Whitney Biennial 2012: Where Have Painting and Sculpture Gone? Pg
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April–May 2012 www.galleryandstudiomagazine.com Vol. 14 No. 4 New York GALLERY&STUDIO Whitney Biennial 2012: Where Have Painting and Sculpture Gone? pg. 2 Michael Robinson (b. 1981). Still from These Hammers Don’t Hurt Us, 2010. Digital video, color, sound; 13 min. © Michael Robinson; courtesy the artist DAisy ChaiN A new excerpt from Ed McCormack’s HOODLUM HEART pg. 14 Sheila Hecht Symphony of Color Ark Angel, 48"x36", acrylic/canvas 48"x36", Angel, Ark Split Second Decisions May 1 – 26, 2012 Reception: Saturday, May 5, 4 – 6pm 530 West 25th St., NYC, 10001 Tues - Sat 11 - 6pm 212 367 7063 www.nohogallery.com © Xiaoli Yang - Fertility A - 4 Acrylic on Canvas 47” x 47” April 24 - May 15, 2012 Reception: April 26, 2012 6-8 pm Hortencia Barreto Vera L.P. Cauwenberghs Doug Gilbert Elisabeth Holzschuster Nicholai Khan Helen Laishley Lola Lonli Marty Maehr MAEV Yvonne Maloney Isabelle Viallaneix W.M. Vinci Xiaoli Yang 530 West 25th Street, New York 212-226-4151 Fax: 212-966-4380 www.Agora-Gallery.com [email protected] GALLERY&STUDIO April/May 2012 Whitney Biennial 2012: Where Have Painting and Sculpture Gone? f the present Whitney Biennial indicates matter what the relationship is between art Ianything at all, it may be that what Jack and medicine I would rather keep it purely on Kerouac once referred to as “the unspeakable the aesthetic plain [sic]. Why don’t you show visions of the individual” are back in style. your thesis in a medical hospital?” (Tactfully, Consider that Forrest Bess, a once obscure she didn’t specify Bellevue!) self-described “Texas roughneck fisherman” Aside from his sensational anatomical who, besides painting abstractions that experiments, however, as I made clear in my have a homespun avant garde quality which earlier essay, Bess’ paintings are well worth stands up favorably to Arthur Dove, Georgia considering. But don’t just take my word O'Keeffe, Marsden Hartley and other early for it; Meyer Schapiro, the distinguished art American modernist pioneers, performed self- historian and author, with whom the artist surgery to turn himself into a hermaphrodite, also corresponded, put it as follows in the has emerged as the belle of the ball. catalog essay for Bess’ 1962 exhibition at I first heard of Bess a little more than a Betty Parsons Gallery: decade or so ago when a representative of “Forrest Bess is that kind of artist rare in an organization called the Society for the any time, a real visionary painter. He is not Preservation of American Modernists called inspired by texts of poetry or religion, but by out of the blue to commission an essay on a strange significance in what he alone has The back cover of our January/February him. “Why pick on me?” I almost asked, seen. He also paints what he imagines and 2000 issue then remembered an old phrase by Norman is faithful to its character as the imagined. Mailer: “Set a thief on a thief, a madman on It may be the heavens or the ocean, but the race into a prehistoric pissing contest with a madman” –– or some other words to that picture is small, true to the size of the image their opposition to gay marriage and just effect. in his head, and a unique picture, never about anything else that’s progressive and In any case, since the Society was offering a repeating or re-arranging an already received humane. decent fee, I wrote the essay and it impacted, view. This painted image is perfectly clear Certainly gender issues play an important as they say today, like a fart in a bathtub. like a printed emblem or sign. Skill, power role in this Biennial, where one installation Now, all of a sudden trendies are lining of rendering, the delights of spontaneity of includes a Marsden Hartley portrait of up, like rubes waiting to ogle an embryo in the hand do not tempt him; the handling is a shirtless male so dewy-eyed and hairy- a jar at a country carnival sideshow, around straightforward like the simple forms, soberly chested that one can almost smell the the vitrine in the Whitney containing Bess’ objective, without trace of the exaltation that hormonal musk. Still, isn’t it better that Polaroids of the incision he cut at the base comes with experience of a sought-for hidden Hartley should be yanked gently out of the of his penis, where it met his testicles, sign. So plain and frank is the painting, so closet posthumously with a work of honest to fashion himself a homemade vagina. much like the unmoulded strips of weathered beefcake than that lascivious art historians Drawing from alchemy, mythology, art wood with which he frames his pictures, that should go on speculating ad infinitum about history, anthropology, ancient literature, it seems at first sight the work of a self-taught the much less wholesome implications of his the mysticism of Carl Jung (with whom he civilized primitive with limited skill. But look fetishistic emblematic abstraction “Portrait of corresponded) and god only knows what at his wonderful blacks, of many nuances: a German Officer,” supposedly inspired by a else, Bess concocted a “thesis” concerning granular, matt. shiny and rough, and you will young Nazi named Arnold Ronnebeck who his belief that he could achieve immortality recognize his knowledge and discipline, his was rumored to be one of his lovers in Berlin? by marrying the male and the female parts of mastery of an exacting technique.” Perhaps the most affecting gender related himself. The same display case also contains Granted Bess’ sexual proclivities have statement in this Biennial, however, is Wu a letter Bess wrote to his New York art dealer little to do with the aesthetic attributes Tang’s “Wildness,” a 72-minute high- Betty Parsons, as well as her demure reply: Schapiro extolled, even though in a letter definition color and sound video about a bar “Concerning the hanging of your thesis in to the critic, the artist confided that he had in the MacArthur Park neighborhood of Los your next show, I do not feel I want to. No “strong homosexual leanings” despite being, Angeles that has been frequented for decades on one hand, “the typical Texas ambitious by a group of mostly South American man ... rather roughshod ...the roughneck, transgender women. The bar’s patrons are the fisherman, the Captain in the Corps of seen dancing to the jukebox and speaking GALLERY STUDIO Engineers –– practical, sensible, displaying about their brutal experiences growing up as & leadership, aggressive...” On the other hand, pre-op males in countries where machismo An International Art Journal his “Personality Number Two” was “quite ruled: the cruel verbal insults and physical PUBLISHED BY the opposite: “weak as a jellyfish ... quite abuse, the beatings from fathers who could not accept their effeminacy without feeling ©EYE LEVEL, LTD. 2012 helpless in relation to adjustment to society ... artistic, sensitive, introspective and had rather somehow compromised in their own ALL RIGHTS RESERVED cry or lament the shortcomings of mankind masculinity. They also speak about how they 217 East 85th Street, PMB 228, New York, NY 10028 rather than fight .... This personality I have have finally found their true selves since their (212) 861-6814 E-mail: [email protected] found is actually somewhat effeminate...” surgical transformation as well as a safe haven EDITOR AND PUBLISHER Jeannie McCormack That even a man who so freely and more accepting family in their “sisters” MANAGING EDITOR Ed McCormack acknowledged his duel nature in an era at the Silver Platter. Particularly poignant is SPECIAL EDITORIAL ADVISOR Margot Palmer-Poroner when it still took considerable courage to do the scene on the morning-after in the almost DESIGN AND PRODUCTION Karen Mullen so could resort to such gender stereotypes empty bar, which looks much smaller and CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Maureen Flynn proves that sexual politics are still relevant dirtier with the sunlight pouring in, in place –– especially in a year when the Republican of the disco lights. The music has stopped, www.galleryandstudiomagazine.com candidates are tripping over their dicks, to Cinderella’s coach has turned into turn a phrase, and turning the presidential Continued on page 12 2 GALLERY&STUDIO April/May 2012 Five Diverse “New Expressions” ark Lerer, whose pen and ink style field. The same two hues figure prominently Mderives directly from the line drawings in another oil on canvas, entitled “Parkinsons and cross hatchings of old-fashioned comic Tango,” a literal dance between two strips sans irony or Pop flourishes, has to semiabstract figures who could resemble be one of the most cryptic draftsmen in relatives of Jean Dubuffet’s late career contemporary art. But leaving it to the viewer “Hourloupe” sculptures. to excavate meaning from his drawings seems These two complementary colors (which be the point. Take two drawings by Lerer in the artist says he has “taken to lately”) come the group show “New Expressions ‘12.” One into play yet again, set against a softly fleshy Linda Dujack called “Arab pinkish Men,” tan another on the ground below. That the birds depicts hue and are disproportionally large in relation to two seated accented the tree lends the painting a magical quality figures. with bits of fantasy, an unreality more true than any One wears of deep merely “factual” transcription of such a scene Western- cadmium would be. style clothes yellow Barbara Cuthel appears to be that rare and is in “The thing: a true visual poet. looking Idea of The other artist in this show inspired with what Motion,” by trees is Linda Ganus, who invariably appears to in which impresses one with her ability to make be concern drawing into a full-fledged, finished art form at the other Barbara Cuthel on a par with painting.