Traces: whatdoyoumeanandhowdoyoumeanit FRANKO'HARA. The betweenAbstract E*pressionism and

THOMASDREHER

Rising, he wraps himself in the burnoose of memories against the heat of life... and I have lost what is always and everywhere present, the scene of my selves, the occasion of these ruses, which I myself and singly must now kill and save the serpent in their midst 2.

THE NEW YORK SCHOOL Names and expressionsfrom the variousfields of art and from public life receivethe same relativeimportance in the In the nineteen-fifties,the poet Frank O'Hara and the poetic processof associationas the first namesof friends, musicianJohn Cage were important stimulatorsfor New The significanceof namesis not explainedwithin the work York artistssearching for alternativepaths to Abstract itself.Even with foreknowledge,the reader can recognize .O'Hara and Cage presentedtheir aesthetic the differencebetween art-internal,public, and private views as early as 1952in panel discussionsand lecturesat only with difficulty. The Artists Club, an associationof Abstract Expressionist The artisticego is not clearlyrecognizable as an individual artrsts. disassociatedfrom the outer world, followingprinciples A paneldiscussion on 7 March 195| , with O'Hara and the independentof situation.The border between the freely artistsJane Freilicher, Grace Hartigan,Joan Mitchell, Alfred associatedand the disintegratingsubject - between the Leslie,and Larry Riverswas led by John Bernard Myers, constitutionand dissociationof the ego - becomesfluid a. partner of the Tibor de Nagy Gallery:. With the Experiencesand conceptionsreceive their own relative exceptionof Mitchell,each of the artistsparticipating in importancein the stream of associationof the act of 'Action this discussionexhibited in this gallery,which alsopublished writing, which is related to ':ln verse, the volumes of poems by O'Hara (A City Winter, 1952; poet is like JacksonPollock, who literally (work)... in the Oranges,1953; Love Poems, 1965).In O'Hara's poems, painting s.'As a result of their cubist syntax (Perloff) with the first namesof Freilicher,Hartigan, and Riverswere temporal and spatialdisplacements 6, the reader can no frequentlymentioned. Furthermore, the de N.gy Gallery longer reconstructthe author's stream of thoughts in also publishedthe four-pageliterary journal Semicolon on O'Hara's poems.The readercan usethe poem only as a an irregularbasis, which includedpoems by O'Hara, John multiply-refractedframework for his or her own Ashbery, Edwin Denby, and KennethKoch, associations.By meansof the multiplicityand intricacyof The poets O'Hara, Ashbery,Denby, and Koch,along with the referenceswhich make the poem possibleand leave it BarbaraGuest and JamesSchuyler, are united by literary open at the sametime, the impressionswhich ariseduring criticismunder the epithet New York Schoolof Poets. On its readingbecome at leastas significantas that which is l4 March 1952,Larry Riversmoderated a panel discussion read. in The Club, on which each of the aforementionedpoets - with the exceptionof Koch - participated, WASHINGTON CROSSING THE DELAWARE

O'HARA'S POETIC FORM ln 1952,Hartigan, Rivers, and the galleristMyers regularly visitedthe MetropolitanMuseum of Art 7. Hartigan,who ln 1951152,O'Hara developedhis own literarystyle. had even closer contact with O'Hara than Rivers,was Without considerationof meter, he quicklywrote down inspiredto paint expressiveadaptations of Dürer, Rubens, alliedimpressions. Memories, fictions, and impressionsfrom and others by these museumvisits. Hartigan had reworked the immediateenvironment - O'Hara frequentlywrote at the adapted figuresonly in a painterlymanner, not his work place,the bookstore of the Museumof Modern compositionally.Rivers, who in his early figurativework Art ( 195l-55) - blendtogether. Following reports of was influencedby Pierre Bonnardand Henri Matisse,was imaginedor actualoccurrences - this cannot be differen- inspired by Gustave Courbel's Un Enterrement ä Ornans tiated by the reader - in the imperfect or perfect tense, (1849/50)as earlyas 1951.In contrastto Hartigan'sO/d are descriptionsin the presenttense, and vice versa. Master ,Rivers reworked the original t4 - autonomously in the representationof the Jewishburial of his grandmother. Unlike Hartiganwho completelyadapted a painting's composition, in WashingtonCrossing the Delaware (1953) Riversreworked the compositionwith the help of other sources.He representedWashington's crossing of the river in a new manner which contrastswith the Well-known paintingof the same motif by EmanuelLeutze from l85l .,r**;ffi in the collectionof the MetropolitanMuseum of Art. Rivers translated O'Hara's cubist syntax, into a multi- perspectivecomposition. In various places,soldiers, cavalrymen,and civiliansare more drawn than paintedon - and at the same time in - a landscapewhich is only loosely suggestedby strokes of color. :' As a model for Washington'sportrait, Riversstated: .../ i,.! | took the face from a Da Vinci demon, a man screaming 8. "-F The position of the front hooves of the white horse, especiallythat of its inclinedstanding leg, as well as the posture of its head are related to that of the horse in Peter PaulRubens' oil sketch of St, Martin cutting his cloak in half (c. 1609-13).No other figure is paintedso precisely as the white horse and Washington.The posture of the head, as well as of the standingand trailinglegs of the white horse'sfront hooves correspond- althoughlaterally inverted - with the contrappostoof Washington.Leutze's real-idealisticWashington is basedupon Rivers'revision of his classicistprototypes e and satirizedin the posture of the horse. Suchanalogies in opposition,whereby pathos is treated with irony, is also found in O'Hara's poems 10. Grace HARTIGAN Organges I , 1952-53 Oil on paper I 12 x 85 cm Riverssatirizes a well-knownhistory paintingby fragmentingit into many scenesand adaptingfigures from Rivers'images are placedeither as illustrationsnext to, other narrativecontexts. Through satire, he upsetsthe above or below parts of poems, or as words in linesof Cold War nationalismof the McCarthy Era. verse. Segmentsof text also become image forms by 'displacement' Riverstransfers O'Hara's of namesand meansof specialscript forms, or they are integratedwith placesinto the visualfield via adaptation in Washington imageforms as letters, signs,and comic-stripballoons. Crossing the Delaware and via set pieces borrowed from lllustrativeas well as signal-likenon-illustrative symbols are the everydayand private spheresin the compositions employed as prominent signsof the text. lconicaland which followed in the course of the fifties.Paintings from indexicalsign functions change. The exchangebetween 1955to 1958are no longer constructedwith multiple- processesof seeingand processesof reading provokes a perspectivein terms of compositiononly - as in, for reception which fluctuatesbetween de- and re- 'Washington' example,the painting- but also in terms of semantization. the individualfigures: see Frank O'Hara, One in Three (1957).For O'Hara, Rivers'quality liesin the fluctuation between figurative absence and abstract presence tt . PERSONISM

Kenneth Koch, with the paintingNew York 1950-60, POEM.PAINTINGS completed in 196l in collaborationwith Rivers,was obviously influencedby the graffiti of the period - In 1952-53,Grace Hartigantranslated into oil paintingsl2 scrawlingson walls and toilettes.The title refers to a of the l9 (anti-)pastoralsfrom O'Hara's seriesof poems retrospectiveattitude: O'Hara's Personism,which Koch Oranges 12.Hartigan united linesof verse into blocksin and Riversfollowed in the fifties,was supercededin the these l2 paintingsby varyingthe color baseand sixtiesby 's and 'simpersonal handwriting.Hartigan substituted O'Hara's long linesof adoption of models and subjects.Hartigan's and Rivers' verse with new line arrangements.The artist wrote the adaptationswere followed by a processof quotation, with first linesof verse largerthan those which follow: they thus which the artist not only adapted himselfto the become headings.Hartigan employed text as image, anonymousmeans of production of graphicdesign, but also whereas Riversand O'Hara crossedimage and text while denied the creativitywhich was demandedthere as working together on Stones 13,a seriesof twelve productive force. The points of reference in the external lithographs,between 1957 and 1960.O'Hara: Sometimes urban world which, for O'Hara and Riversreferred back we would discussthe placement of an image, which would to the personal,were replacedby mechanical leave me enough room to write the text, or I would say reproductionsof reproductions.For Warhol and where I wanted the text and then he would decorate the Lichtenstein,the public replacedthe private, whereas,in rest of the stone ta. the sixties, Rivers was creating a personalcosmos, an l5 st

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Larr RIVERSand FrankO HARA Stones.US, )957 Lithograph from one stone individualiconography. References to the externalworld and at ttmes when I would rather be dead the thought can be decipheredas quotationsof the self,since a limited that I could never write another poem has so far stopped amount of referencepoints returns in many works, and me. I think thrsts an tgnobleattitude. I would rather dre sometimeseven within the individualworks themselves. for love, but I haven't. The non-individualfrom the externalworld is re- individualizedin a painterlyrevision stressing fields of color. Rivers'quotation of himselftransforms former external IN MEMORY OF MY FEELINGS pointsof referenceinto internalones and demonstrate that hisformer proximityto O'Hara'shyper-sensitive ln l96l , JasperJohns integrated in stencilscript the title of -r^-+^^^-+^ ^"+^rnal dtct Lt tc)> LU ci\Lct ttd.t influencesil iltuct tLC> ist> suoercededbv a a longer poem, ln Memory of My Feelrngs,written by withdrawalfrom the externalworld. O'Hara in 1956t7 into a paintingof the samename. lt rs This withdrawalfrom the externalworld is alsoapparent one of the first paintingsin a developmentof Johns'away in terms of O'Hara by as earlyas the end of the fifties,as from the appropriationof impersonal,generally known his linesof verseabout Berdre ( 1959;Mrs. BerthaBurger, ,,ö.cions,, tnrnr:rdc-_ the rnrnnlcv...Y,_. h:rclv der-inhcrehle irr,,lage who died in 1957,was Rivers'mother-in-law and model)in compositionswith autobiographicalreferences. Johns placed a lithographfrom the Stonesseries demonstrates: the title above the lower edge of the left sideof the mriseumsAre deoictedas oossibilitiesfor withdrawal. painting.Cn the lower right side of the paintingare the lmagesin whichthe deceasedis depictedbecome name Frank C'Hara and the signatureJohns 6l tn tl'e memorials'.How lucky we are that you're in so many samestencil script. Above the names,the pentimentof museums.lt is not a matter of expressiverevitalization, the words Dead Man are stilllegible under layers of paint. but rather of the mourninqover the lossof life outsidethe We are not concernedhere with an epigraph,but rather museum. with the trace of an epigraphin the form of residuesof ^'-+ ^r^'-^- ^{ "'ork. O'Hara's programmaticstatement, You lust go on your Pd)L Pr rd)c) \Jr vv The meanins.) of_. the scriotr _ and_. the nerve.also ""H""-imolies the nnnosite'the insurmountable possibilitiesof interpretingthe form of presentation stagnation,the mourningover the losswhich forcesone to correqnondwith one another. - -l^^i^^^$ ^{ ^neself cl Ll\J>ll lE l.-.rll (-rl \Jl lC)Cll fromll \Jlll externalg^LCl I ror stimrrliJLil r ruil. Onennessvpul for The title of O'Haras verserefers to oastemotions which new acquaintancesin publicappears as an antipoleto love only livein memory,analogous to painting,which can only and mourningin private.In a Srafementfrom 1959, presenttraces of past actions,and to the old fork and O'Hara reflectsuDon the contrastbetween death anc knifewhich - their everydayfunction discharged by the 'drawn' ''/Y"'.''"|.hvner-sensitive onenneqq fnr the oresent: functionof the image- can only be from the rrtraa ^f ^-.+ ,,-^ l^h^- r^^r^-^^+- ^^+ ^ '^--+ ^-^-^^+' lll', I am mainly preoccupred with the world as I experrenceit, Iraces or pasl use. Jonns rePresenrsnor a Pasr Presenr to JasperJOHNS ln Memory of My Feelings- Frank O'Hara, 196l Oil on canvasand objects 102 x 152 cm Private Collection

but rather signsof the absent, that is to say traces. Johns entwine and unravel signsof a vocabularywhich recurs attains a new presenceof the flat surface of the paintingas againand again in their oeuvres. The irretrievable absence a result of the way in which he engagestraces of painting, of the represented - of the referent - as a result of usage,and script with one another to become signswhich death is employed to transform communicatingsign then refer to each another. functions:the reference of signsto reality becomes the reference of signsto signs- as in a dictionary, in which every word is explainableonly by meansof new words, MEMENTOMORI or, as John Ashbery states: All things seem mention of themselves ln 1969170,after O'Hara's accidentaldeath in 1966,Johns And the names which stem from them branch out to had Memory Piece (Frank O'Hara) constructed according other referents... to a model from 1961.In the realizationof the piece,a Unfinished concepts that can never bring themselves to the rubber cast of O'Hara's left foot was used. One relief on point te. a flap is printablein each of the three interchangeable, For the recipients- as for the readersof O'Hara's poems sand-filled,uppermost drawers. The mould of the - possibilitiesof associationsof presentedsigns with one's deceased,a trace of an eternally absent referent, can be own life experiencesand possibilitiesof the emotive filling reproducedany amount of times as traces in the sand. of the processesof seeingand reading triggered by the The reference foot - imprint of production is transformed network of signscondense as intensity.The relationship into a referencebetween imprints in the work. between recipientand author can be explainedin two With ln Memory of the Dead (1967), Rivers thematicized ways: 'dead', 'mute', the relationshipbetween death and life in a manner A. The work reflectsitself as or rather as differentthan and yet similarto Johns:in the verticalaxis, sinceit makes no statementabout the relationships he presentsBerdie above and, under this, O'Hara. The between referents external to the sign, the causefor the dead are depicted in collageddrawings, as further use of the presentedsigns and the combinationof signs quotations of the self next to studiesfor already internal to the work. Merely the result of a transformation completed picturesof animalsand animal-logos.The of signsbecomes relevant, but not the processof individualparts of the work consistof works which can be transformation itself. 'dead' related to other works in Rivers'oeuvre - the B. The work is regardedas the medium of a 'secret represented disappearsin a network of representations exchange'between author and recipient.The that refer to representations. relationshipbetween the occasionof the projection and In the sixties,Rivers and Johnsbegan to repeatedly the projection itself, between the production of signsand t7 Larry RIVERS ln Memory of the Dead, 1967 Spraypaintand collagein relief 76 x 53 cm

the receptionof signs,remains open, without being 12. F. O'HARA, Oranges:l2 Pastorals(1949), in: The CollectedPoems, pp. 5-9; 'communicating arbitrary. The tubes' between absent PERLOFF,pp. 39-41;MATTISON, p. 28. 13.lllustrated in: E. SPARKS,Universal Limited Art Editions...,The Art Instituteof author and recipientprojections do not allow themselves Chicago,1989, pp. 471-475. to be deciphered,nor do they revealthemselves. 14.E. LUCIE-SMITH,Frank O'Hara..,, in: Studiolnternational(Sept. 1966), p. l12. Intellectualexamination of the sign processrestricted to 15. F. O'HARA, Personism:A Manifesto,in Yugen6/1960;reprinted in: O'HARA, The CollectedPoems, o. 498. the work itself(A.) and emotive opennessfor the potential 16.F. O'HARA, Statement(1959), in: D. ALLEN(ed.), Ihe New American of meaningreferring to past sign processes(8.) are not Poetry, New York, 1960;reprinted in: O'HARA, Ihe CollectedPoems, p. 500. simultaneously,but successivelypregnable attitudes of 17.See note 2. I 8. J.DE RRID A, Elli pse, in: Die Schrift unddie Differenz, FrankfurVMain, | 976, p. 450. receptron.I 19.J. ASHBERY,Grand Galop, in: J. ASHBERY,Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror, l. F. O'HARA, Biotherm(1961162), in: The CollectedPoems, New York, 1972, New York, 1975;reprinted in: J. ASHBERY,Selected Poems, New York, 1986, p. 445. pp. 172,174, 2. F. O'HARA, ln Memory of My Feelings(1956), in The CollectedPoems, Translatedfrom the Germanby Gdrard A. Goodrow pp.252-256. 3. l. SANDLER,Ihe Club,in Artforum (September1955); reprinted in: C. and D. SHAPIRO,,A CriticalRecord, Cambridge, 1990, p. 53. FrankO'HARA (1926,Baltimore/Maryland) was a poet, art criticand organiserof exhibitions.He livedsince 195 | in New York. In 1955he 4. See:A. FELDMAN, FrankO'Hara. Criticismand lnterpretation,New York, 'special 1979,pp.90-l 12. became assistant'of the internationalexhibition programme at 'assistant 5. j. POLLOCK,My Painting,in Possibilitr'es/ (Winter 1947-48);reprinted in: the MOMA, New York, in 1960 curatorof paintingand SHAPIRO,Abstract Expressionism, p. 356. sculptureexhibitions'; in 1965associate curator and in 1966curator. 6. GraceHARTIGAN, 25 November1975. Quoted in: M. PERLOFF,Frank He died on25.7.1966runned over by a buggyon the beachof Fire O'Hara.Poet Among Painters, Austin/London, 1979, p.70. lsland/NewYork. 7. J.B. MYERS,Tracking the Marvelous.A Life in the New York Art World, London, 1984,p. 126;R.S. MATTISON, Grace Hartigan. A Painter'sWorld, New GraceHARTIGAN (1927, Newark/New Jersey), lives and works in York, 1990,p.20, Baltimore/Maryland. 8. J.H. LORIA, GoldenOldies: An lnterviewwith Larry Rivers,in Arts Magazine (Nov. 1978),p. 104;H. KORIATH,Larry Rivers...,FrankfurVMain, 1990, p. 102. JasperJOHNS (1930, Augusta/Georgia) lives and works in New York and 9. See,for example,the postureand clothingin lngres'portrait of de Nogent in SaintMartin, French West Indies. (lBl5) in the FoggArt Museum,Cambridge. 10.M. PERLOFF,pp. 40,63,68. Larry RIVERS(1923, Bronx/New York) livesand works in Southampton. ll. F, O'HARA; Larry Rivers:Ihe Nexf to LastConfederate Soldier (1959); ThomasDREHER (1957) is an art historian.He works as an art criticin reprintedin: F. O'HARA, StandingStiil and walkingin New York, Bolinas, München, California,1975, p. 43. IB