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Bruce Pearson: A New Visual Language Rose Art Museum Brandeis University September 7- Waltham October 17, 1999 Massachusetts WhyCan'iLove Comein a SixPack?. 1998 Courtesy Ronald Feldman Fine Arts. Inc.. New York Artists, critics, and philosophers have Critic Dave Hickey predicted that "The repeatedly proclaimed the end issue of the nineties will be beauty."^ of painting since the invention of Indeed, in an age dominated by digital photography in 1848. Upon first and mass-produced media and imagery, witnessing Daguerre's new invention, a large number of painters are French academic painter Paul Delaroche appearing across the United States and feared the eventual fate of his profession Europe who are creating objects of great and bemoaned that, "From today, visual allure, and reinvigorating art by painting is dead." But only after painting reintroducing the artist's hand, making reached its apogee in modern the primal mark. While beauty has abstraction, did artists rebel against its been a key issue, the aesthetic of new seduce us with their beauty. A pioneerof dominance. By 1969 conceptual artist, painting is also profoundly shaped by the Williamsburg artist community in Joseph Kosuth, saw painting as the the conceptual and post-modern art of Brooklyn, Pearson has worked corpse of Modernism and published its the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Using the professionally for 20 years, breaking into obituary in his essay "Art After formal vocabulary of visual effect, recent the mainstream New York art community Philosophy." The past three decades painters critically reflect upon the in a Projectsexhibition at the Museum of have witnessed the proliferation of tradition of painting and often employ Modern Art in 1996." Pearson hasflatly conceptual, photographic, and media- post-modern irony as a vehicle for stated that he attempts to create works based art. Painting had become addressing questions about with "a real pleasure component." His perceived as an artifact of a bygone era. contemporary culture.^ Drawing upon paintings are, however, more than Yet, to quote the humorist Samuel modern painting, conceptual, and post- simply visual. While Hickey believes that Clemens, "The reports of my death are modern art, a group of contemporary beauty, with its "iconography of desire," greatly exaggerated."' In the hands of a artists have reconceived painting is what "redeems" us, he unequivocally growing number of artists, painting has to make it relevant to contemporary concludes that, "We die from lack of reinvented itself in the 1990s as society. meaning."^ Pearson recognizes this. He avital medium of artistic expression. engages us in the visual appeal of his Bruce Pearson participates in the picture surfaces, and, once he has our reincarnation of abstract painting, attention, gradually reveals complex creating colorful relief paintings that layers of text and images. We become immersed in excavating his sublimated Violence, Profanity, t texts and uncovering the artist's critical SupernaturalStrangeness i andGraphicallyRendered commentaries. First impressions of SexualSituations, 1997 Pearson's reliefs recall Op Art and the Collection Frayda . and Ronald Feldman, v[ psychedelic designs of the 1960s. He NewYork >: does not deny this resemblance to popular visual culture. He dances the line between mass culture and high culture, balancing populartexts and style within a rigorous conceptual process that integrates imagery and content. step 1, 1999 ^^^^^^^^^^^^HH^^^^^^^^HH^^^^1H Collection of Nancyand I^HH Joel Portnoy, New York i z:^^'' \ / 1 : -'' / : / The Rose Art Museum has organized his sensitivity training for men. Pearson Pearson's first solo museum exhibition J'V^ facetiously questions. WhyCan'tLove with his most recent and accomplished ' " Tt.''y'. J 111 , "n' Come in a Six Pack?, the title of an body of works. The title of the earliest " "^~ article he found in an on-line magazine piece, Violence, Profanity, Supernatural 1,. 1 ,11 ,1.' ' , M( 1 ' 1' 1J ( .A for men. Unlike the intense hues or tones Strangeness andGraphicallyRendered - of his other paintings, the colors of this , SexualSituations (1997), was a parental painting seem relatively calm and tame. V-: warning published as part of a New York te / Pearson co-opted his color scheme from ''\.ji Timesfilm review. Drawing the text in a Ralph Lauren guide to fashionable extruded letters, he then flipped the interior colors tor the home. As we enjoy image and overlaid the reversed texts to In the series Spirituality Today. Pearson the soothing color and busy pattern create an intricate pattern. He reflects on the search for spiritual of the painting, letters begin to emerge, constructed the six-inch deep relief by fulfillment in contemporary society gradually combining into words and carving the pattern into Styrofoam, through alternative religions, cults, and phrases. Eventually, a third level of one layer of text into the positive natural spirituality. The works in this images appears, shadowy outlines of and the other into the negative space. series are usually painted in figures dancing across the picture — — The painting's dark, brooding surface monochrome often white the color surface. Pearson's parody is inherent in suggests that Pearson offers the associated with spiritual enlightenment. the contrast between the sarcastic text parental warning of the subversive Pearson appropriated the title of Crystal and the fashionable colors, athletes, and subjects prevalent in American movies Energy GridSystems andRemote models parading what he views as the and television as a cynical indictment of Healing(1997) from an advertisement in synthetic modern conception of love and our current cultural landscape. a New Age catalog. The artist created a beauty. serene image of transcendental beauty Working in series, as well as individual that, upon closer examination, is an Pearson is intrigued by the popular pieces, Pearson conceives ofthe intense topographical landscape, craze for self-help guides and created themes for his paintings as constructed in an intricate, overlapping his own 12Steps series as a parody of commentaries on contemporary society. grid pattern and painted in a tantalizing such programs. Quoting guests from an The artist gathers quotes from array of over 120 shades of white. The episode of the Oprah Winfrey television newspapers, books, magazines, and vibrancy of tone and texture contradict program, Pearson inscribed across the television, pinning them to the wall of his the initial transcendental appearance surface of his reliefs, "Today I will not studio. He contemplates the quotes for and suggest the artist's doubts about give in to suicide," and, "You deserve weeks, even months, before identifying mineral crystals as a source of spiritual to be With someone who doesn't hit you." particular ones for their insights. For healing. Yet, he also recognizes The artist contrasts these troubled each series he selects a compositional in the NewAge search for spirituality expressions against lush lavenders, structure that suits the subject, like a metaphor for art as a transcendent, blues, and golds inspired by the overlaying grids, mirrored patterns, or almost religious experience. Impressionists' "pretty" palette. Pearson mandorlas. Sometimes working on draws these disturbing quotes onto a several series simultaneously, the artist In his series, Post-FeministMasculinity, cross section of the human brain, his mines them until he feels that he has Pearson asks, "How do men act and playful interpretation of the mandoria, an fully explored the possibilities of text, define themselves in post-feminist emblem of spiritual ascension. color, and composition. culture?" In these works he parodies such popular authors as Robert BIy and The most recent and visually Intense of A SimpleAnswer, 1999 Collection Frayda Pearson's paintings, A SimpleAnswer and Ronald Feldman, (1999) overwhelms us with a hedonistic New York splurge of rich colors, dynamic pattern, and tactile surface. The painting's style recalls the 1960s and the interest in psychedelic design and middle-Eastern textiles. The composition is a single design that is mirrored into the four quadrants, like a Rorschach test pattern. Part of his PhilosophicalSeries, the title complicated layers of images and texts. that slows the hectic pace of modern life. lacks the irony of Pearson's other work At once, he flirts with the high culture The artist's ambition is to produce and echoes the artist's personal of contemporary art, and the pop culture a rich, meaningful visual experiencethat philosophy to seek A Simple/Answerto of sexy, psychedelic design, color, engages us in a process of discovery. life's questions. and trash TV. The artist teases us with Pearson's bold painted reliefs integrate his pithy titles and challenges us idea, image, and text, creating A New Pearson's paintings thrust themselves to discover the hidden texts that present VisualLanguage. upon us with the immediacy of their his perspectives on the ironies of visual and tactile impact, and only contemporary society. His distortion of Joseph D. Ketner gradually reveal their meaning in the the text is not to obfuscate the Henry and Lois Foster Director communicative function of language, but to encourage a lengthy visual encounter Cover: DieofPleasure. 1998 Bruk/SactierCollection Notes Checklist Allquotesfrom theartist, 'Hickey, Dave. TheInvisible Violence. Profanity, DieofPleasure. 1998 Step r, 1999 unlessotherwise noted, are Dragon:FourEssayson SupernaturalStrangeness Oil andacrylicon AcryliconStyrofoam, from aseriesof interviews Beauty. (LosAngeles: Art andGraphicallyRendered Styrofoam, 82x72x6" 60X48" conductedbetween Issues Press, 1993): 11, 64. SexualSituations, 1997 PrivateCollection CollectionofNancyand FebruaryandJuly 1999. ^Moos, David. "Accordingto Oilandacrylicon Joel Portnoy. NewYork What: Abstract Painting Styrofoam, 72 x96x4" DieofPleasure, 1998 'Friis-Hansen, Dana. circa 1999,"ArtPapers23. Collection Fraydaand Acrylicon Styrofoam, Step2. 1999 AbstractPaintingOnce no. 3 (May-June 1999): 16, Ronald Feldman, NewYork 82 X72 X6" AcryliconStyrofoam. Removed. Exhibition 18; Ball. Martin. Bruk/SacherCollection 60X48" catalog. (Houston: ReconditionedAbstraction. CrystalEnergyGrid CourtesyofBrettShaheen ContemporaryArts Exhibition. November 16. SystemsandRemote l\/1oneyMowesl\4issiles Inc.. Modernand Museum, 1998): p. 14. 1996-January4, 1997 (St. Healing. 1997 IVIallsandMadness. 1999 ContemporaryArt, quoting"Paintingin Louis: Forumfor Acrylicon Styrofoam, Oiland acrylicon Cleveland Photography,"in ContemporaryArt, 1996): 3. 72X96X6" Styrofoam. 96 x 72x6" InternationalCenterol 'Projects63:KarinDavie, CollectionCliffDiver, Collection Serge Marquie. ASimpleAnswer. 1999 Photography's UdomsakKrisanamis, Lewes, Delaware London. Courtesy Ronald Oilandacrylicon Encyclopediaof BrucePearson. Fred Feldman FineAns, Inc., Styrofoam, 96x96x6" Photography(NewYork: TomaselliExhibition May DieofPleasure, 1998 NewYork Collection Fraydaand Crown Publishers, 1984. 14-June30, 1998 (New Oil andacrylicon RonaldFeldman, NewYork p. 375; Kosuth, Joseph"Art York: MuseumofModern Styrofoam, 82x72x6" WhyCan'tLoveComeina and Philosophy,"Studio Art, 1998). BrukCollection SixPack?. 1998 International 178(1969): ^Hlckey,opcil: 12, 64. Oil andacrylicon 134-7. 160-1, 212-13; Cable Styrofoam. 96x72x6" OtliaofPuWfCalicns.01999BwdetsUnncnity notefrom tvlarkTwain,1897. Courtesy Ronald Feldman PoeiMM/AP.PnnMonrtcidtopapa FineArts, Inc.. NewYork