Artists

Richard Estes Art: What I See

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Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava.

This is Part 2 of my look at the work of Richard Estes on his 90th Birthday, May 14, 2022. Part 1 is above, or here. Part 3 is here. 

Over most of my 35+ years of looking at the work of Richard Estes, I’ve simply enjoyed looking at it, and it certainly lends itself to that. As I’ve already said in Part 1, one result of all that looking is that his Art has come to shape the way I see the world around me. As he turns 90, his Painting career has now spanned more than 55 years1! Recently, I began asking myself “What does it all mean?” This Part looks at what I see.

Richard Estes, Antarctica II, 2013, Oil on panel, 16 3/4 x 22 3/4, seen at the show’s entrance. Click for full size.

In Antarctica II from 2013, we see an iceberg floating in a large body of water with a smaller piece of ice, possibly broken off of it, floating on its own. To the left is the hull of the ship apparently containing the Artist on one of his many voyages to a far away land, with the side of a lifeboat visible above. The boat’s wake radiates out towards the berg as the boat moves towards it. One reading of this piece would be man’s impact on Antarctica, which has left it in a precarious state, represented by his alien vessel encroaching on the iceberg’s realm, its wake about to make contact with it.

Not so fast…

“Richard Estes avows that his realism has no hidden meanings, special messages, or stories to tell. Political positions and posturing about the human condition are alien to his art,” in a conversation with Patterson Sims per Patterson Sims, Richard Estes’ Realism2.

Given what I wrote in Part 1 about people disrespecting the Artist’s word on his own Art, though this is not a direct quote (something I address further on), I’m not going back on that now. It is impossible, however, for me not to see the effects of global warming in Antarctica II. How to reconcile this?

Unlike the blockbuster Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror, which was originally scheduled to coincide with Mr. Johns’s 90th Birthday in 2020, before the virus closed everything, as far as I know at the moment (in early May, 2022), nothing is planned in the Art world to celebrate Richard Estes’s 90th Birthday. My series might be it! Seriously?

Richard Estes: Voyages installation view of View in Nepal, 2010, Oil on canvas, 32 by 43 inches. Part of the show was very nicely installed in the large office space. In Part 1, I wrote about how I believe this work is conceived. Installed like this makes standing close to it difficult, and so the eye is almost forced to the central, white, peak, causing everything in front of it to be out of focus. It’s really a marvelous and somewhat daring composition for this reason, and a stunning contrast to Richard Estes’s Urban Landscapes, like the one to follow…

The closest NYC Art event that might qualify was Richard Estes: Voyages at Menconi & Schoelkopf in July, 2021, the first show of his work here since the Museum of Art & Design’s Richard Estes: Painting New York City in 2015, which I looked at here. Containing about 30 pieces covering the range of his subjects, Voyages featured more recent work. The theme of the show was ostensibly the annual trips and voyages Mr. Estes has taken over many years and the Paintings that have resulted from them, though these were juxtaposed with some of his iconic NYC Urban Landscapes3. An experienced world traveler at this point, his journeys have taken him to the far corners of the globe. At first, being completely taken by his views of NYC, I didn’t know what to make of the resulting views of forests, bodies of water, mountains and deserts that began emanating from his hand after his travels, first to Maine, then ever further afield. All the while, he still continued to give us his iconic Paintings of New York City, and other cities. When I walked into Voyages and saw the Urban Landscapes alongside African landscapes, Antarctic vistas, and deserts, I finally decided to sit down and do a reconciliation of his entire career and try and finally understand what, if anything, his whole body of work is saying to me.

First, Voyages reveals Richard Estes has been as busy Painting as ever. In 2021, at age 89(!), he Painted this-

Brooklyn Diner, 2021(!), Oil on canvas, 37 x 55 1/4 inches. I was dumbstruck when I first saw this. I just hope I can still out of bed if/when I’m 89.

It’s a statement in more ways than one. First, it’s apparent even at a glance that he has lost none of his world-class technique! When I finally finished marveling at that, I began to ponder the unusual composition. I decided to take a look-see for myself. I jumped on the A Train and made a trip to the real Brooklyn Diner, which turned out to be a bit of an outlier on West 57th Street, to see what I could learn from the actual site.

Brooklyn Diner seen from just behind the spot Richard Estes depicts. July 1, 2021. Notice how the “real” view lines up, or doesn’t line up, with the Painting. If I were standing closer, nearer that railing, as in the Painting, I wouldn’t be able to get the same view of the door, without a wider angle lens. The very wide 23mm lens I’m using here barely holds it, and I had to step back to get this! Suffice it to say I wasn’t able to take a Photo that exactly matches the Painting! Therefore, my Photo is not so-called “Paintingrealism,” to coin a box I hope no one uses. See important footnote-4.

Seeing it in person raised all sorts of questions about the Painting. Diner manager Guy told me the scaffolding, not to be seen now, was up from July to around Christmas, 2019, for HVAC work on the roof. Even though the scaffolding is gone, the building is exactly the same as it was. As you can see, I was unable to duplicate the view of the building in Mr. Estes’s Painting in a Photo in spite of using a wide-angle 23mm lens! Being the most colorful place in the area, and that area being Richard Estes’ extended neighborhood, I then wondered why he didn’t render it before or after the repairs. Then, I quickly remembered that over the last decade or so, Mr. Estes has Painted quite a few buildings fronted with scaffolding (another is shown further below).

Booklyn Diner, July 1, 2021. The trees in front of it make its signage a bit less commanding, partially hiding it, like the scaffolding in the Painting does. The trees are our of the frame to the left in the Painting.

Scaffolding adds yet another layer to the countless layers many of his street scenes already had- exterior, reflections, interior, rear exterior, which often adds another level of complexity to the geometry of the whole thing, not to mention another layer of technical difficulty. It also adds mystery. It’s interesting to me that here, the top of the building is cut off. On the main sign to the left, you cannot read “Brooklyn,” and “Diner” is hard to see fully. Neither is legible on the sign to the right. In fact, if he didn’t name the Painting Brooklyn Diner, you wouldn’t know what this place was! This “selective editing” makes me feel that the facade, with its candy color, distantly Art Deco echo, is not the point of the piece, though it’s what catches the eye when you see either the Painting or the actual Diner on the street. The ways he has changed the scene are fascinating. Again, I wonder “Why?” The only conclusion I can make from this is that Mr. Estes is making the scene into what he wants to express.

The Diner sits, incongruously, a half a block, but worlds away from, the glitz, glamour and Artistry of, Carnegie Hall, and directly across the street from the legendary & historic Art Students League. This location is not far from Mr. Estes’s NYC apartment, and that fact has led him to render innumerable sites in this neighborhood in Paint over his long career.

West 57th Street between 7th & 8th Avenues looking east. That’s Carnegie Hall, lit up left, Brooklyn Diner, behind the trees, right. My back is to the Art Students League. July, 2021.

In pondering why he chooses his subjects (which I still often do), I find something quite interesting about this location, and it’s shown in this photo- Richard Estes is a known lover of  Classical Music. Yet, he has never Painted Carnegie Hall, the most famous Classical Music concert hall in the country and one of the most famous in the world! In Brooklyn Diner, a glow of a light may be seen at the far left nearer the top. That may be from Carnegie’s lights as shown here. That’s as close as he’s gotten! It begs the question “With all the buildings he’s depicted in the area, why hasn’t he Painted Carnegie Hall?” As for this subject, he has given un an unorthodox view of Brooklyn Diner, putting the focus of this work in an odd place. I imagine that if 100 other Painters chose to paint the Booklyn Diner, this is not the view we would get. From the street, the neon sign is the most striking thing about the Diner. In Mr. Estes’s Painting, the sign is cut and is far away from the center/focal point of the work. Instead, front and center are details of the scaffolding. What to make of this?

Wholesome Foods, #2, 2018, Oil on panel, 16 x 22 1/4 inches. Another of Richard Estes’s scaffolding Paintings, and another in which the scaffolding is font and center. The woman sitting behind it in the window is engulfed by the detritus of the modern world- glass, steel, wood, paper, cars, buildings, trees, and the materials she’s wearing. In this wonderful composition, which harkens back to, and updates, Edward Hopper’s similar scenes, and a store window reflection Photograph by Eugene Atget, which Mr. Estes has in his collection, she becomes just another element, or someone seen behind glass. I see this as a reminder of how the modern urban world forces its inhabitants to live, a scene that might look as odd to viewers in 300 years as Canaletto’s scenes of Venice look to us today. The geometry and depth of this piece is extraordinarily multi-dimensional, beautiful and ugly at the same time.

 “I don’t enjoy looking at the things I paint, so why should you enjoy it?…I’m not trying to make propaganda for New York, or anything. I think I would tear down most of the places I paint.’” 5.

Those are not idle words. Richard Estes started out to be an Architect before he became an illustrator, and finally a Painter. When I looked at Corner Cafe, 2014-15, from the Painting New York City show, his most recent work at that time, I found that Mr. Estes had not eaten there. I don’t know, but I would imagine the same might be the case for the Brooklyn Diner. So much for a Painting of a place from a personal experience. If we remove personal experience from his choice of subject here (hypothetically) we’re left with something about this site inspiring the Artist creatively. It’s hard for me to look at Wholesome Foods, #2, or Brooklyn Diner, or any of the scaffolding Estes and not think he’s (symbolically) “X”ing out what we’re looking at, given what he said. In the case of Wholesome Foods, #2, possibly with multiple large, literal “Xs.” “… I would tear down most of the places I paint,” leaves it up to the viewer to decide which places he means. Maybe that’s why he hasn’t Painted Carnegie Hall?

Times Square, 2004, Oil on canvas, 64 1/8 x 37 inches. Click on it to be fully engulfed. Seen at his 2015 Museum of Art & Design show, this may be the most technically astounding Painting I’ve ever seen, along with any Painting by Jan van Eyck. Having stood on this spot before, during and after 2004, I can certainly verify the overwhelming visual noise that still is Times Square, something that has never been more faithfully realized than it is here. Like most New Yorkers, including this one, maybe Richard Estes would like to see it torn down? Still, the Painting would live on as a reminder of how we actually lived here in 2004. “Progress” since the time of Canaletto (1697-1768)? It could also be read as a comment along those lines.

Overall, I see Richard Estes as a direct successor to the Artists he has named as influences- Canaletto, his nephew Bellotto, Thomas Cole, Frederic Church and Thomas Eakins. All of these Artists depicted the world around them without an ostensible “message,” though Thomas Cole also created the series The Course of Empire, in 1833-6, which I looked at here, that do appear to have a message. After the fact, Conservation has come to be seen as one interpretation of Cole, Church and their contemporaries, who were lumped in the Hudson River School box by someone else. That aside, I look at Richard Estes’s work the same way I look at any of theirs.

Richard Estes, Corner Cafe, 2014-15, the newest work shown in his Museum of Art & Design Painting New York City show, and seen there in 2015. Oil on Canvas. The Artist was only 83 when he Painted this. I visited the actual Corner Cafe shortly after seeing it. Interestingly, due to a large phone booth in the way, I again had great difficulty trying to duplicate the view seen in the Painting in a Photo, as you can see here!

I get similar feelings looking at some of Mr. Estes’s Urban Landscapes, like Wholesome Foods, #2, Corner Cafe and Horn & Hardart, 1967 that I get looking at Edward Hopper’s urban scenes, including Nighthawks, as I said in my 2016 look at Mr. Estes’s Corner Cafe. This is incredibly rare. Though countless other Artists have tried to emulate Hopper, (which I am not saying Mr. Estes is) I can’t say I’ve felt that from any of them. Seven years after I first saw it, I still get that feeling when I look at Corner Cafe, which I now feel is a masterpiece.

When taken as a whole, the 55 year & counting body of Paintings & Prints he’s created, some interesting things become apparent. Looking back over more than a half century, Richard Estes’s Paintings show us two worlds.

Antarctica II, 2007. Oil on panel, 26 3/8 x 57 inches. Canaletto (1697-1768) lived 300 years ago. In 300 years, will people look at this as something they can relate to in their world, or something from the lost past?

First, the world he lives in and around in NYC, and to a lesser extent, the other cities he has visited & Painted around the world- i.e. his so-called Urban Landscapes6. The second is the world he lives in and around his second home in Maine, and the natural world he has visited on his many trips to other lands. Both groups can be summarized thus- 1) Works depicting the world built by man on the one hand, and, 2) Works depicting the unbuilt, natural world on the other. There is obvious intention in this. Mr. Estes has chosen each and every subject he has Painted. Outside of a handful of Portraits (some commissions, some gifts), I’m leaving nothing out of his oeuvre in saying this. It’s incredibly rare in Art history to find ANY Artist who’s entire body of work fits so neatly into two categories!

Voyages, installation view of the second gallery. NYC Urban Landscapes on the left wall, Antarctica Paintings on the right, one of each to the far left and far fright is cut off.

Seeing some of each of the categories on view face to face in Voyages brought this duality home for me in a convincing fashion. On one wall in the second gallery, left above, a rotating selection of Paintings of Manhattan faced a selection of Paintings of Antarctica on the opposite wall, right. For me, this summed up his career to date in a nutshell. The city scapes show the city (NYC, London, Paris, Madrid, Tokyo, etc) on typical days, much like the Venice Canaletto and Bellotto show us. Mr. Estes’s Paintings of the natural world seem to follow in the long tradition of landscapes by American Artists, including Thomas Cole, Church, et al, as well as Edward Hopper’s views of Maine (among many other Artists who have preceded Mr. Estes and lived & worked in Maine. Thomas Cole also Painted Mount Desert, Maine, the subject of a number of Mr. Estes’s Paintings).

ATM, 2018, Oil on panel, 16 x 20 inches. In this marvelous Urban Landscape, it seems to me that only the three empty chairs in the mid foreground are in sharp focus, doing something Mr. Estes does in many of his pieces- de-emphasizing human subjects to avoid the narrative as I’ve heard him say- even when there are people present in the Painting. No Painter known to me Paints the modern city like Richard Estes. This Painting is hanging to the far left, just out of the frame in the prior picture.

His Paintings of the man-made world (i.e. his Urban Landscapes) might well be called New Topographic if they were Photographs because it seems to me  they see the world through the same lens as the legendary New Topographics Photography show at the Kodak Museum in Rochester in 1975, which focused on the “Man-Altered Landscape,” the show’s subtitle. Mr. Estes’s NYC Paintings predate this show by 7 or 8 years, though the Photographers included in it were working at the same time he was. I have no information that either Mr. Estes knew these Photographers or their work, then or now.

Antarctica I, 2013, Oil on panel, 14 3/4 x 20 inches. Another Antarctica Painting brings me back to what I said I saw in Antarctica II up top.

“Richard Estes avows that his realism has no hidden meanings, special messages, or stories to tell. Political positions and posturing about the human condition are alien to his art,7.”

So, how to reconcile what I said about in the beginning of this piece about Antarctica II with this? Mr. Sims’s words are not an actual quote, and so are less than ideal. As I said, Richard Estes has chosen to show us each and every one of these sites, so there is obvious intention in that. The two facing walls I showed in Voyages were in his show, so there is intention in that, too. Beyond this, he is directly quoted (shown earlier) saying that he would like to see many of the sites he has Painted torn down. Is he fearful of the loss of much of the natural world during his lifetime? He is known to be actively involved in conservation efforts, particularly in Maine. Is he recording both the man-made and the state of the natural world for future generations? Given the time he has spent studying Canaletto and Thomas Cole, even visiting sites they Painted, I would say it is possible. Yet, it must be admitted that Mr. Estes may simply be an observant onlooker at the ever-changing world he’s seen first hand near and far, then creating Paintings that express what he’s experienced. As I’ve demonstrated, these are NOT verbatim depictions. He’s an Artist, not a replicating machine, as I showed in Part 1. Regardless of the nebulous statement from Mr. Sims above, Mr. Estes intends exactly what he shows us, aided by a technique that is the equal of that only a very few Artists in Art history have had to render his intentions as clearly as is humanly possible. He also is well aware that every viewer will see in his work what they will, as he sees, has seen, and is himself influenced by, those he admires who have come before him.

What will our world look like to people 300 years from now? A viewer looks at Canalellto’s Piazza San Marco, 1720s, in 2019, almost exactly 300 years after it was Painted, at The Met. While I have no doubt that Richard Estes, himself, has stood in this spot any number of times, this isn’t just any viewer. This is Lana Hattan, who pushed me to start NighthawkNYC in 2015. Seen here on one of the last times I’ve seen her, December 14, 2019. If you find this site worthwhile, you owe her your thanks. Without her push, it wouldn’t be here.

Richard Estes’s Paintings speak for themselves, and they should be allowed to- beyond boxes or other limitations.  The Artist doesn’t need to stand up and say, “This Painting is about _____.” They are what they are. Look for yourself at them and see what they say to you. 

“I see what I see,” as Frank Stella says. For me, Richard Estes has Painted the most compelling record of the New York City of my lifetime in it. He has also created a beautiful record of much of what’s left of the natural world. It’s a record of the world in his time- what’s been built by man, and and what’s left of the natural world, rendered through the hands and mind of an Artist. I see a “dialogue” going on when I look at both bodies of his work. In the end, intentionally or not, his work shows the condition of the world in his (and our) time. Including (again, intentionally or not), depictions of a number of key issues modern man faces and has created.

I can only wonder what viewers in hundreds of years will make of what he shows us. I have a sneaking feeling that Richard Estes has thought a lot about this, too.

-The 3rd, and final, Part of this series, “Richard Estes: Two Manifestos” is below this one, or here.
-Part 1 is here.
-My piece on Richard Estes’s Corner Cafe, 2013, may be seen here. 
–My look at the 2015 Richard Estes: Painting New York City show at the Museum of Art & Design may be seen here.
-My piece “Death to Boxes!” is here.

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “Once in a Lifetime,” by David Byrne & Talking Heads, from Remain in Light, 1980, and performed here In Los Angeles in 1983, extracted from the Film Stop Making Sense–

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for over 8 1/2 years, during which 320 full-length pieces have been published! If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate by PayPal to allow me to continue below. Thank you, Kenn.

You can also support it by buying Art, Art & Photography books, and Music from my collection! Art & Books may be found here. Music here and here.

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited. To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here. Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them. Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

  1. From Bus with Reflection of the Flatiron Building, 1967,  shown in Part 1 ↩
  2.  P.1. Wait. Shouldn’t it read “Richard Estes avows that his Art has no…?” Substituting the “realism” box for the “photorealism” box isn’t any better, in my view. Richard Estes is a Painter- with no prefixes, in my book, the point of Part 1 of this series. Death to boxes! ↩
  3. Urban Landscapes is the title of 3 series of Screenprints the Artist has created. I showed one from my collection in Part 1. It was also the title of a show of Mr. Estes’s work in 1978 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. ↩
  4. After I finished this Part, I saw the book Richard Estes: Voyages. In it, Mr. Estes says that he now destroys his source Photographs because he doesn’t want them compared to the Painting. I understand and respect his decision. I saw a few of his source Photos in the 2015 M.A.D. Museum show and showed a few in my piece on Corner Cafe. To honor his feelings, I have revised that piece and removed them. I am publishing these because- a) they are not his source Photos, and b) because I feel they highlight the differences between actual locations and his Paintings, showing the lie to some of the hype around Richard Estes’s work, as I outlined in Part 1. It must be noted, and I think it is very interesting, that I was unable to replicate the view seen in both Brooklyn Diner, 2021, and Corner Cafe, 2014-15 when I visited both ↩
  5. ibid, p.1 ↩
  6. I’m including his so-called “Still Life” Paintings in this since they depict objects seen in windows or on shelves and are not studio setups. ↩
  7. In a conversation with Patterson Sims per Patterson Sims, Richard Estes’ Realism, P.1 ↩

Richard Estes: Two “Manifestos”

This site is Free & Ad-Free! If you find this piece worthwhile, please donate via PayPal to support it & independent Art writing. You can also support it by buying Art & books! Details at the end. Thank you.

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava (*unless otherwise credited)

This is Part 3, the final part, of my look at the work of Richard Estes on his 90th Birthday, May 23, 2022. Part 1. Part 2.

As I look through the work of Richard Estes, two Paintings stand apart for me. Both are “Self-Portraits.” Though those words are in their titles, I put it in quotes though because you can’t really see the Artist in either one, only his shadow or ghost, and so they’re not typical Self-Portraits. Yet, that’s what the Artist has titled each. First, some context-

This ISN’T one of them. Double Self-Portrait, 1967, Oil on canvas, 24 x 36 inches. When I think of how Richard Estes taught me how to see, this is a prime example of it.  *Smithsonian Photo

Richard Estes has been given us a few Self-Portraits and de facto Self-Portraits dating back to 1967’s Double Self-Portrait, which is now in MoMA. In other Paintings, we see his shadow on the landscape, though these are not titled “Self-Portraits.” In 2015, at the Museum of Art & Designs, Richard Estes: Painting New York City show, which I wrote about here, I was taken by a Self-Portrait, dated 2013, one of the most recent Paintings in the show, hung near the end of it. I can’t say I’d seen anything like it in Richard Estes’s oeuvre to that point.

Self-Portrait, 2013, Oil.on board, 15 x 13 inches. The Artist “seen” on the Staten Island Ferry. Another work that further effected how I see the world. Seen in Richard Estes: Painting New York City at the Museum of Art & Design in 2015.

I put a picture of it up and I’ve looked at it often these past 7 years since I first saw it. In it, the body of the ferry is rendered in crystal clear and vibrantly colored detail. You can clearly see the texture of the paint on the ship, a Painting of paint by the Artist! The eye makes out the shape of a torso and we are to assume that this is the titular “Self-Portrait.” Apparently, the Artist is holding a camera, though the center of Mr. Estes’s head and upper chest, where the camera would be, is missing or hidden by reflections.

Detail of the “Painting inside the Painting.” The “abstract” Richard Estes in full effect- in the real world!

The window acts as a sort of frame for the main part of the composition. Inside that “frame” things are completely different. Nothing is in sharp detail, though everything is sublimely Painted. Silvery lines lead the eye further and further back to the NYC skyline lining what may be the “background,” though it’s hard to tell. It, too, is out of focus and indistinguishable to the point that I can’t identify any of the buildings. Richard Estes: Abstractionist? His work DOESN’T need another box!

What to make of this?

My personal view is that this may be something of a “manifesto.” In it, Mr. Estes shows that he is perfectly capable of Painting wonderfully in multiple styles, and he, represented by the mysterious partial shadow, won’t be “defined” by one, i.e. a sharply detailed Portrait, like we see in Double Self-Portrait up top. HOW can this be called so-called photorealism when you can’t even clearly see the “Self-Portrait” in a work titled just that? Yes, he can paint crystal clearly- when it suits him and his purpose, but he’s perfectly able, and apt, to Paint however he needs to to achieve his purpose.

Thinking about this further, Painting up until the beginning of the 20th century was strictly “representational.” Around the turn of the century, Artist like Hilma af Klint, Kandinsky, Monet and others, began exploring abstraction. Abstraction became the 2nd great type of Art in Art history. In Self-Portrait, 2013, I see both, side by side, as they appear in the real world.

In summing up the Art of Richard Estes, in my opinion, Richard Estes’s represents nothing less than a kind of culmination of the history of Painting in a way. He is among the first to combine representational and abstraction in his Art, even if he has done it unintentionally. This is what I see it when I look at his Art. In my view, THIS is something that should be receiving a lot more attention than it has gotten (i.e. almost none). It hasn’t because people are too busy being limited by what his work is “supposed” to be, as decreed by the box makers. They think that is all his Art is, as I said in Part 1! That’s because they’ve stopped looking at it. To wit-

In July, 2021, at Richard Estes: Voyages, I was stopped by another recent Self-Portrait, this one strategically installed half way through the show.

Self-Portrait in Copenhagen, 2019, Oil on panel, 16 x 20 inches. The Artist seen 52 years after Double Self-Portrait!

Again, this piece has been on my mind from the moment I first saw it. It shares some elements with the Ferry Self-Portrait, like the row of lines leading the eye further and further in, and the central titular dark shape with the “head” missing. This time, the “frame” of the outside world, that served to “ground” the Ferry Self-Portrait, to prepare the viewer (in a way) for the abstraction, has been removed. That means NOTHING in this piece is sharply rendered! EVERYTHING in it is nebulous. In that regard, it strikes as an “evolution” from the 2013 Ferry Self-Portrait- now, the whole Painting is that “Painting in a Painting” I showed earlier inside the Ferry Self-Portait(!). It is, perhaps, its logical culmination.

Detail of the center.

NOTHING in focus is downright shocking to see in a finished Painting by Richard Estes (which I assume it is since it was in his shows in NYC, London and Florida). To top it off, parts of it appear to be unfinished! Obviously, given its exhibition history, this is intentional. As a result, it’s hard for me to not see it as an extension of the “manifesto” of the 2013 Ferry Self-Portrait. Mr. Estes is showing us he will Paint as he pleases- without the expectations of anyone.

Detail of the right section. Note the figure exiting to the right. This section looks to me more like something by Neo Rauch than Richard Estes.

Look! That figure on the far right is only half Painted! His or her torso is only outlined! There is nothing like this in Richard Estes’s oeuvre since 1967!

A Self-Portrait is a Portrait created by an Artist of his or herself. If I read these last two Self-Portraits literally, they are how the Artist sees himself, and in my view, how he sees his Painting. In the 2013 Ferry Self-Portrait, he shows us his mastery of multiple styles and uses them to present representation and abstraction in the same piece (as I see it). In his 2019 Self-Portrait in Copenhagen we see the Artist completely comfortable in showing us only a “looser,” FREER (a keyword about this piece for me), uninhibited, and perhaps MORE PAINTERLY style than we have seen in an entire Painting since 1967.

This says to me “THIS is how I see myself, and my Painting.”

Many more, Mr. Estes!

*-Soundtrack for this Post is a wonderful, surprise, blending of Beethoven’s Eroica with Happy Birthday for Sir Roger Norrington on his 84th as performed by the SWR Symphonieorchester borrowed for the 90th of this fan of Classical Music-

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for over 8 1/2 years, during which 320 full-length pieces have been published! If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate by PayPal to allow me to continue below. Thank you, Kenn.

You can also support it by buying Art, Art & Photography books, and Music from my collection! Art & Books may be found here. Music here and here.

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited. To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here. Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them. Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

Ahndraya Parlato: Magic, Mystery, Love & Death

Written by Kenn Sava. Photographs by Ahndraya Parlato.

Photographer & Professor Ahndraya Parlato is also a mom to two young daughters and a wife. That’s more to juggle than I can even begin to imagine. Yet, somehow, through it all, she’s managed to create, and co-create, three PhotoBooks that linger in the mind and place her among the more interesting Photographers to emerge in the past decade. In fact, these past five years, any time someone has asked me who was either a very over-looked Photographer, or the Photographer deserving wider recognition, her name was the first I mentioned.

The cover of Who is Changed and Who is Dead

In 2021, she released her third PhotoBook, Who is Changed and Who is Dead, a NighthawkNYC NoteWorthy PhotoBook of the Year, published by Mack Books, her second monograph following 2016’s A Spectacle and Nothing Strange, published by Kehrer. They were preceded by a collaboration with Mr. Parlato, Gregory Halpern, published by Études Books in 2014 titled East Of The Sun, West Of The Moon. Ostensibly, the subject this time is Ms. Parlato’s mom’s suicide. A victim of parental suicide myself, somewhat amazingly, her’s is the first book I have come across to address the subject. She deserves much credit for daring to broach this topic few are apparently willing to speak about (understandably). All three of Ahndraya’s books have two part names. In the case of Who is Changed and Who is Dead, the subject has three parts: her late mother, herself, and her 2 young daughters (most frequently addressed as a pair, even when she starts out referring to one of them. Ava and Iris Halpern-Parlato are the only two of the three to actually appear in person in the book’s Photos, though all three subjects appear equally in Ahndraya’s extremely personal & revelatory text. 

From Who Is Changed and Who Is Dead. “SPOILER: THEY DIE,” the text reads…

When I first got Who is Changed, I delved right into the text, the first Ahndraya has written in one of her books. The fellow victim in me was looking to see how her mother’s suicide effected her and how she handled it. (Disclaimer- Of course, the book is not intended or designed to be read this way. It’s a PhotoBook!) Reading the text as a whole gave me the chance to hear her voice without interruption.

From Who Is Changed and Who Is Dead

It turns out the book is more a “snap shot” of Ahndraya in 2021: her life to this point, and her life with her children. As such, it’s a book that will provide comfort and reassurance to new moms, particularly those who are also Artists. Though the text is written in compact sections, there is a lot to unpack, and more to process. Part 1 is titled “To My Children,” and starts with a wish for a long and happy life for both of them followed, after a coma, by an acknowledgement of understanding the “desire to go out together,” apparently born in her mother’s suggestion that the two of them jump out of a window of a NYC building when Ahndraya was in 3rd grade! It’s in moments like this that the subject of suicide bubbles to the surface, like it quite possibly does in the lives of other suicide victims. Tender reminiscences of her grandmother and mother follow, before she goes on to reveal her own fears of dying-

“I want to be alive. I need to be alive. I’m scared of dying because you need me.”

Part 2 is titled “To My Mother,” but both parts quickly revert back to the thing that is always on her mind (understandably): her children’s well-being. Ava and Iris appear, singly, in a number of her Photos, in at least one instance the appearance was unplanned1. They add hope (and stress), to the aftereffects of tragedy, and a reminder that life is a continuum. Life is also incredibly precious and incredibly fragile, and perhaps there is no one more vulnerable than the very young, or the very old. This comes through on virtually every page of her text.

From Who Is Changed and Who Is Dead

In my reading, it turns out that her mom’s suicide is more of a subtext that is always there, yet, her book offers much more than the reassurance that we victims are not alone, as valuable as that is. In it, we learn that Ahndraya’s mom’s mom (Ahndraya’s grandmother) also died horrifically, murdered by someone she knew, and we get glimpses of life with a mother who was sent to a psychiatric hospital after drinking ammonia, when Ahndraya was in 3rd grade, and then was diagnosed as a as a paranoid schizophrenic. As she weaves episodes from her own biography into the text, never far from her mind are her worries are her fears for her young daughters, understandably. Reading them, I was struck by how she never mentions her own mother’s worries and fears for her, at how she ALWAYS appears to be an adult, and usually  the parent. Even when she addresses us at age 3. Perhaps, this is because there is almost nothing of her mom in her own younger years here. When we meet her, she is already suffering from the illness that may have led to her death. The text is not linear and flows across time as it will, and reads in ways that are partially reminiscent of a diary, partially as conversations in thought with the subject. Her own chronology gets disjointed as a result, and I gave up trying to plot her geographical life’s course, yet the point is always, firmly, in the immediate moment. Born in Kailua, Hawaii, Ahndraya went on to earn a B.A. in photography from Bard College and an M.F.A. from California College of the Arts, where she studied with Todd Hido, in who’s class she met Gregory Halpern (Mr. Hido told me with obvious pride). 

From Who Is Changed and Who Is Dead

I got so lost in the text that weeks, then months, went by before I actually looked at her Photographs! When I did, I quickly found that many are striking and linger indefinitely in the mind. Nothing Strange there. I’ve been taken with her Photography going back to her first monograph, A Spectacle And Nothing Strange, published in 2016. The Photos include images of her mom’s ashes sprinkled on photo paper, printed glossy, to show-stopping effect as shown above. Elsewhere, her daughters pose by themselves or with plants, in ways that look nothing like Sally Mann’s iconic images of her children.

The end result is a unique book that allows the reader to begin to piece together the Artist’s life’s journey from childhood, through difficult years with a mother who was ill before her suicide, to the struggles to process her mother’s death (part of which never ends), to her own motherhood and the worries and fears omnipresent in the crazy world we live in now. It’s hard enough to survive today without, also, trying to raise, care for, and protect children!

From Who Is Changed and Who Is Dead

And ALSO be an Artist! Reading Who Is Changed took me back to my readings on Alice Neel, who was able to keep her Art career going, though at the cost of her personal life, in very hard times and difficult circumstances. In some ways, she was a role model for Contemporary female Artists. In other ways, perhaps she’s not an ideal role model. At least, by having children and having a long Art career, she proved it CAN be done. Today, Artists like Ms. Parlato have found ways to achieve a healthier balance between Art & family, even in these insane times, which makes them all the more admirable.

The other sub theme of Who Is Changed is the author’s verbal and visual efforts to make peace with her mom and her death. This is the real work for all survivors, and something, I for one feel, the person committing suicide probably never thought about how long and hard the road ahead would be for their victims- those who loved them they leave behind. In Ahndraya’s case, I only hope it helped.

As I mentioned, Who is Changed is not the only wonderful PhotoBooks Ahndraya has published. 

East of the Sun, West of the Moon, A Spectacle and Nothing Strange, Who is Changed and Who is Dead, left to right.

Her initial release, the collaboration East Of The Sun, West Of The Moon, published in France by Etudes in 2014, saw its 300 copies disappear before I became aware of it and started looking for it. Luckily, in late 2021, the publisher found some unsold copies and I was able to finally see it. It turned out to be worth every moment of the anticipation.

From *East of the Sun, West of the Moon, by Ahndraya Parlato & Gregory Halpern

At the time they collaborated, Gregory Halpern had already released Harvard Works, the first, small edition, of Omaha Sketchbook, and A. East Of The Sun is a magical book full of mystery. I quickly gave up trying to figure out its biggest mystery- attempting to determine which image bore more of the mark of one or the other- it’a a true, and seamless, collaboration. East Of The Sun loves to present straight forward Photos with a twist.

Of course the city boy would particularly like this one…*From East of the Sun, West of the Moon, by Ahndraya Parlato & Gregory Halpern

Every single image is chocked full of questions for the viewer to get lost in. So far, I haven’t found a narrative, and the Photographers provide no written insights in the book itself. Elsewhere, I’ve read comments about it being shot on the Solstices and Equinoxes in 2012 and 2013, wherever they happened to be. Far be it for me to be able to tell from the Photographic evidence.

From *East of the Sun, West of the Moon, by Ahndraya Parlato & Gregory Halpern

I’m only left to think I sure missed a lot of mystery going on around me on those days.

From A Spectacle and Nothing Strange

A Spectacle and Nothing Strange, Kehrer Verlag, 2016,  was my introduction to Ahndraya Parlato. A terrific book, It’s another book of magic and mystery though this one is firmly grounded in the earth, regardless of what may be going on in the calendar or the heavens above. Though it consists of Portraits, Landscapes and Sill Lifes, every image is a Still Life of life: moments that are not “decisive” in the Cartier-Bresson sense but are decisive in the sense of capturing the moment that linger in the mind: the stuff of memories. Both alien and familiar, they are the kind of images that remain in the mind as souvenirs of an experience. I’m sure there’s a story to each one, but I’m glad I don’t know them so each becomes new to me, again, every time I page through it, as I have often, particularly during the past two years I’ve spent in isolation.

From A Spectacle and Nothing Strange

The past few years have seen the Artist receive quite a bit of well-earned recognition. In 2017, Ahndraya was a Nominee for the prestigious ICP Infinity Award. In 2013, she was a New York Foundation for the Arts grant recipient, Magenta Foundation Emerging Photographer Award winner, and was also shortlisted for the MACK First Book Award. She has also been a Light Work grant recipient and a nominee for the Paul Huf Award from the FOAM Museum in Amsterdam, as well as the SECCA Award from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art2.

While Ahndraya Parlato has received well-deserved recognition from the powers that be in the world of Photography, I still believe there is a bigger audience for her work out there.

My piece on Gregory Halpern’s PhotoBooks may be found here. 

*- Soundtrack for this Post is “Sacrifice” by Björk, track 8 from her classic album, Biophilia, 2011. In the Biophilia app, the presentation for “Sacrifice” reads-

“Inspired by animal magic rituals and female sacrifice, Björk’s lyrics urge the listener to recognize the sacrifice made by all women for the sake of love.”

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  1. The Artist mentioned on social media. ↩
  2. Here. ↩

Alec Soth: A Pound of Pictures

Show Seen: Alec Soth: A Pound of Pictures @ Sean Kelly Gallery, January 14 – February 26, 2022

Alec Soth returned to Sean Kelly on 10th Avenue with a show of his latest body of work titled A Pound of Pictures. The show coincided with the publication of his latest PhotoBook of the same title published by London’s Mack Books. Mr. Soth has been a full member of Magnum Photos since 2008, during which time his popularity has steadily increased, so the arrival of new work is met with much curiosity and attention. I went for a look myself. I’ll also take this opportunity to survey his PhotoBooks to date, and make some recommendations in BookMarks, at the end.

“Get yourself a bride
And bring your children down to the river side.”*

A Pound of Pictures consists of Photographs Alec Soth took between 2018 and 2021 on various road trips around the country. There was no check list available, the first time in a long time I’ve seen that, so the titles are lacking.

The title of the exhibition, and the book, comes from a vendor Mr. Soth discovered on his travels in Los Angeles who sells photographs by the pound.

“Across the great divide
Just grab your hat, and take that ride”*

“Harvest moon shinin’ down from the sky, a weary sign for all
I’m gonna leave this one horse town, had to stall till the fall
Now I’m gonna crawl, across the great divide”*

“Across the great divide
And bring your children down to the river side.”*

Five smaller works shown in an alcove completed the display.

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “Across The Great Divide,” by J. Robbie Robertson and recorded on The Band in 1969.

BookMarks-
When it comes to making & publishing PhotoBooks, Alec Soth has been quite prolific. To date, he has produced books with Steidl, Mack Books and his own publishing house, Little Brown Mushroom creating plenty to explore. His first two books are contemporary classics among PhotoBooks released in this century, and are both highly recommended.

Sleeping By The Mississippi, his first book, was published by Steidl in 2004 in a decorative cloth cover, before being reissued twice by Steidl with pictorial covers- all three editions gong out of print and fetching substantial prices on the aftermarket. The cheaper alternative is the Mack Books reprint edition published in 2017 and still in print.

Mississippi was followed by Niagara, first published by Steidl in 2008, and was quite hard to find until Mack Books reissued it on its 10th anniversary in 2018, which is still available.

Among his other books, Songbook and Gathered Leaves, both published by Mack Books in 2015, are the two most noteworthy, and recommended. Songbook, a collection of black & white Photos, shot around the country, was first published by Mack Books in 2015. It is notorious for its lime green cover which is the most prone to fading book I have ever seen. Good luck finding a first edition/first printing with a truly green cover. Unfortunately, the way it fades, to a dead grass brown, completely ruins the original intention. I have no idea if later printings have fixed this issue. The only choice for buyers of a copy with a truly green cover is to NEVER let it see the light of day. Find the most light-proof covering or bag you can and store it some place dark. Recommended with that caution.

Gathered Leaves is an interesting box set/compilation of reduced size versions of four complete PhotoBooks by Mr. Soth- Sleeping By The Mississippi, Niagara, Broken Manual, and Songbook. At the time it was published, it was the only way for 99% of readers to see Broken Manual, (which was published by Mr. Soth & Steidl in 2010 in a limited edition which completely disappeared almost immediately), Mississippi, and Niagara, all three being mostly legends to those who missed them, and were out of print in 2015. Recommended because you get to see these four books complete, and in spite of the smaller size reproduction of the books.

Mack Books has just announced a new version of Gathered Leaves, to be released later this year. This time, five books are brought together in one large softcover- Sleeping By The Mississippi, Niagara (both originally published by Steidl), Broken Manual, Songbook are joined by the new A Pound of Pictures. Auspiciously missing from this group is I Know How Furiously Your Heart Is Beating, released in 2019. Is leaving it out entirely an indication that Mr. Soth feels I Know How Furiously is not as strong as his other books? I found it surprising, but I agree.

I Know How Furiously Your Heart Is Beating, 2019, Mack Books will be an essential purchase for Alec Soth fans and completists, I rank it as unnecessary for those seeking an overview or only the most essential books. Besides Broken Manual, which will run you thousands of dollars depending on what’s included, which I would include, Sleeping By The Mississippi and Niagara remain his essential books. Both remain affordable in the Mack Books editions.

The recently released A Pound of Pictures, published by Mack Books, is something of a return to form, another large-format, road trip based body of work, like Sleeping By The Mississippi and Songbook. Though not as strong as Mississippi or Niagara in my view, it retains Alec Soth’s curiosity and his ability to capture unexpected/incongruous combinations. Mr. Soth has continually experimented with format, layout and presentation throughout his PhotoBook career. Some succeed. Some a bit less so. I’m all for experimenting. I have some questions about Pound’s design from its curious covers (the title and Mr. Soth’s name appear in small type at the bottom of a long list on the front). I think the back cover should have been the front cover (ala the 3rd Steidl edition of Sleeping By The Mississippi), the front cover should have been the back cover. Inside, the prints, though a very nice size, seem to have a slightly faded look to them. When compared to the prints in the show (as seen above), the colors in the book lack a bit of “pop” to my eyes. Recommended, though after Sleeping By The Mississippi, Niagara and Songbook, among books readily available.

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Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited.
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Caslon Bevington’s Counterfeit Weather

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava (*unless otherwise credited)

Caslon Bevington, Sunstorm II, 2022, Acrylic on canvas, 16 by 20 inches.

“I can hear the nation cry
You will set the world babe
You will set the world on fire
You will set it on fire”*

The late David Bowie was, along with everything else he was, a passionate Art collector. As far as I know, he never got to see the work of Caslon Bevington, so I am willfully borrowing his words in speaking about her Art, and her stunning new show, Duping False Landscapes, at both of Ki Smith Gallery’s new East Village locations. In it, she has set the world on fire. More about that in a bit. 

Flashback: Installation view of Caslon’s 2017 show at Mana Contemporary. *Photo by Roman Dean.

I, however, am not a stranger to Caslon’s work. On September 20th, 2017, I actually left Manhattan(!) to see her show at Mana Contemporary in Jersey City. I wrote about what I saw here. Her show has stayed with me. In these intervening five years, my appreciation of it has continued to grow. At that point in early Fall, 2017, eternally & forever a “Painting guy,” I was 2 months away from being completely consumed by Modern & Contemporary Photography (i.e. from the 1958-59 publication of Robert Frank’s The Americans, to the present) for the next 5+ years to the present moment. When I saw what Caslon was doing with her Photo-based pieces, I was coming at it from Painting and Print making. Now, I also see it through the lens of the past 5 years, the x-thousand PhotoBooks and hundreds of Photo shows that have passed in front of my eyes, and what those Photographers have been doing these past 60+ years. Of course, there is some overlap: many Painters are, also, Photographers, and vice versa. As I wrote, she was on the edge of what Artists were doing with Photography. Five years later, I can’t say I’ve seen anyone else doing quite what she was doing then. Caslon was making what strikes me as ground-breaking work. It turns out I missed her 2019 show, her first for Ki Smith Gallery, and my vague impressions of it comes from a few installation shots. 

Duping False Landscapes, Ki Smith Gallery, East 4th Street, Installation view.

Fast forward to April Fool’s Day, 2022. I had a deja vu experience all over again when I walked in to see Duping False Landscapes at Ki Smith Gallery, stopping in to their East 4th Street location first. The wall facing the front door was lined with 8 striking image or Photo-based prints, seen to the right above. Robert Rauschenberg, Wade Guyton, Jeff Elrod, Nico Crijno, Chris Dorland, and others crossed my mind, but I immediately stopped myself when I realized these were an evolution from what I saw in her own work in 2017. I stopped caring how the images were manipulated or printed and just enjoyed looking at them. These were new, fresh, exciting pieces, and most of all, they are just beautiful- a word seldomly, if ever, applied to such work. Some are vibrantly colored & printed. Some look like snap shots in a family album that has been thumbed through so often the prints have faded from light and time. But, it all just works and holds together as a group (though they are separate works). For me, at least, these new prints provided a bit of  continuity with what I had seen before, and they set the stage for the rest of the show.

Sunset from Moving Cars (Revisited), n.d., Acrylic on canvas, 70 by 53 inches.

On the left wall of the gallery was the show stopper of both shows. “Sunset from Moving Cars (Revisited),” 70 by 53 inches, Acrylic on canvas, with about another 6 inches of Painted canvas exposed on the sides(!). It turned out to be a bit of a harbinger of what I would see in Part 2 of the show on East 3rd Street. The Artist seems to be drawn to fleeting images taken on the fly, like from a moving car, here. It was also the first “weather-related” piece in the show. Ki Smith mentioned to me that Caslon was a Painter when he met her circa 2015. Then, she moved away from Painting to explore other mediums. I didn’t realize her history and experience with Painting from seeing her 2017 show and images from her 2019 show. Between the two new shows I counted 15 Paintings ranging in size from 4 by 6 inches, to 70 by 53 inches that mark her return to Painting in a big way. There are about a dozen prints and 2 works on Terracotta also on view.

Counterfeit Weather, 2022, Acrylic on canvas, 29.5 inches square, left, and Untitled, 2022, Inkjet on archival vellum, 8.5 by 11 inches, right.

Moving over to the East 3rd Street space, there were more Prints on view, with the same effect. However, at the far end of south wall was something else. On the corner wall was a large Painting, Counterfeit Weather, 2022, that was seemingly influenced by the print, Untitled, 2022, Inkjet on archival vellum, hanging just to its right. Paintings have been translated into Prints going back to the invention of printing in an effort to get them more widely seen. It’s rarer to see a Print translated into a Painting. In fact, I can’t recall seeing anyone do something like this. It’s utterly fascinating to contemplate one and then the other. Here was the largest Painting in the show that is a translation into a Painting of a work in another medium. In all of them, the Artist depicts source images that are distorted, (intentionally or not), or so small as to make detail almost impossible to make out, allowing for “Artistic license” in their translation.

Three Untitled pieces, each from 2022, each Acrylic on canvas, seen in the windows of Ki Smith Gallery’s East 3rd Street location.

Three prime examples of this are featured hanging in the East 3rd Street Gallery’s windows. In them, the Artist has taken Photos that most of us would throw out or erase. Pictures where either the camera’s technology had its own mind, or the Photographer moved while the shutter was open, blurring the resulting Photo beyond recognition of its subject. The Artist has decided to render these images, as they are, in paint! Thinking back through the history of Painting, Kerry James Marshall’s 7am Sunday Morning, 2003, came to mind. In it, Mr. Marshall has devoted almost half the 120 by 216 inch canvas to depicting the lens flare from his camera pointed at the morning sun. I can’t really think of another instance where an Artist has done this, and certainly not one where the Artist has made it the subject of an entire piece, in this case at least 3 pieces.

Sunstorm II, 2022, Acrylic on panel, Frictions (Variation B), 2022, Acrylic on Panel and Frictions (Variation A), 2022, Acrylic on panel, left to right, seen during a tea party held at the gallery on April 9th.

Back inside, on the far walls, the Artist proceeds to set the world on fire. A series of four Sunstorm Paintings, each dated 2022, and two that appear to be somewhat related, titled Frictions, literally burn up their panels and canvasses. Apparently, they are based on an old, small Photo, which doesn’t lend itself to enlargement, and hence allows the imagination to complete their details.

Sunstorm (Expanded), 2022, Acrylic on canvas, 39 x 49 inches, the largest of the series.

Frankly, I don’t want to know much more about them lest the mystery evaporate. Anchored by the ground, we see the outline of what might be a part of a fence in a few along the bottom, but almost all of the rest of each work consists of a huge ball of flame, ostensibly, given the titles, from a sun looming all too large in the sky.

Sunstorm, 2022, Acrylic on canvas. 11 by 14.5 inches.

This series adds an ominous atmosphere for the first time (that I’ve seen) in her work. Exactly what is going on in these works is a mystery. In the two Sunstorms above the storms appear to be tornadic. What really stands out for me are the multiple layers each Painting features. Multiple Paintings, or part-Paintings, superimposed on the one picture plane. This is a continuation and expansion of the idea the work in her 2019 show presented, and at least one earlier Painting, and again (stop me if you’ve heard this one before) is something I can’t recall seeing in Paintings before. It’s also remarkable that these and so many other pieces on view date from 2022, a year that was exactly 3 months old when they were hung here.

Frictions (Variations A), 2022, Acrylic on panel, 16 x 20 inches.

Having created further innovations that blur the lines between, and show new possibilities of, the image and the Photograph, Painting, and the relationship between Photography & Painting, I’m left to wonder where Caslon is going to take her work next. It’s still very early in the Artist’s career as she embarks on her 3rd decade of life. Yet, she’s already broken quite a bit of new ground in her work- something very few Artists, of any age, can say.

In 2017, I left her show believing that she was on to something. In 2022, it’s apparent to me that Caslon is now on her way to establishing herself as one of the more interesting Artists working today.

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “(You Will) Set the World on Fire,” by David Bowie, from his 2015 album The Next Day.

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Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited. To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here. Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them. Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

Highlights of the 2022 Whitney Biennial: Matt Connors

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

There I was, wandering the 5th Floor of the Whitney Museum on my first visit to the 2022 Biennial edition, filled with my usual trepidation, when about 10 minutes in I discovered Matt Connors. I was immediately captivated.

Ahhh…That rarest of rare things: Great Painting on view in the Whitney Biennial. Six works by the amazing Matt Connors line one of two walls given to him on the 5th floor of the Whitney Biennial. After Scriabin (Red), 2020, Untitled, 2021, Body Forth, 2021, I / Fell / Off (After M.S.), 2021, Number Covered, 2021, Fourth Body Study, 2021, left to right.

He was generously given parts of 2 walls and I came away feeling that every one of his works displayed was strong. A feeling I only had one other time on the floor- that for the Paintings on view by Jane Dickson. Ms. Dickson has been working somewhat under the radar of many documenting a time and place in Paintings & Photographs, that no one else has- the Times Square area, before its Disneyfication (which makes it as loathed by locals today as the area was before. No small feat!). When I left, I stopped into the bookstore, as I usually do on my way out, and discovered this huge Matt Connors monograph with the cryptic title, GUI(L)D E. (Hmmmm…If the means the “L” is silent, it becomes GUID E.?) I looked through it to see if my intrigue would grow into more, and I couldn’t put it down. But I had to when they closed.

Body Forth, 2021, Oil and acrylic on canvas

That night, I did some research and discovered that Mr. Connors is not new by any means, but he’s not even in mid-career yet. In fact, his most recent show just closed days before the Biennial opened. Drat! I would have loved to have seen it.
Not only is he not new, he is, apparently, exceptionally prolific. GUI(L)D E is, apparently, part 2 of a retrospective of his work to date, following 2012’s A Bell Is Not A Cup, reprinted in 2016. GUI(L)D E covers his work since in almost 500 pages! His auction prices put him in the “established” category. 30 to 50 grand, or more, for his Paintings were the prices I saw. Even considering what I’m about to say next, my feeling is those prices are likely to hold for the time being. Being so prolific might work against him in this regard. Fewer, of anything, equals more expensive.

Though his work to date is abstract, these two works only hint at Matt Connors’s range. First Fixed, 2021, and How I Made Certain of My Paintings, 2021, left to right. I stood in front of How I Made for quite a while, getting increasingly drawn in to the composition’s unique geometry…

I have seen enough to call Matt Connors one of the “stars” of this Biennial. 

Let’s get lost. About to dig into my copy of Matt Connors GUI(L)D E, published by Karma in 2019, for the first time…

Not being able to get it, or his work off my mind, I went back to the Whitney just to buy GUI(L)D E the following night. After its 464 pages, plus the dozen works I saw the day before, my intrigue solidified into love, as in: “I love his work!” What? So fast? Why? First, I am extremely impressed with his color sense. In my view, Matt Connors is a true master of color. His choices are just gorgeous, rich, ripe, and work together brilliantly (not meant as a pun, but I’ll take it). Proof of this can be found in the Special Edition of GUI(L)D E, which comes with a Limited Edition print that seems to be based on his 2019 Painting Bird Through a Tunnel, or After Scriabin (Red), 2020 (seen in the first image in this piece) in any one of TWENTY-FOUR color ways! I’ve spent hours arguing with myself over which one I like best! Then, his compositions are unique and run the gamut from, apparently, completely free, perhaps improvised, to based on more representational scenarios. Then, there’s the way he manages, and reimagines, shapes. Fond of basic shapes, and multiples of them, “perfect” geometry is not always what he aims for, and that helps to leave his pieces fresh, in my view. His work continually surprises. At times I think he’s another Mondrian, on the next page another Matisse. All the while, he is as prolific as Jasper Johns, and as creative with paint as Paul Klee, as his work shape shifts from one to the next. Though some, many, all, or none, may be influences, he resolutely follows his own sense. In the end, that’s what I admire most, along with there being real variety in his strokes and mark making that is stunning.

Good luck(!) to those “isms” lovers trying to “box” Matt Connors! His work proves the folly in that. Why bother? Just sit back and enjoy looking for a change.

I / Fell / Off (after M.S.), 2021

Though he works in what most would call “abstraction,” his work strikes me as being accessible to virtually anyone. Accessible, perhaps. Understandable is another matter. His work is (almost) fiendishly inventive, leaving the viewer to ponder “what it all means,” while his color sense, which can be breathtaking, is going to seduce many an eye and surprise even those who think they’ve seen every palette an Artist ever invented.

One Wants to Insist Very Strongly, 2020

It’s nice to see Matt Connors, and Jane Dickson (along with what may still lie ahead on the 4th floor, yet unseen), like Jennifer Packer in the 2019 Biennial, holding the Painting flag high in these two Biennials, which have far too much video and installation work for my taste (not meant to disrespect these mediums or the Artists who work in them- I’m forever a Painting guy, who also has a passion for Modern & Contemporary Photography), and way too little Painting and Photography. Painting (especially Painting by Americans) has made a grand resurgence this century, but you wouldn’t know it from looking at the past few Biennials. You’d have to go up to the 8th floor to see the landmark Jennifer Packer: The Eye Isn’t Satisfied With Seeing (until April 17th) for living proof of that. And, hey wait- Isn’t Photography now the most popular medium in the world? WHY are there so few Photographers represented, again, at a time when virtually EVERYone is a Photographer? A good number of those I see are doing excellent, even ground-breaking, work.

First Fixed, 2021

A terrific, and large, Biennial could be mounted just from these overlooked American Painters and Photographers. Someone should do one! Message me if you want my suggestions.

As with Jennifer Packer, I’m sorry I missed the boat on Matt Connors’s work when I may have been able to afford it. Those days are likely gone forever. So, I will continue to explore & enjoy his work on the printed page, and just be happy I got a copy of GUI(L)D E before it went out of print and sells for $500.00 per, like the 2012 edition of A Bell Is Not A Cup does.

*-Soundtrack for this post is “Sister I’m a Poet,” by Morrissey from Beethoven Was Deaf and My Early Burglary Years.

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded and ad-free for over 6 years, during which over 250 full length pieces have been published. If you’ve found it worthwhile, you can donate to keep it going & ad-free below. Thank you!

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited.
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Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them.
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Nick Sethi’s PhotoBook Release In Canal Street

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava (unless otherwise credited)

Canal Street often feels like what New Delhi must be like. Bustling shops on one side, with as many street vendors out front hawking everything under the Sun you can imagine, sandwiching an endless stream of pedestrians as bumper to bumper traffic inches along, or doesn’t, on Canal Street itself. Yet on this April 2nd Saturday afternoon things were surprisingly chill as I headed over from The Bowery, walking East through Chinatown. It seemed downright sleepy at 3 o’clock in the afternoon. There was actually room on the sidewalks and a paucity of traffic on Canal as I made my way to dimes square for the release of renowned Photographer Nick Sethi’s new PhotoBook, CIRCLE OF CONFUSION.

That’s right. We’re standing right in the middle of one of the busiest streets in NYC- which is open in both directions (gulp)- for a PhotoBook release! April 2, 2022.

There, on the north side of the street, RIGHT IN CANAL STREET ITSELF was a flatbed cart, the kind they feature at mini storage places, holding a bunch of brown cardboard boxes. A small group huddled around the cart. In the center was a man with a white Max Fish sweatshirt, brown work pants and yellow kicks, a virtual blur of activity. Bending to fetch books from boxes, thumbing through one until inspiration struck, then summoning a fairly spent Sharpie to draw a circle, symbolic of the title, and then append his signature. Personable and amiable to all who approached, Nick Sethi was a man on a mission to get his new book into the hands of fans and interested parties, directly, al fresco. Like they probably do in Delhi. And so it was at the “book release” for CIRCLE OF CONFUSION. 

“Hey! Mind that UPS truck. They stop for no one!”

The amiable Nick Sethi chatted with everyone who approached.

I’d never met Mr. Sethi, who has single-handedly put India on the map of recent Contemporary Photography here in the West in a big way (in addition to doing numerous fashion and editorial shoots). His debut magnum opus, Khichdi (Kitchari), published by Dashwood in 2018, saw 1,000 copies vaporize, quite a feat for a 1st PhotoBook on India. A sensation the moment it dropped, it’s now both rare and legendary. Though I’ve never been to India, the energy, vibrancy and color he found comes through on every page. As we chatted, the topic inevitably turned to it. I asked him about a possible reprint or new edition.

Nick Sethi’s epic, Khichdi (Kitchari), 2018.

He spoke about the unique collaboration that went into making the book with his Indian printers and how that would be extremely hard to replicate. Translation- Hold on to, and take good care of, your copy! Intriguingly, he mentioned having “behind the scenes” materials that he would like to append, IF, such a thing ever did come to pass.

from Khichdi (Kitchari)

Then, the conversation turned to his new book, the self-published CIRCLE OF CONFUSION . He said-

“CIRCLE OF CONFUSION was photographed chronologically in two short bursts in and around Sadar Bazaar, New Delhi’s largest and most hectic wholesale market. In an impressive display of organized chaos, porters transport goods through the labyrinth of alleyways, intersections, and roundabouts with handmade carts that they adorn to distinguish ownership.

In photographic terms, the CIRCLE OF CONFUSION refers to an optical spot used to determine the depth of field, the part of an image that is acceptably sharp. When photographing in Sadar Bazaar, it’s impossible to stop, observe, and compose a photo without disrupting flow of traffic. So as I feel situations unfolding, I just point and click, allowing technology, chance, and intuition to choose the crop and focus, and in turn expose the final image.”

Nick Sethi, Circle of Confusion, 2022, self-published. The only text anywhere inside or out is the Photographer’s name and the book title on the cover. No colophon. Nothing else.

Born and raised in the USA, his parents hailed from New Delhi, so he has a special connection with the city. He spoke of the chaos of Sadar Bazaar and how Photographing was a unique challenge requiring creative techniques to capture the sudden coalescing of people, things and colors. He demonstrated what he meant using the bright red Covid testing stand next to us with a neon green cord running somewhere behind us and different colored shirts people were wearing nearby, and how it all changed in the blink of an eye.

“Hey, buddy. Wanna buy a PhotoBook?” Naw…he didn’t have to say a word. They sold themselves.

I asked him about his influences, and the first name he mentioned was the great Ukrainian Photographer Boris Mikhailov.

Boris Mikhailov, Untitled (From the Red Series, 1968-75). *Boris Mikhailov Photo.

He also told me that in New Delhi they don’t mind you taking Photos, just DON’T stop moving! Holding things up is a no-no! That’s the way it usually feels on Canal Street. But, today, Nick was able to perform a Push-cart ballet without fear. 

Note to self- Having a big piece of steel in your hands is a one way to make it across a busy street safely.

Interrupted only by hugs to greet old friends arriving, all the time we chatted, Mr. Sethi was a whirling dervish as books continued to fly out of boxes, then under his Sharpie, and off to new homes. Each one memorialized in a Photo by the Photographer of the new owner and their book. And best of all: no one was hit, hurt or injured…at least while I was there.

I didn’t have a chance to ask him the backstory of how his cart got that paint job.

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “India” by The Psychedelic Furs, the first track on their debut, self-titled Lp, released in 1980.

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded and ad-free for over 6 years, during which over 250 full length pieces have been published. If you’ve found it worthwhile, you can donate to keep it going & ad-free below. Thank you!

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited.
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Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them.
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The Sculptural Photography of Vik Muniz

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

Detail of Gente Indo, 2021, seen in full further below, just to the right of the middle.

Brazilian Artist Vik Muniz is like the weather. The next time you look, his work will be completely different. A seemingly endless font of creativity, he continually invents new techniques with which to create, and has since he began creating Art in 1987. This fact alone is enough to put him on the list of important Contemporary Artists. His massive 16 1/2 pound, two-volume Catalogue Raisonne shows the Artist creating entire bodies of work in materials as diverse, and as far from the Art-world norm, as chocolate sauce, or ketchup, or jelly, in true Duchampian fashion. However, Mr. Muniz is so prolific his C.R. is already 6 years out of date! A look through it does reveal that the Artist’s process is to invent a technique, create an entire body of work with it, then invent another completely different technique, most likely in completely different materials, and create another body of Art using it. Rinse and repeat, over and over and over, for 35 yers now. Through it all, Photography remains central to his oeuvre. Originally a Sculptor, Mr. Muniz Photographs most of his works, those which are too delicate or ephemeral for display. Along with the extreme creativity in their creation, the other remarkable common thread that runs though his oeuvre is his work is often visually stunning and as a whole, in spite of the variety 0f techniques used, somehow manages to coalesce into one of the most unique bodies of work created since the mid-1980s.

Gente Indo, 2021, Dyptich, Archival inkjet print, 158 1/2 by 57 1/2 inches, One of a kind. Click any Photo for full size.

Needless to say, I had no idea what I was in for this time when I ventured through the doors of Sikkema Jenkins on February 17th, as Mr. Muniz returned with his latest work in a show titled Scraps, that runs through April 9th. His last show, Museum of Ashes, in late 2019, which I wrote about here, included two themes and two equally stunning bodies of work, including one made of its own ashes.

Oklahoma, 2020, Archival inkjet print, 50 1/2 by 71 inches, One of a kind. Good luck trying to count how many pieces make up this amazing recreation, from a media image, of this horrific event.

Detail of the right side seen from an angle.

This time, there is one theme and one body of work on view all sharing a complex process of creation. I’ll let the press release explain- “Muniz’s newest body of work, entitled Scraps, developed from the use of textures in his previous Surfaces series and his interest in mosaic compositions. He begins his collage process by sourcing painted elements from his studio and assembling them into an abstracted mosaic, which is then photographed, printed, and cut up; the cut pieces are arranged and layered to form the new, final photographic image. The physical element of painting is thus subtracted from resulting art object but is evoked visually through the cut prints. These multiple levels of dimensionality effect a dynamic sense of composition, and a sublime tension between part and whole.” I was told that the end piece of Art replicates an original Photo that either he had taken himself, or sourced from the media.

Jakarta, 2021, Archival inkjet print, One of a kind. In this Photo, it looks like a Photo. Standing in front of it, due to all the layers and pieces it’s made up of, it has a depth no 2D Photo can capture, a bit like Sculpture, that comes closer than a Photo does of what it must have felt like to stand there.

In Scraps, his subjects range from the mundane (Gas Station Sink, New Jersey, 2021, below) to the monumental (Oklahoma, 2020, recreating the aftermath of the Oklahoma City Bombing), a number of cityscapes and large crowd scenes, and a stunning over-life sized portrait. I can’t begin to imagine how many individual pieces are in each work, or how long it took to make one. Unlike some of his pieces, the work in Scraps, though infinitely complex and one-of-a-kind, are Photo based and so are stable enough to display. They are mounted in case-like frames that allow three dimensional space for the multiple layers attached to the paper. Each one may be pondered from a distance, or studied in detail as close as one would care to for a different experience, like the work of Chuck Close.

Gas Station Sink, New Jersey, 2021

Scraps also wonderfully combines Painting and Photography in a new way. As seen in the detail from Gas Station Sink, New Jersey, the cut up pieces of Photos that went into this are of Paintings from Mr. Muniz’s studio.

“He begins his collage process by sourcing painted elements from his studio and assembling them into an abstracted mosaic, which is then photographed, printed, and cut up; the cut pieces are arranged and layered to form the new, final photographic image. The physical element of painting is thus subtracted from resulting art object but is evoked visually through the cut prints. These multiple levels of dimensionality effect a dynamic sense of composition, and a sublime tension between part and whole1.”

Detail.

The remarkable thing for me about this technique, and many of his prior inventions, is their way of reinventing the world- everything looks new again, and in Scraps he proceeds to walk us around that world through these new eyes.

Gavea (for Jorge Hue), 2021, Archival inkjet print, One of a kind.

Detail. Here, as in every part of every piece, if you stand to the side, you can see the layering, with, apparently, the same image in each layer. The effect is different from the Cubism of Picasso & Braque, but is still multi-dimensional.

I met Vik Muniz at his 2019 show and spoke with him again at the opening of Scraps. I commented that there was a new kind of cubism going on in this work and he replied that people had been talking about cubism in his work in another recent show.

Vik Muniz discusses Nameless (Woman with Turban) after Alberto Henschel, 2020, Archival inkjet print, 90 by 59 inches, One of a kind. Mr. Muniz was saying how this woman is ubiquitous in Brazil.

What I was referring to was the intriguing layering that is seen in every work on display. Not apparent in pictures of them, which flatten the third dimension, as you stand in front of them, the multi-dimensionality is immediately apparent. It draws you closer and almost forces you to look again from an angle. As for a “new type of cubism,” unlike most work that hangs on a wall, every piece in Scraps has layers that protrude from the surface, or are layered on top of each other giving each part of the piece more or less depth. Moving slightly to the side, back and forth, allows the viewer to look behind the upper most layer(s). There he or she will find something fascinating. Each layer is identical. The effect, up close or at a distance, is sculptural, something I also mentioned to Mr. Muniz. “Sculptural” work that is labelled “Archival inkjet prrints,” that are “One of a kind.” Seeing them for first time I thought their effect akin to a kind of “static cubism,” since there is no sense of movement as there is in Picasso’s cubism, because each underlying piece being identical to the one above, shares the same perspective.

Boy, 2021, Archival inkjet print, 37 by 31 inches. One of a kind. I was told this piece is based oa Photo of Mr. Muniz at age 4.

Vik Muniz has had a long and successful and accomplished career, and is quite well-known, though he is only in mid-career. Still, it seems to me that his is the kind of work that almost any Art lover could take a shine to. I could see Via Muniz becoming an “Art superstar” very easily. Perhaps the only thing holding his work back from a very large level of popularity is that it really needs to be seen in person to appreciate. A large traveling U.S. mid-career retrospective might do the trick. It’s time. 

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “The Secret Life of Plants” by Stevie Wonder from Stevie Wonder’s Journey Through The Secret Life of Plants, 1979.

BookMarks-
If you choose to buy from a link below, I will receive a small commission, with my thanks. There are no such links in the body of the piece, above.

Gramacho, 2021, 50 1/2 by 70 1/2 inches, One of a kind. A work based on the Documentary, Waste Land, 2010, which Vik Muniz starred in.

Perhaps the best introduction to Vik Muniz is in the award winning documentary Documentary, Waste Land, 2010, which he starred in. It’s a look at the garbage sifters outside of Rio de Janeiro as Mr. Muniz creates portraits of them and learns about their lives. It’s available to stream or on DVD.

Vik Muniz: Reflex: A Vik Muniz Primer, Aperture-The best overview I’ve seen on Mr. Muniz and his Art to 2005. Numerous illustrations, though not many full page images. Still, you get a lot of fascinating information about the creation of the Artist’s amazingly innovative techniques that other books don’t have. Copies of this out of print book trade for very reasonable prices (around $10).

Vik Muniz has released at two Catalogue Raisonnes that I know of, and a third book that calls itself “Incomplete.” Box Vik Muniz: Catalogue Raisonne 1985-2015  is the most current, complete, look at his output. It’s a beautifully produced, huge 16 1/2 pound, two-volumes in a slipcase, set, with countless large Photos of all his work to 2015. It’s a constant treat for the eye. I asked Vik about the fact that it is now 6 years old (published in 2016) and if he planned another one. He said that he was considering doing a Catalogue Raisonne online. So, this may be the last CR in book form. Note- It’s listed as being in Portuguese. The English set is titled Vik Muniz Catalogue Raisonne 1987-2015: Everything So Far (ISBN 978-8589063579). I’d recommend checking with the seller on the language before buying.

The earlier Catalogue Raisonne, Vik Muniz: Obra Complete 1987-2009, is beautiful and only one, large volume, but it only goes to 2009 and is in Portuguese only. Then there is Vik Muniz: Obra Incompleta/Incomplete Works, published in 2004, which is in both English & Portuguese and was published to accompany a retrospective, is also very well done and contains a very well chosen selection of his early work.

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded and ad-free for over 6 years, during which over 250 full length pieces have been published. If you’ve found it worthwhile, you can donate to keep it going & ad-free below. Thank you!

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited.
To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here.
Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them.
For “short takes” and additional pictures, follow @nighthawk_nyc on Instagram.

Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

 

  1. Scraps, Press release. ↩

Jennifer Packer Arrives

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

Art in NYC, 2021, Part 2-

David Hammons, Day’s End, 2021, a permanent installation, which opened in May, 2021 on the Hudson River on the former site of Pier 52, which the great de-constructivist Artist Gordon Matta-Clark once “modified” into a work also called Days End in 1975. Appropriately seen here at day’s end, December 23, 2021.

In spite of everything that happened in 2021, particularly the “return to normal” that wasn’t, there were some extremely good shows up here last year. I’ve written about a number of them- Alice Neel: People Come First, Goya’s Graphic Imagination, Cezanne Drawing, and shows of Tyler Mitchell, John Chamberlain, and some others. Having just featured the monumental NYC half of Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror in Part 1 of this look at Art in NYC, 2021, there was another NoteWorthy show of 2021 going on at the Whitney at the same time.

Of all the shows I saw last year, Jennifer Packer: The Eye Is Not Satisfied With Seeing, was the biggest revelation.

Jennifer Packer gets top billing. That might be reflective of the fact her show is on 8 while Jasper Johns is on the 5th floor?, or her name is longer? 7 years later, I still haven’t warmed up to the architecture of the new Whitney, the east end of it seen here from the High Line. But the shows have dramatically improved, in my opinion. That’s the High Line Admin building to the lower foreground, also designed by Renzo Piano, who designed the Whitney.

The Johns and Jennifer Packer shows are a fitting cap to 2021 for the Whitney Museum, which has had a steady string of excellent shows beginning with Vida Americana in 2020 (which I wrote about here) that continued throughout 2021. The stellar Julie Mehretru and overdue Dawoud Bey shows up from spring through the summer, 2021, continued Vida’s momentum, with Jasper Johns and Jennifer Packer now setting the stage for the next Whitney Biennial in the spring. The Whitney also collaborated with Hudson River Park (which lies across the West Side Highway to its west) on legendary Artist David Hammon’s Day’s End, which opened in May, 2021 directly opposite the Museum. A permanent installation right next to the site of a large public park (to the right in the picture up top) currently under construction (where the Department of Sanitation complex was when I looked at the “new” Whitney Museum Building, here, in 2016). It’s something of a major coup in my view, that with the new park when it opens and the Little Island a few blocks away should bring more people to the area and the Whitney. As hard as I was on them during their early years on Gansevoort Street, in spite of everything, the Whitney had a great year in 2021, and they deserve a lot of credit for it.

Flashback- May 25, 2019. Two of the four works by Jennifer Packer in the 2019 Whitney Biennial, each in a different size that ranged from letter size (right), to small mural size.

On October 29th, after my 4th visit to Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror at the Whitney, I headed up to the 8th floor to see the member’s preview of Jennifer Packer: The Eye Is Not Satisfied With Seeing. I had seen 4 of Ms. Packer’s Paintings in the 2019 Whitney Biennial, where they gave me pause. Painting has increasingly become a minor medium in each succeeding Biennial, much to my dismay, and this was true, again, in 2019, so I opted not to write about it, after having written about the 2017 edition. Whereas 2017’s installment was memorable for the marvelous “dialogue” between Henry Taylor, who was already quite established, and Deana Lawson, who was just making her name, it was hard to get a full sense of what Jennifer Packer was about from this selection. I filed her name and the impression. Before that, she had been Artist-in-Residence at the Studio Museum from 2012-13, with a show there, her work was then shown at Sikkema Jenkins in Breathing Room in 2015 and Quality of Life, 2018, the Renaissance Society in Chicago in 2017 in a show titled Tenderheaded. But, it was the debut of Jennifer Packer: The Eye Is Not Satisfied With Seeing at its first stop at the Serpentine Gallery, London, in May through August, 2021, that began the buzz that’s now taking on a life of its own at the Whitney. Simultaneously, there is Jennifer Packer: Every Shut Eye Ain’t Sleep at MOCA, L.A., her first West Coast show. 

The opening gallery during the early days of the show’s run. Blessed Are Those Who Mourn (Breonna! Breonna!), 2020, Oil on canvas, 118 by 172 inches, her largest Painting to date.

Still, it turns out I had no idea what I was in for when I stepped off that elevator in late October. An hour and a half later, I left awestruck.

Mourning is a central theme of this stunning, meditative, work, and others in the show. Here, in a work that also includes 3 fans, the 2020 violent death of Breonna Taylor is echoed in this reminder that the mourning continues as does the search for justice. I don’t know if Ms. Packer knew Ms. Taylor or not, but the sense of loss here fits right in with the intimacy of her Portraits of her friends and those she does know.

I can’t remember the last time I was in a show of work by an Artist largely unknown to me that left me with the undeniable feeling that I was in the presence of true greatness.

Fire Next Time, 2012, Oil on canvas, 72 x 156 inches. The presence of fans (2), a recurring motif, doesn’t keep this  remarkable large work from literally burning off the canvas. The stairs offering the only way out for the figure slumped to the left.

I did not writing that last sentence lightly. I’ve spent two months thinking about it and letting the dust begin to settle before writing this piece. I started going to Art shows in 1980. The very first show I saw was the 1980 Picasso Retrospective at MoMA. I was on the road with a band and flew back to NYC, twice, just to see it. I could have stopped looking at Art right then. I’ve never seen anything like it- still. In the intervening 41 years I’ve seen thousands of shows, hundreds each year, and I count 1,700+ visits to The Metropolitan Museum among them. I’ve been thinking back trying to recall having had this feeling before… When I first saw a Sarah Sze show in the 1990s that had a similar effect, though, given the large size of the work, there were only a few pieces in the show. Most of the great shows I’ve seen have been of work by Artists very well known to me. It takes years, decades, for an Artist to create a body of truly great work. Jennifer Packer has managed to put together an extremely impressive, even revolutionary, body of work at at the ripe old age of about 37. It’s even more remarkable to consider that some of the major pieces in this show are 10 years old (Fire Next Time, 2012 or Lost In Translation, 2013), or close to it!

Lost In Translation, 2013, Oil on canvas. One of the most remarkable Paintings I’ve seen in years. One of Ms. Packer’s “trademarks” is the there/not-thereness of her Portrait subjects. Here, in this double Portrait, things get taken to an entirely different level. I under exposed this shot to try to show the gorgeous, subtle, range of tones that are easily lost under bright light.

Revolutionary? How?

In the space of 35 works, Ms. Packer manages to “reinvent,” in a sense, both the Portrait and the Still Life. Portraits have been around for thousands of years, going at least as far back as the Ancient Egyptians. Yet, I can’t recall ever seeing anything like Lost In Translation before. The figures melt into each other in a way that Abstraction overplays and Representational Painting doesn’t attempt. Here, we have something “in between,” leaving it up to the viewers to try and decipher. Well, yes, Picasso managed to reinvent the Portrait any number of times (no comparison of the two Artists is intended). He was about 26 when he Painted Les Demoiselles d’Avignon in 1907, perhaps the beginning of his continual reinvention of the Portrait (though in a group ). Jennifer Packer was about 27 when she Painted Lost In Translation.

The renowned Painter Jordan Casteel sits in her studio at Yale where Jennifer Painted her in 2014. Jordan, 2014, Oil on canvas, 36 by 48 inches.

More Art in NYC, in 2021. The same Jordan Casteel was commissioned to Paint this Mural, The Baayfalls,  on the High Line. It should be up until March.

She favors friends, loved ones and those in her circle as subjects, so this there/not-thereness of her subjects in her Paintings is partially a way of “protecting” them she has said. This is achieved through a very wide range of mark-making that magically coalesce into images that are remarkable for both their “thereness” and their nebulosity.

Her use of color is another bombshell. When was the last time you saw a Portrait done in red as she does here (in the face not the hoodie)? The Body Has Memory, 2018, Oil on canvas, 60 x 48 inches, a Portrait of the Artist’s friend Eric N. Mack, a fellow-2019 Whitney Biennal Artist.

The power in her work, for me, lies in her uncanny way of combining opposites- intimacy and nebulosity, presence and absence, color and emptiness, created and enhanced with that extremely wide range of mark making techniques I mentioned that all flow together magically. I haven’t seen anything like her intimacy and nebulosity since Francis Bacon, while other elements, like her settings, echo Kerry James Marshall for me. Jennifer Packer seems to prefer to place her subjects in their surroundings, reminiscent of Mr. Marshall’s marvelous, and intimate, home settings. Her poses have an amazing “comfortable in their own skin”-ness that are a hallmark of Alice Neel’s Portraits. In the end, all of this leaves much for the viewer to ponder for his or herself, and, at least in my case, brings me back again and again to look further.

A wall of her Still Lifes in the third gallery.

How has she revolutionized the Still Life?

Say Her Name, 2017, Oil on canvas. Ms. Packer memorialized Sandra Bland, two years after her death in police custody at age 28.

Those on view at the Whitney are freed from their usual setting in a vase or a bowl on a table. In Jennifer Packer’s, the plants seem to float in thin air. Have you ever seen any like them1? Doing this allows her to control the context. All of a sudden, these pieces are not “about” place. They are about something else. They are about what the Artist has on her mind while she’s Painting them, and that’s what the viewer is left to ponder.

Oh, and to those obsessed with putting Artists in boxes, for reasons that continue to escape me (besides laziness), Good Luck boxing Jennifer Packer in anything besides the Jennifer Packer “box!”

In case you’re wondering, she Draws as uniquely as she Paints.

The Mind Is Its Own Place, 2020, Charcoal and pastel on paper.

The Mind Is Its Own Place strikes me as something of a counterpart to Lost In Translation from seven years before, retaining much of the power of the earlier Painting. Her lines carry much of the weight of the color in her Paintings. The Drawings on view here are every bit as mysterious and nebulous as her Paintings, though in different ways, particularly without the colors. And every bit as stunning, which is no mean feat.

The word is out. The crowds are beginning to show up, the catalog is sold out. December 28, 2021. By the time this show ends in April, I expect there to be a line to see it. And not only because of the virus.

After six visits, two and a half months in as I write this, it astounds me to write that I’m left with the inexorable feeling that we are watching the arrival of an important, major Artist. That’s “major” as in the major Artists who line the galleries of our greatest museums.

Important how?

First, reinventing the Portrait and the Still Life puts her in that discussion. That’s more than a lot of all Painters living or dead have done. Second, as she’s said, “My inclination to paint, especially from life, is a completely political one. We belong here. We deserve to be seen and acknowledged in real time. We deserve to be heard and to be imaged with shameless generosity and accuracy.” Looking at her work, though, one thing that strikes me hard is that in her efforts to imagine “with shameless generosity and accuracy,” many, if not most, of her Portraits have an other world quality that is fresh and haunting. She brings “negative space” into the physical body! Parts of her subject’s bodies are left blank in a different way they are in Egon Schiele’s work, or anyone else’s. It’s almost like she doesn’t want to reveal, or share, too much of the sitter, who are often those close to her. For me, at least, that feels endearing and heightens their intimacy. Those are the qualities I respond to. She accomplishes this using an extremely wide range of mark making. Not since so-called Abstract Expressionism have I seen a Painter who is so free in her technique, but it always just works. It always looks “right.” When I look at her Portraits, they  look to me exactly like what it really is- A sitter who might have been there (i.e. sitting in front of Ms. Packer) once. A temporary state. “It’s not figures, not bodies, but humans I am painting,” she said.

Equally astounding for me is to say that, all of one show in, Jennifer Packer’s name is at the top of my list of important Painters to arrive in the 21st century. Yes, I know. I’m the guy who doesn’t believe “best” exists in the Arts. It doesn’t. Let’s just say that if the conversation turned to “Who are the important Painters to arrive in the 21st century?” She’d be the first one I’d name. It’s a symptom of how much her work is on my mind.

Besides, someone has to be first. ; )

BookMarks-

Going…going…gone….

The catalog accompanying the London & Whitney installations of Jennifer Packer: The Eye Is Not Satisfied with Seeing: Serpentine Gallery, London is exceptionally well-done. One of the most beautiful Painting books I’ve seen, it carries over Ms. Packer’s unique color sense to varying colored paper for the text sections. It was easily one of my NoteWorthy Art Books of 2021 among most highly recommended Art Books I saw last year. If you buy it from the link in the book title in this paragraph (only), NHNYC will receive a small commission, with my thanks. 

*Soundtrack for this Post is “Hidden Place” by Björk, the first track on her album Verpertine, 2001, performed here (at 23:04) in 2001 in her extraordinary concert at Riverside Church.

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for over 7 years, during which over 275 full length pieces have been published! If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate to allow me to continue below. Thank you, Kenn.

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Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited. To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here. Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them. Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

  1. There have been isolated instances, like Fantin-Latour’s White Lilies, 1877, but I have not seen a body of them, and certainly not with Mr. Packer’s intent. ↩

Jasper Johns: Contemporary Art Begins Here

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava (except *)

Art in NYC, 2021, Part 1-

Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. Or is it Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg? Who came first? Mr. Johns said, Mr. Rauschenberg “was the first person I knew who was a real artist (i.e. a working artist)1.” At the time, Jasper Johns was working at the Marlboro Bookstore.

Contemporary Art starts here. Jasper Johns seen in his Pearl Street studio in 1955, with two of the most important early works in Contemporary Art- the first Flag Painting, 1954-55, and Target with Four Faces, 1955. At the time, Robert Rauschenberg had an apartment/studio upstairs. *Photo by George Moffet from the MoMA Jasper Johns: A Retrospective catalog, p.125.

Still, it was Jasper Johns who came to acclaim first when in 1957, Leo Castelli visited his Pearl Street studio, seen above, saw his work and offered him a solo show the following January. The rest is history. In 1959, Time Magazine said-

“Jasper Johns, 29, is the brand-new darling of the art world’s bright, brittle avant-garde. A year ago he was practically unknown; since then he has had a sellout show in Manhattan, has exhibited in Paris and Milan, was the only American to win a painting prize at the Carnegie International, and has seen three of his paintings brought for Manhattan’s Museum of Modern Art.” 2.

For my part, I was so taken with Robert Rauschenberg’s work that I was slow in getting to Jasper Johns. Over the years, his work has spoken to me more and more, to the point of shouting to me now. Messers Johns & Rauschenberg eventually became romantically involved only to have it end in 1961. At this point, almost 70 years since the Photo above was taken, all that really matters for the rest of us is that both have created two of the most important bodies of work of our time.

Happy Birthday, Jasper Johns! The Artist cutting an Ale Can Birthday Cake on his 90th birthday, May 15, 2020. *Unknown Photographer.

Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror is an early candidate for the show of the decade. With around 500 pieces, it’s so vast it’s split between two major museums simultaneously- the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Philadelphia Museum. Scheduled to coincide with the Artist’s 90th birthday on May 15, 2020, its opening was unfortunately delayed due to covid until September 29, 2021. Still, it’s a stellar 90th Birthday present. Having visited the Whitney half about 10 times, in my opinion, it ranks with the finest shows yet mounted in their new building- Frank Stella, Vida Americana, and Julie Mehretu. It’s brilliantly conceived & laid out and very thoughtfully & intelligently installed.

Roll up! It just so happens this bus, the M14, will take you to the show, among other places…

There have been some important, major, Jasper Johns shows to this point including the 1996 Jasper Johns: A Retrospective at MoMA, Jasper Johns: Something Resembling Truth, at the Royal Academy, London in 2017, and previous large shows at the Whitney & Philadelphia Museums. Yet, given the long-standing relationships Mr. Johns has had with both of those institutions, and the large holdings of his work they each have, I wonder if there will EVER be a more comprehensive look at the work & career of this now legendary Artist, especially with his involvement. As a result, Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror is something of a perfect storm in an imperfect time of a show. Though I have only seen the Whitney half (and the rest in the fine Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror catalog, the only place where you can see the entire show) , it still ranks among the great shows I’ve seen in the past decade including Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman & Designer and Kerry James Marshall: Mastry. Also, consider this- Imagine being the curator of the largest Jasper Johns show ever, then being told you only get to mount half of it in your institution! HOW do you divide an Artist’s career in half, and make it cohesive particularly to a discerning Art audience like NYC, while not shorting the equally discerning Philadelphia Art audience?– or vice versa?

Off and running. The exhibition’s lobby contains 39 Paintings, Drawings & Prints that range over his entire career arranged chronologically, and includes a number of very well-known works.

From the evidence I have right now, having seen the NYC half and the Mind/Mirror catalog , they’ve done an extraordinary job. Both halves are full of important pieces and rarely seen supporting works. The show is broken down into themes, which follow the chronological arc of the Artist’s career, which are then divided in half between the two locations and arranged into rooms by theme. Somehow, a visit to one doesn’t leave you with an overriding feeling of missing too much. Yes, if you have followed Mr. Johns career and you go to the Whitney you’ll find yourself looking for his first Flag, 1954-5, or Untitled, 1972, both of which are on view in Philly, but what IS here more than makes up for it. Time and again I found myself surprised that such and such a work WAS here. Not only that, more often than not, it is so thoughtfully displayed that there’s very likely supporting pieces nearby which shed completely new light on it. A good example of this is the wonderful gallery devoted to one of his most fascinating pieces, According to What?, 1964, which was surrounded with three walls of related work that reveal how much each detail in According to What? means to the Artist and how much thought and planning went into it. 

According to What?, 1964, Oil and objects on canvas. This is one of his works that can be seen as a “summing” up of where he was at that point, coming on the heels of Retrospectives at the Jewish Museum, NYC, and the Whitechapel Gallery, London (which would happen, again, after his MoMA Retrospective in 1996. It’s full of objects that he would reference in other works, which surround it in this gallery. It’s also a “tribute” to Marcel Duchamp, with a copy of his Self-Portrait hanging down on the left on the panel that is usually closed when this piece is seen.

Having said all of that, there is a somewhat basic conundrum to consider. Seeing ONE work by Jasper Johns leaves the exact same feeling as seeing, approximately, 250 in each half of this show, or all 500 for that matter: What’s going on? What is it “about?”

Installation view of parts of two of the surrounding and supporting walls. The series of Prints on the left isolate elements of the Painting, which brings the viewer back to study each in the larger work. There is another half of this gallery behind me.

Looking at a few or a few hundred begins to shed light. At the age of 24, in the fall 1954, Jasper Johns destroyed all of his work in his possession 3. He wiped the slate clean (something he would do again, non-destructively, after the MoMA Retrospective in 1996). Right from the earliest work he then created using “things the mind already knows,” he said of the flags, targets, numbers, etc. he featured resulted in pieces the viewing public immediately had a way “in to” at a time of densely personal Abstraction that often lacked one. He created multiple pieces with each object around the same time, then suddenly, one would return years, even decades, later. They became parts of his own language. Symbols. Stand ins. Of what? That’s up to Mr. Johns and each viewer to decide. Thus far, that’s kept viewers and the Art world busy for over 6 decades.

Three Flags, 1958, Encaustic on canvas.

“Jasper Johns is an American painter, sculptor and printmaker whose work is associated with abstract expressionism, Neo-Dada and pop art.” Wikipedia.

There, in one sentence spotted on a search result page is why I avoid Wikipedia. Mr. Johns’s early work is the antithesis of Abstract Expressionism! He and Robert Rauschenberg set out to do their own thing in the face of the all-encompassing tide of AbEx that was at its zenith when they began. To this end, Mr. Rauschenberg even famously erased a Drawing by Willem de Kooning, one of the most prominent of the first wave of AbEx Painters. Jasper Johns’s stated creed was “When I could observe what others did, I tried to remove that from my work. My work became a constant negation of impulses.4” “I was anxious to clarify for myself and others what I was5.” As for “Neo-Dada,” he, like countless others, was influenced by Marcel Duchamp AFTER he saw his work in 1957 and then met him circa 1958-9. But, people “associated” his work with Duchamp’s beginning in 1957, when he had never seen it!

White Flag, 1955, Encaustic, oil, newsprint, and charcoal on canvas. His second and largest flag, on loan from The Met.

Yes, his post-1954 early work center around familiar objects that he has turned into Paintings or Sculpture, his “vocabulary” of elements “the mind already knows” famously include the American Flag, targets, numerals, words, ale cans, Savorin cans and string. yet I don’t see them as “pop,” and I don’t consider Mr. Johns (or Robert Rauschenberg or James Rosenquist for the matter), “pop” Artists, though I know some do. Flags, targets and numbers are not soup cans or Brillo boxes. (His Ale Can Sculpture resulted from a dare, so I read it somewhat tongue in cheek.) His Savorin can Sculpture and Prints are based on the can and brushes in his studio. The wall card makes the case that the Savorin can and paint brushes are “stand-ins” for the Artist. Again, not “pop.” This is interesting because his “object” based work of the 1950s allowed him to remain detached. “I don’t want my work to be an exposure of my feelings,” he said around 1977 6. Over time that has seemed to change, but looking for specifics gets tricky.

A gallery full of his Savorin can Sculpture, 1960, and Monotypes from the 1970s and 80s he made of the object on the 4 surrounding walls. He used a Savorin can as a paint brush holder in his studio. Not sure that makes it “pop.”

As you walk through the show you’ll see expressive passages in Paintings that are a hallmark of AbEx (as in According to What?), but rarely entire Paintings (there are a few), and these were done after the heyday of the first wave Abstract Expressionist Painters. These passages don’t define him or any of his work, in my view, especially given his early work stood diametrically opposed to theirs. It’s really one technique among the very many Mr. Johns uses. As time has gone on, Jasper Johns has shown more interest in Art history, and numerous Artists, like Picasso, Leonardo, Duchamp and Edvard Munch, have “appeared” in his work. As I mentioned in my piece on MoMA’s Cézanne Drawing show, which included a dozen works from Mr. Johns’s collection, he has amassed a world-class Art collection, demonstrating impeccable taste in his acquisitions, that is fascinating in its breadth. Whatever his initial influences were, from the beginning with Flag, 1954-55, Jasper Johns’s work has looked like no one else’s. In my view, that Wikipedia page should read- Jasper Johns’s work is associated with Japer Johns.

One of the most extraordinary works of the 1950s. Target with Four Faces, 1955, Encaustic on newspaper and cloth over canvas surrounded by four tinted-plaster faces in wood box with hinged front.

Another fascinating early work is Target with Four Faces, 1955, which contains 4 heads cut off at just below the eye. They all appear to be male. The piece has a door that can be lowered blocking the faces from view. And, there it was, on loan from MoMA, appropriately on the first wall in the first gallery. A shot over the bow of the Art world in 1955, and today. I came away believing that if Jasper Johns had never made another work after it, Target with Four Faces was enough to seal his stature.

Detail. I was told by a Whitney staffer that the heads were cast from four people in his studio. Note the hinged door above them, which when closed, gives the work an entirely different effect. Also notice the amount of work that went into placing the heads just so. Standing to the side reveals that the tip of the noses must be right up against that door when it’s closed.

Either way, they can’t see what is going on in front of them. Are they present while someone is being targeted, but unseeing? Or, are they the ones with the target on them? It’s easy to read things into them, including Mr. Johns’s fellow gay men being targets, or the public being blind to the “targeting” of others. What about the prominence of their noses, or their closed mouths? Or…..? It’ll say something else the next time I look at it.

One of my favorite elements of Jasper Johns’s early collages are when the underlying material, often newspapers, comes through- either intentionally or through age. In this marvelous very small Flag from 1965, Encaustic and collage on canvas, 7 3/4 by 11 1/4 inches, it’s hard to tell which is the case, particularly with the row of faces to the right. Included in a stunning gallery at the heart of the show of small works from throughout his career.

But, fortunately for the world, he has continued to create. For 68 more years, so far! His Flags raise similar wonder. Does that they were Painted by a gay man in the 1950s living in a country with harsh stereotypes against him and his kind enter into it? A yearning for a Flag that stood for all? For me, anyway, it’s hard to see either of these pieces and not wonder about these things. Of course, as you move through the show one thing becomes quickly apparent. In the Art of Jasper Johns virtually nothing is THAT simple. 

Untitled, 1992-5, Oil on canvas, 78 by 118 inches.

After these early “objects” and object based works, in the early 1960s, Mr. Johns’s work becomes something of a “non abstract form of abstraction,” as the late Kirk Varnedoe, curator of the MoMA Johns Retrospective called it7, where objects and symbols become elements and not the sole subject. Was this done to subvert attempts at “reading” his Art?

The Seasons, 1989-90, Acrylic over intaglio on paper. That figure is reputed to be the Artist’s. On the terrific installation of this show- While this might seem a small detail, I can’t recall ever being in a show where virtually NONE of the pieces suffered terribly from glare. Here, I’m standing directly in front of  The Seasons and there is no reflection. Oh, if only other museums (and galleries) would see what a huge difference it makes it might help persuade them to pay the considerable current cost for glare-free acrylic glazing on pieces with glazing.

In the 1960s his work turned to more private imagery and symbols as opposed to the well-known objects, like Flags and targets. In works like According to What? his use of them reaches a crescendo, and these continued for some years until he wiped the slate clean, again, and began his Cross-hatched period. Things seem to build to another crescendo, like The Seasons, above or Untitled, 1992-94, which led up to his MoMA Retrospective, which would change everything.

Catenary (I Call to the Grave), 1998, Encaustic on canvas with wood and string. After the MoMA Retrospective, Mr. Johns stripped his canvases bare and began to address aging and death in the Catenary series, which numbers 19 Paintings, of which this one never fails to stir me, 55 Drawings and 6 Prints.

The MoMA Retrospective in 1996 caused the Artist to take stock of where he was and led to him drastically changing course. He wiped the slate clean, again. By that time, his work had grown very complex, but now his work emptied. His focus turned to the eventuality of death. This resulted in his extraordinary Catenary series, 1998, and has continued to be (one of) the overriding themes of his work to this day. 

The remarkable Farley Breaks Down 2014, Ink and water-soluble encaustic on plastic. I was stunned when I first saw this in 2019. A work without precedent in Jasper Johns’ enormous output created at 84. The Whitney wisely acquired it.

In 2019 I happened in to Jasper Johns: Recent Paintings & Works on Paper at Matthew Marks Gallery and was frankly overwhelmed when I saw a series of works titled Farley Breaks Down. I’d never seen anything like them, typical of Jasper Johns, yes, but even in his long and productive career they stand alone. I wrote about the show here. Just prior to these there are works in ink and water-soluble encaustic on plastic, but with this subject, Mr. Johns has reached an entirely new level. In 1965, LIFE Magazine Photographer Larry Burrows created a series of Photographs following a helicopter crew, Yankee Papa 13, on a mission in the Vietnam War. During it, one crew member was killed and another wounded. The last Photograph in the series shows Cpl. Farley back at the base breaking down. A few years later Larry Burrows was killed in another of these helicopter missions. It is this image that Jasper Johns chose to interpret. Jasper Johns did 2 years in the Army during the Korean War based in South Carolina and Japan. Still, exactly why he chose to create this series of works in his 80s is up for conjecture.

Detail of “Farley.”

Is it coincidence that over the years, Mr. Johns has lost his entire circle of fellow Artists- Robert Rauschenberg, Merce Cunningham, Morton Feldman and John Cage among them? The series is remarkable both for its incredible power and melancholy (which is not new to his work), as well as it’s stunningly beautiful flowing technique. It’s almost like these pieces are created with colored tears. Yet here, loss is the subject, and for the first time in his work, it’s presented almost nakedly.

A half gallery of dark works created after the breakup with Rauschenberg in 1961 (except for the work on the far left and the sculpture in the middle, including Liar, in the facing left corner.

There is also the pain of another kind of loss. The loss of romantic love. While I have no idea what Jasper Johns’s romantic life has been like, the second part of the first gallery is devoted to the searing works Mr. Johns created after his relationship with Robert Rauschenberg ended in 1961. The visual evidence is overwhelming that it had a devastating effect on him. After these, there is silence in his work where romance might be concerned. He shows deep affection for friends and those he admires, but there is never an expression of romantic love. This, also, is rare in Art8.

Recent Jasper Johns. Untitled, 2020, Intaglio on Magnani Insisioni paper. This piece was on view in both the Matthew Marks & Whitney shows.

As if the Whitney & Philadelphia Museums shows weren’t enough Jasper Johns there was also a remarkable show of his most recent work coinciding with the opening of JJ:M/M, Jasper Johns: New Works on Paper at Matthew Marks Gallery!

Untitled, 2021, Acrylic and graphic over etching on paper. Different, as ever, these works emphasized the cosmology theme which has appeared in some earlier works. The detail in these is both subtle and remarkable. The show consisted of a wall of these, facing a wall of Drawing based works like Untitled, 2020, above with stick figures.

Having seen upwards of 300 of his pieces between the two NYC shows two things stand out for me are- first, Mr. Johns incredible intellect. As you walk through the show you begin to notice that Jasper Johns does nothing- including speak, without very carefully considering what’s going to come out. At first glance some of his pieces look improvised, until you see a carefully crafted Drawing or other supporting pieces in which every detail has been carefully rendered, belying the careful consideration and the large amount of work that went into them. And this is continued over a seemingly endless body of work over 65 years of continually doing something different.

Diver, 1962-3, Charcoal, pastel and paint on two sheets of paper mounted on two adjoining canvas supports, 7 FEET 2 1/2 by 71 3/4 inches!

Second, I haven’t realized how much the anguish of loss is a central theme of his work. This includes the thought of facing one’s own aging and death. For such a private man who’s work is often so dense as to defy understanding, he has repeatedly found his own unique ways of expressing it powerfully. Though each section (of both the NYC & Philly halves ) of Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror is titled, loss and death are not among them. They are the unstated central themes of a good deal of his work, which continues through his latest work shown at Matthew Marks this past fall.

In the final gallery, along side 4 pieces from the remarkable Farley Breaks Down series, is this Painting, similar to the pieces lining the west wall of the Matthew Marks show, like Untitled, 2021, shown above.

Slice, 2020, Oil on canvas. A close look at this large piece reveals amazing detail and depth, the background reminiscent of End Paper, 1976 and Céline, 1978.

As the wall card says, “…ungraspable…”

Picasso outlived, and outworked, all of the boxes his work was put in- the so-called “Blue Period,” the “Rose Period,” Cubism, etc., etc. He did this by simply being himself. His Art changed as he changed. Jasper Johns, who has outlived all his contemporaries, was, perhaps, the first Artist to be lumped into the “Contemporary Art” box in 1958. Still going strong at 91 in 2022 as the Art world is morphs into whatever is coming next, Mr. Johns career has been one long continuous model for Artists- “When I could observe what others did, I tried to remove that from my work,” which has led to 68+ years of fresh ideas that point the way to the future.

Flag Above White With Collage, 1955, Encaustic and collage on canvas. Mr. Johns has used encaustic (a mixture of hot wax and paint) continuously throughout his career, one of the very few to use it so frequently, if not the only one, among major Artists. It is used in most of the works in the show.

It turns out that Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror is not the only great and important show currently up in the Whitney this fall/winter! Since I sub-titled this piece “Art in NYC, 2021, Part 1,” Part 2 will look at it.

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “I Don’t Want to Be Your Shadow,” by the Psychedelic Furs, from Forever Now, 1982, or “My Life is a Succession of People Saying Goodbye,” by Morrissey from You Are The Quarry, Extended Edition.

BookMarks-

With a career spanning a whopping 68 years(!), and counting, among the longest in Art history, you’d expect there have been a LOT of books published on Jasper Johns, and you’re right. There are. I see books I”ve never seen before each time I look. The latest being a catalog for a show on Jasper Johns and Edvard Munch (the book with the orange spine, above)! Among them, a few that I’ve seen are particularly recommended-

Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror, Philadelphia Museum/Whitney Museum/Yale-  Though it’s close to 4 pounds, it’s wonderfully succinct and the best place to get an overview of Jasper Johns’s work over his amazingly long career up to 2020. The text accompanying each chronological section is also concise, remarkably distilling voluminous information down to a few pages, though I found the essays hit or miss. The book is the only way to see the whole show besides traveling to both museums (where it is only up until February 13, 2022). Highest recommendation for those seeking one Jasper Johns book with the most and broadest range of his Art in color.

Jasper Johns: A Retrospective, Museum of Modern Art- The catalog for the landmark Johns show in late, 1996 to early 1997 with a fine essay by curator Kirk Varnedoe, is a thorough look at his work up to 1996. In my opinion, it remains the finest reference on Jasper Johns due to its comprehensive 250 page Chronology and Plates section which goes up to the end of 1995. It’s also of ongoing importance in the history of the Artist when you consider that having this Retrospective had such an impact on the Artist that it caused his work to drastically change after and since. The immediate result was the extraordinary Catenary series, though all of his work since bear the hallmarks of that change. Here is a terrific record of his work up to that point that includes many illustrations. A model exhibition catalog that Mr. Johns designed the endpapers for. Essential for the Jasper Johns fan.

Jasper Johns: Redo an Eye, Wildenstein- A 300+ page look at the work of Jasper Johns that provides a comprehensive look at the Artist’s Art over his entire career up to about 2018, and one of the few to cover his later work. Author Roberta Bernstein says she has spent much time with Mr. Johns over the past 50 years, in addition to focusing on studying his Art. As a result, the book provides numerous insights. The most comprehensive overview currently available, it’s also available as Volume 1 of the Jasper Johns: Catalogue Raisonné of Painting and Sculpture, listed further below. Includes many illustrations, though in smaller sizes then the MoMA Retrospective, above, or the Whitney book, which are meant to illuminate the text since it originally served as the introduction to the Catalogue Raisonné, which has the large size reproductions. Recommended for those who want to dive deeper into Jasper Johns.

Jasper Johns: Catenary, Matthew Marks Gallery- (The book with the blue spine in the bookshelf pic with the string appropriately hanging down from it.) Matthew Marks Gallery has shown the Artist for many years, and has often published very well done and beautiful catalogs for their shows. Each is worth seeking out. Among them, I’ll highlight two here. Published to accompany the show of the same name in 2005, this was the only opportunity to date to survey this exceptional body of 80 later works which was the result of the Artist’s reaction to the aforementioned MoMA Jasper Johns: A Retrospective. They center around aging and death, each of which is illustrated in color here. It includes a fine essay by Scott Rothkopf, the co-curator of Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror. It’s also beautifully published by Steidl. Out of print but not expensive.

Jasper Johns: Recent Paintings and Works on Paper, Matthew Marks Gallery- Published to accompany the unforgettable show of the same name in 2019, a NoteWorthy Show, which shows yet another new side of the Artist’s work. Featuring the extraordinary Farley Breaks Down series along with a number of other compelling recent works, with over 60 illustrated here. I was stunned when I saw the Farley pieces. They seemed to be without precedent- both in Johns’s work or that of any other. Both books are highly recommended to those interested in John later & current work.

For serious study & research, there is the Jasper Johns: Catalogue Raisonné of Painting and Sculpture, a 5 volume set that currently trade at big discounts from its $1,500.00 list price. I can’t help but wonder if this is because they are already out of date since Mr. Johns has continued to create prolifically since it was published. It only goes to 2014. Then there is the Jasper Johns Catalogue Raisonné of Drawing set published in 2018 and the Jasper Johns: Catalogue Raisonné of Monotypes, collecting his unique prints to about 2018 (like the Savorin can Prints seen above).

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  1. Jasper Johns: A Retrospective MoMA Catalog, p.124 ↩
  2.  “His Heart Belongs to Dada,” Time, May 4, 1959 ↩
  3. Jasper Johns, Mind/Matter, p.29 ↩
  4. Quoted in Michael Crichton, Jasper Johns, 1977 Whitney Catalog, p.27. Roberta Bernstein, Jasper Johns: Redo An Eye, p.20, says “While Johns respected many of the Abstract Expressionists, he was committed to establishing a new direction that embraced a more literal subject matter and engaged viewers in a way that was independent of the artist’s personality. ↩
  5. Roberta Bernstein, Jasper Johns: Redo An Eye, p.20 ↩
  6. Michael Crichton, Jasper Johns Whitney 1977 exhibition catalog,  p.20 ↩
  7. MoMA Retrospective Catalog, p.15 ↩
  8. Robert Rauschenberg is, coincidentally or not, another Artist who’s work appears not to reference his romantic life. ↩