An Artist Who Used to Disappear About Concealing Artistic Subjectivity in the Art of Jack Goldstein
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u ↪Q art Nr 4(58)/2020 /56/ Quart 2020, 4 PL ISSN 1896-4133 [s. 56-75] An artist who used to disappear About concealing artistic subjectivity in the art of Jack Goldstein Filip Pręgowski Nicolaus Copernicus University n 9 June 1972, Jack Goldstein, then a student of the California 1. Poster for J. Goldstein’s perfor- OInstitute of the Arts in Los Angeles, carried out on the univer- mance at California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, 9 June 1972. Photo: sity campus an action of his burial while alive, in which he was kept courtesy © The Estate of Jack Gold- up all night in a wooden coffin buried underground. A tube was led stein from the inside of the coffin above the earth’s surface to enable the artist to breathe, and an electric cable with a sensor was connected to his chest. The other end of the cable, also led outside, was ended with a red signal lamp blinking to the rhythm of a heartbeat. The event was announced by a leaflet entitledJack Goldstein Performance June 9, 8 PM, presenting the campus plan with the performance location marked [Fig. 1]. In the same year, the artist carried out several similar activities in which he or other performers took part, and the heart- beat was announced by a red lamp or its sound was amplified by means of a microphone and loudspeaker1. By arranging his own death, the artist put himself to an extreme test and crossed the line of irrevocability and finality of this experi- ence. What seems more important, however, is that in retrospect, the funeral performance proved to be one of many examples of reflection � 1 A. Dumbadze, Of Passivity and Agen- on the key and constantly recurring theme of absence in his artistic cy: Jack Goldstein, [in:] Jack Goldstein career. The absence of the artistic subject, its disappearance, dissolv- x 10.000 [exh. cat.], Ed. Ph. Kaiser, 24 June – 9 September 2012, Orange ing in space, fading in the shadows, escaping from the light, being County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, outside a certain structure, stage, outside the artistic work, outside California, Munich 2012, pp. 22, 23. See also R. Hertz, Jack Goldstein and the the artistic discourse, drifting in a vacuum – these are the threads CalArts Mafia, Ojai 2003, p. 124. /57/ u ↪Q art Nr 4(58)/2020 � 2 In the present text I will focus on the art- appearing in the works he realised in the form of sculptural instal- ist’s performances, films and paintings. lations, sound recordings on vinyl discs, performance, written apho- 3 As C. Owens (Back to the Studio, “Art 2 in America” 1982, No. 1, pp. 100–101) risms, as well as in the medium of film and painting . In the case of wrote, the hybrid combination of media films and paintings, Goldstein additionally emphasized his absence was the guiding principle in Baldessa- ri’s studio, according to which “a paint- by withdrawing from his own work and entrusting it to hired techni- er can use a photographic darkroom, cians or artists. a photographer can use a colour video, a designer can create a performance”. See In my text, I would like to reflect on how the absence of an artis- also A. Dumbadze, op. cit., pp. 16–17; tic subject makes itself visible depending on the medium in which Ch. Knight, A Situation Where Art Might Happen: John Baldessari on CalArts, “East the artist worked and, consequently, on the meaning of the disap- of Borneo” 19 November 2011, http:// pearance gesture present in his work. It will be important for my re- eastofborneo.org/articles/a-situation- where-art-might-happen-john-baldes- flections to refer to selected trends in American art of the 1970s and sari-on-calarts (access date: 25.10.2019). 1980s, as well as to the discourse defining the artistic practices of that 4 With the passage of time, thanks to lat- er exhibitions, other prominent figures time, revising concepts such as representation, authorship, identi- of American art were among the artists ty or originality, in which Jean Baudrillard, Roland Barthes and Mi- included in The Pictures Generation. In the retrospective exhibition “The Pictures chel Foucault, among others, played a key role. I will also present the Generation 1974–1984” organised at The position of art criticism sympathising with the trends initiated by Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 2009 (curated by D. Eklund), apart the artists (mostly graduates of the legendary California Institute of from five protagonists of 1977, works The Arts) who created the Pictures Generation circle to which Gold- by J. Baldessari, B. Kruger, L. Lawler, Th. Lawson, M. Mullican, R. Prince, D. Salle, stein belonged. I will refer to texts published in the second half of C. Sherman, J. Welling and M. Zwack were the 1970s and 1980s in American art magazines by such critics as presented; but Ph. Smith was missing. Pictures Generation 1974–1984: April Douglas Crimp, Thomas Lawson, Craig Owens and Hal Foster. I will 21 – August 2, 2009, „The Met”, https:// also explain the technical aspects of Goldstein’s films and paintings, www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/list- ings/2009/pictures-generation (access which result from his decision to withdraw from artistic subjectivity. date: 25.10.2019). Critical pictures Born in Canada, Jack Goldstein (1945–2003) belonged to the genera- tion of artists debuting in the 1970s, associated with the Post-Studio at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), run by John Baldes- sari. Within the Post-Studio, Baldessari promoted ideas that border on conceptualism, minimalism and pop-art. Encouraging students to deepen their knowledge of art history, he also fuelled their distrust of traditional artistic hierarchies and the modernist myth of originality. Baldessari’s classes were famous for their lack of structure, constant conversations and conceptual reflection. In the studio, the practice of combining artistic disciplines was preferred to the modernist idea of the specificity of the medium3. A generational group of young artists to which Goldstein belonged became famous in the late 1970s as The Pictures Generation. Its legend was built up by the collective exhibi- tion “Pictures”, organised in 1977 in New York’s Artists Space gallery. Apart from Goldstein, there were four artists participating in the ex- hibition: Troy Brauntuch, Sherrie Levine, Robert Longo, and Philip Smith4. The originator of the exhibition, as well as the author of an essay to the catalogue of the same title was an already mentioned art critic and historian, Crimp. Both the exhibition and the accompanying text have over time acquired the status of a legend, representing not only the trend of /58/ Filip Pręgowski / An artist who used to disappear. About concealing artistic subjectivity in the art of Jack Goldstein American art of the 1970s and 1980s, but also the artistic strategies � 5 In an essay accompanying the 1977 ex- born then, which are still present in art today. It is primarily the so- hibition D. Crimp (Pictures: An Exhibi- tion of the Work of Troy Brauntuch, Jack called appropriation and subversion, which were the main tools for Goldstein, Sherrie Levine, Robert Lon- critical analysis of the cultural codes of late capitalism and the mech- go and Philip Smith [exh. cat.], Artists Space, New York 1977; reprint: Pictures, anisms of creating meanings and exercising control over society by “X-tra” 2005, No. 1) analysed the films means of producing images-goods. Both the artists whose works The Jump (completed a few months after the exhibition, in 1978) and Shane (1975) were presented at the 1977 Crimp’s exhibition and those who were by J. Goldstein, his performance Two included in The Pictures Generation after some time used quota- Fencers (1976) and a set of photographs The Pull (1976); the photographic diptych tions, photographic reproductions or painterly paraphrases and often Golden Distance by T. Brauntuch (1976) placed familiar or recognizable images in a new, unexpected context. and his series 1 2 3 (1977) made in the screen printing technique; the set of 36 The artists used trivial motifs often present in contemporary visual drawings by Sh. Levine, Sons and Lovers culture, challenged their commonly accepted meaning, manipulated (1977); a slide projection by Ph. Smith, Relinquish Control and his drawings memory and association mechanisms, thanks to which certain imag- (Watch I, Watch II, Spins [I am not able to es are perceived as significant structures5. determine the dates of creation of these works]); and the installation by R. Longo The concept that has become the hallmark of The Pictures Gen- Seven Seals for Missouri Breaks (1976) eration, which assumed that we understand and experience reality and his film Artful Dodger (1976). 6 S. Rothkopf, Hit or Myth, “Artforum” not directly, but through the media and the representations they 2001, No. 2, p. 134. Th. Lawson (Inter- produce, was obviously not an original idea, as it can be found in ference on the Line, [in:] B. Blinderman, Th. Lawson, S. Morgan, Contemporary the work of Robert Rauschenberg and pop-art artists. The question Perspectives 1984 [exh. cat.], 5 Octo- asked some time ago by a critic and curator at the Whitney Muse- ber – 25 November 1984, Center Gallery, Bucknell University, Lewisburg [Penn- um, Scott Rothkopf – whether the way the artists of The Pictures sylvania] 1984; reprint in: idem, Mining Generation have studied the nature of representation and meaning for Gold: Selected Writings (1979–1996), Ed. L. Bovier, F. Stroun, Zürich 2004, formation in culture is fundamentally different from how Rauschen- p. 77) mentioned Rauschenberg’s art as berg, Andy Warhol, Ed Ruscha or even Baldessari did it previously, well as J.