At the beginning of the summer artist Rebecca Morris had the final exhibition of the Renaissance Society's 2004-2005 program. Since then, Art or Idiocy? has been feverishly writing up a piece on the show and the many issued raised not only by it, but by the discussion between the artist and Hamza Walker and essays he's written, not only for this particular exhibition, but exhibitions of her work in the past. Of course, as just about any time one begins discussing art, and this is especially true when tackling such major chunks as "painting" and "abstraction" and all the thoughts led to thereby, things get lengthy.
What follows is a fairly hefty piece of writing that his been evolving over the months. Hopefully it provides interesting perspectives and interpretations to the subject of painting and abstraction in general, and in the work of Rebecca Morris in specific.
Contact by electronic mail? • artoridiocy@yahoo.com
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Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Rebecca Morris at the Renaissance Society
The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago is a forward-thinking institution. As standard course of action, the “Ren” anticipates and puts forth art set to make big waves. It serves as an indicator of things to come in the world of art. While not every exhibition is spot-on, or is even organized with that goal, the Ren’s track record speaks for itself: Thomas Struth (1990) Jessica Stockholder (1991) Isa Genzken (1992) Felix Gonzalez-Torres (1994) Luc Tuymans (1995) Kara Walker (1997) Kerry James Marshall, Raymond Petition (1998), Pierre Huyghe, Martin Kippenberger, Thomas Hirschhorn (2000). Most recently on view was an exhibition of work by Rebecca Morris.
Abstract art, specifically painting, has become such an excepted idiom that it is a valid alternative to a landscape when decorating your home or office. In addition, or because of this, abstraction almost immediately leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Especially when seen in a gallery or museum. The general public and the in-the-know art-crowds alike have a distaste for it these days. While it is seen as especially suited for public spaces (any location that could use a bit of color in the form of non-threatening splashes and dabs) any serious consideration of abstraction is extremely frowned upon. Abstraction has given birth to the age-old, and never worn-out, impulse of “my child could do that.” An argument the aesthetes have yet to convincingly rebut. This is all the more difficult, when theory has chucked out Modernism and Greenberg & Rosenberg. On the one hand we are attacking abstraction, symbolized by the Abstract Expressionists, for our own postmodern reasons. On the other, we don’t want to be in the same category as the debased masses. So what are art people to do? Abstraction is at once arguably a much accepted option, especially in the halls of painting departments at art schools across the land. But it is also ignored, even despised by the reigning opinions and trends of today’s art world.
Painting and drawing is definately the medium right now, but more in the form of cartoonish drawing, childish narrative and figuration of some sort. The art market is booming, and a major part of it is being cool. Collectors want to be young and cool like the cool kids making the art and running the galleries. Cool kids want to be famous and rich in some sort of arty way and it is all becoming a vescious frenzy that will sping out of control. It’sthe ‘80s again. The art world wants to be just like Hollywood, and pop music. The art world has its own celbrity’s and “it” boys and “it” girls. And also “it” mediums, or styles, and right now, it’s about drawing shows with work best described as graffiti meets awkward summer days of the late 70s-early 80s with a touch of shock -value sexual confusion. And while the up-and-comer gallerists et al fight hand over fist to represent the next gawky kid in process of getting a BFA, that sort of painting & drawing’s moment is already just about over. It’s like the verse in the title track of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band: “It was 20 years ago today/Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play/they’ve been goin’ in and out of style/but they’re guaranteed to raise a smile…” Nothing dies or goes away, it just comes in and out of style. This goes for art much beyond ye olde painting & drawing. Now it seems that this metaphorical swinging pendulum every one is always talking about is moving faster and faster as the art world becomes more and more obsessed with being a part of pop culture.
But in all this fury of the return to painting, abstraction really hasn’t come into play. Abstraction is not cool. Certainly not abstraction with an “A,” or an “Expressionism” following it. Abstrqaction is cool if you are being funny about it. If you are being a snotty brat about it. And painting hasn’t really been “returned to” at all. The painting and drawing plastered ironically in galleries is ignorant, and clueless. It is completely unaware of its past and its roots. It’s what Jerry Salz is calling “termite art.” And that sort of stuff never goes very far. This is not to say everyone should return to Greenburg and think in some sort of abject high minded way about art, but if you are indeed working in a medium which goes back to the caves, you probably should try to have some idea where it has gone. It would also follow that you would want to know.
Of course we have Gerhard Richter doing it, but his is more of a nihilist painting parlor trick about flattening everything out along with photography and there by destroying all meaning of anything. There is also the ironic form of abstraction. In his discussion with Rebecca Morris, Hamza Walker touched on the key points of “Abstraction becoming a platform to critique painting...abstract painting becoming allegory, trope, to critique modernity.” This is the official justification of the strain of painting which stems from Richter and moves down through Luc Tuymans and Wilhelm Sasnal and Magnus von Plessen. That, alongside the more loosely rigorous likes of Martin Kippenberger, Peter Doig and Daniel Richter account for the accepted modes of painting. Even a relative new comer like Thomas Scheibitz, who seems more on the non representational kick, still has representation. It seems very few artists working in the once again acceptable realm of painting are doing abstraction. And doing it with total committment. The total commitment of the painting of yore; the painting of Pollock and deKooning, the last painting that can ever be painted of Ad Reinhardt, that is serious business. That sort of painting is digging up old corpses many would rather leave buried in museums. That painting is endgame painting, painting the task of mourning painting, painting like it’s the last night on earth painting. THAT is Abstraction. That is Abstract with an “A” and Painting with a “P.” It is, as Hamza Walker read aloud, “Abstraction as a gauntlet, as a challenge, a dare. Who has the courage to paint for paintings sake? A painting for pleasure’s sake? Paintings that expose it as reading or thinking in its own right?”
And this is where Rebecca Morris and her exhibition of recent work comes in.
It is not to center Morris at the heart of a heated debate, full of theory and fury. Or to place Morris as the figure head of a return to serious abstraction. But it is in viewing the work, and later contemplating and discussing it, that these issues arise. There is no set conclusion, or finality. Art is never meant as a definitive answer. Theory is opinion. Art criticism, at its best is discussion and progression towards ever changing goals. At its worse it is either dictated like the Ten Commandments in an impenetrable language, or is hopelessly lackluster and flaccid in it’s criteria-less reportage description. It is quite possible this review-turned-essay embodies all of these things.
So to head into Rebecca Morris’ work headlong with inane chatter that grows into something more substantial: The first thing I notice is the color, lot’s of browns & brick colors. This is a good observation, though, because in Morris’ “A Manifesto for Abstractionists & Friends of the Nonobjective,” she states, “BLACK AND BROWN- THAT IS THE SHIT OF THE FUTURE.” So I am at least picking up on something that is also important to her. It is a nice little declaration because while it champions those colors (they will be ‘the shit’) it also makes you think of shit, because those are shitty colors. Black and brown go together in a real way, not an ironic hipster way. They may not be beautiful like blue and red, or sarcastically beautiful, like neon green and purple, but they do work. And they work in a cubist, modernist way. Which is a way we haven’t seen color working in a while, so it is welcome.
Other motifs are grids, stripes, and patterns, but not infinite patterns, these patterns don’t extend beyond the picture plane. They are contained within it. They are not perfectly tessellated to extend on open-endedly.
Light, whispy tufts of spray paint and thick wrinkled blobs, puddles, make up the surfaces of Morris’ paintings. Areas are thinned down to a wash with turpentine. Shapes overlap literally as puddles, or thick pudding skins, are laid down and piled on one another.
These paintings have a lot of light in the application of neon and metallic spray paint. In Day-Glo they reflect 110%. The silver paint hits your eyes like chrome on a hot summer day.
The thick stretchers make these paintings objects, give them a solid presence. But this comes into play in the work itself as the elements are visually, as well physically, about space. They are about surface, hills, mountains and valleys. Topographic, in a sense. She creates the work on the floor before moving it vertically. This is partially to do with the fact the a lot of the paint is so thick it has to be on the floor; otherwise it would slide right off. But Morris is also interested in that subtle but drastic shift from moving the painting from the floor to the wall. It is a moment of surprise where the painting becomes completely new while remaining the same. It is perhaps the moment when a work ceases to be in progress, and becomes finished. I notice this a lot with paintings, and it is almost troubling. Thinking of how the painting was lyihng flat on it’s back while being worked on, but then but upright when it is “ready to hang.” It makes the studio an operating table or a disceting table. And this is something that goes back to Pollock, working on his barn floor. What would it mean for a painting to be shown as it was made, on the floor? We see this a little with Linda Benglis or Polly Apfelbaum. But those works are done too consciously of being about the floor. What if Morris carried on painting as usual, but then stopped on the floor? Clearly, putting them on stretchers, framing, contextualizing, them, is where Morris’ paintings are ultimately made to go, and to live. But this step in the process opens up questions. Working on the messy floor, and in a dingy studio as a whole, is an integral part of the process. And so is the moment where canves gets cut out of the space, and given it’s own territory and presence. Seperating a paiting from its natural habitat of the studio, putting it on display, putting it in the white cube zoo cage is at least an important step. Looking at Morris’ paintings make one aware of all this.
When in Germany she took notice of Der Blaue Reiter ("The Blue Rider," the German Expressionist group led by Wassily Kandinsky). She was particularly drawn to Franz Marc’s “triangulated space.” She has come to notice that her paintings are very concerned with space, so she has made them bigger and bigger. So they actually exist in space. Architecture also then comes into play. Another element is the thick stretcher frames. Even in the process of painting, from on the floor to the wall, these works engage space.
The paintings stop short of representation, they only hint at it. Or they feel like stopping short in exploration. Like reproductions of Abstract Expressionist paintings mechanically enlarged- all the details are lost, smoothed out. Most serious painters loath the misreading of a painting. The type of comment like, “that looks like a metallic tit with a dent in it.” And while Morris does not court such Rorschach-ing, she does accept it, and has moved away from titles in order to further free up a viewer’s interpretation. Back to the masses, and how they handle abstract art that isn’t decoration, viewers often tend to cling to a title. But this isn’t just the public, everyone is like this. If you feel like you don’t “get” a piece of art you feel stupid, especially if you are one of the initiated. So if a piece has a title like “Lavender Mist” you tend to think it is about that. And then it almost ceases to be abstract at all. That Pollock isn’t a bunch of nonrepresentational, meaningless drips, it is a painting of mist, and now I can like it because now I know what it means. This plays into what Walker points out in his essay on Morris when he is discussing painting’s relationship to other paintings, “In other words, paintings are read in and through reference to other paintings begging the question, once abstraction has acquired legibility is there such a thing as an abstract painting?“ The question of abstract painting having legibility is in relation to other paintings but also, I feel a legibiltiy in relation to a meaning or intreptation. If an abstract painting is only understood, or ‘read” as being related to another painting, than it is a reference, a sign. It is nolonger an abstraction. So can abstract painting exist then? The answer is bluntly put as “’Hells Yes.’” Especially since, and this is certainly the with case with Rebecca Morris, there is no one true answer, reading, interpretation or comparison to be made. One way this is achieved is her adoption of a coded numerical system to catalog the paintings. Essentially this titles the work even less than “untitled.” This further abstracts the painting as lauguage of any type, save that of painting, has been removed. There is the code, the numerical structure, but that is a hidden device for personal reference, and so it is not part of how the viewer would experience it. This also calls into question the whole notion of labelling art at all. Should these paintings have any tags at all for viewers? No date, no title, no medium. Don’t worry about it, just look at the painting. How often do people hang art they own in their homes with wall labels? They have all the documentation filed away, but it is not a part of the piece, so it is not hanging on the wall next to it.
In some ways, however, the work seems seem to fall short of its goal. If the goal is the endless protracted one of saving art, and being the next moment. That is a synthetic goal, created by the discussion and its tangents. Watching Morris talk about her work, I get the impression she it not so nearly concerned in a massive debate as she is in talking in the world around her and then going into her studio and painting.
A fault with these works would be that, at times, they feel too mired down in trying to be aware of art history but also avoiding it at the same time. Rather than going fully into a belief and faith in art with an “A” they maintain a tinge of irony and withdrawal. This makes them awkward and difficult, which is bad because they come off lacking a certain “umpf” of completion. But it is ultimately good, because they maintain a uniqueness in their apparent unfinished-ness. It is also quite possible, that once painting became self aware, it could never really go back to the way it was before. To paint as if the last 45 years had never taken place, and sadly, there are plenty of people doing that, would not only be foolhardy, but would render your work irrelevant and a novel idiosyncrasy at best. So Morris’ paintings try to find a sense of order in all that. In a desire to paint abstractly in a sincere way, but also come to terms with everything else. Sometimes She is successful, others not.
The works on view at the Ren stand alone as strong instances of painting. Added to this are contextual circumstances. These paintings are a challenge and almost an affront. In being unapologetically paintings, and abstract nonetheless, they offer an “umpf” of much greater magnitude than being a satisfying work of Ab-Ex-sim would. Perhaps it is an old point to make, and maybe a little inappropriate, but I’ll dust it off anyhow. And actually, it is really necessary to point out the fact that these are, on top of being abstract paintings, being made by a young woman. This adds one more twist. This work is so good is because it is being created by an artist working in what are supposedly dead tropes (large, painting, abstraction) but who is of a new generation. And on top of that, they work, they compete. These are not the paintings of old guard abstractionists thoroughly ensconced in theory, history and the academic elitism or have gone “in and out of style.” These paintings are young and alive and they declare their unashamed powerful existence to you.
-E. Wenzel
Of major assistance in the writing of this article were the catalogue essay by Hamza Walker, and the televised broadcast of his discussion with the artist, Rebecca Morris, on CANTV.
Visit the Ren website
Rebecca Morris • Untitled • 2002 • Oil & spray paint on canvas • 67 x 65 inches
Abstract art, specifically painting, has become such an excepted idiom that it is a valid alternative to a landscape when decorating your home or office. In addition, or because of this, abstraction almost immediately leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Especially when seen in a gallery or museum. The general public and the in-the-know art-crowds alike have a distaste for it these days. While it is seen as especially suited for public spaces (any location that could use a bit of color in the form of non-threatening splashes and dabs) any serious consideration of abstraction is extremely frowned upon. Abstraction has given birth to the age-old, and never worn-out, impulse of “my child could do that.” An argument the aesthetes have yet to convincingly rebut. This is all the more difficult, when theory has chucked out Modernism and Greenberg & Rosenberg. On the one hand we are attacking abstraction, symbolized by the Abstract Expressionists, for our own postmodern reasons. On the other, we don’t want to be in the same category as the debased masses. So what are art people to do? Abstraction is at once arguably a much accepted option, especially in the halls of painting departments at art schools across the land. But it is also ignored, even despised by the reigning opinions and trends of today’s art world.
Painting and drawing is definately the medium right now, but more in the form of cartoonish drawing, childish narrative and figuration of some sort. The art market is booming, and a major part of it is being cool. Collectors want to be young and cool like the cool kids making the art and running the galleries. Cool kids want to be famous and rich in some sort of arty way and it is all becoming a vescious frenzy that will sping out of control. It’sthe ‘80s again. The art world wants to be just like Hollywood, and pop music. The art world has its own celbrity’s and “it” boys and “it” girls. And also “it” mediums, or styles, and right now, it’s about drawing shows with work best described as graffiti meets awkward summer days of the late 70s-early 80s with a touch of shock -value sexual confusion. And while the up-and-comer gallerists et al fight hand over fist to represent the next gawky kid in process of getting a BFA, that sort of painting & drawing’s moment is already just about over. It’s like the verse in the title track of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band: “It was 20 years ago today/Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play/they’ve been goin’ in and out of style/but they’re guaranteed to raise a smile…” Nothing dies or goes away, it just comes in and out of style. This goes for art much beyond ye olde painting & drawing. Now it seems that this metaphorical swinging pendulum every one is always talking about is moving faster and faster as the art world becomes more and more obsessed with being a part of pop culture.
Rebecca Morris • Frankenstein • 2001 • Oil and spray paint on canvas • 60 x 57 inches
But in all this fury of the return to painting, abstraction really hasn’t come into play. Abstraction is not cool. Certainly not abstraction with an “A,” or an “Expressionism” following it. Abstrqaction is cool if you are being funny about it. If you are being a snotty brat about it. And painting hasn’t really been “returned to” at all. The painting and drawing plastered ironically in galleries is ignorant, and clueless. It is completely unaware of its past and its roots. It’s what Jerry Salz is calling “termite art.” And that sort of stuff never goes very far. This is not to say everyone should return to Greenburg and think in some sort of abject high minded way about art, but if you are indeed working in a medium which goes back to the caves, you probably should try to have some idea where it has gone. It would also follow that you would want to know.
Of course we have Gerhard Richter doing it, but his is more of a nihilist painting parlor trick about flattening everything out along with photography and there by destroying all meaning of anything. There is also the ironic form of abstraction. In his discussion with Rebecca Morris, Hamza Walker touched on the key points of “Abstraction becoming a platform to critique painting...abstract painting becoming allegory, trope, to critique modernity.” This is the official justification of the strain of painting which stems from Richter and moves down through Luc Tuymans and Wilhelm Sasnal and Magnus von Plessen. That, alongside the more loosely rigorous likes of Martin Kippenberger, Peter Doig and Daniel Richter account for the accepted modes of painting. Even a relative new comer like Thomas Scheibitz, who seems more on the non representational kick, still has representation. It seems very few artists working in the once again acceptable realm of painting are doing abstraction. And doing it with total committment. The total commitment of the painting of yore; the painting of Pollock and deKooning, the last painting that can ever be painted of Ad Reinhardt, that is serious business. That sort of painting is digging up old corpses many would rather leave buried in museums. That painting is endgame painting, painting the task of mourning painting, painting like it’s the last night on earth painting. THAT is Abstraction. That is Abstract with an “A” and Painting with a “P.” It is, as Hamza Walker read aloud, “Abstraction as a gauntlet, as a challenge, a dare. Who has the courage to paint for paintings sake? A painting for pleasure’s sake? Paintings that expose it as reading or thinking in its own right?”
And this is where Rebecca Morris and her exhibition of recent work comes in.
installation view of exhibition at the Renaissance Society
It is not to center Morris at the heart of a heated debate, full of theory and fury. Or to place Morris as the figure head of a return to serious abstraction. But it is in viewing the work, and later contemplating and discussing it, that these issues arise. There is no set conclusion, or finality. Art is never meant as a definitive answer. Theory is opinion. Art criticism, at its best is discussion and progression towards ever changing goals. At its worse it is either dictated like the Ten Commandments in an impenetrable language, or is hopelessly lackluster and flaccid in it’s criteria-less reportage description. It is quite possible this review-turned-essay embodies all of these things.
So to head into Rebecca Morris’ work headlong with inane chatter that grows into something more substantial: The first thing I notice is the color, lot’s of browns & brick colors. This is a good observation, though, because in Morris’ “A Manifesto for Abstractionists & Friends of the Nonobjective,” she states, “BLACK AND BROWN- THAT IS THE SHIT OF THE FUTURE.” So I am at least picking up on something that is also important to her. It is a nice little declaration because while it champions those colors (they will be ‘the shit’) it also makes you think of shit, because those are shitty colors. Black and brown go together in a real way, not an ironic hipster way. They may not be beautiful like blue and red, or sarcastically beautiful, like neon green and purple, but they do work. And they work in a cubist, modernist way. Which is a way we haven’t seen color working in a while, so it is welcome.
Rebecca Morris • Untitled • 2003 • Oil & spray paint on canvas
Other motifs are grids, stripes, and patterns, but not infinite patterns, these patterns don’t extend beyond the picture plane. They are contained within it. They are not perfectly tessellated to extend on open-endedly.
Light, whispy tufts of spray paint and thick wrinkled blobs, puddles, make up the surfaces of Morris’ paintings. Areas are thinned down to a wash with turpentine. Shapes overlap literally as puddles, or thick pudding skins, are laid down and piled on one another.
These paintings have a lot of light in the application of neon and metallic spray paint. In Day-Glo they reflect 110%. The silver paint hits your eyes like chrome on a hot summer day.
The thick stretchers make these paintings objects, give them a solid presence. But this comes into play in the work itself as the elements are visually, as well physically, about space. They are about surface, hills, mountains and valleys. Topographic, in a sense. She creates the work on the floor before moving it vertically. This is partially to do with the fact the a lot of the paint is so thick it has to be on the floor; otherwise it would slide right off. But Morris is also interested in that subtle but drastic shift from moving the painting from the floor to the wall. It is a moment of surprise where the painting becomes completely new while remaining the same. It is perhaps the moment when a work ceases to be in progress, and becomes finished. I notice this a lot with paintings, and it is almost troubling. Thinking of how the painting was lyihng flat on it’s back while being worked on, but then but upright when it is “ready to hang.” It makes the studio an operating table or a disceting table. And this is something that goes back to Pollock, working on his barn floor. What would it mean for a painting to be shown as it was made, on the floor? We see this a little with Linda Benglis or Polly Apfelbaum. But those works are done too consciously of being about the floor. What if Morris carried on painting as usual, but then stopped on the floor? Clearly, putting them on stretchers, framing, contextualizing, them, is where Morris’ paintings are ultimately made to go, and to live. But this step in the process opens up questions. Working on the messy floor, and in a dingy studio as a whole, is an integral part of the process. And so is the moment where canves gets cut out of the space, and given it’s own territory and presence. Seperating a paiting from its natural habitat of the studio, putting it on display, putting it in the white cube zoo cage is at least an important step. Looking at Morris’ paintings make one aware of all this.
installation view of exhibition at the Renaissance Society
When in Germany she took notice of Der Blaue Reiter ("The Blue Rider," the German Expressionist group led by Wassily Kandinsky). She was particularly drawn to Franz Marc’s “triangulated space.” She has come to notice that her paintings are very concerned with space, so she has made them bigger and bigger. So they actually exist in space. Architecture also then comes into play. Another element is the thick stretcher frames. Even in the process of painting, from on the floor to the wall, these works engage space.
The paintings stop short of representation, they only hint at it. Or they feel like stopping short in exploration. Like reproductions of Abstract Expressionist paintings mechanically enlarged- all the details are lost, smoothed out. Most serious painters loath the misreading of a painting. The type of comment like, “that looks like a metallic tit with a dent in it.” And while Morris does not court such Rorschach-ing, she does accept it, and has moved away from titles in order to further free up a viewer’s interpretation. Back to the masses, and how they handle abstract art that isn’t decoration, viewers often tend to cling to a title. But this isn’t just the public, everyone is like this. If you feel like you don’t “get” a piece of art you feel stupid, especially if you are one of the initiated. So if a piece has a title like “Lavender Mist” you tend to think it is about that. And then it almost ceases to be abstract at all. That Pollock isn’t a bunch of nonrepresentational, meaningless drips, it is a painting of mist, and now I can like it because now I know what it means. This plays into what Walker points out in his essay on Morris when he is discussing painting’s relationship to other paintings, “In other words, paintings are read in and through reference to other paintings begging the question, once abstraction has acquired legibility is there such a thing as an abstract painting?“ The question of abstract painting having legibility is in relation to other paintings but also, I feel a legibiltiy in relation to a meaning or intreptation. If an abstract painting is only understood, or ‘read” as being related to another painting, than it is a reference, a sign. It is nolonger an abstraction. So can abstract painting exist then? The answer is bluntly put as “’Hells Yes.’” Especially since, and this is certainly the with case with Rebecca Morris, there is no one true answer, reading, interpretation or comparison to be made. One way this is achieved is her adoption of a coded numerical system to catalog the paintings. Essentially this titles the work even less than “untitled.” This further abstracts the painting as lauguage of any type, save that of painting, has been removed. There is the code, the numerical structure, but that is a hidden device for personal reference, and so it is not part of how the viewer would experience it. This also calls into question the whole notion of labelling art at all. Should these paintings have any tags at all for viewers? No date, no title, no medium. Don’t worry about it, just look at the painting. How often do people hang art they own in their homes with wall labels? They have all the documentation filed away, but it is not a part of the piece, so it is not hanging on the wall next to it.
installation view of exhibition at the Renaissance Society
In some ways, however, the work seems seem to fall short of its goal. If the goal is the endless protracted one of saving art, and being the next moment. That is a synthetic goal, created by the discussion and its tangents. Watching Morris talk about her work, I get the impression she it not so nearly concerned in a massive debate as she is in talking in the world around her and then going into her studio and painting.
A fault with these works would be that, at times, they feel too mired down in trying to be aware of art history but also avoiding it at the same time. Rather than going fully into a belief and faith in art with an “A” they maintain a tinge of irony and withdrawal. This makes them awkward and difficult, which is bad because they come off lacking a certain “umpf” of completion. But it is ultimately good, because they maintain a uniqueness in their apparent unfinished-ness. It is also quite possible, that once painting became self aware, it could never really go back to the way it was before. To paint as if the last 45 years had never taken place, and sadly, there are plenty of people doing that, would not only be foolhardy, but would render your work irrelevant and a novel idiosyncrasy at best. So Morris’ paintings try to find a sense of order in all that. In a desire to paint abstractly in a sincere way, but also come to terms with everything else. Sometimes She is successful, others not.
The works on view at the Ren stand alone as strong instances of painting. Added to this are contextual circumstances. These paintings are a challenge and almost an affront. In being unapologetically paintings, and abstract nonetheless, they offer an “umpf” of much greater magnitude than being a satisfying work of Ab-Ex-sim would. Perhaps it is an old point to make, and maybe a little inappropriate, but I’ll dust it off anyhow. And actually, it is really necessary to point out the fact that these are, on top of being abstract paintings, being made by a young woman. This adds one more twist. This work is so good is because it is being created by an artist working in what are supposedly dead tropes (large, painting, abstraction) but who is of a new generation. And on top of that, they work, they compete. These are not the paintings of old guard abstractionists thoroughly ensconced in theory, history and the academic elitism or have gone “in and out of style.” These paintings are young and alive and they declare their unashamed powerful existence to you.
-E. Wenzel
Of major assistance in the writing of this article were the catalogue essay by Hamza Walker, and the televised broadcast of his discussion with the artist, Rebecca Morris, on CANTV.
Visit the Ren website
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
In Absentia
Art or Idiocy? was in Cleveland this past weekend and had a chance to visit two of the city’s art venues. First was the Cleveland Museum of Art, which is partially closed for a major renovation and addition. The project is more drastic and expansive than Chicago’s Art Institute. As a result, many galleries of it’s encyclopedic permanent collection have been closed and deinstalled, with the museum’s total closure for a temporary period coming later this year. But what is currently on view is amazing. The NEO show, akin to the Greater New York, and the extinct Chicago and Vicinity exhibitions, highlights contemporary work from northeast Ohio. Also there is an exhibition of meticulous works on paper by Belgian artist Michaël Borremans. It is his first museum show and the CMA venue is its only stop in America. Borremans’ Hallucination and Reality is quite the sleeper hit.
A short distance from CMA is the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland. MoCA Cleveland is tucked away in the humble locale of the 2nd floor of the Cleveland Play House Complex. But it more than makes full use of its environment. MoCA presents works of local artists and internationals in four special exhibitions.
Reviews on all this forthcoming.
And as filler:
Bridge Magazine has called a town hall meeting! By chance we came across it on their website, and are guessing not many people frequently swing by, as it is not regularly updated. At any rate, the meeting Wednesday, August 17th, at 7pm at the NOVA Studio and Exhibition space. This should be interesting. Hopefully they are not announcing plans to start a museum.
On View at AIC • Agnes Martin Remembered
Contact by electronic mail? • artoridiocy@yahoo.com
A short distance from CMA is the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland. MoCA Cleveland is tucked away in the humble locale of the 2nd floor of the Cleveland Play House Complex. But it more than makes full use of its environment. MoCA presents works of local artists and internationals in four special exhibitions.
Reviews on all this forthcoming.
And as filler:
Hear Ye, Hear Ye!
Bridge Magazine has called a town hall meeting! By chance we came across it on their website, and are guessing not many people frequently swing by, as it is not regularly updated. At any rate, the meeting Wednesday, August 17th, at 7pm at the NOVA Studio and Exhibition space. This should be interesting. Hopefully they are not announcing plans to start a museum.
Also Not to be Missed:
Foundation Gallery Moving • Report From 3Oaks • Fort Munch •On View at AIC • Agnes Martin Remembered
Contact by electronic mail? • artoridiocy@yahoo.com
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
From The Met's "Today's Featured Work of Art:"
"This unicorn's confinement is a happy one, as the ripe pomegranates in the tree—a medieval symbol of fertility and marriage—testify. The red stains on his flank represent juice dripping from bursting fruits above."
The Unicorn in Captivity • ca. 1495–1505 • South Netherlandish
"This unicorn's confinement is a happy one, as the ripe pomegranates in the tree—a medieval symbol of fertility and marriage—testify. The red stains on his flank represent juice dripping from bursting fruits above."
The Unicorn in Captivity • ca. 1495–1505 • South Netherlandish
Artnet: “AL HELD RIP”
Exactly one week ago artist Al Held passed away at his home in Umbrian countryside of Italy. The painter was found dead in the swimming pool by his gardener. The Chicago Tribune ran the AP story, and Fresh Paint picked it up. Artforum sports a well-hidden link and the crass headline is from Artnet’s tiny obituary crammed at the bottom of a news brief.
What are the rules of obit coverage? Is this a little? A lot? Average? None of the articles featured any images of his work, and were mainly just the AP story. While not a major artist in the "Janson of History of Art" sense, nor the big-name gossip sense, Al Held is of stature and significance. Enter Art or Idiocy? to provide a brief discussion of his work and a nice image.
Al Held, with Michele R. Heinrici from the Robert Miller Gallery at his exhibition Expanding Pictures: the Recent Paintings of Al Held at Boston University
- "Scientists talk about vast worlds and universes that the senses cannot experience. The purpose of the nonobjective artist is to create these images."
Variations on a theme:AP Al Held story v1.0 • AP Al Held Story v1.1
Scientology Actually Good For Something
From Artnet
“... Sienna Miller, the 21-year-old beauty who was two-timed by fiancé Jude Law [c’mon, is that really necessary?], is now slated to star in Factory Girl, director George Hickenlooper’s biopic of Andy Warhol superstar Edie Sedgwick, currently, in pre-production. According to press reports, the role had previously belonged to recent Scientology convert Katie Holmes, who dropped out [thank god!] (it's against Scientology rules to dye your hair). Memento star Guy Pearce is slated to play Warhol, while other cast members include Meredith Ostrom (Nico), Gavin Rossdale (Gerard Malanga) [Mr. Gwen Stefani, lead singer of the band Bush] and Gwen Stefani (Richie Berlin) [harajuku girl wannabe].”
-Presumably by Walter Robinson
Who is Richie Berlin?
Richie Berlin is Brigid Berlin’s younger sister, named after father Richard. Richie sometimes went round New York with Brigid. Her only real claim to fame is an uncredited bit part in the “non-Warhol” but Warhol-related film Ciao! Manhattan(1972). So maybe Stefani has a bit part in Factory Girlala her contribution to The Aviator. Interestingly, Ciao! is based on the life of Edie Sedgwick with a down and out model named Susan Superstar as the stand-in. It stars Edie herself in the lead role. This becomes all the more confusing when assuming that Factory Girl will feature a segment on the making of Ciao! So Sienna Miller will be playing Edie playing Susan, who is really just a character study of Edie. And Gwen Stefani will be there. Whoa. Began in 1967, Ciao! wasn’t finished until 1971, just weeks before Sedgwick’s death of an overdose. Other factory superstars appearing in the film include Paul America, Baby Jane Holzer, Brigid Berlin and Warhol himself.
Gerard Malanga was a college student when he began working as a studio assistant for Warhol doing screen-printing. In the film about Warhol, Superstar, Malanga recalls Andy’s response to Edie Sedgwick’s death. He learned about it in a phone call, “’Edie’s dead,’” Andy responded, “’Edie Who?’”
An amazing resource, and an engrossing and entertaining read on all things Warhol is Warhol Stars Art or Idiocy? highly recommends it.
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
YOUARE IAM
This Friday marks the final opening of Foundation Gallery. Yes, another gallery in Chicago is moving on. Not to oblivion, as in some cases, just the city on a fault line, Los Angeles. Art or Idiocy? spoke with one of the directors of Foundation via email leading up to this announcement and she stated that, “Chicago just cannot support the gallery and our personal goals. Its time to move on, sadly.” Foundation Gallery has provided a unique vision of art to the Chicago scene that will be missed. Foundation’s exhibitions have featured art and design collectives and work that merges the sometimes disparate fields of commercial work, and work for it’s own sake.
The final exhibition is:
YOU ARE / I AM Book & Postcard Exhibition
Opening this Friday, August 5th 6-10pm
Open Hours for Reading Room 1-5pm
Sunday, August 7, 14, 21
700 North Carpenter Street BN • Chicago, Illinois 60622
- From the Press release:
The You Are Beautiful project has been circulating 112 books + 5,000 postcards around the world over the past year, encouraging participants to respond to the statements 'You Are' & 'I Am'. The result is thousands of inspired writings and art pieces.
For more info visit Foundation-Gallery.org
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