Isabelle Graw - The Love of Painting: Genealogy of a Success Medium

182 Pages·2018·56.598 MB·English

by  Isabelle Graw

THE
LOVE
OF
PAINTING
T U L i s a b e l l e
I nL GRAW
LOVE
OF
PAINTING
I
GENEALOGY OF
A SUCCESS MEDIUM
Sternberg Press
Introduction
pp. 9-27
CHAPTER I CHAPTER II
PAINTING'S INTENSIFIED ANTI-SUBJECTIVE
EXTERNALIZATION AND PROCEDURES AND
INTELLECTUAL PRESTIGE SELF-ACTIVE PAINTINGS
For Connoisseurs Only- The Force of the
Painting Specialists Impersonal Brush-
and Their Subject Matter Reflections on
pp. 32-47 Frank Stella's Early Work
pp. 88-101
For my mother, The Knowledge
Annette Eisenberg-Graw, of Painting- Painting as
who loved music Notes on Thinking and "Object-Tableau"—
and painting Subject-Like Pictures Ellsworth Kelly at
pp. 48-58 Haus der Kunst, Munich
pp. 102-107
The Outside Is
the Inside— The Gray Haze of
On Edouard Manet at Subjectivity—
the Musee d'Orsay, Paris On Gerhard Richter at the
pp. 60-67 Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin
pp.108-116
Painting in a
Different Light— Unreconciled: De-skilling
A Conversation with versus Re-skilling—
Jutta Koether about A Conversation with
Joan Mitchell Charline von Heyl
pp. 68-82 pp.118-130
CONTENTS
CHAPTER III CHAPTER IV CHAPTER V CHAPTER VI
PAINTING AGAINST PAINTING WITHOUT BEYOND NETWORK THE VALUE OF
PAINTING PAINTING PAINTING PAINTING
Painted Critique The Absent Painter- Frozen References The Economy of
of Painting— Six Theses on the to Life in Avery Painting-
From Anti-essentialism Reflection on Value Singer's Paintings Reflections on the
to the Myth of Self-Activity and Painting in pp. 262-274 Particular Value Form
in the 1960s and 1980s the Work of of the Painted Canvas
(Immendorff, Polke, Koether, Marcel Broodthaers The Curse pp. 316-333
Oehlen, Kippenberger) pp. 206-223 of the Network—
pppp.. 113366--115577 A Conversation Questions of Value—
Painting without with Myself about A Conversation between
"Hi, Here 1 Am, That a Painter— Jana Euler's Paintings Kerstin Stakemeier
Must Be Enough"— A Conversation with pp. 276-287 and Isabelle Graw
The Persona and the Wade Guyton pp. 334-347
Product in Martin pp.224-239 Follow Me:
Kippenberger's Work Painting in the Age
pp.158-181 Human Figures with of Social Media— Acknowledgments
a Painterly Appeal- A Conversation with pp. 352-356
Painting as a On Anthropomorphism Alex Israel
Cover Story— Mannequins, and pp. 288-312 Author Biography
A Conversation with Painting in the Work
p.357
Merlin Carpenter of Isa Genzken
pp.182-199 and Rachel Harrison
Bibliographic Note
pp.240-257
p. 359
Image Credits
pp. 361-364
CONTENTS
CONTENTS
Introduction
Painting and love are like sisters; they are very different, of course,
but are tightly connected and related in many ways. Since antiquity,
the idea that the painter (always male) is inspired by love has been
widespread: painting, the object of his passion, is assigned the status
of a (female) lover.1 Once love is declared as the driving force of
his practice, the painting resembles a projection of his love—a male
fantasy. Although this gendered scenario hindered the emergence
of,female painters for a long time, it does posit love as the decisive
drive of the painter's practice.2 If we regard painting and love as insti­
tutions, as "disembodied beings" that bestow substance on non­
existent ones (such as painting or love),3 then similarities can also
be found in the history of their development. The normative ideal of
romantic love and the formation of modern painting, with its aca­
demies and discourses, were widely established and institutionalized
Where painting is, in the eighteenth century.4 In both cases we are dealing with cultural
love is not far away. and social structures that—as institutions—determine the scope
of what can be said and done in certain areas. Painting and love thus
operate like "success media" insofar as they have been symbolically
generated and have become institutionalized since the eighteenth
century.5 Success media in Niklas Luhmann's sense are more powerful
than the usual "media of distribution" because they are able to con­
struct worlds and produce universal values. They are also associated
with a production of truth found in both love and painting.
Love and painting are thus brought closer together historically:
since a single horizon encompasses their common emergence, it
seems appropriate to emphasize this through the title of this book,
The Love of Painting. In much literature focused on painting, writers,
both male and female, have often described an overwhelming feeling
of love for what is depicted in a painted image.6 In the eighteenth
century, above all, painting prompted what Ulrich Pfisterer has
termed a "loving vision"—a kind of sensory-affective perception. As
this book will show, this mode of seeing is at the same time quite
valid and projective, equally phantasmatic and caused by something
concrete.7 The main characteristic of this projected love is that it
INTRODUCTION
of course, assume the possibility of distinguishing painting as a genre,
is grounded in painting's materiality; nonetheless, something must
medium, or at least as something special. Even where painting has
also be projected onto the picture. However, rather than indulging in
been excluded in exhibitions or major art events, as seen at the 9th
the love of painting—twentieth-century French theories of painting
Berlin Biennale (2016), one encounters installations, videos, photo­
are particularly inclined to do this8—I attempt to trace the material,
graphs, or assemblages that appear distinctly painterly. By painterly
art-historical, and sociological reasons for this art form s specific
I mean these works activate various rhetorics associated with paint­
potential in view of a contemporary capitalist system that has increas­
ing, for example, in their formal references to the tableau.11 Even for
ingly turned into a digital economy.9
non-painting practices, painting has clearly become a key frame of
Painting's Exceptional Position reference. Recent publications, including the new edition of Painting
in the Twenty-First Century Now (2015), the anthologies Painting: The Implicit Horizon (2012)
and The Happy Fainting of Painting (2014), and most recently
This book is also a study of painting under the often-invoked post- Vitamin P3: New Perspectives in Painting (2016), testify to this re­
medium condition. In the twenty-first century, unlike the early to mid- newed interest in the medium.
twentieth century, painting was no longer a dominant art form. Painting is also still very popular at auction houses, although
From the 1960s onward, the much-discussed "dissolution of artistic it has always traditionally been at the apex of the hierarchy of forms.
boundaries" completely dismantled hierarchies of genre. This is par­ Nonetheless, it is notable that painted pictures—for example, by
ticularly the case today, as seen with the many artists who favor a Pablo Picasso, Christopher Wool, Gerhard Richter, or Jean-Michel
multimedia approach or have installation-based practices.10 Painterly Basquiat (all male painters)—always set record sale prices at auction.
practices, too, have long since pushed the limits of the painted In pragmatic terms, I will connect this particularly high regard
picture: the specific way of hanging paintings can be considered es­ for painting in the commercial sphere of the art world to the mercan­
sential to art, as with the work of R. H. Quaytman, or the way the tile advantages of painted canvases, which are particularly well
outside world (e.g., buildings) is treated as a canvas/surface for paint, suited to international—and now global—transactions. In addition to
as in the work of Katharina Grosse. Some galleries and large-scale relatively easy transportation, paintings have comparatively low
exhibitions—from documenta to the Tate Modern extension, say— production costs. But setting aside what Martin Warnke has called
are already dominated by non-painterly formats, such as performance, "logistical considerations," which were already decisive in the inven­
film, and photography. Nevertheless, I will propose the almost tion of painting on canvas in the fifteenth century,121 argue that
counterintuitive sociological argument that painting holds an excep­ the high status of painting is above all explained by its intellectual
tional position under the post-medium condition. In recent years, prestige. More than any other art form, it has a long history of theoret­
painting has received much more attention in critical writing and ical exaltation. Its flat pictorial arrangement and the limitation of
theory, and contemporary painting exhibitions have been extremely its surface have contributed to this process of intellectualization: as a
popular, bolstering an increased interest in the art form. A growing symbolically loaded mode of distancing, whose spatial limits force
number of exhibitions have proclaimed its resurgence, from MoMA's it to represent its contents in compressed form, the painted canvas
widely discussed survey show "The Forever Now: Contemporary demands intellectual abstraction on the part of the spectator, too. It is
Painting in an Atemporal World" (2014-15) to "Painting 2.0: literally open for speculation.
Expression in the Information Age" at Museum Brandhorst in Munich Early theorists of painting such as Leon Battista Alberti (1404-
(2015-16) and mumok in Vienna (2016). These affirmative gestures, 1472) and Leonardo da Vinci (1404-1519) were still primarily
THE LOVE OF PAINTING
INTRODUCTION
concerned with distinguishing painting from technical craftsmanship to art criticism, which has (rightly) liberated painting from its nim­
and lionizing it as a manifestation of a universal knowledge. Today, bus of "obsolescence," releasing it from modernist self-reference by
however, as described in David Joselits essay "Painting beside Itself fusing it with the tradition of the readymade.17 In his study on
(2009), painting is viewed as a medium destined to absorb social Francis Picabia, George Baker has demonstrated how painting loses
and digital networks into itself.13 It is worth noting that from the early its essence once it incorporates the readymade.18 Instead of holding
modern period to the present, painting has been continuously asso­ on to the fictive ideal of an aesthetic immanence, such painting
ciated with intellectual capacities: it has either been thought to display strongly advocates that which is outside of its aesthetic realm. For the
knowledge (as expressed in Alberti's or Leonardo's writings) or as­ past twenty years, I have also pointed out that painting and Con­
sumed to possess the power to do things and act, as argued by Joselit ceptual art are not, as was once assumed, polar opposites; rather, they
when he declared it able to visualize digital and social networks. In are directly related to each other.19 I still think this insistence on
other words, intellectual or acting capacities have been frequently painting's conceptual nature was a necessary and absolutely appropri­
ascribed to painting, which also lend it the appearance of a superior ate step—particularly given artistic practices like those of Stephen
practice. Prina, Sherrie Levine, Jutta Koether, and Albert Oehlen—to break
Ever since the early modern treatises on the medium were down the entrenched polarization between a type of painting that was
written, in relation to a long-running debate known as paragone regarded as expressive and an allegedly anti-expressive Conceptual
(comparison), the uniqueness and durability of paintings have been art. But looking back, it is also clear that such an expanded and more
presented as a decisive argument for the primacy of painting over conceptual understanding of painting has helped to restore the
other arts. For example, in his writings on painting, Leonardo stressed medium's cachet. When painting is declared to also be a form of
that painting (unlike literature) was unique because it could not Conceptual art, institutional critique, or performance art, it ceases
be reproduced. Moreover, unlike music it did not vanish or decay and to be questionable and becomes a kind of meta-medium, viewed
remained "precious and unique."14 An obvious and significant con­ as entirely unproblematic—although of course it never is.
nection links uniqueness and preciousness: a painting's uniqueness
underlies its status as a precious object. I would suggest that these Painting as a Formation
factors—the singularity, preciousness, and longevity of the painted
picture—continue to have a latent resonance in painting's contempo­
Then again, the term "painting" is also a collective singular noun.
rary status as, in Hans-Jiirgen Hafner and Gunter Reski's words, a
Like many blanket terms, it can mean a wide variety of things: paint
"supreme discipline."15
on a flat surface, a concrete artistic practice, an eighteenth-century
An art-sociological look back at the past several decades tends to
institution, an early modern invention, or just a specific painted
confirm painting's contemporary relevance. The pressure on painters
picture. The concept as such clearly exceeds individual paintings, but
to legitimize their choice of medium has eased since the turn of the
its vagueness correlates to the changing historical development of
millennium. In the 1960s, '70s, and '80s, painters still felt compelled
the art form. With the historical avant-garde of the early twentieth
to extensively justify their recourse to the medium, but in the dec­
century, painting began a process of expanding and opening up to the
ades since, painting has come to be seen as a largely unproblematic
world around it, whether by inscribing external lifew o rids literally
practice in many art academies where students choose to paint
and materially within paintings (as in the collages of Georges Braque
without a feeling of guilt or unease—as if it was a natural possibility,
and Picasso), or by extending into space and thus, metaphorically,
a given.16 This boost to painting's legitimacy is also indirectly linked
into lived reality (as in El Lissitzkv's installations). The restrictive
THE LOVE OF PAINTING
INTRODUCTION
of crucial importance. In my perspective, formations do not generate
modernist concept of painting is clearly inadequate to these dev e -
opments: championed by Clement Greenberg, it held that the picture themselves quasi automatically, as Foucault suggests, but rather
stops at its frame and is subject only to immanent and supposed!) emerge because of specific practices that generate products that can
given conventions.20 Instead, a different conception of painting is be assigned to the singular agents who produced them.
needed, one that can take into account the medium's openness
as well as its specificity. (Or perhaps its residual specificity: if it were Genealogical Critique in
the Light of Affectivity
entirely without specificity, the word itself would no longer have
meaning.)
Against this backdrop, I define painting by using Michel Foucault's To define painting as a formation means to not conceive of it as a given
term "formation" to describe the specificity of painting as well as or self-evident. Lovers of painting are especially inclined to hvpos-
its current despecification.21 According to Foucault, formations are tasize and naturalize the medium by invoking it in a pathetic or
historical structures that change over time while also obeying cer­ reverent tone, as if it had always been in existence.23 Moreover, the
tain "rules of formation." The Love of Painting therefore focuses on mere mention of painting creates a mental image of a grand unified
the genesis of painting as a formation, on the historical changes it entity, appearing imperious before us. In German grammar this
has undergone, and on its enduring characteristics. In conceptual totality seems all the more subject-like: a direct article makes it not
terms, the advantage of the formation is that it allows us to conceive just "painting" but "the painting," die Malerei. In truth, of course,
of changes, openings, and boundary shifts, alongside aspects that painting is not a higher being with a capacity for action. Nor has it
persist over time. ever been.
Like other Foucauldian formations—the "economy" and "psychi­ For this reason, I will use a genealogical approach to trace the
atry," to name two—the formation known as "painting" has contin­ historicity of this formation. In doing so, I will locate the genesis of
ually absorbed new phenomena. Think, for example, how many early the painted panel in early modern Western Europe between the
modern painters routinely assimilated the lessons of other media, fifteenth and the eighteenth centuries.24 Around this time, painting
including poetry, rhetoric, dance, sculpture, and theater, a list that freed itself from its existing contexts (e.g., frescos, altar pieces,
later included photography. However, although painting's absorptive book illustrations) to emerge stronger still in the form of a painted
capacity has made it an extremely heterogeneous medium, it has canvas that was moveable. The historical arguments for painting,
also "obstinately maintained itself," as Foucault put it.22 This is typical whose current relevance I am assessing, were essentially developed
of formations: for painting, a key symptom has been the particularly in Western and Eastern Europe, and more specifically between Paris
tenacious existence of the "painted canvas" format. Right up to and northern Italy (and with the historical avant-garde throughout
the present day, painters have returned to or referred to this format
Europe and Germany and Russia in particular). After 1945, by
or some variation of it. Painting, it seems, dies hard. This holds
contrast, the debate shifted: from then on, it was conducted princi­
even for non-painterly practices such as Isa Genzken's or Rachel
pally between Western Europe and North America. The ideas and
Harrison's assemblages: I will show that they, too, take guidance from
values associated with painting in this book are thus characterized by
painting conventions and adopt painterly rhetorics, for example,
Western thought, and are not easily applicable to non-Western
by applying Impressionist-style brushstrokes to the surface or graffiti­
painting.
like spraying. Whereas Foucault's formation plays down the im­
Recalling this formation's specific geography and historical evolu­
portance of acting agents and their products, I consider them to be
tion also means looking at it from the distance of a perspective
THE LOVE OF PAINTING
INTRODUCTION 15
the idea of the formation is based on the insight that we cannot regard
informed by the present; this opens up painting to potential critique.-3
individual paintings, or works of art of any kind, as "isolated reali­
But, as I will repeatedly demonstrate in this book, painting is quite
ties."29 In this book, I do sometimes immerse myself in the specific
capable of absorbing critique, possibly more so than other media.
visual idioms of individual paintings, but my analysis does not stop at
When I discuss postwar painting, it will become clear that criticism of
their edges. In essays and case studies, I also examine how forma­
the medium has made it stronger and more revitalized. This does
tions extend into the paintings, and how, conversely, the fact that
not mean that critical analyses of painterly practices are altogether
paintings are deeply embedded within a formation is reflected within
superfluous. On the contrary, the model of genealogical critique this
them. Painting's exteriors—the art world, the art market, society
book proposes can weave together closeness and distance, analysis
at large—are thus interpreted as its interior.
and affectivity. One of the main reasons I turn to this approach is that
The artworks I analyze were selected first and foremost because
it can create distance while also drawing attention to the subject's
of their exemplary character within painting as a formation—they
entanglements and complicities.26 My genealogical historicization of
painting as a formation goes hand in hand with an engagement with typify the theses of the study particularly well. Yet it is not my objec­
the specific potential of paintings, and even more, with a readiness tive to impose a theory from outside. Instead, I confront the works
to be affected by them. It is often claimed that the affective power of with a theoretical intuition, one that grows more concrete but also
painting surpasses reason and cannot be captured in words.27 Indeed, encounters complications. Rather than attempting a survey of paint­
this book will show how paintings address us in sensory terms. But I ing as a formation in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, this
tie this affective potential back to painting's distinctive media and book subjects painting's extraordinary vitality to closer examination,
material characteristics—and that is crucial. The Love of Painting thus including through case studies. Ultimately, of course, my choice of
insists on a less mythically charged concept of affectivity, one that works is based on personal preferences, informed by exhibition visits,
seeks out the causes of affect within paintings themselves, while also discussions, and research.
stressing the projective dimension of affective responses.28 As a formation, painting can be understood not only as a set
of artistic practices but also as a historically situated set of rules that
Methodological Premises— can resurface and remain effective under new historical conditions.
No Picture Ends at Its Edges, Exemplary For example, early modern arguments for painting continue to exist
Case Studies, and the Afterlife of the Past in our own time. Conventional art-historical periodization—for
example, into classical, modern, and postmodern epochs—rarely
Formations are not characterized solely by their products—in our focuses on these kinds of connections. Nor can a linear art-historical
case, these products include individual paintings but also variations narrative properly apprehend the interplay of discontinuity and
on the format, such as Wade Guyton's digital prints or Ken Okiishi's continuity that shapes a history filled with contingencies. The Love
painted screens. Instead, they are defined by a variety of actors, of Painting thus opts for a model of history that uses existing classifi­
theories, and institutions. In the case of painting, these include the cations while also questioning them, aiming to illustrate unexpected
painters themselves and also apologists, patrons, collectors, gallery linkages and the afterlife of old tropes. This animated engagement
owners, critics, agents, and museums, as well as the creation of legends with the past also opens up a different approach to the present.30
and discourses surrounding painting. All of these characters and So if there are sometimes leaps through time in this book, it is owing
entities stand in complex reciprocal relationships, which in turn feed to an archaeological conception of history that, following Foucault,
into painting as a formation. From a methodological perspective. believes the present can only be understood if we continue to keep the
past in view.31
THE LOVE OF PAINTING
INTRODUCTION
I discuss the tension between the "inside" and "outside" in Joan
However, unlike Foucault's "discursive" formations, which, as the
Mitchell's paintings with Koether in chapter 1, making particular
term suggests, are above all linguistic in nature, painting as I under­
reference to Mitchell's gradual withdrawal from the professional New
stand it is a formation that, though discursive as well, largely manifests
York art world in the late 1950s. In my conversation with von Heyl
itself in the visual realm. This means that its rules are not estab­
lished solely by discourses, such as theories of painting, but are also in chapter 2, we consider the current shift from "de-skilling"—that
is, the deliberate rejection of painterly skills—to "re-skilling," the
formulated on a visual and material level.
renewed significance of skills like composition. In chapter 3,
No Theory of Painting "Painting against Painting," Carpenter rejects my attempt to discuss
without Conversation his work under this heading in order to describe how his painted
pictures are primarily commodity-like "by-products" of his artistic
Every painted picture thus contains genuine painterly pragmatic practice. The conversation with Guyton in the in chapter 4 centers
knowledge. However, this knowledge remains dependent on experts. on whether his laser-printed pictures are examples of "painting
The codes at play in an artwork—such as lumps of paint, silk- without painting." In chapter 5, I speak with Israel about the effects
screen marks, or the visual language of figuration—have to be deci­ of social media on his conception of painting, as well as the attrac­
phered, along with their historically variable meanings.32 Paintings tion of painterly material signs in a digital economy. Finally, in
do not explain themselves: that is one of my fundamental presup­ chapter 6, my conversation with the art historian Kerstin Stakemeier
positions. This is the case even for paintings inscribed with textual attempts to apprehend painting's particular value form: here, paint­
messages, which in this respect seem to suggest their own interpreta­ ings are understood as ideal commodities, possessing a specific power
tion.33 Even a "speaking" painting needs an expert who can identify of attraction.
and interpret its performative move. However, painting historians do
not accumulate knowledge merely through perception and by read­ Painting as a System of Signs
ing texts and documents. Since the early modern period, their knowl­
edge has above all derived from conversations with painters they Beginning with Quintilian, the influential Roman teacher of rhetoric,
are friends with. Painting theorists like Alberti or Felibien always em­ observers noted the particular affective power that paintings exert
phasized the importance of these conversations, suggesting that on their viewers. He attested to painting's ability to deeply penetrate
their insights resulted from discussions with practicing artists.34 In the our "innermost feelings," far exceeding the power of the spoken word.36
Renaissance, conversations were a more widely used format for Interestingly, this capacity to profoundly move the spectator is
scholarly treatises, offering a framework in which to discuss technical ascribed to paintings in comparison with—and in contradistinction
or thematic questions.35 To an extent, the course of these conversa­ to—speech. In the Renaissance, too, painting and language were
tions helped decide the direction of painting as a formation. Given often discussed in close conjunction. It was assumed that eloquent
the historical significance of the conversational format in theories of speech and painting "sprang from the same source," which meant
painting, I have included conversations in this book even con­ that their relation was also one of rivalry,37 fueled in no small part,
troversial ones—with painters who are my friends, including Jutta it was suggested, by the fact that both arts aimed at "persuasion"—
Koether, Charline von Ileyl, Merlin Carpenter, Wade Guvton, and Alex in other words, they both sought to convince their audience of a par­
Israel. These conversations have helped me discuss, deepen, revise, ticular position.38 In terms of affective power, painting was regarded
and test the theoretical presuppositions presented in each chapter. as clearly superior: Leonardo, for example, claimed that the erotic
THE LOVE OF PAINTING
INTRODUCTION