Kassel, February 13, 2020
PRESSKIT FORREST BESS (February 15, 2020 – May 3, 2020)
1. Press release and invitation 2. List of press images available for download 3. Exhibition booklet Forrest Bess 4. CV Forrest Bess 5. Exhibition program 6. FF – Live at the Fridericianum
documenta und Museum Fridericianum gGmbH Johanna Köhler, Head of Communication and Marketing Friedrichsplatz 18, 34117 Kassel T +49 561 70727-2520 / [email protected]
Kassel, February 13, 2020
PRESS RELEASE AND INVITATION
Exhibition: Forrest Bess
February 15 – May 3, 2020 Fridericianum, Friedrichsplatz 18, 34117 Kassel, Germany Opening: Friday, February 14, 2020, 7 pm
Press preview: Thursday, February 13, 2020, 11 am
Speakers: Dr. Sabine Schormann, General Director of documenta und Museum Fridericianum gGmbH Moritz Wesseler, Director of the Fridericianum
The Fridericianum presents the first exhibition of the work of American painter Forrest Bess in Germany for over thirty years.
The exhibition at the Fridericianum presents the remarkable and unusual work of Forrest Bess to a wider German audience for the first time since 1989. By featuring over seventy works from institutional and private collections, the artist’s development is mapped from his early conventional, figurative formulations through to his so-called “visionary” paintings—the biomorphic abstractions—that make up the main body of his work. Furthermore, by exhibiting selected correspondence and other archival material, Bess’s biography is carefully traced while at the same time providing a background to his art theoretical approaches, the handling of his homosexuality, and his theories of hermaphroditism. This insight into the life and work of an artist who has found a considerable following among contemporary artists, such as Tomma Abts, James Benning, Robert Gober, Richard Hawkins, Henrik Olesen, and Amy Sillman, strongly highlights Bess’s relevance to the present day.
documenta und Museum Fridericianum gGmbH Johanna Köhler, Head of Communication and Marketing Friedrichsplatz 18, 34117 Kassel T +49 561 70727-2520 / [email protected]
Forrest Bess: Life and Work
The painter Forrest Bess, born in 1911 in Bay City, Texas, where he also died in 1977, is considered an outstanding yet little understood figure in American postwar art. Both his work and lifestyle conformed little to the conventions of the day. He thus led a rather secluded existence from the second half of the 1940s on the Gulf of Mexico where he worked as a catcher and seller of fish bait. During this time, Bess began to systematically produce small-format paintings which encapsulated “visions” that appeared to him on the threshold between waking and sleep. These works, which he exhibited fairly regularly from 1951, feature symbols, shapes, and spaces that are not clearly decipherable and which can be located in the field of biomorphic abstractions. For Bess, subconscious experiences and humanity’s collective memory manifested themselves in these pictorial worlds. Accordingly, he pursued the exploration of his visions like an intense piece of research. He studied texts on mythology, art history, psychology, and sexual science that he articulated in countless records and correspondence without ever unravelling the mystery of his creativity. Over time he came to the conclusion that he could attain immortality by uniting the male and the female. In the 1950s this belief ultimately led to personal medical interventions on his own genitals, through which he tried to become a pseudo-hermaphrodite.
For Bess artistic work was closely related to life itself, which, conveyed with his intensity and specificity, can be seen as a feature distinguishing him from artists like Barnett Newman, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, or Clyfford Still—who like him exhibited at the legendary Betty Parsons Gallery. However, it is not only from this perspective that we can discern a difference to these artists who are today considered the main exponents of Abstract Expressionism. The intimate format of Bess’s paintings is in direct contrast to the monumentality of his colleagues’ works. Furthermore, his work is neither marked by a recognizable style nor characterized by any form of stringent development. Even though Bess’s works, as abstractions, fit perfectly into the context of contemporary art history, his “visionary” pictures nevertheless tread their very own path. It is precisely this aspect that has played a considerable role in making him a point of reference for generations of subsequent artists.
After his death Bess gained recognition in the form of various institutional solo exhibitions. Marking the start of this was a presentation at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York in 1981, followed by a touring exhibition in 1988 to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and the San José Museum of Art in San José, concluding at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne in 1989. This was followed in 2013–14 by the exhibition Seeing Things Invisible which toured to the Menil Collection in Houston, the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, the Neuberger Museum of Art in Purchase, as well as the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley. Together with Robert Gober’s initiated juxtaposition of Bess’s writings and works in the context of the Whitney Biennial 2012, the tour formed a high point in the
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reception of this visionary painter. The exhibition at the Fridericianum follows on from these shows and, for the first time since 1989, updates the reception of Forrest Bess’s work in the German context.
The exhibition is funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation. Image material for download available here: https://fridericianum.org/press/
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Service information
Fridericianum Friedrichsplatz 18 34117 Kassel T +49 561 70727-20 [email protected] www.fridericianum.org
Opening hours Tue–Sun & public holidays 11 am–6 pm
Admission fee 6 Euro, reduced 4 Euro Wednesday free admission Free admission for children and under 18s Groups (10 or more) 4 Euro per person Free admission for students with a Kulturticket Students and trainees 2 Euro Free admission for school groups
Press contact documenta und Museum Fridericianum gGmbH Head of Communication and Marketing Johanna Köhler +49 561 70727-2520 [email protected]
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Kassel, February 13, 2020
ÜBERSICHT BILDMATERIAL ZUM DOWNLOAD / LIST OF PRESS IMAGES AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD
1. Bildnachweis / Image Credit: Forrest Bess: Untitled (No. 5), 1949 © The artist and Collection Mickey Cartin
2. Bildnachweis / Image Credit: Forrest Bess: Untitled (#6), 1957 © The artist. Privatsammlung / Private collection, Courtesy Modern Art, London Foto / Photo: Robert Glowacki
documenta und Museum Fridericianum gGmbH Johanna Köhler, Head of Communication and Marketing Friedrichsplatz 18, 34117 Kassel T +49 561 70727-2520 / [email protected]
3. Bildnachweis / Image Credit: Forrest Bess: Untitled (#11), 1957 © The artist. Privatsammlung / Private collection, Courtesy Franklin Parrasch Gallery, New York Foto / Photo: Kent Pell
4. Bildnachweis / Image Credit: Forrest Bess: Untitled (No. 13), 1950 © The artist. Privatsammlung / Private collection, New York Foto / Photo: Stewart Clements
5. Bildnachweis / Image Credit: Forrest Bess: Here Is a Sign, 1970 © Courtesy of The Museum of Everything
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6. Bildnachweis / Image Credit: Forrest Bess: Untitled (The Spider), 1970 © The artist. Collection Christian Zacharias, Courtesy Modern Art, London Foto / Photo: Robert Glowacki
7. Bildnachweis / Image Credit: Forrest Bess: No. 6, 1959 © The artist. Privatsammlung / Private collection, New York Foto / Photo: Stewart Clements
8. Bildnachweis / Image Credit: Forrest Bess: Untitled (No. 7), 1957 © The artist. Collection Christian Zacharias, Courtesy Modern Art, London Foto / Photo: Robert Glowacki
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9. Bildnachweis / Image Credit: Forrest Bess: Untitled (No. 31), 1951 © The artist. Courtesy Andrew Masullo Foto / Photo: Wilfred J. Jones
10. Bildnachweis / Image Credit: Richard Hawkins: Proposal for a monument, 2019 © Courtesy the artist and Greene Naftali, New York Foto / Photo: Marten Elde
11. Bildnachweis / Image Credit: James Benning: After Bess, 2014 © James Benning. Courtesy the artist and neugerriemschneider, Berlin
12. Bildnachweis / Image Credit: Foto von / Photo of Forrest Bess, 1956 © Kirk Hopper
- 4 - FORREST BESS Deutsch Einleitung 4
Forrest Bess 6
Die Gemälde 8
Die These 9
English Introduction 12
Forrest Bess 14
The Paintings 15
The Thesis 16
Impressum / Imprint 19
2 3 Einleitung Dabei dürfte gerade die Betrachtung von Leben und Werk verdeutlichen, welche Relevanz Bess für die Gegenwart hat. Letzteres manifestiert Der Maler Forrest Bess, 1911 in Bay City, Texas, geboren und 1977 sich nicht zuletzt auch in der starken Rezeption seines Wirkens durch ebendort verstorben, gilt als herausragende, aber ebenso schwer zu zeitgenössische Künstler*innen wie Tomma Abts, James Benning, greifende Persönlichkeit der amerikanischen Nachkriegskunst. Diese Robert Gober, Richard Hawkins, Henrik Olesen oder Amy Sillman, Einschätzung lässt sich sowohl durch die Wesenszüge seines Werkes als was wiederum Thema einer eigenen Ausstellung sein könnte. Die auch durch die besonderen Umstände seines Lebens begründen, da beides Präsentation in Kassel soll hingegen jene Persönlichkeit ins Bewusstsein nur bedingt den damaligen Konventionen entsprach. So führte er ab der rücken, die gegen Ende der 1940er-Jahre an den prominenten zweiten Hälfte der 1940er-Jahre ein recht isoliertes Leben am Golf von Kunsthistoriker Meyer Schapiro schrieb: „I’d like to introduce myself – Mexiko, wo er sich als Fänger und Verkäufer von Fischködern betätigte. my name is Forrest Bess. I am a painter-fisherman.“ In dieser Zeit begann er systematisch, kleinformatige Bilder anzufertigen, anhand derer er seine Visionen festhielt, die er an der Schwelle zwischen Wachzustand und Schlaf erlebte. Diese Arbeiten, mit denen er ab 1951 in einer gewissen Regelmäßigkeit Ausstellungen bestritt, zeigen Symbole, Formen und Räume, die sich nicht eindeutig dechiffrieren lassen und die im Bereich der biomorphen Abstraktionen verortet werden können. Für Bess manifestierten sich in den Bildwelten unterbewusste Erfahrungen und Erinnerungen der Menschheit. Dementsprechend betrieb er seine Auseinandersetzung mit ihnen wie eine obsessive Forschungsarbeit, die er in unzähligen Niederschriften und Korrespondenzen artikulierte, ohne die Rätselhaftigkeit seines Schaffens jemals aufzulösen. Erstmals seit 1989 stellt das Fridericianum den bemerkenswerten Kosmos des Künstlers einer breiteren Öffentlichkeit in Deutschland vor. Durch die Präsentation von mehr als siebzig Exponaten aus institutionellen und privaten Sammlungen wird Bess’ Wandel von seinen eher konventionelleren gegenständlichen Formulierungen hin zu den visionären Malereien umrissen, die sein Hauptwerk bilden. In Ergänzung dazu werden seine Biografie durch die Integration von ausgewählten Korrespondenzen sowie von anderen Ephemera behutsam nachgezeichnet und Hintergrundinformationen zu seinen kunsttheoretischen Ansätzen, seinem Umgang mit der eigenen Homo- sexualität oder seinen Theorien zum Hermaphroditismus geliefert.
4 5 Forrest Bess
Geboren in Bay City, einer Kleinstadt 130 Kilometer südwestlich von Houston, wuchs Forrest Bess inmitten der Ölfelder von Ost-Texas auf, wo sein Vater als Arbeiter sein Geld verdiente. Als Kind bekam er einige Stun- den Kunstunterricht von einem Nachbarn, aber eigentlich brachte er sich das Zeichnen und Malen selbst bei, indem er Illustrationen aus Büchern und Magazinen kopierte. Nach dem Highschool-Abschluss wollte Bess sein Interesse für Kunst weiterverfolgen, doch seine konservativen Eltern hielten dies für ein brotloses Unterfangen. Er gab nach und schrieb sich als Kompromiss für ein Architekturstudium ein, zunächst an der Texas A&M University und dann an der University of Texas. Obwohl er weder an der einen noch der anderen Hochschule einen Abschluss machte, erhielt er durch sie Zugang zu den Bibliotheken, in denen er sich in die verschiedens- ten Themen vertiefen konnte. Er entwickelte ein breit gefächertes Interesse an Gebieten wie Literatur, Mythologie, Philosophie und Psychologie. Besonders ein Buch, Havelock Ellis’ Psychology of Sex, half Bess dabei, sich zumindest bis zu einem bestimmten Grad mit seiner Homosexualität aus- zusöhnen. Dennoch blieb er sein Leben lang sowohl der homo- wie auch der heterosexuellen Gemeinschaft entfremdet. Für die Erstere empfand er sich als zu männlich, für die Letztere als zu effeminiert. Als die Vereinigten Staaten in den Zweiten Weltkrieg eintraten, meldete sich Bess zum Militär. Wegen seiner Begabung im Malen und Zeichnen wurde er damit beauftragt, Tarnmuster zu entwerfen. Eines Abends offen- barte Bess einem Kameraden seine Homosexualität und wurde daraufhin von diesem so zusammengeschlagen, dass er eine schwere Kopfverletzung davon trug. Kurz darauf erlitt er einen Nervenzusammenbruch und wurde von einem Militärpsychologen behandelt. Dieser ermutigte ihn, als eine Art Therapie die Visionen zu malen, die er seit seiner Kindheit hatte. Bess behielt diese Praxis über zwanzig Jahre lang bei. Obwohl er ein isoliertes Da- sein führte, wurde eine Reihe von Zeitgenossen auf seine Malerei aufmerk- sam, sodass bereits zu seinen Lebzeiten mehrere Einzelausstellungen seiner Werke in der renommierten Betty Parsons Gallery in New York stattfanden.
6 7 Die Gemälde Die These
Obwohl Bess Zeit seines Lebens gelegentlich gegenständlich malte, ist Die einfachen Holzrahmen hatten für Bess auch einen ganz praktischen er für seine kraftvollen, kleinformatigen, visionären Gemälde bekannt, Zweck. Seine Bilder sollten in der Hand gehalten und studiert werden. die er nach seiner Entlassung aus der Armee konsequent zu produzieren Nachdem er die Werke des Psychologen C. G. Jung gelesen hatte, kam begann. Weil er davon überzeugt war, er könne seine Visionen nur in Bess zu der Überzeugung, dass die Symbole, die ihm in seinen Visionen völliger Einsamkeit erkunden, zog Bess in ein entlegenes Anglercamp, erschienen, aus dem, wie der Schweizer Begründer der analytischen das allein per Boot zu erreichen war. Hier verdiente er sein mageres Aus- Psychologie es nannte, „Kollektiven Unbewussten“ stammten – einer kommen mit Fischfang und dem Verkauf von Ködern. Bess fand heraus, theoretischen Quelle von Symbolen, Bildsprachen und Wissen, die dass die biomorphen Formen und abstrakten Landschaften seiner Visionen von der gesamten Menschheit geteilt wird. Bess hoffte, dass ihm diese ihm im Übergang zwischen Bewusstem und Unbewusstem erschienen – abstrakten und mythischen Symbole uralte und universelle Wahrheiten zumeist kurz vor dem Einschlafen oder gleich nach dem Aufwachen. enthüllen würden. Das Studium seiner Gemälde in Verbindung mit seiner Neben seinem Bett bewahrte er ein Notizbuch auf, in dem er seine Lektüre in den Bereichen der Alchemie, Mythologie und Anthropologie Visionen sofort festhielt, wenn sie auftraten. Durch die einfache Schwarz- führten Bess zu dem merkwürdigen Glauben, der Schlüssel zu Weiß-Zeichnung konnte er sich die Vision auch noch Jahre später ins immerwährender Gesundheit liege in der Transformation des Körpers Gedächtnis rufen und in ein Gemälde umsetzen. Diese Methode erlaubte zum Hermaphroditen. Er war so überzeugt von dieser Erkenntnis, dass er es ihm, die Komposition rasch zu skizzieren und zugleich in der Malerei dazu ein langes, illustriertes Thesenpapier verfasste, das leider verschollen mit viel Sorgfalt auszuführen. ist. Bess präsentierte diesen Text mehreren Wissenschaftlern und Ohne akademische Anleitung entwickelte Bess eine sehr eigenwillige Forschern, um sich mit ihnen über seine Entdeckungen für eine bessere und vielseitige Technik. Um die Oberfläche des Gemäldes lebendiger zu Gesellschaft auszutauschen. Um seine Thesen zu überprüfen, tat Bess gestalten, nutzte er den Spachtel, und den Farben mischte er Sand bei, etwas Beunruhigendes: Er operierte an seinem eigenen Körper, um zu um Textur zu erzeugen. Immer wieder stellte er matte und glänzende, versuchen, wie er es nannte, einen „pseudo-hermaphroditischen“ Zustand flüssige und pastose Farben einander gegenüber. Bess nutzte vor allem zu erlangen. Er machte an der Unterseite seines Penis einen Schnitt, von ungemischte Farben und entwickelte daraus verblüffende Kombinationen, dem er hoffte, diese Öffnung würde sich so dehnen, dass sie annähernd die er selten wiederholte. Seine Kompositionen folgten keinen verbind- einer Vagina gleiche, um das Männliche und Weibliche in sich zu vereinen. lichen Regeln. Manchmal platzierte er Unmengen von kleinen Formen in Er glaubte, der Geschlechtsverkehr in diesem pseudo-hermaphroditischen bestimmten Bereichen eines Musters, aber genauso häufig arrangierte er Zustand würde ihn regenerieren, seinem Körper Jugend und Vitalität ein oder zwei Elemente in einer zentralen, ikonischen Anordnung. Bess verleihen und ihn letztendlich unsterblich machen. Obwohl er sich noch baute einfache, handgefertigte Rahmen aus Treibholz, die die Unbefan- mehrmals von Ärzten operieren ließ, erzielte er nie ein zufriedenstellendes genheit und das völlig unprätentiöse Erscheinungsbild seiner Leinwände Ergebnis. Das ließ ihn mit dem Gefühl zurück, sein Experiment sei nie noch zusätzlich betonten. gänzlich verwirklicht worden.
8 9 In den frühen 1960er-Jahren begann Bess damit, die Bedeutungen, die er in seinen Bildern „entdeckt“ hatte, in Diagrammen aufzuschlüsseln, in einigen Fällen auch erst viele Jahre, nachdem das Bild entstanden war. Mehrere Versionen dieser Diagramme finden sich in Bess’ umfangreichen Korrespondenzen, die in den Smithsonian Archives of American Art aufbewahrt werden. Sie zeigen eine radikal vereinfachte Version von Bess’ komplexer These. Nach diesem Schema stellt Rot das Männliche, Weiß das Weibliche dar. Ein Dreieck verkörpert den Akt des Schneidens, der Kreis ein Loch. Das Viereck symbolisiert den Akt des Dehnens. Einige von Bess’ Gemälden, wie Untitled (The Spider) von 1970, können anhand dieser Hinweise gelesen werden. Das Männliche/Rote und Weibliche/ Weiße verschmelzen zum Hermaphroditen. Einen weißen Kreis (Loch) im Zentrum eines Vierecks (Dehnen) kann man als Dehnen eines Loches interpretieren, was mit Bess’ Versuchen, seinen Körper zu modifizieren, korrespondiert. Gelegentlich verweist Bess auch durch die Titel, wie etwa Sign of the Hermaphrodite (1953) oder The Penetrator (1967), auf die Ideen, die seinen Werken zugrunde liegen. Die meisten seiner Bilder sind jedoch ohne Titel oder haben Titel, die auf eine symbolische oder mythologische Quelle anspielen, ohne ihre Bedeutung direkt preiszugeben. Selbst mit Hinweisen und Andeutungen verweigern sich Bess’ kleine, manchmal krude abstrakten Leinwände einfachen Auflösungen. Hinter ihrer Materialität, ihrer scheinbaren Sachlichkeit verbirgt sich eine komplexe Vorstellungskraft. 1961 zerstörte ein Hurrikan Bess’ Haus und Atelier sowie eine unbekannte Anzahl seiner Bilder. Zunächst versuchte er, sein Heim wiederaufzubauen, doch schließlich war er gezwungen, nach Bay City zurückzukehren. Er malte noch bis etwa 1970 weiter, doch sein körperlicher und geistiger Gesundheitszustand verschlechterten sich zunehmend. 1974 wurde Bess in ein Pflegeheim eingewiesen, wo er 1977 starb – zehn Jahre nach seiner letzten Ausstellung in der Parsons Gallery. Außerhalb von Texas war er fast völlig vergessen. Obwohl er seinen Traum von der Unsterblichkeit nicht verwirklichen konnte, bleiben Bess’ Bilder ausgesprochen lebendig.
10 11 Introduction could be the topic of its own exhibition. In contrast to this, the Kassel exhibition aims to shift into our The painter Forrest Bess, born in 1911 in Bay City, Texas, where he also consciousness this enigmatic figure, who towards the end of the 1940s died in 1977, is considered an outstanding yet rather enigmatic figure in wrote to the famous art historian Meyer Schapiro: “I’d like to introduce American postwar art. This appraisal can be explained both by the nature myself – my name is Forrest Bess. I am a painter-fisherman.” of his work and the special circumstances of his life since he conformed little to the conventions of the day. He led a fairly secluded existence from the second half of the 1940s on the Gulf of Mexico, where he worked as a fisherman and seller of bait. During this time, he began to systematically produce small-format paintings which encapsulated the “visions” that appeared to him on the threshold between waking and sleep. These works, which he exhibited fairly regularly from 1951, feature symbols, shapes, and spaces that are not clearly decipherable but which can be located in the field of biomorphic abstractions. For Bess, subconscious experiences and humanity’s collective memory manifested themselves in these pictorial worlds. Accordingly, he pursued the exploration of his visions almost like a piece of obsessive research that he articulated in countless records and rambling correspondence, without ever unravelling the mystery of his creativity. For the first time since 1989, the Fridericianum now presents the remarkable cosmos of this artist to a wider audience in Germany. Through over seventy featured works from institutional and private collections, Bess’s development is traced from his more conventional, figurative formulations to his visionary paintings that make up the main body of his work. By way of an accompaniment, his biography is carefully mapped out via the presentation of selected correspondence and other ephemera, thus providing background information to his art theoretical approaches, handling of his homosexuality, and his theories on hermaphroditism. It is precisely this two-fold presentation of Bess’s life and work that highlights his relevance to the present day. Indeed, this importance is manifest in the notable reception of his work by contemporary artists such as Tomma Abts, James Benning, Robert Gober, Richard Hawkins, Henrik Olesen, and Amy Sillman, which
12 13 Forrest Bess The Paintings
Born in Bay City, Texas, a small town 130 kilometers southwest of Although Bess painted figurative canvases from time to time throughout Houston, Forrest Bess grew up among the oil fields of East Texas where his life, he is best known for the powerful small-scale visionary paintings his father worked as a manual laborer. He took a few art lessons from a that he began to produce in earnest after his discharge from the Army. neighbor as a child, but largely taught himself to draw and paint by copying Feeling he could only fully explore his visions in solitude, Bess moved to illustrations from books and magazines. After high school, Bess hoped live full-time at a fishing camp accessible only by boat, earning a meager to pursue his interest in art; however, his conservative parents regarded living fishing for and selling bait. Bess found that the biomorphic shapes it as an impractical pursuit. He compromised, enrolling in university as and abstracted landscapes of his visions usually occurred as he moved an architecture student, first at Texas A&M University and later at the between consciousness and unconsciousness – just before falling asleep, University of Texas. Although he failed to earn a degree at either school, or immediately upon waking. He kept a notebook by his bedside in which both provided Bess with access to diverse libraries in which he immersed he sketched his visions as they occurred. With a simple black-and-white himself, developing interests in a variety of fields, including literature, drawing Bess could access the vision again, even years later, to produce a mythology, philosophy, and psychology. One book in particular, Havelock painting. This method allowed him to record the compositions quickly, Ellis’s Psychology of Sex, helped Bess come to terms with his homosexuality yet paint them very carefully. on some level. Throughout his life, however, he remained alienated from Bess developed an untutored but highly original and varied technique. both the gay and straight communities, feeling that he was too masculine He frequently used a palette knife to enliven his surface and mixed sand for the former and too effeminate for the latter. into his paint to create texture. He often juxtaposed areas of matte and When the United States entered World War II, Bess enlisted in shiny paint, as well as passages applied thickly and thinly. Using primarily the military, where due to his interest in drawing and painting he was unmixed paint, Bess employed striking combinations that he rarely assigned to design camouflage patterns. One evening Bess revealed his repeated. No rules reliably govern his compositions. He sometimes places homosexuality and was beaten by a fellow enlistee, resulting in a serious masses of small shapes into areas of pattern, and just as often arranges head injury. Bess subsequently suffered a nervous breakdown and was a single or pair of elements into a central, iconic formation. Bess crafted treated by an army psychiatrist who encouraged him to paint the visions simple handmade frames out of salvaged wood, which reinforce the he had experienced since childhood as a form of therapy, a practice he unselfconscious and utterly unpretentious appearance of his canvases. continued for more than twenty years. Despite living an isolated existence, Bess’s paintings captured the attention of a number of his contemporaries, and several solo exhibitions of his work were held at the prominent Betty Parsons Gallery in New York City.
14 15 The Thesis (female) together create a hermaphroditic form. A white circle (hole) in the center of a square (to stretch) canvas can be interpreted as the stretching The sturdy wooden frames served a practical purpose for Bess, for his of a hole, corresponding to the attempted modification of Bess’s body. paintings were meant to be held and studied. After reading the work of Bess occasionally hints at the theories underpinning his work through his the psychologist C. G. Jung, Bess came to believe that the symbols that titles, Sign of the Hermaphrodite (1953), for example, or The Penetrator appeared in his visions derived from what Jung, the Swiss founder of (1967). Most of his canvases, however, are untitled or have titles that may analytical psychology, called the “collective unconscious,” a theoretical suggest a symbolic reading or mythic source without directly revealing source of imagery and knowledge shared by all humankind. Bess hoped their meaning. Even with the hints provided, Bess’s small, sometimes that these abstract, mythic images would reveal ancient and universal crude, abstract canvases resist an easy resolution, their apparent matter-of- truths. The study of his paintings combined with his readings in factness hiding a complex imagination. alchemy, mythology, and anthropology led him to the belief that the In 1961 a hurricane destroyed Bess’s home and studio along with an key to everlasting health lay in transforming the body to become a unknown number of paintings. Although he tried to rebuild, he was forced hermaphrodite. Bess was so convinced of his conclusion that he assembled to move back to Bay City. He continued to paint until around 1970, but a lengthy, illustrated thesis (now lost) of his ideas. He presented this text his mental and physical health declined. Bess entered a nursing home in to a number of researchers so that he could share what he had discovered 1974 and died in 1977, ten years after his last exhibition at the Betty in order to better society. To test his thesis Bess – somewhat alarmingly – Parsons Gallery and largely forgotten outside of Texas. Although Bess altered his own body in an attempt to become what he called a “pseudo- never achieved his dream of immortality, his paintings remain fully alive. hermaphrodite”: He made a cut in the underside of his penis that he hoped to dilate enough to approximate a vagina, thus uniting the male and female within himself. Bess believed that having intercourse in this pseudo- hermaphroditic state would be regenerative, restoring youth and vigor to his body, and ultimately bestowing immortality. Though he obtained further surgery, Bess never achieved a satisfactory result and felt that his experiment was never fully realized. Bess began assembling charts of the meanings he “discovered” in his imagery in the early 1960s, in some cases many years after the paintings were made. These charts, several versions of which may be found among the voluminous correspondence by Bess preserved in the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art, reveal a radically simplified version of Bess’s complicated thesis. According to his schema, red represents male, white female, a triangle stands for the act of cutting, a circle denotes a hole, and a square the act of stretching. Some paintings can be read using these clues, such as Untitled (The Spider) from 1970, where red (male) and white
16 17 Impressum / Imprint
Dieses Begleitheft erscheint anlässlich der Ausstellung / This booklet is published on the occasion of the exhibition
Forrest Bess 15. Februar – 3. Mai 2020 / February 15 – May 3, 2020
Redaktion / Editing: Naomi Deutschmann, Julia Schleis, Alexandra Südkamp
Autor*innen / Authors: Clare Elliott, Moritz Wesseler (Einleitung / Introduction)
Übersetzung / Translation: Claire Cahm
Lektorat / Copyediting: Joachim Geil, Karola Handwerker, Sriwhana Spong
Grafische Gestaltung / Graphic design: Heller & C GmbH
© 2020 documenta und Museum Fridericianum gGmbH, die Autor*innen / the authors
documenta und Museum Fridericianum gGmbH Generaldirektorin / Director General: Dr. Sabine Schormann Friedrichsplatz 18 34117 Kassel T +49 561 70727- 20 [email protected] www.fridericianum.org
Träger des Fridericianum ist die documenta und Museum Fridericianum gGmbH. Gesellschafter*innen sind die Stadt Kassel und das Land Hessen.
The responsible body for Fridericianum is the documenta und Museum Fridericianum gGmbH. Shareholders are the City of Kassel and the State of Hesse.
Photocredits: 1. Meyer Schapiro papers, 1949-1982. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution // 2. Forrest Bess: Untitled (No. 13), 1950 © The artist. Private collection, New York, Photo: Stewart Clements // 3. Forrest Bess: Untitled (No. 5), 1949 © The artist and Collection Mickey Cartin // 4. Forrest Bess: No. 6, 1959 © The artist. Private collection, New York, Photo: Stewart Clements // 5. Forrest Bess: Untitled (No. 31), 1951 © The artist. Courtesy Andrew Masullo, Photo: Wilfred J. Jones // 6. Forrest Bess: Untitled (No. 7), 1957 © The artist. Collection Christian Zacharias, Courtesy Modern Art, London, Photo: Robert Glowacki //7. Forrest Bess: Here Is a Sign, 1970 © Courtesy of The Museum of Everything
Gefördert durch die / Funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation
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Kassel, February 13, 2020
CV FORREST BESS
1911 Forrest Clemenger Bess was born on October 5, 1911, as the first son of Minta Lee and Arnold “Butch” Bess in Bay City, a small town 80 miles southwest of Houston, Texas. Since his father earned a living as an oil worker, Bess’s early childhood was influenced by the environment of the oilfields in Eastern Texas. His family moved back and forth between various different residential complexes before finally settling in Bay City.
1915 On Easter Sunday of this year, Bess experiences – by his own account – the first of his visions that are to accompany him throughout his life and shape his artistic practice.
1918 He begins taking art classes from a neighbor. He also practices drawing by copying illustrations from a variety of magazines and encyclopedias.
1929 Achieving the second highest grade in his class, Bess graduates from high school to enroll at the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas (now A & M University) in College Station, Texas. Instead of studying art, he chooses architecture at the instigation of his parents. Now able to access university libraries, he explores a wide range of topics, developing a keen interest in mathematics, literature, ancient mythology, Hinduism as well as the writings of Sigmund Freud and Charles Darwin. He repeatedly reads The Psychology of Sex by Havelock Ellis, who was engaged in the scientific study of human sexuality.
1931 Bess moves to the University of Texas in Austin to continue his architecture studies.
documenta und Museum Fridericianum gGmbH Johanna Köhler, Head of Communication and Marketing Friedrichsplatz 18, 34117 Kassel T +49 561 70727-2520 / [email protected]
1932 or 1933 He leaves university without a degree and starts working in Texas oilfields.
1934 Bess travels to Mexico, where he comes into contact with various artists, spending time at the Academia de San Carlos in Mexico City, though probably without enrolling at the school. In Bay City, he opens his first studio where he creates paintings in a style he describes as post-impressionist. His subjects are mainly still lifes, portraits, as well as city and landscape views, specifically looking to the likes of Henri Matisse, Maurice de Vlaminck and Vincent van Gogh. He also begins creating works based on his visions, although he soon discards these formulations.
1936 Exhibition in the lobby of a hotel in Bay City.
1938–1939 Bess lives in Houston. He participates in group exhibitions and runs a small gallery together with other artists.
1940 Solo exhibition at the Witte Memorial Museum, San Antonio, October 27 – November 6, 1940
1941 One Man Show by Forrest Bess at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, February 1–16, 1941
1941 – 1946 On December 8, 1941, the United States enters World War II. Bess is drafted for military service and is stationed in a number of U.S. states. Among other things, he is tasked with the design of camouflage patterns for the Army Corps of Engineers and with training African-American units in masonry work. Around 1944, he suffers a nervous breakdown, which may be associated with a traumatic experience. After revealing his homosexuality to a comrade, he receives from him a severe injury to the head. Bess has hallucinations and seeks help in the psychiatric hospital of his military base, where the treating psychiatrist advises him to paint his purported perceptions.
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1946 After being discharged from the army, Bess moves to San Antonio and sets up a studio. He increasingly begins to capture his visions in painting form.
1947 Bess moves back to his parents’ home in Bay City, a fisherman’s house on the Bay of Chinquapin. From this time on he earns a meagre living from fishing, crab-fishing and selling bait. In his free time he reads and writes, but above all devotes himself to painting.
1948–1949 An article in Life magazine draws Bess’s attention to the art historian Meyer Schapiro, a teacher of art history at Columbia University in New York and one of the first to make the avant-garde movements of the 20th century the subject of academic reflection. Bess contacts him by letter, whereupon a lively correspondence develops over the ensuing years.
He begins to take a comprehensive look at the writings of the Swiss psychiatrist and founder of analytical psychology Carl Gustav Jung.
Bess travels to New York City to seek exhibition opportunities. In the Big Apple, he meets Betty Parsons. This gallery owner and artist is an early proponent of Abstract Expressionism and is one of the leading influential figures of the American avant-garde. At that time her gallery represented and promoted artists such as Jackson Pollock, Clyfford Still and Mark Rothko. Bess is invited to exhibit at Parsons’s gallery, also engaging in extensive correspondence with her in the following years.
1950 Forrest Bess, Betty Parsons Gallery, New York, December 18, 1950 – January 6, 1951
1951 Paintings by Forrest Bess, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, April 15 – May 6, 1951
1951–1954 Bess publishes a series of articles on art and architecture in The Daily Tribune in Bay City.
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Approx. 1950–1955 Bess becomes intensively engaged in anthropological, ethnological, psychological and sexual science research. During this time, he develops the conviction that immortality can be attained by uniting the male and the female. He summarizes his thoughts in his so-called “Thesis,” which is considered lost today. Ultimately, this leads to personal interventions on his own genitals in order to become a “pseudo- hermaphrodite.”
He writes to various scientists to discuss his findings and theories with them. For example, from 1952 onwards he made contact with Carl Gustav Jung on several occasions.
1955 Bess sends a letter to U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower to draw his attention to his theories and their relevance.
1957 Forrest Bess, Betty Parsons Gallery, New York, November 4–23, 1957
1958 Forrest Bess, André Emmerich Gallery, Houston, April 28 – May 12, 1958
Bess writes to Parsons expressing his intention to exhibit his “Thesis” together with the painting, but she refuses his request.
1959 Forrest Bess, Betty Parsons Gallery, New York, April 20 – May 9, 1959
1961 Hurricane Carla destroys his fisherman’s house on the Bay of Chinquapin as well as a large part of his property, including a number of paintings. Reconstruction will take the form of a much smaller shelter.
At the end of the year, Bess undergoes another operation on his genitals, this time probably by a doctor.
1962 Forrest Bess: Retrospective Exhibition, Betty Parsons Gallery, New York, January 8–27, 1962 Forrest Bess, Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, April 26 – May 17, 1962
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In Sexology magazine, Bess reads an article by clinical psychologist and sexologist John Money. He establishes contact with the scientist, who works in Baltimore at John Hopkins University, and remains in contact with him until 1974. In 1976, Money discusses the Bess case as one of three examples of self- operation in an article in The Journal of Sex Research.
1965 Bess has to close his fishing business, which exacerbates his already strained financial situation and contributes to his decision to move to Bay City.
1967 Forrest Bess, Betty Parsons Gallery, New York, May 23 – June 9, 1967
1973 Schapiro helps Bess receive a monthly grant of $125 from the Mark Rothko Foundation.
1974 Forrest Bess | Cara Cohen, Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY, November 6 – December 2, 1974
1974 Bess is admitted to a psychiatric hospital in San Antonio after behaving erratically for some time and displaying increasing symptoms of alcohol addiction. He is transferred to the Veterans Affairs Hospital in Waco.
1975 Bess moves into a nursing home, the Bay Villa Nursing Home, in Bay City and stops producing pictures.
1977 Texas, The Art League of Bay City, Bay City, March 7–22, 1977
Bess dies in Bay City on November 11 at the age of 66.
1981 Forrest Bess, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, October 7 – December 13, 1981
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1988 Forrest Bess, Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York, April 21 – May 14, 1988 Forrest Bess, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, September 10 – October 16, 1988 Forrest Bess, San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, November 26 – December 26, 1988
1989 Forrest Bess (1911–1977): Here is a Sign, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, January 28 – March 27, 1989
2012 Forrest Bess (by Robert Gober), 2012 Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, March 1 – May 27, 2012
2013 Forrest Bess: Seeing Things Invisible, The Menil Collection, Houston, April 19 – August 18, 2013 Forrest Bess: Seeing Things Invisible, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, September 29, 2013 – January 5, 2014
2014 Forrest Bess: Seeing Things Invisible, Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, State University of New York, Purchase, February 16 – May 11, 2014 Forrest Bess: Seeing Things Invisible, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, The University of California, Berkeley, June 11 – September 14, 2014
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Kassel, February 13, 2020
EXHIBITION PROGRAM
Night Flight Saturday, February 15, 2020, 3 pm Moritz Wesseler (director) and Christian Zacharias (musician and collector) talk about the passion for Forrest Bess.
F wie Feierabend Tuesday, February 25, March 31 and April 28, 2020, 6.30–10 pm Wind down your day with a tandem tour through the exhibition, accompanied by tasty treats and music.
Finding Bess Thursday, February 27, 2020, 6 pm Lecture by James Benning (artist and filmmaker, Los Angeles) – in English.
„Finally – a Bit of Prophecy.“ The Paintings and Thesis of Forrest Bess Thursday, February 27, 2020, 7 pm Lecture by Clare Elliott (The Menil Collection, Houston) – in English.
Mind Crystal Thursday, March 5, 2020, 7 pm Curator’s tour with Moritz Wesseler (director).
documenta und Museum Fridericianum gGmbH Johanna Köhler, Head of Communication and Marketing Friedrichsplatz 18, 34117 Kassel T +49 561 70727-2520 / [email protected]
Grenzgänge in der Malerei – Ein zeitgenössischer Blick auf die Werke von Forrest Bess Saturday, March 14, 2020, 2–5 pm Talk between Klaus Merkel (professor, Kunstakademie Münster) and Susanne Hesse-Badibanga.
Forrest Bess and Idea of Queer Camouflage Thursday, March 26, 2020, 7 pm Lecture by Mark W. Turner, PhD (professor, King’s College, London) – in English.
„I’d like to introduce myself – my name is Forrest Bess“. Selbstdarstellung und Selbstdeutung in Forrest Bess’ Briefen Thursday, April 2, 2020, 7 pm Lecture by Dr. Dieter Schwarz (former director Kunst Museum Winterthur).
Signs, Symbols, & Stories: A Deeper Look at the Art and Life of Forrest Bess Thursday, April 16, 2020, 7 pm Lecture by Chuck Smith (documentary director, New York) – in English.
Mind Crystal Thursday, April 30, 2020, 7 pm Curator’s tour with Julia Schleis (curatorial department).
Finissage Sunday, May 3, 2020, 2–6 pm Includes a tandem tour through the exhibition, an open “Studiowerkstatt”, and selected treats.
Free admission to all events. No prior registration required.
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Kassel, February 13, 2020
FF – LIVE AT THE FRIDERICIANUM
In addition to the exhibitions at the Fridericianum, the museum invites international artists on a monthly basis to host a wide variety of events:
Performance Christopher Knowles: Emily likes the TV Thursday, February 20, 2020, 7 pm
Performance & Concert Juliette Blightman und Anthony Silvester: Year of the Rat Thursday, March 19, 2020, 7 pm
Screening & artist talk Yu Ji: PATAAUW STONE Thursday, April 9, 2020, 7 pm
Concert Dan Bodan: Practico Inert Thursday, May 14, 2020, 7 pm
Free admission to all events. No prior registration required.
documenta und Museum Fridericianum gGmbH Johanna Köhler, Head of Communication and Marketing Friedrichsplatz 18, 34117 Kassel T +49 561 70727-2520 / [email protected]