show how the writings of two of the artists affiliated with this group wrote quite consciously about their situation. Perl nicely concludes that these journals show how these painters “are among the most articulate people on earth.”

Perl continues to turn out thoughtful essays each month at The New Republic. He is a must read.

Welcome Back

A Refurbished ArtNotes

We would like to welcome our readers to a new chapter in ArtNotes. From this day on we are working in earnest to integrate social media, as well as the traditional blog, to create a more dynamic forum for commentary on all issues relating to art.

Our theme, while we hope to have many, will be the crisis in art criticism, which is a current crisis but also one with historical roots.

For a while we had a considerable gap in production of new posts. Blogging is never an exact science and we've made some changes to the approach.

We'll be in something a transition phase for a bit, but we'll soon be blogging in earnest. As always, I will be posting commentary, criticism, and links along with help from other individuals. For now, I'd like to start off with some of the original text from the old ArtNotes to set the tone, so to speak. Stay tuned...

"It is no coincidence that in the study of the history of man, art has always played the dominant role. To study man, we study History. Though written history is plagued with lies and distortions. Therefore we are impelled to read between the lines--to get to the truth.

The language of art on the other hand is sublime in its intention. It always seeks to reveal the truth. Thus we feel safe in the study of art as "the study of man". Man is what we want to know about. Not "History”, since history by itself is nothing but a series of anecdotes. Art, instead, is in fact its own measuring stick. When art is false, it smells sour. Sometimes it stinks. It reveals itself as kitsch. When this happens we must resign to the realization that we are in that sorry state of decadence, sometimes referred to as narcissism. The pendulum swings up and then down, and so it is..."

                  -Vincent Pepi, Originally from “Notes about art: April, 2006"

Prologue

We are now liberated as artists - man continues in his futile aspirations for things which never will be. Art only continues forever - for it is part and parcel of what we all are. The dynamic forces that make up our existence. . . they will always be. Art is nourished on these forces. Art deviates when it is dictated by the political manipulations of man.

The recognition of the artist in his own time is a very hap-hazard affair. When the artist becomes involved in this concern, paradoxically he dilutes his own interests. The true artist, if he is interested in art in its purest form, will have to relinquish the idea of being understood. If his art is sublime it will transcend their aspirations of recognition.

The artist as poet is what we are talking about. As poet he must be concerned with the quality of the poetry. It must be of the highest order, the order of "truth itself." When this occurs, the poetry is less marketable. This is the way it is - and it's alright with me. Long live art! Doing it is enough. The only ones who will understand it are other artist-poets. It's the way it should be.

-V. Pepi, Cold Spring Harbor Studio, February 1985

Under Construction

Soon to come is the VincentPepi.com website which will feature his complete oeuvre from 1949 to the present. Along with a biography, museum collections, exhibits, and reviews.

"Modern critics could learn a lot from Kenneth Clark"

Written by Jonathan Jones on his blog-

British art historian Sir Kenneth Clark. Photograph: Hulton Getty

Kenneth Clark's honesty and transparency, paired with his ability to ask the questions that matter, made him the art critic's critic

Forty years ago an art historian stood in front of the camera, with a view of Notre Dame behind him, to
tell British TV audiences that civilisation had been imperilled before. We only survived, he said,
"by the skin of our teeth ..."That is how Kenneth Clark's 1969 BBC2 series Civilsation began. Today you can watch it on DVD, the book of the series is still in print and Tate Britain is marking its
40th anniversary with a series of debates (I'm speaking on 21 March if you fancy a live argument). Yet when I was a student, having been too young to see its first appearance, I got to know Clark through John Berger's criticisms in his famous book Ways of Seeing. There I encountered Clark as
a straw man: some sort of aristocratic conservative who went around evaluating womens' bodies as art objects (in The Nude) and loftily denying that Gainsborough's painting Mr and Mrs Andrews has anything to do with the display of property. Finally, one day, I bought Clark's biography of Leonardo da Vinci - and discovered the most entertaining art critic of the 20th century.

Reading Clark is like drinking champagne compared with the small beer of most art history. In the 20th century, art history became less eloquent and more academic than it had ever been before. Victorians had Ruskin and Pater and Burckhardt but by the 1950s, people were banging their heads against the iconographic school of art history whose greatest exemplars - Panofsky, Warburg, Gombrich - are still worth studying but only after you have already got a very good sense of the basics. In other words, art historians in Clark's lifetime became specialists. Nowadays they're even more obscurantist, having discovered "theory".

Clark was and is the antidote to all this. He writes with sublime confidence about what we actually need to think about: why is a Renaissance statue usually so much more alive than its classical models? Why do Leonardo da Vinci's drawings so entrance the mind? He doesn't ever get into narrow debates and yet he always makes you see things more clearly. His book One Hundred Details from the National Gallery, recently reprinted by the institution of which he was director, is a mind-expanding guide.
Far from being a snob, Clark is great because he always explains his basic premise and says why he believes something - he is transparent and honest. This is incredibly rare in writing about art. Most famous critics tend to be just ragbags of unexplained assumptions. But Clark always says why he's praising or denigrating something.

If every student of art history or would-be critic was made to begin by reading Clark's work, this would be an excellent step towards reforming the way we now think and write about art. Who knows - it might even save civilisation.

"What were Ad Reinhardt's paintings all about?"

From the Brooklyn Rail - an article by Michael Corris; "Reply to Irving Sandler"- appeared recently in Feb. '09.
Brings to us several points of interest, which could lead to the further discussion on this blog.

For example:

'That Ad Reinhardt took a hard line on the art-life divide has never been in question. What has been at issue is what, precisely, such a position meant and what significance such a position could possibly have for artists today.'

'Mr. Sandler asserts that Reinhardt’s “ ‘black’ paintings clearly embody his [Reinhardt’s] purist intentions.” Since my research and thinking on Reinhardt’s practices have led me to view such a statement as highly problematic, it is important that I respond to Mr. Sandler’s accusation that my interpretation of Reinhardt’s practice as a painter is “off base”. To support his claim, Mr. Sandler hypothesizes that “Ad would have insisted that his painting be perceived solely as painting and not as evidence of his Self.” '

An early painting by Ad Reinhardt, 1938

'Reinhardt understood that how a painting is made is as ethically consequent as what a painting is of. Abstract art, for Reinhardt and others of his generation, is not a meaningless pattern even if it is not a picture of anything. But we must go further when we speak about Reinhardt’s late paintings: the orientation and attitude demanded of the spectator is also part of the several virtues of abstraction the artist aimed to encompass through his practice.'

Your comments on this article would be appreciated.

Doyle Auction Catalogue, 2007

Vincent Pepi's artistic ideas are closely akin to the abstract expressionist movement, though he developed his mature style while outside of their circle. Upon completing his studies at Cooper Union and Pratt, Pepi moved to Rome in 1949. In Italy he associated with many influential artists of that generation, including Roberto Matta. He also continued his studies under the tutelage of Beppe Guzzi. Pepi's time in Italy was a pivotal moment in the evolution of modern art. A time when the influence of European art gave way to that of the action painters in the New York area. Pepi returned to New York in 1951 and showed at both Stable and March Gallery. Yet he was neither comfortable with the the art scene nor did he completely associate what he was doing with the art work of his peers. This discomfort and disconnect eventually prompted him to withdraw from the gallery world, though his passion for his work never diminished.
Excerpted from Doyle auction catalogue, May 20, page 117




Side Remarks from the artist himself:

Regarding the "discomfort and disconnect", it was not with the painters of this period, but with the people (primarily galleries and hangers-on, who's purpose was to make profit from that group of artista of that period in one way or another. Irving Sandler, the poor boy from Philadelphia had a lot to gain from this situation. There have been glaring errors in the chronicling of the artists of this period. The most glaring of which would be complete "Ignoring of Individuals" standing right in the middle of the whole scene but a "Making believe" that they were not there at all. Amongst those who I feel were ignored (or if you prefer... did not receive the proper attention) were Nick Carone, Conrad Marca-Relli and Vincent Pepi (myself). Nick , I knew from Rome, where he was exceedingly helpful to both myself and Ray Spillenger, who was my room-mate in Rome along with Vincent Capraro and his companion Tatiana. Nick introduced me to Beppe Guzzi, who in turn introduced me to the sculptor Pericle Fazzini, and also to Angelo Savelli, the painter. Roberto Matta, I met through Savelli. When I returned to New York after my sojourn in Italy, Nick Carone brought Spillenger and myself in to the 1953 Stable Gallery Exhibit. Marca-Relli was the first artist I met in New York. He had his studio on the same floor as Ray Spillenger. Ray let me share half of his studio for a short period in new York before I got settled. I did get settled soon enough, with my lovely wife and a brand new baby boy who we named Leonardo (after you know who). Later on we were blessed with a baby girl, who was named Diana after the goddess of the hunt.

"SPACE". . . Definition and Meaning in our 21st Century World

In response to the question posed by Elaine Dekooning
in one of the early issues of "It Is" (Phillip Pavia's magazine of the 50's)
"Whatever happened to old fashion composition?"

The word Space, only comes into the language of art after the start of the modern art movement towards the end of the 19th century. Up until then, the word Composition having to do with the division of the two dimensional surface space of the canvas. The new word "space" was now making reference to the fracturing of and experimenting with this actual surface plane (the canvas). Along with these experiments having to do with the physicality of the art arena - The "circus" as Matta referred to it when he -as he liked to do- involved his participants in up-to-date discussion- was the question of abstract qualities and space, which the canvas provided to the viewer.
Hans Hofmann, the pied piper, art teacher of the New York city and environs of Cape Cod - referred to the sensation of "Push" and "Pull" to his students as the breathing of the canvas surface, which of course comes directly from Cezanne. The better or more intellectual students of his flock adapted this perception in properly reading the canvases of Cezanne and Kandinsky. Also this awareness and sesitivity to art with al of its manifestations made certain individuals much more sensitive to Chopin"s music.
Along with the space question and its demands to the inquisitive mind, other experiments involving the physicality of the painted surface began to rear-up in grand profusion as part f the modern movement. The artist as individual emerged in this "time frame" as one who would make his identity known. But not as other artists before him who represented other times and other sentiments. This Modern artist wished to leave tracks which would convey another meaning. A meaning having to do with Expressionism. It was important for this artist to convey to the viewer, his or her point of view - and from these points of view we could all get in touch with the phenomena of the creative process and what the mind of man stores up and what is significant in the mystery of life which we all participate in.
Many enthusiastic and vain glorious artists came flying into the arena to do their "fire- dance" but as always has been (many are caleed, but few are chosen).
It is clear to me now after many long years of suffering in the debris of this modern art movement as it was played out by the members of the New york School of Abstract Expressionism - there were many participants and plenty of talent poured into this art endeavor, but few of these eager participants really contributed very much. Since their real purpose was fueled by their desire to be part of the crowd and thus to satisfy their egos and personal aspirations for self aggrandizement. This was heavy stuff to ingest in those days and few knew exactly how to handle it.

Richard Cummings "The Dead and the Powerless"

“Wandering between two worlds,
one dead the other powerless to be born.”

-Matthew Arnold

Beyond the Canon/Small Scale American Abstraction 1945-1965

Back in January of this year, a very interesting exhibit was put on by the Robert Miller Gallery. The following review by Roberta Smith can be read here. My thoughts about this article is that I felt that an opportunity was missed in explaining more about the limits of the Abstract Expressionism movement. I discussed this subject with Richard Cummings and this in essence is what I said and his response.

"There is a big change which has occurred in our existence and I must attempt to put it into words in order to capture this moment in time. So that we can achieve some semblance of serenity and calm - from this world gone a-mock. It is this feeling I have which I recently discussed with Richard Cummings and he agrees with me. In fact he related to me about one of his professors at Cambridge who declared that these moments in history (when they occur) are as though a door opens just a crack or so then is lost - to our better understanding of the human condition."

Vincent Pepi, June 11, 2009

Robert Miller Gallery "Beyond the Canon"

The chelseaartgalleries.com listed the artists, considered to be pioneers of the Abstract Expressionist movement. Shown in the "Beyond the Canon" Exhibit. at the Robert Miller Gallery. The director and curator Amy Young wrote the essay accompanying the exhibit.