BRUCE HELANDER A Survey of Works PETER MARCELLE GALLERY BRIDGEHAMPTON I would like to thank Peter Marcelle for inviting me to join his illustrious gallery, and I offer sincere appreciation to the dedicated staff at Peter Marcelle Gallery: directors, Catherine McCormick and Betsy Maloney, and assistant, Breahna Arnold, for coordinating the logistics of this exhibition.

I would like to acknowledge the daily encouragement and support from my wife and partner, Claudia, and for her enthusiastic diligence and assistance in the studio, especially for gluing down the works on paper.

My thanks to Susan Hall, the studio manager and my assistant for more years than we would rather admit. Imperial Cove, 2006, Wood, found object construction, vintage frame, 25 x 31 ½ in.

A sincere handshake to my art and design director, Daniel Ellis, who always produces a beautiful product.

Thank you to Donald Kuspit for his insightful essay; to Michael Price for his excellent photography; to our framer, BRUCE David Smith/Framesmith; and to Christopher Hurbs and Palmer Crippen, studio interns. HELANDER And finally, to fellow artists, Cameron Gray and Dan Rizzie, whose regular, trusted opinions assisted greatly in the development of this show. A Survey of Works

Essay by Donald Kuspit | Edited by Susan Hall Designed by Daniel Ellis | Photographs by Michael Price

PETER MARCELLE GALLERY 2411 Main Street, Bridgehampton, New York 11932 T. 631-338-2723 | 631-613-6170 www.petermarcellegallery.com This exhibition made possible in part by an artist’s grant from the New York Foundation for the Arts. Ironic Play: Bruce Helander’s BY DONALD KUSPIT

ruce Helander’s collages have that “high degree of she’s the perverse embodiment of what William James fa- immediate absurdity”—Breton’s phrase—that marks mously called the Bitch Goddess of materialistic Success that them as surreal. The method in the madness of sur- America promises. Helander in effect dismembers her, sug- realistB art is what Breton called “pure psychic automatism,” gesting that she’s just a transient illusion, not to say a big lie. “a condition in which activity is carried out without con- He treats Elvis Presley in the same ironical disillusioning scious knowledge.” This allows one to associate, more or less way. Helander also is obsessed with Presley, as Croaked freely—playfully or compulsively, depending on how deeply Double Elvis, Elvis Revisited, and Artist as Elvis (Past Per- unconscious one is—images that one is ordinarily conscious formance) show, to the extent of identifying with him, with of to “extraordinary” effect, as though in a dream. “Automa- anxious irony: he’s another disappointment, another fake tism” and “free association” are psychoanalytic terms—the dream figure, another fraud. He’s a mythical, make-believe former is from Pierre Janet, the latter from Sigmund Freud god in the pantheon of American popular culture, another (both of whom Breton acknowledges as “influences”)—sug- betrayal of the American Dream in the very act of personi- gesting that Helander’s collages invite psychological inter- fying it. Like Helander’s American Dream Girl, Presley, an pretation: they certainly do look like dream images—Surre- American Dream Boy, and like her a narcissistic heartthrob, alism’s “simulated dreams,” as Breton called them. Indeed, is a case of arrested development, physical as well as emo- At the Beach, Fun in the Sun, High Heel Helper and My Blue tional. The older he became, the more he struggled to look Heaven are explicitly sexual dreams—images of seductive young, which perhaps is why he died young, as the ancient dream girls skewed into what psychoanalysts call (alluring) myth tells us Narcissus did by falling in love with his own part objects, more particularly, breasts and buttocks, with image. And just as they are alluring sirens, so Presley sang some shapely legs thrown in for good measure. siren songs. Helander skews and mocks him with more out- But, let’s quickly note, there’s something ironical—play- raged energy than he brings to the desirable demoiselles of fully ironic—in this skewing and fragmenting—this surreal Florida—which is where Helander lives, as Lounge Chair shattering of the image in the very act of presenting it. The Lizard (presumably watching them go by), with its pecu- blue heaven is unexpected black, and the dream girls prove liarly lurid turquoise green, makes clear—perhaps because oddly unsubstantial and ungraspable, dissolving into the Presley was self-destructive, while the demoiselles fade into atmosphere, leaving haunting residues of titillating flesh. thin air, dematerialized into unstable fantasies. Helander’s dream girls are tantalizingly out of reach, as Like all dreams, both promise more than they can deliver, dream girls—mirages that disappear as soon as they are although Presley seems much more solid and real for Hel- approached—always are. Helander’s images are peculiarly ander, as the Croaked Double Elvis sculpture suggests. The “anti-representational,” or incoherently representational, small croaking frogs—Helander’s surrogate comic commen- however ostensibly representational, that is, however much tators—suggest that his fame and fortune are a joke that went we recognize that we are looking at a glamorous female to his head: thus his doubled—“swelled”—head, while the figure—an agelessly attractive, conventionally beautiful title is an obvious reference to Warhol’s famous double por- At the Beach, 2012, Paper collage on museum board, 25 x 18 ½ in. American Dream Girl. She’s the mythical, completely make- trait of Elvis. Helander decapitates him, but he grows another believe goddess of popular culture—it is always “redefining head, suggesting that he’s a hydra-headed monster, infinitely reality,” as Peter Whybrow ironically put it. More particularly, reproducible, as media icons tend to be. But the smiling frogs Pirate’s Paradise, 1997, Original paper collage on museum board, Diptych: 10 x 13 in. each. stand over what is in effect his corpse, ridiculing him, and entertainment. It also reminds us that from the start, Surreal- suggesting his inherent ridiculousness—the ridiculousness of ism used popular cultural images to absurd effect, perhaps his success and popularity, for it didn’t save him from himself. most noteworthily in Max Ernst’s collages. Avant-garde art is I immediately thought of Aristophanes’ croaking frogs when socially critical—in dialectically negative, unresolved relation- I saw the piece, which shows Helander’s ability to make con- ship with society, as thinkers as different as Renato Poggioli vincing three-dimensional work. He’s a cunning comedian, and T. W. Adorno have argued. Helander’s collages continue reminding us, as Aristotle wrote, that comedy deals with the this tradition of avant-garde negativity, if in a seemingly lighter ridiculously real, indeed, a reality that seems to ridicule itself. way—deceptively lighter way, for there is a slashing aggres- Even “pure art” is treated with ironical irreverence by sivity and sardonic sharpness to his irony. He offers us critical Helander. An abstract expressionist painting is a Branch avant-garde comedy attacking social icons and illusions in Office—of Abstract Expressionism Inc., or is each earth- which we are asked to invest our deepest feelings. He gives brown painterly gesture a dead branch on a barren tree of us the dregs of our unconscious desires and social illusions, art? Snobbish Mr. New Yorker—Helander’s famously witty ridiculing them and himself—and the populist art he uses to cover for the magazine of that name, reducing Manhattan reveal them—in the course of doing so. His art is a surreal heap to a fractured map of itself—has its Eye on Jersey, suggest- of fragments, ironically accumulated to shore up a sense of ing that’s the place to really be, at least if one wants beaches self, as T. S. Eliot said, that may exist only as an ironical illusion. and fun. The work is a subtle Sidesplitter, to refer to another The question is whether these ruins form an “unstable of Helander’s works—also poking ironical fun at the popular irony” or a “stable irony,” to use Wayne Booth’s important culture’s comic strip figures (Mr. New Yorker is one, and so is distinction. Does the unconscious “truth asserted or implied” Presley) while using them to ridicule the society they repre- by the irony—the unconscious truth that “undermines” con- sent. The skull in Pirate’s Paradise has two evil eyes and is scious truth by means of irony—show and leave the self in split in two, the Trunk Show is a shambles, Imperial Cove is ruins, so that “no stable reconstruction can be built from the marked by a surreally giant growth but its glory is long gone, ruins revealed through the irony”—or does the “underlying and Sending Out an S.O.S. is a panicked cry for help in the reality” of intense existential feeling revealed by Helander’s midst of an incoherent mess of manic details. Helander may relentless ironic play with widely known social images “ar- be the broncobuster in Bronco, but the bucking horse is ready tistically” stabilize to convey a sense of unique self? I suggest to throw him. The lasso ties head and hooves together, sug- both/and rather than either/or. The ironic playfulness of Hel- gesting that it’s about to trip over itself. Helander has come ander’s art suggests a self that is able to steady itself by imagi- absurdly full circle, as it were. natively acknowledging its own self-contradiction. Collage readily lends itself to surreal irony by reason of DONALD KUSPIT WAS THE WINNER OF THE PRESTIGIOUS FRANK JEWETT MATHER AWARD FOR its use of incommensurate images. It shows the unconscious DISTINCTION IN ART CRITICISM (1983), GIVEN BY THE COLLEGE ART ASSOCIATION AND IS A CONTRIBUTING EDITOR AT ARTFORUM, ARTNET MAGAZINE, SCULPTURE AND TEMA CELESTE, Post Triangle, 2009, Original acrylic on canvas with printed background, 56 ¾ x 39 ¼ in. playing with itself. It shows the unconscious truth behind the AND THE EDITOR OF ART CRITICISM. HE HAS DOCTORATES IN PHILOSOPHY AND ART HISTORY, Original paper collage study, gouache, on museum board, 17 ½ x 15 ½ in. Collection of Blake Byrne, Los Angeles (Not in exhibition). conscious façade. It shows the personal feelings behind the AS WELL AS DEGREES FROM COLUMBIA, YALE AND PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY. HE HAS RECEIVED FELLOWSHIPS FROM FULBRIGHT COMMISSION, NEA, GUGGENHEIM FOUNDATION social facts. Ironic ridicule is a debunking device. It punches AND ASIAN CULTURAL COUNCIL, AMONG OTHERS. holes in power and authority—the power and authority of the popular culture in Helander’s case. It entertains us by satirizing High Heel Helper, 2007, Original paper collage on museum board, 22 x 14 ½ in. Fun in the Sun, 2012, Original paper collage on museum board, 25 x 15 in. Croaked Double Elvis, 2012, Painted plaster on artist’s shelf, with embellishments and found objects, 13 x 33 x 11 ½ in.

he assemblage/sculpture titled Croaked Double Elvis is one work in a series of manipulated images of Presley in the sub-prime of his life. As a child, Helander was so fascinated with Elvis Presley that he transformed himself into an Elvis impersonator, taking the stage in a junior high school talent show, and it logically followed that as a graduate student T at the Rhode Island School of Design he played the drums in his own art rock band. In 1989, he “traded faces” at a car- nival photo booth to create Artist as Elvis (Past Performance) (see back cover) and continued his experiments with Elvis kitsch memorabilia. In Croaked Double Elvis, the artist acquired two painted plaster Elvis lamps, which later he disassembled and buried in his backyard for two years to promote advanced decomposition. Early this year, he exhumed the two heads and re- painted them with a Warholian color scheme. The title refers to Double Elvis, the famous Andy Warhol work on canvas that sold at auction recently. The assemblage is full of metaphors, visual puns and word play for the viewer to discover. The twin heads are connected horizontally, and recline as if permanently at rest on a section of shelf from a church chapel that also is embel- lished with a painted bleeding heart. The hollowed out shapes are painted gold like Elvis’ hit records, and are surrounded by an entourage of found ceramic and plastic frogs that stand guard over the croaked American rock n’ roll legend. – Susan Hall

Elvis Reinvented, 2012, Original paper collage on museum board, 21 x 15 in. Doubleheader, 2010, Original paper collage, gouache on museum board, 14 x 12 in.

My Blue Heaven, 2007, Unique painting on museum board with printed background, hand-embellished with spray paint stencils and colored pencil, 57 ½ x 36 in. Branch Office, 2008, Paper collage on museum board, 12 x 11 ¼ in.

Installation photo: Artist Perspectives, October 15 - November 13, 2010, Gerald Peters Gallery, Santa Fe, Branch Office, 2010, Original acrylic on canvas with printed background, 58 x 58 in. With works by Deborah Butterfield (foreground) and . Cactus Chaos, 2009, Original paper collage, gouache on museum board, 12 5/8 x 11 in.

Sending Out an S.O.S., 2009, Original paper collage on museum board, 17 ½ x 11 ½ in. Original acrylic on canvas with printed background, 79 5/8 in. x 50 in. Lounge Chair Lizard, 2009, Original paper collage on museum board, 15 ½ x 9 ½ in. Eye on Jersey, 2007, Limited edition giclée print, hand-embellished, 28 x 20 in. (Also available: 44 x 32 in., edition of 20) Original paper collage on museum board on loan from the collection of Beth DeWoody, New York. Trunk Show, 2009, Original acrylic on canvas with printed background, 56 ½ x 38 ¾ in. (Not in exhibition)

Bronco, 2007, Original acrylic on canvas with printed background, 59 ½ x 39 ½ in. BRUCE HELANDER

EDUCATION “Signor Bruce -- egreggio collaggiore! His clothes are a collage! His whole house is a collage!

Rhode Island School of Design, BFA His whole weltanschauung is a collage. Helander out-collages Braque.” Rhode Island School of Design, MFA Tom Wolfe Yale University School of Publishing Harvard University, School of Journalism “This work shows Helander’s strongest points as a collage artist -- an intelligent, unpretentious sense of both humor and design.”

White House Fellow, National Endowment for the Arts Amy Fine Collins, Art in America Recipient, New York Foundation for the Arts Grant Fellow, South Florida Cultural Consortium for Visual Arts “Helander utilizes the formal structure of collage, with its juxtaposition of images, to open up to viewers multiple layers of reality.” Sandra Yolles, ARTnews

PUBLIC COLLECTIONS “Bruce Helander is a camp-it-up comedian, a shameless romantic,

Abergs Museum, Gothenberg, Sweden Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale, Florida and an intelligent abstractionist: this is an unusual combination.” Absolut Vodka Company, Sweden Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, California Jed Perl, The New Criterion Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, North Carolina Albany Museum of Art, Albany, Georgia Newport Art Museum, Newport, Rhode Island “Bruce Helander masters his collages with wit, experience, and style. He is the unrivaled eye. Alexander Brest Museum, Jacksonville, Florida Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida His compositions toy, they entertain, they surprise, they awe.” Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Addison Parks, The Christian Science Monitor Boca Raton Museum of Art, Boca Raton, Florida Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon Boyar Corporation, New York, New York Rochester Municipal Airport, Rochester, Minnesota “...this South Florida treasure is crashing into the big time. Hard work and originality have paid off.” Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego, California Helen Kohen, Miami Herald Butler Art Institute, Youngstown, Ohio San Francisco Museum of Modern Art California State University Art Museum, Long Beach San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, California “A whimsical whirlwind of a man...who takes his cue from the great Dada masters, Center for the Arts, Vero Beach, Florida Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, Georgia particularly Schwitters, and mixes in a bit of the best of Pop...” Charles A. Wustum Museum, Racine, Wisconsin Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C. Richard Merkin, Contributing Editor, Vanity Fair Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, Ohio Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, Kansas Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan Textron Corporation, Providence, Rhode Island “As a collagist, Helander designs jazzy kaleidoscopic designs from vintage printed-paper. Cuillo Centre for the Arts, West Palm Beach, Florida Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa, Florida These riotous images combine snippets of art historical references, cartoons, and advertisements.… Danville Museum of Fine Arts, Danville, Virginia Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, Arizona Helander has a special flair for design and a heightened sensitivity to printed matter.” Duke University Museum of Art, Durham, North Carolina Union County College Museum of Art, Union, New Jersey Bonnie Clearwater, Executive Director and Chief Curator of the Fine Arts Museum of the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Poughkeepsie Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), North Miami San Francisco, California Wellesley College Museum, Wellesley, Massachusetts Grand Rapids Art Museum, Grand Rapids, Michigan Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York “[Helander] is before anything else an artist, and if I may add, a damned good one, too, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, New York Wichita Art Museum, Wichita, Kansas and therefore knows how to explain his work and the work of others. … His lucid, unobtuse and Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, New York WXEL Public Television and Radio, West Palm Beach, Florida often very amusing writing is what is so badly needed in the art world today.” Kemper Museum of Art and Design, Kansas City, Missouri The White House, Washington, D. C. Gilbert Brownstone, former director of the Picasso Museum (Paris) Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California The Vatican, Rome, Italy Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York “In all his activities, Bruce Helander has the instincts of a magpie and the energy of Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, Wisconsin a carnival pitchman. … Helander’s work is refreshing in that it helps make sense of the Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, Mississippi information overload that assaults our sensorium at every turn.” Montreal Museum of Art, Quebec, Canada , late curator of 20th century art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence

Back Cover: Artist as Elvis (Past Performance), 1989, Photo collage with embellishments, 14 x 11 in.