November 23, 1985- January 19, 1986 TheNewMuseum OF CONTEMPORARY ART On View Tospeak of painting today is to speak of an enterprise that many in the visual arts declared "dead" not so very long ago. The decade of the 1970s witnessed an extraordi- become today's newest avant-garde in nary rise of theoretical-critical prac- a matter of moments, even though it tice which focused on issues difficult was clearly deja vu. to manifest in the sensuous surfaces Certain artists, of course, will al- of painting. The social construction ways make paintings, not out-of-fash- of representation, for example, ion, but out-of-persistence, not out-of- seemed easier dealt with in photo- style, but out-of-need. To deny these graphic practice; sexuality, in film and artists that pleasure, as some critics video; and politics, in the form of a are want to do, is to promote a critical written text, often found anonymously tyranny equivalent to the strictures on the streets. By the late 1970s, that might be laid down against certain painting had become the province of political manifestations in the name late modem diehards, attempting to of freedom, or certain sexual practices shore up a belief system of outmoded in the name of public health. To be individualism, or of the new promoters critical, of course, is a necessity; to of a pluralistic postmodernism, which, be programmatically exclusive-to as- no matter where it came from (the sume that all practice is the same-is South Bronx or southern Italy) could to be blind. ... NANCY CHUNN, MICHAEL CORRIS, and and in so doing produces the adual conditions OLIVIER MOSSET are each approaching what of a change.* is commonly called mid-career. Chunn and Nancy Chunn's paintings of maps, which in Mosset have been painters since the late 1960s, the last year have become increasingly abstract while Corris has been a bit more typical of the as she attempts to convey the gravity of what decade past-his work included here is a seri- she depicts, are also representations of the un- ous though equally tongue-in-cheek "mid-career representable, distinct, however, from the mod- retrospective" which has assumed the form of em ideology of the sublime. These are places the moment-painting-in a humorously, critic- in the world few of us have ever seen, much less al fashion (prior to this, Corris has been best experienced. But they are the sites of a histor- known for a series of politically charged textual ical tragedy that continues to unfold: Africa is works, including a group of posters and post- raked over; Angola is divided; and South Afri- cards with subjects like ''Logo for the Confused" ca, waiting, is washed over by waves of anguish. and "Logo for the Dispossessed"). Not one of Chunn makes paintings not to inunerse herself these three artists, however, buys into the myths in metaphors of self-expression but, as she says, of transcendence or redemption that currently in order "not to forget:' Michael Corris's works inform painterly practice (though certainly we also function historically, but as a "ghost" of his are reminded of Barnett Newman's "sublime" own history and, even more detached, of the fields of color when confronted by the mono- larger social history of which they are a part. chromes ofMosset). On the contrary, the chal- Though these thirty-six "paintings" initially may lenge has been to divest, without de-valuing, the appear as a rather self-indulgent attempt to in- act of painting from its mythos of heroism, so sert his own past into art history, they, in fact, that painting can become a vehicle, like any other possess as their referent the ideas of produc- aesthetic vehicle, of rhetorical experience-an tion and distribution, and pose the question: experience that will speak to more than personal what happens when the process overwhelms fantasy or expressionistic ego. Seen in this man- the "original"? These issues have concerned ner, Olivier Mosset's extraordinary expanses of Corris for years-"the contradiction between the colored canvas begin to contain within them the means ofproduction and distribution and there- memory of all paintings and thus become:the lations ofproduction and distribution in art prac- representation of painting itself: the sign, if you tically determine how you can 'represent' will, for the practice,. procedure, and object of meaning and reality."** These three artists are painting. Mosset, of course, is extremely self- perhaps symptomatic of a larger (and often conscious in this regard (he has been painting, younger) group of artists that is diverse enough one might say, the same picture since the first to include Sherrie Levine, Allan McCollum, monochrome of january 1978): A painting-that Peter Halley, Sue Coe, Larry Liss, and Aura panel behind a TV set-(and the ideological dis- Rosenberg, who have also assumed the task of course that its formal practice is) does not, of making paintings, or signs for paintings, in a course, escape politics. But in refusing to give an postmodem world. image ofit, a painting deconstructs its own reality IfOlivier Mosset pushes minimalism to an ex- Although publicly sited, ANN MESSNER's treme where minimal becomes maximal, where work Look-Out for Broadway avoids reciting the one thing becomes all things, then AIMEE familiar cliches of public sculpture. For instance, RANKIN pushes the notion to the point of ex- the work is small (relative to, say, Richard cess. In four box constructions collectively ti- Serra's Tilted Arc) , and instead of blocking tled ''Natural History;' similar in format to a pedestrian traffic, it is placed discreetly, high on previous series of "Renaissance Wmdows;' a lamppost and well out-of-reach. Yet, the sculp- Rankin represents a postmodem reading of na- ture is confrontational, even agitational; a mega- ture, or natural history, as an accumulation of phone or spyglass is directed down at the viewer artifacts which, though natural in origin, are and a jagged, stepped arm reaches out as if to primarily cultural in meaning and affect. Butter- tap passersby on the shoulder. This direct ad- flies, for example, become science-fiction crea- dress, the bright red megaphone, and the plan- tures in one box devoted to the collapse (or ar geometric forms recall certain constructivist implosion) of time; in another, human bones be- street sculptures, particularly the radio kiosks come architecture; and in yet another, an artifi- of Gustav Klucis. Like those works, Messner's cial sunset is the backdrop for a mosaic of coins. sculpture provides a clear, immediately identifi- Rankin has written that ·~ .. the ideal guaran- able abstract form. Unlike the constructivist tor of value is no longer nature, but rather, the works, her sculpture is mute, nonfunctional. material order of exchange itself."*** Like the Rather than broadcast its political message, dioramas of museums (the modem containers Look-Out for Broadway serves a symbolic func- of nature and culture; the final resting places of tion: standing in the midst of more mundane sig- time itself), Rankin's boxes present, in her view, nage, it represents a way of visually activating the "perverse beauty of that which is dead:' In the streets and constructing new forms of other words, nature, in the late twentieth cen- material culture. tury, is only a memory of what once was--"na- -Brian Wallis ture as the final Other:' As Rankin's boxes suggest, nature is now just another simulation- This exhibition is supported in part by grants from Jerome Foun- dation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and by funds from the an impossible site which we experience not Arthur Sahn Memorial Fund. Ann Messner's project is co-sponsored merely from a distance (through a window-a by Artists & Audiences, a public service,program of the New York Foun- dation for the Arts. metaphor for history), but as a representation Wegratefully acknowledge Michael Corris for donating the typo- of itself. The question of course is: what is na- graphy for this brochure. ture when it is re-presented as "natural REFERENCES history"? Olivier Mosset, "Deux ou Trois Choses que Je Sais d'Elle;• COVER, no. 6 (Wmter 1981-82): 33. As this brief text indicates, the work in this * *Michael Corris, "Paint What You Do? ;• COVER, On VIew program has been selected express- no. 6 (Wmter 1981-82): 28. ly to coincide with the exhibition, "The Art of * • • Aimee Rankin, ''The Parameters of 'Precious•;• Memory/The Loss of History:' Art in America LXXITI, no. 9 (Sept. 1985): 115. -William Olander WORKS IN THE EXHIBITION NANCY CHUNN received a B.F.A. from the California Institute of the Arts, \hlencia, in 1969. Her work has been the subject of solo exlubitions at the Canis Gallery, Women'sBuilding, Los Angeles; A&M Artworks and Concord Gallery, Nancy Chunn New York. It has been included in many group shows, including "Otherland," Ronald Feldman Gallery, New York (1985); "Drawings: After Photography;' Africa, 1983 organized by Independent Curators, Inc. (a traveling exhibition, 1984-85); and Oil on canvas, 108 x 108 11 "The Apocalyptic Vision: Four New Imagists;' Galerie Bellman, New York (1984). Angola, 1984 Oil and wax on canvas, 96 x 60 11 MICHAEL CORRIS attended the Maryland Institute of Fine Arts, Balti- more. From 1972 to 1977, he worked exclusively with Art & Language, New South Africa: Waiting, 1985 York; since 1980, he has worked as an individual artist and had his first solo Oil and wax on canvas, 72 x 72 11 exhibition in 1984 at Gallery 345, New York. His work has been featured in numerous group shows, including "Disinformation: The Manufacture of Con- Courtesy Ronald Feldman Gallery, sent;' Alternative Museum, New York (1985); "Hunger for W>rds;' Gallery New York 345, New York (1984); and "Das Andere Amerika;' Neu Gesellschaft fur Bildende Kunst, Berlin, WestGermany (1983).