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B L O C K R E D 2 0 1 6 O I L O N A L U M I N U M 8 5 X 7 5 I N 2 1 5 . 9 X 1 9 0 . 5 C M S E A N S C U L LY
72 100
THE HERE AND THEN IN THE STUDIO:
by Richard Kalina
Affirming Cy Twomblys place in the discourse on paint-
ANICKA YI
with Ross Simonini
ing today, a retrospective at the Centre Pompidou, Paris,
The Korean-born, New Yorkbased artist recounts how her
highlights three major cycles as well as examples from the
penchant for the immersive experiences of film, cuisine,
artists last series.
and fiction led her to experiment with outr scents and odd
installation materials such as bacteria, fried flowers, spores,
82 hair gel, and fungi.
THE TASK OF ART
by Christopher P. Heuer
Three exhibitions marking the 500th anniversary of Martin
Luthers 95 Theses celebrate the bold, sometimes ruthless
monk who helped launch both the Protestant Reformation
and a new stripped-down style of art.
90
HEAVEN SENT
by Glenn Adamson
In a Seattle church, Josh Faught has installed a fifty-foot-
tall fabric work in which the themes of the Passion of
Christ, the 1980s songs of Belinda Carlisle, and the com-
plexities of gay life are united with formal insouciance.
94
POEMS WITHOUT WORDS Cover: Anicka Yi + Jon Santos/Common Space
Studio, Tropiclone, 2017, C-print, 9 by 11 inches.
by Raphael Rubinstein See Contributors page.
With a 1975 series of stacked-line compositions, the
painter David Reed began to garner recognition from
critics and peers alike. Now those legendary works
from his first solo exhibition are on view again,
raising intriguing questions about cultural memory
and the vicissitudes of art world taste.
21 47
THE BRIEF ART & RELIGION
Images Festival in Toronto; Documenta 14; Being Material Varieties of Faith by Eleanor Heartney
digital technology symposium at MIT; Art Cologne fair; Martin Scorseses recent film, Silence, depicting Christians
Age of Empires, featuring Qin and Han Dynasty work, at the in seventeenth-century Japan forced to trod on images of
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; Paul Ramirez Jonas Jesus and Mary, prompts transhistorical reflections on art,
at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. faith, and psychological trauma.
23 55
FIRST LOOK BACKSTORY
Rafa Esparza by Erick Lyle Snow Day by Jack Youngerman
LA artist Rafa Esparzas adobe-brick installations and edgy, Painter Jack Youngerman recalls the joys and misadventures
sometimes dangerous performances protest the erasure of ethnic of raising a young son in the late 1950s among Coenties Slip
diversity and local histories in the age of gentrification. neighbors such as Robert Indiana, Ellsworth Kelly, Lenore
Tawney, and Agnes Martin.
27
PERFORMANCE 59
Time Out by Travis Jeppesen BOOKS
The enduring legacy of Tehching Hsieh, who will Christina Rosenberger on Laurie Wilsons Louise Nevelson: Light
represent Taiwan at the Venice Biennale this year, rests on and Shadow; plus related titles in brief.
five grueling yearlong performances that he completed in
New York between 1978 and 1986.
108
35 REVIEWS
New York, St. Louis, Los Angeles, Portland, Bristol and Oxford,
SIGHTLINES London, Paris, Zurich, Mexico City.
Curator Jos Esparza Chong Cuy tells Ross Simonini
whats on his mind.
128
37 ARTWORLD
People, Awards, Obituaries
ATLAS DUBAI
Art Without America by Rahel Aima
President Trumps seven-nation travel ban has had a chilling
effect on Dubais relations with the West, leaving the USs status
as a global art center more questionable than ever.
M I C H A E L W E R N E R G A L L E RY 2 2 U P P E R B R O O K S T. L O N D O N W 1 M I C H A E LW E R N E R . C O M
Editor in Chief: Publisher:
LINDSAY POLLOCK CYNTHIA ZABEL
Editors Emeriti:
LUCY LIPPARD, LINDA NOCHLIN,
IRVING SANDLER PRINTED IN USA
CINDY SHERMAN
ONCE UPON A TIME, 1981 2011
CO-CURATED BY PHILIPPE SGALOT
M NUCHIN GA LLERY
45 EAST 78 STREET NEW YORK, NY 10075 T: +1 212.861.0020 MNUCHINGALLERY.COM
Cindy Sherman, Untitled #216, 1989, installed at Mnuchin Gallery. Artwork 2017 Cindy Sherman. Courtesy the artist and Metro Pictures, New York. Photo: Tom Powel Imaging
OPENING LONDON
MAY-JUNE 2017
37 DOVER STREET, W1
12 APRIL 2017
Ivn Argote As Far As We Could Get (still), 2017. Video HD
IVN AR G OTE AYA TAKAN O TATIANA TR OUV J E S S E M OCK R I N I NAU G U R ATI O N S P R I N G 2017
I N F OR MATI ON
FI CTI ON PU B LI CITE
16 MAR C H - 13 MAY
Editors Letter
Turning to this months issue, we have a trio of
articles considering the intersection of art and religion.
Glenn Adamson examines a fiber art commission cur-
rently installed in the nave of a Seattle cathedral. The
work by Josh Faught interweaves themes of gay identity,
craft, and kitsch. Stepping back to the sixteenth century,
Christopher P. Heuer discusses several extraordinary
exhibitions that focused on German art and artifacts
linked to theologian Martin Luther. Five hundred years
ago Luther posted a list of grievances on a church door,
or so the legend goes. Examples of Reformation art,
including prints, altarpieces, and sculpturesas well as
requisite Cranach paintingswere presented at the
Minneapolis Institute of Art and the Morgan Library &
Museum in New York. Eleanor Heartney considers
Martin Scorseses latest film, Silence, which presents a
nuanced look at religious oppression and spiritual com-
plexity in seventeenth-century Japan. In the same article,
she examines artistic censorship in relation to Edwina
Sandyss female Christ figure, shown in a 1984 exhibition
at the New York Cathedral of St. John the Divine.
Two articles on recent painting exhibitions
consider the brushstroke as a form of writing. Rich-
David Reed at his exhibition at Susan Caldwell Gallery, ard Kalina visited a major Cy Twombly retrospective
New York, 1975. Photo Lisa Kahane.
at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. Raphael
Rubinstein discusses a new exhibition of David Reeds
EARLIER THIS YEAR, when winters gloom settled groundbreaking 1975 Brushstroke paintings, curated by
over New York, I spent several blue-sky days in Phoenix, Katy Siegel and Christopher Wool.
speaking with local artists, curators, and museum direc- Anicka Yi created this months cover, which
tors. There I witnessed the same conditions found in addresses topics including odor, class, and race. These
many parts of the country: a diverse array of visual arts issues will be at the heart of her solo exhibition open-
institutions and museums, energetic and serious artists, ing later this month at the Solomon R. Guggenheim
well-intentioned curators and directors, and very little art Museum in New York. In an interview with Ross
criticism. Recently in Seattle, Jen Graves, a respected and Simonini, Yi talks about her interest in science and
stalwart art critic writing for an alternative paper (the last her relatively late attraction to art-making. The figure
such writer in town) called it quits. on the cover, one of the ubiquitous trash pickers found
Whats going on? Traditional publishing business in downtown Manhattan, appears as if standing on a
models are crumbling, and local newspapers are getting microscope slide, literalizing the way globalization and
clobbered in the race to go digital. Contemporary art technology are making human beings feel like subjects
resources are being spent on prizes, collections, social in a giant involuntary science experiment.
climbing, and all manner of self-indulgent projects,
rather than on art writing. And, you may ask, whats
happening to veteran art writers around the country
who now lack outlets for their work? Most discouraging
about all this is that there seems to be little action to
remedy the situation. LINDSAY POLLOCK
14 APRIL 2017
M A R I A N N E B O E S K Y G A L L E R Y
BOESKY GALLERY
50 9 We s t 2 4 t h S t r e e t
T H I AG O R O C H A P I T TA
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G O L D E N S TAT E
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L AR RY BE LL
T h r o u g h A p r i l 16, 2 017
212.680.9889 b o e s k y g a l l e r y. c o m
APRIL 8 TO MAY 20, 2017
LIAM GILLICK
MAAG AREAL
KAREN KILIMNIK
LWENBRU AREAL
TAMUNA SIRBILADZE
LWENBRU AREAL
HANS HOFMANN
THE POST-WAR YEARS: 1945 1946
23 March 22 April 2017
ART IN AMERICA 21
FIRST LOOK
View of Rafa
Esparzas
performance
i have never been
here before, 2015.
Courtesy LACE
(Los Angeles
Contemporary
Exhibitions). Photo
Betsy Winchell.
Rafa Esparza
by Erick Lyle
THE HISTORICALLY sensitive site-specific installations in the middle of the crowded street while a collaborator
and performances made by Rafa Esparza in his native Los threw lit firecrackers at his face, which was protected only by
Angeles contest the citys official booster narratives, reveal- a layer of freshly applied plaster. Esparzas work is under-
ing various submerged community traumas, rituals, and his- girded by deeply personal meditations on masculinity, race,
tories obscured by redevelopment. In recent years, the artist Latino family tradition, and sexualitythemes that coalesce
has transformed the interior of the nonprofit LACEs white most powerfully in an ongoing collaboration between the
cube gallery on Hollywood Boulevard into that of an adobe artist and his father. The two had a falling out when Esparza CURRENTLY
ON VIEW
hut and created a temporary public sauna on the former site came out as queer. In an effort to mend the relationship,
Work by Rafa
of an East LA bathhouse popular among closeted gay men. Esparza asked his father to teach him how to fabricate the Esparza in the
In 2013 Esparza staged a street performance in Chinatown earthen bricks that he had made as a young laborer in rural Whitney Biennial,
Whitney Museum
near the site of the Chinese Massacre of 1871the larg- Mexico. Since 2011, these bricks, which the two make by
of American Art,
est lynching in US historyconnecting old racial conflicts hand from a mixture of dirt, dung, and water from the Los New York, through
to the frictions now generated by the gentrification of the Angeles River, have become a recurring fixture of Esparzas June 11.
area, particularly the emergence of galleries there. In an performances and increasingly ambitious installations.
era marked by the ubiquity of creative placemakingthe The artist has used more than three thousand bricks ERICK LYLE is
top-down rebranding of low-rent neighborhoods as arts to make an immersive installation for the Whitney Bien- the editor of SCAM
magazine and the
districtsEsparzas ephemeral memorials set in motion a nialan adobe room hung with works by his friends and
author of Streetopia
kind of place unmaking. collaborators, where he hosts performances. Esparza said in (2015).
Esparzas works layer local history and bodily memory, an interview that the work intervenes in the westward flow
often prompting a frisson when the artist puts himself in of European colonialization. By bringing earth from Los
physical danger. The Chinatown performance, for instance, Angeles to New York, he attempts to unmake the traditional
ended with Esparza lying on his back with his arms bound, from-New-York-outward narrative of US art history.
ART IN AMERICA 23
Urs Fischer Urs Fischers work is anchored in the body and
RUGLQDU\ ULWXDO EXW LV DOVR OOHG ZLWK DOOXVLRQV WR
imaginary realms and a sense of the fantastical.
With over 30 works installed throughout 10
galleries, he creates a sprawling tableau that
posits our negotiation of the world as a process
LQ FRQVWDQW X[
$35,/-8/<
Urs Fischer, Snail Crossing Helmet, 2016, Cast bronze, cast stainless steel, oil paint
11 1/2 x 9 5/8 x 12 1/2 in. (29.2 x 24.4 x 31.8 cm).Edition of 2 & 2 AP
Courtesy of the artist and Gagosian Gallery; Sadie Coles HQ, London; and Massimo De
Carlo, Milan. Photo: Mats Nordman.
Paintings from 1956 to 1999
Bernard Buffet, La plage, 1956, oil on canvas, 114 x 195 cm 2017 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
PA L M S P R I N G S A R T M U S E U M
O N T H E G R I D : A LO O K AT
S E T T L E M E N T PAT T E R N S I N
THE HIGH DESERT
T H R O U G H M AY 2 5
G A L E N F I R S T F R I DAY:
D E S E R T X PA R T Y
APRIL 7
psmuseum.org | desertx.org
PERFORMANCE
Tehching
Hsieh:One Year
Performance 1981
1982, New York.
Courtesy Gilbert
and Lila Silverman
Collection, Detroit,
and Sean Kelly,
New York.
Time Out
by Travis Jeppesen
THE WINTER OF 198182 was one of the coldest on your fellow humansnegligent passersby, street thugs, police
record for New York City. In the fall, Tehching Hsieh, a officers, and property owners whose patience your very
then little-known performance artist and an illegal immi- presence tests. The threat of annihilation is very real, though OPENING
grant from Taiwan, had declared that he would not take most often you are simply asked to move onto keep mov- SOON
shelter for an entire year. So throughout that winter, in the ing when there really is no other place to go. Tehching Hsiehs
exhibition Doing
freezing cold, Hsieh could often be spotted on the streets Outdoor Piece could be read as a dramatization of Time, at the
of SoHo warming his hands over a fire. The only thing Hsiehs immigration status in New York, in all of America, Taiwanese pavilion,
separating him from a typical homeless person was a sign at the time. He was an undocumented alien, a stateless person. Palazzo delle
Prigioni, Venice
hanging from his knapsack, specifying the rules of the And when you have no nation to call your own, you have Biennale, May 13
performance that he had embarked upon. For Outdoor the burden of freedom to contend with: your home is essen- Nov. 26.
Piece,1 he forbade himself to enter any building, subway, tially anywhere, everywhere. You are left to wanderand
train, car, airplane, ship, cave, tent from September 26, 1981, to do little else. TRAVIS JEPPESEN
to September 26, 1982. Taiwan, a country that is not currently recognized by is a writer and artist
Surrendering to the natural elements for a prolonged the United States or most other nations, is the place he living in Berlin.
period makes one, in effect, an animal. The problem is that ran away from, at a time when it was a military dictator-
youre still in human form and thus vulnerable not only to ship. Hsieh trained as a merchant sailor, jumped ship in the
the violence of the elements but also to systematic abuses by Delaware River, and swam to shore.
ART IN AMERICA 27
One Year Performance
19781979, New
York. Courtesy Sean
Kelly. Photo Cheng
Wei Kuong.
www.tefaf.com
Magnolia, 2016, oil on linen, 60 x 82 inches
BRIAN RUTENBERG
L O W C O U N T R Y: N E W PA I N T I N G S
475 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10022 (212) 355 4545 forumgallery.com
Forum Gallery exhibits at Art Market San Francisco, April 27 30, 2017
at the Fort Mason Center Festival Pavilion, 2 Marina Blvd, San Francisco, CA 94123
SIGHTLINES
FAIR TRADE
Monoblock, a 1971 piece by Mexican
multidisciplinary artist Juan Jos Gurrola
(19352007), responds to the 1923 Bucareli
Treaty. The treaty purported to compensate
US businesses for property damages caused
by the Mexican Revolution. A common
belief in Mexico is that the document
prohibited the production of specialized
machinery, like the titular car engine part,
hindering the countrys economic growth.
Photos: Esparza Chong Cuy: Camila Cossio; Barragn: June Canedo; Latinx Summit: Maria Fernanda Molins; Begley: courtesy Field of Vision, New York.
Jos Esparza
Barragn: Spring/Summer 2017
campaign. performance with the monoblock inside an
industrial fridge, seems especially relevant.
BRAND NAME
Gender-bending Mexican
designer Victor Barragn,
Chong Cuy
who lives and works
in New York, recently
The curator shares ve recent
rebranded his acclaimed insights with Ross Simonini.
underground label
YtinifninfinitY as simply Jos Esparza Chong Cuy spoke to me from Mexico
Barragn. Taking inspira- City, where he was preparing the second installment of
tion from the internet and the exhibition series Pasajeros (Passengers), which
early 2000s culture, this he co-created while associate curator at the Museo
forward-thinking fashion Jumex. The series highlights historical figures who left
house is paving the way for an indelible mark on the citys artistic culture. Esparza
many Mexican designers. holds a masters degree in critical, curatorial, and
Lechuga Zafiro performing at the Latinx Summit,
2016. Courtesy N.A.A.F.I, Mexico City. conceptual practices in architecture from Columbia
University, New York; this iteration of Pasajeros
SONGS OF SOLIDARITY focuses on architecture critic Esther McCoy.
ART OF THE Last summer the Mexico Citybased Esparza, a strong proponent of Latin-American
EVERYDAY music collective and record label culture, recently joined the Museum of Contempo-
Originally organized by N.A.A.F.I launched its first-ever Latinx rary Art, Chicago, as associate curator. His curatorial
Lina Bo Bardi at the Museo Summit, a festival presenting some of debut here (Apr. 15Aug. 20) is the first US museum
de Arte de So Paulo during the most boundary-pushing musical acts
exhibition for Tania Prez Crdova, a sculptor and
its opening program of in Latin America. The daylong con-
performance artist from Mexico. Her sculptures are
exhibitions in 1969, A mo cert showcased acts like Mexicos Lao,
very much alive, Esparza said. Shes really trying
do povo brasileiro (The Uruguays Lechuga Zafiro, and Chiles
to position the viewer in another persons shoes.
Hand of the Brazilian Peo- IMAABS in a strong display of pan-
Now more than ever, its important that we think of
ple) was recently restaged American solidarity.
at MASP through the other people as ourselves.
curatorial efforts of Adriano
Pedrosa, Julieta Gonzlez,
and Tomas Toledo. With UP AGAINST THE WALL
over one thousand craft and Josh Begleys short film Best of Luck With the Wall went
folk art items, the show is a viral on social media a few months ago. Edited with
testament to the countrys Laura Poitras and her team at Field of Vision, the
rich and diverse culture, film is an eye-opening visual essay composed of two
recalling a Brazil that is now hundred thousand satellite images from along the US-
hard to find. Mexico border, emphasizing the complicated nature of
the Trump administrations plan to build a wall there.
Josh Begley: Best of Luck With the Wall, 2016, video, 7 minutes.
ART IN AMERICA 35
ANIMAL
FARM
Thaier Helal: A
Political Map of the
World, 2013, mixed
mediums on canvas,
67 by 134 inches.
by Rahel Aima
ON JANUARY 27, barely a week into his presidency, One measure of this uncertainty can be found in the citys
Donald Trump signed an executive order that temporarily relatively young and highly cosmopolitan art world. Many
barred nationals of seven Muslim-majority countries from of Dubais most important galleries specialize in Iranian or
entering the United States. The immediate ramifications Arab art, and their staffers hail from blacklisted nations.
were catastrophic for refugees in transit, travelers holding I reached out to some of the citys leading dealers to inquire
valid visas, and, initially, even green-card holders, who sud- about their perceptions of this hostile mood in the US, a CURRENTLY
denly found themselves cut off from the American lives country that had, in recent years, become a key destination ON VIEW
Rebel, Jester, Mystic,
they had built. According to The Guardian, some people for sales despite the expense and difficulty of traveling there.
Poet: Contemporary
who had merely visited the seven banned countries were It became clear from these conversations that the Persians, at the
detained at the border. The executive order was quickly ban jeopardized whatever attraction the American art world Aga Khan Museum,
Toronto, through
dubbed the Muslim ban. might have held for Dubai-based artists and dealers.
June 4.
As of this writing, the Muslim ban appears to have Mexican-Lebanese curator Maymanah Farhat, artistic
stalled in court, but it is likely that the coming months will director of Ayyam Gallery, which has a program of modern RAHEL AIMA
is a writer based in
see the implementation of a similar edict, albeit one that is and contemporary Syrian art, anticipated that the Trump
Dubai.
less openly discriminatory and more legally sound. Whatever era would be sure to shift the dynamics of the international
the ultimate fate of the ban, the episode points to a broader art world. She predicted that the USs role as an influential
shift in how the US is perceived in the Middle East. center will diminish in the next four years, derailing the recent
In Dubai, a global city thats home to many citizens of attempts of its art fairs and museums to be more inclusive.
the banned countries, the news set off a series of aftershocks While there are more than fifty galleries operating in
that left behind a low rumble of anxiety and uncertainty. Dubai, only about eight, all clustered in and around Alserkal
ART IN AMERICA 37
Mohannad Orabi:
Untitled,from the
Family Portrait
series,2014,
mixed mediums on
canvas,55 by 78
inches. Courtesy
Ayyam Gallery.
The Muslim ban jeopardized Mounir Fatmi (Morocco), Nadia Kaabi-Linke (Tunisia), and
Farhad Ahrarnia (Iran)prominent figures who now live
whatever attraction the American and work in European capitals. Yet gallery workers rarely
enjoy the same global mobility as senior staff. As Farhat
art world might have held for explained, because her staff is mostly Syrian, the ban makes
Dubai-based artists and dealers. working in the US virtually impossible.
In truth, its never been easy for Syrians, Iraqis, or Iranians
to obtain US visas, and Trumps effort can be understood as an
Avenue, have strong ties outside the region. Most of these intensification of long-standing policies. A 2015 change in visa
market work by artists from the Middle East to collectors and procedures, introduced by the Obama administration, mandated
institutions around the region and in Western Europe. Still, that any visitor to the US who has visited one of the seven
this ban comes at a time when Dubai galleries are making countries subsequently included in Trumps ban had to apply for
inroads into US markets. In the days during which the ban a visa in advance and face heightened scrutiny at the border. The
was in effect, dealers postponed trips to the US and fretted prospect of confronting additional hurdles to entering the US
about whether they would be able to participate in upcoming already an arduous processhad a chilling effect on regional
American fairs. Some of their artists missed their own openings travel. Dont forget we do go to Iran, cautioned Iraqi-British
abroad for fear of not being able to return to their homes in the Asmaa Al-Shabibi, who directs the Lawrie Shabibi gallery. We
US. Shahpour Pouyan, an Iranian who is based in New York have to do studio visits there because we have artists there.
and is represented by Dubais Lawrie Shabibi, did not travel Other barriers to the American art world also predate
to Toronto for the Aga Khan Museums Rebel, Jester, Mystic, the Trump ban. Artists and gallerists described the regional
Poet: Contemporary Persians, which opened in February. biases, reinforced by market imperatives, that have long
While the casual cruelty of the ban horrified Dubais pervaded the supposedly global art world. Farhat cited an
art scene, the relatively privileged proprietors of the citys informal rule that those hoping to enter the New York mar-
galleries remained mostly insulated from its direct effects. As ket, for example, needed to partner with a local gallery. Its
is common among Dubais moneyed elites, local dealers from a different type of vetting that is equally limiting, she said.
the banned countries generally have second passports from The result is that the American art scene isnt as cosmopoli-
the UK, Canada, or another Western nation. Many of the tan as it claims to be. Al-Shabibi was even more succinct
bigger regional artists represented by Dubai galleries also when asked about the current climate, saying pointedly: Its
reside in Western countries. Lawrie Shabibis roster includes always been America First, hasnt it?
DALLAS | NEW YORK | BEVERLY HILLS | SAN FRANCISCO | CHICAGO | PALM BEACH
PARIS | GENEVA | AMSTERDAM | HONG KONG
Julio Valdez
Dreams & Reflections
New Paintings
Portal_Ranch.txt
by Ian Cheng
I KEEP A running list of quotes, aphorisms, and phrases on Art = playing with the human nervous system from the
my iPhone Notes app. I call them portals. The only require- outside in
ment is that each portal is short. Ease of recall is key because [Ive come to believe that art is really the art of hacking the
it is the feeling of ease that lets me begin to play freely with human nervous system, and composing with its sensations
the ideas that each portal contains. It is a way to trick the brain and feelings. This is the implicit agreement between a viewer
into hoarding complexities. I constantly reshuffle portals to and an artist. Once a viewers limbic system is engaged, the
reflect how Im feeling in my life and my work. Sometimes I artist can portal in almost any content or argument. But what
make up portals or misattribute them. Nothing is sacred here argument is worth making? And what composition of nerves
CURRENTLY
ON VIEW
except for the routine of tending to them like a rancher. Over needs to be touched right now? And what container form
Ian Chengs solo time, I can see which portals endure as centers of gravity, and does the artist devise to hold all this? Perhaps together, these
exhibition, at which portals were actually just fast-food energy. Its a live, qualities can be deployed to touch something beyond our
MoMA PS1,
New York, through
ongoing process. Whatever the current order of the list is, thats human nature, to allow us to exercise stretching outside of
Sept. 25. the story of now. Theres a saying that you are the average of ourselves.]
the five people you spend the most time with. In the always
unpredictable future, I believe your sense of agency is the emissary
IAN CHENG
is an artist based average of the portals you keep. [Ive named several recent works after this word. It comes
in New York. See
from the title of the book The Master and His Emissary, by
Contributors page.
Take a routine, interrupt it Iain McGilchrist. I think of an emissary as an organism who
[From Keith Johnstone, on improvising a story. Also applies attempts to stretch the container of itself, however foolish. It
to imagining new forms as the accumulation of mutations on is the figure who is navigating between unraveling old reali-
familiar forms: smart house. self-driving car. three-parent baby.] ties and emerging weird ones.]
42 APRIL 2017
E3 Live Brain-On + Concentrace mineral supplement
[I met a 70-year-old author who looked 45, in great shape and
great wit. This is the magic he recommended alongside regular
exercise and no sugar or dairy.]
ART IN AMERICA 43
S H E L LY M A L K I N
O F PA R A D I S E , S TO R M S & B U T T E R F L I E S
Rodrigues (Andrew
Garfield) stepping
on a fumie in Martin
Scorseses Silence,
2016. Courtesy
Paramount Pictures,
SharpSword Films,
and Al Films. Photo
Kerry Brown.
Varieties of Faith
by Eleanor Heartney
IN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY Japan, officials of the The fumie lie at the heart of Martin Scorseses new film,
Tokugawa regime forced Christians to renounce their faith by Silence, a faithful adaptation of a 1966 novel of the same name by
stepping on a fumiea bronze tile bearing a relief image of Jesus or Shsaku End. Both the book and the film recount the tribula-
Mary. The Tokugawa shogunates suppression of Western religion, tions of two Portuguese Jesuits, fathers Sebastian Rodrigues and
part of a broad policy aimed at isolating Japan from foreign influ- Francisco Garupe, who travel to Japan in 1638 to search for their
ence during the era of European colonialism, was largely successful. mentor, father Cristvo Ferreira, who has reportedly recanted his
Today, only about 1 percent of the Japanese population identify as faith by stepping on a fumie. After witnessing the persecution of
practicing Christians. Many of the surviving fumie are on display at members of Japans underground Christian communities, the pro-
ELEANOR
the Tokyo National Museum, their softly rounded edges attesting tagonist, father Rodrigues, also steps on a fumie to prevent further HEARTNEY is a
to the thousands of feet pressed on them during the 250 years of torture of the ragtag flock to whom he has been ministering. writer and critic based
in New York.
religious persecution initiated by the Tokugawa. Based on a true story (the epilogue to Ends Silence includes
A fumie is a peculiar kind of iconan anti-icon, reallycre- an eyewitness report by Dutch traders about the fate of the priests
ated by nonbelievers to trap the faithful. Its spiritual significance on whom the novel is based), the book sparked controversy when it
for the missionaries and their followers is thus divorced from the was first published. Japanese Christians condemned it, questioning
motivations of those who created it. The fumie offer both an image the novels focus on the foreigners who disavowed their faith rather
of Christian faith and a test of belief in the face of a hostile culture. than the Japanese martyrs who died for theirs. But while Chris-
Because they embody this fundamental tension, these reliefs, pro- tians boycotted the book, young leftists took it up as a metaphor
duced centuries ago, offer a touchstone for contemporary artistic for the political repression of Marxism in postwar Japan, helping to
reflections on religious experience. make Silence a bestseller.1
ART IN AMERICA 47
For Scorsese, Ends Silence At first, in scenes of torture and compulsion, the signifi-
cance of the fumie appears to derive from the belief among
reveals arts ability to express the Japanese Christians that they are a physical embodiment of
divine authority. However, End leads us to understand that,
ambiguities of lived religion. in fact, the real power of the fumie is in their message of mercy
and forgiveness. At a crucial moment when the Inquisitor
demands that Rodrigues step on the depiction of Christ, God
breaks his silence and the priest hears the figure depicted on
the relief calling to him: Trample! It was to be trampled on
by men that I was born into this world. It was to share mens
pain that I carried my cross.4 Rodrigues complies, making an
outward renunciation of faith in order to save the converts from
being tortured in his stead.
For Scorsese, Ends Silence reveals arts ability to express
the ambiguities of lived religion in ways that elude official
dogmaa key theme he also explored in Last Temptation.5
Is Rodrigues still a Christian even though he has officially
renounced his faith? Novel and film both suggest that he holds
true to his faith in his heart even as he assists the Tokugawa in
rooting Christianity out of the culture.
In an afterword to Approaching Silence, a recent scholarly book
about the legacy of Ends Silence, Scorsese remarks that the novel
confronts the mystery of Christian faith and, by extension, the
mystery of faith itself. Rodrigues learns, one painful step at a time,
Rodrigues and Martin Scorsese read the book in 1989 while flying to Japan that Gods love is more mysterious than he knows, that he leaves
Mokichi (Shinya
Tsukamoto) to work with Akira Kurosawa on his last film, Dreams (1990). much more to the ways of men than we realize, and that he is
in Silence, Scorsese was then mired in controversy over The Last Temptation always present . . . even in his silence.6
2016. Courtesy
of Christ (1988), his adaptation of Nikos Kazantzakiss 1960 novel
Paramount Pictures,
SharpSword about Jesuss all-too-human struggles with fear, doubt, depression,
Films, and Al Films. reluctance, and lust. Scorsese was deeply touched by Silences por-
Photo Kerry Brown.
trayal of the tension between belief and doubt, and for twenty-five
years he attempted to produce a film based on the narrative.2
The movie has garnered mixed reviews, some of which echo
the initial reactions to Ends novel by challenging Scorseses
focus on apostate outsiders engaged in an imperialist project
rather than on the struggles of Japanese people. But instead of
simply decrying colonial oppression, the film takes on the much
trickier subject of compromised faith within the context of geo-
political and cultural power struggles. The Japanese authorities,
A 17th-century brass despite their brilliantly orchestrated cruelty, elicit sympathy. They
fumie, approx. 7
by 5 by 1 inches. defend the traditional Buddhist and Shinto faiths and argue
Tokyo National cogently that the priests have no place in their country. Japanese
Museum. Courtesy
TNM Image leaders accuse the Jesuits of having recklessly placed their follow-
Archives. ers in danger out of an exalted sense of the superiority of Western
culture. Conversely, the priests are driven by their sincerely held
beliefs to undergo incredible hardships but appear ignorant and
closed-minded in their missionary zeal. The absence of clear-cut
distinctions between good and evil has likely contributed to the
films lackluster performance at the box office.
Along with such issues as the universality of faith and the
right of cultures to resist the imposition of alien belief systems,
Silence raises questions about the power of images. In the
novel, a samurai known as the Inquisitor inveigles Rodrigues
to trample on a fumie by insisting that its only a formality,3
while knowing full well that it is much more than that, as the
deaths of Christians who have refused attest.
$EVWUDFW6WUHDP6HULHV!
Shadow II, 1994, Oil on linen, 40 x 60
7KH&RYHUHG$SSOH7UHH6HULHV!
Flurries, 1996, Oil on linen, 36 x 50
6KDGRZV2Q7KH*UDVV6HULHV!
Shadows On The Grass, 1997, Oil on linen, 26 x 36
G O D E L &C O
506 EAST 74TH STREET 4W NEW YORK NY 10021
212-288-7272 WWW.GODELFINEART.COM
Clockwise from
left, Jack Youngerman,
Duncan Youngerman,
Delphine Seyrig, Jerry
Matthews, Dolores
Matthews, Ellsworth
Kelly, Lenore Tawney,
and Robert Indiana,
New York, Feb. 15,
1958. Photo
Agnes Martin.
Snow Day
by Jack Youngerman
AGNES MARTIN TOOK this photo in February 1958, in a on the little platform in front of me and hold on to the handlebars.
little park that separates Coenties Slip from the Seamens Church We did lots of things then that, looking back, I dont approve of.
Institute. My son Duncan was about a year and a half old. I dont We left the building when we were evicted.This coincided
remember organizing anything; the others all came out, I think, with Delphines desire to return to France. So she and Duncan
because they were responsive to the feeling of excitement that went back to Paris and I moved into the Seamens Church Insti- CURRENTLY
ON VIEW
radiated from Duncan. This was his first big snow. At the time, tute for a while, and also briefly lived in #3, where Ellsworth lived. Paintings by Jack
both Agnes and Lenore Tawney lived in the same building on Eventually I was evicted again, and moved to Fulton Street. Youngerman in
Coenties Slip that we did, #27. Bob Indiana came too; he lived My studio was on the attic floor above our loft. I had my first Between Land and
Sea: Artists of the
next door, at #25. Bob must have contacted Ellsworth [Kelly], New York show, at Betty Parsons, while living on Coenties Slip, and Coenties Slip, at the
who also showed up, along with our other neighbors in the build- sold a few things.This was the first time I was able to make a living Menil Collection,
ing, an actor named Jerry Matthews and his wife, Dolores. from my paintings. And I was in Sixteen Americansat MoMA, Houston, Apr. 14
Aug. 6.
My wife, Delphine, and I had returned to New York from with Ellsworth and others. Ellsworths work was of extraordinary
Paris via boat in 1956. Ellsworth met us at the dock. Within a few interest and quality. I was always very impressed by his awareness
days, we visited him in his studio at 3 Coenties Slip. A few months and probity. He was the most impeccable person I knew. JACK
YOUNGERMAN
later, he told us that there was a vacant building down the street; At one point Agnes said that those of us who lived way is an artist based
we moved in, and stayed there for about three years. The heating downtown were smart enough to leave each other alone most of in Bridgehampton,
and bath situation was very primitive and uncomfortable. But we the time, and I think thats true.There wasnt a Cedar Tavern type N.Y.
were young, and thats the way we lived. of atmosphere; those artists were much more sociable and outgoing
We found a public daycare for Duncan near Chinatown. He than we were. We respected everyones need for solitude.
was about two and a half or three, and Id take him there on my
motor scooter. I can scarcely believe it now, but he used to stand As told to Leigh Anne Miller
ART IN AMERICA 55
PHOTOGRAPHY
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ETHERTON GALLERY
135 S. 6th Ave
Tucson, AZ 85701 REN GROEBLI (Switzerland, b. 1927) Eye of Love #532, 1953. Gelatin Silver Print. Paper 19 x 23 inches;
520.624.7370 Image 15 x 22 inches. Edition 6 of 7. Ren Groebli/Courtesy Peter Fetterman Gallery/Santa Monica, CA
info@ethertongallery.com
ethertongallery.com HOWARD GREENBERG L. PARKER STEPHENSON PHOTOGRAPHS
March 29-April 2, 2017: The AIPAD 41 East 57th Street, 1406 764 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10065
Photography Show, Booth #506 New York, NY 10022 212 527 8700
212.334.0010 lparkerstephenson.com
Etherton Gallery has been a desti- info@howardgreenberg.com info@lparkerstephenson.com
nation for photography collectors howardgreenberg.com
since 1981and is known for its exten- L. Parker Stephenson Photographs is a
sive and ever-changing inventory of April 6- May 20: The Mechanisms of Expression, Vera New York based gallery specializing in
vintage and contemporary photog- Lutter + Otto Steinert; Judy Glickman Lauder (HGG2) avant-garde and classic photographs
raphy and supporting photogra- Opening reception: Thursday, April 6, 6-8 of the 20th century. The Gallery also
phers advancing the medium in new represents a select number of contem-
and compelling ways. porary artists whose work is inspired by
STEVEN KASHER GALLERY these traditions.
Exhibiting works by: Ansel Adams, 515 West 26th Street
David Emitt Adams, Diane Arbus, New York, NY 10001
Roger Ballen, Manuel lvarez Bravo, t: 212 966 3978 STALEY-WISE GALLERY
Harry Callahan, Ted Croner, Walker f: 212 226 1485 560 Broadway
Evans, Robert Frank, Lee Friedlander, stevenkasher.com Suite 305
Emmet Gowin, Mark Klett, Danny info@stevenkasher.com New York, NY 10012
Lyon, Ray Metzker, Richard Misrach, 212.966.6223
The Photography Show presented by AIPAD featur-
Nicholas Nixon, Frederick Sommer, photo@staleywise.com
ing works by:
Garry Winogrand, Joel-Peter Witkin staleywise.com
Jules Allen, Jill Freedman, Marianna Rothen, Diane
Through May 31: Color Theory: Arbus, Phyllis Galembo, Ruddy Roye, Teju Cole, Lyle
For April: Women Photographers
Kate Breakey, Andy Burgess, Gail Ashton Harris, Lucien Samaha, Martha Cooper, Lou-
Including Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Toni
Marcus-Orlen ise Lawler, Accra Shepp, Jimmy DeSana, Olivia Locher,
Frissell, Deborah Turbeville, Ellen von
Summer, 2017: Danny Lyon Ming Smith, Wendy Ewald, Vivian Maier, Mickalene
Unwerth, and Sheila Metzner. Coming in
Thomas, Leonard Freed, Marilyn Minter, Andy Warhol.
May, Deborah Turbeville for Comme des
PETER FETTERMAN GALLERY Garons.
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March 4- April 29: Stephen Wilkes, Ellis March 9 May 6: Rosie Camanga: Rose Tattoo
Island: Ghosts of Freedom. Opening reception: March 9, 6-8
Sequita
2017 Carrara Marble 34 by 36 by 18 inches
RichardErdman.com
BIENNALE OF A platform to explore the ever-shifting
territories of the moving image in
MOVING IMAGES contemporary art by highlighting artists
from around the world working in
COMING SOON IN SPRING 2017 performance, video and lm.
FAENA FORUM MIAMI BEACH
FAENA ART CENTER BUENOS AIRES Curated by Andrea Bellini, in collaboration with Caroline
Bourgeois, Cecilia Alemani and Elvira Dyangani Ose.
For more information please visit
www.faenaart.org
BOOKS
Louise Nevelson
and Bobby Giza
working on a
metal sculpture at
Lippincott, Inc.,
North Haven,
Conn., 1975. Photo
Roxanne Everett.
Inventing Nevelson
by Christina Rosenberger
LAURIE WILSON In Louise Nevelson: Light and Shadow, Wilson maps Nevelsons
art onto this complicated personal history. As an art historian
Louise Nevelson: and psychoanalyst, the author probes into her subjects inner life,
Light and Shadow especially the conscious and unconscious themes that animate the
New York, Thames & Hudson, 2016; 506 pages, 98 black-and-white illustrations, artwork. Nevelson offers ample material in this regard, but Wilsons
$39.95 hardcover.
psychological insights distract from her larger portrait of the artist.
Laurie Wilson notes early in her new chronicle of Louise Nevel- Was Nevelsons intense productivity in terra-cotta in the late 1940s
sons life that the artist was shameless about constructing aspects and early 1950s, for example, an attempt at replacing the missing
of her biography. Having arrived in the US as a child of five and people in her life and her multiple disappointments with masses of CHRISTINA
a half, Nevelson (18991988) often rearranged, revised, or simply three-dimensional objects? Or was the rapid production of similar ROSENBERGER
is an art historian
left out aspects of her personal story, beginning with her age and objects, as with her later wooden boxes, Nevelsons way of working who lives in
her birthplace. (She reasoned that American audiences would through an idea or testing a new medium? This is a methodological Albuquerque. See
recognize Kiev, not Pereyaslav.) The artist compounded these issue: Wilson, characterizing Nevelson as motivated by Freudian Contributors page.
fantasies with elaborate outfits: floor-length sable coats worn impulses, argues for the primacy of the personal meanings underly-
over antique Japanese kimonos topped with flattened beer-can ing the sculptures. Her approach is complicated by Nevelsons
pendants, silk headscarves, and layers of false eyelashes, which she reliance on performance and deliberate obfuscation, and downplays
glued together herself. Wilson warns that if we need to know the artists considerable aesthetic agency.
the whole truth and nothing but the truth, we shall be alter- Through Nevelsons intuitive eye, common objects transcend
nately irritated, confused, or severely disappointed. And so, one their functions as toilet seats or door handles to become compelling
wonders, why waste time trying to discern between myth and works of art. Of course the material is wood, she said. Of course
factespecially when the performance is so beguiling? its black. And of course its sculpture. But those are the mechanics!
ART IN AMERICA 59
Nevelsons sculptures individually because there wasnt room; Wilson
estimates that there were nine hundred works of art stored in Nevel-
sons Thirtieth Street townhouse. (A photograph in the book shows
sculptures stored in the bathroom.)
Part of Nevelsons genius, at a time before seriality and modular
units became the rage, was the way in which her wooden boxes
could be reused and reconfigured at willexasperating collectors,
curators, and dealers, but providing Nevelson with a fluid inven-
tory of parts for expressing her artistic vision. When there was a
problem shipping her sculpture to the 1962 Venice Biennale for
the group show in the American pavilion, Nevelson and curator
Dorothy Miller cannibalized pieces from an exhibition traveling in
Europe and made a new work. Such practicality is one of Wilsons
most surprising discoveries. Nevelsons famous headscarves? The
artist didnt want to waste time in the beauty parlor. Ditto the
kitchen. And all those early terra-cotta sculptures? Artist friend
Anna Walinska recalled, Louise said simply and frankly, Ill flood
the market with my work until they know Im here.
Louise Nevelsons When you look at a Rolls Royce, a Silver Cloud, you dont say, Oh, Wilson concludes that Nevelsons struggles for recognition
son, Mike Nevelson,
installing her theyve got guts to make em run. You say, Isnt the Silver Cloud made her legendary egotism justifiable. This is a sticky issue.
sculpture Sky great?1 The artist, who began using found wood in the 1940s after Nevelsons provocative persona was intended to call attention
Cathedral at the
Thorndike Hotel,
taking classes at the Art Students League in New York, traveling to herselfand thus to her artin a male-dominated culture, a
Rockland, Me., to Munich and Paris, and assisting Diego Rivera, saw her work as strategy that Wilson believes only partially succeeded. But Wil-
1959. Photo James distinct from the metal sculptures of artists like Alexander Calder son, in her sympathy for her subject, sets biographical objectivity
Moore.
and David Smith. In a 2007 essay, Brooke Rapaport notes that aside, excusing Nevelson for startling lapses in basic responsibil-
Nevelson was motivated by historical circumstances: metal was itymost notably, abandoning her young son Myron (Mike) for
rationed during World War II.2 She preferred the availability and long periods. I was always most interested in what I could do
economy of found wood, which Robert Indiana, Jasper Johns, and for myself, Nevelson said. I wont do anything for anyone else.
Robert Rauschenberg soon embraced as well. One of my complaints is that I never have been selfish enough.
Wilson has a long history with Nevelson, having interviewed Likewise, Wilsons claim that Nevelson was the only woman
the artist for her dissertation many times between 1975 and artist of her time to succeed without the help of a famous or
1977, and having contributed short commentaries to the cata- powerful mate rings hollow. At various times, Nevelson relied
logue for the 1980 Nevelson exhibition at the Whitney Museum upon the financial support of her husband, businessman Charles
of American Art in New York. Wilson showed these entries to Nevelson, whom she married in 1920 and divorced in 1941, as
Nevelson, who rejected her interpretationswhy she did this well as an allowance from her family, and even on her sons sal-
work, and how it was related to mourning and her feelings about ary from the Merchant Marine during the Second World War.
marriage. The author revised her texts, calling the exchange my (Her brother Nate Berliawskys largesse included a brownstone
lesson in censorship.3 in Manhattan, a gift that Nevelson took in stride.) By compari-
son, the artist Agnes Martin, roughly Nevelsons contemporary,
LIGHT AND SHADOW, then, is Wilsons response, unfettered had no such assistance.
by the dictates of a living artist and amplified by a career as Beginning in March 1959, Nevelsons family allowance was
a practicing psychoanalyst. Numerous interviews, conducted replaced by a $20,000 annual stipend from Martha Jackson, set-
with a wide range of sources, are the books strength. Wilson is ting up a pattern whereby Nevelsons dealers would support her
forthright about how her take on Nevelson has changed in the art and her lifestyle. After a disastrous affiliation with Sidney Janis
forty years between her first graduate school conversations with that included a single unsuccessful exhibition, negative reviews,
the artist, moving from antipathy toward Nevelsons selfish, and, ultimately, a legal battle to regain control of her work, the artist
grandiose behavior to sympathy with her plight as a female art- landed in 1963 with the young dealer Arnold Glimcher, founder of
ist trying to make it in the macho culture of postwar New York. Pace Gallery. It was a match made in art world heaven: Glimcher
One of the revelations of Wilsons volume is how hard Nevel- sent Nevelson to designer Arnold Scaasi, who sewed fur linings into
son worked to produce art and to have that art recognized. (When her clothing, and Nevelson let Glimcher guide her career.5 In one
a museum director showed up ten minutes late for an appointment of the most illuminating parts of the book, Wilson describes how
Nevelson snapped, I think youre thirty years late for my work.4) Glimchers backing allowed for the later phase of Nevelsons work
Consumed with her art-making, Nevelson had a basement full of the monumental metal sculptures and the grand public commissions.
sculpture when, in 1941, New York dealer Karl Nierendorf offered Wilson also notes the cost of Nevelsons long-awaited fame. In a
to hold her first solo gallery exhibition. Fellow artists marveled at 1989 interview, Mike Nevelson lamented that he couldnt buy his
her productivity. In 1956, Dorothy Dehner couldnt photograph mother the fur coats that Glimcher provided.
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Matisse/Diebenkorn Yayoi Kusama
Edited by Janet Bishop and Infinity Mirrors
Katherine Rothkopf, with Edited by Mika Yoshitake, with
contributions by John Eldereld contributions by Melissa Chiu,
and Jodi Roberts Alexander Dumbadze, Yayoi Kusama,
This sumptuously illustrated book brings Gloria Sutton, and Miwako Tezuka
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CY TWOMBLY
Untitled (Bassano in Teverina), 1985,
oil and acrylic on wood panel, 71
by 71 inches. Cy Twombly
Foundation. Courtesy Archives
Nicola Del Roscio.
ART IN AMERICA 71
Cy Twombly:
Camino Real (V),
2010, acrylic on
wood panel, 99
by 72 inches.
Fondation Louis
Vuitton, Paris.
THE HERE
AND THEN
All artwork this
article Cy Twombly
Foundation. Courtesy
Archives Nicola Del
Roscio.
by Richard Kalina
THE STRENGTH OF memory that is left behind. Those, By the late 50s Twombly had settled in Italy, having married
I was told by a witness, were Cy Twomblys last words. an Italian artist, Baroness Luisa Tatiana Franchetti; they bought
Enigmatic, evocative, open-ended, forceful yet melancholy, a palazzo on the Via di Monserrato in Rome. He stayed in Rome
they seem to be a fitting subtext and coda for the work of a for the most part but also lived and worked in a host of other
great postwar painters painter. Italian locales. His periods of fixed residency were regularly
Twombly, who died in 2011, is the subject of a thorough punctuated by travel to Morocco, Egypt, the Sudan, Yemen,
and sensitive retrospective at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, Iran, Turkey, Greece, Russia, Central Asia, Afghanistan, and in
curated by Jonas Storsve, with the support of the Cy Twombly the winter months to various tropical islands. Del Roscio told
Foundation, its president, Nicola Del Roscio, and Twomblys son, me that Twombly was not the kind of artist who got up every
Alessandro. The 140 or so paintings, drawings, sculptures, and morning and spent eight hours in the studio no matter what.
CURRENTLY photographs on view hit the major developments and periods in His works were nearly formed in his mind before he sat down
ON VIEW the artists career, even if the show does not contain all of his best to paint. Thinking, reading, traveling, remembering, and more
Cy Twombly, at the works. The quality level is consistently high, easily convincing thinkingnot tortuously finding the image, obliterating it, and
Centre Pompidou,
Paris, through Apr. 24. viewers that Twomblys reputation as a perplexing but indispens- then refinding itwas the way he came to his art. That method
able marker of our time is well deserved. makes for a kind of contemplative serenity and a feeling of
The exhibition will not travel, largely because many of remove, of distanced engagement with the work. It serves to set
RICHARD
KALINA is an artist the loans were nearly impossible to obtain. That difficulty par- Twombly apart from the Abstract Expressionists, to whose work
and writer based allels a particular aspect of Twomblys work. You have to make his bears some resemblance, aligning him instead with his friends
in New York. See an effort to come to this art. It doesnt reach out to meet you. Johns and Rauschenberg. (Rauschenberg, whom he met at the
Contributors page.
A certain state of absence, openness, recession, and whiteness Art Students League in 1950, was perhaps his oldest and closest
(verging on erasure) is key to the enterprise. artist friend.) However, more than Johns or Rauschenberg,
Twombly himself could be hard to pin down. Born Twombly was simultaneously able to move beyond and to hold
in Lexington, Virginia, in 1928, he studied in Boston and on to Abstract Expressionism, inserting outside references into
Lexington, at the Art Students League in New York, and at his paintings, yet retaining an obdurate core of abstraction.
Black Mountain College in North Carolina during its heyday His mixing of gestural abstraction and wide-ranging
in the early 1950s.1 He lived at various times in New York, and reference (not the least of which were the many varieties of
early on became part of a group of artists that included Robert handwriting) puts Twombly at the center of debates around
Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. He joined the Leo Castelli painting today. He was both antecedent to and elder contem-
Gallery in 1958 and had his first show there in 1960. He porary of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Julian Schnabel, Brice Marden,
returned to the city frequently, both to visit and to work. Christopher Wool, Chris Martin, Amy Sillman, Jonathan Lasker,
72 APRIL 2017
Volubilis, 1953,
white lead, oil-based
house paint, and
crayon on canvas,
55 by 76 inches.
Menil Collection,
Houston.
Suzanne McClelland, and Dona Nelson, among others, who normally associate with Twomblynever really went away.
create semiotically and formally complex, layered canvases often The artist employed it at various times, for example in the Nine
featuring script and large areas of open space. Furthermore, Discourses on Commodus series; in the 199395 Quattro
Twomblys seemingly casual and unaggressive approach allies Stagioni, a group of paintings based on Nicolas Poussins Four
him with younger informal abstractionists like Richard Tuttle, Seasons (executed at the end of the French artists life); and in
Mary Heilmann, Harriet Korman, and Raoul De Keyser. Twomblys own powerfully graphic final works, the Camino
Real series (201011). These suites add considerable variety
THE POMPIDOU SHOW highlighted three cycles of work, and depth to our understanding of his oeuvre.
each given its own room: Nine Discourses on Commodus (1963), Twomblys more characteristic workopen, loosely sprung,
Fifty Days at Iliam (1978), and Coronation of Sesostris (2000). with large, lightly inhabited, mostly white areas interspersed
These groups of paintings, executed at what the curator considers with scrawled or incised linear elementsbegan in earnest in
to be key points in the artists career, do not necessarily comprise the mid-50s. One of the pictorial assumptions that he (along
Twomblys most important individual works, but they provide an with many other painters) inherited from the Abstract Expres-
opportunity to study his development as an artist. sionists was that scale mattered. Size was especially important
The exhibition starts with four large, roughly surfaced, for Twombly, since it rescued his work from the impression
muscularly gestural black and white paintings from the early of delicacy and tentativeness. His paintings were big from the
50s. The last two, Quarzazat and Volubilis (both 1953), were beginning, allowing for the accumulations of hand gestures to
produced after Twombly returned from a trip to Morocco have both breathing room and a sense of purposeeven if that
with Rauschenberg and the writer Paul Bowles.2 The paintings purpose was not immediately evident. These elements could
are bold and harsh, with strong linear elements that suggest be seen in the white, nearly empty Lexington paintings from
primitive architectural constructions. Twombly soon moved 1959, which were rejected by Castelli because he did not know
away from this assertive, form-creating mark-making, embrac- what they were,3 as well as in the considerably more exuberant,
ing instead quieter compositions with considerably less tonal colorful, and sensual (body parts abound) School of Fontainebleau
contrast. But the big emphatic gesturenot something we (1960), Empire of Flora, and School of Athens (both 1961). The last
three works were painted in Rome, and their titles pay homage to scripts forcefulness or shakiness, its lightness or darkness, and
Rosso Fiorentino, Francesco Primaticcio, Poussin, and Raphael. the degree to which it is visible or obscured by erasure, super-
The paintings seem to echo the large, baroque spaces of the city imposition, or overlay.
Twombly inhabited. Living abroad, working in spacious studios
and surrounded by a complex, historically rich Mediterranean THE EXTREMELY WELL-READ Twombly often employed
culture allowed Twombly the freedom he needed for his art. literary and historical references in his works. He was very keen
Importantly, the scale of Twomblys paintings removed his on poetry, and lines and passages from John Keats, Rainer Maria
abbreviated calligraphic markings, which included handwriting, Rilke, Stphane Mallarm, C.P. Cavafy, Giorgos Seferis, and
scribbled depictions, and pure abstraction, from the realm of Octavio Paz (among many others) regularly appear in them. But
drawing, with its implicit acknowldgement of the papers edges, what seemed to resonate most with Twombly was the world of
and shifted them to the arena of allover painting. He used script ancient Greece and Rome. (His mother once said that when he
to great and varied effect. Writing, as a manifestation of lan- was in kindergarten he repeatedly mentioned that he wished to
guage, has the ability to move freely between different levels of go to Rome.) To involve yourself deeply in the past is to position
abstraction. Twombly played with this, just as he negotiated the your art in the realm of memory, and with that come the distor-
elision between legible and illegible script, exploiting the many tions, lapses, and unexpected connections that memory is prone
ways that handwriting can be regarded as a thing in itselfthe to. Memory is a sort of collage, and plumbing its potential was a
slant and spacing of the letters, the tilt of the word line, the key element of Twomblys working method.
about what people back home thought. He said that he was quite effective on its own. It consists of three quatrefoil-like
the happiest painter around for a couple of years: no one gave shapes rendered in oil paint, oil crayon, and pencil and set
a damn what I did.4 on a glowing white ground. Each shape is about a third the
He returned to Castelli in 1967 with the first of two height of the canvas and the three are centered horizontally
relatively austere series that became known as the Blackboard just above its midpoint. The shield forms are (from left to
paintingswhite wax crayon on grounds of gray industrial right) crimson red for Achilles, purpled gray for Achilless
paint. Some of the works feature looping and Slinky-like beloved (and slain) companion Patroclus, and a ghostly
scrawls, others trace out complex mathematical or drafting white for the Trojan Hector. The color in the shields is a bit
diagrams. All in all, the works were well received. They were a sullied and the paint applicationespecially in the Achil-
better fit with the art of that time, and the often-reproduced les and Patroclus emblemsfeels pressured and frenetic,
paintings continue to look fresh. While they remain among the overall forms barely keeping the marks contained. The
Twomblys most popular and highly valued canvases, in the heroes names are penciled in on a diagonal just outside the
context of the Pompidou show, they feel a bit like outliers. upper left quadrant of each quatrefoil, and there is enough
coarse shading, again most prominent in the Achilles and
THE TEN-PAINTING SERIES Fifty Days at Iliam Patroclus sections, to give the shapes weight and presence.
finds Twombly back in the world of the Greeks. Begun in More than the other paintings in the group, we sense an
the summer of 1977, it is a meditation on the Trojan War emptied-out, funerary qualitya formal, cadenced memori-
as recounted in Alexander Popes early eighteenth-century alizing, an archaic drumbeat of sorts.
English translation of Homers Iliad. The canvases are Twombly repeated the quatrefoil form, which he then
immense, with the largest, Shades of Achilles, Patroclus and overlaid with a square, in three untitled 1985 oil-and-acrylic
Hector, measuring about 10 by 16 feet. That painting, while works on shaped panels. The crisply edged (and completely
being an integral part of the cycle, is relatively simple and symmetrical) painting surfaces allow for a more densely filled
image, and these paintings, executed in shades of deep sap The ten-painting Coronation of Sesostris (2000) is
green cut with creamy white, are among Twomblys most the last major series anchoring the exhibition, although
pictorial works. They recall the late Monet of the Water Lilies to my mind the later Bacchus or Camino Real series
or Joan Mitchells assertive and melancholy paintings from the would have worked as well. According to Thierry Greub,
early 60s, with their large, rounded, dark green forms. There is Twombly based the paintings on the rising and setting of
not the usual empty space in these paintings, and yet there is the sun, inspired both by the story of the Egyptian king
an abundance of cool light and shade, depth and air. They may Sesostris and the mythical journey of the Egyptian sun god
depart from Twomblys typical work, but in this show they act Ra across the skies in his divine boat.5 Incorporating verses
as a kind of self-assured resting place. from Sappho and quotations from American poet Patricia
Overt landscape references recur in Twomblys series Waters that contemplate the death of the ancient gods,
Quattro Stagioni. These four luscious, roughly ten- the Coronation series is more overtly narrative than most
foot-high canvases are painterly and colorful, especially of Twomblys works, dealing explicitly with the cycle of
the green-black, yellow, and white Inverno (winter) and birth and death.
Autumno, with its juicy, dripping reds and purples. (Twom- It is fitting that a man in his seventies would give some
bly would likely have had in mind the annual winegrowers serious thought to the arc of his life and the possibility both
festival in Bassano in Teverina, the municipal region north of its end and of its continuation. It also makes emotional
of Rome where he had a studio and painted these works.) sense that Coronation was started in Italy but shipped to and
1. Although he was born and raised in the South, Twomblys parents were
originally from New England. His father was a coach and the athletic director
at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, and had played profes-
sional baseball for a time. The young Twombly (born Edwin Parker Twombly Jr.)
inherited his nickname Cy from his father, who was called that after the well-
known pitcher Cy Cyclone Young. The Twombly family was a cultured and happy
one, and the young mans artistic pursuits were encouraged.
2. That formative voyage came during the two artists eight-month stay in Europe
and North Africa. Twombly had gotten a travel grant from the Virginia Museum of
Fine Arts in Richmond and invited Rauschenberg along.
3. Paul Winkler (Lex), in Cy Twombly, exh. cat., ed. Jonas Storsve, Paris, Centre
Georges Pompidou, p. 54. This comes from a conversation between Winkler and
The Pompidous dramatic and effective installation of Twombly discussing Leo Castellis initial response to the paintings.
Twomblys sculpturea group of sixteen pieces set on a low, 4. Nicholas Cullinan, Nine Discourses on Commodus, or Cy Twomblys Beautiful
white, stepped pedestal in a room whose wall of windows Fiasco, in Cy Twombly, note 45, p. 87, citing Kirk Varnedoes conversation with
Twombly.
opens onto a spectacular view of the Paris skylineadds to 5. Thierry Greub, Cy Twomblys Antiquities, in Cy Twombly, p. 104.
the power of the works. It imparts a sense of clustering and 6. Kirk Varnedoe, Inscriptions in Arcadia, in Writings on Cy Twombly, ed. Nicola
reiteration, creating charged spaces between the separate Del Roscio, Munich, 2002, p. 27.
7. Cage composed 433 in 1952. He was a teacher at Black Mountain when Twom-
objects. While recalling a display of anthropological arti- bly was there, and served as an inspiration to him.
facts, the Pompidou installation also brings to mind images 8. In a letter from Rauschenberg to Twombly (the text is written in caps) Rauschen-
of Brancusis studio, and cements the sculptures affinity to berg refers to the creation of the white paintings:
by Christopher P. Heuer
IT IS APT that in this American winter of misinformation, modern one, these brilliant exhibitions explored a specific
xenophobia, and false prophetsthis winter of resistance and moment when visual information was not just sloganeering
introspectionexhibitions in New York, Minneapolis, and but work. One doesnt have to believe, as did Hegel, that real
Atlanta revisited the Protestant Reformation.1 This year marks art begins when representation falls apart (zerfllt) in the
CURRENTLY the cinquecentennial of Martin Luthers famous 1517 act of Reformation to be astonished by these shows.
ON VIEW
The Image of a nailing to the door of a church in Wittenberg his 95 Theses, Organized in partnership with German institutions
Fractured Church: a list of complaints against Church abuses. Though historians in Halle, Wittenberg, Gotha, and Berlin, the curatorial
Martin Luther and have come to question whether the dramatic gesture actually framework for both exhibitions, which featured overlap-
the 95 Theses at
500 Years, at Pitts happened, it lingers in popular imagination as the original ping material, foregrounded context. The Minneapolis show
Theology Library, incendiary post, the spark for a schism that has framed in particular mimicked the displays often encountered in
Emory University, worldwide histories of revolution (and reaction) for centuries. Landesmuseen, public institutions less familiar in the United
Atlanta, through
July 7. The actual artistic production of the German Reforma- States than in Europe. The presentation examined a broad
tion erahomely woodcuts, rebuslike paintings, polemical cultural landscape through the lens of both art and history.
medallionsis rarely exhibited outside of northern Europe. Vitrines held riding boots, tankards, daggers, and chalices, as
CHRISTOPHER
P. HEUER directs Lucas Cranach the Elders portraits of choleric humanists are well as woodcuts by Erhard Schn and Hans Baldung. Some
the research and familiar to many. But these panels, with their ultramarine or surprising arguments quietly emerged from the show and the
academic program moss-hued backgrounds, are only part of the story. sumptuous two-volume catalogue produced by the partner-
at the Sterling and
Francine Clark Martin Luther: Art and the Reformation, at the ing museums.2
Art Institute, Minneapolis Institute of Art, and Word and Image: Martin Chief among these arguments was another challenge to
Williamstown, Mass. Luthers Reformation, at the Morgan Library and Museum the hoary characterization of the Reformation as tragoedia
See Contributors
page. in New York, surveyed the material culture of early modern artis, a phrase coined by humanist scholar Erasmus upon wit-
Germany in all its nuance. As far as Reformation art was nessing the fury of Reformation iconoclasts in Basel. Indeed,
concerned, text-heavy altarpieces, crude life-size block prints, at the center of Lutheran faith was not the image of godhead,
and cheap broadsides were the means through which reform- but the Wordan abstraction. Yet, as these important shows
ers created an ideological public that split Christendom authoritatively demonstrate, the visual arts played a key role in
forever. If the idea of art as difficulty rather than decor is a both articulating and refuting Lutheran precepts.
82 APRIL 2017
Erhard Schn
(attributed): The
Devils Bagpipe, ca.
153035, colored
woodcut and
typographic text,
14 by 10 inches.
Unknown German
artist: Fool and
Voppart, ca. 1525,
colored woodcut
and typographic
text, 15 by 11
inches.
MARTIN LUTHER was born in a small mining town in the the Holy Roman Empire and the Spanish Americas, Luther
Harz Mountains in 1483. (He liked to portray his youth as an aus- refused. He was quickly excommunicated by Pope Leo X,
tere one, yet archaeologists have recently unearthed evidence that Medici patron of Raphael. The media war was on.
his family owned an entire block of houses.)3 Luthers upbringing Open letters, rebuttals, pamphlets, satiresdozens of
was unremarkably medieval. He prayed to saints; he mourned which filled the bookish Morgan exhibitionpoured forth
when his brother died from plague; he studied the seven liberal from presses throughout German-speaking Europe. The prints
arts (grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and lampooned Lutheran or Church teachings as heretical. Or they
music), intending to become a lawyer. Luthers life changed in July extolled the salvific merits of the competing theologies. Not
1505 when, according to his own testimony, he was nearly struck unlike today, ad hominem attacks were the norm. The pope and
by lightning near Erfurt. Within two weeks he had entered an his minions were caricatured as jesters, dogs, and mice. Luther
Augustinian monastery, and by 1510 he was professor of theology took the form of an ass and a devil.
at the university in Wittenberg, a backwater town of two thousand Sympathetic imagery could cast the belligerents in a saintly
people. The university had deep ties to the local court of Frederick light. Both shows revealed much about mass-produced portrai-
the Wise, a voracious collector of art and relics. ture. Luther was (arguably) one of the first non-noble sitters
In Wittenberg, Luther taught, studied the Bible, and engaged whose visage became widely known. In Lucas Cranachs 1520
in the scholastic tradition of disputation, wherein students copperplate engraving, made to advertise the reformers atten-
exchanged arguments on controversial subjects. His 1517 Theses dance at the Diet of Worms, Luther appears as a tonsured monk
were something like an invitation to a public debate about the dramatically lit from above. He wears a roomy Augustinian habit
Churchs sale of indulgences, those certificates that absolved sins or and is posed against a white, defiantly austere background. The
reduced punishments in the afterlife. self-reflexive inscription offers a subtle meditation on image-
The document made no great splash when it was later making: Luther himself creates an eternal image of his spirit, his
printed in Leipzig and Basel. Rather, it was the Church, mortal features are but the wax of Cranach. Other pictures are
responding to a rumored threat to its lucrative indulgence busi- not so flattering: a colored woodcut by Johannes Cochlaeus from
ness, that ignited rhetorical flames. As representatives of the 1529 depicts Luther as the seven-headed beast of Revelation
pope in northern Europe began to stir, Luther responded with (12:3 and 13:110), an image conveying a transformation from a
letters, many on display in the Morgan Library show. Early pious monk to duplicitous heretic.
missives apologize; subsequent letters attack. Luther wrote Relative to books, such Flugbltter (literally: flying leaves)
in a vernacular German, while the Church kept to scholastic could be produced quickly and cheaply. These sheets became
Latin. Popular sympathy for Luthers case swelled. Summoned speedy and efficient vehicles for polemic in a time of fast-paced
in 1521 to recant publicly before Emperor Charles V, ruler of events and unreliable distribution networks. Comparisons to
confidence never seems to waver. At the Morgan, a 1523 missive about Luthers elite background. Class, as much as creed, clearly
from Dessau sees Luther berating Georg Spalatin, an ally at the drove the Reformers fear of various Others.
Wittenberg court, for ignoring repeated calls for assistance. Do There lingers an undercurrent of violence, pictorial and actual,
your job! he writes angrily. Elsewhere Luther tenderly comforts a in both shows. In many simplified Reformation paintings, for
worried follower, Barbara Lysskirchen of Freiburg, by sharing an example, the strains of decoupling expression from belief crackle
account of his personal fears. beneath seemingly dulcet picture surfaces. In placid full-length por-
Luther was unrelentingly anti-Semitic, wrote entire books traits of Luther or depictions of seventeenth-century whitewashed
defaming Islam, and had nothing but contempt for civil dis- Dutch church interiors by Pieter Saenredam, the impression is less
obedience, urban or rural. In response to uprisings in 152425 balance than unease. In our own time, such older works have been
in Thuringia, he went so far as to publish Against the Robbing placed within a telos of modern abstraction.10 But the underlying
and Murderous Horde of Peasants, which included, among its agitation of such seemingly still images is their truth, as it would
more memorable advice: Let everyone who can, smite, slay, and be for later artists. As Mark Rothko, who was often cast as a soft
stab, secretly or openly, remembering that nothing can be more iconoclast, put it: Those who are friendly to my pictures on the basis
poisonous, hurtful or devilish than a rebel. It is just as when one of their serenity . . . have found endurable for human life the extreme
must kill a mad dog; if you do not strike him, he will strike you, violence that pervades every inch of their surface.11 The minimal, far
and a whole land with you. Artisans of humbler aspirations, from a quiescence, presages a kind of metaphysical activism.
like Vogtherr, actually sided with the peasants. Not so for a On this score, a smaller exhibition in Atlanta adds a power-
crypto-Lutheran like Albrecht Drer, who, at the height of his ful and timely dimension to Reformations cinquecentennial.
powers in the 1520s, proposed a monument to commemorate The Image of a Fractured Church: Martin Luther and the
(not mourn) the slaughter that eventually befell said rebels at 95 Theses at 500 Years, at Pitts Theology Library, at Emory
the hands of nobility-backed mercenaries in 1525. Such incite- University, was organized in partnership with the exhibitions in
ment is cast in an entirely new light by archaeological findings Minneapolis and New York and extends the narrative offered in
Left, Lucas
Cranach the Elder:
Martin Luther,
1529, mixed
mediums on birch,
15 by 9 inches.
Right, Lucas
Cranach the Elder:
Katharina von
Bora, 1529, mixed
mediums on birch,
15 by 9 inches.
those venues. The Emory show connects early Protestantism to In their directness, Luthers writings summoned terror
the legacy of hometown reformer Martin Luther King Jr., the and hope. Centuries of followers, self-acknowledged and not,
man behind the most progressive American social achievement recognized how populism could be harnessed as an opposi-
of the twentieth century. In Atlanta we learn that King, who tional force capable of dooming or rescuing entire nations. For
invoked not just Luther but Wittenberg by name in a sermon the the artists of the Reformation, the mediated image was never
day before his 1968 assassination, preached to overflow crowds an easy reflection of what was, but a glimpse of what might be.
in East Berlin in September 1964. It was a stirring event, albeit What Bertolt Brecht understood about the modern world is
one that remains little-known. East Germany had long seen also true of Luthers moment: art works best not as a mirror,
propaganda value in the USs dismal record on race relations, and but as a hammer.
Kings socialism was always a worry for US handlers when he
traveled (on the Berlin visit his Allied hosts actually confiscated
1. As did, in part, Renaissance and Reformation: German Art in the Age of Drer and
his passport; King and his entourage disobeyed and passed
Cranach at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Nov. 20, 2016Mar. 26, 2017.
through Checkpoint Charlie untouched). 2. See Martin Luther: Treasures of the Reformation, Dresden, Sandstein Verlag, 2016.
Newspapers from both Berlins covered the scene, and photos, 3. Bjrn Schlenker, Archologie am Elternhaus Luthers, in Luther in Mansfeld, ed. Harald
Meller, Halle, Germany, Landesmuseum fr Vorgeschichte, 2007, pp. 17112.
included in the catalogue, are remarkable. Speaking in Berlin of
4. How Luther Went Viral, Dec. 17, 2011, The Economist, economist.com
barriers of race, creed, ideology, and nationality, King summoned 5. See Andrew Pettegree, Brand Luther: 1517, Printing and the Making of the Reformation,
the vision of a common humanity which makes us sensitive to New York, Penguin, 2015.
6. Katrin Herbst, Lutherana Tragoedia Artis? The Impact of the Reformation on Art
the sufferings of one another.12 Civil disobedience here becomes
History, in Martin Luther: Treasures of the Reformation, pp. 210220. See also Ulrich Kopf,
prerequisite for justice as well as freedom, something the original DieBilderfragein der Reformationszeit, Bltter fr Wrttembergische Kirchengeschichte 90,
Luther implied in his writings, if not in his deeds. 1990, pp. 3865.
7. Beat Hodler, Bildersturm auf dem Land, in Bildersturm: Wahrsinn oder Gottes Wille?, ed.
In 1966, King reenacted the gesture of his namesake by post-
Ccile Dupeaux, Strasbourg and Zurich, NZZ, 2000, p. 52.
ing twenty-four demands for fair housing practice on the doors of 8. Werner Hofmann, ed. Luther und die Folgen fr die Kunst, Munich, Prestel, 1983, p. 130.
Chicago City Hall. Such episodes in the history of Cold War civil 9. See Joseph Koerner, Bosch and Bruegel: From Enemy Painting to Everyday Life, Princeton,
N.J., Princeton University Press, 2016, pp. 8689.
rightsdescribed in a catalogue essay by Louis B. Nebelsickare
10. For example, Roland Barthes, The World as Object, in Critical Essays, Evanston, Ill.,
perhaps unexpected in the context of Luther. They shouldnt be. Northwestern University Press, 1972, pp. 212.
The objects and images related to King help materialize how dis- 11. Mark Rothko quoted in Thomas Crow, No Idols: The Missing Theology of Art, Sydney,
Power Institute, 2017, p. 43.
sentfor good or for evilremains the Protestant Reformations
12. Martin Luther King Jr. quoted in Louis D. Nebelsick, Expansive Grace, in Martin
headiest bequest to any visual culture today. Luther: Treasures of the Reformation, p. 404.
SENT
Flame; sheet music
for Peter Hallocks A
Song of Deliverance;
advertisements for
the Monastery (the
Sanctuary); issue six
ofPot Pourri, a sexual
questionnairefor
the new age; an
advertisement for the
by Glenn Adamson
We will reject White Nationalism. We will expose and oppose An ecclesiastical artwork as progressive as this must be
racial prof iling in policing. We will work to end misogyny that counted a minor miracle, particularly in the dark days of early
enables sexism and a culture of sexual violence. 2017. How did it come to pass? Part of the story, clearly, is the
long-standing liberal vision of the church. Another part has to
NOT EVERY CHURCH in America would greet its parish- do with the patrons Bill and Ruth True, who are parishioners
ioners with these words, but they are affixed, Martin Luther at St. Marks. They commissioned the work and will eventu-
style, to the front door of St. Marks Episcopal Cathedral in ally take private ownership, after it has been on display at the
Seattle. This gives perhaps some indication of the churchs orga- church for eighteen months (their home has high ceilings). CURRENTLY
nizational mind-set. Back in 1972, its bishop denounced the A third factor is the unusual intertwining of religion and gay ON VIEW
Josh Faughts
bombing of North Vietnam. More recently, St. Marks hosted culture in Seattleabout which, more in a moment.
installation
a family of Syrian refugees, welcoming them with hand-sewn The rest we can attribute to the artist himself. When Sanctuary, at St.
quilts laid across the beds in their new home. Steven L. Dean Thomason discussed the commission with Faught, he Marks Episcopal
Cathedral, Seattle,
Thomason, dean and rector of the cathedral, responded to said that it would be absolutely finein fact, it would be
through July 2018.
the election of Donald Trump by issuing a press release that advantageousfor the work to express a commitment to
announced: Our church stands as a sanctuary and safe haven gay pride. Faught says his first thought was how about gay
GLENN
for people threatened by those who would attack them. shame?1 He has long been interested in the traumatic aspects
ADAMSON is a
Even knowing all this, you might still be surprised to walk of queer life: the fusion of desire and guilt that so many young senior scholar at
into the cathedrals nave and confront a newly commissioned people feel, the difficulty of coming out, the pain of family the Yale Center for
British Art, New
artwork by San Franciscobased Josh Faught. Two panelseach conflict. He has said that he can often tell when a work is
Haven, Conn. See
twenty-five feet tall and dyed in bright reds, purples, and blues finished because he starts to feel embarrassed. Contributors page.
hang one above the other on one of the church pillars. Woven In past projects (shown regularly at Lisa Cooley in New
into the fabric are song titles from Belinda Carlisles hit 1987 York, until that gallerys much lamented demise last year),
album, Heaven on Earth. The hanging also functions as a giant Faught managed to project an air of confessionalism with-
DVD cozy; discs of Passions (19992008), a bizarre soap opera out actually giving that much away. The inclusion of found
with palpable religious undertones, are tucked into multiple objectslike an oversize pink eraser stamped For BIG
pouches on each panel. The DVD jewel cases are lovingly hand- Mistakesand the repetition of mens first names seemed to
painted with nail polish and printed with episode numbers as suggest regret and nostalgia, but this vibe was always balanced
though they were Psalms. The work is simply titled Sanctuary. by sheer formal exuberance. Despite his seemingly improvisa-
ART IN AMERICA 91
80s. But it turns out that there is an online subculture of true
believers who take the phrase Heaven on Earth literally, parsing
her lyrics as hidden expressions of godly devotion.
Faught is fascinated by Carlisles triple-coding, her ability to
appeal equally to suburban kids, gay men, and devout Christians.
His incorporation of her song titles into the banners echoes this, as
it evokes both a listing of Bible verses and a handmade mix tape.
He is also wickedly funny, and perceptive, to have paired her with
the TV show Passions. The series was intended in earnest, and
accepted as such by religious viewers. But its exaggerated emotions
and creaky storylineslots of dream sequences and flashbacks
earned it a place in the annals of millennial camp taste. By the
late 1990s, even its daytime TV format seemed tragically dated,
implying someone at home with nothing to do but cry.
The programs showrunner, James E. Reilly, could well be
construed as working from a queer sensibility. Prior to his efforts
on Passions, Reilly achieved notoriety as the head writer for
Days of Our Lives, creating storylines that were notable for
their fantastical themes. The show could even be read as an
allegory of the closet. Its plots often revolved around the dangers
of sexuality; it was shot entirely indoors, probably for budgetary
reasons, thereby engendering a feeling of claustrophobia.
Max, 2014, tory approach, Faught has an impressive command of weaving
handwoven and
hand-dyed silver
techniques and draws deeply from the disciplines history. It is
lam and hemp, nail telling that he often leaves threads hanging, as if the sculpture
polish, sequin trim, might still undergo a transformation, or even an unraveling; the
resin, broken mug,
giant clothespin, artist says that one thing attracting him to textiles is that they
denim, silk, and can all just come undone so easily.
toilet paper on cedar
support, 68 by 65
by 12 inches. Photo THE AWKWARD LEGACY of 1970s fiber art, which had a
Cary Whittier. brief moment of institutional success and then fell from fash-
ion, looms particularly large in Faughts work. One can often
detect subtle references to artists of that movement, and not
just the safe ones like Sheila Hicks or Lenore Tawney but also
figures like Walter Nottingham, Josep Grau-Garriga, and Claire
Zeisler, artists whose hairy, let-it-all-hang-out sculptures now
seem like countercultural relics. I spoke with Faught on this
point a couple of years ago, and he noted that he was interested
in the way that fiber art had sometimes acted as a surrogate
for political activity, particularly among feminist-identified
artists.2 Appropriating their vocabulary is an earnest tribute to
Sanctuary (detail), this radical intent. Given the uneasy art-historical status of fiber
2017, showing issue art, however, quoting it could never read as straightforwardly
six of Pot Pourri.
Photo John Wilson heroicizing. Rather, Faught is acknowledging both the rebel-
White. liousness and the painful reality of a marginalized history.
Compared to earlier works, Sanctuary hints rather
obliquely at the theme of anxiety by including badges that
bear cringe-worthy jokes such as Im LOLing on the outside,
but WTFing on the inside, and by giving Belinda Carlisle top
billing. As pop stars go, Carlisle, once a member of the Go-Gos,
has lost most of her previous luster and can be understood
here only as a nostalgic reference to teenage enthusiasms.
Faughts use of her album as the works conceptual scaffolding
is ingenious, for not only is she a gay icon but also an object of
Christian reverence. This last may seem a bit surprising, given
the sexy persona that Carlisle projected on MTV back in the
WORDS
Society (ARS),
New York. Courtesy
Gagosian Gallery.
by Raphael Rubinstein
94 APRIL 2017
View of the evenly spaced brushstrokes. The entire process takes only a there is a slight disturbance: a vertical line slicing through
exhibition Painting
Paintings (David few minutes, but as he works his way down the canvas, things the stroke. (These vertical segments are also like bar lines
Reed) 1975, 2017, happen in the brushs wake. Under the force of gravity, the black on music staff paper.) If we think of the resulting segments
at Gagosian Gallery,
New York. Photo
paint (which he sometimes replaces with mars violet or orange- as poetic feet (tetrameter, pentameter, etc.) the paintings
Rob McKeever. brown) begins to flow into the white undercoat. Depending on can be scanned like poems.
how thick the white paint is and, more important, how much
paint the artist loads onto his brush, this downward seepage can
be minor or catastrophic, especially along the left side, where
Process into Image
the brush is most loaded. On occasion, the downward flow from I came out of Painting Paintings (David Reed) 1975
one brushstroke pushes through the stroke below it, creating an at Gagosian, where I saw this exhibition, thinking that
avalanche that threatens to sweep away much of the subsequent Reeds Brushstroke paintings were possibly the single most
mark. When this effect is most extreme, the painting evokes impressive achievement of mid-1970s New York abstrac-
marbleized paper or a stalactite-filled cavern. The only means tion. This may seem like an audacious claim given that the
the artist has to control the resulting turbulence is to remove the likes of Brice Marden, Elizabeth Murray, and Frank Stella
canvas from the wall and lay it flat on the floor, which he does were also producing memorable paintings at the same time,
almost immediately after completing the final brushstroke. One but Reeds canvases embody that moment in art history
time, in his rush to move the canvas from wall to floor, he drops with unique clarity and power. Their strength depends in
it: in the finished work a line of disruptions record this jolt, part on the sheer graphic drama of the brushstrokes as they
turning the painting into a kind of seismograph. confront the inescapable facts of gravity and turbulence.
Whether the canvases are tall and narrow, leaving Like many other artworks of the 1970s, they narrate their
room only for brushstrokes less than a foot long, or wide own making. But in contrast to artists such as Dorothea
enough to permit strokes of more than four feet in length, Rockburne or Robert Ryman, who used low-key, oblique
the number of stacked strokes averages around thirteen or strategies, Reed pursued self-referentiality through imme-
fourteen. Perhaps because the brushstrokes are composed diately striking images. In a similar way, he drew painterly
like a page of writing, the number of lines gives them a motifs out of the entropy-obsessed realm of process art.
formal resemblance to a sonnet. This stanzaic quality was Reeds influences include seeing John McLaughlins
noted early on by Paul Auster in an essay for the first show stripped-down paintings as a young man in California,
of the Brushstroke canvases. Each of these paintings, studying at the New York Studio School with the intense
he wrote, resembles a vast poem without words. In the Milton Resnick, and inhabiting a gritty New York poised
wider paintings, which are created on abutted canvases, the on the verge of the punk era. In his catalogue essay, Rich-
evocation of poetic form is especially strong: every time the ard Hell evokes how musicians and painters worked in an
brush traverses the seam between one canvas and another atmosphere of indifference. By the time of his first show,
COMING SOON
The Hugo Boss
Prize 2016: Anicka
Yi at the Solomon
R. Guggenheim
Museum, New York,
Apr. 21July 5.
ROSS SIMONINI
is a writer and artist
based in Muir Beach,
Calif.
IN THE
100
STUDIO
APRIL 2017
WHEN ANICKA YI began making art in her late thirties with antidepressants, palm tree essence, shaved sea lice, and ground Teva
no formal training, her entry point was unusual: a self-directed rubber dust, among other ingredients. The scent suggests a psycho-
study of science. She doesnt fully identify with the term artist. logical narrative of off-the-grid seaside living.
The art world was not her destination but simply a receptive venue In an age of long-distance digital exchanges, Yi works with scent
for her ideas, which she culls from the experimental corners of to sensitize herself to the oldest, most animal forms of communica-
cuisine, biology, and perfumery. tion, and she hopes her art encourages us to do the same.We are a
The Korean-born Yi, who studied at Hunter College in New conservative culture when it comes to the nose, a limitation that mutes
York, produced her first artworks in 2008 with a collective called our experiences and our interactions. Yi wants to provoke us, but she
Circular File, numbering among its members artist Josh Kline and also wants us to inhale more deeply, to experience smells before judging
designer Jon Santos. Around the same time, she took an interest them offensive, and to consider the social role of disgust.
in natural fragrances, which led to early, self-directed tests with Yi fabricates her smelly objects in multiple sites. Her base
tinctures and olfactory art. One of her first projects in this vein studio in Bushwick is a small, no-nonsense space where she develops
was a scent named Shigenobu Twilight, after Fusako Shigenobu, prototypes, but much of the production happens in laboratories and
leader of the radical left faction Japanese Red Army. The fragrance through the mail, as she exchanges vials with forensic chemists and
blended cedar, violet leaf, yuzu, shiso, and black pepper. Parisian perfumers. She was also a 201415 visiting artist at the MIT
Yis work is characterized by unorthodox combinations of Center for Art, Science &Technology and the MIT List Visual Arts
esoteric ingredients. She often uses materials that areor were Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
recentlyalive, which can make her sculpture volatile and dif- In the last year, Yis work has received a significant spike in
ficult to archive. She deep-fries flowers, displays live snails, grows attention. The 2017 Whitney Biennial includes her new video, The
a leathery fiber from the film produced by brewing kombucha, Flavor Genome, an episodic narrative informed by science fiction,
and cultivates human-borne bacteria. For her 2015 exhibition cultural ideas of taste, and the anthropological beliefs of indigenous
You Can Call Me F at the Kitchen in New York, Yi asked one Amazonians. As the recipient of the 2016 Hugo Boss Prize, she has
hundred women to swab their microbe-rich orifices, cultured a solo exhibition opening at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
the samples, and used the resulting green-brown growth to paint in New York on April 21. When I spoke with her in January, she
and write on an agar-coated surface set in a glowing vitrine. The discussed the conceptual framework of the exhibition as ethnicity
final work had an overwhelming smell, with notes of cheese and and the perception of odors, but declined to reveal anything specific
decay, both corporeally familiar and sensorially challenging. The about the physical form the work would take, since it was likely to
equally noisome sculpture Convox Dialer Double Distance of a change. Her experiments often fail, she explained, so while her ideas
Shining Path(2011) is a boiled stew of recalled powdered milk, are consistent, their manifestations are unpredictable.
235,681K of Digital
Spit,2010, PVC and
leather bag, hair gel,
and tripe, 7 by
11 by 4 inches.
Courtesy 47 Canal.
Photo Margaret
Lee.
synthesize a new drug from it. And if you take this drug you can really great at generating written language around her work.
perceive what its like to be a pink dolphin or an angry teenager. SIMONINI Earlier you mentioned literature as one of the
Its not a technology we have yet, but it relates to virtual reality, more potent art forms for you. Do you read much nonfiction?
which is becoming more prevalent in contemporary art and in YI My love is definitely fiction but I fortify myself with non-
culture more broadly. But my idea is not about placing myself in fiction. I read books about scientific theories in biology and anthro-
a coral reef, as I would with VR, but actually feeling what coral pology, because they support the work that I make and the fiction
feels, and creating empathy. that I read. In the last few months I have read Eduardo Viveiros de
SIMONINI Do you write fictional narratives around your Castros Cannibal Metaphysics and Philippe Descolas Beyond Nature
sculptures? and Culture and Gregory Batesons Mind and Nature. I read The Last
YI Writing is one of my primary tools. I often discover of the Tribe by Monte Reel and A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and
my thoughts about the work through writing. Syntax, sentence Humans by the biosemiologist Jakob von Uexkll. I read a lot, and
structure . . . these things really help. I write a lot of backstory for I read many books at once. I like to cross-pollinate discourses. Im
my sculptures, as if theyre characters in a novel or screenplay. I lucky that my job allows me to read.
share this writing with friends, but no one else sees it. Im not really SIMONINI Do you think about art as a job? Do you have a
a visual person. I dont think in images. I dont sketch things. I dont nine-to-five schedule?
use visual references as much as I should. Its a huge handicap for YI I would love to have a nine-to-five schedule. I usually work
me. My writing doesnt capture the idea for the work as a sketch twelve to sixteen hours a day. I havent had a day off in months. I
would. So maybe Im not working in the most productive way. My have a punishing work schedule. Forty hours a week is a very light
starting point is verbal. week for me. After you and I speak, I will go watch the Blu-rays for
SIMONINI You think of your art as fiction? The Flavor Genome, to make sure everything is calibrated.Then I
YI To use a term coined by Caroline Jones, a scholar at the have to write proposals for new projects. Its a large mound of work
Two stills from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, my work is bio-fiction. I to sift through.
The Flavor
Genome,2016,
want to fuse the writing of lifethe notion that all living things SIMONINI This is quite recent for you, the professional art life.
single-channel 3D have their own stories, contexts, perspectives, and historieswith YI I repressed it for a long time. I didnt go to art school.
video, 22 minutes. the study of life, which also now includes an embrace of nonhuman My goal in life was to be a vagabond. I wanted the opposite of a
perspectives. The concept of nonhuman persons is found in the credentialed existence, much to the chagrin of my parents. I belong
indigenous Achuar people in the Amazon, who believe that all life to Generation X and our goal was to drop out.
is a person, whether a plant person, an animal person, or a human SIMONINI Did you succeed at that?
person. This way of thinking is also shared by other Amazonian YI I survived, but it was absolute torture. Its not for everybody.
tribes, as well as by the Inuit and other native peoples of North You have to have a tremendous amount of fortitude.The world we
America. Humans arent necessarily at the top of the hierarchy of live in is so focused on vocation. If you dont have that business-card
life in these belief systems. attitude, people dont want to talk to you, especially in New York.
SIMONINI You adapt the theories of science to art. Youre invisible. A plague. And for a really long time, it was lonely
YI I loosely sample scientific procedure in my work. But my and alienating. My education was just the texture of life.
science is not one thats of value to anyone, not that I think some- SIMONINI And you ended up as an artist because . . .
thing has to be useful to be science. I dont want to be disrespectful YI I say that Im an artist only for logistical reasons. I have
to science. Fiction can be true. anxiety around identifying as an artist. Art just happens to be the
SIMONINI Your work is like science fiction. medium I can use to say what I want to say. I was familiar with the
YI Making the work is a kind of world-building. Im always community and it embraced me because I had a lot of friends within
thinking about where my objects fit into the world Im creating. it. I always thought Id find my voice in film. I worked as a fashion
And usually, I need to create the world first before I can give stylist and copywriter.
the objects movement, context, function, identity. Without that, SIMONINI Because you came to art in your late thirties, do
sculpture seems rather empty to me. you think you had a clearer sense of what you wanted from it than
SIMONINI Do you have a model for the linguistic and you would have if you had started in your twenties?
visual worlds youre building? YI I forget who said it, but theres this phrase: nothing ever
YI I think film is a really good medium for that. Certainly really happens until youre forty. And I feel that way. I love being in
the canonical science-fiction films, like 2001: A Space Odyssey my forties. Youre still young enough to do what you want, but you
[1968] and Tarkovskys Solaris [1972]. Chris Markers films are have experience and a sense of humor around what you do. You dont
hugely successful at merging his language with images to create a take everything so seriously. I dont have the anxiety about my age
world. His Sans Soleil [1983] was a major inspiration for The Flavor that many people I know feel, maybe because Im still a young artist.
Genome. Its a masterpiece of the film essay. Adrian Piper is also It energizes me. It keeps me light on my feet.
KEN OKIISHI
Reena Spaulings Fine Art
shards, mounds of soil, and piles of discarded clothes, painting
over the lot in garish rainbow hues. Whether layering references to different eras within a single
Departing from such site-specific hybrids of painting and work or organizing pseudo-retrospective exhibitions, Ken Okiishi
sculpture, Grosse turned to more conventional canvas supports often folds the past into the present. His second show at Reena
for her first exhibition at Gagosian. Sixteen large-scale paintings Spaulings, Being and/or Time, combined some of his earliest
(all untitled and dated 2016) were spread across three rooms output with more recent videos and paintings. The exhibition
of the gallerys cavernous Chelsea location, arranged in loosely emphasized a fundamental unsteadiness in the images the artist
thematic clusters. A small side gallery visible from the street has produced and gathered over the past two decades. New
was given over to the shows sole sculpture, a torqueing form in York, where Okiishi has lived and worked for much of that time,
painted aluminum set on the floor, accurately described in the emerged as a city that invites shifting modes of viewership.
press release as hovering between driftwood and space junk. A sequence of four videos from the late 1990s and early
For the paintings, Grosse employed irregularly cut cardboard 2000s was projected on a wall near the gallery entrance. Among
and foam stencils, layering areas of sprayed pigment to build up these works was David Wojnarowicz in New York, 1999 (1999
palimpsests of painterly effects, from vaporous fields to rapid, 2000), which begins with artist and writer Travis Jeppesen walk-
graffitilike scrawls and concentrated drips. The compositions of ing along the West Side Highway carrying a copy of the cata-
the paintings shown in the first two rooms are mostly orga- logue for Wojnarowiczs 1999 retrospective at the New Museum
nized around dominant central motifs, establishing distinctions in New York. Dressed in 1970s period garb and channeling a
between figure and ground only to undermine them through young Wojnarowicz, Jeppesen strolls through the Chelsea Piers
juxtapositions of dissonant patterns and colors. In one, a semi- sports complexa preHigh Line symbol of the neighbor-
oval of black streaked with acidic yellow is framed by a field of hoods revitalization that opened in 1995. The high-end fitness
haphazardly sprayed blue; in another, a wash of pale peach has center offers a comic contrast to Jeppesens somber performance,
been applied over sweeping arcs of deep blue and teal, leaving which is more in tune with the dilapidated West Side piers
only a central burst of vivid color exposed. that Wojnarowicz frequented decades prior. Scenes of Jeppesen
Because Grosse reuses the stencils, forms often recur walking around or reading poems by the artist are intercut with
from one canvas to the next; however, the repetition serves sequences shot outside the Cock, an East Village gay bar. There, a
to highlight the versatility of her approach, enabling her to young man delivers a monologue about recent sexual encounters,
produce strikingly distinct paintings despite their similarin frequently interrupting himself to address the camera directly
some cases, virtually identicalcompositions. One painting to remind viewers that he is a Lacanian. Over his shoulder, nyc
features an undulating vertical form in purple, white, and green 2000 appears spray-painted on the wall like a time stamp.
surrounded by exuberant jets of red-orange and turquoise. Playing on a screen nearby was Being and/or Time (2016),
Another shows the same motif rendered in a sludgy palette of a slideshow of all 25,000 images Okiishi took on his phone
GENERAL IDEA
MEXICO CITY Museo Jumex
Gay nightlife gave rise to the drag ball as an underground and found a hybrid method that suited their ends. Duchamp
simulation of female celebrity. General Idea, the Toronto- appropriated objects; Warhol, images. General Idea stole
based art collective, did something similar with its Miss cultural platforms, producing an illegal gay marriage of Pop
General Idea pageant, though only one of the four winners appropriation and parody.
of the annual event, held in Toronto from 1968 to 1971, But General Idea was a threesomeAA Bronson,
was a man; the competition wasnt about gender so much as Felix Partz, and Jorge Zontaland their approach, cor-
it was about art as a system for producing value and fame. respondingly, incorporated a third strategy: the infiltration
Playing on a monitor at the entrance to the retrospec- of available communications networks to make them work
tive exhibition General Idea: Broken Time at the Museo for the collectives own purposes. The artists used this tactic
Jumex, Pilot (1977), which the group made for Ontario throughout their work, from their early mail-art projects
public television, is a thirty-minute deadpan documentary on which included instructions for Fluxus-like actions distributed
the pageant that provides an introduction to the collectives through chain letters, as well as solicitations for applicants to
interests and sensibilities. and spectators at Miss General Idea pageantsto Imagevirus
Miss General Idea is basically this: an ideal framing (19871994), their transformation of Robert Indianas 1966
device for arresting attention without throwing away the love logo into an aids one that they distributed via magazine
key, one of the groups members intones. Later, as a suc- ads, billboards, and posters, as well as T-shirts, scarves, and
cession of still images shows photo cutouts of the pageant other paraphernalia. Imagevirus dominated the final years
winners in various indoor and outdoor settings, we hear a of General Idea, starting before Zontals and Partzs HIV
woman saying: Miss General Idea may not be beautiful; her diagnoses and lasting until their deaths.
title grants her the framework within which glamour settles General Idea was constantly testing and contesting the
like dust. Aspiring to become famous artists, the boys of relations among different frameworks and among the objects
General Idea were fascinated by the architecture of notoriety that garnered attention through them. Often a concept that
We see the cavernous, shadowy interior of the worlds deepest tion of antiquities being meticulously dusted; the ornate carpet
marble quarry, which is located in Vermont. Neptune, from that usually covers his famous couch being peeled back for vacu-
Gustav Holsts The Planets suite, serves as the videos soundtrack uming, revealing the shabby yellowed padding beneath, stained as
and accentuates the primeval, otherworldly atmosphere of a realm if with the sweat of anxious analysands. The video functioned as a
shown half-flooded and lit only by faint bluish light. Next we see sort of codicil to Quarry, turning to the dirt and grime of another
areas of active excavation, where gargantuan blocks of marble are kind of excavationthat in which people attempt to unearth the
neatly levered free by monstrous diggers, before being sawn into effects of lived experience through psychoanalysis.
slabs and packaged, stored, and labeled with their destinations, Gabriel Coxhead
Park Avenue being a notable one.
Such Manhattan locations then become the videos main focus,
in the form of a montage portraying what appear to be high-end
PARIS
apartments with polished marble countertops, tables, and bathrooms
that the camera pans across, examining in close-up the various pat- LILI REYNAUD-DEWAR
terns and colors. Other signifiers of luxury and power are everywhere
Kamel Mennour
on display: designer fittings and furnishings, sleekly recessed lighting
fixtures, seemingly expensive works of art (including, at one point, a Lili Reynaud-Dewars exhibition Teeth, Gums, Machines,
Brice Mardenesque painting), sheer glass windows giving high- Future, Society, comprising a video and a sculpture instal-
rise views of New Yorks skyline. The cameras scrutiny is relentless, lation, focused on the grill, a decorative metal plate over the
vaguely creepy, at once forensic and fetishistic. Its tracking gives the front teeth, pluralized as grillz or frontsAmerican rap
sense of a constant search for somethingfor signs of life or habita- cultures version of a tradition of dental adornment stretching
tion, perhaps (the title, Quarry, becomes a sort of pun). The video is back at least two-and-a-half millennia and spanning societies as
quite literally unsettling, as its parade of surfaces keeps your eye from disparate as the Maya, Etruscan, and Viking.
Lili Reynaud-
settling on anything, casting it adrift in a maze of exquisite facades. In the half-hour-long, quasi-documentary video that was Dewar: Teeth, Gums,
For that is what the spaces essentially are: mere facades. the exhibitions lodestar, the talking heads of Reynaud-Dewars Machines, Future,
Society, 2016, video,
Some of them are show apartments: stage settype constructions interviewees are often shown in close-up. Their mouthy half-faces 36 minutes; at
produced to give buyers a sense of the potential homes-to-be prob- speak through grillz with which the artist had them fitted, each Kamel Mennour.
ably before the proper buildings have even been completed. Others
appear by way of computer-generated mockups. The marble seen
throughout the ersatz spaces is simply set dressing or a digital
rendering and, as such, seems to embody some grotesque triumph
of culture over nature: that such a monolithic material, such a
quintessence of weighty physicality, should somehow be adopted in
the cause of the virtual, illusory, and artificial.
Ideas about simulation and authenticity were also explored in
the installation Dynasty (2017), which was shown in a small upstairs
gallery. Here, what looked like two thin book-matched slabs of mar-
ble hanging on the wall were in fact digital scans. Nearby, a rather
nondescript chunk of marble placed on a plinth turned out to be an
actual fragment from the lobby of New Yorks Trump Tower, bought
from eBay after the United States presidential election as a kind of
historical relic. In the other small gallery, visitors encountered the
video Fetish (2016), which documents the annual cleaning of Freuds
study at the Freud Museum in north London: his personal collec-
NOT VITAL
Thaddaeus Ropac
The sculptor Not Vital has traveled widely and exhibited
often since the early 1970s, living a peripatetic life that
nurtures his art-making. But he remains rooted in the
Engadine region of his native Switzerland, where he opened
a foundation in 2003, built a sculpture park, and in 2016
his diaries, darkness often prevailed. Sporadically, imagesof a offices. SUBSCRIPTIONS include combined June/July which counts as 2 out of 12 annual issues: US 12 issues $45.00. In
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