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Louise Bourgeois’s Guarantee of Sanity

Louise Bourgeois: Paintings is now over. If you missed it, this is one of the few places you can still see a bit of it. If you appreciate that, please donate to support it. Thank you.

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

Show Seen: Louise Bourgeois: Paintings at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

In spite of having seen at least two prior shows of her work, until the moment I walked in through the entrance, above, I had no idea that Louise Bourgeois was also a Painter. This wonderfully concise show proved a revelation. Her Paintings, which predate her well-known Sculpture, turn out to be every bit as unique, personal, and captivating as her free-standing pieces.

The Runaway Girl, 1938, Oil, charcoal and pencil on canvas. After marrying in Paris, Louise moved to NYC. She came to feel guilt about her sudden departure. Here, she shows herself, with long hair as usual, suitcase in hand, with symbolic references to what she left behind in the background as she floats over jagged rocks, implying a difficult path.

“The Runaway Girl who never grew up…
I do not need a safety net,
Breakfast, big lunch or afternoon snack
I do not need any visitors, telephone
Calls or small mash notes…
I don’t need anything, I don’t confuse anything.
I can wait, I am not afraid. I am grown up.
Nothing is missing.”
Louise Bourgeois1

They’re also as open-ended, and each is autobiographical, beginning with The Runaway Girl, 1938, at the entrance. Beyond her guilt at running away was the pain she suffered discovering her father’s affair with Louise’s nanny- a dual betrayal. “Fear and pain were her main subjects,” her friend, the Art historian Robert Storr said2.

Yves Tanguy, Title Unknown, 1926, Oil on canvas with string and collage. This is about as close as I’ve come in looking for a predecessor to Louise Bourgeois’ Paintings. Seen at The Met. Not in the show.

Some Art historians mention Surrealism as a possible influence on Ms. Bourgeois’s Paintings. Personally, I don’t see it. The Surrealists largely Painted fantasies, dreams and nightmares. Ms. Bourgeois works from her life and her own experiences, even when they take imaginary forms. I don’t consider this Surrealism. The same was said about Chagall, who also worked largely from his own life experiences. Frankly, like Chagall’s, her Paintings don’t remind me of anyone else’s. The great Charlotte Salomon Painted her life, too, at the same moment Louise Bourgeois was (until Ms. Solomon was murdered by the Nazis in 1943). Ms Salomon’s work seems closer to Chagall’s, stylistically, than to Louise Bourgeois’s Paintings to me. Given all that went on in Art just in the first half of the 20th century, creating a unique style is pretty remarkable, and, along with the stellar quality of the work, begin the list of things she should be given more credit for. A good number of these pieces linger in my mind weeks after the show closed- like a person you encounter who has much on his or her mind and much to say, but didn’t say it out loud at the time.

Untitled, 1945, left, Painting: Red on White, 1945, center and Untitled, 1944, right

Louise was born on Christmas, 1911, left France for NYC in 1938, and lived many of her final years until her passing in 2010 around the corner from where I live now, unbeknownst to me.

For much of the last part of her life, Louise lived and worked in the two buildings to the immediate left of the red brick. They now are home to her Foundation. Late in her life Louise moved her bedroom to the first floor, behind one of the two windows, because the stairs were too difficult.

I might have passed her on the street. After she passed away, her home became the HQ of her Easton Foundation, which owns most of the work on display. (Take a look inside here.) Walking by it now, except for some intricate grating on the front door and windows (which was there when she was), it looks just like every other townhouse on the street. Given how unique all her Art is, this is somewhat incongruous.

Themes recur in Louise Bourgeois’s work. One is buildings as seen in each of these pieces. Her series of 4 canvases titled Femme Maison, 1946-7, Oil and ink on linen, center, will be addressed next. Later, buildings appear without human parts (as in both works to the far left), and they are stand-ins for humans. One building stands for a lonely person. Two separate buildings stands for an estranged couple. Three buildings is a triangle. These would seem to be influenced and inspired by life in the tall building jungle that was, and is, Manhattan, home of “Manhattanhenge” as Neil deGrasse Tyson calls it.

Louise Bourgeois’s Art was largely motivated by “her emotional struggles,” as former MoMA curator and Louise Bourgeois researcher Deborah Wye says, “This was something that plagued her for her whole life. And she said by making a work of art she could make these emotions tangible. Try to understand them. Try to cope with them. Try to hack away at them. And she actually called her art ‘her guarantee of sanity3.’” 

Femme Maison, 1946-7, Oil and ink on linen, occupy the central position in the show, as I show in the prior picture. Femme Maison translates as “woman house,” or “housewife.” In each, a woman is confined within a building, which references a part of the Artist’s past, as her role in society confined her. All 4 figures are naked from the waist down, exposing them to the viewer’s gaze. Her trademark long hair is seen in two. A stunning and singular expression, times 4, of a woman trapped in her role in Art history, at least that known to me.

In what appears to me to be one of the final shows, and perhaps the final gallery show, mounted under Sheena Wagstaff’s tenure as Chair of The Met’s Modern & Contemporary Department, Louise Bourgeois: Paintings is quietly spectacular. The feeling of discovering something “new,”exciting, and previously unknown, when you walk in is quickly reinforced by the variety, and similarities, in her work. Themes emerge. The mystery remains.

“1932,” 1947, Oil on canvas. 1932 was the year Louise’s mother passed away after a long illness. They had been very close, with Louise often serving as her mother’s nurse. Her passing precipitated the first of the Artist’s two suicide attempts, and recurring bouts of depression. According to the wall card, the figure to the left was a “more realistically rendered self-portrait in earlier stages.” Its closed room, its railing, the “anguished(?)” lone figure, and central spotlight, remind me of the settings of many of Francis Bacon’s Paintings that would coincidentally begin at this very moment.

I missed what looks to have been a terrific show at the Jewish Museum, Louise Bourgeois, Freud’s Daughter, due to the pandemic, but did see Louise Bourgeois: Holograms show at Cheim & Read and MoMA’s Louise Bourgeois: An Unfolding Portrait excellent show of her Prints and book work, both in 2017. The variety of the work on view in these four shows (thanks to the Freud’s Daughter catalog) is extraordinary, and all of it is compelling.

Her Paintings were done in the FIRST decade of the SEVEN she eventually spent here. In the end, Louise Bourgeois lived, and worked, in New York City for an unheard of 72 years! In my book, she is what I call an “Ultimate New Yorker,” i.e. someone who has defined both what it is to be a New Yorker and who helped shape NYC in the Arts in my opinion, along with Patti Smith, Miles Davis, and others. Though she professes that these Paintings are “American, from New York,” in the quote above, I don’t sense much of the City in them beyond those that depict apartment buildings that look like those found here. They are more about a person living in the City. Buildings, though, are a metaphor for persons, as I said.

Reparation, 1945, Oil on canvas. Though the Artist shows herself as a girl bringing flowers to her family’s cemetery plot, there is no name on the sparsely Painted stone. So it could reference her mother’s or grandmother’s passing, or in a larger sense, mourn those she left behind.

In each of these de facto “Self-Portraits,” the Artist lays herself and her feelings daringly bare. While her Art didn’t “solve” her problems, it helped. Seeing them now, these Paintings may prove to be a touchstone for viewers, now and in the future, as I expect them to continue to rise in stature. Stylistically, they blend abstraction and realism selectively, often in the same piece. Finally, they also provide fascinating background material for pondering her Sculpture and Prints that followed for the rest of her career.

Untitled, 1946-7, Oil on canvas. World War II, guilt, and here, fear, are subtexts in many of her Paintings. I should say I see fear in this piece, which is one of a few pieces that depict this building in the show, the others having an unstated dread and menace to them as well, perhaps part of her agoraphobia.

Thinking about this show, I couldn’t help but recall the case of Jack Whitten, who had a long career as an important Painter, only to leave a comparably important,  large body of unknown Sculpture behind when he passed in 2018. Louise Bourgeois’ Paintings were shown and known, but it was early in her career, before she attained the status her Sculpture brought her. Both bodies of unknown and lesser known work were shown by Sheena Wagstaff in two of the more fascinating and memorable shows under her remarkable tenure. I imagine that this show may have been originally planned to be installed at The Met Breuer before its sudden closing.

Untitled, Oil on canvas, left, Untitled, Oil and chalk on canvas, right, both 1946. During one visit, another visitor asked me if the work on the left was a guillotine.

In the Press Release announcing the show, Sheena Wagstaff said about it, “To date, it is not widely known that Bourgeois was active as a painter in New York for ten years, a period when the city became a vital international hub amidst critical debates around painting. This exhibition reveals the foundational DNA of the artist’s development of themes that would subsequently burgeon into three dimensions, and preoccupy her for the remainder of her long career.”

All of this was “just” preliminary to her long career as a Sculptor, and work in other mediums. Her late Paintings, like these two, begin to look like her Sculpture. Sculpture, she said, enabled her to see what she was feeling in three dimensions. Deborah Wye said, “She said there was no rivalry between the mediums for her in which she worked. She said she just said the same thing but in different ways4”

And so, “Painting” as painting was over for Ms. Bourgeois.

Moving from Painting to Sculpture. Femme Volage, 1951 left, and Dagger Child, 1947-9, both Painted wood and stainless steel. Woman in the Process of Placing a Beam in her Bag, 1949, Oil on canvas, far left.

Being a self-professed and long-standing Paintings guy I really wish Louise had kept on Painting in addition to Sculpting, but her Muse carried her to 3 dimensions. Some Prints on view in An Unfolding Portrait involve brush work, continuing the thread in a sense. She made Prints for the rest of her life. Her Prints were first the subject of a 1995 MoMA show and their 2017 Unfolding Portrait show, which lives on in its wonderful catalog. Deborah Wye, then a MoMA curator who devoted a large part of her career to studying Louise Bourgeois’s output, curated both Print shows as well the Louise Bourgeois Retrospective at MoMA in 1982, the very first show of its kind given to a woman Artist at MoMA5. She has also created a website of Ms. Bourgeios’s complete prints, which may be seen here.

Fallen Woman (Femme Maison), 1946-7, Oil on canvas. As in almost all of her Paintings, her past and present experiences and the resulting guilt, angst and duality are transformed into wonderfully succinct compositions. “The woman depicted here, visually cut in two by a dark building, embodies the rejection, fragmentation, and abandonment that the artist experienced and feared…,” per the wall card.

“Why have there been no great female Artists?,” is the title of a book, and a question I’ve heard many times over the years. There are, and have been. MANY of them.

Untitled, 1946-7, Oil on canvas. Bacon, de Chirico, Miro, Chagall come to mind when I see this, but none of them combined these elements into one piece before Louise Bourgeois did here in what may be her most iconic Painting, which, again, features her long hair.

The history of Art has been largely written by men, museum collections largely curated by men, to this point. It’s only been this century that that has begun to change. It’s really only since the opening of the global Art market in the late 1980s and the accompanying relentless search for Art of value- anywhere by anyone, that more women Artist have begun to get the attention so many have stood up and demanded for so long. There’s still a long road ahead.

Beyond her iconic Sculpture, her Prints that I saw at MoMA in 2017, her Holograms that I saw the same year, and her Installations, Louise Bourgeois created an important body of Paintings, one that deserves a special place of import among those created by women Artists in the 20th century, as well as by Artists, period. I believe that as time goes on, more and more people, who know her name, but not much about what she did beyond her Spiders, Louise Bourgeois will be an Artist who moves more and more into the mainstream. Her work is so diverse, extending across mediums, techniques and time, that it actually reminds me a bit of one of her contemporaries- Pablo Picasso. That’s said not as a comparison, but to mention the similarities and variety in their work. I would not be one bit surprised to see a Bourgeois/Picasso show one of these days. Maybe MoMA’s next Bourgeois-related show6 show ?

Louise Bourgeois, with her long hair, with Untitled, 1946-7,  on her easel, circa 1946. It’s fascinating to compare what we can see of it in this Photo with the Painting we have, above.

Louise Bourgeois channeled her problems through unending creativity into an extraordinary and extraordinarily varied body of work. In spite of two suicide attempts7 earlier in her life, she overcame everything she lived through and felt about it to survive to be 98! There is much in that, as well as in her work, to inspire others. Jerry Gorovoy, her assistant and friend for 30 years, wrote in late 2010 after Louise’s death-

“Though her work was raw self-expression, it was also her way of understanding herself. It has a timeless dynamic that goes way beyond the visual: a profound capacity to awaken in others a heightened consciousness of what it is to be alive.”

Her ceaseless multi-dimensional creativity is up there with Picasso’s, Joan Miro’s, Marcel Duchamp’s and Robert Rauschenberg’s- the giants of endless invention in the 20th century. Add her name to that list if you haven’t. For her own creativity, as well as the quality and timelessness of her Art, it belongs there. 

*- Soundtrack for this Piece is “Cherry-Coloured Funk” by Cocteau Twins from Heaven or Las Vegas, 1990.

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  1. Quoted in Louise Bourgeois, Askew and d’Offay, 2013, p.42. ↩
  2.  Robert Storr, Ted Talks, 5/11/18 ↩
  3. Deborah Wye, MoMA Talk, 9/17/2017. ↩
  4. Deborah Wye, MoMA Talk, 9/17/2017. ↩
  5. In 2018, I published my own list of these in my Yoko Ono piece, since there is no “official” list- still! I wonder why. ↩
  6. Update 9/2/22- Since writing those words I’ve discovered a gallery show, Louise Bourgeois – Pablo Picasso: Anatomies of Desire, was held at Hauser & Wirth, Zurich, in 2019. From seeing the catalog, it sure looks like it’s not only an idea who’s time has come, but there is more to mine in it. ↩
  7. per The Met’s wall card for “1932.” I can find no other reference to more than one attempt. ↩

Not Your Father’s Winslow Homer

Winslow Homer: Crosscurrents is now over. If you missed it, one of the few places you can still see a bit of it is here! If you appreciate that, please donate to keep this site alive. I can no longer create it AND fund it myself. Thank you.

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

Ahhh….The summer blockbuster. What would Art life be without one? In spite of covid, we’ve been blessed here in NYC with big and memorable shows the past two summers, though of course, remaining careful is the only way to see one. So, I donned my double masks and went to see this year’s summer-fest, Winslow Homer: Crosscurrents, at The Met.

Winslow & chill…Detail of Lady of Santiago (Girl With a Fan), 1885, Watercolor on paper. Less than one quarter of the whole 8 7/8 by 11 1/2 inch piece is shown. How this is Painted is just stunning. Look at her face! Look at those Palm tree leaves! Not bad for not having any lessons, right? His mother was an accomplished Artist and gave Winslow some help early on, later he took a few lessons in Oils, beyond that, he was self-taught.

Interestingly, and probably purely coincidentally, Winslow Homer turns out to be almost an exact contemporary of the Artist who enthralled me last summer, Paul Cézanne, he of Cézanne Drawing at MoMA: Cézanne, 1839-1906; Homer, 1836-1910! Cézanne was, and remains, one of the most influential Artists of his time. Winslow Homer, though continually popular since he began creating, has not enjoyed the same reputation as a ground-breaker as the French master. To this point.

You’d need a telescope to see The Gulf Stream, center, from the show’s entrance, which announces it as the centerpiece for the entire show. There are a lot of very good Paintings before and after you get to it.

That sound you heard might be the tides beginning to turn after Winslow Homer: Crosscurrents.

The Surgeon at Work at the Rear During an Engagement, from Harper’s Weekly, July 12, 1862, Wood engraving on paper. A number of Homer’s War pieces compile different scenes he may have witnessed on one of his trips to the front of the Civil War into one composition. I wonder if this is the case here. Homer was about 26 at the time he created this Drawing which was sent back, and then engraved by someone else. (* Not included in Crosscurrents. Smithsonian Museum of American Art Photo)

After early work as a free-lance illustrator covering the genteel life around him, Winslow Homer moved to NYC in 1859, where he took a few lessons in Oil Painting at the National Academy of Design with Frederic Rondel. He took a job as an illustrator for Harper’s Weekly right after the Civil War started in April, 1861, and much to his surprise, quickly found himself at the front in Virginia! It was there that he would come into his own, creating a body of War Illustrations that was important, historic, and ground-breaking, becoming, along with renowned Photographers Matthew Brady and Alexander Gardner, America’s first visual War reporters.

Crosscurrents begins at this point, in 1863. With 88 Oils and Watercolors, covering the full range of subjects the Artist rendered after he found himself and his direction during the War, and tracing the rest of his long career, the show is centered around The Met’s masterpiece, The Gulf Stream, 1900,1906. Work after work shows the lie to the out-dated standing perception and in its stead reveals how shockingly contemporary Winslow Homer is, 112 years after his death. The feeling one leaves the show with is akin to “How could we have missed so much in Winslow Homer?”

The Veteran in a New Field, 1865, Oil on canvas. As time went on, he felt he needed a different medium to express the depth of what he wanted to communicate. So, in 1863, he turned to Oil Painting, a medium he had only briefly studied. The soldier’s jacket lies to the right in this powerful image from the end of the War and the beginning of the Reconstruction. Originally, the scythe’s blade was even longer.

Part of the reason opinions on Winslow Homer haven’t changed is there’s been a lack of big Homer shows, and even Crosscurrents isn’t a full blown retrospective. The Met and National Gallery of Art in Washington had a Homer Retrospective in 1959, which the catalog shows to have had around 130 works. The Whitney had a Homer show in 1974 that had 200 works (per its catalog). For perspective, Winslow Homer created 300 Oil Paintings and 685 Watercolors, plus Prints and Drawings over the course of his career1. 2022 is proving to be a fortuitous time to see 88 Homers. 

Prisoners from the Front, 1866, Oil on canvas. The work that made Winslow Homer’s name, reputation and career. It was then quickly acquired by the young Metropolitan Museum.

Before the War ended, Winslow wound up making multiple trips to the Virginia front. Of one, his mother wrote-

“Winslow went to the war front of Yorktown and camped out about two months. He suffered much, was without food 3 days at a time & all in camp either died or were carried away with typhoid fever- plug tobacco & coffee was the staples…He came home so changed that his best friends did not know him, but is well & all right now2.”

The War forever changed Homer, and his Art. The genteel subjects were gone. To go deeper, he finally turned to Oil Painting in 1863 at the age of 27, fairly old to begin.

Sharpshooter, 1863, Oil on canvas. Not bad for a first Oil Painting, right?

“He was painting by eye, not by tradition; painting what he saw, not what he had been taught to see.” Lloyd Goodrich3

Sharpshooters were, perhaps, the most deadly branch of the Army in the Civil War. The series The Civil War: Brothers Divided, credits sharpshooters with winning the Battle of Gettysburg, and by extension the Civil War4. In Sharpshooter, we see one taking aim. In 1896, Homer recalled-

“I looked through one of their rifles once when they were in a peach orchard in front of Yorktown in April, 1862. The impression struck me as being as near murder as anything I ever think of in connection with the army & I always had a horror of that branch of the service5.“ He included this sketch in his letter-

His very first Oil Painting, Sharpshooter, 1863, opens the show in attention- grabbing fashion. When I look at it, I feel for whoever may be on the other end of the telescope. After seeing the Drawing, I believe that’s what Homer intended.

There it is: right from the very first work, and then time and again, as I walked through the 40+ years of his career covered in Crosscurrents, what stands out for me is his empathy. This is what makes Winslow Homer special in his time, and timely today.

His strikes me as being on the level of the empathy I see in Rembrandt, Vincent Van Gogh, and especially in Goya. All his life he traveled, and many of his pieces reflect things he actually witnessed (some were based on newspaper reports). This combination of observation with his inherent empathy brings an uncanny “realism” to his work, even allowing that some pieces are based on the accounts of others, and some are compilations of events. And so, taking his Paintings as “documentary” is a bit problematic. I prefer to focus on the empathy.

Defiance: Inviting a Shot before Petersburg, 1864, Oil on panel. A Confederate soldier about to get what he’s asking for- two small puffs of smoke are seen at the middle left would seem to indicate the dare accepted, the shots on their way. And so, this is the flip-side of Sharpshooter.

On an adjacent wall, the very next Painting would seem to indicate the Artist may have been thinking similarly. Perhaps, he felt he wanted to be clearer about his intentions, and create a “more direct” work? Here, he shows us the opposite viewpoint. Brilliantly paired in the show. Defiance is utterly remarkable. It’s not like the sharpshooters needed a lot of help.

A Visit from the Old Mistress, 1876, Oil on canvas. Seeing this work from 11 years after the end of the War and the middle of the Reconstruction made me wonder if I’ve seen a more powerful 19th century American Painting. Who else Painted anything like this before 1900?

Then, in the period after the War, the Reconstruction, Winslow Homer did something no other Artist I know of did- He made Paintings showing the life of the newly freed Black men and women, and in the process created a unique record of part of their experience, and race relations in the country, at the time. This is another thing that makes him a ground-breaking Artist and gives hm much relevance, today. In A Visit From the Old Mistress, 1876, volumes are said in the eyes and body language. Early on, the Mistress held a red flower in her right hand, which the Artist Painted over after changing his mind. Over time, a hint of the red has become visible near her shoulder. Given that much (but not all) of what he shows us are scenes he witnessed, I’m left to wonder if he saw this scene and the one below. If not, how could he have Painted them so convincingly? His empathy powerfully comes through, yet as strong as it is, here and in all his work, he never hits the viewer over the head with it, and it is his subtlety that I believe has caused the appreciation of his empathy, power and brilliance to be somewhat under-appreciated for so long.

Dressing for the Carnival, 1877, Oil on canvas. A tour de force in so many ways beginning with color and ending up in a timeless meditation on so many things. Who else Painted anything like this?

In 1873, Winslow Homer produced his first Watercolor (at about 37 years of age!). They would become both rightly revered for their virtuosity among any done during his lifetime and extremely popular, helping the Artist survive. No small thing since after Prisoners from the Front, he struggled to regain the same level of success with his Oils, which continually disturbed him, no matter how popular his Watercolors became. Along the way, his focus changed. He turned to the sea. First, in Cullercoats, England, than in New England, and finally in the Gulf Stream- the Bahamas, Bermuda, Cuba and Florida. Based in Prouts Neck, Maine, he regularly traveled south to avoid the harsh northern winters. That might  be why there was only one Winslow Homer snow scene in the show!

Eight Bells, 1886, Oil on canvas, struck me as endemic of Homer’s work on man & the sea. Here, two sailors take measurements. Man trying to understand the sea.

Of course, Winslow Homer is rightly revered for his sea pictures. Along with the intense, timeless drama in many of these pieces, what has always stood out for me is his mastery of rendering the sea itself. Crosscurrents includes quite a few highlights, including some daring sea rescues Homer witnessed or read about. Regarded so at the time, Winslow Homer remains one of the real masters of sea Paintings. No mean feat in a country about 100 years old at the time in view of the long history of sea Art in many other countries.

Oranges on a Branch, 1885, Watercolor on paper. Hypnotically beautiful, during one visit, another visitor nearby railed against the inclusion of the building on the lower right in this rare Homer Still Life. Oranges were something of a delicacy at the time, and a treat as a staple at meals in the Bahamas, they would seem exotic to many contemporary American viewers.

As darkly hued as many of his Oil Paintings are, as a result of his yearly winter trips south, all of a sudden come his Watercolors that just explode with light and color.

Native Hut at Nassau, 1885, Watercolor on paper. During his trips, Homer kept a close eye on the local population and had a gift for capturing their lives in extraordinary works like this, a scene he may have seen on a walk from his luxury hotel. While picturesque elements of the piece would appeal to American viewers, the condition of the local’s lives is front and center. Again, something not many were doing in 1885.

Homer’s Watercolors were extremely popular with collectors, and even he seemed to get caught up in it. He’s quoted in the show saying-

“You will see, in the future I will live by my watercolors.”

At The Met, they indeed glisten with the beautiful light he found in the Bahamas and elsewhere on the Gulf Stream. But, for me, it’s his Oils that are the revelation, and which largely serve to rewrite our perception of him. Homer followed sales of his Oils closely, and took the results personally, particularly when they were misunderstood. His Watercolors cast his subjects in a different light, no pun intended, and seem to me to be more meditative, while his Oils bring the power.

A Garden in Nassau, 1885, Watercolor on paper. Another poignant example shows a child outside a walled private garden. A small detail- Homer’s watercolor palm leaves are always amazing, and offset the sparseness of the wall.

Still, a number of those on view, like these two above, get to the same power, empathy and subtlety, seen in his Oils.

Shark Fishing, 1885, Watercolor on paper. Ummm…I think they’re going to need a bigger boat. The shark is similar to one seen in The Gulf Stream, 15 years later.

In 1885, while in the Gulf Stream, Winslow Homer may have seen and recorded a boat in distress in a sketchbook. The sketch was in the show, as were a number of fascinating Watercolors that seem to reveal something of the development of The Gulf Stream Oil Painting over the next 21 years. Not all of the pieces I’m showing here were in the show’s Gulf Stream section. I’m including Shark Fishing, above, (which is not a disaster work like the others), due to the similarities between the shark in The Gulf Stream. It also includes two Black sailors.

Sharks (The Derelict), 1885, Watercolor on paper. It would seem that this was a work that informed The Gulf Stream, with many of its familiar compositional elements, minus the sailor.

The Gulf Stream Oil was displayed in 1900, then Homer reworked it in 1906. (Possibly in response to criticism?) The Met quickly acquired it the same year.

The Gulf Stream, c.1889, Watercolor on paper. What would be the final composition is taking shape.

In this version, there is no sign of rescue, which is closer to the Oil as it was originally displayed. No water spout to the right. The sailor looks down in the direction of the sharks.

The Gulf Stream, 1900, 1906, Oil on canvas. It was praised and condemned early on. From The Met’s Audio Guide- “When the Worchester Art Museum was considering its purchase, two women Trustees objected to the unpleasantness of the subject. Homer wrote to his agent- “The boat and sharks are of very little consequence. You can tell these ladies that the unfortunate negro who is by now so dazed and parboiled will be rescued and return to his friends and home and ever after live happily.” In 1906 he added the ship on the upper left horizon. 

Not many images exist of The Gulf Stream before his 1906 modifications of it, most noticeably adding the ship on the horizon in the upper left in 1906. A print displayed nearby shows the work as it originally was displayed in 1900 without it. Was it added in response to the worry for the lone sailor expressed to him by viewers? In a letter to his dealer the Artist vehemently expressed that “the subject of this piece is its title.” It’s hard for me to see one subject in it. I’m puzzled by how the man is Painted, and why he is looking off to our right. Perhaps, Homer felt that looking straight ahead, as he does in the Watercolor above, was too obvious. Some see the Painting as being inspired by the recent death of Homer’s father. Yet, he had produced Watercolors of this subject 15 years before. Whatever the case is, it again features a Black man. Perhaps the most iconic American Painting to do so from its time, or earlier. Or, from substantially later, for that matter.

Natural Bridge, Bermuda, 1901, Watercolor on paper. It’s hard for me to look at this and not think of Cézanne’s rock formations I showed in my Cézanne Drawing piece his last year that were done at almost the same time.

“If a man wants to be an artist, he should never look at pictures.” Winslow Homer quoted in Lloyd Goodrich’s Winslow Homer, P.21.

Winslow Homer kept to himself. His life is in his work. He refused to cooperate with his biographer and so very little is known about his possible influences. Writers and critics have been left to wonder about them, and I do, too. He spent 10 months living in Paris when much was going on in the Art world there. Yet, almost nothing is known about how he felt about what he saw. I see bits of Manet, Monet, Cézanne and Goya in his work. Is it coincidental?

Near Andersonville, 1865-66, Oil on canvas. The wall card speaks of the “Black woman emerging from a darkened interior, standing on a threshold and contemplating an uncertain future” near Andersonville, the site of an horrific Confederate prison.

Strong women are also featured in Homer’s work. The Black woman in the stunning early Oil, Near Andersonville, above, and women he encountered in the seaside communities he lived in in Cullercoats, England, and New England, like this one-

The Gale, 1883-93, Oil on canvas.

Again, something not many other Artists were doing at the time.

Right and Left, 1909, Oil on canvas. Homer’s next to last Oil Painting.

Late in his life, he turned his attention to mortality and the struggle of life and death, animal versus animal and man versus animal, as here, and of course earlier, he had depicted the struggle of man versus man, in the Civil War, and man versus the sea. It takes an effort to find the hunters in the piece, since the work is designed to show us the scene from the victim’s viewpoint, like Defiance, shown earlier. This is something unique in my experience to Homer in Art.

As if ALL of that isn’t enough, Winslow Homer’s compositions continually surprise me with their originality. Right and Left being one classic example among many. Something he is not generally appreciated for.

Winslow Homer with The Gulf Stream and his palette in his Prouts Neck, Maine Studio, c. 1899-1900

Francis Bacon said whether something was art or not wouldn’t be known for 75 to 100 years. I’ve always felt it took longer. Still, at about 100 years since his passing, it seems to me that Winslow Homer’s stock is beginning to rise to about mark twain (2 fathoms, or 12 feet, the depth the river must be for a riverboat to pass safely), also the pen name of almost an EXACT contemporary of Winslow Homer- Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910, being 1 year older, and passing in the same year! Like Mark Twain is, for many among American Novelists, in my book, Winslow Homer is just about at the top of innovative and important 19th century American Painters, for his Paintings, his mastery of Watercolor, and his illustrations.

Regardless of how the future looks at him, it seem to me that he’s certainly an Artist with a lot to say to us today. His technique catches the eye, then his subtlety and empathy hold the mind, and the heart.

*- Soundtrack for this Piece is- (“I ain’t gonna work on) Maggie’s Farm (no more),” by Bob Dylan from Bringing it All Back Home, 1965.

This Piece is dedicated to Amy Harding (who made a long trip to see this show, particularly admiring Dressing for the Carnival), for her help in getting this piece published and her long-time support!

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded and ad-free for over 7 years, during which over 275 full length pieces have been published. I can no longer fund it myself. (More here.) If you’ve found it worthwhile, please donate to keep it online & 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.

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  1. According to Helen A. Cooper, Winslow Homer Watercolors, P.16 ↩
  2. Winslow Homer: The Nature of Observation, P.34 ↩
  3. Lloyd Goodrich, Winslow Homer, 1973, P.17 ↩
  4. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5427912/ ↩
  5. https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/army-potomac-sharp-shooter-picket-duty-10711 ↩

NighthawkNYC.com Is Seven! A Year In The Life Of…

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava.

In honor of its 7th Anniversary, July 15, 2022, I decided to take a look back at Year Seven of NighthawkNYC.com, my most challenging year yet.

Lying in the hospital in November, I seriously doubted I’d be able to continue NighthawkNYC.com and get through Year Seven. Then, things got a bit worse…

During Year 7-
-The galleries that survived (alongside the countless galleries, stores, restaurants and businesses that didn’t) reopened, with restrictions, after the covid shutdown.
-The museums moved closer to full schedules (though not completely), with restrictions.
-Cézanne, Alice Neel, Jennifer Packer, Jasper Johns were each given blockbuster shows. Richard Estes, who like Jasper Johns also turned 90 this past year, was not. I wrote about all of them this year.

Along with this, this past year was a very hard year for me, personally. I hit year 15 free of cancer, but dealt with a mysterious illness that I still don’t have an answer for, then suffered a devastating financial setback. In spite of ALL of it, I created & published TWENTY-FIVE full-length pieces in those 52 weeks! 20 of them while I was working on the 3 Richard Estes pieces that took me 11 months to finish.
See for yourself-

Published on NighthawkNYC.com between July 15, 2021 and July 14, 2022, Year Seven, interspersed with personal “highlights” of my year-

August 1, 2021- “The Met’s Alice Need Love Letter To NYC” (Clicking on the title in each white box below opens the piece so you can revisit it.)

The Met’s Alice Neel Love Letter To NYC

August 21- “Don’t Call Chuck Close A ‘Photorealist'”

The last time I saw Chuck Close, I ran into him while we were both out gallery crawling late one Thursday eve in October, 2017, here in a small basement gallery in Chelsea. It was fascinating to watch him study Art he (or I) had never seen before and hear his comments.

Don’t Call Chuck Close A “photorealist”

September 10- “Remembering 9/11”- For the very first time, to commemorate the 20th Anniversary of that that horrific, indelible day, I shared my memories of 9/11 and the Photos I took before, on 9/11, and immediately after.

Just unimaginable. The view from my window shortly after 9:05am on 9/11/2001 showing the North Tower, 1 World Trade Center, on fire. I’ve never shared any of the Photos in this piece before.

Remembering 9/11

On September 15th, I began having spells of lightheadedness. I immediately went to the doctor, who tested me and couldn’t find anything wrong. 

September 21- “Cézanne’s Other Revolution”

The Murder, 1874-75, Pencil, watercolor, and gouache on paper. In this tiny work, the knife is held high amidst an idyllic scene, with an ominous cross lurking above.

Cézanne’s Other Revolution

October 23- “Art Is Back In Chelsea”

Metro Pictures on West 24th Street. I have seen many memorable shows here, including the fine Louise Lawler show that’s up now. They said they decided to close because of the globalization of the Art market, which doesn’t suit their model. I’ll miss it.

Art Is Back In Chelsea

November 7- “Tyler Mitchell: Bringing Joy Back To Art”

Tyler Mitchell

Tyler Mitchell: Bringing Joy Back To Art

At 4:30pm on November 9th, I nearly fainted crossing 8th Avenue. Wearing all black in the dark, I’m sure I would have been killed if the light had changed. I staggered to the other side then managed to get in a cab and go to the Emergency Room. After 10 hours, they decided to admit me. I was in the hospital for 3 days and saw 27 doctors. None could tell me what was wrong. I walked home (about 2 miles) after being released feeling just like I did when I went to the E.R. .

November 19- “John Chamberlain’s Twisted Dreams.” A nurse chastised me for working on this piece while I was in the hospital.

John Chamberlain’s Twisted Dreams

At 4:30pm on November 20th, the day after I published the John Chamberlain piece, I had another near fainting spell. I went back to the Emergency Room where I spent another 7 hours. Again, they couldn’t find a cause. This time I was released and walked home. To this minute, I still don’t know what was wrong. I was subsequently put on medication for a heart problem discovered during testing. The lightheadedness seemed to largely get better. The doctors I informed of this said it didn’t make any medical sense. 

November 27- “NoteWorthy PhotoBooks, 2021”

Zanele Muholi, the catalog for her show at, and published by, the Tate, London.

NoteWorthy PhotoBooks, 2021

December 28- “NoteWorthy Art Books (And Bricks), 2021”

Toyin Ojih Odutola, The UmuEze Amara Clan and the House of Obafemi

NoteWorthy Art Books (and Bricks), 2021

January 14, 2022- “NoteWorthy Music Book, 2021- Paul McCartney: The Lyrics”

From The Lyrics: Throughout the text Sir Paul regularly registers a very wide range of literature. Art is not left out. Left, we see him visiting Willem de Kooning, and right, one of his own Paintings from 1991.

NoteWorthy Music Book, 2021- Paul McCartney: The Lyrics

On January 20th, I suffered a devastating financial loss that leaves me having to focus on my survival full-time. To that point, I had worked on NighthawkNYC full-time for 6 1/2 years for no money, while other costs, besides my labor, have been quite substantial. 

February 4-  “Jasper Johns: Contemporary Art Begins Here”

Jasper Johns, Untitled, 2021, Acrylic and graphic over etching on paper. As strong as ever- at 90!

Jasper Johns: Contemporary Art Begins Here

February 19- “Cancer, +15”  Going in to cancer treatment, I had a 20% chance of getting through year 1 without additional treatment. Hard to believe I’m alive 15 years later…There are no words to express my Thanks. I hope sharing my experiences may help others…

Cancer, +15

February 21- “Jennifer Packer Arrives”

Jennifer Packer @ The Whitney. The word is out. The crowds are beginning to show up. December 28, 2021.

Jennifer Packer Arrives

March 21- “The Sculptural Photography of Vik Muniz”

Vik Muniz with his Nameless (Woman with Turban) after Alberto Henschel, 2020, Archival inkjet print, 90 by 59 inches, One of a kind.

The Sculptural Photography of Vik Muniz

April 4- “Nick Sethi’s PhotoBook Release In Canal Street”

Mind the meter. Nick Sethi takes it to the streets.

Nick Sethi’s PhotoBook Release In Canal Street

April 7- “The Brutal/Smells Like Teen Spirit Mashup” (Olivia Rodrigo meets Kurt Cobain)

Screencap of “Good 4 u,” Directed by Petra Collins.

The Brutal / Smells Like Teen Spirit Mashup

April 14- “Highlights of the Whitney Biennial: Matt Connors”

Matt Connors, One Wants to Insist Very Strongly, 2020

Highlights of the 2022 Whitney Biennial: Matt Connors

April 22- “Caslon Bevington’s Counterfeit Weather”

Caslon Bevington, Frictions (Variations A), 2022, Acrylic on panel, 16 x 20″

Caslon Bevington’s Counterfeit Weather

May 9- “Alec Soth: A Pound of Pictures”

Alec Soth: A Pound of Pictures

May 16- “Ahndraya Parlato: Magic, Mystery, Love & Death”

The cover of Who Is Changed and Who Is Dead

Ahndraya Parlato: Magic, Mystery, Love & Death

May 22- “Richard Estes: Painter. With No Prefixes”

Richard Estes even took over my banner for his 90th. Double Self-Portrait, 1967, from near the beginning of his mature career, seen here behind me.

Richard Estes: Painter. With No Prefixes.

June 6- “Richard Estes Art: What I See”

Richard Estes, Times Square, 2004, 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.

Richard Estes Art: What I See

June 19- “Richard Estes: Two ‘Manifestos'”

Self-Portrait, 2013

Richard Estes: Two “Manifestos”

June 29- “Learning to Think like David Byrne”

Learning To Think Like David Byrne

July 11- “Thank You, Sheena Wagstaff” I’ll miss the recently departed Chair of The Met’s Modern & Contemporary Department. I close out Year Seven of NHNYC with a look at what she’s given me, NYC, and the world this past decade.

Sheena Wagstaff looking at a very large work by Ursula von Rydingsvard at Galerie Lelong & Co., April, 2018, when I happened upon her when we were both making the rounds of galleries one afternoon (independently, of course).

Thank You, Sheena Wagstaff

P H E W!
I can’t begin to tell you how much work all of that was. Oh, and I got through it all, and spent all of the year, alone. Every minute of it for the second year in a row. Trust me. You don’t want to try it.

On July 15, 2015, I started this site to share my passion for Art and what I’ve seen in the NYC Art world with those everywhere else. In the past 7 years, I’ve published about 275 full-length pieces- 275 in 364 weeks! I have created everything you see on this site for free, and it’s been FREE to access for all!

Well, sooner or later something had to give. Nothing is truly “free” on the internet, though. It means that all the expenses incurred in creating, running  and maintaining NighthawkNYC.com have fallen on me. For the past 7 years, I’ve managed to keep this site ad-free. To defray some of the high costs, I experimented with Amazon links for 3 pieces, then abandoned them. I’ve considered using Patreon, I’ve been told I should put up a pay-gate like other similar sites use.

I’ve decided that first, I should see how much support there is for what I’ve been doing.

If you like what I’ve been doing, if you find this site useful, if you’ve discovered an Artist you previously didn’t know and now are interested in, or a book you’ve taken to, or you want to support Independent Art writing- your support has never been needed more than it is right now. THIS is the time to help.

Donate to keep it up & ad-free below. Thank you!

As always- Thank You for reading my pieces.

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “New York Minute” by Don Henley from The End of the Innocence, 1989 performed here by Eagles, unplugged in 1994-

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, if any, below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

For L.

Learning To Think Like David Byrne

Show Seen: David Byrne: How I Learned About Non-Rational Logic at Pace Gallery

David Byrne has never been bashful about stepping out. First, as the the very strange, gangly, guy you couldn’t take your eyes off of with the legendary band Talking Heads, then by himself as a solo, or in collaborations with Brian Eno, Twyla Tharp, and St. Vincent, among others; in Films along the way (as an actor, director, or Oscar-winning composer), as a Photographer in his overlooked PhotoBook, Strange Ritual, and most recently in an acclaimed & successful one-man Broadway show, American Utopia.

Phew!

Me too. I spent a decade drawing every day and going to The Met to draw 3 times a week, even though I had a full-time job nowhere close to The Museum. It’s solitary, but rewarding in more ways than one.

As if that’s not enough, while American Utopia was still running on Broadway, came something else- a “mini retrospective” of his Drawings titled David Byrne: How I Learned About Non-Rational Logic, that ran from Feb 2 through March 19th, already his 8th show at Pace. The show included a selection of work dating back about 20 years, including a group of his Tree Drawings from the early 2000s, as seen in his book Arboretum, a group of Chair Drawings from 2004-7, and a group of Dingbat Drawings Mr. Byrne did during the pandemic. Some of his Dingbats were shown in a 2020 online show of that title. Always interested in what Mr. Byrne is doing, and what I can learn from it, and an eternal lover of the Art & essential skill that is Drawing, I took the elevator to the top floor of Pace’s new mega gallery on West 25th to take a look.

The show coincided with the release of his latest book, the astonishingly popular A History of the World (In Dingbats); a collection of 100 Drawings. Not to be confused stylistically with his earlier Drawings, the Dingbats are more “traditional” Drawings that range across a wide variety of subjects, IF you can call ANYTHING David Byrne does “traditional.”

Swim Inside My Head, 2020, Ink on paper.

The show’s title, How I Learned About Non-Rational Logic, sounds like an open invitation to learn how to think like Mr. Byrne. The range of styles on view gave the viewer the chance to approach that from a few directions that ranged from the apparently quite accessible to obtuse. I guess that’s saying there was something for everyone. On a wall near the entrance was something of an Artist’s Statement, quoted in part-

Installation view.

Cloud Chair, 2006, Ink on paper.

Installation view of 3/4 of the show.

I Dreamed of the Art Trap, 2007, Ink on paper.

A series of “Chair” Drawings from 2006, Ink on paper. The piece on the far right, Cloud Chair, is shown earlier.

A fascinating way to think. If you’re intrigued by it, check out Arboretum.

“I’m an ordinary guy
Burning down the house1“

After all he’s done to this point, it appears that David Byrne is David Byrne’s greatest creation. So, how to think like he does? I think you start by taking the essence of yourself, then throw out everything that’s too derivative of what someone else has done (“Stop Making Sense?”), and then emphasize what makes you unique. Along the way you can put down in Music, Film, on stage or on paper, things you see that no one else does. At least not in your own unique way!

Like these-

The Evolution of Eating Utensils, 2003, Pencil on paper.

Consensual Absurdities, 2003, Pencil on paper

Between his Music, his Films, his Photography, his stage work, and now his Art, as time has gone on, we’re continuing to see there is more…much more, to David Byrne than anyone could ever imagine when that very strange, gangly guy walked on stage with Talking Heads at CBGB in 1977. I hope he continues to amaze and puzzle us for decades to come.

BookMarks-

The most succinct thing to say about David Byrne is that I can think of nothing he has done to not recommend. Some may not be as big fans of The Catherine Wheel, or his album The Forest, but that’s splitting hairs. As the late, great Jaco Pastorius once told me when I told him I liked his work with Joni Mitchell “better” than her earlier work- “Hey man. You either like an Artist or you don’t.” The man has had an important career and written innumerable great songs. Since the surprise hit show American Utopia is introducing him to many new fans, I’ll just give a quick rundown here-

The 8 Talking Heads studio albums chronologically.

Starting from the beginning, ALL the Talking Heads albums are classics in my book. I gave it some thought and really couldn’t pick one to start with. Remain in Light? Fear of Music? The Dual Disc reissues with added tracks are particularly recommended, if you can find them reasonably priced. The complete Dual Brick of all 8 studio Lps on CD/DVD Dual Disc currently goes for $200 to $250 being out of print. Though you’ll gain more Music, the sanctity of the original album should be kept firmly in mind (which is included on the DVD in 5.1 Surround Sound, overseen by Jerry Harrison), though it’s hard to replicate the impact it had when each were released, now. In the midst of punk, Talking Heads seamlessly walked the line between punk and New Wave, if they did not singlehandedly define the latter. I remember it well. I wound up in a New Wave band the year after Talking Heads ’77 came out!

Stop Making Sense is a must-see concert Film. True Stories…I haven’t seen in a while, but it’s on my list to see again.

His work with Brian Eno has many fans.

I thought his collaboration with St. Vincent, Love This Giant. was wonderful. After they got it out on the road with punchy arrangements (I started out as a horn player, and there’s still nothing like the sound of live horns for me!), it sounds even better-

And then there are his countless solo albums. I’m still working my way through them. One thing I can say is those I’ve heard don’t sound dated.

Personally, I really like his PhotoBook Strange Ritual, though I advise you to take a look through it before deciding to buy. It’s not for everyone.

Arboretum is Artistic while showing a different way of thinking. I think the concept, a sample shown above and in other works in the show, works very well throughout. I think it’s a book that’s going to remain sought after.

How Music Works is a uniquely down to earth look at Music & the business of. As much a “field guide” for the working Musician as it is a book for listeners and his fans. Most books like it are written by Music business people or lawyers. Uggh. This one is written from the REAL inside by someone who counts- a Musician who’s done it all AND succeeded at all of it!

It includes sketches of CBGB’s, a club that Mr. Byrne helped make immortal, seen here before, left, & after its remodeling, right. I spent many, many a night on the right, a few on the left..In the mid-1990s, I booked Music into CB’s Gallery, another Music club CBGB later opened in the space to the right where the Drawing is labelled “CBGB” and “CBGB “Remodeled'”

A History of the World (In Dingbats) is one of those Art Books that may seem easy to write off at first, but then keeps surprising & intriguing you. I’ve been amazed watching it sell out everywhere. Say what you will about it- it’s speaking to a wide range of folks. Almost ANY book of Drawings that reaches people these days is probably going to be a book I am fond on. This one counts.

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “Born Under Punches” by David Byrne & Talking Heads from their album Remain in Light, 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. As I face high expenses to keep it going, if you’ve found it worthwhile, please donate to keep it up & 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. “Burning Down The House,” Speaking in Tongues, 1983 ↩

Richard Estes Art: What I See

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.

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–

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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. 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”

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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.”

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

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

Caslon Bevington’s Counterfeit Weather

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

Installation view, Caslon Bevington: Duping False Landscapes, Ki Smith Gallery, East 4th Street section.

“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”*

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

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 startling new show, Caslon Bevington: 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. 4 pieces from her Translations series.  *Photo by Roman Dean.

I, however, am not a stranger to Caslon’s Art. Having met her earlier in 2017 at a Raymond Pettibon show, that September 20th, I actually left Manhattan to see her show at Mana Contemporary in Jersey City. Finding my way out there, I was stunned by what I saw, and proceeded to write about it here. It’s a show that 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 a “Painting guy,” I was 2 months away from beginning my “deep dive” into Modern & Contemporary Photography (i.e. the period from the publication of Robert Frank’s The Americans in 1958-59, to date) which has continued 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/were, also, Photographers, and vice versa.) As I wrote, I believed she was on the edge of what Artists were doing with Photography, or Photo-based work. Five years later, I can’t say I’ve seen anyone else doing quite what she was doing then especially with her small, rectangular back & whiteTranslations series. Caslon was making what struck me as ground-breaking work.

Think about that for a moment.

Caslon Bevington seen with Translations #10, 11, 12, 13 and 14, 2017, left to right, at Apostrophe NYC’s gallery at Mana Contemporary, Jersey City, September 20, 2017.

In 2017, Caslon Bevington was about 25 years old! I just referenced “60+ years” of the history of Photography, and after seeing all those books and all those shows- a number of which I have written about in these epages, before saying “I can’t say I’ve seen anyone else doing quite what she was doing then.” That’s pretty remarkable.

Yet, does that make it Art with a capital “A,” as I write it with when speaking about great Artists? No. It doesn’t. And Art, for me, is all that matters. I want to see, and write about, Art with a capital “A;” the stuff that has a chance to hang on museum walls one day. The stuff with staying power, that keeps people looking at it again and again, finding something new in it each time, or having it “say” something different to them each time they look at it.

But, it’s made her an Artist to keep an eye on. Since that day in 2017, I’ve done just that. Now, here I am five years later, driven to write about her work, again…

Installation view of Caslon’s 2019 show, unused, undone, ect., perhaps, at Ki Smith Gallery, 2019. *-Photo by Roman Dean for Ki Smith Gallery.

It turns out I missed her 2019 show, Caslon Bevington: unused, undone, ect., perhaps, her first for Ki Smith Gallery, and my impressions of it comes from a few installation shots and one or two pieces I’ve seen first-hand. My impression was that she took one of digital media’s essential innovations, the layer, and brought it into the analog world of matter using one of the natural world’s most essential agents: light. From what I’ve seen, the results were wonderfully effective. It’s perhaps due to the difficulty involved in making these pieces that few, if any, other Artists have tried to make them.

She crafted hanging Photo-based polyurethane objects that were varying degrees of transparent, translucent and opaque that created luminous experiences, somewhat akin to 21st century analog/digital stained glass windows, that transported the viewer through a portal into another realm. In their press materials, the gallery revealed that one collector ingeniously installed a group of them leading up a stairway to wonderful effect.

A page from her extraordinary book, unused, undone, ect., perhaps, which collects her Photo archive, published by Ki Smith Gallery in 2019 in conjunction with with Handle With Care Books in an edition of just 25 copies.

Sorry I missed the show since hearing about it after it was over, I was very fortunate to get a copy of the book Caslon published with Ki Smith Gallery for the show that collected the Artist’s Photo archive that evoked a bit of what these pieces must be like. When I saw the book, in the vacuum of having missed the show, I was so captivated by it, I told the Artist and Mr. Smith that if I had seen the book in 2019 it would have been my NoteWorthy PhotoBook of the Year! Remarkable when you consider that Caslon does not call herself a Photographer.

Three years on, it still would have been.

As I’ve seen in so much of her work, and one of its defining characteristics, the book speaks to the Artist’s ability to take digital artifacts (pictures and texts) and translate them into “the analog world” in a wide range other hands-on mediums, including books. Published in an edition of just 25 copies, it’s virtually impossible to find now, which is a shame. I believe that had it been more widely seen, it’s a book that would have made Caslon much better known.

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

Fast forward to April Fool’s Day, 2022,  her new show, Duping False Landscapes, is installed at both Ki Smith Gallery East Village locations. Stopping in to their East 4th Street space first, Ki Smith mentioned to me that Caslon was a Painter when he met her circa 2015, before moving away from it to explore other mediums! Being a “Painting guy,” I was pleasantly shocked to hear this. Only one Painting was shown across both her 2017 and 2019 shows (shown in my 2017 piece on her), and the number of works in other mediums would give a different impression. It struck me that here I was already taken with her work, having written about her 2017 show, and I’d only seen one of her Paintings!

That revelation also gave me a new appreciation for her 2019 pieces. Now I see them as quite daring explorations that look quite successful to my eyes. I digressed…

Her new show proved a deja-vu experience all over again. The wall facing the front door was lined with 8 striking image or Photo-based prints, seen to the right above, that brought me right back to her 2017 show. Robert Rauschenberg, Wade Guyton, Jeff Elrod, Nico Krijno, 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, now in color, and in a single image, each. (The 2017 show featured a few pairs of images in one piece as you can see earlier.)

These were new, fresh, exciting pieces, that seemed to me to be downright “painterly,” vibrantly colored & printed. I stopped caring how the images were manipulated and just enjoyed looking at them. Most of all, they are just beautiful- a word seldomly, if ever, applied to such work. 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 remarkably as a group (though they are not a series). These new prints provided me with a bit of continuity with what I had seen in 2017, 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 was the show stopper of both shows. The endlessly mysterious “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. By title, it was also the first “weather-related” and the first sun-related piece in the show.

Between the two new installations, 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 also about a dozen prints and 2 works on Terracotta also on view that continued her exploration of mediums. (In 2017, she gave me a tour of her studio at Mana and showed me a large work made out of a king-size box spring (shown in my 2017 piece)!)

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, to 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. Here was a Painting that may be inspired or based on  a work in another medium. It’s utterly fascinating to contemplate the one and then the other; and their genesis. 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- if that is indeed the case here. In fact, I can’t recall one.

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

As I moved through both shows, one thing that became apparent to me is that Caslon has an exceptionally unique eye, and when all is said and done, I realized THAT is what has drawn me to her work since 2017- even before seeing her Paintings.

A sub-theme of Duping False Landscapes is the Artist revealing the Art in source images that most people would discard; images that are distorted, (intentionally or not), so small as to make detail almost impossible to make out, or of inferior quality born of, what is considered now, “low-tech” devices. Three prime examples of this are featured hanging in the East 3rd Street Gallery’s windows, and that may be why they are there. In them, the Artist has taken 3 blurred photos and renders them in paint! The net effect is the viewer ifs finally forced to stop and consider these images they would, and probably have, ignored. Thinking back through the history of Painting for precedents, Kerry James Marshall’s 7am Sunday Morning, 2003 (as seen in my 2017 piece on Kerry James Marshall: Mastry at The Met Breuer) and Georgia O’Keeffe’s The Shelton with Sonspots, 1926, came to mind. In his, 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. Georgia confines hers mostly to the upper right quadrant. Still, 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 the 3 pieces seen above.

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.

There. I said it again. Meanwhile, David Bowie returns.

There are those who believe that Mr. Bowie may have been referring to the great singer Odetta (1930-2008) in his song, “You Will Set the World on Fire.” We’ll never know. Over on the far walls of Ki Smith’s 3rd Street Gallery, Caslon proceeds to set the world on fire. In paint. A series of four Sunstorm Paintings, each dated 2022, and two that appear to be somewhat related, titled Frictions, seem to literally burn up their panels, canvasses and the walls around them. Apparently, they are based on an old, small Photo, which doesn’t lend itself to enlargement, and hence allows the imagination (her, then ours) to complete their details.

Sunstorm (Expanded), 2022, Acrylic on canvas, 39 x 49 inches, the largest of the series. There is so much in this that stands out: The surreal way the “fence,” or whatever it is on the right, and the trees on the left, are Painted. The whole bottom edge seems to take us into another dimension, creating an  effect like wearing two pairs of glasses, until you realize the whole composition consists of layers! Layers in Painting goes back to Cubism, Kandinsky, and Hilma af Klnt. Still, I can’t say I’ve seen them used like they are in Caslon’s Sunstorm series, and in other works of hers. Also, consider perspective in this, or any of her Paintings in this series. Just when you think you see a vanishing point by following the “fence,” you have to consider the fact that this section of the work is just one layer! Instead of giving us one vanishing point, the Artist makes our eyes move all over the canvas, as much of David Hockney’s work this century does. Making all of this hang together, and hang together so well, is impressive in my book.

“A good painting has real ambiguities which you never get to grips with, and that’s what is so tantalizing.” David Hockney1.

Exactly what is going on in these works is a mystery. I, for one, don’t want to know much more about them lest it evaporates. Anchored by the ground, and the “fence” in a few, 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, at once fascinating and horrifying.

Sunstorm, 2022, Acrylic on canvas. 11 by 14.5 inches. Here, the trees and the “fence” are rendered in a somewhat  different way but achieve the same mystery we see in Sunstorm (Expanded), above. Here, the work seems to consist of fewer layers, but again, the question of perspective is, indeed, a question. What might have started out as a distorted or “lesser” quality source image has become something entirely different, and in my view, stunning.

This series adds an ominous atmosphere for the first time (that I’ve seen) in her work. In the two Sunstorms, above, the storms appear to be tornadic. Then she adds something else. Something “more.” 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 (Frank Stella used layers to marvelous effect in Paintings that were collage-like and the layers extended from the surface, imposing on what had been the viewer’s space previously). 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.

On the gallery’s right hand wall, shown earlier during a tea party held at the gallery, elements of the striking  Frictions series remind me of Clyfford Still, as in Frictions (Variations A), below. Still (sorry), as I’ve learned, looking for influences and precedents in Caslon’s work is both missing the point, and pointless. If there are any influences, she has more than made them her own.

Frictions (Variations A), 2022, Acrylic on panel, 16 x 20 inches. Some might look at this and think “Clyfford Still.”

On a personal level, the fire she depicts has come to represent the passion and energy I see in so much of what Caslon does, both qualities I find lacking in much of the Contemporary Art I see. It’s something that characterizes her work to this point, and along with her eye, is another thing that sets it apart.

Having created further innovations that blur the lines between, and show new possibilities of, the image/the Photograph, the relationship between Photography & Painting, and Painting itself,  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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  1. Hockney on Photography, P. 18 ↩

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.
To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here.
Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them.
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The Brutal / Smells Like Teen Spirit Mashup

Written, and with a Photograph, by Kenn Sava

I’ll never forget the first time I heard Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” in full effect. I was with a date on the (uncharacteristically) not-packed-for-a-moment dance floor of the legendary NYC club, Area, in 1991 when its opening guitar chords were suddenly overwhelmed by Dave Grohl’s drums bringing the band in hit us like howitzer shells exploding from the speakers over our heads. I’d heard it before, but under this mega-system, it literally lifted me out of my skin.

Screencap of the opening scene of the “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” Music video, 1991, Directed by Samuel Bayer, includes cheerleader with pom poms in a school gym.

“Hello, hello, hello, how low”*

Though Nirvana had been making great Music on record since their debut Lp, Bleach, in 1989, that was the opening “Hello” of the biggest movement in Rock since Punk. It exploded countless millions of times everywhere on planet earth that year, and Rock was never the same after…

The Music video, also appearing in heavy rotation, was a work of Art every bit on the level with the song, and just as revolutionary, paving the way for “Grunge,” Music & fashion. Recently, Nirvana dummer, now Foo Fighters leader, Dave Grohl, credited the video with having a bigger impact than the record1. The video adds a bit of another dimension to the lyrics and helps center them.

Besides love & sex, Rock has been about nothing if not teen angst, anxiety, feelings of inadequacy, and depression, alongside a yearning to rebel or break free, these past 70 years. “Teen Spirit” felt like the ultimate Musical expression of teen angst.

“I feel stupid and contagious
Here we are now, entertain us”*

In 1994, Kurt told Rolling Stone that he was “trying to write the ultimate pop song,” saying he was strongly influenced by the Pixies in writing “Teen Spirit2.”  On more than one level, he succeeded, in my opinion. On other levels, like everything else involving Kurt Cobain, it’s pretty complicated. “Pop” Music is supposed to be light and disposable, “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” who’s title may a possible reference to a popular woman’s deodorant of the time that a one time Kurt girlfriend may have worn3, is anything but. For some, it was a call for a revolution- a rejection of what had become staid, overly processed and boring- in Music and beyond, and one that certainly happened in Rock Music and fashion over the rest of the decade in its wake.

I only got this ticket thanks to a friend who worked at Geffen, the band’s label. Enduring thanks, that is!

When I saw Nirvana in what turned out to be their final NYC show at Roseland on July 23, 1993, they didn’t play it, by far their biggest hit, during their set, unheard of for just about any other band. I found out later that Kurt was growing tired of playing it, and the expectation that they would play it. They played it as the encore, to the relief of everyone in the sold out house. I grew up playing in garage bands, and Nirvana was certainly the ultimate garage band. Seeing them was not just about their raw power. The nuance of their performance and the power of their lyrics took them to an entirely other level, one that very few bands have ever matched. Of the thousands of shows I’ve seen in my life, I count myself extremely lucky to have seen them that night.

Fast forward 30 years from 1991…to 2021. I couldn’t help having much of the same reaction watching another remarkable Music video- that for Olivia Rodrigo’s “Brutal,” directed by the ground-breaking Photographer Petra Collins, even though I’m far from my teenage years, and not female. Though so much has changed in those intervening 30 years since “Teen Spirit”, the things young people go through and how they feel about them, hasn’t changed at all. If anything, it’s only gotten more complicated. 

As I thought about it, I couldn’t escape thinking about the parallels between both songs, and their videos, on a number of levels.

First, some basic stats-
Kurt Cobain, B. 2/20/1967 (D. 4/5/1994- 8 months after I saw Nirvana at Roseland). “Teen Spirit” released in 1991, when Kurt was about 24.
Olivia Rodrigo, B. 2/20/2003. “Brutal” released in May, 2021, when Olivia was 17 or 18.

Breaking out! Screencap from the 8 1/2-ish final scene of “Brutal.” I can’t help wondering if the ballet dancers are autobiographical on the part of Director Petra Collins, who started out to be a ballet dancer.

“They say these are the golden years
But I wish I could disappear
Ego crush is so severe
God, it’s brutal out here.”^

“Brutal” begins with a video game player selection screen over a repeated power synth line that could have been straight out of a 1990s video game, that in some ways is a 2021 equivalent of Kurt’s immortal opening power guitar riff on “Teen Spirit,” and serves much the same purpose. The scenes quickly change from showing her insecurities in ballet class and collapsing to the floor grabbing her ankle4, to a pseudo news broadcast, before taking us to a school classroom and corridor. Both songs feature the soft/loud dynamic, that Kurt Cobain said he took from The Pixies, to aural, lyric and visual dramatic effect. The whole things ends up on a freeway parking lot and a pretty cool “homage” to the beginning of Fellini’s 8 1/2 that ends the “Brutal” video! We see Olivia “breaking out” by getting out of her car and walking over the cars in front of her, a bit like 8 1/2′s hero who flies above the parked traffic in front of him in that classic opening scene that announces a masterpiece to follow. Nirvana’s video famously takes place in a gym auditorium, and features cheerleaders in pleated skirts with pom poms. In “Brutal,” Olvia wears a pleated plaid pleated skirt for much of it. Then, in the video for “Good 4 u,” which is also Directed by Petra Collins, she wears a full cheerleader’s outfit and much of it takes place in a school gym!

Screencap of “Good 4 u,’ also Directed by Petra Collins in 2021. A cheerleader’s outfit in a school gym and pom poms…Hmmm….

Kirt Cobain, Nirvana, and Frederico Fellini? Pretty heady company for any 17 or 18 year old.

Then, I took a closer at the lyrics to both songs. I decided to mash them up. The results are below.

“Brutal,” by Olivia Rodrigo & “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Kurt Cobain/Nirvana
A Mashup By Kenn Sava

“Smells Like Teen Spirit” on this margin-

“Brutal” on this margin-

[Chorus]
With the lights out, it’s less dangerous
Here we are now, entertain us
I feel stupid and contagious
Here we are now, entertain us

[Verse 1]
I’m so insecure, I think
That I’ll die before I drink

[Verse 2]
I’m worse at what I do best
And for this gift, I feel blessed

And I’m so caught up in the news
Of who likes me and who hates you
And I’m so tired that I might
Quit my job, start a new life
And they’d all be so disappointed
‘Cause who am I if not exploited?

And I’m so sick of seventeen
Where’s my fucking teenage dream?

If someone tells me one more time
“Enjoy your youth,” I’m gonna cry

[Pre-Chorus]
Hello, hello, hello, how low
Hello, hello, hello, how low
Hello, hello, hello, how low
Hello, hello, hello

[Chorus]
With the lights out, it’s less dangerous
Here we are now, entertain us
I feel stupid and contagious
Here we are now, entertain us

And I don’t stick up for myself
I’m anxious, and nothing can help
And I wish I’d done this before
And I wish people liked me more

[Chorus]

I’m worse at what I do best
And for this gift, I feel blessed
Our little group has always been
And always will until the end

All I did was try my best
This the kinda thanks I get?
Unrelentlessly upset (Ah-ah-ah)
They say these are the golden years
But I wish I could disappear
Ego crush is so severe
God, it’s brutal out here

[Outro]
A denial, a denial
A denial, a denial
A denial, a denial
A denial, a denial
A denial

And lately, I’m a nervous wreck
‘Cause I love people I don’t like
And I hate every song I write
And I’m not cool, and I’m not smart
And I can’t even parallel park

“Got a broken ego, broken heart
And God, I don’t even know where to start”^

*- Soundtracks for this Post are *”Smells Like Teen Spirit,” by Kurt Cobain from Nevermind by Nirvana and ^”Brutal,” by Olivia Rodrigo from the album Sour.

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  1. Here. ↩
  2. Here. ↩
  3. https://genius.com/Nirvana-smells-like-teen-spirit-lyrics ↩
  4. Interestingly, Director Petra Collins started out to be a ballet dancer before an injury led her to go into Photography. ↩