Leon Golub: Paintings Nov. 9 - Dec. 19, 1990

Johnson County Community College. Gallery of Leon Golub: Paintings approximation of reality as possible . cutting the figure off at the foot or other Golub depends upon the viewer's parts of the body works to extend the figurative painter Leon acceptance of the media photo as truth arena beyond the canvas into actual or Golub creates large, confrontational to transfer credibility to own his canvases, real space. This process , along with paintings that address issues of thus making his figures tangible. Golub's occasional practice of cutting aesthetics, politics and the media . From "Thefreeze of the photographic into the canvas, connects the violation to mercenaries and death squad police to gesture, the .fix of an action, how an the skin of the canvas with the social or hapless victims of political violence, arm twists, how a smile gets physical violation to the victim's body. Golub's larger-than-life-size figures momentarily stabilized, or The aesthetics, the formal elements engage us in their world. Dating from exaggerated - to try to get some of involved in creating a work of such 1976 to 1988, the paintings included in this is important . ... I attempt in physicality, combine masterfully with the this exhibition deal with issues of power, these paintings to give some of the artist's political point of view to produce violence and vulnerability. quality of media experience, a sense paintings that have a lasting impact upon Leon Golub was born in in of tension and of abrupt our consciousness. White Squad V (1984), measuring more than 13 feet 1922. Following classes at Wright Junior immediacy. "2 College, he received his bachelor's wide, comments on acts of violence Just as Caravaggio populated his degree in art history from the University committed by police , such as the paintings of saints and disciples with of Chicago in 1942 and a master 's degree invisible death squads, in countries such common people from the streets of from the in 1950. as El Salvador and Argentina . Rome, Golub plucks his mercenaries, He and his wife, artist , lived villains and victims from the mass media. "One of the things at the basis of how in Rome and Paris before settling in New Based on ordinary people, his villains are I'm working is at some level the idea York in 1964. In his earlier work, Golub as approachable as your next door of the hero, antihero, the two sides, produced paintings of athletes, neighbor. Golub comments: man and his shadow. "6 philosophers and colossal antique figures Contradiction and irony weave into influenced by classical and Hellenistic "Each figure is a synthesis of the narrative and formal elements of the Greek, Etruscan and Roman iconography. dif.ferent sources . ... I want each painting . The Pompeiian red background In his Combat and Gigantomachy .figure to be both the reconstruction creates a shallow space that pushes the series that followed, he explored the of a generic type and to possess an figures aggressively forward. In this way, themes of human conflict with outside idiosyncratic singular existence. "3 Golub combines abstraction 's sense of forces. Beginning in the 1970s, Golub's The unposed and often awkward detachment with realism 's sense of work acquired a specific, more objective gestures of the protagonists caught in a immediacy. stance, referring to contemporary particularly revealing moment, the political events. flattening out of the figures and the "One claims to support humanist values, liberal points of view, but "The actions that I paint are single point of view - characteristics maybe at some level you're incipient: they could take place associated with the photograph - are identifying with those guys, deriving under almost any circumstances. exploited by Golub to produce paintings vicarious pleasure in viewing these Political violence and political of extraordinary presence and power. kinds of macho figures. "7 interrogation can happen Through his unorthodox painting anywhere. "1 method of building up layers of paint on In Four Blacks (1985), Golub unstretched canvas and dissolving them suggests the chasm that exists in As a means of investigating the with solvents and scraping the surface American society today. The setting is an politics of power on an institutional level, with a meat cleaver , Golub develops an urban ghetto. The three men seated in Golub focuses upon the dynamics activated, aggressive surface in keeping front of a grubby wall watch the between individuals and reveals a world with his disturbing subject matter. Golub spectator - the intruder. Their enormous of irony and contradictions. An advocate describes his process : size and edgy wariness place the viewer, for social change, Golub employs a the outsider, in a position of variety of devices to make his paintings "The paintings have a raw, porous uncomfortable vulnerability. Golub seem as convincing as possible . In this appearance . ... There is surprisingly explains: way, the viewer becomes a protagonist little paint on the canvas. The forms in the unfolding drama and more and colors fare] smashed into the "I want to make these works as susceptible to questions raised in the tooth of the canvas, but aggressive as I can. ... They have a paintings of power, violence and paradoxically aggressively active on look of tension about them that says vulnerability. the surf ace. "4 a lot about who they are, where they To capture the proper gesture for his Although flattened out, the huge are comingfrom and what they figures , Golub appropriates the figures are articulated to give the illusion want."B photograph as a more immediate of substance and weight. They inhabit a The somber mood is enhanced by the reference . The figures evolve as shallow space and are pushed forward to cool, pale blue and green palette. The composites of newspaper, journal and the front of the picture plane . The artist wall compresses the space, hemming in magazine photographic images . The ·speaks of his intention of "trying to the figures as well as the viewer so that compositions resemble the journalist 's break down the barriers between the drama is enacted upon a confining snapshot which also makes the paintings depicted and actual space. To be space that becomes emotionally charged. seem more real. To the contemporary inserted in the paintings means The woman 's disheveled appearance eye, the snapshot is as close to an forcible contact. "5 The technique of suggests a loss of hope . The spectator is Four Blacks, acrylic on canvas, 1985, 120" x 183", Collection of The Eli Broad Family Foundation, Santa Monica, Calif. the intruder here, and Golub raises the war to its most elemental condition - the Acknowledgments question as to who has greater power in death of a husband, a son, or a friend. This exhibition would not have been society today. Futility and desperation permeate the possible without the generous loan of In comparison to the pregnant stillness drama. works from The Eli Broad Family of Four Blacks, Threnody (1986) The paintings in this exhibition Foundation, Santa Monica, Calif. We are portrays both anguish and action. The combine dramatic elements to create an most grateful for the foundation's painting (one of a series) alludes to art dealing with social problems as support , as well as the assistance of political upheavals in Latin America or enduring as Goya's Disasters of War. Foundation Curator Michele De Angelus Africa. The title means "lamentation" and The work reveals Golub at his most and Registrar Kristin West. points to the suffering experienced by provocative and compelling, probing Thanks are also due to Michele Rowe­ women due to the violence of war. The issues of power, violence and Shields, museum administrator of journalistic snapshot composition of the vulnerability in contemporary society . Cranbrook Academy of Art Museum, for painting reinforces the authenticity of the Michele Rowe-Shields her insightful essay on Golub's work. event . The mysterious but clearly horrible Museum Administrator/Curator of Exhibitions action to which the women are reacting Cranbrook Academy of Art Museum Bruce Hartman, Director is not identified. The awkwardness of the Gallery of Art women's positions exaggerates the 1. Michael Newman, Intetview with Leon intensity of their emotions. The Golub, Institute of Contemporary , syncopated color, patches of red, yellow London, 1982, pp. 6-7. 2. Matthew Baigell, The Mercenaries, An and orange advancing amid the cool, Intetview with Leon Golub, Arts Magazine, On the cover: White Squad V, acrylic on sunless areas of blue and green, matches May 1981, p. 68. canvas, 1984, 120" x 161", Collection of in its energy the wild gestures of the 3. Newman, p. 5. The Eli Broad Family Foundation, Santa distraught figures absorbed in grief. The 4. Ibid., p. 6. Monica, Calif. viewer witnesses the event but is 5. Ibid., p. 4. powerless to act. 6. Lynn Gumpert and Ned Rifkin, Golub, The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, Although a fallen figure is partially 1984, p. 64. visible in the corner of the painting, the 7. Newman , p. 7. real victims are the women. Grief reduces 8. Kartemquin Educational Films, Golub, 1988. Threnody, acrylic on canvas, 1986, 120" x 167", Collection of The Eli Broad Family Foundation, Santa Monica, Calif.

Checklist of the Exhibition (all works courtesy of The Eli Broad Family Foundation , 6) Portrait of (1970) Santa Monica, Calif.) acrylic on canvas, 1976 1) Four Blacks 22" x 18" acrylic on canvas, 1985 7) Portrait of Nelson Rockefeller (1941) 120" x 183" acrylic on canvas , 1976 2) Mercenaries III 23" x 18" acrylic on canvas, 1980 8) Portrait of Nelson Rockefeller (1976) 120" x 198" acrylic on canvas, 1976 3) Threnody 22" x 19" acrylic on canvas, 1984 9) Portrait of Nelson Rockefeller 120" x 167" acrylic on canvas, 1976 4) White Squad V 18" x 17" acrylic on canvas, 1984 10) Portrait of Nelson Rockefeller (1971) 120" x 161" acrylic on canvas , 1976 5) Wounded Sphinx 17" x 17" acrylic on canvas, 1988 120" x 154" Johnson County Community College, Cultural Education Center 12345 College at Quivira, Overland Park, KS 66210-1299 (913) 469-8500