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Image & likeness : figurative works from the permanent collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art PDF

20 Pages·1991·0.83 MB·English
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& IMAGE LIKENESS Figurative Worksfrom the Permanent Collection ofthe Whitney Museum ofAmerican Art This exhibition was organized by Kathleen Monaghan, branch director, Whitney Museum ofAmerican Art at Equitable Center, with the assistance ofAni Boyajian, gallery coordinator, and Kathryn Kanjo, intern. The catalogue text and entries are by Kathleen Monaghan. 1991 Whitney Museum ofAmerican Art 945 Madison Avenue New York, New York 10021 & IMAGE LIKENESS Figurative Worksfrom the Permanent Collection ofthe Whitney Museum ofAmerican Art Whitney Museum ofAmerican Art, Downtown at Federal Reserve Plaza January 23—March 20, 1991 Whitney Museum ofAmerican Art, Fairfield County March 29-June 5, 1991 " "Hveryhody lliiiiks she is not at all like herportrait hut tiei'er mind, in the etui she will nuinui^e to look just like it. — Fablo Picassoon his iyo6 portrait o(Gertrude Stehi. In the history ofportraiture, different levels ofrealism have been used to express the physical likeness ofa sitter. Traditional portraits also imposed a narrative content on that likeness, with conventions tor depicting dress, posture, and ancillary objects that added a wealth ofmformation to the portrayal. Cultural relevance, social, political, or economic status, genealogy, often occupation, and sometimes vocation could be "read" in the matrix ofa portrait. Within each age, accepted laws offidelity guided the reading, so — that the identity and status ot the sitter were recognizable and in- disputable. Truth, albeit idealized or glorified, was objective and concrete. By the mid-nineteenth century, photography had made a more literal image available. And with George Eastman's Kodak camera the achievement ofa "faithful likeness—" was put into the hands of everyone. Kodak's advertising slogan "you push the button we do — the rest" epitomizes the ease with which this technical phenome- non changed picture making. Portrait painters were no longer con- strained by the dictates ofobjective realism, which was then more readily obtained in photographs. Instead, they turned to issues ot formal interpretation, a shift that retlected the rise ofmodernism. Modernism in the visual arts is a concentrated focus on the formal aspects ofart making. The physical nature ofmaterial from which — — art is constructed whether paint, clay, or steel becomes a vital clement in defining a "subject." Issues related to structure and visual language, in concert with this emphasis on raw materials, form the ideology ofmodern art. Art is therefore both self-referential and — self-conscious art for art's sake. After World War II, conceptual issues ofidentity and representa- tionjoined these formal concerns. Notions relatmg to the psyche — — the moral and spiritual center ofthe sitter often become the subject ofa work. Specific sitters fade away; we find instead por- trayals ofintellect, celebrity, passion, or politics. Likeness resides less in the recognition ofphysical traits than in the symbolic mythology ofthe sitter or, as is sometimes the case, in the fiction ofthe artist. — The quintessential example ofa modernist portrait one that — expresses the unique relationship between artist and subject is Picasso's Gertrude Steiti of1906. Frustrated with his efforts after more than eighty sittings, Picasso painted out Stein's face and replaced it with an austere Iberian mask. This simplified version, completed when Stein was not present, became a benchmark ofstyl- ized image making, a metaphor ofthe independence oftorm trom visual reality. For many viewers, Gertrude Stein became the paint- ing,just as Picasso predicted she would. Although the works in this exhibition range trom the clearly representational to the abstracted, all the artists share an impulse to transform the identity oftheir subjects. The style ofeach artist replaces what was once the form oftraditional portrayal, thereby providing the viewer with a distinctive insight about the artist as well as the sitter. Andy Warhol, EthelSaillj6 Times — Nicholas Africano (h. 1948) Robert Arneson (h. 1930) An Ari^uiuciit, 1977 Wliistliin< in llw Dark, 1976 Acrylic, oil, and wax on canvas, Terra-cotta and glazed ceramic, 69 X 85/2 inches 35/4 X 20 X 20 inches Purchase, with funds from Mr. and Purchase, with funds from Mrs. William A. Marstellcr 77.68 Frances and Sydney Lewis 77.37 An Amtanait by Nicholas Africano Robert Arneson's work combines depicts a psychologically charged contemporary ideas with the tradi- moment. Two tiny, isolated men are tional forms ofRoman, Etruscan, frozen in a vast, alienating space, and classical French portraiture. The and oneturns a back to theother. result is a portrait in which several We intuitively understand that a tense frames ofreference coexist. Whistlin;^ interaction is taking place, and this, in the Dark is a selt-portrait similar to rather than the figures' physical others Arneson created throughout features, becomes the focus ofthe the seventies. He refers to these work. Removing the background sculptures as "robust assassination" and dwarfing the figures, Africano incisive critiques ofself-identity. The — tests our emotional capacity our works are titled, often on the base of — "response-ability" with a minimum the sculpture, so that the witorironic ofextraneous details. comment is not lost. Whistling in the Dark was made at a time when the artist was seriously ill. This accounts for the ashen color and look ot conster- nation on his face, while providing a heightened significance for the title. a William Bailey (b. 1930) Robert Bechtle (b. 1932) "N" (Female Nude), c. 1965 '61 Poiitiac, 1968-69 Oil on canvas, 48 X 72 inches Oil on canvas, 59/4 x 84'/, inches Gift ofMrs. Louis Sosland 76.39 Purchase, with funds from the Richard and Dorothy Rodgers Despite the obvious sensuality ofthe Fund 70.16 subject, William Bailey's "N" (Female (Downtown only) Nude) is concerned with issues that have roots in classical still-life paint- Robert Bechtle is preoccupied with ing: the inonuinciital figure reposes tile ordinary. Like other Photo- along one axis, balanced across the Realists, he paints with detailed pre- canvas in a horizontal line; the light cision. But because '61 Poritiac is not a is even and temperate. Although photograph, it lacks the immediacy Bailey began with several drawings or intimacy ofa family snapshot. and sketches from the live model, What the viewer sees instead is an the painting is a compilation ofmany image haunted by pathos, a family such preliminary works, rather than portrait in which the American a reflection ofa single, studied pose. Dream appears remote, subdued, His transformation ofpure reality and exceedingly banal. The subject into non-emotional, abstracted of this work, then, is not the family form reveals his ties to formalism. group or any one ofits members, "What I want there," he has said, "is but rather American values as such. a tension between that expanse ot a '61 Poiiliac depicts a visually static — substantial plane and a light-giving, and emotionally fuzzy foursome color-giving modifier tor the object." picture that is more confrontational than it is revealing. Robert Ik-chtlc, '61 Pontuu Jonathan Borofsky (b. 1942) Roger Brown (b. 1941 Ruiiiiiim People at J,616,216, 1979 The Entry ofChrist into Chicago in Latex paint on wall, 1976, 1976 dimensions variable Oil on canvas, 72 X 120 inches Purchase, with funds from the Purchase, with funds from Mr. and Paintingand Sculpture Committee Mrs. Edwin A. Bergman and the 84-43 National Endowment for the Arts, andJoel and Anne Ehrenkranz, by In 1969,Jonathan Borofsky began exchange 77.56 counting and planned to do so to in- finity. These self-referential numbers Highly stylized and theatrical. The then became part ofhis art, as in the Entry ofChrist into Chicago in igj6 is wall painting Running People at typical ofRoger Brown's distinctive 2,616,216. The work contrasts the style and approach to figurative art. real time in which it is viewed with The idea for this painting has its the remembered time that the num- source in the Belgian artistJames bersignifies. Borofsky based Rutining Elisor's 1888 painting, The Entry of Peopleon a dream. He made drawings Christ into Brussels in 1889. Brown's ofthe dream imagery, transferred them inventive narration depicts the entry — to a clear gel, and then projected ofChrist or rather the image of — them on the wall. The work can be him into the city on the back ofa reproduced at any scale and, at the flatbed truck. Present-day Chicago owner's discretion, on the wall, floor, can be identified by the Sears and orceiling. Thefigures conveyan anxiety Hancock towers. Three hundred and that refers both to the universal, eighty figures, including Mayor through theirschematicrepresentation, Richard Daley and Cardinal Cody, and to the individual, through their watch the event while the rest ofthe specific numbering, which relates city goes about its daily affairs. to the artist's experience. Brown's painting reveals how effective an anesthetic modern life can be. Roger Brown, TheEntryofChristinto Chicago mi^jb 6 Chuck Close (b. 1940) Willem de Kooning (b. 1904) P/i/7, 1969 Woman iJtid Bicycle, 1952-53 Synthetic polymer on canvas, Oil on canvas, 76/2 x 49 inches 108 X 84 inches Purchase 55.35 Purchase, with funds from Mrs. (Fairfield County only) Robert M. Benjamin 69.102 Clamdigger, 1972 Chuck Close's interest in faces is not Bronze, 57/2 X 24/2 X 21 inches unlike that ofother realists. Phil is a Gift ofMrs. H. Gates Lloyd 85.51 scrutimzed, literal description of Willem de Kooning's interest in the composer Philip Glass. The artist figure has been recurrent throughout wants to "see rather than under- . . . his career. He concentrated on figure stand" the subject. His large-scale and portrait painting through the paintings focus only on the face, 1940s. In the early fifties he coupled denying the viewer any other data, figuration with abstraction in an such as dress or setting, through evocative series using women as the which to understand the subject. central theme. De Kooning's handling Close makes photographs ot his sit- ofmaterial combines spontaneous, ters, enlarges them, and then translates distorting gestures related to organic them to canvas with an airbrush. The or biomorphic shapes. Through this works emphasize a particular person energetic tension, he successfully in a specific moment in time. But blends surface, volume, and emotion, because they are a second generation whether in paint or in bronze. The removed from reality, they project gesture helps us sec as well as feel a sense ofneutrality. the interaction ofcolor and line. Woman and Bicycle and Clamdigger epitomize the modern artist's ability to capture the universal and generic nature ofthe subject rather than specific characteristics. Richard Diebenkorn (b. 1922) Duane Hanson (b. 1925) Girl Lookiui^ at Landscape, 1957 Womafi with Dog, 1977 Oil on canvas, 59 x 60'/! inches Cast polyvinyl, polychromed in Gift ofMr. and Mrs. Alan H. acrylic, with mixed media, lite-size Temple 61.49 Purchase, with funds from Frances and Sydney Lewis 78.6 In the late 1950s, California painter Richard Diebenkorn began figura- Duane Hanson's startlingly real tive works that included interiors Woman with Dog shares the Photo- with single figures. Girl Looking at Realist interest in excruciating detail. Landscapereflects his interest in di- But the work has a far more sardonic rectness and simplicity. He looked for twist. In one fast tableau, the life ofa subjects he described as having some simple Florida housewife is summed "juice," but he seldom painted di- up through the homey symbols ofa rectly from the figure, preferring to small dog, a flowered dress and car- compose from memory. "One may pet, and the daily postal call. This ask what emotional meaning this work differs from traditional portrai- subject with her back turned to the ture, with its telling accoutrements, viewerhad for theartist," Diebenkorn since it neither elevates nor idealizes said. "A figure exerts a continuing the subject. Instead, Hanson uses and unspecified influence on a paint- realism as a psychological probe to ing as the canvas develops. The reveal the woman's isolation and represented forms are loaded with loneliness. psychological feeling. It can't ever just hepainting." Here Diebenkorn recognizes the empathy the viewer automatically brings to figurative work. Again, the identification ofa psychological mood outweighs that ofthe individual sitter. DuaneHanson, Woman withDog

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