New work on paper I John Elderfield Author Elderfield, John Date 1981 Publisher The Museum of Modern Art Exhibition URL www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/2019 The Museum of Modern Art's exhibition history— from our founding in 1929 to the present—is available online. It includes exhibition catalogues, primary documents, installation views, and an index of participating artists. MoMA © 2017 The Museum of Modern Art NEW WORK ON PAPER JAKE BERTHOT DAN CHRISTENSEN ALAN COTE TOM HOLLAND YVONNE JACQUETTE KEN KIFF JOAN SNYDER WILLIAM TUCKER JOHN ELDERFIELD THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART NEW YORK NEW WORK ON PAPER 1 Thisis the first in a seriesof exhibitionsorganized by The Museumof ModernArt, New York, each of whichis intendedto showa relativelysmall number of artists througha broadand representativeselection of their recentwork on paper.Emphasis is placedon newwork, with occasionalglances backward to earlierproduction where the characterof the art especially reguiresit, and on artists or kindsof art not seenin depth at the Museumbefore. Beyond this, no restrictionsare imposedon the series,which may include exhibitions devoted to heterogeneous and to highlycompatible groups of artists, and selectionsof workranging from traditional drawing to workson paper in mediaof all kinds.Without exception, however, the artists includedin each exhibitionare presentednot as a definitive selectionof outstandingcontemporary talents but as a choice, limitedby necessitiesof space, of only a fewof those whose achievementmight warrant their inclusion— and a choice, moreover,that is entirelythe responsibilityof the directorof the exhibition,who wished to share someof the interestand excite mentexperienced in lookingat newwork on paper. NEW WORK ON PAPER 1 JOHN ELDERFIELD THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, NEW YORK Copyright© 1981by The Museumof ModernArt TRUSTEES OF THE MUSEUM Jr.,Mrs. Albrecht Saalfield, Mrs. Wolfgang All rights reserved OF MODERN ART Schoenborn* Martin E. Segal, Mrs. Bertram Library of CongressCatalog Card Number WilliamS. Paley,Chairman of the Board Smith, Mrs. Donald B. Straus, Walter N. 80-85427 Thayer, R. L. B. Tobin,Edward M. M. Gardner Cowles,Mrs. Bliss Parkinson, David ISBN87070-496-6 Warburg* Mrs. Clifton R. Wharton, Jr., Rockefeller,Vice Chairmen MonroeWheeler* John Hay Whitney* Designedby Keith Davis Mrs.John D. Rockefeller3rd, President Richard S. Zeisler Typeset by ConceptTypographic Services, NewYork, New York Mrs. Frank Y.Larkin, Donald B. Marron, John *HonoraryTrustee Printed by Rapoport Printing Corp., NewYork, Parkinson III,Vice Presidents Ex OfficioTrustees NewYork John Parkinson III,Treasurer Bound by Sendor Bindery,Inc., NewYork, Edward I. Koch,Mayor of the City of New York NewYork Mrs. L. vA. Auchincloss,Edward Larrabee HarrisonJ. Goldin,Comptroller of the City of Barnes, AlfredH. Barr,Jr.,* Mrs. ArmandR New York The Museumof ModernArt Bartos, GordonBunshaft, Shirley C. Burden, 11West 53 Street WilliamA. M. Burden, Thomas S. Carroll, PHOTO CREDITS NewYork, New York 10019 Frank T.Cary, Ivan Chermayeff,Mrs. C. Dave Allison, NewYork, p. 47: Jonathan Bayer, DouglasDillon* Gianluigi Gabetti, Paul London,p. 40; Rudolph Burckhardt, NewYork, Printed in the UnitedStates of America Gottlieb, Mrs. MelvilleWakeman Hall, George pp. 35, 36, 37; Jill Crossley,New Zealand, p. 49; Heard Hamilton, Wallace K. Harrison* William M. Lee Fatherree, Berkeley,California, pp. 31, 33: Kate Keller*pp. 19,20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 27, A. Hewitt, Mrs. Walter Hochschild* Mrs. 28, 29, 43, 44, 45; Mali Olatunji, NewYork, "New Work on Paper 1" has been organized Barbara Jakobson, Philip Johnson, Ronald S. p. 32: RodneyTodd-White, London, p. 41; with the aid of a grant from the National Lauder,John L. Loeb* Ranald H. Macdonald* AndrewWatson, London,p. 39. Endowment for the Arts in Washington, D.C., Mrs. G. MaccullochMiller* J. Irwin Miller*S. I. and is dedicated to the Endowment on the Newhouse,Jr., Richard E. Oldenburg,Peter G. Currently staff photographer, The Museumof occasion of its fifteenth anniversary. Peterson, GiffordPhillips, David Rockefeller, ModernArt, NewYork. CONTENTS Introduction 6 Jake Berthot 18 Dan Christensen 22 Alan Cote 26 TomHolland 30 YvonneJacquette 34 KenKiff 38 Joan Snyder 42 WilliamTucker 46 Checklistof the Exhibition 50 Bibliography 53 Acknowledgments 56 INTRODUCTION Thisis an exhibitionof workson paper madein the past few Thework of one or two of these artists may be unfamiliarto years by eight artists, all of whomI believeto be producingfine manyobservers. The exhibition, however, no moreaims at the and importantwork and for whomthe use of paper,either for "discovery"of newart than it attemptsto reviewfirmly estab makingwhat are unguestionablydrawings or for makingobjects lishedreputations. Most of the artists in the exhibitionare in of other kinds,is essentialto their artistic practice. fact wellknown to those whofollow contemporary art: most Muchthat I have to say about the exhibitiondeals withcertain first cameto publicattention some ten or moreyears ago. But broadconcerns —principally with image-making and withthe all are still what we like to call "younger"artists: that is to say, reenrichment,and at timesreinvention, of traditionalmodern in their late thirtiesand early to mid-forties,which is the age forms—that seemto link in differentways what these artists whenmost serious modern artists begintruly to comeinto their are doing.It is important,therefore, to remindourselves from own.My decision finally to concentrateon selectedmembers of the start just howvarious their workis. this generationwas one of only two consciouslyprogrammatic acts in my organizationof this exhibition.The other was to Ofthe eight artists in the exhibition,one, WilliamTucker, is a bringtogether within a singleexhibition space workthat sculptorwho has beenproducing full-scale drawings for his seemedreasonably compatible, while keeping the exhibition three-dimensionalwork. Another, Tom Holland, is a painter- openand catholicat the sametime. Beyondthose decisions, the collagistwho works in both reliefsand three dimensions.Two of exhibitionconcentrates on showingwhat I understandto be the artists, WonneJacquette and KenKiff, may be describedas recentwork of quality,without pretending, however, either to be realists,though of almostopposite persuasions: the formerbas fullyrepresentative, even of that generation,or to be a critical ing her workon the observedworld, the latter on the worldof pantheonof any kind. (It does,in fact, includesome of those his imagination.Two are abstract artists, in their workon paper whoI thinkare amongthe best artists of their generation,but it as in their paintings,though again quite differentin approach: doesnot includethem all.) AlanCote makes drawings in abrasivemonochrome while Dan If this exhibitiondoes have a certain coherenceand identity Christensenuses soft and lyricalcolor. Finally, two of the artists despitethe broadrange of workthat it contains,it is not occupy,at least in their workon paper,regions half-way becauseit definesanything (a group,a school,even a trend), betweenrealism and abstraction:Jake Berthot, though an but becauseit reflectssomething, namely a set of attitudes that abstract painter,makes drawings that have their sourcein in differentways pervades the workof manymembers of this objectsof the world,while Joan Snyder uses imagery of a diaris- generationof artists that first emergedin the later 1960s.I dis tic and symbolicnature, and at timesemploys a rangeof mate cuss theseattitudes (at least, as 1see them)as I reviewthe work rials that far exceedsthat of traditionaldrawing. ol theseeight aitists, not only becauseI think it aids apprecia- tion of their work,but also becausetheirs was the first genera of the support,the tendencyto modularand all-overforms, and tion to have had to cometo termswith important recent the senseof emotivecoolness in imageryitself that have char changesin the wholecultural climate within which modern art acterizedart of the Cubist-derivedtradition and that climaxed is made—and that nowaffect virtually all ambitiousmodern in the art of the 1960s.The attempt to enrichstructures of this artists exceptfirmly established ones, and evensome of those. kindwith a newsense of iconicvigor, but withoutsurrendering Andwhile what I have to say about these thingsshould be the "modern"wholeness of the object,has sincethe 1960spar understoodas applyingspecifically to the eight artists in the ticularlyaffected a significantamount of realist art, whichin exhibition,some of it may have broadersignificance, both for effectopposes a "modern"structure with formaland icono- otherartists of their generationand for those of other genera graphicaldisturbances that threatento destroythat structure tions as well. but that end up by reinforcingit in a newway. Thework of YvonneJacguette is usefullyconsidered in this very Oneattitude that pervadesthe workof nearlyall of the artists context.Her interest in serial imageryand at timesin modular in this exhibitionis the desireto enrichan apparentlyover- structures(diptychs and triptychs)links her workto familiar attenuatedmodern tradition through a returnto image-making modernistpreoccupations. So does her use of a relativelylarge of differentkinds, whether in an abstract or a specificallyrealist formatfor what are still perceivedas drawings- for the context. attempt to expanddrawing to the status of an independentart, equivalentto painting,was one of the characteristicsof avant- Image-making,that basic and traditionalfunction of pictorial gardeart in the 1960s.But