Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava
“Nothing irritates Close more than referring to his early portraiture as ‘photorealism’…” New York Times, 2016.
The last time I saw Chuck Close, I ran into him while we were both out making the rounds of gallery late one Thursday eve in October, 2017. Here, in a small basement gallery in Chelsea, he studies a work past my left shoulder. It was fascinating to watch him study Art he (or I) had never seen before and hear his comments. The work was by the same Artist who created the work behind him, who’s name escapes me.
I met Chuck Close, who died Thursday, 3 or 4 times over the years. He and I shared a distain for the term, photorealism. My problem with, beyond a disdain for virtually all “isms” and boxes in the Arts, it is that it has been used to categorize Artists without their consent, thereby potentially limiting and possibly damaging their career and livelihood. Further, I don’t find it fits the work of a number of those so boxed, as many other boxes and isms don’t fit those included in them. It’s high time the entire range of isms in Art be done away with!
Does this look like a photograph to you? Chuck Close, Detail of a Self-Portrait, seen in 2012.
In fact, Chuck Close was the only Artist who managed to have been so boxed early in his career that managed to escape it as his style changed and evolved numerous times over his long career. Even quadriplegia in 1988 didn’t stop him. Virtually nothing he Painted after 1988 could be construed by anyone as being “photographic.” His late work positively burst with surreal and Day-Glo color
Or, so I thought…
I was extremely disheartened to see these as the titles of his obituary in various newspapers and even the Art media, who you would think would know better!-
“Chuck Close, Artist of Outsized Reality, Dies at 81. He found success with his large-scale Photorealist portraits…” New York Times nytimes.com
“Chuck Close, renowned photorealist painter, dies at age 81 news.yahoo.com
“Chuck Close, artist known for photorealist portraits, dead” nypost.com
“Artist Chuck Close, known for photorealistic portraits,” UPI.com
“Chuck Close Dead: Photorealist Painter Dies at 81” artnews.com
“Chuck Close, renowned photorealist painter, dies at 81” NY Daily News nydn.com
It just goes to show how few of these people actually paid attention to how the Artist himself saw his work.
WHO approves this stuff? What are their qualifications? The New York Times published that quote expressing Mr. Close’s irritation of having his work referred to that way, yet THEY used that term in the banner of his obituary!! Seriously?
Chuck Close was one of the most famous living Artists in the world. If he, with his resources, wasn’t able to manage the conversation around his Art better than this, what chance does almost any other Artist have?
Portrait of Philip Glass, seen in 2012. The way the white rectangles stop at the shoulders strikes me. It’s something you’d never seen in a photograph. Mr. Close Painted the same subjects, especially himself, repeatedly. Yet, no two are alike, as his style continuously evolved. This is best seen, perhaps, in his amazing Prints, which are done in more media than, perhaps, any Artist before him. His work looks completely different at arm’s length, and again from 25 feet away. Something I find endlessly amazing.
These isms are generally coined by people who had nothing to do with creating the Art. All they really serve to do, in my view, is prevent viewers from seeing the Art for themselves. “Oh…this is ‘Pseudoconceptualexpressionism.’ I know what that is.” So, they don’t look at it for themselves.
“Don’t believe the hype
Don’t—
Don’t—
Don’t—
Don’t believe the hype*”
*-Soundtrack for this Post is “Don’t Believe the Hype” by Chuck D & Public Enemy from It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, 1988.
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Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited.
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