DON VAN VLIET Peel, John. "Yellow Brick Road Revisited'.' The Observer. Born in Glendale. California, 1941 6 April 1986, p. 29. DON VAN VLIET Lives and works in northern California Penck, A. R. "Don Van Vliet:' Tem.:i Celeste, no. 2 (April 1987). p. SS. SELECTED INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS Penck, AR. Don Van Vliet (exhibition catalogue), Galerie 1985 Michael Werner, Cologne, 1985. Galerie Michael Werner, Cologne Penck, AR. "Na, Na. Na-forDon Van Vliet'.'Don Van Vliet Mary Boone Gallery, New York (exhibition catalogue), Galerie Mi:hael Werner, Cologne, 1986 1987. Waddington Galleries, London 1987 Rense. Rip. "Captain Beefheart: A Portrait of the Artist o Angeles 15 1982, Galerie Michael Werner. Cologne as Loner." L s Herald Examiner. October - -28. Galerie Brinkman, Amsterdam pp. D 5. D 1988 CHECKLIST Galerie Michael Werner. Cologne The Moon a Pail ofMilk Spilled Dow.1 Black in the Night. 1986 oil on linen SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 80 x 70" (203.2 x 177.8 cm) 1982 Collection of the artist Performance Video.The Museum of Modern Art, New York 1985 Bat and Cat Panda, 1987 FromOrganism toAr chitecture, New York Studio School oil on linen The Chi-Chi Show, Massimo Audiello Gallery. New York 64 x 511/:i'(162.6 x 130.8 cm) Factura, Gallery Schlesinger-Boisante. New York Collection of Jan Van Vliet, California 1987 Feather Times a Feather, 1987 Byars. Chamberlain. Salle, Fischl, Lasker. 'Ion Vliet, oil on linen Galerie Michael Werner, Cologne 64 x 511/2' (162.6 x 130.8 cm) SELECTED SOURCES Parapliers the Willow Dipped, 1987 BY DON VAN VLIET oil on linen 78 x 58" (198.1 x 147.3 cm) Skeleton Breath, Scorpion Blush. Introduction by A. R. Penck. 1987. Bern/Berlin: Verlag Gachnang & Springer, Cardboard Cutout Sundown. 1988 JO NOVEMBER t911 "Four Poems and Three Drawings'.'Conjunctions 3 (1982), oil on linen 58 x 48" (147.3 x 121 .9 cm) ed. Bradford Morrow. pp. 135-39. THROUGH 29 JANUARY t919 (1967). r (1968), Safe as Milk St ictly Personal Trout Mask The Corn Thief.1988 R lica (1969), k Decals Off, (1970). The ep Lic My Baby Spotlight oil on linen SAN FRANCISCO MUSEUM Kid (1972), Clear ( 1972). Ch ) Spot Shiny Beas'.(Bat ain Puller 58 x 48" (147.3 x 121.9 cm) (1978). Doc at the Radar Station (1980). Ice Cream for Crow OF MODERN ART (1982). Recorded albums. White Tree and Black Gate, 1988 Lick My Decals Off.Baby. 1970. 16mm. 1 min., b/w. oil on linen 58 x 48" (147.3 x 1 9 Ice Cream for Crow, 1982. Videotape. 12 . cm) Unless otherwise noted. all works are courtesy Galerie Michael ON DON VAN VLIET A SERIES OF RECENT Werner, Cologne, Federal Republic of Germany. Dickhoff. Wilfried. Don Van Vliet (exhibition catalogue). Galerie Michael Werner, Cologne. 1988. WORK BY YOUNGER AND Mc Kenna, Kristine. "Don Van Vliet:' Emigre, no. 2 (1985). pp. 24-25. ESTABLISHED ARTISTS Miller.Jim (with Janet Huck). "Captain Courageous'.' "New Work" Is generously supported by the San Francisco Newsweek. 20 October 1980. pp. 86-90. Museum of Modern Art's Collectors Forum and the Nation· al Endowment for the Arts. O'Brien, Glenn. "Don Van Vliet, Museum of Modern Art'.' C> 1986San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Artforum. vol. 21. no. 6 (February 1983). pp. 76-77. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is a mell'ber-supported. privately funded Parales. Jon. "Painting with Melody:· The New York Times. museum receiving major grants from the California Arts Councol and Grants for the 18December1985. p. C23. Arts of the San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund. DON VAN VLIET abstracted nature to create expressive and painterly new worlds of mood (as seen in th e landscapes ofWassily Kandinsky of around 1912 Living on a cliff overlooking the Pacific since the early eighties amid or 1n the work o' the early American modernist Arthur B. Dove). the redwood forests and wildlife. Don Van Vliet embraced has Van Vliet has drcwn from and built on this established trad1t1on. painting with the same controlled passion that made him, as the locating ample roomwithin it to develop his own personal style and orm avant-garde rockco mposer and perf er Captain Beefheart, a cult ideas While he finds the technical challenges of painting more figure of conspicuous inOuence and one of the genuine musical complex and demanding than composing and performing. he has geniuses of the past twenty years Self-trained as a painter and discovered that, without having to breach frontiers to the extent he owing relatively little about the histor y of art or the current kn did in his music, painting can serve asan extremely effective vehicle an rt scene. he 1s a modem 1stprimitive but also a ist whose remarka­ for his ideas and emotions. This easier relationship between form ble intu1t1ve gifts and love of nature have combined tocre at highly e and content results in art that is not so conflicted and difficultas is charged paintings that are at once JOiting as well as lyrical. Van Vliet's muSIC, perhaps because his imagery 1s quite suited to The essence ofVanVhet's sens1bil1ty is a longing for an artistic visual articulation expression that 1s direct, intu1t1ve, and bewitching. In the philosoph­ Van Vliet wasborn in southernCalifornia and grew up there an ical tradition of the eighteenth-century French writer Je n Jacq es a u artistic prodigy As a child he was regularly asked to make sculpture s Rousseau, he 1s critical of the current, corrupted state of ociet y. on a telev1s1on program and as a youth he executed what now would Seeking to reaffirmh uman ty s i ' inherent virtues like Rousseau, Van be termed a performance piece: as an aesthetic action he punched a e bracing nat r and relo t ng man posit Vliet advocates m u e ca i in a ion single hole in every rose in the hedge of a Beverly Hills garden. His that stems from natural order rather th n n imposed hi rarchy. His a a e family moved to :he high desert community of Lancaster where he paintings-most fr ently populated by equ indeterminate landscapes intermit tent ly attended school. became friends with Frank Zappa forms of abstracted animals-are intended to ffect psychologic l. e a (with whom he invented his stage name. "Captain Beefheart": the spirit al, and agical force. In discussing his mu ic l co po ition u m s a m s s reference is to "a comato as big as a beefheart") and in the mid-sixties with a critic, he also affirmed the role of the artist as wizard, saying. began making a new kind of rock music that drew its chief inspira­ "You see, I don't think I do music I think I do spells:' 1 I age-making m tions from Mississ1pp1 Delta Blues and such free jazz movement , n to him seems to be an act of reassurance reinforci g what William artists as John C:>ltrane and Ornette Coleman. In 1969 Van Vliet Rubin has suggested 1n discussing the appeal of Primit ive art in con­ composed and recorded an album entitled TroutMask Replica, re­ t mpor ryWestern culture. that is. a process of evolving through e a garded in informed circles as one of the most astounding. 1nOuent1al. m nature a sense that the world is ordered and a nageable by an and enduring acrievements in recent rock music.1 Although music 2 animistic system of beliefs was his pnnc1ple concentration from the m1d-s1xt1es to the early Van Vliet's enthusiasms for other artists' work are limited but eighties. during that timeVan Vliet was also writing poetry and discriminating. He admires the emotional intensity ofVincent Van fiction and was painting and drawing. It was through two art1sts­ Parapl1ers the WillowDipped 1987 Gogh. the 1uicy painterliness of Willem de Kooning. and the expres­ Ju 1an Schnabel and the German painter A. R. Penck. both enthusi­ sive. primit1v ist1c figuration of Julian Schnabel and A. R. Penck.3 asts of the music of Captain Beefheart who learned he also was a There are affinities. too. with the thick whites. automatic writing. painter-that VanV het's work was brought to the attention of the and Jagged. scratched impastos of Cy Twombly. lnscnpt1ons do not Cologne art dealer Michael Werner. resulting in public presentation appear on Van Vliet's paintings as they do on Twombly's, but Van in the early e1grt1es of what had heretofore been a private pre­ Vliet invests great creative energy in devising poetic titles for his occupation In 1982 Van Vliet decided to leave the music world works (usually expost facto). There is a revealing distinction between and southern California to dedicate himself exclusively to painting the literary propensities of the two art ists in that Twombly's refer­ 1n his ne w home on the state's no rthernmost coastline. ences are to heroic, classical civilization and Van Vliet's invented John R. Lane titles (for instance Parapliers the WillowDipped, Tinkling Like Mercury . Director in the Wind, a nd Light Rubber Mountains in the Distance Stretched) invoke a magic state of nature. This contrast underlines profound differences in their approach-one through culture, the other through nature yet reveals a common search for the aesthetic sublime that 1s their common 1nhentance from American Abstract NOTES Expressionism. I am grateful to Gre1 Marcus. Julian Schnabel. Jan Van V liet. Mtehael Werner. and Langdon Winner for their 1nformat1on and advice. The artistic intentions found in Van Vl1et's paintings closely 1 LesterBangs.