Connecting Rauschenberg and Audubon

So, I have been reading the book “John James Audubon: The Making of an American” by Richard Rhodes over the past couple of weeks. For anyone who doesn’t know, I typically try to read nonfiction when I am trying to write something myself. I am far too prone to copying rhythm and voice unconsciously if I read fiction while I am trying to write fiction. Or, at the very least, I start comparing my first drafts to writers like Vonnegut and Hemingway— which isn’t fun for anybody and leads to a lot of abandoned paragraphs.

Basically, my “fun” reading over the past few years has been lots of biographies (Franklin, Lincoln, Einstein) some other pieces (Mayflower) and the occasional artist bio, or critical work thrown in (Matisse, Picasso, Courbet). Of course, I don’t like to read artist bios while I am painting as I start comparing my sketches to de Kooning’s, which is also no fun for anyone.

All that said, I came across a passage in the Audubon book last night that reminded me lots and lots of the video on Rauschenberg I posted last time. From page 211, where Rhodes writes:

“He had more in mind than simply scientific illustration: he meant to make art. Art, an older discipline than science, would substitute its reverberant verisimilitude for the life the bird had lost, revivifying it just as he had fantasized in childhood. Restoring life to the inanimate was an emerging theme in the cultural dialogue of the day, a hope projected perhaps from the transforming success of technology.”

Interesting to me here was the idea of Audubon, who truly loved birds, killing them to pose them for the sake of art… and some 130-140 years later (the passage is dealing with Audubon in about 1822) Rauschenberg talking about giving ongoing eternal life to an animal that was seemingly hunted and stuffed. Of course, the idea of giving life to the inanimate (whether the page, the paint, the sculpture, etc.) is likely inherent in all art (the act of the artist becoming creator for a moment), but this concurrent theme of reviving the hunted prey, or allowing the death of the hunted prey for the idea to live eternally is so similar in each of these artists it was hard not to say something about it here.

It has been especially interesting to me to consider Audubon in terms of art, which I really hadn’t before. I’d picked up the book thinking of an immigrant tracking through early America… and had likely considered him a scientist and a naturalist more than anything. I also had some vague idea of him spending time in Key West at some point… so I was interested in that.

But, of course, I was silly not to think of him as artist first. And his life in art, and independence in art, is interesting in relation to Courbet— the free-spirited artist traipsing through the countryside and free from the trappings of the bourgeois life. The big difference being that Courbet used it as a marketing technique and Audubon seems more intent on survival— feeling his artistic skills to be his most marketable talent. All while pursuing new birds feverishly. What would my portfolio be like if I walked nearly 20 miles a day in order to draw?

There may be some underlying claim here that Audubon was pure American and pure artist, and somehow intertwined as the first of each, and for that reason it is an interesting read.

Above, see some pics of Audubon’s work. The first is from Smithsonian.com and the second is from the University of Delaware Library.

RIP Bob Rauschenberg

Today marks a sad day in American art as announcements are coming out that Bob Rauschenberg died yesterday at the age of 82.

One of my favorite things to do in solidifying my place as an artist is to refer to Robert Rauschenberg as “Bob” Rauschenberg. This seems to make one more of an artist than 50 years of training might.

Above, see a pic of Rauschenberg from http://www.jackmitchellphotographer.com/.

In all seriousness, anyone who knows me understands that Rauschenberg is among my favs. Visiting his 2 Furlong piece at the MassMOCA (which was showing at the same time as Rosenquist’s “The Swimmer in the Econo-mist,” another masterpiece) was a major moment for me. In fact, I went back to the MOCA three different times to see them both while they were showing.

Above, see a shot of "The 2 Furlong or 1/4 Mile Piece" from MassMOCA’s website, http://www.massmoca.org.second/

The second is from:

http://art-smart.ci.manchester.ct.us/waddell/wad-massmoca6.html. Also, check this link for many additional iamges of this work.

While I likely (no, definitely) prefer Johns, Rosenquist, Lichtenstein, and some others of that time period in their actual production (that is, the art they created), in many ways anyone in art today owes a debt to Rauschenberg. He was very, very daring and interesting, and all of us who make assemblage or collage stand somewhat on his foundation. His process was essential in opening up art in Post-Abstract Expressionism.

I will not get into the whole soap opera of Jasper Johns and Rauschenberg and their individual success and break up. But it is fun 1950’s gossip if you want to Google it.

I am never far from Rauschenberg, as I have a print of his piece “2 Furlongs or ¼ Mile” that hangs in my office, and I had a print of his "Retroactive I" in my office at the University of Montana. Yes, to all you former students and fellow teachers— the office I never showed up to office hours in.

Above, see a shot of my office wall in 617 Midway and a shot of "Retroactive I" from AllPosters.com.

Anyhow, for those of you looking for other artsy gossip, check out the story on Rauschenberg erasing a de Kooning pencil drawing. It is one of the best passages in the book “de Kooning: An American Master,” by Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan. There is a youtube clip on this below. I love the idea of de Kooning knowing full well the intention and goals of Rauschenberg and his participation in this.

Back to the 2 Furlong piece, I have a personal theory that this piece is Rauschenberg’s attempt to capture a visual timeline of post World War 2 American Art. Looking closely, one sees all the players… the Pollocks, the de Koonings, Jasper Johns, assemblage, conceptual art, truisms, earthworks, etc. It is just one man's opinion. But, then again, you are reading that man's blog.

And below, I am posting another YouTube piece on Rauschenberg discussing his work, Monogram.

Thank you Robert Rauschenberg. May someone continue your life like a found stuffed animal. Good luck on your next group of work.

The Fifth of May 2008

Maybe I should be doing a Cinco de Mayo post, but I missed posting this two days ago. Above. see "The Third of May 1808" by Francisco Goya.

From Wikipedia:

The painting's content, presentation, and emotional force secure its status as a groundbreaking, archetypal image of the horrors of war. Although it draws on many sources in high and popular art, The Third of May 1808 marks a clear break from convention. Diverging from the traditions of Christian art and traditional depictions of war, it has no distinct precedent, and is acknowledged as one of the first paintings of the modern era.[3] According to the art historian Kenneth Clark, The Third of May 1808 is "the first great picture which can be called revolutionary in every sense of the word, in style, in subject, and in intention".[4]

Pic is from Wiki too.

New Work Meditation 3: Water Lilies

As many readers of this blog know, one of the major turning points of my art, as well as my life, came in meeting Paul Hayes Tucker at UMASS/Boston.

As someone who attended 5 universities, and lived at another (that is a story for some other time), I have some experience with higher education. And Paul Tucker is the best. I tell everyone within 100 miles of UMASS/Boston to take a class from him.

Anyhow, Tucker is dead-on as far as Modern and Post-modern art are concerned, not to mention being the foremost (or close wherever the argument in art circles is this year) Monet historian in the world.

One of the most interesting ideas I ever stole from Professor Tucker (and I have boosted a lot) was the idea of Monet being a bridge between Modern and Post-modern art. That this idea of a man, painting a water lily pond that he had created himself through landscaping— a water lily garden that had train tracks running straight through the middle of it— who painted images with no horizon that simultaneously captured the surface (the lilies), the reflection of the sky, and the world beneath the surface (the roots, silt), was entirely original and completely postmodern in its construction. Monet was painting 5 or 6 realities, easily, in a single painting… all before quantum physics and simultaneity was even considered.

I am not going into a crazy quantum physics dialogue today (yes you can thank me later) but checking out some of Richard Feynman’s work, the book “The Elegant Universe” or some of the new write-ups on the supercollider getting ready to premier in France should suffice.

More stealing from Tucker… but what better metaphor for layered meaning, layered culture, layered consciousness, the modern trinity of thought a la Freud (id, ego, superego) or the more contemporary conscious, subconscious, super-conscious… what better metaphor for the relationship between two things or two people (you, me, where we meet) … or even what better metaphor for the holy trinity?

So, back to my work. Lay some dots on a painting where you are concerned with layered meaning and reflection, with image in relation to how you see things, for finding a reflection of yourself in what you are looking at, and you might just be painting a lily pond.

I think, and have thought, that these dots I float on the surface of these canvases are my attempts at water lilies.

Pics above are from About.com and Pictopia respectively.

In other news, I thought in this post-post-modern world, I thought it might be nice to challenge Monet and have a post-post-modernist lily pond. Indoors in Fort Point. The pic above is of some of my lilies sprouting this spring.

More Yellowcard

I can't stop with the Yellowcard.

Ellsworth Kelly and the Moakley & Richard Serra as Prophet

One of the things I have yet to note about the Moakley exhibition is the thrill for me personally in having the opportunity to show anywhere within a 30 mile radius of Ellsworth Kelly.

Ellsworth Kelly was commissioned to create 21 colored panels for the Moakley Courthouse that are a permanent installation there, and some of which can be seen from the gallery my work is currently hanging in at the courthouse.

See above for some shots of Kelly’s work at the courthouse.

I will digress a bit more on Paul Hayes Tucker, the champion human being, stellar art historian and educator, and personal mentor that helped shape many of my ideas about art and art history during my visit to UMAS/Boston, when I complete my new work meditation regarding water lilies…. But for the time being, the connection is that my first critical work on an artist was on Ellsworth Kelly for Paul Tucker’s class, Art Since 1940, some ten years ago.

I tried to dig up the old paper, but can’t seem to find it. I think I titled it “Tension” which was in reference to Kelly’s use of color and shape in energized contrast to the spaces he showed in.

Needless to say, this connection, and the idea of showing with Kelly, has been a thrill for me. When I first looked at the space I was in awe that I might show with work I respected so very much.

In my old job, before I was art full-time, every once in a while someone would catch wind I was an artist and invariably the Kelly panels at the Moakley would come up. “So, what do you think of the colored squares?” Or, “You’re an artist, what do you think of that work at the Moakley?” always with disdain. “Tell me, those thing are worth like a million bucks?”

I would sometimes explain how they might be worth a million a piece someday, if not currently, and that Kelly actually took the commission below market for his work, or how “colored squares” might not be the best description. But most often I resorted to genuine pure honesty:

You mean the Ellsworth Kelly’s? Yes. They are amazing.

I once had the privilege of seeing Kelly’s piece “Sculpture for a Large Wall” from 1957 in person in NYC and it was thrilling (see above… pic from pantherhouse.com ). It is likely my favorite work by the artist, and I stumbled upon it almost by accident (interestingly after seeing Richard Serra's "Torqued Ellipses," as Serra is referenced below).

And while Kelly isn’t in my posse of huge influences (the de Koonings, Rothkos, O'Haras... etc.), some of his ideas on art have been very, very influential to me. One of the debates at the time of his brekthrough, as always, had been the role of art versus the role of decoration… what is art versus what is decoration. This was pre-earthworks and site pieces ( a la, Smithson, Walter de Maria, etc.... the notion of taking art completely out of the hands of the mediators— gallery owners, curators, etc) and Kelly said something to the effect that art shouldn’t just hang on a wall, art should be the entire wall. He envisioned a world of walls built of paintings. Often when I have a blank canvas on my wall I wonder if I should create, transcend, build, or destroy a wall. Something like Frost’s “Good Fences Make Good Neighbors,” and I attribute the birth of some of these ideas to Kelly.

So, all that is a great way of saying that I am happy to show with Ellsworth.

The other thing that has occurred to me lately (maybe in connection to this and maybe not) is how difficult it is to make public art. Mostly, I have been thinking of Richard Serra’s “Tilted Arc.”

Tilted Arc is studied in a lot of art history classes as kind of the height of the difficulties of creating public art. Here is a blurb from PBS.com:

“In 1981, artist Richard Serra installs his sculpture Tilted Arc, in Federal Plaza in New York City. It has been commissioned by the Arts-in-Architecture program of the U.S. General Services Administration, which earmarks 0.5 percent of a federal building's cost for artwork. Tilted Arc is a curving wall of raw steel, 120 feet long and 12 feet high, that carves the space of the Federal Plaza in half. Those working in surrounding buildings must circumvent its enormous bulk as they go through the plaza. According to Serra, this is the point, "The viewer becomes aware of himself and of his movement through the plaza. As he moves, the sculpture changes. Contraction and expansion of the sculpture result from the viewer's movement. Step by step the perception not only of the sculpture but of the entire environment changes."

The sculpture generates controversy as soon as it is erected, and Judge Edward Re begins a letter-writing campaign to have the $175,000 work removed. Four years later, William Diamond, regional administrator for the GSA, decides to hold a public hearing to determine whether Tilted Arc should be relocated. Estimates for the cost of dismantling the work are $35,000, with an additional $50,000 estimated to erect it in another location. Richard Serra testifies that the sculpture is site-specific, and that to remove it from its site is to destroy it. If the sculpture is relocated, he will remove his name from it. “

The pic is from PBS.com as well. And interesting to note the other connection, of the Moakley being a GSA building as well.

Mostly I have been thinking of this sculpture as I have been thinking of artist as prophet. The controversy around this was the alleged lack of access to public space.. that is, in order to get in these public buildings, people had to walk around the arc.

How interesting that in post-9/11 America we now take this lack of access as the norm. Not only security clearance— for instance, to get into the Moakley you need to pass through metal detectors, check in electronics, present 2 forms of ID— but also these barrier-type physical stoppers are the accepted now. Take a walk around downtown Boston, or any urban environment, and all skyscrapers have these stoppers built around them so a car with explosives can’t drive up and blow up the building. So, I now claim Serra as an artistic prophet— viewing the future of access/blockade and rendering it 20 years ahead of time.

A stretch? Maybe, but why not? And why have a blog if you can't proclaim random ideas like Richard Serra is a prophet from time to time?

For more on Paul Hayes Tucker, Ellsworth Kelly, Richard Serra, Prophets, Kurt Cole Eidsvig, or Fall Out Boy (I am currently browsing their videos on YouTube as I write this) check out your friendly neighborhood Google.