Manny Farber: An Exhibition Organized by the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, May 5-June 25, 1978

74 Pages·1978·14.864 MB·English

by  Manny Farber, La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art

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An exhibition organized by the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art
May 5 - June 25, 1978
Amy Goldin died a few weeks after finishing her catalogue essay. A tiny critic with a giant
capacity for research, scornful remark, and zeal for her subjects. She had the misfortune to
die just as she had reached her best period. She was surrounding and setting out all the
markers for her "issues of decoration" territory, an area that she had single handedly insisted
should have critical credentials. Amy, who represented most of what makes painting a
continuing excitement and puzzle, should have left some duplicates. -M. F.
The exhibition was supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Federal agency.
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Preface by Sebastian Adler Acknowledgments by Richard Armstrong
I do not know an artist more deserving of a retros Exhibitions which bring together work from long ·' /
pective exhibition than Manny Farber. His friend and productive careers such as Manny Farber's /
ship has been my great pleasure for many years, necessarily enlist the assistance of a great number
and through them all I have admired and re of people. For their cooperation, I am indebted to
,..
spected his paintings. The Museum is especially Jill Komblee, Komblee Gallery, New York; Jeanne
pleased to honor him. Diao, 0 . K. Harris Gallery, New York; Portia Harcus
and Barbara Krakow, Harcus Krakow Gallery, Bos
My enthusiasm for the show was redoubled when
Amy Goldin agreed to contribute to the catalogue. ton; and Terri Ware and Ruth Schaffner, Ruth
I am grieved at her death. Schaffner Gallery, Los Angeles.
Edward Couduro, Michael Todd, the University of
Richard Armstrong, curator, has very ably super
Texas Art Museum, Worcester Art Museum, and
vised the inner workings of so large an under
taking, as well as writing for and editing the the Whitney Museum of American Art generously
catalogue. supplied photographs. Gerry McAllister, Man
deville Art Gallery, University of California, San
The Trustees join me in thanking the numerous
Diego offered that gallery's space for use during
friends and collectors of Farber's work who have
the lengthy process of documenting the paintings
cooperated either by lending paintings or allow
in photographs. Grant Taylor, the photographer,
ing us access to them.
worked long hours under sometimes harrowing
We are grateful to the Combined Arts and Educa
circumstances. The catalogue's beautiful illustra
tion Council of San Diego County (COMBO) for
tions are the result of his work.
continued support of our projects, and acknowl
At the Museum, Annie Simoneau and Caroline
edge the crucial assistance of the National En
Kenvin typed and retyped material relating to the
dowment for the Arts in the organization of the
exhibition with accuracy and good cheer. Tom
exhibition.
Flowers and Al Hunter are to be commended for
their careful attention in handling and hanging the
art. Linda Rosengarten labored with admirable
persistence compiling the bibliography. Christ
opher Knight helped in many critical ways. I am
grateful to all of them.
Sebastian Adler initiated the exhibition and ad
vised and supported its organization. His strong
admiration for Manny Farber and his work en
couraged me; my debt to him is incalculable.
Without the generosity of the lenders of several
paintings, the exhibition could not have been as
comprehensive as it is. For lending pieces from
their private collections we thank Amanda Farber
and Marsha Picker, Mrs. Karin Farber, and Max
Pavlevsky.
Amy Goldin agreed to contribute an essay to this
catalogue knowing it would be one of the last of
her life. As always, she has written an informed
and highly informative piece. Her death is a pain
ful loss to our culture.
Patricia Patterson's steadfast efforts on behalf of
the exhibition have endeared her to me. Her pati
ence and remarkable intelligence have aided me
many times. Manny Farber proved an irreplace
able partner in planning the exhibition. Its success
is due, in large measure, to his ideas. Farber's
words, his paintings, and his character have af
fected me greatly.
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Manny Farber by Amy Goldin
Even small retrospective exhibitions like this matic and legislative, Farber has never been
one of Manny Farber's, challenge us to see the able to formulate an artistic program, much less
artist's production as a whole. It is an easy bind himself to one. He is swamped by his own
matter in the dase of artists like Newman, responsiveness and full of opinions about
Rothko or Kline, who essentially evolved a everything he sees, but his general statements
single type of image. Some artists seem intui about art are usually flippant and seldom get
tively to zero in on one conception of artistic into print. He is no system-builder-the furthest
form. They emerge from the cocoon of a tradi he has gone in that direction is in the invention
tional style and stabilize themselves before of a pair of impressionistic categories ("termite
launching into spiraling flight. They present an art" versus "White Elephant art") in his adop
image of an instinctive, self-determined, un tion of regular methods of production. Such
wavering life line which is unfailingly admiragle observations about Farber are not made from a
and lovable; it corresponds to the Apollonian particularly privileged or intimate position.
ideal of the unified self. They are available to anyone who has read his
Most artists, like most people, pursue mes film criticism.
sier, less coherent courses, with more or less Farber is probably better known as a writer
zig-zagging about in thought, feeling, behavior than he is as a painter. Perhaps the audience for
and style. Manny Farber's career belongs to that sophisticated film criticism is larger than the
type, though his moves have been neither swift audience for sophisticated abstract painting,
nor erratic. Responsive to the complexities of but a fuller explanation probably lies elsewhere.
his own nature and to changes in the artistic I doubt if there is a man or woman alive so
currents surrounding him, he sometimes led sweet-natured that he or she would not envy
and sometimes followed those tides. As a Farber's virtuoso use of invective. Farber's
painter, he cannot be classified either as an monumental irritability comes through his criti
oddball or as the typical representative of a cism with the irresistible gaudy shapelessness
style. It has had a bad effect on his reputation. of a Son et Lumiere performance at the Tivoli
Such artists are seldom given their due. It is fountains. His literary style is so dense, flashy
so much simpler to follow the crude conven and quirky that when he describes a perfor
tions of contemporary art history, which limit mance or a scene, our more tepid memories are
"serious" art to production in a "dominant overwhelmed. We see what he saw, and his
style" so that we can distinguish between the acute, highly painterly focus on the screen has
winners and the losers at a glance. The result of given a lot of people a new way of looking at
such frontier "criticism" is a failure of sobriety movies.
as well as simple justice. The "winners" are His paintings reveal the same intelligence, the
credited with being the source of all creativity same almost neuresthenically hectic response
and the "losers" are denied any constituent role to space, light, gesture and style. But where
in art history. The inflation of self-propelled Farber the critic is oriented to the exact and
winners denies the communal creation of sig indelible location of a given experience, the
nificant styles and falsifies the assessment of painter is dedicated to foreshadowing a visual
individual artists. ideal. As a critic Farber has a canny shiftiness, a
A friend and contemporary of the illustrious sense of the requirements of the historical mo
first generation of Abstract Expressionists, ment that continually revises his sensibility. As a
Farber produced Abstract Expressionist paint painter he is less imaginatively diffuse, more
ings and sculpture which show a strong affini~ prudent, more obsessive. He conceals his
with pared-down Expressionism. More ambiti tracks, repeats himself, the spiral turns inward
ous, his subsequent work was in the develop , rather than out. The satisfactions his paintings
ment of monumental color-field painting. In offer are totally different from those he provides
1974, he again changed radically and began as a critic. The writer grabs you, stuns you, turns
making realistic, spatially ambiguous still-lifes you this way and that, overloads you with puns,
that are intimate in scale and theme. At present apercus, associations, points of reference. The
he teaches at a university, but for years he made paintings ignore you. Self-contained, brooding,
his living as a carpenter and by his reputation as low-keyed or monochromatic, they are overrid
a film critic. ingly concerned with their own integrity, with
As a personality, he is plagued by mutually professional problems of adjusting contour,
opposed impulses. A moralist whose most vivid structure, light and casual incident so that no
responses are esthetic, he is aroused by qual single element announces itself. Similar in
ities of light, form and space, while intention, every part, only the wholes are different. A paint
justice or power rarely engage him. He is an ing may have the indivisible crispness of an
intellectual more interested in style than esthe autumn leaf or the metallic shimmer of a slice of
tic theory, endlessly concenred with particular pond mirroring the sky. Despite Farber's insis
differentiations of tone and form. He is deeply tence on an underlying grid structure and the
attached to such traditional artistic virtues as frequently geometric shape of his formats, the
craftsmanship, refinement of surface and detail paintings with which I shall be concerned in
and architectonic conceptions of structure. At evitably evoke the presence of nature. The are
the same time he is outraged by the clich~s of not "about" landscape nor any natural object,
high art and scathingly contemptuous of what but aim at becoming the objective correlative of
he sees as "empty" form. (A 1952 essay on nature itself, a manifestation of real light and
"Matisse" praises the artist's draftsmanship real stuff: paper, chalk and paint the artist's
and roundly condemns him for his devotion to terrain, his lightning flash, his dusk. My chief
bric brae and charm.) Temperamentally dog- aims in this essay are to discover how such
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abstract, formal work achieves this effect and to definition of the artistic situation at that mo
consider its relationship to recent painting. ment drew a great deal of strength from its
In doing so I shall depart somewhat from the consistency with Clement Greenberg's pro
recent convention of restricting the catalog nouncements. Greenberg claimed that the his
essay to an act of personal homage. Not be torical development of painting required its
cause the impulse to offer such respect is lack progressive purification - its withdrawal not
ing, but because asserting the importance of only from extra-artistic concerns (like depicting
Farber's work now requires a more polemical "reality") but even from esthetic goals that
stance. The virtues of his paintings are neither could conceivably be fullfilled by the methods
fashionable nor obvious. I shall be dealing with and materials of arts other than painting.
Farber as a color-field painter and our idea of The foregoing account of the formal de
the style derives primarily from the observations velopment of modernism was based on the as
of a single critic- Michael Fried- gathered to sumption of the increasing autonomy of paint- •
accommodate a single painter- Jules Olitski. ing - what actually happened was directly the
Later writers extended Fried's ideas to new opposite. Not only has the distinction between
color-field painters (like Ellsworth Kelly) with painting and sculpture grown increasingly tri
out questioning Fried's assumptions. Conse vial, extra-esthetic materials and concerns now
quently the style itself appears limited and we virtually flood the practice of art. Political
are given no clue as to why Farber and Olitski statements, biography (true and false), epis
might choose to play significantly different var temology and the documentation of almost any
iants of the same game. thing inundate galleries and museums in the
Furthermore, despite lip service paid to the name of art. In some places, estheticized ob
importance of "quality" in art, artistic quality jects (via decoration or trompe l'oeil) appear as
has actually played a very minor role in estab frequently as paintings and sculpture do. Yet
lishing the hierarchy of "important" painters. the heroes of Formalism, astride a patently un
The selection was made on other grounds. For convincing version of art history, continue to
the last ten or fifteen years our attention has ride into the dawn.
been occupied with esthetic novelties, concep To discuss Farber's work of the 1960's with
tual revisions of the nature and role of art. Our out recognizing the pressure of Formalist stric- •
imaginations have been fired by notions of re tures in those years would be absurd. Moreover,
volution, the total revision of sensibility, alterna until " modernism" is defined better, some
tive realities, etc., so that artistic accomplish definition is preferable to none at all. Without
ment, the actual amplification and development confirming the individual assessments that ac
of a visual idea, has hardly been recognized at companied it, Formalism's broader position will
all. Our eyes have grown dull and theoretical be accepted here, since Farber clearly granted
novelties alone seem new. Yet only if artistic the Formalists' definition of the artistic situation
quality really matters can Farber's significance in which he found himself. Yet even if he had
be defended, since he did not invent a style, but wanted to use the Louis-Noland-Olitski solution
"merely" extended and expanded one. What - developing an image based on high-keyed
requires attention is the grounds of his artistic color contrast - that direction was no use to
qualitt,, in particular the great importance of him at all. Farber doesn't like that kind of color
drawing in a style that supposedly eliminates it. and, for an artist, the sort of color one likes is as
Any serious assessment of Farber must there irrevocable as one's sexual preferences.
fore investigate the norms and criteria of color Farber likes color that looks as if it's been
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field painting. through a lot: abraded, drowned, rising to the
According to canonical accounts of modern surface, floating. Light-sensitive color that has
painting, the flattening of the picture plane, been subjected to natural phenomena. He hates
initiated by C~zanne, was developed by the cosmetic color, color as artifice or coating,
Cubists and fulfilled its non-figurative destiny in color that announces itself as pigment. "Or
the work of Jackson Pollock. After Pollock, up ganic" color is a distinctly old-fashioned taste
to-date pictorial space was equated with "opti today, but Farber is stuck with it. Fortunately,
cality." "Optical" space was the only arena in his love for chromatic subtlety does not exclude
which pictorial elements were allowed to move the possibility of intensity, which he can achieve
and have their being, for illusQry mass and air by choosing a fully saturated hue and suffusing
with their concomitant "tactility" were explicitly it over his entire surface. But Farber's color
repudiated. The painter's problem with the new sense prohibits it from assuming an indepen
de-mythologized ''space'' was to get something dent role. Because he will not treat color as
happening that felt "necessary" and native to stuff, it does not define his form but pervades it. ••
that space alone. The elimination of figuration This is exactly opposed to Olitski's practice.
was interpreted as entailing the banishment of Color-to-color shifts are the prime incident of
drawing with a consequent stress on color and Olitski's canvases, the factor that distinguishes
"deductive structure" - shapes derived from one painting from another. Farber is thus a
the physical characteristics of the painting's color-field painter in whose work color does not •
support, the canvas itself. This is how the situa play a highly structural role. As I suggested
tion looked in 1965 when Michael Fried before, his chief resource in the solution of the
mounted an exhibition of Kenneth Noland, post-Abstract Expressionist problem of animat
Jules Olitski and Frank Stella, representatives ing "optical" space is line, and his use of line is
of "formal intelligence of the highest order." so subtle and varied that recognizing it forces
Published in an important catalog essay for us to revise our presently inadequate concep
his "Three American Painters" show, Fried's tion of drawing. In Farber's work, line plays
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three distinct roles: cut line defines contour (the as instinctive as it was practical. It suits his
single function assigned to drawing in Fried's leanings toward the immediate, transient, in
essay); it establishes the structure of the sur formal. Farber has an intense sympathy for the
face (the grid produced by the pasted, layered • underdog and anti-Establishment attitudes,
papers that make up the painting's physical vide his old interest in "B" movies and charac
surface); and it serves as a small-scale, gestural ter actors. As we shall see, his acute respon
detail within the color field. siveness to esthetic form allowed him to exploit
It is important to noticethatonlythethird type the possibilities of paper in hitherto unexplored
of line is actually drawn. The virtuoso's delight ways.
in delicately modulated speed, force and weight In making a painting, Farber's first step is to
of line is here confined to the place of detaif- get an area large and flat enough to work with.
one of the Abstract Expressionist's major in This means cutting segments off an industrial
struments is reduced to a frill. The only parallel I roll of wrapping paper and pasting or gluing
can think of for Farber's use of the cut line in them together. While the lightness and infor
defining the contour of his form is Matisse's mality of paper is important for Farber's anti
scissors line in the late monumental cut-outs. monumental conception, paper's tendency to
Overtly hand-made, the irregularities and dis warp and curl (usually controlled by mounting)
continuities of this cut line advertise the certain must be eliminated. His solution to the problem
ties ahd hesitations of the man holding the tool. comes from working with wood; adjoining sec
Here the knife or scissors becomes a drawing tions reverse the direction of the "grain," so
instrument as responsive as chalk orren; each that the composite sheet hangs straight and
man's cut line shows the traces o his own • flat. While Farber doesn't measure the sections,
personality. Farber's cut line is more austere, he does have an idea of the general size and
more self-effacing than Matisse's, just his sym shape he wants. Thus the size of the unit com
metries are stricter, as one might expect from ponents and the rectilinearity of the grid they
an artist with a marked taste for geometry and form are already being adjusted to the final
abstraction. conception. In most cases, Farber will use three
What the overtly hand-produced cut insists abutted strips of wrapping paper (which yield
upon is the difference between architectural two long, straight interior lines) and as many
and pictorial surfaces, and it is this characteris shorter cuts as he feels necessary to serve as a
tic of Farber's contours that separates his use of counterpoint to them. Whether the format is
unconventional formats from the shaped can horizontally or vertically oriented, the dominant
vases of Zox, Mangold or Stella, among others. direction of the grid repeats the dominant axis
Regardless of their adequacy to serve decora of the final form. Strictly speaking, these grid
tive purposes, Farber's painted papers reject lines are not drawn, any more than the contour
assimilation to architecture or architectural de was. They first appear because the light strikes
tail. His unconventional formats do not support the surface of the pasted paper unevenly. Later
a figure/ground situation - that is, they don't the linear grid will be partly obliterated and
make the wall a part of the image, the way partly reinforced by paint. As a characteristic of
shaped canvases usually do.• the artist's working surface, the grid conditions
Farber's insistence on axial symmetry insures and modifies all later decisions.
that his shapes will look self-supporting; his After the paper has been pasted up into a
• wide sweeping curves imply a tendency to cir rough square or rectangle, Farber proceeds
cular form that reinforces a sense of closure with the single most decisive step in his pro
and separateness. Like some of the early sculp cess: cutting the contour. Making the contour is
tures which were made to hang at right angles not a single gestural act but a sequence of
to the wall or support, the paper paintings have delicate, intuitive decisions. It can take a day or
a structure and frontality all their own. These two of adjusting the big surface against the thin
are unmistakably paintings, firm, fragile sur slivers of paper that modify a curve or angle
faces independent of the architectural context. before Farber is satisfied with his format. If the
Almost from the beginning, Farber's paintings allover shape isn't right, if it's too full or too
had bones (See No. XX, where the framework arbitrary-looking or flaccid, lacking in energy,
breaks through the contour). These "bones" the painting will never come off. Notice, how
are provided by Farber's second sort of draw ever, that at this stage, before there is any paint
ing, the half-concealed grid generated by his or ordinary drawing on the surface whatsoever,
method of preparing his working surface. Farber is already working in a formally defined
Paper is not often made in sheets large • situation. The grid components set a pace and
enough to satisfy Farber's preferred scale. Most rhythm against which the spring and tautness of
of his life he could not afford Sam Francis' the contour line can be measured.
solution - special-ordering enormous sheets Now Farber releases the third role of his line,
of heavy, handmade paper-and that's not the a constellation of mostly high-speed events that
sort of thing he would do, anyway. Much as he splash, snap and dance across the space so
admires craftsmanship, Farber is more of a carefully prepared for them. These drawn lines
brico/eur. And he likes wrapping paper. Its are produced with a variety of techniques and
• toughness, its weight, its color. His initial materials and appear on both sides of the paper.
choice of it as a working surface was probably Despite the fact that all this detail will be at least
partially drowned by the applications of paint
that follow, Farber's underdrawing serves two
·This is not true of Stella's black paintings. but the principle of
purposes. First, even when obscured, the drawn
deductive structure in general tended to safeguard the au
tonomy of the picture. elements will be glimpsed as presences within
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.. the paint, creating distinct pockets of activity. texture from minor to major status as an ele
Second, the rate of linear incident over the ment of esthetic form was an outcome of the
surface establishes a pictorial density that the '60s. Yet the texture of canvas is, after all, rela
paint will supplement and reinforce. Farber tively uneventful. For me, Louis was the only
often thinks of his painted papers as setting up a painter whose images were spare, vivid and
certain kind of density against a certain kind of open enough to make the banal testure of can
contour- an oddly sculptural notion. Yet even vas seem relevant to his painting. Most of the
without the underdrawing, Farber's grid, allover efforts to activate the painterly ground without
shape and contour interact to present a situa- reducing its "opticality" took the form of mes
.. tion of considerable internal complexity. The sing up the surface, introducing discontinuities
blandness of the traditional pictorial surface in it. Pollock had cut shapes out of his canvas
has already been obviated. and backed them (Cutout and Out of the Web,
Much has been made of Noland and Louis' both 1949); Burri slashed it, Marca-Relli and
achievement in developing a stain technique many others collaged their surfaces. In general,
that makes thinned pigment visually identical these experiments were unsatisfactory. The
with the woven canvas ground. Supposedly, coalescence of visual form and technical device
stained color is an unequivocal artistic advance failed to take place; the results looked gim
because it reinforces the purity and integrity of micky. This is the context in which Farber's
painting itself. Like a lot of other people, I don't constructed surfaces should be seen. Without
see why painting should be all that logical and breaking the essentially flat, extended charac
pure. But it does seem clear that if the artist's ter of the pictorial surface, he eliminated its
working surface is no longer to be treated as a seamless neutrality. Because his paper was
referent for or an equivalent of any other sort of unmounted and unstretched, its native fragility
space, that intention - to assert the physical was up front; because cutting and pasting sec
immediacy of any other sort of space, that inten tions of paper automatically produced lines on
tion - to assert the physical immediacy of the the surface (especially after the paper was
surface - must be made visible. Obviously, the painted), the taint of artificially added " interest"
most economical and elegant way of doing so is was avoided.
to make the characteristics of the surfa ce an If we follow the formal development of paint
integral element in the perception of the image. ing along its actual course rather than to the
Order readers will recall that the elevation of one Formalism projected for it, Farber's con-
1. Untitled, 1972. acrylic on collaged paper, 66½x102½".
Harcus Krakow Gallery, Boston.
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caption of the pictorial field was considerably papers in 1967. Initially, the contours were de
more coherent and sophisticated than Olitski's. signed to introduce a contradiction to the grid,
Olitski, who discarded internal shapes in his and the first new shape he used was a trapezoid,
paintings around 1963 to place differentiated typically, one tall, heavy and close enough to a
forms at the framing edges, continued to think rectangle to make the slicing-down of its sides
of the painter's arena as an immaterial, abstract something of a shock. Soon after he added the
"space." His stained and sprayed color fields football and the irregular polygons. The mush
were initially centralized and, as Fried said, his room cap, the fans and barrels did not appear
compositions were never "deductive." Neither until 1972-73, the ovals and saw-toogh shapes
the boundaries nor the shape of his canvas even later. In 1973 he began treating the paper
made much difference to the flow or density of as a sculptural as well as a pictorial element.
his pictorial space, which was given primarily by Instead of changing the picture's shape by carv
the peculiar quality of his melting, drifting color. ing out a format, he gave it a new one by varying
Emphasizing the painting's edges, as he did the picture's relation to the wall. Very long re
after 1963, was thus a strangely arbitrary thing ctangular panels were folded over a rod, so that
for him to do. On the other hand, Farber's con- \ the "picture plane" consisted of two surfaces,
... caption of the edge-field relationship grew out one partially overlapping the other. He also ex
of his experiments with sculpture and, ulti perimented with pulling a corner of the paper
mately, from his experience as a carpenter. away from the wall, attaching the equivalent of a
Farber worked on every type of building, from guy wire to the floor, so that the paper took on a
skyscrapers to houses, mostly on rough con sail-like character.
struction; he belonged to the carpenter's union These forays into an increasingly sculptural'
of the building trades and was never a cabinet use of paper were aborted by Farber's decision
maker. At the end of his day's work he would to return to figurative painting, but they clearly
gather together the scraps of discarded lumber take a formal direction that other painters, in
and plywood and take them home. All of his cluding Rauschenberg, Rockburne and
sculpture was assembled from these " found" Ellsworth Kelly, have followed for a variety of
materials. Between 1962 and 1964 from 300 to reasons. The unifying factor in all of them is the
400 pieces were made, few of which are still growing tendency to think of all works of art in
extant. In his sculpture, Farber allowed himself terms of artifacts or constructed bodies instead
an unusual degree of playfulness and spon of " space." By the mid-sixties, paintings were
taneity, but tempermentally he made a rotten no longer pictures as much as they were unitary
Abstract Expressionist. pictorial objects, and artists went even further
He has more confidence in sensibility than in in that direction. While touch, drawing and
passion. Distrusting slickness and fearing inau composition were supposedly withering away,
thenticity, Farber is continually led to reject matters of scale, allover shape and texture took
impulse and inventiveness. These must ham on unprecedented importance. Texture, a
mer their way through righteously-held esthetic property previously in the province of sculptors,
preferences and cautiously developed methods became a big thing in painting, while sculptors,
of doing things. He is a man who narrows and for a variety of reasons, increasingly restricted
limits himself in order to achieve a cutting edge. themselves to planar forms.
His very oddly-shaped boxes, some of them the The distinction between physical and " opti
size of toys, others larger than a man, have a cal" bodies became perfectly explicit with Brice
wanton variety that is visible nowhere else in his Marden's device of halting the painting's skin
work. before the canvas ended. Marden, a younger
Despite its idiosyncrasy and improvisation, painter than those under discussion so far,
Farber's sculpture is structurally distinct from found it perfectly natural to assume that a paint
Abstract Expressionist accretions of mass ing is a body of some sort. Farber's insistence
(Pavia, Weinrib, Sugarman, late de Kooning). on the contour as a tangible, physical edge
The emphasis is on a classically legible contour, rather than a frame or the limit of a ground was
modified by a lighthearted attitude toward grav clearly forward-looking. It set him apart from
ity. Many are designed to dangle, latch onto the Washington school of painters and paral
- projections, or abut a wall. These boxes are leled the work of another colorfield artist,
peculiar not only in contour(Farber is a virtuoso Ellsworth Kelly. Farber's work looks completely
with a Skilsaw) but also in their openness. different from Kelly's, chiefly because they have
Incomplete faces and sides make the inside as utterly different feelings about color. Both have
visible as the outside, and the articulated inner used irregular formats and have moved their
spaces have an organization all their own. The large flat surfaces in sculptural directions. Both
finished pieces preserve the informal look of have moved into new areas where color and
found objects- a wide brushstroke may brus form are more important than the work's tradi
quely override the disjunction between two tional " identity" as painting or sculpture.
separate planes. Also, most of the pieces are Farber's decision to stress the tactile, non
overtly frontal, but it is quite possible for the optical side of painting was conscious and
"front" to slip sneakily around a corner and programmatic from the beginning. "I tried to
make it clear that you should now be looking make paintings out of the sculpture," he says,
from another side. After all, there is something and the painting method he adopted was calcu
weird about frontality divorced from mass, and lated to do just that. His basic task was to deny
Farber's dangling sculptures exploit the ano - the one-sidedness of the paper, which meant
maly in a dead-pan comic spirit. treating it as permeable stuff rather than as a
Farber began producing the shaped, painted surface. The first step, therefore, was to satu-
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rate the paper and paint the back of it. The or a brushstroke. These small explosions of
color's bleed-through makes its entire mass, its energy, so blatantly on the surface, reinforce
back, interior and front, visible at once. Accord the chief aim of Farber's complicated diffusion
ingly, the color Farber used on the back usually of color: "I don't want the picture to look like
contrasts strongly with the color on the face-a paper or canvas but like a thing," he says. The
creamy greenish surface will have a heavy bleeding from below and layering above create
looking ox-blood on the back, for example. a density so tangible that you really can't tell
Because wrapping paper is too tough to be where the color is. The method, which is entirely
highly porous, a great deal of effort is required Farber's invention, presents interesting
to soak it to the point where pigment will pass analogies to the Frankenthaler-Louis stain
through its fibers. The paper is laid upon the technique as well as to the traditional use of
floor, so that the wetting process can proceed glazes. Like stained canvas, it insists on the
as evenly and rapidly as possible. Working with inseparability of color and its support, but
a very wet, waterbased paint, Farber attacks the Farber's color is so tonal that it muffles paint's
back of the paper with a five-inch brush. This self-assertive artificiality. Its associations lead
paint is laid down heavily and rapidly, without to nature rather than to art. Like glazing,
any particular direction or delicacy. The size of Farber's eethod multiplies the apparent number
the paper requires Farber to walk or kneel on it of levels at which color is perceived. Glazes,
in order to cover it completely, and inspection however, aim primarily at creating depth and
of the finished piece will often reveal the traces luminosity simultaneously. The multiplication
of footprints or the marks of his knees. While the of transparent layers of tinted light is an artifi
whole surface is covered with puddles of watery cial recreation of looking at things through air
paint, special attention is given to the edges, - you see the object and atmosphere at the
where bleed-through is particularly important. same time. Farber's use of bleed-through has
Once the paper is thoroughly saturated it is nothing to do with air or the depth of a visual
• rolled to speed the capillary action and spread field: it dramatizes our sense of the density of
out again, this time face-side-up. (Through trial materials.
and error, Farber has developed a precise As for the edges, Farber's delicate insistence
timetable for each step in his process.) Since it on having the bottom color swell through there,
now tears easily, great care must be taken to get however fully or faintly it appears in the field,
the paper flat again. Now three pails of paint, has the effect of making the painting end in
often light, medium and dark tonalities of a stead of stop. The early Cubist illusion of a
._ single hue, or hot to cool versions of one, are at scooped-out bowl of space is here turned inside
hand, already mixed, along with large, pre-cut out, its unusable corners nearly eliminated.
squares of muslin. This step can proceed in Image and object crisply coincide. The paintin~.
either of two ways: the pieces of muslin can be with all its mysterious thickness and immedi
laid down and paint applied over them, or the acy, is there to be explored without the tactile or
surface can be painted upon directly and the visual clues that invite Abstract Expression
muslin rolled out on it afterwards. In either case, ism's vicarious participation.
the final surface will appear only after paint and Because so many of the formal hazards of
muslin have reached a particular stage of tacki- Farber's paintings have been short-circuited by
J ness and the muslin can be pulled off the paper. his method, decisions as to the relative quality
The muslin overlay eliminates any trace of the of one painting over another are not easily
brush and imparts a uniquely internalized qual made. The pictures have to be painted quickly
ity to the color. The purpose of the multi-valued - four or five hours is as long as Farber can
or close-hued paint is the same as that of the count on having his paper in a proper state for
muslin: to keep the color from seeming to lie on working. Also, the method itself is so indirect,
the surface, to make it feel locked into the and provides the artist with so many surprises,
supporting material. Several tints or tones of that the points at which direct control can be
the same color provide variety, yet the varia exerted are relatively few. As in the case of
tions are ambiguous, interpretable as changes Abstract Expressionist painting, the quality of
in the material as well as in the pigment. the work an artist offers the public depends a lot
Within the boundaries of this method, Farber on the clarity of mind and spirit with which he or
can ring a variety of changes: adding powdered she defines and organizes the task. Also, as in
pigments to the surface to bring in new color, all method-based work, the artist's editorial
picking up sections of the muslin at different acuity - what is kept and what is discarded
stages of dryness, which changes the paint tex should be a further determinant of quality.
ture. He may keep the muslin flat or drape it in For the most part, what will prevail with the
places, so that its folds and allover shape wi II viewer is a liking for a faster or slower visual
leave a variety of imprints on the paint. Adding tempo, for brooding or buoyant shapes, for
gesso to the pigment creates a blonde tonality fleshy, Jean-Harlowish surfaces or for the tex
on the face, since the gesso floats to the surface ture of night and vegetables dreaming. Farber's
and kills the possibility of dark paintings. paintings address themselves to looking and
Farber will often add graphic details to the feeling. They are slow pictures, and evoke re
still-damp surfa ce which echo or pick up on the sponse stealthily, but the extrapolation of prin
gestural incidents now submerged in the paint. ciples has nothing to do with them. You don't
The snapped chalk line whipping through an have to know anything about art to appreciate
uneventful section is rarely a surface event, but them. They could therefore be considered shal
one often finds a linear flourish with a stick of low, a judgment that presupposes a special
charcoal or pastel, an ink-like splash of pigment relationship between intellect and art.
9
There is presently a presumption that the
intellectual aspect of art has to do either with its
" content" or with its transparency to esthetic
principles. Its ability to serve as a demonstration
or example of an abstract proposition (which
may or may not deal with art) has often appealed
to academics, and art historians usually look at
pictures as manifesting a historical moment in
the evolving discipline they call " painting."
Until Formalism, however, the idea of art as the
embodiment of abstract theory was not particu
larly appealing to artists. Now it is, and Concep
tualists deal with the work of art primarily as a
demonstration, setting visual form aside as
peripheral to the essential esthetic experience.
Their attitude is alien to artists like Manny
Farber.for whom sense and feeling are the core
of art. For him, intelligence is something re
quired of the artist, not the viewer, and artistic
intelligence is itself a quasi-sensual matter. The
artist must recognize a clich~ when he sees one.
2. Untitled, 1957. oil on canvas, 51x38".
He must understand the interaction of the artis
Amanda Farber and Marsha Picker, New York.
tic elements he works with, so that he doesn't
violate his own intentions. He must be clear
eyed and clear-headed enough to resist the
continual temptation to confuse his aims with
his accomplishments. Farber's conception of
art is closer to the classical one of making it
(mysteriously, undefinably) right than the Sur
realist (and contemporary) one of making it
new.
Yet Farber's talent and formal intelligence led
him to move into new artistic situations while
dozens of younger, weaker artists are still trying
to make a name for themselves with tarted-up
Minimalism - baby-talk simplicities of form
combined with personalized, " lyrical" elabora
tions of texture and surface. The great differ
ence between Farber's work and theirs is that
with Farber you can go beyond taste and into
formal analysis. To consider the various aspects
of his painting, one by one and in their interac
tions, is highly rewarding: his artistic decisions
reinforce each other. You find the hidden
economy of his means, coherence and order at
every level, like the layers of a tulip bulb.
" Conservative" artists, we generally assume,
hold onto familiar ground while " progressive"
ones move forward. But political language
doesn't correspond with artistic facts. If we
consider an artist conservative who has a fer
vent respect for art and a lively understanding of
the resources of form, the possibility of a sig
nificant, unrevolutionary expansion of artistic
experiences should not look so peculiar. Ex
cept in relatively minor ways, Farber cannot be
3. Untitled, 1957. oil on canvas, 44½x561/2".
considered a groundbreaker. The artistic prob
Amanda Farber and Marsha Picker, New York.
lems he tackled were not exclusively his; he
learned from Minimal and Process art. Wholly a
man of his time, Farber has nevertheless been
able to withstand the pressure of fashion. He is, I
believe, a deeply conservative artist and, as
such, a model of the creativity and invention
that conservative artists can contribute.
Height precedes width precedes depth. Unless
noted otherwise all works are property of the artist.
10