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https://archive.org/details/paintingtodayOOO0O0godf_z1e3
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759.06 Godfrey
Godfrey, Tony.
Painting today
 Contents

Introduction

|
The Global

18
Scene
ifpul
° Post-feminism
Painting Space 390
208

Western

34
Traditions
16
9 Painting Tomorrow
408
Landscape
3 232

Neo-expressionism
58
10
Death and Life Artists’ Biographies
4 268 434

Photographic
88 Chronology
11 440

History Painting
d 308
Select Bibliography
442
Pure Abstraction

112
12 Index

Still Life 444

6 332

Ambiguous Abstraction
142
15
Installation Painting
7 352

The Figure
168
14
Dresden and Leipzig
370
Look at this photograph by Thomas Struth of people in what a painting is: it is a picture that is made with paint surround ourselves with paintings or pictures of
front of a painting by Jackson Pollock: the people are on canvas and then hung on the wall. Asked by the paintings? Why do we go and sit down in the rooms
blurred from restlessly moving / 2 /. It is a Sunday, and conceptual artist Maurizio Cattelan why he made of museums filled with paintings, old and new?
visitors have come to the Museum of Modern Art in paintings, the New York painter Verne Dawson replied A look at the extraordinary market for paintings
New York: they stand in front of Pollock’s One: with disarming simplicity, today — and it is the privilege or bane of painting to be
Number 31 of 1950. What are they thinking? What sort the darling of the art market — may tell us something
of experience are they having? We can imagine the Painting is a primary activity, somewhere between about why we look at and collect paintings. Obviously
constant background echo of footsteps and distant whistling and scratching. It’s an extremely efficacious they look good on the walls, the medium has a long
conversation, the sibilant hum of air-conditioning. They and enduring method of communicating simple as pedigree and paintings can seem imbued with the aura
may know that Pollock had a passionate life — at well as complex ideas. For me, it’s also a means of of that genius the artist, but there is more to it than
times heroic, at times pathetic. They may know that this expressing love oflife and love of creation. And, given that. To understand painting itself and our desire for it
painting is a paragon of modernism, that it is seen that humans inhabit interiors with walls, paintings still we must begin and end by looking at paintings.
as a new beauty. They may wonder whether it relates function extraordinarily well. Let us look at a recent painting by Peter Doig:
to their own life and time, or whether it is now just we see a man surrounded by paintings / 3 /. Who is he?
a historical relic. Most glance at it for asecond or two This seems reasonable, but to many Dawson A collector or an artist? He seems haunted. The figure ~
and then wander on, or else they go over to the wall is being simplistic and archaic. Why? Until recently is derived from a painting by Honoré Daumier of a print
labels, presumably to find out what sort of experience we all knew more or less what we wanted from collector, a man in search of the perfect impression.
they should be having. This label tells them how it a painting: a picture of reality, an image of beauty or All around Doig's somewhat ragtag figure are picture
was made. Some then go close up to the painting to harmony, an image of something or someone that frames: some seem to act as frames for a tropical
examine the drips. Others stand evidently still and cock conveyed some emotional charge. Leonardo's Mona landscape, others for paintings have been so erased
their head to hear their audio-guide’s account. Some Lisa, Constable's Hay Wain, Munch's Scream, that they can barely be seen — save as wraiths. Yet they
pause in front for a few seconds and, pointing and Van Gogh's Starry Sky, Mondrian’s Broadway Boogie still haunt the picture: we yearn to know what they
gesturing, discuss with their companions what it may be Woogie, Pollock's Lavender Mist / 1/ all do one or were, what memories they held. If one way for a viewer
about. A few, mainly women, stand still a while and more of these things. We go in large numbers still to to experience a painting is to imagine a painting
seem to lose themselves in the painting. One sits down museums to look at such objects. as a painter painted it, then one way a painter creates
and, eyes fixed on the work, seems wholly absorbed. This book is a survey of recent painting. a painting is by imagining himself as a viewer. This is
What does she see? What, indeed, is painting? It is also a discussion of what painting does today, how what | think Doig is doing here. The man in the big hat
This may seem a stupid question to ask. We all know we experience it and why we need it. Why do we is a self-portrait of the artist as a wandering viewer.
 Throughout this book we have a three-way can understand what is vital or important unless we 1. Jackson Pollock 4. Albrecht Durer

discussion going on: painter, writer, reader. (And, have some knowledge of the past and of how Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Young Hare, 1502.

of course, all three of us are viewers.) To enhance the painting is rooted in that and refers back to it. Artists Mist), 1950. Oil, enamel and Watercolour and gouache on

sense of such a discussion | regularly quote artists in are represented here by some of their best or most aluminium paint on canvas, paper, 25 x 23 cm (9% x 9 in)

this book. Their voices haunt this book much as their influential work, even if this is not necessarily their 221 x 300 cm (87 x 118 in). Albertina, Vienna

images do. As a regular and spirited writer on her own most recent work. It is a sad fact of art that artists can National Gallery of Art,

work, Marlene Dumas, says: ‘I!write about my own produce their most dynamic and innovative work Washington, D.C. 5. Sigmar Polke

relatively early in their career. Durer’s Hare, 1968.

work because | want to speak for myself. | might not be
2. Thomas Struth Oil on canvas, 80 x 64.5 cm
the only authority, nor the best authority, but | want to Making a painting is all about hand, eye and
Museum of Modern Art |, (31% x 25% in). Museum
participate in the writing of my own history.’ brain co-ordination: no other art form links mind and
New York, 1994. Photograph, Frieder Burda, Baden-Baden
What this book is not, is a consumer's guide. body so totally. In a world of alienation and
180 x 238 cm (71 x 93% in)
It is about the experience of paintings. For this reason, consumerism this is important. Painting is away not
wherever possible, we have shown several paintings by just of seeing but also of making our world, just as for
3. Peter Doig
the same artist: sometimes to clarify their development children making objects and paintings is a way of
Metropolitan (House of Pictures),
but more especially to allow the reader to sense their understanding the world. The physicality of paintings
2004. Oil on canvas,
‘world’. With the collapse of grand historical narratives, therefore matters, and experiencing that materiality
275.3 x 200 cm (108% x 78% in)
especially modernism with its emphasis on ever greater matters a lot too. But this is, of course, a book filled
abstraction, each painter has to some extent to develop with photographic reproductions of paintings: it does
his or her own language and world: we need more not smell like oil paint, it is not lumpy like paint.
than one conversation to get the nuances. The book is Hardly any of these reproductions are the same size
arranged by theme; and, as artists inevitably roam as the actual paintings. Several installation shots are
in their subject matter, they can sometimes asa result also included, because they show paintings as they
appear in more than one chapter. really are: objects that inhabit rooms. To show painting's
This is not a book just on what is ‘hot’ in the apparently symbiotic relationship to photography,
market but an attempt to explain some of the complex photographs are occasionally illustrated and paintings
developments in painting in the last forty years. read through photography or film.
Although this is a book very much focused on what is Painting today is a global phenomenon:
being made and seen today, | do not believe that we one of the great excitements of the twenty-first century
is discovering the richness of painting beyond the West. look at a watercolour by Durer such as his Young Hare 6. Mark Rothko

In the age of mass visual media what distinguishes of 1502 / 4/. We admire the precision with which he Homage to Matisse, 1953-4.

has drawn each strand of fur; we feel, as when we look Ojl on canvas, 268.3 « 129.5 cm
painting is its variety and flexibility, its rich past, its
collective memory and our apparently innate hunger for at works by Raphael or Matisse, a sense of grace and (105Y2* 51in)
it. This is abook about discovering how painting, that repleteness: it makes us content to look at these things.
age-old practice of smearing coloured mud on woven This is what we get too when we look at works by 7. Cy Twombly

fabric, is still avalid medium for human exploration and Caravaggio or Van Gogh: we know that someone has Untitled (New York City),

expression. It is formed of sixteen thematic chapters, in lived and cared in this world that we share. Durer here 1968, Oil-based house paint

which five persistent themes constantly recur: tradition, is making a statement about the world and how and waxed crayon on canvas,
172.5 « 215.9 cm (68 x 85 in)
desire, beauty, the body and spirituality. Apainting we see it, and, persuaded by his vision and technical
is not just a picture on the wall: it is also a way in which brilliance, we concur.
8. Yue Minjun
human beings find meaning; it is a way in which they And yet sometimes when we look at the
The Execution, 1996, Oil on
create their world. paintings that have been made in our time, it is exactly
canvas, 150 x 300 cm
Some may question what painting is in the twenty- these things that we do not get. For example, there
first century, what is its function in a world of global is a painting from 1968 by the German artist Sigmar (59x 118in)
communication, the internet and digitization. They want Polke, Durer’s Hare / 5 /, in which Diirer's hare and his
9. Kenneth Noland
to know what purpose painting now serves, or can serve famous monogram are rather cursorily copied;
Sarah's Reach, 1964, Acrylic
in the future? They wonder whether it is an obsolescent these two elements are set against a swathe of white
on canvas, 238 x 233 cm
medium and whether a masterpiece such as the six brushmarks, which are themselves set on a mass-
(93% x 91%, in)
named earlier could ever be created again. Is there any produced fabric. Therefore three types of surface and
possibility that something so innovative and compelling mark coalesce here: an image and autograph from
can ever be made in the medium again? Or are those the greatest of German artists; a set of marks that are
artists and critics who have claimed since the late 1960s reminiscent of abstract expressionism, which at that
that painting is dead in fact correct? These are some of point was seen as the apogee of advanced art; and,
the questions that this introductory chapter addresses. third, a surface from consumer culture, since the
A sense of the beauty that is to be found in this 1960s were the decade of both booming consumerism
world in which we live: this is what we get when we and Pop art. The painting could therefore be seen to
represent three of the four main options available to is judged a good painting, it can only be by applying soldfor $8,696,000(£4,994,000)/ 6, 7/. Thesewere,of
a painter at that time: Pop, abstraction or a return radically different criteria from those we would apply course, American Masters, The painting by Rothko was

to the great tradition of figurative art. But is Polke to Direr: for example, it might be admired perversely attractive as an example of the floating shapes that

taking these three options seriously, or is he poking fun because it demonstrates the bankruptcy of painting. many saw as typical of the master’s work. Like abstract

at them all? Perhaps this fabric was chosen with love Perhaps we could argue that this is an instance of the angels they ask the viewer to stop and meditate

not loathing. Perhaps these ‘abstract expressionist’ fourth option available to the painter in 1968: to give up Rothko, more than any other artist, represents the

marks are painted with sincerity, or perhaps they are the medium as obsolete and become a conceptual artist, possibilities of spirituality in art, Also its title

(so to speak) in quotation marks. Perhaps this repetition When | began writing this book, in the summer emphasized how American Abstract Expressionism

of Diirer's image is an act of mourning, a lament that of 2005, a much-touted history of twentieth-century art, developed out of earlier modernism, The work by

this type of art belongs to an extinct tradition. There Art Since 1900, written by four famous art historians (Yve Twombly, made in the landmark year 1968, was painting

seem to be no clues here as to how we should receive Alain Bois, Benjamin Buchloh, Hal Foster and Rosalind at its most austere: a series of 8 and S shapes against

these elements, how seriously we should think about Krauss) was published. Although the early chapters were a blackboard-like background, Yet even when it was

ther. It is a bit as though we had bought a cookery replete with analyses of painting by Picasso, Kandinsky, reduced to what many saw as an equivalent to

book and found out that recipes give us the ingredients Mondrian et al. (over half the reproductions for minimalist sculpture it still, with its curves and nuances

but do not tell us how to blend them into a meal. the first three decades were of paintings), the chapters of surface, was highly sensual — it had presence. A few

In short, Polke’s work, unlike Diirer's, behaves dealing with the last three decades of the twentieth months later, when Sotheby's held their first New York

like a question rather than a statement: ‘What is century almost totally ignored painting (barely 5 per cent sale of contemporary Chinese art, prices for paintings

painting? How do we feel about mass-produced of the images were of painting). Painting had apparently by artists unheard of a few years earlier went way above

objects? Can abstract painting carry emotions? What become a mere footnote to the history of contemporary estimate: one of Zhang Xiaogang's Comrade series sold

does it mean to steal or appropriate another artist's art. However, at the same time in London and New York for $979,200 (£562,300) nearly four times what it was

identity?’ would seem to be the sort of questions it is the four main auction houses — Christie's, Sotheby's, estimated to reach. In 2007 Yue Minjun’s The Execution

asking. Polke seems wholly to lack both the vision and Philips and Bonhams — held sales of contemporary art. /8/ sold for £2,932,500 ($5,900,000) having been

the technical skill that makes Durer such a paradigm In the course of two weeks nearly 2000 artworks were bought for $32,000 (£20,564) in 1995, The same story
sold for over $500 million — at least two-thirds of them could be seen in sales of Latin American or
of the Renaissance artist. Yet this very painting would
contemporary Indian art: around the world a lot of
fetch over a million dollars if sold at auction. Any were paintings.
At Christie’s a Rothko painting sold for people were prepared to pay big sums of money for
museum that collects contemporary paintings would
be overjoyed if it were donated to them. If this $22,416,000 (£12,873,200), and at Sotheby's a Twombly recently made paintings
13. Manifestation at the Musée Had these people not read Krauss and
des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, Buchloh? In the lift going down from the evening sale
June 1967 (Marcel Duchamp is at Sotheby's in 2005, people were discussing what they
to be seen next to his wife in had bought or failed to buy. ‘But I'll be back in the
the fourth row from the front with morning ready for the next sale’, said one who had
his head inclined to the right) been outbid on his chosen lots, ‘with my chequebook in
my hand.’ Was this just an inane spending frenzy,
14. Shigeko Kubota or were these people aware of things of great quality
Vagina Painting, 1965. becoming available — things to which Krauss and
Photograph by George Maciunas Buchloh were blind?
The collectors and museums buying this vast
quantity of paintings are seemingly at odds with the
narrative of art history. Ifso, they are deluded and buying
nothing but baubles, fatuous trophies of an obsolescent
art form. Alternatively, they speak for the instincts
of a majority, albeit one without their financial reserves.
An art-critical élite has dismissed painting as
an irrelevance. In 1998 critic Boris Groys spoke for many
colleagues: ‘Contemporary painting is no longer in
a position to do what nineteenth-century painting did,
namely, to make statements about the world. All the
self-reflexive and self-destructive avant-garde
movements have resulted in painting being obsessed
with its own “thingness”, materiality, and structures,
to the extent that it can no longer depict the world.’
For him, the story and logic of modernist painting
being completed, painting today lacks purpose, it has
no formal vitality; it has been replaced by photography,
video and other new media. Ifwe want an image
of a hare, we now take our camera to the zoo, not our

10
 10. Jules Olitski

Instant Loveland, 1968

Acrylic on canvas,

295 x 645 cm (116 x 254 in)

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12

easel. Painting is functionless now, save as a prestige the early years of the last century and that moment of then, by such denizens as Kenneth Noland or Jules
wall decoration with which a member of the new rich cubism and the first abstract paintings, when such Olitski / 9, 10 / — works in a colour field painting style
can show his or her wealth and newly acquired culture: artists as Picasso, Kandinsky or Mondrian seemed to be labelled ‘Post-Painterly Abstraction’ by Clement
of no greater significance than the heated swimming- opening the door to another world? It seems rather that Greenberg, a critic of extraordinary prestige — they
pool or the beautifully manicured fingernails; nothing we should begin at the end: at that point where many saw paintings that may have been pretty, even beautiful
but a signifier of wealth and supposed discrimination people began to proclaim painting dead. and logical but which seemed oblivious to anything
for when their house is covered in The World of The most likely date for this is 1968, the year of happening in the outside world. Formalism, the
Interiors. Even Robert Storr, a painting enthusiast, student revolutions, of Prague, Vietnam and indeed language supporting the activity of such paintings, a
bemoaned in an online discussion on painting in 2003 Polke’s Hare. Not only was this a moment of exceptional language of ‘breakthroughs’ and ‘masterpieces’, was seen
that ‘Painting is in a muddle. No handy monikers social upheaval, it was also when a wave of new as ideologically unsound by this radicalist generation.
dominate conversation as “neo-expressionism” and approaches to making art came to the fore: land art, And, indeed, it was a convoluted, arid, scholastic
“neo-geo” once did... Painters seem to lack a discourse.’ arte povera, performance art, conceptual art. discourse that justified those works and their avowed
At the same time, a mile from the New York Everywhere a young generation more intent to deal with only the formal characteristics of
auction houses, there was a Fra Angelico exhibition at pampered and better educated than any before, rose in painting: flatness, opticality, shape. Even formalism’s
the Metropolitan Museum of Art. These works were protest. Everywhere — London, Londonderry, Chicago, most distinguished writer, Michael Fried, could become
Mexico City, Paris, Berlin, Rome, Tokyo — protest tongue-tied in his account of Noland’s bands of colour:
intense, devout, jewel-like in their formal concision.
Standing before the paintings, one was transported by seemed to prompt violence. Martin Luther King, pacifist
leader of the civil rights movement, was assassinated. ... by essentializing lateral extension as | have claimed
their beauty, by the way, for example, the blues had
been gradated to represent the heavenward voyage And if the Tet Offensive showed that US claims that they do, Noland’s bands make colour present to us in a

of the Virgin, after death, to the deepest blue of God's Vietnam was pacified were false, the Soviet crushing of new way. One might say that they make colour present

embrace. One wondered why painting today could the Czechoslovak regime of Alexander Dubéek showed to us, not just as lateral and extended, but as a new

it was the enemy of popular feeling in Eastern Europe. abstract modality of lateralness and extension: a modality
apparently not offer an equivalent experience of rapture
The Western democracies seemed corrupt, but there which we are almost — but not literally — able to
and beauty.
How did this strange state of affairs come was no hope to be found in the sclerotic gerontocracy describe in terms of difference in direction or relative

of the supposedly communist countries. velocity or strength of flow among the bands of colour
about, where painting, for a long time the best way to
make images, has been, arguably, wholly supplanted by The famous painters of the time did not join the that compose a given picture.
other media? Do we go back to our distant ancestors, radicals on the barricades. It was assumed they were
hunkered away making big, vapid paintings for The vast size of such colour field paintings as Olitski’s
when they made the first paintings, smearing charcoal
apartments of rich people. When the protesters looked made them seem especially suspect: as the
dust and fat and pigment on to cave walls to paint
images of the animals they hunted? Do we go back to at the paintings that were most praised and exhibited young English conceptual artist Victor Burgin said:

11
 15

15. Andy Warhol I'd given up painting in 1965 for the rather crude reason nor, by inference, could it criticize the world at large.
Mrs Nelson Rockefeller, 1968. that it was an outmoded technology. ... There were Painting, Kosuth conceded, would continue because
Acrylic and silkscreen ink on enough paintings and sculptures silting up basements of the market demanded it, but it had no significant role
linen, 208.3 x 170.2 cm museums all over the world — why produce more? It was in the world of ideas.
(82 x 67 in). The Andy Warhol ecologically unsound: a form ofpollution. We didn't need An artist like Pablo Picasso may have been
Foundation for the Visual Arts, more pigment on canvas, or bronze, or welded steel avant-garde in 1911 but by 1968 he was seen as
Inc., New York tubing, that no-one knew what to do with except keep producing irrelevant dross, the sexual ramblings of an
in some store-room. old man / 11 /. That it was he painted naked women
16. Roy Lichtenstein reeked of the liferoom, to many a symbol of outmoded
Yellow and Green Brushstrokes,
Or, as the American Joseph Kosuth wrote: ‘In the past practice. But fifteen years later such paintings would be
1964. Oil and magna
few years artists have realized that their traditional seen as vital, expressive and carnivalesque — liberating
on canvas, 214 x 458 cm
language is exhausted and unreal ... studying painting examples for young painters.
(84% x 180% in)
and sculpture is not unlike learning Latin.’ To put it Where conceptual artists made paintings, it was
another way, ‘the belief system of the old language had to parody and lampoon the pretensions of painting.
17. Frank Stella
collapsed, and coinciding with it collapsed our ability to In 1967 Daniel Buren, Olivier Mosset, Michel Parmentier
Bafg, 1966. Dayglo on canvas,
believe in the social, cultural, economic and political and Niele Toroni had painted their canvases during the
226 x 275 cm (89 x 108% in)
order of which it had been part’. Kosuth was not really opening of the traditionalist Salon de la jeune peinture.
claiming that painting was responsible for Vietnam, By way of showing the bankruptcy of painting, they had
18. Ellsworth Kelly
ecological degradation and institutionalized racism, but sworn each to paint always the same format: Buren
No. 358 Blue White Angle,
he was suggesting that it was complicit, inadvertently or 8.7 cm wide vertical stripes, Toroni marks with a
1966. Painted aluminium,
not, in such evils. ‘Painting’, he continued, ‘has become ‘no. 50 brush pressed on the given carrier at regular
182.9 x 91.4 cm (72 x 36 in).
a naive art form because it can no longer include self- intervals of 30 cm’, Mosset a circle on a plain
Private collection
consciousness (theoretically as well as that of historical background and Parmentier horizontal stripes. As they
location) in its program’. In other words, painting could painted, a loudspeaker intoned the slogan ‘Buren,
no longer criticize the nature of art, because it had Mosset, Parmentier and Toroni advise you to become
accepted its own limitations as a type or genre of art, intelligent’. Apamphlet they produced as

12
 17 18

accompaniment to this performance listed all the others, performance replaced object-making. If Renoir inventive and pertinent as they had in the early 1960s.
things they found wrong with painting, culminating in, had claimed late in life that he painted with his penis, It was indicative that for the prestigious five-yearly
‘to paint is to give aesthetic value to flowers, women, Shigeko Kubota’s action Vagina Painting / 14 / can be Documenta exhibition at Kassel in 1968 (Documenta 4)
eroticism, the daily environment, art, Dadaism, seen as a riposte to such perceived sexism, as a female Roy Lichtenstein was represented more by old
psychoanalysis and the war in Vietnam. We are not version of Jackson ‘Jack the dripper’ Pollock but also paintings, such as Yellow and Green Brushstrokes
painters.’ The next day they took the paintings away, as a need to centre attention on the body at a time / 16 /, than by new ones: he had nothing to say that he
leaving only a banner saying that they did not show. when painting was becoming decorative, merely visual. had not said in his earlier paintings, although he would
Later that year they convened a lecture at the Musée At home recuperating after being shot and say it elegantly and precisely and repeatedly until his
des Arts Décoratifs in Paris / 13 /. They hung examples nearly killed, Andy Warhol painted small portraits of death in 1997. Likewise, the curators chose to
of their work above the stage and let their audience New York collector Mrs Nelson Rockefeller / 15 /. This represent both Jasper Johns and Robert
wait an hour. After the hour had lapsed, they passed was indicative of the way Warhol's career would Rauschenberg — the two most innovative painters of
out a paper to the perplexed and frustrated audience, proceed: making portraits of celebrities. Decades later ten years earlier — by older paintings only. It was a
telling them that ‘obviously this is only a matter of such a painting would be re-evaluated as a portrait of sad but correct reflection on their loss of direction.
looking at the paintings of Buren, Mosset, Parmentier the age, Warhol as the Van Dyck of his society. When Frank Stella and Ellsworth Kelly showed
and Toroni’. Marcel Duchamp, who had given up Moreover the play here between photography and paintings at Documenta it was uncertain whether
painting fifty years earlier as a stupid, despicable activity, painting, between machine-made and hand-made, such work was able to develop its analysis of colour
was present, and later remarked, ‘What a frustrating was seen as equivalent to a philosophical discourse on and shape further. / 17,18 / Stella had himself set up
happening, one couldn't have done it better’. representation and identity. He was to say that he as a radical ten years earlier, decrying the
Other conceptualists mocked the presumption never felt truly alive after the shooting, and compositional effects of European art as outdated:
that painting contained innate qualities or spiritual appropriately his presence was like a wraith in painting ‘those effects tend to carry with them all the structures,
content, much as an atheist might mock someone who for years, the ghost in the machine. He stood as the values, feelings of the whole European tradition. It
claimed that God was always present in the room. For opposite to the total engagement and the possibility suits me fine if that’s all down the drain.’ But having
instance, the Australian Mel Ramsden, in his Guarantee of empathy that abstract expressionists such as Pollock got rid of the humanist values in art and emphasized
Painting / 12 /, mocked monochrome painting as or Rothko had stood for. His propensity for images of the status of a painting as an object, had he, first, let
another emperor's new clothes. The circle he offered death seemed more and more apposite. As for the himself be overtaken in radicality by anti-painters,
was equally absent of any meaning or content. For other Pop painters, they no longer seemed radical, and, second, left himself with no subject or reason to

13
 19 20

19. David Hockney paint? Kelly's exploration of shape and how painting A painting such as his portrait of Dyer from
A Bigger Splash, 1967. Acrylic could expand into space — here across the floor — 1968 / 21/ is a bravura display of violence spiced with
on canvas, 242.5 x 243.9 cm seemed formalistic, though it continues to intrigue elegance, an image of a disintegrating ego compiled
(95% x 96 in). Tate, London some artists. with mastery. This was a personal style: Bacon's
The Documenta catalogue for 1968 had two interests, which were in back alleys, were miles
20. Willem de Kooning essays on problems in Pop and Post-painterly away from those on the high streets and boulevards.
Woman I, 1950-2. Oil on Abstraction. The problems seemed hermetic and self- But most realist art of that time seemed strangely
canvas, 192.7 x 147.3 cm obsessed in an uncertain, crisis-ridden world. The unimpassioned, concerned only with representing,
(76 x 58 in) inclusion of so many dead artists (Morris Louis, Yves not with what was being represented. Many of
Klein, Piero Manzoni, Ad Reinhardt and others) the paintings, fastidiously copied from photographs,
21. Francis Bacon suggested inadvertently that painting had become a seemed almost wholly anaesthetized.
Portrait of George Dyer historical medium. Moreover, when we look now at At the Venice Biennale of the same year Bridget
in a mirror, 1968. Oil on canvas, much of the painting in Documenta 4 it is difficult not to Riley won the painting prize / 23 /. The biennale
198 x 147.5 cm (78 x 58 in) concur that painting was looking like the intellectual had been disrupted by students protesting against the
decoration of the institutionalized élite. Vietnam War and government corruption, but the
22. Thomas Struth
David Hockney, the most famous of British Pop literature generated by the show saw her paintings as
The Rothko Chapel, Houston,
painters, had moved to California in 1963, and in his the revolutionary thing: ‘Just as it is necessary to talk
2007. C-print, 178 x 233.8 cm of internal contrast in each painting between warm and
work he represented the leisure style and interior décor
(70 x 92 in)
of his new home. This was a world of pools and good- cold, fast and slow, heavy and light, so it is necessary
looking boys and discreet stylizations / 19 /. Elegant, to talk of some paintings which challenge one’s whole
witty stuff, but ‘lite’, especially when compared physical confidence and others which reaffirm it, like
with Francis Bacon, who saw himself as an isolated storms that threaten to overwhelm one and storms that
figure in a century of aesthetic bankrupty: ‘apart from have been weathered. There are paintings so fierce,
Picasso and Duchamp, and to some extent Matisse, they hurt; and others that shimmer with a kind of
who has invented anything in art this century? Despite active stillness.’ Such stilted and overwritten praise —
the fuss that goes on, who else has made a profound which was not untypical of the time — seemed quaint
innovation? No one.’ Bacon's paintings embodied when we recall that civil unrest had spread to the
his self-dramatized bohemian life, often portraying biennale itself, with students and police fighting each
his East End lover George Dyer, a small-time criminal. other in St Mark’s Square.

14
 22

21

Where were the other great names the people Two years later, in a state of despair at art and life, American abstract art is a lie, a sham, a cover-up for
who had made the 1950s and early 1960s such vital Rothko committed suicide. a poverty of the spirit. Amask to hide the fear of

years for painting? Jackson Pollock was long since Contrarily, discontent, dissatisfaction, impotent revealing oneself. A lie to cover up how bad one can
dead, although his myth, as the man subsumed in his rage were emotions that consumed another leading be. Unwilling to show this badness, this rawness. It is

painting, passionate and intense, was still powerful light of abstract expressionism: Philip Guston. How, he laughable, this lie. Anything but this! What a sham!

for many art students: his would be the first paintings wrote, could he listen to the news of such events as the Abstract art hides it, hides the lie, a fake! Don’t! Let it

they would search out at the Museum of Modern Art show! It is an escape from the true feelings we have,
Vietnam War, student riots and ecological despoliation?
/ see 2/. Willem de Kooning's first trip back to from the ‘raw’, primitive feelings about the world —
‘What kind of man am |, sitting at home reading
The Netherlands in 1968 for a major retrospective and us in it. In America.
magazines, going into a frustrated fury about
ensconced him as a modern master, but he had long everything — and then going into my studio to adjust a
since left New York for a hideout in the Hamptons. Where are the wooden floors — the light bulbs — the
red to a blue?’ His pressing need was to say something,
The paintings he executed there lacked the bite of his cigarette smoke? Where are the brick walls? Where is
to bear witness. The paintings he made in the ensuing
early Woman paintings: they were lyrical evocations what we feel — without notions — ideas — food
years were to have, like Polke’s, tremendous influence.
of landscape seemingly out of step with the rest of intentions? No, just conform to the banks — the plaza
If Polke played wilfully with styles, Guston seemed to
his generation and the critics / 20 /. Mark Rothko was — monuments to the people who own this country —
seek to escape style altogether, to present images in as
depressed, especially with the state of art and the give everyone the soothing lullaby of ‘art’. We all know
direct a way as possible. Where Polke is ironic, Guston what this is — don’t we?
venality that surrounded it. Physically in a poor state,
is confrontational, yet both seem to be simultaneously
he was obsessively making dark, almost monochrome
addressing the world and culture as though they were Guston is key for the ensuing year because he was able
paintings that lacked his normal sense of light or of
in medical crisis, and treating painting as though it were to focus the anger of 1968 into paintings. Marooned,
the numinous. In the years preceding 1968 he had
the site of trauma. as it were, in his studio, committed to painting but
completed the paintings for his chapel in Houston
/ 22/, which Thomas McEvilley would later describe The perceived moral bankruptcy of the Lyndon in disavowal of all the painting being made around him,
as ‘the last great monument of modernism and B Johnson and Nixon administrations was mirrored he retreated to drawing nothing except rudimentary
the abstract sublime’ and represented here by one of by the bankruptcy of American abstract painting at this shapes and forms — as though he were re-enacting
Thomas Struth‘s beautiful museum photographs. time: critics such as Fried and Greenberg had claimed Samuel Beckett's pared-down existential theatre. For
It was one of the last great attempts to convey a sense to be the only significant and valid movement but had someone as engrossed in painting and its rich history,
of the spiritual through art, and symptomatically it transpired to be formally and spiritually moribund. ‘In it was as though he had exiled himself to an aesthetic

sought to achieve this as much through architecture the last several decades modern art has been degraded desert. Here even a single brushmark seemed naked,

and lighting as through the medium of paint itself. into ornament,’ Guston complained. exposed — but steadfast. In extremis he began to paint

15
23. Bridget Riley
Cataract Ill, 1967. Emulsion on

canvas, 222 x 223.5 cm

(87 x 88 in). British Council

24. Philip Guston

Photograph of his studio
showing 36 small paintings,
1969-70

25. Philip Guston

The Studio, 1969. Oil on canvas,

121.9 x 106.7 cm (48 x 42 in)

again, feverishly, but in a very different manner from look at, both drives are in full swing. Guston’s new the past has not declined since 1968; if anything, it has
his lush, sophisticated abstractions: innumerable small paintings were not only abruptly physical, they were increased substantially. Infants still paint, splashing paint
paintings of simple objects: mugs, shoes, light bulbs, self-consciously rooted in the past: Piero della round in delight, swirling it into goo, making their first
books, heads / 24 /. When a human was present on this Francesca, Goya, De Chirico, the cartoons of George images of their mother or their house. Painting happens
pictorial stage, he was normally hooded. This reference Herriman. This was no narrow, twentieth-century-only, before language. Just as before, so today a hundred
to the Ku-Klux-Klan seemed the most bizarre thing New-York-only vision: at the end of his life he was million amateurs paint for pleasure or some inner need.
of all: Guston, who was both Jewish and a political looking more at Chinese painting of the Sung dynasty. It is central to our nature or culture as people that we
radical, had made paintings of the Klan thirty years But many other painters huddled in their make marks. People grow up wanting to be painters.
earlier, in protest at their racism and violence. Now they individual corners wrestling away with recondite but Genetically or culturally, we seem programmed to make
populated his dreams, more pathetic than threatening. irrelevant formal problems, or else froze immobile, like things: to know the world we must make it. In painting
When in 1969 he made a self-portrait, he showed rabbits caught in the glare of the oncoming traffic. we are both fulfilling a need to make and to represent.
himself hooded, smoking a cigarette, the studio empty Certainly, from this point on, painting lost pole position What art, and most especially painting, does is offer
save for a clock and a bare light bulb / 25 /. in the art world. The New York critic Max Kozloff a sense of integrity and completeness that is otherwise
For Guston, as for others, painting had to remarked in 1975 that, ‘for at least five years a whole lacking in a complex and fragmented postmodern
rediscover its roots in the universal need to draw and mode, painting, has been dropped gradually from society. This gives a sense of fulfilment equivalent or
paint. Painting is a physical activity to which we all avant-garde writing, without so much as a sigh similar to that offered by religion. The ‘madeness’ of
respond (we have all drawn and sloshed paints about, of regret’. More recently the Slovenian critic Zdenka painting asserts that this sense is intimately connected
even if only as children). It is one of the ways we make Badovinac remarked that curators from abroad often with our being as flesh in this material world.
our world comprehensible: painting matters because ask her about the Slovenian or Eastern European Although we cannot imagine our descendants
it represents both our own body and the world outside. artists’ scene, but with an important qualification: in 2550 looking at paintings made in the last thirty years
It is a key metaphor for how we make the world as ‘In the last decade | have been asked a number of times with the same awe and beguilement as we today look
somewhere we belong. to recommend the currently most interesting artist at those paintings made by Fra Angelico in 1434,
It has been remarked that we are led to for our part of the world and quite often the request we cannot believe they will not look at all. We may have
make a painting by two drives: first, by seeing another is accompanied by “but no painters, please”.’ no shared vision such as Fra Angelico and his confreres
painting and wanting to emulate it; second, by the If | believed painting had died, then | would not had — our world and our perception of the world are
desire to squeeze paint from the tube and slide it onto have written this book. Tickets for an exhibition of more fragmented — but | believe there are still possible
the canvas. The first leads us to tradition, the second paintings by Vermeer, Degas or Pollock will be quickly moments of beauty, moments of insight, moments
to physicality. In those paintings that are compelling to sold out: the appetite for looking at paintings from when we connect.

16
 24

For a long time it has been impossible to write enriched by that widened discussion. Exhibitions To reprise, we asked at the beginning of this

the history of painting as though it were a process of entitled ‘the triumph of painting’ and their ilk are chapter whether painting was an obsolete medium,

linear development or a relay race: a race towards ‘true’ unfortunate, because what we actually now see is not whether the discourse in and about painting was still

modernist painting in which Courbet passed the baton the triumph of painting over other media but its relevant to what was happening in the world outside.

to Manet and he to Cézanne and he to Picasso and he to enrichment by them. But if in Art Since 1900 recent painting is almost

Pollock and he to Kenneth Noland and so on. We no If we often seem to talk of painting in terms totally disregarded — Guston and Lucian Freud share

longer have any such clear notion of progress in painting, of death and health, it is because we need to see it as a passing mention, Anselm Kiefer is perversely

so we must find another, more complex type of story to a person; we need to relate to it almost as if it were discussed as a photographer and Julian Schnabel is

make sense of it. This book does not seek to show any another living entity. The ontology, the very being, of sneered at — this is because for the book's authors

progressive development in style or technique or some painting is very much tied up with the notion of this is the age of the photographic where painting is

underlying purpose. | believe painting remains an embodiment: the Classical myth had painting invented mere ‘spectacle’. To ‘believe’ in painting is mere bad

important process through which we consider, however by a Corinthian maid who traced her lover's head from faith. We, on the contrary, argue there is a necessity

indirectly, how we belong in this world, what we as his shadow on the wall so as to preserve it in his to make and see paintings that extends from the past

individuals and communities are and what beauty is and absence; for Christians Saint Luke was the first painter, to the future, that there is as much necessity in Polke

could be. Innovation now happens at an individual level, called to witness the birth of Jesus. Fra Angelico and as in Durer, Beatriz Milhazes as Matisse, Vija Celmins

not at the level of culture-wide paradigm shifts. We look many other painters returned repeatedly to scenes of as Fra Angelico. What we need to examine here

for coherent and interesting visions not so much in birth and death, where spirit or life entered or left the is not the dying embers of one painting tradition but

painting en bloc as in individuals’ works. flesh. Periodic outbursts of iconoclasm, the deep- the continuities and changes in a variety of painting

As elsewhere, there are fundamentalists in seated need to destroy images, betray our concern at traditions — traditions that increasingly interweave.

painting who will believe in nothing else, but the future this potential blasphemy, at the idea that we too It was not that painting had died in 1968 but

has to be with those who can navigate between can make the word flesh. All painting revolves, however rather that one type of painting had become stuck

the traditions of the past and the uncertainties of the distantly, around this. In another myth of painting in a cul-de-sac. It was time for other scions of

postmodern world. Too many attempts to bring Veronica gave her napkin to the suffering Christ as he painting to come to life and tentatively step into the

painting back centre-stage have been flawed by their staggered with his cross to Golgotha. He wiped his face future. Nineteen-sixty-eight was a year of crises,

antagonism to other art forms. Few painters today are with it and, when he returned it to her, his face was but in Chinese the word for ‘crisis’ is also the word for

in denial of photography or video or performance or miraculously imprinted or painted on it. Here the flesh ‘opportunity’. Nineteen-sixty-eight was also a year

conceptual strategies: they went to the same colleges and paint were one; art bore witness both to death of opportunities: the seeds of new ways in painting

as the artists who use those media; they are themselves and its defeat. were being sown,

17
 Painting Today

In a fast-moving global economy, with internet and air have seen, or one appropriate to our age. It is not

travel, painting is a traditional activity. In a sense a matter of mere copying. We cannot know if
a tradition is a language. You understand what | write something is good unless we compare it with other
here because you have been reading books for many examples. Sometimes we also need tradition to kick
years: you have been immersed in the English against, to break away from.
language. So it is with painting: one recognizes the But it is hard to think of a word that was so
obvious quickly: ‘It’s a sunset!’ ‘She hasn't got any unpalatable to the intellectual world after 1968
clothes on!’ ‘Van Gogh is not happy!’ But any deeper as ‘tradition’. The very concept had already been
understanding is to a great degree dependent on overturned by modernism and replaced by what
some knowledge of what else has been painted, and Harold Rosenberg had described as a ‘tradition of the
how: ‘It's Impressionism!’ ‘She's Diana, and you new’. ‘Traditional’ could be used to describe cream
shouldn't be looking at her, foolish Actaeon!’ ‘This teas in oak-beamed cottages or bluegrass music
range of colours, yellows and oranges, is unusual.’ played by whiskery old men, but not contemporary
Z For its participants a tradition is also like art. If it wasn’t new, it wasn’t authentic. The state of art
a family: we feel at home there (to a greater or lesser was supposedly one of continual innovation.
degree!), we emulate and compete with our siblings Yet painting lives through tradition: Rothko's
and forebears. We use tradition to understand paintings work partly because Rembrandt breathes
or judge new examples. We want not only to make a through them; that is to say, when we look at Rothko,
painting because we have seen one made earlier, it is with ways of seeing acquired when we looked
but also to make one as good or better as the one we at Rembrandt. In effect paintings contain memories.

20
 The Global Scene

26. | Nyoman Masriadi We need to think of tradition not as iron chains wide-ranging tradition had been born: a tradition whose
Diet completed, 1999. restraining us but as a living and evolving language. values were no longer very clear, one that Rosalind
Mixed media on canvas,
A telling comparison is with sculpture. Around Krauss dubbed as ‘sculpture in the expanded field’.
140 x 140 cm (55 x 55 in).
1968 sculpture did lose its tradition. Few sculptors When | asked a well-known British sculptor how
Private collection
today see much point in studying Rodin, let alone often she went to the Victoria and Albert Museum

Bernini or Donatello. The tradition those great figures (which is where you would go in London to see a
27. | Nyoman Masriadi
represented was based on a duality of carving and Bernini or Donatello), she remarked that she had been
No More Game, 2003.
modelling: to some extent this had ended earlier when, there once, to look at carpets with her father. In
Acrylic on canvas, 145 x 200 cm
following the innovations of Picasso and others, the comparison painters are still regular visitors to the
(57 x 78% in). Private collection
impetus moved to constructed sculpture. By the 1960s National Gallery in London or the Metropolitan

artists such as Donald Judd wished to lose the word Museum in New York. It is no surprise to hear a

‘sculpture’ altogether. On the other hand, paradoxically, figurative painter such as Frank Auerbach say of the

sculpture became used to describe a bewildering range paintings in the National Gallery that ‘without these

of activities: walks (Richard Long), words (Lawrence touchstones we'd be floundering’ and learn that he has

Weiner), horses corralled in a gallery (Jannis Kounellis) gone to draw there throughout his life. But, equally, an

and even teaching (Joseph Beuys). In effect a new, artist as remorselessly abstract as Bridget Riley haunts

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e
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21
Painting Today

28. Y. Z. Kami

Untitled (Blue Jumper), 2005.

Oil on linen, 340.4 « 198.1 cm

(134 x 78 in)

29. Y. Z. Kami

Endless prayer V, 2007.

Mixed media on paper,

106.7 x 75.6 cm (42 x 29% in)

30. Chéri Samba

Chéri Samba Implores the

Cosmic, 1979. Acrylic on canvas,

82 x 88 cm (32% x 34% in).

Private collection

22
 The Global Scene

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—— <4

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the building: ‘it's an extremely sad and mistaken thing In what traditions does the Indonesian painter a desire to speak directly to a mass market. Moreover,
for an artist not to look at the past. | think it | Nyoman Masriadi work? In Bali, where he was born, now being a superstar of the Southeast Asian art

impoverishes one enormously.’ there were two traditions of painting — a sacred one world, his own career is not only helping to define a
However, painting has not one tradition, but and one of works for a Western audience — but his new tradition but also becoming a myth of individualist
many: modernist abstraction, the Western figurative relationship to these is indirect. Indeed, in an attempt success in its own right. A note that Masriadi wrote on
tradition, Chinese painting, Islamic, Indian and to escape the dance ethos of Balinese painting and the wall when exhibiting the painting tells of his desire
so on. If we think of a tradition as a type of language, concentrate on detail, he is reputed to have stood in a to withdraw into himself and be more than an observer:

not as a strait-jacket, we see the richness. Ours is cardboard box as he painted, to prevent taking any
a multilingual world and, as artists often live in steps. He is also reacting to the socio-political bent of ! would like my work to be more organized. | sometimes

more than one language, creolism, the mixing of the art school he attended in Yogyakarta. Early works work after | haven’t slept properly. The way | work

cultures or languages, is endemic. This can be show him sparring with Western modernism in the now is chaotic, unsystematic. | need to improve the way

an uncomfortable position: we are never sure which guise of cubism / 26 / but meshing it with caricature, the | work. Sometimes the ideas accumulate and | would

language is being used, or what some words mean, language of street advertising and graffiti. The way at forget them. So | have to think them over.

but it allows for great richness. the end he has overdrawn the finished painting with a
Cultural critic Homi Bhabha has talked of how marker can best be seen as a means of inscribing The Iranian émigré Y.Z. Kami, who describes himself
we are de-territorialized in the contemporary era and himself in or against that tradition. Above all, he is as being a New York painter, makes large portraits
how we are all exiles. Rather, | would argue, none using the technique (and associations) of Western art to of people lost in thought, comprised of many dabs
of us is plugged into one exclusive tradition or cultural make images that are both a homage and a critique of or touches, pointillist-like, gentle, blurred, they
place or language; instead, we are linked to several. his society: greedy but dynamic. The waitress asks the are images contained in themselves, images of figures
It is no longer a matter of touching base, but fat man handcuffed to the toilet, ‘Handsome ... what's contained in themselves / 28 /. Of course, traditional
of touching bases. For most people one tradition is your order?’ Islamic art supposedly proscribes religious figurative
dominant but will be augmented or hybridized by Masriadi’s self-portrait from four years later is imagery: do the closed eyes of many of these
others. This may seem unsettling, even scary, but we very different, more overtly illustrational: exhausted mediating sitters suggest in response a reticence at
should regard it as being, although sometimes from playing computer games, the artist lolls and snores showing themselves?
/ 27/. The titles of the books behind him are those of Bearing in mind that Kami often makes text
disorientating, a source of richness. As that supposed
his own paintings. His work has grown more direct, works / 29 / in which verses from the writing of the Sufi
epitome ofjingoism Winston Churchill said, ‘a person
with only one allegiance is an impoverished person’. perhaps in emulation of computer games, perhaps in poet Rumi are collaged together into circles and spirals,

23
Painting Today

31. Uta Uta Tjangala

Yumari, 1972. Synthetic polymer
paint on composition board,
46 x 67.7 cm (18 x 26% in).

National Gallery of Victoria,

Melbourne

32. Tim Leura Tjapaltjarri

and Clifford Possum
Warlugulong, 1976. Synthetic
polymer paint on canvas,
168.5 x 170.5 cm (66% x 67 in).
Art Gallery of New South

Wales, Sydney

33. Clifford Possum

Untitled, date unknown.

Synthetic polymer paint
on linen, 182 x 182 cm

(71% x 71% in). Holmes a Court

Collection, Western Australia

24
 The Global Scene

it is best if we think of his work in terms of a synthesis

rather than hybridity. Although the shapes may for him
refer specifically to the dervish or Mawlavi branch of
Sufism — which believed that physically spinning
around unlinked the ego, cleansed one of hateful self-
fulness and led one into the wholeness of God — these
mandala shapes, this emphasis on a visual chant, can
be found in the mysticism of every religion.
The roots for these hybrid positions developed
in the 1970s, when many other traditions started to
establish a less deferential relationship to the West.
Chéri Samba in Kinshasa has no trouble locating an
indigenous painting tradition on the noisy streets of the
new cities of Africa. His early paintings were on
sackcloth and came out of a local traffic of popular
painting: small paintings for ordinary people with moral
messages and topical subjects. Often they had direct
messages expressed in speech bubbles —just like in
comics. ‘| had noticed that people in the street would
walk by the paintings, glance at them and keep going.
| thought that if | added a bit of text people would have
to stop and take time to read it to get more into the
paintings and admire it.’ / 30 /
Western traditions aren't even the oldest!
Arguably the oldest living tradition is that of the
indigenous Australians, which has carried on without
interruption for 30,000 years or more. But almost no-one
in the 1970s would have seen it as a living tradition.
Instead, Aboriginal culture was denigrated as backward,
Aboriginal skills as obsolete. The white government TEPER
A
Nha99
or

of Australia had seen no future for the dwindling

population of Aboriginal, save in assimilation into white
society — by force if need be. Any Aboriginal artefacts
were to be seen as quaint knick-knacks for tourists
or preserved as curiosities in the anthropology museum.
Papunya, in the centre of Australia’s Western
Desert, was one of the last camps set up to settle
or control the indigenous Australians. The Western
reennsnrns
2:
erie}ie erystsEire
pathishsiuen
Pintupi, who were brought in from 1963, may have
aS es Ctittt a<
been the last ‘wild men’. They were housed in
Renee
Ses:
corrugated iron shacks, paid to stop going walkabout
and fed in a communal hall in an attempt to give them
English table manners. It was a place of despair. An art
teacher seconded there in 1971, Geoff Bardon, tried to
get the children excited by making them paint murals.
At this point a group of much older men offered
to paint them: the resulting mural, 10 metres wide, told
the honey ant dreaming (an ancestor myth). It was a
communal effort, although Kaapa Tjampitjinpa was the
main painter. For these older men the mural was a way
to show the younger, dispossessed generation that they
had a culture of their own. The painting derived from
sand drawings that they made in their traditional rituals,
but it soon became more: these old men became
obsessed with painting their stories or dreamings,
originally for themselves alone. These early paintings
were literal and straightforward in the way they

25
 Painting Today

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26
 The Global Scene

34. Colin McCahon presented the myths / 31/. But other indigenous people The key dreaming here is of the site where
The Song of the Shining Cuckoo of the area felt this disclosure of secret knowledge was Lungkata, the old blue lizard-man, started a great bush
(Te Tangi o te Pipiwhararua); unacceptable, so the Pintupi painters began to use the fire, the ancestor of all bush fires, in which his two sons
A Poem by Tangirau Hotere, dots not just to fill in and animate the design but also perished. This was an unusually ominous dreaming,
1974. Oil on five unstretched to cover up parts of the design — and secrets. for the two sons were killed because they had eaten a
canvas panels, 175 x 451.4 cm As the 1970s went by, a market developed for sacred kangaroo. When Possum returned to the theme
(69 x 177% in). Hocken Library, these paintings. As that market grew, other Aboriginal subsequently, he added skeletons. The complexity
University of Otago, Dunedin people began to make paintings. Very often the first of the painting was unprecedented, owing, on the one
ones they made had a freshness and urgency that hand, to the number of dreamings represented, and
Te tangi o te pipiwhararua would subsequently diminish, the work getting more on the other, to straightforward artistic ambition. Leura
Tuia tui repetitious and geared to the wants of the white Tjapaltjarri described it as topographical, and it is
Tahia tahia audience. But sometimes this new and unexpected indeed map-like: there is no up or down, it can be seen
Kotahi te manu i market gave space for innovation and development: from any of four sides. It is a landscape as seen in the
tau ki te tahuna Tim Leura Tjapaltjarri and Clifford Possum’s process of either walking or remembering. A sense of
Tau mai collaborative work Warlugulong of 1976, painted for a direction is key in the desert: Aboriginals always make
Tau mai BBC television documentary, shows, for example, how camp facing their homeland. Perhaps not coincidentally
Tau mai the ambition of Aboriginal artists had grown within the emergence of these topographical dreamings
Tau mi five years / 32 /. There were three ways of reading this happened at the same time as Australia’s Lands Right
painting: first as nothing but a very big, bright Act gave traditional owners rights on ancestral homes
The song of the shining cuckoo decorative painting (this was to be the fate of most — such paintings would be presented in court as
Glow and tell us, Glow Aboriginal paintings: exotic jollity for living-rooms in evidence. Its eventual showing in Sydney's ‘Perspecta’
Pierce us and join us together Sydney or San Francisco), although the sombre tones exhibition in 1981 was one of the first occasions on
Bird, alight on the beach of this particular painting suggest it to be anything which Aboriginal art was shown alongside European —
Alight my friend, alight but jolly; second, as a source of anthropological data and stood out. The exhibition catalogue referred to it
Alight here and rest (it references ceremonies and myths); third, as a as ‘post-tribal’.
painting of complexity and intensity comparable to But Possum’s paintings were to move beyond
any abstract painting of the twentieth century. this, to greater patterning and clear colour variation /33 /.

35. Colin McCahon

Victory Over Death II, 1970.

Synthetic polymer paint on
unstretched canvas,
207.5 x 597.7 cm

(81% x 253% in). National

Gallery of Australia, Canberra

36. Lee Ufan

From Line, 1973. Glue and

mineral pigment on canvas,

182 x 227 cm (71% x 89% in).

Tokyo Metropolitan Museum

27
 Painting Today

The dreaming was always crucial to him: here it is of the I'd not be doing my work properly as a painter.

ae possum ancestor
tracks) and above
concentric
who travelled
the surface
below (the central
(hence
circles mark where he emerges
paw marks); the
set of

from the earth.

Painting can be a potent way of talking.’ As a young
man, McCahon expressed the ambition to be an
evangelist: although this work is an extraordinary formal
ry ey By the end of the 1970s the conflict between
of art market, tribal control and his own trajectory
the needs
as an
invention, it is just as devout as a Crucifixion by Fra
Angelico. Naming can be another way of embodying
artist were becoming evident, as it was for other artists. the presence of the other.
‘Post-tribal’ was perhaps the last thing From 1966 to 1976 China was in the violent
they wanted to be termed: on the one hand, they were turmoil of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution: the
asserting their own culture; on the other, they were art schools were closed, and artists were all too likely
opening it to new types of exploitation. The money the to be classified as bourgeois intellectuals and sent for
Aboriginals earned allowed them in 1981 to abandon re-education in peasant communities. Questions about
Papunya and re-establish a camp at their ancestral what, how and for whom painters should paint were
site Kintore, but many of the artists became displaced officially answered here as nowhere else. The role of art
and lost: Tim Leura Tjapaltjarri became ‘so deeply was Clear: to act as propaganda for the Communist
disillusioned and scarred by the social dislocation of Party, although this often degenerated into mere Mao
aboriginal culture in his lifetime that his own creativity Zedong hagiography, where Mao appears as the great
collapsed, [and] his life ended miserably in 1984’; helmsman or else surrounded by blissfully smiling
Clifford Possum died much later, in 2002, but by that peasants in the heaven on earth he has created for
time his reputation was irremediably damaged because, them. After 1971, under Jiang Qing (Madame Mao),
when drunk, he had signed paintings not by him. such paintings had to be accomplished with utter
Elsewhere hybridity allowed new types of proletarian joy as epitomized by hong-quang-liang (‘red,
painting, new possibilities. In New Zealand, Colin smooth and glowing style’). On occasion her art
McCahon worked with Christian beliefs, imagined the committee would repaint faces in paintings to ensure
Sienese paintings he would never see, argued with the this glow — a glow always most intense in Mao's face!
American-style modernism he had briefly seen on his / 39/ Artists often used simplified styles derived from
only visit abroad and increasingly held Maori culture in the peasant calendars of the Yan’an area associated with
reverence. A painting such as his The Song ofthe Mao. It was not until 1979, after the death of Mao and
Shining Cuckoo (Te Tangi o te Pipiwhararua); APoem by the fall of Jiang Qing, that modernist works were
Tangirau Hotere / 34 /, like Rothko’s chapel, refers to the exhibited publicly in mainland China, including images
\Waseana
fourteen Stations of the Cross: Christ's journey of pain, of nudity. This development was a parallel to Deng
NTT from condemnation to entombment. Increasingly words Xiaoping's reforms, which were moving China towards
had replaced figures in his work; here the words of the capitalism, albeit with a dictatorial government.
poem, alongside the painting, bind us together. But the In Japan the Korean artist Lee Ufan had been
sound is as important as the meaning: just as McCahon very involved in a movement entitled Mono-Ha, which
spoke the words aloud as he painted, so we should made simple sculptures that normally combined two
speak them aloud as we rehearse the poem. materials: stones against mirror, steel against stone,
The landscape is here as though mapped: the flight steel against wool. Although it could resemble
of the cuckoo marked by the dotted lines. American minimalism, Mono-Ha was closer to a Zen-like
McCahon's Victory over Death II / 35 / is one of view of the world. It emphasized the need to appreciate
the most ambitious of all post-war paintings and a materials. When Lee turned to paintings, it was to make
challenge to the ensuing years. Inscribed in vast letters paintings on canvas (Western) but with mineral paints
is the secret name of the Hebrew God — Yahveh, or mixed in glue (Eastern), applied with flat Japanese
| AM. Around it are inscribed sentences from the twelfth brushes / 36 /. Each brushmark in his From Line series
chapter of Saint John’s Gospel. McCahon himself was was carried on until the brush was emptied. It was
filled alternately with faith and crippling doubt. Here he clearly a record not only of space but also of time.

Tn iy:et
cUAUiAAt
TTT presents
challenge.
God not as a glib statement of fact but as a
Black on black on the left (and difficult to see
In 1996 a gallery in Ahmedabad, North India,
was vandalized by members of the right-wing Hindu

ZMinnnapradain(/
UMy
in reproduction)
the assertion
account
hesitates,
death
is the question

aware that only a humiliating

awaits him. For McCahon
‘AM 1’;on the right is
‘| AM’. The words come from Saint John’s
of when Jesus goes towards Jerusalem and
and agonizing
the vast scale of such a
group Bajrang Dal because it showed a painting
by M. F. Husain showing the goddess Saraswati naked.
That Husain was a Muslim probably contributed to the
scandal. Despite having been made twenty years
earlier, the painting still had the power to shock. Images
painting, unframed, pinned to the wall, was to engage matter a lot in India: that year there was a great
the viewer physically, start a conversation with her controversy about nudity in advertisments. Despite his
or him. ‘As a painter | may often be more worried about populist and eclectic approach, Husain may have been
you than you are about me and if | wasn't concerned surprised: his painting had normally appealed to

28
The Global Scene

i \
WRASSE

37. Manu Chitrakar 38. Bhupen Khakkar

Afghanistan War, 2003. Poster Janata Watch Repairing, 1972

paint on paper, 240 x 75 cm Oil on canvas, 92 x 92 cm

(94 V2 x 29% in) (36% x 36% in). Collection

Vivan Sundaram, New Delhi

29
 Painting Today

a small, educated middle class alone. India is rich in

visual culture, but at a popular level of roadside shrine
or billboard. Perhaps nowhere else does one see so
many paintings done anonymously at the service of
gods or commercial advertising. Popular painters such
as Swarna Chitrakar and Manu Chitrakar (the name
means ‘maker of pictures’), for example, still go around
villages in West Bengal with their painted scrolls
depicting 9/11 or the Afghan War / 37 /. They act as
reporters bringing news. They sing their narratives
aloud, while the scroll functions as a sort of proto-
cinematic device, one hand rolling it from the top while
the other unrolls it from the bottom.
The Husain ‘scandal’ has not died: ten years
39. Shen Yaoding 41. Fernando Botero
later, when a Muslim state minister offered a
Long Live the Victory of The Presidential Family, 1967.
£6.6 million reward to anyone who beheaded the
Chairman Mao’s Proletarian Oil on canvas, 203.5 x 196.2 cm
Danish cartoonist who had caricatured the prophet
Revolutionary Line, 1967. (80 x 77% in). Museum
Mohammed, Hindu fundamentalists offered the same
Gouache on paper, of Modern Art, New York
amount to anyone prepared to behead Husain. When
70.5 x 171 cm (87% x 67% in).
Husain showed paintings in London, they were
Collection of T. Z. Chang
vandalized — presumably by Hindu fundamentalists.
As Geeta Kapur, the most influential Indian critic,
40. Francisco Toledo
explained, the problem for Indian, as for African and
The Curled-up Frog (La Rana
Latin American artists, was how to escape not just the
Ovillada), 2002. Oil and
programmatic avant-gardism of Western modernism
tempera on paper, 28 x 35.6 cm
but also the conservatism of national culture.
(11 x 13% in)
From independence (1947) onwards the
Progressive Artists’ Group, to which Husain belonged,
had abjured both the academicism of English art
schools and the revivalism of those who wanted to base
Indian painting on the styles of Mughal miniatures or
the Buddhist murals in the caves of Ajanta, in favour of
a full-blooded Paris-orientated modernism. In contrast,
from the 1950s onwards K. G. Subramanyan promoted
eclecticism at the art school in Baroda. One should,
he believed, be open, look at all things around oneself
and seek a personal vision. This, he believed, had to be
worked for: ‘the fulfilment of a modern Indian artist's
wish to be part of a living tradition, i.e. to be individual
and innovative without being an outsider in his own
culture, will not come of itself: it calls for a concerted
effort’. As Gulam Mohammed Sheikh, another Baroda
artist, said: ‘living in India means living simultaneously
in several cultures and times. One often walks into
“medieval”|e situations and runs into “primitive” people.
The past exists as a living entity alongside the present,
each illuminating and sustaining the other.’
Bhupen Khakkar was the least programmatic
of all the Baroda artists, but perhaps the one who most
naturally blended traditions into a convincing mix.
Symptomatically the key influence was when an English
student at Baroda made him aware of the ‘beauty and
vitality’ of Indian street art: he then began collecting
oleographs and film posters. Khakkar, unlike the other

30
= = st) Oo& 2 o 2)y ®c a
 Painting Today

strangeness: ‘The purpose of my style,’ he remarks, 42. Werner Tilbke

painters in Baroda, was truly at home in this diverse
Chilean Requiem, 1974. Mixed
environment. He spent more time with shopkeepers ‘is to exalt the volumes, not only because that enlarges
media on canvas on wood,
than with artists; he was, in Baudelaire’s phrase, a the area in which | can apply more colour, but also
54 x 115 cm (21% x 45% in).
painter of modern life. His paintings often looked rather because it conveys the sensuality, the exuberance, the
Museum of Fine Arts, Leipzig
‘like shop signs, although far more complex / 38 /. He profusion of the form | am searching for.’ ‘For me,
was obsessed with the things of this world: even the pleasure comes from the exaltation of life, which
43. Gerhard Richter
kitsch objects could carry a true meaning: ‘A bouquet expresses the sensuality of forms ... | make the
Lebensfreude, 1956. Mural
of plastic flowers is an eternal joy to the eye. Carved characters fat to give them sensuality.’
in the German Hygiene
wooden fruits and vegetables look luscious. Neon Botero’s is an idiosyncratic vision, but not
Museum, Dresden, 6 x 18m
highlight adds fluorescent richness to their form.’ atypical of Latin America in its need to tell stories, its (19% x 59 ft), Photographed
Latin America, the New World, is the same as sense of tragicomedy and its concern, however before being over-painted in
the Old World ... but different. Language, Christianity, elliptically represented, for politics. Many Latin 1956, uncovered again in 1994
politics — are all the same as in Europe but changed American countries were controlled in the 1970s by
by local circumstances. The Colombian Fernando
brutal military dictatorships — the child with the
Botero's The Presidential Family / 41 / may initially seem
toy aeroplane in Botero’s picture had grown into a truly
grotesque or humorous — a toy version of Goya's
vicious figure.
savage Portrait of the Spanish Royal Family —but
In Mexico the poetic work of Francisco Toledo
behind the comic pomposity of these ‘pillars of society’
was crucial in suggesting a more personal way of
is something indubitably sad, an impotence
working than the public murals of Diego Rivera. The
inadequately concealed by the play-acting. These
fact that Toledo was not mestizo but Zapotec was
characters look as uncomfortable as people suddenly
crucial: after five years abroad he moved back not to
dragged on stage in a television game show. Because
Mexico City but to Juchitan and later to Oaxaca,
of his origins Botero is part of the Western tradition, but
centres of his people, and he looked to Zapotec myth
in a quizzical manner, as though he were the only one at
a fancy dress party who realizes it is a charade. His work and folklore for inspiration. Stories and proverbs about

is about memory, about the provincial world of his animals, their passions and their craftiness, were a

childhood; ‘in the Andes the music is so melancholy, so particular source / 40 /, Myths of the peoples of Mexico
romantic and sad.’ This is not merely the nostalgia of such as this became not, as they had been for Rivera
the exile (he has long lived in Paris) it is more a parallel and the muralists, part of a national myth but elements
world to the actual. The fatness is a key element in this of a personal and local universe.

32
 The Global Scene

The tradition to which modernism often Tubke's Chilean Requiem is typical in subject, style and
contrasted itself, socialist realism, belonged, at least in reference, lamenting the overthrow of the communist

theory, to no single country, although in practice it Allende government in Chile after a ClA-inspired

was normally based on Russian realism of the military coup, but also acting as a devotional image for

nineteenth century. Heroic images of proletarian heroes any Christian at hand / 42 /, While the pose is from

would often give way to hagiographic images of the Holbein's The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb, and

leader, as in China. But by the 1970s in East Germany the woman and the text on the tree from German

artists had created a more catholic position, where it Renaissance prints, the mountains and the flag locate

was attitude rather than style that defined how to work. us in Chile.

As Léger and Picasso had been members of the With commissions coming from the state, there
Communist Party, they were acceptable models. were opportunities for vast paintings in public buildings,
Whereas West Germans were embarrassed at any hint the largest being Werner Tulbke’s 123-metre-long
of German-ness, the East Germans were fixated with it, panorama of the peasant wars at Bad Frankenhausen
believing, as the artist Bernhard Heisig said, that ‘no / see 353 /, The contribution of the young Gerhard
nation can live without its past. ... Anation without Richter, trained as he was in East Germany's Dresden
history is incapable of making art.’ This emphasis on Art School to be a socialist realist, to this uplifting of
attitude rather than style allowed differences to proletarian consciousness was somewhat smaller:
develop: for instance, at the Leipzig school, where a mural, merely 50 feet wide, on the joy of life / 43 /.
Heisig had studied and then taught, and where
historicism (looking back at other periods of art, and
using allegory to examine historical situations
indirectly) was rife. Allegory was key to the work of most
German artists, as a way of saying important things
in a code that socialist commissars would miss. Werner

33
| Agnes
Martin
Stuart
Pearson
Wright

34
 ede Aig02
EUIE?
nD

ies
Painting Today

44. Stuart Pearson Wright

Woman Surprized by a
Werewolf, 2008. Oil on linen,
200 x 315 cm (78% x 124in)

45. Richard Prince

Untitled (De Kooning), 2007.

Acrylic and inkjet on canvas,
182.9 x 228.6 cm (72 x 90 in).
Collection Francois Pinault

36
 Western Traditions

Unlike the artists discussed in the previous chapter, The monochrome canvas became painting
the American artist Richard Prince and the English degree zero, the apparent tabula rasa, the end-game
artist Stuart Pearson Wright are ‘insiders’ of the of modernism that could be re-invented as a starting
Western tradition, but they grew up in societies block. The work of Robert Ryman, which emerged
dominated not by paintings but by the mass media at this time, seemed at once compatible with
of movies and advertising. Pearson Wright seems conceptual art and fully committed to painting as an
to parody a recurrent theme of Renaissance artists activity. In the early 1970s, when Ryman showed in
wanting to spice up a landscape, Apollo chasing exhibitions dominated by conceptual works, he would
Daphne, by recasting them as a naked woman and a paint directly on the wall and allow the work to be
werewolf, as if it were aHammer Horror in Arcadia destroyed when the exhibition ended. But this was no
/ 44/. Prince parodies De Kooning’s famous Woman jibe against painting, but rather part of his ongoing
paintings in a much less reverent way / 45 /. research into what a painting could be. In this pursuit
But the cubistic breasts and toothsome grin of those he used no colour but white, so that he could
paintings are matched by assorted photographic concentrate on how a painting held and received light.
details, cheesecake and underwear. The distortions He forswore drawing, except the drawn line that the
are deliberately crass, one pair of knickers painting must make by its edge set against the wall.
disturbingly crammed. Prince’s Untitled (De Kooning) As a result, the entire installation now became part of
is a jarring, ugly painting that leaves us uncertain how the painting. One of his paintings, he said, would
to respond, indeed uncertain whether our responses extend three to four feet beyond itself, and it would not
to De Kooning and soft porn are quite as separate truly exist until it was hung on the wall: only then did its
as we believed. These are both sophisticated, albeit size, colour, density and line become visible.
very different reworkings. Pearson Wright's is an Although Ryman denies they have any content,
adaptation, but Prince's is parody — a violent smash- being concerned with process alone, his paintings
and-grab assault. are loved by their viewers for the sense of serenity, their
Global travel, the internet and digital printing sense of perfection, their calmness. They make an
(witness Prince’s use of the inkjet) have put us at appeal to a refined sensibility. In the next decade, when
a crossroads where we can seemingly survey many pressed further for an explanation as to what they were
traditions and, with almost casual ease, seem to fuse about, he called on the most traditional metaphor for
them. But the understanding and use of tradition the content of abstract painting — music:

are a complex business, and that complexity started

to become evident in the 1970s — that decade when Q. What is it that a painting communicates to

painting was supposedly invisible. the viewer?

The normal presumption is, and was, that A. An experience of... enlightenment. An experience
the tradition established by modernism could be of delight and well being, and rightness. It’s like
summed up in one word, ‘abstraction’, or by the listening to music. Like going to an opera and coming
phrase ‘the progress to abstraction’. It is, of course, out of it and feeling somehow tulfilled — that what you
not that simple: even within abstraction one could experienced was extraordinary. It sustained you for
detect different traditions or sub-traditions: a a while.

constructivist tradition, in which Mondrian was God;

a gestural tradition, exemplified by Pollock. In the catalogue to the exhibition ‘Fundamental Paint-
Even monochrome painting was, as we shall see, ing’ at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in 1975
establishing its own tradition or sub-tradition. Ryman wrote that ‘the basic problem is what to
For artists looking back at Mondrian and his do with paint. What is done with paint is the essence of
contemporaries there could not but be a sense of all painting. | am not talking of the technical processes
loss: not so much of any technical skill as of a belief of painting, which in itself is important, but of the
— or illusion — that painting could change the seeing of painting. This seeing can be so complex that
world. Few could still believe, as Mondrian, imbued the possibilities for a painting are endless.’ / 47 /
with Theosophy, had done, that abstraction gave a Sixteen other painters from Europe and North America
‘purified art expression’, that it showed a ‘whole were included in that exhibition. All, like him, painted
world of universal beauty’, an inner world of ‘cosmic, monochromes or near monochromes. The exhibition
universal beauty’. Few could talk in the 1970s, as had been preceded by a number of exhibitions that
Kandinsky had done, of how ‘colour directly also focused on paintings that went, as it were, back to
influences the soul’ or of how the artist can cause the drawing board. The catalogue described this as
‘vibrations in the soul’. It seemed quaint, even comic, ‘post-conceptual painting’ because the pictures
to hear that Barnett Newman had once pointed at were all planned, neither improvised nor copied from
one of his small abstract paintings and claimed that some external thing — they were also self-critical.
it meant the end of capitalism. It also described it as ‘silent art’.

37
 Painting Today

46. Alan Charlton

Untitled, 1975. Acrylicon

canvas, two panels each
267 x 132 cm (105 x 52 in);

two panels each 231 x 204 cm

(91 x 80% in); two panels each

222 x 222 cm (87 2 x 87 2 in).

Installation of paintings at Konrad

Fischer Galerie, Dusseldorf

Alan Charlton’s work seemed consciously the concentration camps. It is impossible to paint the The title and subdued colours of a Winter Painting
to remake painting in the light of minimal sculptures, misery of life, except maybe in grey to cover it.’ likewise suggest the season, a contemplative mood
such as those by Donald Judd, that emphasized the In the event he became fascinated by the variations and, one assumes, myriad personal emotions / 48 /.
‘thinginess’ of the art object. If we look at the paintings between the paintings, by how, although ‘grey’ existed The paintings were very material, but the viewer's and
Charlton showed in 1975 at Konrad Fischer in as a general idea, the actual grey of each painting artist's experience could, he claimed, be spiritual:
Dusseldorf / 46 /, a gallery that specialized in minimal was specific. A way of working that seemed indifferent ‘The rectangle, the plane, the structure, the picture are
and conceptual art, we see paintings with a central, or senseless became about precision of experience. but sounding boards for a spirit’, Marden announced
vertical divide, planned on graph paper, painted Brice Marden’s monochromes were no simpler: ia AA
in grey. The surface was anonymous: when one of his layer on layer of pigment mixed with wax. As the layers Agnes Martin was represented in the
paintings was later damaged, Charlton told the of paint built up, they established gravity, a history ‘Fundamental Painting’ exhibition by much earlier paint-
museum to repaint it — as they had the exact shade of and a mood. Marden wrote that, despite the apparent ings. She had supposedly retired in 1967 to New
grey, there was no need for an artist's touch. But this austerity of the paintings, he tried ‘to give the viewer Mexico, living simply on a mesa, contemplating. When
was not a refutation of aesthetic pleasure: Charlton’s something to which he will react subjectively. | believe asked later what she wanted her paintings to convey,
paintings gave the same austere pleasure as a glass of these are highly emotional paintings not to be admired she replied: ‘beauty, innocence and happiness;
very cold water might on a hot day; moreover, they for any technical or intellectual reason but to be felt.’ | would like them all to represent that. Exaltation.’ Not
were highly responsive to their environment, becoming In the early 1960s Marden had limited himself sentimentality, she hastened to add, but universal
perfect monitors of the quality of light in a room. to grey alone, but during the 1970s he began to fit his emotions such as we get from music. She chose to paint
Gerhard Richter likewise showed grey canvases together into polyptychs and applied richer, grids, not to emphasize ‘thinginess’ (she saw herself not
monochromes in ‘Fundamental Painting’ (a similar one more complex colours. He sought to fill the as a minimalist but as an abstract expressionist) but
was later to be detourned by Martin Kippenberger monochromes with passion: he wrote of one work, because they were tranquil and ego-less. She
/ see 85 /). He claimed that he started painting them Mediterranean Painting: advocated calmness, intuition, waiting for inspiration:
because he did not know what to paint, because it was ‘Art about ideas stimulates ideas, but art that comes
a neutral colour, it seemed indifferent and it would not Deep blue, bright earth red, deep rich middle green. The from inspiration stimulates feelings of happiness,
‘unleash emotions or associations’. But in 1989 Mediterranean painting ended up a glad day-glo dirge innocence and beauty.’ Her paintings were a call for the
Richter remarked, when discussing paintings based on for a great dancing lady. A spot of deep Mediterranean viewer to be equally passive and attentive.
photographs of concentration camps that he had earth red is all that remains under an evasive flesh Martin spoke with the simplicityand assurance
made but destroyed, that in retrospect he felt these colour that fights its way back and forth between flesh of one spiritually enlightened: ‘We are in the midst
grey monochromes were ‘the only way for me to paint life of death as aDaytona Beach tract house brown. of reality, responding with joy.’She was concerned, too,

38
Western Traditions

48. Brice Marder

Winter Painting

39
Painting Today
 Western Traditions

49. Agnes Martin following pages:

Untitled No. 4, 1984. 51-4. Gerhard Richter

Acrylic, gesso and graphite Annunciation after Titian, 1973.

on canvas, 183 x 183 cm Oil on canvas, panels each

(72 x 72 in). Private collection 150 x 250 cm (59 x 98% in).

First two panels: Collection

50. David Reed Francesco Masnata; panels

The artist in Susan Caldwell three and four: Crex Collection,

Gallery, New York, 1975 Hallen fur Neue Kunst,

Schaffhausen

to teach: ‘Ask yourself “What kind of happiness do Gerhard Richter painted not only grey a repeated shape much like an artist's palette. Dezeuze
| feel with this music or this picture?” ... Take monochromes. Since leaving East Germany for the exhibited unadorned the stretcher bars on which
advantage of the awareness of perfection in your West, frustrated as he had been with the constraints of a painting was traditionally formed. He eventually
mind. See perfection in everything around you.’ socialist realism, he primarily analysed the nature of mutated his format so that the ‘supports’ became
When she started painting again, around 1974, it was painting by ‘copying’ photographs. Indeed it is possible fragile ladders of tarlatan (a stiff muslin). Always
with bands of colour thinly washed. Others had a to see these ‘figurative’ works as abstract in that, having seeking ‘lightness’, his work framed a key element of
grid drawn with pencil gently across a gessoed ‘copied’ the photograph, Richter would brush or the painting, the white wall / 55 /. The group's paintings
surface / 49 /. Again the viewer must wait and watch comb the drying paint to blur it somewhat, thus making were little seen outside France, or else were sneered
patiently for these paintings to release the delicate it difficult to read and making us inextricably aware that at — ‘warmed up leftovers of New York painting with
light with which they seem suffused. This recognition, this was always a painting we were looking at. This is Maoist texts attached’ — but, importantly, Supports/
if it happens, is equivalent to Martin's experience most evident in a set of four paintings he made after a Surfaces suggested the possibility of abstract painting
in making the painting, a sense of release and also, photograph of Titian’s Annunciation / 51-4 /. Each time being seen as a meaning system and that theory could
paradoxically, of fulfilment. he painted it in a more blurred or unfocused manner, cohabit with painting rather than kill it, that theorizing
David Reed had begun his career in the late so that the each time it became more abstract. It is as about painting could lead to an interesting practice.
1960s with paint-heavy abstracted landscapes. Like though the subject is being dematerialized, leaving only Taking a different approach to pragmatism,
other painters, when the actual validity of painting colour and brushmarks. (We can note that Titian’s Bridget Riley's work from 1970 onwards was to be
became doubted, he turned to basics: the body and subject was spirit being made flesh: a potent metaphor specifically about exploring colour. In Song of Orpheus 5
the brushstroke. His paintings of the mid-1970s for what painting is — or was.) / 56 / waves of pink, blue and green interlace with
consisted of nothing but horizontal brushstrokes, often Perhaps it was predictable that it would be in bands of yellow and purple, all moving across
about 55 inches (140 cm) long, the furthest his arm France that a group emerged from 1968 who the canvas; we can think of them as chords or like the
could stretch when standing still / 50/. The paint is wished to make abstract paintings in the light of literary repeated sequences of notes with which Philip Glass
nothing but paint: it splatters when applied, and then it theory. To deconstruct painting they looked at the was making his hypnotic music at that period. The
drips; striations mark the direction of the stroke; it thins surface and the support for it: hence their name, viewer cannot but respond to this pulse, much as one
as the pressure on the brush lessens and then leaves Supports/Surfaces. Some artists, such as Claude Viallat, may start involuntarily tapping one's foot to dance
the surface. These are not the expressive brushstrokes were delegated to analyse surfaces — canvas; others, music. In a very real sense the painting is in that
of De Kooning. But these paintings have sensuality, such as Daniel Dezeuze, were to analyse supports — response of the body, much as dance music only comes
despite their austere methodology. Unlike the geometric stretcher bars. Stretchers, Dezeuze pointed out, were to life when a couple take to the floor and give
rigour of a Judd, there is scope here for development used ‘to capture the world of meaning’. Their themselves to the rhythm. With its soft hues, this is one
or mutation. Sonnet-length, each painting is a record of methods were more common to craft than art: staining, of Riley's most lyrical works and indicative of how
energy; the rhymes and rhythms are of the body. folding, rolling. Viallat painted unstretched canvas with her subsequent work had very little to do with startling

41
Painting Today

42
Western Traditions

43
 Painting Today

55. Daniel Dezeuze optical effects and a great deal with exploring what she was ‘inauthentic’, infected with ‘a type of illusionisr’; it
Echelles de tartalane, 1973. has termed the ‘instability’ of colour. What has also lacked logic and had lost ‘the singleness- or wholeness-
Fibreglass mesh, 10 ladders, become clearer over the years has been her allegiance of-aspect of painting itself’. Others too decried the
each c.500 x 5 cm (197 x 2 in). to the painting tradition: not just Italian futurism, which work, saying it wasn't even painting any more — it was
Collection FRAC, Bourgogne suggested how she could create a sense of motion on sculpture. But Stella did not see the obsession with the
the canvas, but also Old Master painting. When asked traditional formats of painting as being the way forward;
to curate an exhibition at London’s National Gallery in ‘The crisis of abstraction followed on from its having
1989, she chose only seven large paintings, by become mired in the sense of its own materiality, the
El Greco, Veronese, Poussin, Rubens and Titian. But she sense that the materials of painting could and should
hung them as one would hang contemporary paintings dictate its nature. That's not enough, and the belief that
—with a lot of space around them — so that the viewer it was was killing painting,’
could respond to each of them easily as a complex From the late 1970s Stella enhanced his shape
phenomenological manipulation of space, interval and repertoire by the acquisition of the tools used by
colour. Asked why she had started with Titian’s Bacchus shipbuilders and railway line constructors to draw
and Ariadne, she responded: curves, he planned increasingly complex formats, and
gave polystyrene maquettes of these to fabricators,
He is the first great colour painter ... The sheer volume who would make much larger versions in aluminium
of blue, and what a blue! ... He uses the complexity /57/. He would scribble over these with crayon and
ofhis narrative to balance the blue. The action depicted then have them etched, then scatter ground glass
and one’s reaction as a spectator are linked in a special before painting them. This work was even more three-
timescale invented by Titian for his subject. dimensional, even more garish — and subsequent
The pictorial time of Bacchus and Ariadne is a matter of work would become still more three-dimensional and
instants. Straight across the saturated blue one sees the garish. ‘Extraordinary’ was how most people reacted
explosive force of the diagonal that cuts right across when they first saw such works. 'How baroque!’
one’s perception. was another common response, Indeed Stella had
become fascinated with how painters such as
The point was not that Riley was either modernist or Caravaggio seemed to bow out the space in their
anti-modernist, as people had variously argued, but that paintings, expanding the space of the painting into that
she was dealing with some new issues and sensations of the viewer. In their radical use of format and
and some very old ones: there was a far deeper and technique these paintings by Stella broke several
longer continuity than that of modernism alone. taboos. It was difficult for anyone else to be accused of
To many, Frank Stella had been the key abstract bad taste after such an outrageous breach of
painter of the 1960s. It has been suggested that convention. But these works have remained isolated,
Stella was the first major artist who never had to paint remarkably uninfluential. They were wholly decorative
figurative paintings at art school: certainly no one — witness the colourways and the mark-making, which
embodied better the dynamic of abstraction with its was just space-filling scribbling, They seem a bizarre
drive for new formats, new formal solutions. His early appendix to formalist painting, not a way forward.
work, with its insistence on the use of geometrical If paintings such as his 1968 Untitled (New York
shapes dictating both the painting's structure City) / see 7 / looked like some of the most radically
and format, were the only paintings that seemed able abstract paintings of that time, much that Cy Twombly
to bear comparison with minimal sculpture in their showed in the 1970s seemed quite the opposite.
sheer remorselessness. Stripes, squares, polygons, His position was already a curious one, having moved
protractors: Stella's progression to 1970 seemed logical. to Europe in 1957 and married into Rome nobility two
His materialism seemed the antithesis of the mysticism years later. His interest in Classical mythology and
that had often pervaded abstraction. ‘What you see history had seemed bizarre to fellow Americans, When
is what you see’, he reiterated. But from 1970, the logic in 1964 he showed nine paintings in New York entitled
gave way to a more intuitive mode of composition. Discourse on Commodus and installed them with a
Although draughtsman’s tools — set squares and T-bars Classical bust of that most unlovable emperor of Rome,
— still provided the grammar of the Polish Village series the critics had been vituperative or, at best, bemused.
that dominated the early 1970s, they were deployed (Donald Judd’s review condemned the exhibition as a
and varied not deductively but with the happy play ‘fiasco’. )The key to Twombly’s work was the
that Russian constructivists such as El Lissitzky had used handwriting: sometimes this seemed wholly abstract, or
sixty years earlier. Moreover they were in relief: like a child learning to form letters, but often the words
a composition such as Odelsk | would be made in four were explicit, as in the painting Aristaeus Mourning the
variations (three different colourways and then Loss of his Bees from 1973 / 59/, It is a ‘bucolic’ we are
an unpainted wooden version) / 58 /. For the writer told: a poem about rural life or, especially, a herdsman,
Rosalind Krauss he had fallen from grace: Stella's work ‘Bucolic’ is no longer an everyday word; there is a touch

44
 Western Traditions

56. Bridget Riley

Song of Orpheus 5, 1978.
Acrylic on linen, 196 x 260 cm
(77 x 102% in). Museum of Fine
Arts, Boston

57. Frank Stella

Zeitweg V,(4.75X, 2nd version),

1982. Mixed media on etched

magnesium,
289.6 x 325.1 x 50.8 cm

(114 x 128 x 20 in). Archive of

Frank Stella, New York

— _——
SSS |.
‘t_£-

45
 Painting Today

of the antiquarian to Twombly and, like it or not, that But, not untypically for Twombly, a greater story is becomes a thing of delight in itself, relishing its play on
is part of the message: despite the seeming scruffiness, going on off-stage. Eurydice’s lover, Orpheus, greatest the page like an agile bird in space. If this writing
this is an appeal to cultural knowledge, to refinement of musicians, utterly bereft, goes down into the seems childlike, it is because Twombly is going back to
and learning. underworld to reclaim his love; pierced to tears by the an act of writing before letters, often alluding to words
Most people probably do not know who beauty of his song, the gods relent; but while they rather than making them. It is hinted rather than stated.
Aristaeus was and just ignore the painting, walking on cannot resist his art, he cannot resist his own desires, If we think of the space as like the whiteness in Ryman,
or lingering to enjoy the complex line as a visual thing and against their prohibition, as he leads Eurydice we can sense it as a potentiality.
per se. Some may pause a while, bemused: ‘Aristaeus back to daylight, he cannot stop himself from turning to If abstraction and its derivatives were still alive,
who?’ Only a few will know that Aristaeus, a keeper of look at her and she, for ever, fades into the shadows. so was the ‘great tradition’ — that of painting the
bees, saw the beautiful nymph Eurydice and, consumed Art and love can defeat death, but their triumph proves figure. As already noted, Philip Guston had turned away
with lust, ran after her. In her flight Eurydice trod illusory. At the end Orpheus’ music must be from abstraction. Throughout the 1970s he produced
on a snake that bit her — fatally. The gods punished about death. paintings that were assertively figurative. He had never
Aristeaus by taking away his very purpose in life: his Twombly’s paintings remain impenetrable to seen the purging of image and symbol as a freedom,
bees. This is then a picture of penitence and mourning: many: apparently messy, slovenly and repetitious. but rather viewed it as a loss. Later he would come to
it is elegiac, heavy in horizontals, with the suggestion But to others they are refined, elegant and touching. see his abstract paintings as an act of complicity in the
of a cloud blowing from left to right. Mourning, we Perhaps the signature at the bottom of Aristaeus degeneracy of contemporary painting, the flight from
may recall, is a process of reparation in which the pain Mourning the Loss of his Bees can explain the pleasure meaning, and exclude them from retrospectives of
of separation is turned to the peace of acceptance. these people experience. The mark of writing his work.

46
 Western Traditions

58. Frank Stella Guston's rage, despair and contempt could only his sustenance and the studio is piled high with boots,
Odelsk |, 1971. Mixed media _ be overturned by acts of affirmation, by making as though it were set in an outbuilding at Auschwitz.
on canvas, 228.6 x 335.3 cm meaningful art: Yet the bleakness of this image of the human condition
(90 x 132 in). Archive is offset by gallows humour, by steadfastness — he
of Frank Stella, New York Our whole lives (since | can remember) are made up of will get up and paint, the brushes are waiting, his finger
the most extreme cruelties of Holocausts. We are the already traces a red line — and by the surprising
59. Cy Twombly witness of this hell. When | think of the victims, it is aesthetic splendour (an aesthetic splendour that was
Aristaeus Mourning the unbearable. To paint, to write, to teach, in the most apparent to few when it was first exhibited). Many
Loss of his Bees, 1973. Paint dedicated sincere way, is the most intimate affirmation of remarked on how this was cartoon-like, and indeed
and pencil on canvas, creative life we possess in these despairing years. | have Guston had always loved the cartoons he had seen in
70 x 100.5 cm (27% x 39 ¥2 in) never been so close to what I've painted, not pictures, the newspapers as a child, but the great influences
— but a substitute world which comes from the world. were older: Piero della Francesca and Masaccio. It
is above all from them that he derived his deceptively
Do we see the figure in Painting, Smoking, Eating / 60 / simple forms and colours. Like many other painters,
_as Guston himself, an alter ego, or an everyman figure in times of stress or uncertainties he turned to the Old

like Pozzo in Waiting for Godot or Poor Tom in King Masters: ‘| don’t mean to be perverse, but | certainly

Lear? The human is reduced to an eye and an aperture would rather look at Piero’s Flagellation in Urbino than

for the ever-present cigarette; chips and ketchup are | would at any modern painting.’ It was a touchstone.

47
 Painting Today

60. Philip Guston

Painting, Smoking, Eating,

1973. Oil on canvas,

196.8 x 262.9 cm
(772 x 103¥2 in). Stedelijk
Museum, Amsterdam

This sense of a need both to re-identify with the was about the experience of being in a room with portrayed the world as though it were healthy
Old Masters and to bear witness as a painter to the another person, empathizing with their stretching and organic, very consciously echoing Ambrogio
human condition was not a unique and eccentric vagary arms, their sense of flesh, muscle, identity and being. Lorenzetti's Allegory of Good Government.
of Guston’s. It was felt elsewhere around the world: in No-one made art less like Pop art than Auerbach: For Hockney, this engagement with figure
London, R. B. Kitaj, an American long domiciled in drawing or painting close friends day after day painting and its tradition meant thinking more
England, and then normally seen as a Pop artist, was in a closed room, searching for some form or spirit and more about how we see and how we represent.
asked in 1975 to select an exhibition of recent British beneath the skin. There was, Kitaj claimed, a school His painting Looking at Pictures on a Screen / 63 /
art, He entitled it ‘The Human Clay’. His interest was no of London, which was not fashion-led but filled rather was painted for an exhibition at the National Gallery,
longer consumer society but rather pictures of the with a quiet intensity. He made no overblown claims London, but it was more specifically about the
single human form: ‘the most basic art-idea, from which for it: compared with Goya, these were not ‘revelations condition of looking: Henry Geldzahler, amuseum
s0 much great art has been made’, In his catalogue of that burning order. ... But | grow to love the way curator, stares at reproductions of four paintings
essay Kitaj called on the figurative drive on which we fail.’ What was crucial was that the great tradition (by Vermeer, Piero della Francesca, Van Gogh and
modernism was founded in the work of artists such as continued and that there were living mentors Degas) from the National Gallery, pinned to a folding
Van Gogh, Degas, Cézanne, Picasso, Matisse and younger artists could look to. Someone still held the screen. It is also about being in an interior —an
earlier: ‘It’s not as if an instinct which lies in the race of candle. Drawing, not photography, was key to abiding interest of Hockney’s — since a screen such as_
men from way before Sassetta and Giotto has run its this way of painting. It was by drawing, Kitaj believed, this is in effect a room within a room. Like the
course. It won't.’ His argument was, first, matter-of-fact: that one got to know the figure. photographer Thomas Struth, Hockney was intrigued
‘Put in a simple way: many of us like to make pictures of The return to the figure was for Kitaj also at how one could represent the experience of great art.
people because people and their lives interest us more a return to high seriousness. Conscious of his own The word ‘naked’ in the title Small Naked

than anything else’. Second, it was moral: drawings Jewishness, in the painting If Not, Not / 62 / he Portrait / 64/, by Lucian Freud, is crucial. This is not a

of the figure are like ‘moral contracts with an open past puts the gateway of Auschwitz looming in the Classical nude but a woman naked. There is also a

which will act upon new art and help determine quality background. In front of it is a landscape scattered with distinction to be made between figure and body: the

and regeneration there’, fragments, people lost, dying, sinking in the mire. figure is what we see — often idealized, as in fashion

Bacon and Lucian Freud were in his selection, The chaos is offset by the beautifully suffused colours magazines — the body is how we feel our own body
as were his close friend Hockney, Michael Andrews and and the sensual, chalky surface. Salvation or and that of others. This is a painting of the body seen,
lesser-known artists such as Leonard McComb, These consolation was in the personal: the embrace of the but every brushmark also seems to embody the

were not slavish life-room drawings: a painting such as naked woman for the man. If this was the world tautness of muscle, as one would feel it, or the slack

Frank Auerbach’s Seated Figure with Arms Raised / 61 / in decay, a companion painting (The Land of Lakes) and sag of flesh pulled down by gravity. But at the same

48
Western Traditions

61. Frank Auerbach

Seated Figure with Arms

Raised, 1974/5. Oil on canvas,

50.5 x 50.5 cm (20 x 20 in)

Arts Council Collection, London

OA ee BETTE
Ba ° o

62.R B Kita}

lf Not, Not, 1976. Oil on canvas,

Scottish National Gallery

Modern Art, Edinburgh

63. David Hockney

Looking at Pictures on a Screen,

1977. Oil on canvas,

187.9 x 187.9 cm (74 x 74 in)

49
 Painting Today

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 Western Traditions

64, Lucian Freud

Small Naked Portrait, 1973-4.

Oil on canvas, 22 x 27 cm
(8% x 10% in). Ashmolean

Museum, Oxford

65. Maria Lassnig

Self-portrait with Pickle Jar,
1971. Oil on canvas,
182 x 182 cm (71% x 71% in)

excitement’; one had to be attentive not only to the Just as the language of art is silent, so it is the beauty
time the blatancy of these brushmarks, likethe
periodic lumpiness of paint, insists that this is nothing visual appearance of the model but also to their aura of a painting that renders the spectator speechless.
but painting. and the effect they had on space. It was a matter not The uneasy silence of a man faced by a work of art is
Freud had painted in a far more meticulous way of copying but of re-imagining. By following such unlike any other. What do | ask of a painting? | ask it
in the 1940s: each eyelash and hair had been carefully precepts he could arrive at his object: ‘to move the to astonish, disturb, seduce, convince.
delineated. His shift at the end of the 1950s to senses by an intensification of reality’. Freud's
the use of lead-heavy oil paint and brushes loaded with popularity is due to this intensification: the bodies are No female artists were included in ‘The Human
paint was to emphasize not the stillness, fragility and not just naked but very naked, not just heavy but very Clay’, and much of the hostility to such figure-obsessed
otherness of the portrayed person, as his earlier heavy. One may not like these paintings, but it is hard painting was from feminists: the life-room, where men
paintings had done, but rather their physical presence. not to be affected. They are an exposé of the condition looked at naked women, seemed to them (as to
The brushes he used now were hog's hair rather than of flesh. most abstractionists) not just an archaism but something
sable, springy rather than supple; and they were larger. When asked, like Riley and Hockney, to make
to be eradicated for political reasons.
Perhaps more importantly, Freud now painted standing an exhibition — ‘The Artist's Eye’ — at the National
It is important, nevertheless, to realize that
up rather than sitting down — in a sense his whole Gallery in London, Freud selected only acknowledged
there were women painting the figure, however
body was now involved in the experience of painting. masterpieces of the gallery: Velazquez, Ingres,
outnumbered they were: for example, Maria Lassnig,
The concentration on the person or object was crucial: Rubens, Constable and others. His inclusion of not
who for sixty years has painted what she calls ‘body
as he had said earlier in one of his few public a single Italian artist but of no fewer than seven
Rembrandt paintings is indicative that his allegiance awareness’ paintings. ‘| do everything with my eyes
utterances, ‘the painter's obsession with his subject is
is most particularly to a northern European tradition. closed’, she says, which may seem a strange statement
all that he needs to drive him to work’. However,
from a visual artist.
the model for him was only ‘the starting point of his His remarks on his selection were terse:

EEE EEE at
51
 Painting Today

WBE1) hia
pe a Me TAs Aah tied

52
Western Traditions

66. Alex Katz

Walk, 1970. O Nn¢
183 x 366 cm (/2 144ir

53
 Painting Today

a i rr ee

67. Alex Katz

Study for Walk, 1970. Oil on

canvas, 30.5 x 40.6 cm

(12 x 16 in)

68. Alex Katz

The Light II, 1975. Oil on

canvas, 182.9 x 243.8 cm

(72 x 96 in)

No wind ruffles the water, but there is always tension And you alternate between consciousness and
| proceed from the physical event of bodily experience.
between his figures: in Walk / 66 / the woman unconsciousness and it can engage much more of you
To find where bodily sensations are located —
holds herself back, while her husband turns more than if you merely took an idea and executed it. ...
independently of empirical memory by means of the
eyes — has not always been easy. Each part of our inquiringly to look at the son, who is walking into So the thing | have found is that the subject matter is
body can, by becoming aware of it, be awakened. The nature, echoing that metaphor so loved by advertisers the outside light. This is the thing that got inside myself
knee can start tingling, the back becomes a vibrating of children on the road of life. Although Katz has the and that's the thing I’ve been holding on to.
surface, the nose a hot hole, the legs screw. knack of picking a gesture, a pose, from the life around
him, what really distinguishes these paintings is their This is an art about perception and the nature of art:
In the 1970s Lassnig was in New York, where, as the precision and freshness. This has much to do with a hence a number of paintings where paintings
audience failed to comprehend such works of extreme considered way of working: sketches and studies / 67 / themselves appear as characters: Walk appears within
subjectivity, she became more orthodox. Nevertheless, will lead to a distillation of the motif and the execution The Light II/ 68 /. It acts with contrasts: landscape
a painting such as Self-Portrait with Pickle Jar / 65 / is of a very large painting completed in one go. This is to interior, day to night, the eye of the father to the eye
concerned as much with conveying how her body feels planned spontaneity. He works wet into wet to of the young man. If The Light Ii had been a Dutch
as how it looks in the mirror. The colours are accentuate the immediacy. seventeenth-century painting, we would see the flare
uncomfortable. If Freud’s bodies are experienced from The tradition of group portraits, as Katz has
of the match as a symbolic flare of lust, the woman as
the outside in, this is experienced from the inside out. pointed out, has not endured in the twentieth century;
being seduced, and this is a possible reading of the
For a later generation the work of Alex he had to look back to the time of Veronese. What
painting. Certainly it is about complex space and how
Katz is exemplary, both in its formal strength and in its often distinguishes group portraits is light and how that
humans create and inhabit that space. Katz has no
concern with social reality, its concern ‘with the nature unites and illumines the characters, as with Vermeer.
problem in transposing gestures from the Old Masters
of individuality and relationship’. Katz painted, For Katz, light takes us into something deeper than the
into the contemporary: ‘When | saw that David
in the 1970s as he does now, the middle classes of idea. The compositional idea leads to the making, and
with the three swords, | thought of three guys with
New York at work on the sidewalk or at leisure in that leads to light:
cigarette lighters and a woman with a cigarette. That's
the Hamptons. He has, to some extent, encapsulated
| think with painting you have the opportunity to go what it looked like to me.’
the look of a particular generation and social class,
inside yourself and find your unconscious intelligence In West Germany the denial of the figurative
much as Manet did in the nineteenth century. This, like
the world of the Impressionists, is a world of leisured or your non-verbal intelligence and your non-verbal tradition could also be seen as the denial of the past.

sensibility and your non-verbal being in a sense. The writer GUnter Grass wrote:
people, often in nice restaurants or nice gardens.

Deen eee eee eee eee eee ee eee ee

54
Western Traditions

55
 Painting Today

When | moved to Berlin as a young sculptor in He spoke of this inversion of the subject as being,
January 1953, the arts were in danger of drifting into quite literally, a way of emptying subject matter
vapidity ... in visual arts Modernism was to the fore, out, but the loaded nature of his chosen subjects
but only on condition that it presented itself in an belies this. Supper in Dresden / 71 / refers to
abstract form. both Christ's Last Supper and a meeting of Ernst
Ludwig Kirchner and other members of the Die
All that unpleasantness was safely behind us, and the Brucke group.
less that was said about it the better. Ciphers, yes. lf Baselitz sought the visionary, Eric Fischl
Ornaments, by all means. Materials and sculptures sought the mundane and the traumatic. Having gone
galore. Pure form. Just nothing explicit, that was all: in 1970 to Cal Arts, a Los Angeles art school
nothing that might hurt. There was no Dix, no dominated by conceptual artists and abstract painters,
Kirchner, no Beckmann, to force the remembered he had never attended a drawing class. The growing
horror back into the picture. need to paint figures was coupled with a need to
learn how to do so. This was the trend of the time:
As the writer he became, Grass saw his mission increasingly those that wished to paint the figure had
as being to bear witness to the past that still lived to teach themselves; they were not brought up in the
in the present, to understand and by implication tradition, so they had to re-invent it,
help heal the chasm in consciousness. As for Grass, Fischl wrote at the time that central to his

so it was for Georg Baselitz, when he defected work was

from East Germany in 1957 to West Berlin. He found

that what ruled was an international art stripped of the feeling of awkwardness and self-consciousness
any danger, wholly decorative, wholly bland. ‘I was that one experiences in the face of profound
born into a destroyed order, a destroyed landscape, emotional events in one’s own life. These
a destroyed people, a destroyed society.’ In this experiences, such as death, loss, or sexuality, cannot
cultural wasteland he had to create his own personal be supported by a life style that has sought so
tradition with which to live: Goltzius and the arduously to deny their meaningfulness, and a
Dutch mannerists, De Kooning, Artaud, the Swedish culture whose fabric is so worn out that its public
schizophrenic Carl Fredrik Hill. Many of his early rituals and attendant symbols do not make for
paintings engaged with tradition, but contrarily adequate clothing.
Ludwig Richter on his Way to Work / 70 / shows the
German Romantic painter lost in a wasteland rather An older woman, presumably the mother, becomes a
than striding towards the studio. The title echoes temptress in Bad Boy / 72/, sprawled on the bed
a series of paintings by Francis Bacon of Van Gogh exposing all. No Pleasantville this. The boy appears
on his way to work; however this is about not riveted by this Oedipal situation but continues to rifle
identification but rather a failure to identify, an through the woman's purse. But it is how it is painted
alienation from the past and its aspirations. Richter that makes Bad Boy more than just squalid realism,
here seems clumsy, abject, pathetic. The painting more than an exposé of a bankrupt society. Fischl’s
appears, with its heavy outlines, the marks that style, he said was, ‘a kind of bourgeois realism that
scarify the flesh, the lines that disrupt any sense of was developed in the first place by Manet and Degas
illusionism — such as that on the right hand — to be _it’s simple, it’s fresh, it’s intimate. You feel the
at once monumental and uncomfortable, paint-strokes have a casualness that’s like language —
That Baselitz belonged to the figurative you're chatting.’
tradition in order to argue with it was proved by his What is striking is, first, how large the
later work, A painting such as B for Larry / 69 /, painting is — as large as an Olitski colour field or
of 1967, may show his desire to disrupt the picture a French history painting — and second, how light
69. Georg Baselitz filters through the blinds, filling the room. Fisch
plane, to reduce his formal dependence on the
B for Larry, 1967. Oil on canvas, claimed that he began by wanting to paint a still life,
figure, but, one cannot deny, the figure is exploded,
250 x 200 cm (98% x 78% in)
shredded apart here. In such paintings Baselitz let a bowl of fruit. Indeed the bananas can seem the
free what may be called ornamentation: vivacious, most uncanny things here, but they serve to point
70. Georg Baselitz out that this is a painting, not just an illustration.
unpredictable, anarchic line- and mark-making, This
Ludwig Richter on his Way The woman's flesh is not sleek and sensuous,
echoes both the perverse and excessive curvaceous
to Work, 1965. Oil on canvas,
lines of mannerism and the vibrantly zigzagging as in Rubens, but slack and patchy. It is exposed
162 x 130 cm (63% * 51 in)
lines of expressionism. In 1968 he began painting and vulnerable.
his subjects upside down. Such inverted painting By 1981, when Fischl made this painting,
dominated his oeuvre through the 1970s not only were many painters ‘returning’ to the
and eventually allowed him to let loose colour as figure, but they were also being widely exhibited.
something both energetic and subversive. Something unexpected had happened.

56
 Western Traditions

71. Georg Baselitz

Supper in Dresden, 1982.

Oil on canvas, 280 x 450 cm

(110 x 177 in)

72. Eric Fischl

Bad Boy, 1981. Oil on canvas,

168 «x244 cm (66 x 86 in)

57
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 Painting Today

73. Anselm Kiefer

To the Unknown Painter,

1982. Woodcut, straw and

oil on canvas, 280 x 340 cm

(110% x 135% in)

75. Anselm Kiefer

Nuremberg, 1982. Emulsion,

photograph, straw, wood,

string and blood on canvas,

280 x 340 cm (110% x 135% in)

74. Paintings by Georg

Baselitz installed at Zeitgeist

International Art Exhibition,

Martin-Gropiusbau, Berlin,

October 1982—January 1983

60
 Neo-expressionism

spoke of ‘turbulence, liberation, euphoria, ecstasy, power of art. Beuys had rejected New York modernism
Neo-expressionism tends to get a bad press nowadays,
uninhibited subjectivity and sensual immediacy’. A year as narcissistic, unconvinced by its insistence that
often being referred to as ‘80s’ painting’ — vulgar,
overblown, uncritical, inauthentic. Yet much painting earlier, in an exhibition entitled ‘A New Spirit in only art remained as a valid subject for art; he, on the

currently in art schools and commercial galleries should Painting’ at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, the contrary, insisted that art could deal with politics,
same curator had gleefully claimed, ‘the artist's studios spirituality and consciousness. It could change
still be categorized as neo-expressionist in its use of
exaggeration, heightened colours, myth and personal are full of paint pots again’. He situated the beginning people's lives.
of this new painting in the works Baselitz had made in In another room, Georg Baselitz hung his
imagery. Van Gogh and Munch remain perennially
the mid-1960s. The Hunger nach Bildern (famine of paintings high on the wall. He wanted to be difficult,
influential: artists still want to express their emotions
paintings) was over: neo-expressionist paintings were to stop his paintings being decorative / 74 /. It was
and touch their viewers.
For many the advent of neo-expressionism in about to flood the galleries and sale rooms. irritating, just as his inversion of the image was
Despite being an inveterate despiser of irritating. And paradoxically, although Baselitz claimed
the exhibition ‘Zeitgeist’ in Berlin in 1982 was a
revelation: after adecade of painting being seen as painting, the charismatic German artist Joseph Beuys the inversion of the canvas had emptied content out,

peripheral and sclerotic, here were paintings presented was given the central spot at ‘Zeitgeist’. His the subject matter clearly mattered. It was no surprise

as ambitious, up-to-date, vital and urgent. Sited as it installation, with its vast pile of clay, assorted sculptor's to discover that one of the paintings was of a
tools and basic shapes representing elementary childhood trauma when a dog jumped through the
was right by the wall that divided Berlin, and Europe,
lifeforms, set the tone both in the use of symbolism window, and another of his father, who had come back
the exhibition seemed very much embedded in
the realities of the time. The curator’s introductory text and in its claim for the transforming, therapeutic from the war a damaged man.

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 Painting Today

history, The second word at bottom right, Festspielwiese distant burning. You might say heaven is on fire. But also
The room devoted to large paintings by Anselm
(festival grounds) makes it more specific: the place our bodies are generators of heat. It is all related. Fire
Kiefer seemed as though set out for some expiatory rite:
pictures of monuments and fields. They were so heavy where in Wagner's opera minstrels compete. Hitler, like is the glue of the cosmos. It connects heaven and earth.

with ink, paper, lead, wood, blood and straw that Nietzsche, loved Wagner and Nuremberg, with its
one reacted to them as one would to a wall smeared and traditional German wooden buildings. But Kiefer’s was Most other work in ‘Zeitgeist’ was less layered
socked with stuff and graffiti. In To the Unknown Painter a generation that wanted to discuss, not repress, this and more direct — very direct in the case of the various
/73/ this was a sensation of oppression: the sheets of awkward history of German culture. gay artists who, like Rainer Fetting, had come out at
vaper printed from woodcuts led the spaces between lhe effect of Kiefer's paintings, with their this time / 76 /. It was as though for the first time they
he columns with matt blackness, the architecture was grandiloquent gesture and massed materials, was highly could talk in public about their lives: for Fetting, one of
hat designed to memorialize Nazi heroes rhe unknown visceral, but they were also overtly intellectual in this call narcissism, masquerade and high-pitched fantasy. The
vainter as represented by the blackpalette is mourned to examine German culture and the relationship of art to four vast painting he made for ‘Zeitgeist’ were either
vere, and that single element, like a bleeding heart, history, If painting at its best is the union of the eye, the vivid celebrations of his night life or embarrassingly crass
seems to offer hope hand and the brain, then for the 1980s these paintings comments on nuclear power and religion. The urgency
The straw that covers much of Kiefer's demonstrated that that was still an attainable goal. Ugly was accentuated by the use of dispersion, a kind of paint
Nuremberg acts like the felt that occupied such a key and often obscure they may have been, as their that was quick to apply and quick to dry. That the career
therapeutic role in the personal mythology of Joseph detractors protested, but at a formal level they showed of Fetting, although commercially bolstered by the pink
Jeuys / 75 /. Beuys believed that after his dive-bomber that the all-over techniques of Jackson Pollock could be Deutschmark, did not develop, had much to do with a
crashed in 1942 on the Eastern front, nomadic tribesmen combined with both Beuys's fetishist approach to lack of technique: his paintings, like many other ‘Zeitgeist’
had nursed him back to health by covering him with fat materials and overt subject matter. artists whose earliest work had a raw compelling energy,
and felt to insulate him against the cold. Kiefer had no Underlying Kiefer's interest in German history soon became repetitive, their lack of finesse embarrassing.
such personal story but was able to play on the cultural/ was a concern with knowledge that transcended ‘Zeitgeist’ comprised not just German painters
agricultural associations of straw as bedding and humus nationality, a concern with how the universe is made and working through the unacknowledged residual trauma
The straw here is to insulate a whole ravished field, what a human being is in that universe. Kiefer refers to of fascism. There were also Italian painters consciously
a whole society. These holes in the photographic paper nigrecio: the point in alchemical symbolism when the looking at their own culture. Enzo Cucchi, for example,
are like picked scabs; the wooden posts have been impure metal is reduced to blackness ready to become emphasized the durability of his roots in peasant
charred, and one, judging by the hanging string, has the prime material, the very substance of creation. culture around Ancona on Italy’s Adriatic coast / 77 /.
fallen off. But the farmers torch their fields and scatter Mediterranean culture went far back, he believed,
the straw to ensure the seeds underneath regenerate. Burning is absolutely elemental. The beginning of the and continued: the sea recurs in his work not just as a
Only the tiny church and the word at top right tell cosmos that we have conceived scientifically began with spectacle but as an active presence. He emphasized
us the subject, but it is sufficient to make us think about incredible heat, The light we see in the sky is the result of that his work was

62
 Neo-expressionism

76. Rainer Fetting

PS ax $%s eer a %
The Harriers |, 1982. Powder
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colour and oil on cotton,

400 x 300 cm (157 % x 118 in)

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77. Enzo Cucchi

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A Fish on the Back ofAdriatic

Sea, 1980. Oil on canvas,

208 x 273 cm (82 x 107 % in).

Nationalgalerie,

Museen, Berlin
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63
 Painting Today

nnn
 Neo-expressionism

79. Christopher Le Brun

Thorn, 1984-5. Oil on canvas,

248 x 213 cm (97 x 84 in).

Private collection

80. Miquel Barcel

Peintre Peignant le Tableau,

1983. Mixed media on

canvas, 193 x 285 x 3cm

(76 x 112% x 1% in).

Private collection

following pages:
81. Julian Schnabel

Aborigine Painting, 1980. Oil,

plates, bondo on wood and canvas,
243.8 x 218.4 cm (96 x 86 in)

82. Jean-Michel Basquiat

Untitled, 1982. Acrylic and mixed
techniques on canvas,
207 x 176 cm (81% x 69% in).

Collection Eli and Edythe L. Broad,

Los Angeles

the evidence of the act of creation. Barceld’s actions very deep. It’s the same with me. The painting has
not nationalistic in the historical sense, just national
in the sense that | want to stand with my feet ‘stuck on look like a dance, an echo of that dance by which Siva a superficial perspective and illusion to get you into the

in Indian mythology created the world. Later Barcelo layers of the image, to the conceptual part, to the
the ground’ — that in Italian means to be very
would compare the act of painting to making soup: idea of the land and what has happened there. The more
concrete... The tradition of painting is rather what we
living, like painting, should be rooted in life. you go back, under, the further forward you can go
call a continuous fact in time... the tradition has

made everything and every painter has to keep this Trained as an abstract painter, the British artist
Christopher Le Brun had found that as he painted the When neo-expressionist painters from Europe started to
tradition alive.
horizontal bands he constructed his work with, figures flood the New York galleries, inevitably American critics

Francesco Clemente happily described himself in would often seem to emerge from the to-and-fro of and collectors looked for their home-grown equivalent,
brushmarks. Eventually, like many other artists, he and they found an obvious candidate in Julian Schnabel
contrast as, like Francis Picabia or Giorgio de Chirico,
gave in to this apparently deep-rooted desire to make Like Kiefer, Schnabel sought to re-create Pollock’s
a dilettante: he felt free to travel across countries and
images, to let them, presumably, emerge from his all-over feel by loading the picture with material: broken
traditions. In ‘Zeitgeist’ his four large paintings were
subconscious. Although his painting method remained plates, deer’s antlers, tarpaulin and velvet. The scale
My House, My Parents, My Journey and Two Lovers.
essentially abstract, his paintings became peopled by ol fis ambition (or conceit) was shown by the way he
His life, his travels and sexual desire — stability and
figures and horses from Classical myths and landscape co-opted cultural heroes as titles: Maria Callas, Antonin
flux — were his themes. In the painting of his parents
fragments from Romantic painting / 79 /. Artaud, The Unexpected Death of Blinky Palermo in the
he hangs like the puppet of a clown, his heart in an
If this was all a reaffirmation of European Tropics. Cultural richness or just name-dropping? Some
egg shape filled with skulls, masks of his face hanging
culture, there was also an evident interest in non- critics gushed with excitement, as though they were
everywhere / 78 /.
European cultures and in Europe's other, the USA. celebrating Pollock in his pomp. Others were put off by
Rather than re-inventing prescriptive national
In a symposium in 1986, when Jannis Kounellis, Schnabel’s braggadocio: ‘The three Mexican paintings
schools where Germans had to paint like Germans and
a Greek artist long resident in Rome, said America had from ’85 are the first paintings | did on tarpaulins,
Spaniards like Spaniards, ‘Zeitgeist’-type painting gave
no culture, Kiefer disagreed: ‘it does and its culture this material that the army uses to cover things. | felt
individual artists the sense that they could situate
is predicated on the media: a tradition of media like | was really painting Mexico when | did them, and
themselves in a complex of traditions and groupings.
and information, Europe has a culture with a tradition that the blood of that tradition of cruelty was coming
The prevalence of self-portraits at this time emphasizes
of history.’ This was why Kiefer, like Beuys, admired up through my feet and was coming out in the
that what was key was the act of painting as a
Warhol, to whom he unexpectedly compared his work: paintings’. He was good-looking, the darling of a very
statement of identity. When we look at the early self-
buoyant art market where artists, dealers and collectors
portraits of the Mallorcan Miquel Barceld, we see him
The point ofthe illusion is to draw people in. There's were suddenly all so clever, brave and drop-dead
immersed in the painting as though he were self-
a connection to Warhol in this, even if you do not see it. gorgeous. Francesca Thyssen, heiress and future
consciously re-enacting Pollock’s emphasis on ‘being
curator, gushed in 1984 that she had
in the painting’ / 80 /. What painting stands for here is He was so superficial in such a precise way that he went

65
Painting Today

66
Neo-expressionism

67
 Painting Today

power, be primitive. Schnabel aspired to this, if only the usual modern painting’. He claims they failed to
met Bruno Bischofberger [an art dealer] a few years ago
by making images of ‘primitives’ 81/, The New York argue with modernism or improve on it, were
during my skiing holidays. | have met a great variety
of fascinating people and especially artists at his dinner painter Jean-Michel Basquiat was seen as the 1980s complicit with the market and tried to impose ‘old

parties. JULIAN SCHNABEL, CLEMENTE and ENZO developed as a true ‘contemporary primitive’ because cultural traditions on a complex social present that was

CUCCHI, to mention but a few... The last time | saw of his association with graffiti art, which was being far beyond such stylistic solutions’. Rather than

him was when a shivering SCHNABEL unveiled his proposed as an indigenous New York ‘primitive’ art, returning its audience to tradition, he claimed, they

latest portrait on velvet of one of St Moritz’s most and because of his Puerto Rican—Cuban parents. But only showed the extent to which the tradition had

illustrious citizens. It was so large it did not fit indoors Basquiat was far from an innocent: he had hung around disintegrated, The 1980s for him were marked not by a

so JULIAN painted the complete painting outdoors at art schools, his friends were artists. His work combined ‘recovery of historical consciousness but by its erosion

~20° centigrade. We were all thrilled and chilled. street culture, African art and, with its list of words, a in consumerist amnesia’. But he is writing with a
sort of conceptual art rap / 82 /. His early death ensured predetermined standpoint and view of history; the

Was Schnabel a great painter or just a showman? Alex his status as a cult figure and eventual celebration in a reality was more complex,

Katz remarked that his success was for non-artistic film directed by Schnabel. At the heart of the moment was an unresolved

reasons, that all New York painters had to provide good Were ‘Zeitgeist’ and neo-expressionism issue, perhaps an unresolvable issue; one that the

decoration and Julian had beautiful manners. ‘We don't a moment of bad faith dominated by the vulgarity and historian Simon Schama terms ‘the Kiefer syndrome’,

want sincerity. You have to be on the wall and not cupidity of the market? It was, in retrospect, a time At the heart of the issue was the question of ‘whether it

too intrusive. His stuff is totally empty. Great decoration. when some badly made and wholly pretentious is possible to take myth seriously on its own terms, and

People look great in front of those paintings.’ But paintings were hyped and sold for ridiculous sums to respect its coherence and complexity, without

Schnabel remains to others, including the German artist of money, but also a time when a number of major becoming morally blinded by its poetic power .., how

Albert Oehlen, the real thing: ‘Schnabel is one who can painters emerged. In the last twenty years the do we reproduce the “other”, separated from us by

really speak about the intimate questions of painting. ... critical antipathy to ‘80s’ painting’ has been marked. space, time, or cultural customs, without either

He's a real painter.’ ‘Incoherent’, ‘dishonest’, ‘vulgar’, ‘insincere’, losing ourselves altogether in total immersion or else

Certainly Schnabel was an exciting painter. ‘regressive’, ‘unoriginal’ and many other insults have rendering the subject "safe" by the usual eviscerations

The big, structural brushmarks, the innovative materials, been aimed at it. The critic Hal Foster, for example, of Western empirical analysis.’ It is perhaps worth

the wilful quotations, the willingness to be accuses Clemente, Kiefer, Schnabel and others pointing out that relatively few artists either studied

embarrassing — all these were elements to which artists of being neo-conservatives (this was the decade of myth and how it worked carefully, or truly immersed

have responded, even if only to reject them. The market Thatcher and Reagan) who used ‘art-historical themselves in it. Those who did Kiefer, Cuechi and

desired that painting have elemental and authentic references as so many clichéd quotations to decorate Clemente, for example —were always reinventing

68
 Neo-expressionism

it creatively. There is a thin line between the myths a conceptual art environment: hence the simplicity of Around 1980 Khakkar had begun making much more
that a whole society believes in and shares, and mere these paintings. The bed is still a metaphor for ambitious paintings, no longer echoing signboards but
personal fantasy, which can degenerate to private loneliness in El mar dulce (The Sweet Sea), painted two rather aspiring to the cinematic. He admired Lorenzetti’s
language or self-indulgence. years later, but it becomes here also a site of sexual Allegory of Good Government because of its multiple
There were indigenous cultures and myths desire / 83 /. Private and public catastrophe and points of view and its ability, like film, to shift from the
that some Latin American artists, for example, including aspiration elide: to the left we see as though projected mundane to the spiritual, from the allegorical to the
Francesco Toledo and his fellow Mexican Alejandro the classic image from Eisenstein’s film Battleship representational. His You Can't Please All (1981) showed
Colunga, could summon. Colunga managed to find Potemkin when, shot by soldiers repressing a protest, himself at the centre of the world / 90 /. As with his
a way of fusing popular culture, religion and painting. a nanny lets slip her pram and it judders down earlier work, it is acompassionate inventory, but of
A recurrent motif in his work is ‘Il Santo’, the masked the steps. This is almost a history painting imagined people rather than things. There is potential allegory —
wrestler (supposedly a priest), committed to fighting as private psychodrama. The architecture looks the two men on the donkey — but the painting is
evil in every form / 84 /. Nevertheless, we are not quite as provisional as a stage set — and this is perhaps above all about the artist himself, his naked self. This
sure how to respond: the paintings are visually lively, deliberate: Kuitca had directed a play entitled El mar was also his statement about coming out as a gay man.
but it is not clear whether we should laugh at this dulce about the waves of immigrants sailing up the If a major drive in neo-expressionism was to
masked man or imagine him as a true hero. River Plate to Buenos Aires. A series of paintings had reclaim the tragic vision in art, much that was produced
Painting was one outlet for venting anger at the accompanied the performance. The greatest influence under its supposed aegis was deliberate burlesque
political oppression in Latin America during the 1980s. on him was the dance theatre of Pina Bausch, where rather than high drama, openly embracing the pastiche
In Argentina the military regime had effectively declared loneliness, trauma and violence are highlighted. of which Hal Foster accused neo-expressionism.
war on intellectuals in a dirty war and then in 1982 For many younger artists, such as the Brazilian A number of painters, including Martin Kippenberger
initiated their own humiliating defeat by invading the Adriana Varejao, neo-expressionism and its global and Albert Oehlen, seemed more like jesters in the
British Falkland Islands. ‘At the time of la Guerra de las coverage, made it possible to paint in a freer way, to entourage of a medieval king than knights about to set
Malvinas [the Argentine term for the Falkland conflict], entangle mythology and sensuality, politics and the off in search of the Holy Grail. Oehlen’s painting of
the Argentine painter Guillermo Kuitca remarked, decorative / 87 /.'1980s' painting’ may have been Hamlet in a stripey jumper / 88 / derides everything:
‘| started painting little beds ... at that time | was going notoriously macho, with very few women painters being expressive painting (note the drips everywhere), artistic
through a depression.’ Kuitca’s paintings of this period shown, yet it created possibilities for all. angst and posturing.
depict small, simple images of the ultimate refuge, the In India, as in Latin America, neo-expressionist The overblown nature of the 1980s’ market was

place where you go when you want to hide from the painting was received with some enthusiasm: it gave an a perennial target for Oehlen and his friends: Georg

world / 86 /. Like many artists then, he was coming from international context for artists such as Bhupen Khakkar. Herold, for example, joked at the pretensions of

83. Guillermo Kuitca

The Sweet Sea (El mar dulce),

1984. Acrylic on paper mounted

on canvas, 170 x 310 cm

(67 x 122 in). Private collection

84. Alejandro Colunga

|| Santo, the Silver Masquerader

(Il Santo, enmascarado de

Plata), 1984-5. Oil on canvas,

200 x 160 cm (78% x 63 in)

85. Martin Kippenberger

Modell Interconti, 1987

Painting by Gerhard Richter

of 1972, wood and metal,

33 x 79 x 59 cm

(13 x 31 x 23% in)

86. Guillermo Kuitca

Nobody Forgets Nothing

(Nadie olvida nada), 1982

Acrylic on canvasboard,
24 x 30cm (9% x 11% in)

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 Painting Today

87. Adriana Varejao

Angels (Anjos), 1988.

Oil on canvas, 190 x 220 cm
(74% x 86 V2in), Stedelijk
Museum, Amsterdam

70
 .

Neo -expressionism

88. Albert Oehlen

Self-portrait with TwoSkulls

(Self-portrait mit Zwei
Totenschadeln), 1984.

Oil on canvas, 260 x Oo(=)Cs)

E

(102 ¥%2x 74% in )

71
Painting Today

painting by covering canvases with bricks or caviar.

Yet, of course, their paintings were purchased and
collected with the same zeal as those by card-carrying
neo-expressionists. Kippenberger made the point with
double irony when he took a grey monochrome painting
by Gerhard Richter and used it as the top for a coffee
table / 85 /. If painting was just prestige furniture with
an extravagant price-tag, then he would make it, quite
literally, as furniture. Kippenberger was also evoking
one of Marcel Duchamp’s unrealized ready-mades: a
Rembrandt used as an ironing board. Even at the court
of the king the spirit of doubt and irony was lurking.
The Dutchman René Daniéls was invited to
‘Zeitgeist’. He later commented: ‘at the opening | saw
my work Academy / 89 / and others hanging next to all
the “Deutsche Angst”: the comic elements in my
pictures made a strong contrast with everything else,
and this did not exactly go down well with the
organizers, as | could tell. But that in itself made me feel
really good and strong. | felt “Alone at last”.’
Daniéls was closer to the quizzical spirit of
Picabia than to Kirchner’s earnestness: painting to him
was a quick way of responding to a situation and
making an image. If his paintings stick in one’s mind,
despite their failure initially to impress, this is perhaps
partly because their metaphorical structure is so
allusive. Of Academy Daniéls wrote:

One time | was teaching in Rotterdam at the Art

Academy. One of the students said the academy was
going to be moving to a bank building. That's the kind
of thing that | think is worth a painting. You see
a bank in which the counters have all been removed.
And since everybody at the academy today is only
interested in making money (so they're all painting
pictures), the place is filled with painting classes.
But it's also a painting about love. At the bottom there

are two girls embracing.

In The House, one of several paintings from a series

entitled Beautiful Exhibitions, we see a gallery set
up for an opening: a microphone and podium ready for
the speeches that will conclude the institutionalization
of the work / 91 /. Over it are painted several bow-tie
shapes, schematic images of rooms for pictures. It is a
play both on how in the 1980s paintings had become
trophies and how it was the event of exhibiting that had
become truly noteworthy.
To others who, like Daniéls, had no interest or
belief in candid expression, or Neo-expressionism,
‘appropriation’ became the buzzword of the late 1980s,
and the writings of the French theoretician Jean
Baudrillard, with their talk of simulation and spectacle,
became obligatory reading. The critique of originality in
such writers as Roland Barthes and Umberto Eco was
much referenced. The very concept of the artistic genius
had long been under attack from left-wing and feminist

72
 Neo-expressionism

89. René Daniéls

Academy, 1982. Oil on canvas,

170 x 95 cm (67 x 37 2 in).

Gemeentemuseum, Helmond

90. Bhupen Khakkar

You Can’‘t Please All, 1981.

Oil on canvas, 167 x 167 cm

(65% x 65% in). Tate, London

writers. Artists, it was argued, were to be seen as image outright copying became acceptable artistic strategies.
administrators, not as geniuses expressing a personal Many years later, what the New York artist Elaine
vision and bringing new things into the world. There was Sturtevant had been doing during the 1960s — literal
nothing new to make, only old things to be reprocessed. copies of work by such artists as Rauschenberg and
‘Irony’ was the key word here, as though Warhol — became seen not as piracy or bad faith but
painting was now so mired in its own failures and as shrewd strategy and critique. Sturtevant had even
obsolete metaphysics that it could be referred to only gone to Warhol's Factory and, with his permission, used
ironically. ‘| am painting, but don’t worry, | am not the same silk-screens to make her painting of Marilyn
taking it seriously!’ This was the condition of / 92/ as he had used. One may question what
postmodernism, when, the mass media having difference there was between them — especially since
saturated us with unearned emotion and a thousand the question of whether Warhol himself (rather than his
cardboard characters in Barbara Cartland’s romances assistants) had personally made ‘his’paintings is amatter
having said ‘I love you’, it almost became a problem of some dispute. Sturtevant claimed she was making
actually to say these words without being laughed at. ‘her’ originals.
As Eco pointed out, one could do so only by being Appropriating images could, of course, lead to
ironic, by framing it as a quotation: ‘As Barbara Cartland copyright infringement. The cartoonists Mike Cockrill
would say, “! love you”. and Judge Hughes sued David Salle for his use of their
The notion that an artwork could be nothing drawing of the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald (itself
but a simulacrum became much discussed; parody and copied from a photograph!) in his painting What is the

73
 Painting Today

91. René Daniéls

The House, 1986. Oil on canvas,

190 x 130 cm (74% x 51% in).

Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam

92. Elaine Sturtevant

Warhol Marilyn Diptych, 1973.

Acrylic and silkscreen ink
on canvas, 213 x 322 cm

(83% x 126% in)

Reason for your Visit to Germany? / 93 /. The case was Salle was detested by feminists because throughout paintings guaranteed flagrantly to offend good taste.
settled out of court, but other suits followed against his work women appeared in various states of undress, Picabia was seen as an ironist and appropriationist
artists who appropriated imagery, most famously Jeff in poses that the feminists saw as demeaning. before his time, leading the attack on artistic
Koons. More interestingly, Salle’s work suggested a new He claimed, however, that such poses were derived authenticity and its fetishization. As early as 1920 he
approach to the aesthetics of painting, much like the from dance movements: ‘they are the body in began side-stepping and mocking authenticity: asked
pic ‘n’ mix approach to sweet selection in shops. There extremes’, he explained. ‘It has more to do with the then, ‘Ifyou don't believe in painting, why do you paint
seemed no necessary rationale to why one element was abstract choreography and angles of vision than so many pictures of Spanish women?’ He replied,
above another. pornographic narratives.’ ‘They're all forgeries’.
‘For me,’ Eric Fischl remarked in 1982, This procedure of overlaying image on ‘The formalist project in geometry is
seemingly unrelated image owed much to the influence discredited’, the New York artist Peter Halley wrote in
Salle is the smartest artist around. | find his work of Francis Picabia, who in the inter-war years had made 1984. Halley's paintings were a parody and critique
compelling. It seems frighteningly right. His what he called transparente paintings. Indeed, more simultaneously of the way geometry underlies the
work introduced me to the seriousness of our sense generally this moment when irony was seen as an modern world, controlling how we live and act, and
of meaninglessness. It created the most anxiety in obligatory element to painting is deeply connected of American abstract painting that seemed to
me. | found it profoundly appalling. ... It's one thing with a burst of interest in Picabia’s later work, both the emblematize such controlling geometry. He was
to find culture meaningless, another more transparente and the cheesecake paintings, derived programmatic about what he meant, writing, of his own
outrageous thing, to find one’s life meaningless. from popular postcards of scantily clad starlets — paintings, in 1982:

74
 Neo-expressionism

1. These are paintings ofprisons, cells and walls. | thought of it rather in terms of liturgical re-enactment,
2. Here, the idealist square becomes the prison. a sacred dramaturgy ... | should say, however, that in
Geometry is revealed as confinement. reconstructing such a work, some interesting
3. The cell is a reminder of the apartment house, transformations occurred.

the hospital bed, the school desk — the isolated

endpoints of industrial structure. Making Newman's zips into spirals or corkscrews gave
4. The paintings are a critique of idealist modernism. them a decorative twist but also made them more
In the ‘colour field’ is placed a jail. The misty space human and even sexier. ‘| am interested in a sublimity
of Rothko is walled up. which encourages laughter and delight in the face
5. Underground conduits connect the units. of profound uncertainty.’ If neo-expressionsim was not
‘Vital fluids’ flow in and out. always pompous, neither was appropriation
6. The ‘stucco’ texture is a reminiscence of always ironic.
motel ceilings. Jonathan Lasker, another American, appeared
7. The Day-Glo paint is a signifier of ‘low budget too in several exhibitions associated with appropriation,
mysticism’. It is the afterglow of radiation. but, like Taaffe, he did not believe he truly belonged
there. A concern for painting, not a distaste for it, led
At a level of theory Halley, like many others, was him to place biomorphic shapes against patterns / 96 /.
strongly influenced by the French historian Michel ‘Paint has a peculiar capacity to become a locus for an
Foucault and his study of how the rational structure experience of the actual, the concrete, in opposition to
of the nineteenth-century prison had been used the depicted, the imagined.’ The gestures referenced
subsequently as a model for schools and offices: how gesturalism via scribbling or doodling — they did not
the power of the state operated not by force but parody it. If others were making paintings as simulacra
by architecture. Geometry was no longer pure form rather than statements of artistic uniqueness, Lasker
underlying the world, as Mondrian had believed, was not one of them.
but impure form overlaying it. ‘In my work, space is As we have already seen / see 5 / as far back as
considered as a digital field in which are situated “cells” 1968 Sigmar Polke was making paintings that re-
with simulated stucco texture from which flow irradiated appropriated other art. But in the hands of Polke this
“conduits”. This space is akin to the simulated space critique of authenticity became a much more
of the videogame, of the microchip, and of the office rumbustious affair: images are overlaid with other
tower.’ (Signs had become simulations of reality, images, sometimes in very degraded forms; spills of
according to Jean Baudrillard.) ‘The abstract world pigments or resin flow under or through this palimpsest
turns out not to be a utopia, but a site of alienation of imagery. His early work had often been characterized
and banality.’ However, the paintings themselves were as a sort of German Pop art, but it was always more
ambiguous, offering sensuous delight simultaneously unpredictable. If we compare a painting such as
with such moral condemnation / 94 /. Girlfriends / 98 / with any Warhol painting, we see an
Another New York artist, Philip Taaffe, likewise image that is sexier and less iconic than Warhol's.
seemed a parodist too, in his case remaking Bridget In looking at a work such as Paganini,
Riley's Op art paintings, but with collage / 95 /. Other however, we see something far more ambitious and
paintings of his were based on works by Clyfford Still, difficult than anything Warhol did / 99 /. Appropriation
Barnett Newman and Ellsworth Kelly.The critical ‘take’ at did not necessarily mean an art limited to simulacra: this
the time was that these paintings were empty, lacking was an art more about transformation. Painted on a
the aura of the originals, and were therefore, despite fabric that had a swastika-like pattern, the key image is
their wit and elegance, elegies on the death of painting. a nineteenth-century illustration of the devil playing to
In retrospect it appears this was very much not the case. the virtuoso violinist Paganini, who was believed to
Rather, Taaffe was seeking, as he said subsequently, have sold his soul in exchange for virtuosity. This was a
plenitude — richness. By remaking Riley's work on a complex, compelling painting that clearly played with
different scale with different materials he in fact moral and political issues: is nuclear power (note the
discovered something different. Of his remake of Barnett radioactive symbol juggled by Death) a similar doomed
Newman / 97 / he remarked subsequently that he was bargain? But this is not presented in a heavy-handed
way; as always in Polke’s work passages of lyrical beauty
concerned with Abstract Expressionism’s obsession with slip into offhand gestures.
the sublime, and the premise that a painting could Appropriation was especially attractive to artists
demonstrate a transcendent reality of its own. ... The who worked a long way from the main cultural centres
work of Barnett Newman is certainly exemplary in this and who were weary of the cultural cringe to which
respect, so | decided | would re-enact certain of his ‘provincials’ were seen as being so prone. Here was a
paintings. Not as a parody but as a tribal ceremonial way of working where one could wilfully play games
act. The irony of this gesture did not escape me, but with those works one only knew by reproduction. In one

75
 Painting Today

93. David Salle

What is the Reason for Your

Visit to Germany?, 1984. Acrylic

and oil on canvas with lead on

wood, 243.8 x 486.4 cm

(96 x 191 in). Ludwig Forum fur

Internationale Kunst, Aachen

94. Peter Halley

Yellow Prison with Underground
Conduit, 1985. Acrylic, day-glo
acrylic and roll-a-tex on canvas,
126.6 x 172.7 cm (64 x 68 in)

famous (or infamous) painting, Nine Shots / 100 /, the Appropriation, parody and pastiche were
Australian Imants Tillers combined an early painting by to become the staples of much Chinese painting in this
Baselitz and Michael Jagamara Nelson's Five Dreamings and subsequent periods. Wang Guangyi had shown
/ 102 /. Doing this to an aboriginal artist such as Nelson three giant paintings of Mao in 1989 in the infamous
without his authorization was a major problem because exhibition ‘China/Avant Garde’. Thirteen years after his
the dreaming was seen as the true property. As one death Mao's face was little seen now: Wang covered
writer put it: ‘Painting a Dreaming belonging to another, his image with a black grid. He sought to empty the
or rendering it in any form whatsoever, still amounts to image of power: to kill Mao again. ‘Through the image
cultural theft as well as blasphemy and continues to of Mao, | imagined finding a means to demonstrate
be a capital offence and punishable under Indigenous how it was possible to gingli renwen reging [expunge
Law.’ Nelson was bemused when he saw what Tillers warm humanistic feelings].’ At the same time, in an act
had done — ‘cultural critique’ was not a term he partly destructive, appropriationist and reverential, he
had heard before — and although he forgave Tillers, part-covered reproductions of Western masterpieces
he emphasized that if the painting was sold he had to with industrial oil / 101 /. In the work of the 1990s that
be paid half. On another occasion Tillers made made his reputation Wang conflated Western brand
a full-size adaptation of Polke’s Paganini but, like all his names with images of heroic workers / 104 /. Images of
works, it was painted on 10 x 15 inch (25.4 x 38 cm) socialist zeal were married with those consumer brand
canvas boards — 187 of them in this instance. logos that made the new middle classes of Deng
This made transportation abroad easy (he sent his first Xiaoping’s China squeal with pleasure. Through works
exhibition in London by post) and quite literally fractured such as these Wang achieved his ambition: he created
the picture surface. Rather than parodying artists, Tillers his own brand, one he was to reproduce endlessly with
was bringing them together in discussion, including variations. He sold 90 per cent of his paintings to
those other artists by whom he was fascinated and, like foreigners and became rich and famous.
Colin McCahon, lived on the margins. So again Li Shan, like Wang, has been described as
‘appropriating’ is the wrong word: ‘performing’ would be making ‘political Pop’. Until he stopped making them
better — just as a singer makes a rendition of someone in 1995, the foreign market for his images of Mao,
else's song: performance leads to transformation. recycled and made unthreatening, often with a flower
The issue of what an ‘authentic’ tradition is is in his mouth, seemed insatiable. Li Shan had made his
even more complicated if, like Gordon Bennett, you living during the Cultural Revolution by painting
were brought up as a white Australian and never told (wholly unironic) portraits of Mao. It is difficult for
that your mother is Aboriginal. In Possession Island Westerners to realize how ambivalent the Chinese feel
Cook's claiming of Australia is underpainted in the drip subsequently about Mao, but, as Li says, ‘he was
style of Jackson Pollock, while a deferential indigenous an extraordinary figure, full of beauty’. Liwas not just
man offers drinks / 103 /. Appropriation here is very churning out, as others did, retro-Maos for Westerners.
much to do with a critique of culture, jostling and The Mao paintings were but part of a series entitled
treading on toes. Rouge in which he explored images of beauty and

76
2 wo° re x fom
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 Painting Today

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95. Phillip Taaffe

Mangrove, 1985. Linoprint
collage and acrylic on paper,
213 x 213 cm (84 x 84in)

78
 Neo-expressionism

96. Jonathan Lasker

Blobscape, 1986. Oil on canvas,

152.5 x 183 cm (60 x 72 in)

97. Phillip Taaffe

We Are Not Afraid, 1985.
Collage, linoprint and acrylic
on canvas, 305 x 259 cm
(120 x 102 in).
Daros Collection, Zurich

98. Sigmar Polke

Girlfriends, 1965-6. Oil

on canvas, 150 % 190 cm

a
(60 x 74% in). Froelich

collection, Stuttgart

tog

79
 Painting Today

wae/; //
Tatunsl.
Wi
site,

99. Sigmar Polke

Paganini, 1982, Dispersion

on fabric, 200 x 454.7 cm

(78% * 179 in)

80
Neo-expressionism

sh ofcE die
ee » >ets

81
Painting Today

100. Imants Tillers

Nine Shots, 1985. Synthetic

polymer paint and oilstick on
91 canvasboards, 330 x 266 cm
(130 x 104% in). National
Gallery of Australia, Canberra

101. Wang Guangyi

Famous Painting Covered
with Industrial Oil, No. 8 (after

David, Intervention of the

Sabine Women), 1989. Mixed

media, 18 x 25 cm (7 x 9% in).
Collection of the artist

102. Michael Jakamarra Nelson

assisted by Marjorie Napalarri
Five Dreamings, 1984. Acrylic
on canvas, 122 x 182 cm
(48 x 71% in). Gabrielle Pizzi

Collection, Melbourne

bottom right:
103. Gordon Bennett

Possession Island, 1991. Oil and

synthetic polymer on canvas,

162 x 260 cm (63% x 102% in).

Museum of Sydney on the site

of the first Government

House, Historic Houses Trust

of New South Wales

82
 2 o ° se x a - o n a ionism

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 Painting Today

FUSES 104. Wang Guangyi

F1OBIR n65

Great Criticism: Coca Cola,

1990-3. Oil on canvas,

200 x 200 cm (78% x 78% in).

£63 ep

Farber Collection, New York

Ce ip
Pa
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2 105. Li Shan
3
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a Mao and the Artist 1 (Rouge
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No. 60), 1994. Oil on canvas,
5S 150 x 180 cm (59 x 71 in).
Qs
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Hanart TZ Gallery, Hong Kong

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opposite:
106. Helmut Federle

Basics on Composition Ill

(Hirohito) (Form and Ground),

1989. Oil on canvas, 40 x 50 cm

(15% x 19% in)

107. Helmut Federle

Basics on Composition

XXXVI (Geschichten aus dem

Wienerwald), 1992. Oil on

canvas, 40 x 50 cm

(15% x 19% in)

108. Helmut Federle

Basics on Composition XXX,

1992. Oil on canvas, 40 x 50 cm

(15% x 19% in)

84
 Neo-expressionism

where Mao could appear as a xiao bailan, a lover boy.

Paintings showing Lialongside Mao / 105/ reveal
the extent to which this was a psychodrama where
notions of sexuality, powerlessness and identity were
played out.
However, not all the work made in the late
1980s was cool, cynical or appropriationist. Then,
as now, many were offended by how trite this cynicsm
became. Christopher Le Brun spoke for many when
he articulated his reaction to appropriation:

| profoundly dislike this ubiquitous word Appropriation.

It represents two things for me: a skepticism or disbelief
in even the possibility of the natural continuity and
change ofpainting, and a misunderstanding of what
an artistic language is. Am | appropriating a language
when | speak it? Or am | inhabiting, or dwelling in, it?
Appropriation, no; quotation, no; citation, yes;
celebration, yes; association, yes. The whole direction
of my work is to move from a metalaguage to
language, to be no longer hedged by qualifications and
apologies, by a sense of limitations. Painting today
offers a rare enough direct experience. You stand now
before one painting. It is not rendered inauthentic
by referring outside itself to the sensual world of nature,
thought and reflection; nor is this ironic. Association
is the engine of painting's effect upon us.

In short, he wanted an art that spoke unironically

and candidly.
Twenty years after the turmoil of 1968 the East
German art student Neo Rauch travelled from Leipzig
to Moscow and saw for the first time the work of
Francis Bacon: it convinced him that ‘figurative painting
was by no means exhausted. | loved the intensity, the
introspection, the independence from fashions.’
Far more significant than appropriationism for him and
other art students was how the barrier between
abstraction and figuration was crumbling away by the
end of the 1980s: it would be possible for a painter like
him in the future to make abstract or figurative
paintings as he felt appropriate without having to
express allegiance solely to one tradition or the other.
By the end of the decade, painters wholly
committed to abstraction increasingly felt able to work
in candour, without irony or appropriation. It is difficult
to think of an artist more given to seriousness and
gravitas than the Swiss painter Helmut Federle. Like his
models, Cézanne with his paintings of Mont Sainte-
Victoire or Josef Albers with his Homage to the Square
series, Federle returns again and again to a few simple
motifs. His Basics on Composition was a series that
extended over several years, always the same
size, always with the same limited shapes and range
of colours / 106-108 /. A great traveller, Federle was
also influenced by Buddhist images where similar motifs
are repeated endlessly. Although the motifs are stark,

85
Painting Today

they are painted very freely, so that the surface is

often complex, frequently reworked. Their architectonic
severity is lightened by the variations of colour
and touch. As for many other painters, working in series
was a way to approach the subject or problem
again and again and also to produce a body of work
that was clearly interrelated and hence satisfying
to see as a group. We must remember that the key
unit in a painter's career is to some extent not the
single painting but the room filled at exhibition with
their works.
For Federle art is always about something deep
but inexpressible in words:

The basic value inherent in every work ofart lies in the

metaphysical quality of form and not in form per se.
Form serves as a vehicle for an immaterial quality which
cannot be recognized as such or as a motif. It defines
itself in the non-interpretable, neutral manifestation man
conjures up in his vulnerability and anticipation of death.

In some ways the most significant change at the end

of the 1980s was the success of a number of female
painters, including Marlene Dumas and Maria Lassnig.
Both Dumas and Lassnig addressed specifically female
issues and inhabited the world of painting as though
they had always been there. Dumas's paintings had all
the brio of abstract expressionism with, at their best,
a highly individual and sophisticated colour range
where marks could be subtly blurred or laid on heavy:
the blue of the blue against the mask-like face. Her
work could be confrontational, as in Pregnant Image,
where the woman glares back at the viewer / 109 /.
This was a most curious depiction of womanhood

Se
i|
and pregnancy, at once realistic and not. There was
no knowing irony here, no sense of the image being

e2ee: empty. The look at the viewer is crucial: the viewer is

not complicit but confounded; ‘The audience’, as
ae
ae
Dumas says, ‘is part of the meaning-making system. ...
The images confront the viewer mostly by looking
at them, thus showing an awareness of being looked
at. In a way “asking” for a reaction. One can only
look one person in the eyes at a particular moment.
Therefore this feeling of intimacy.’
Lassnig’s Woman Power / 110 /, painted when
she worked on First Avenue, New York, on the twenty-
sixth floor, confronts the urban world not with a giant
but rather with her intense awareness of her body,
projecting her self-awareness on to the city, like a
feminist Godzilla come back to haunt the New York art
world. Serious though both she and Dumas were, there
was always a wry and at times farcical lilt to their work.
But humour, irony even, did not mean that their art was
minor: it was quite clear that both artists were building
complex artistic careers with a far more sophisticated
attitude to the world than one quickly culled from a few
articles on appropriation,

86
 Neo-expressionism

_— ee
109. Marlene Dumas

Pregnant Image, 1988-90.

Oil on canvas, 180 x 90 cm

(71 x 35% in)

110. Maria Lassnig

Woman Power, 1979.

Oil on canvas, 182 x 126 cm

(71 Ya x 492 in)

nara
7.|

87
 Painting Today

Photographs, and especially reproductions of them, The beauty of the paintings is some recompense in itself:
are ubiquitous: in newspapers and magazines, on it helps us make ourselves at one with the world again.
billboards, on the internet. We know of most people It reminds us of the wound but helps us feel at peace.
through photographs rather than actual encounters. There is no clearer candidate in our period
The Indonesian artist Agus Suwage never met Marilyn for the term ‘masterpiece’ than these fifteen paintings.
Monroe, but he knows her image just as we do: it is If it is amasterpiece it is as a group, but it is, like all
an icon of female beauty, something effectively mythical masterpieces, problematic and inimitable. They seem
/ 113 /. |n repainting it he makes it into something to offer no opinion of the actions of the Baader-Meinhof
both strange and personal by adding her left hand Group. Richter has further defused them by taking
holding a cigarette. He did the same to twenty-six other them from Frankfurt (from where the group had
photographs of the famous: Frida Kahlo, David kidnapped a banker, whom they subsequently killed)
Hockney, Mother Teresa, Karl Marx, Chairil Anwar, etc. and selling them to New York's Museum of Modern
All twenty-seven paintings have been shown alongside Art. Nevertheless, they bring to the fore three
a delivery bicycle loaded with cigarette butts. A local key themes in painting: our attitudes to death and
audience would recognize the title to the series, ‘| Want mourning, Our approach to history and our relationship
to Live Another Thousand Years’, as being the final line to photography.
of a poem by the Indonesian poet Chairil, who died Richter painted from photographs
young. It is a curious way of making an image from because of not only the convenience, to avoid the
a distant time and place one’s own, but it is typical of efforts of drawing or thinking up a composition,
a widespread desire to repaint photographs: to make but also because the photograph, the snapshot, is
them our own. indexical, it seems factual, directly connected to
Photography seems to exist outside time: it reality, to a moment in time. Richter and most of the
freezes a moment. Painting lacks that indexical element painters using photographs today do not slavishly
of being made at a specific moment in a specific place. copy the photograph but change it quite considerably.
If photography is silent, painting is in comparison Also, it is worth pointing out, they rarely work from
‘noisy’ with its layering and brushmarks. A photograph great or famous photographs, rather from amateur
of Bob Marley singing freezes that moment but it does snaps or news pictures that seem in some way
not freeze the sound. When Suwage paints the incomplete. Richter said,
photograph he adds lines of lumps, cloud-like, floating
across the surface, emphasizing that this is not a when | was at art school | wanted painting to have

photograph but a painting, a physical object /112 /. a stronger connection to reality, to be more like real life.
A different type of experience emerges, another mood ! wanted to be a photographer because | thought it
that, though no substitute for the original music, was closer to real life.... When | started to embrace the
somehow stands as a potential equivalent. ambiguity of the image, and accepted the realization
The vast painting Rudolf Stingel made of that the image can only come to life through the viewer
a photograph of himself seems initially everyday, but looking at it, and that it takes on meaning through the
also, because of its scale and the way it echoes process of looking, | began to accept painting for what
Mantegna’s famous painting of the dead Christ, it takes it was.

on a brooding quality / 111 /. Stingel’s paint is dry,

unimpassioned and inert, as if to echo the sepulchral Since they were first shown Richter has tried
feel of the image. Many paintings after photographs to restrict reproduction of these paintings, determined
seem to play on death as well as timelessness. It that people should go and experience them as
is a puzzle: why make such a vast painting (one that he paintings — hence their absence here.
prefers to show in an otherwise empty room)? Compared to Richter, with his delicate
Paintings of photographs ask us to question both what feathering of the brushmarks, what Martin
photography and painting are and what they can do, Kippenberger does in his Dear Painter, Please Paint Me
how they relate. In so doing they ask deeper questions /114/ seems in crass bad taste. When Richter had
about how we relate to the world. dealt with sexuality (or pornography), his technique
Perhaps the most famous paintings made after was a distancing one; Kippenberger, although likewise
photographs are those fifteen Gerhard Richter first copying a photograph, makes involvement out of
showed in 1989, of arrest and death of idealist young a voyeurist image: the act of painting here is energetic
Germans who became terrorists, the Baader-Meinhof — like having sex. As to the less than impeccable
group. They are large, richly black and white paintings. manner in which he paints, Kippenberger prefered
To be in the room that these canvases occupy is to desire to control. If Richter brought high seriousness
enter a realm of silence: people begin to whisper. and conceptual strategies to painting, others such
Mourning may not be a cheerful process but as an act as Kippenberger were subsequently closer to burlesque
it involves making ourselves whole again after loss. or overt emotionalism. Kippenberger seems to mock

90
 Photographic

111. Rudolf Stingel

Untitled (after Sam), 2005-6.

Oil on canvas, 335.3 x 457.2 cm

(132 x 180 in). Whitney Museum

of Art, New York

112. Agus Suwage

Bob Marley, from ‘The Times
They are a Changing’, 2007.
Oil and acrylic on canvas,
150 x 145 cm (59 x 57 in)

113. Agus Suwage

Marilyn Monroe, from ‘| Want

to Live Another Thousand

Years’, 1997. Oil and acrylic

on canvas, 150 x 120 cm

(59 x 47% in)

91
Painting Today

114. Martin Kippenberger

Dear Painter, Please Paint Me,
1976-7. Acrylic on canvas,
50 x 60 cm (19% x 23 in)

left: above:

115. Jason Brooks 116. Richard Artschwager

Sassy, 1997. Acrylic on linen, Portrait of Holly, 1971,
239 x 183 cm (84 « 72 in). Acrylic on celotex on masonite '

Saatchi Collection, London 153 «x 101.6 cm (60% x 40 in)

92
 Photographic

Richter's exquisite technique with his lumpy paint and 117. ChuckClose
to mock his intellectualism with his more carnivalesque BigSelf-portrait,1967-8
approach to a conceptual project. Acrylicon canvas,273 x 212 cm
When he was studying in Florence, (107Y2x 83% in).WalkerArt
Kippenberger made a series of paintings to be shown Center,Minneapolis
in Hamburg, entitled ‘One of You, a German in Florence’.
The idea was that when all the seventy paintings of the 118. Jason Brooks
series were stacked up, they would be the same height HarewoodCastleSelf-portrait,
as him — although he failed by 10 centimetres. In 1981 2001.Acrylicon linen,
he used the title again for a series of twelve large 86 x 102cm (34 x 40% in)
paintings, including four self-portraits, in which, to show FerensArtGallery,Hull
he was no Staffeleiktisser (‘easel-kisser’), he had a
professional sign painter copy photographs.
Clearly, attitudes to photography had changed
in the fifteen years since Richter first made photo-
paintings. Of course, photography and painting have
been intimately related since the very birth of
photography; but both have felt guilty about this for
a long time and denied there was any relationship.
‘Miss Painting is far too old for me, too antiquated —
in fact she could actually be dead’; ‘Mr Photography is
downright evil. He is not amember of the Art Society. mS
| couldn't contemplate even being touched by him.’
But nowadays the relationship is out in the open and
we can often see them walking together down the
street, hand in hand.
In the years around and following 1989,
however, there was some sort of rapprochement
between photography and painting. There was no more
talk about photography meaning the end of painting
or of it not being art. Photography was confident in
its own status as art, and painting had come to terms
with its own by now voracious use of photographic
images. A photographer was as likely as a painter to nrPerep
show in an art museum, and the most famous HPT
photographers, such as Jeff Wall or Andreas Gursky,
were selling works for six-figure sums. Artists from
Hockney to Fischl admitted without guilt or
embarrassment to using photography as a way of
drawing or garnering information. Moreover, like
the even newer medium video, photography was
starting to look obsolete itself in the face of computer
,
imaging and digitization. (One of the most popular
:
software programmes for manipulating images on e
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the computer was called Paintbox. It became popular 48
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ubiquitous. You have to make an effort to imagine the

scale, the aura, the sense of the unique handmade mis ses
object, the texture of paint, for at this moment you are
reading a book filled with photographic reproductions
of paintings — not the paintings themselves.

93
 Painting Today

119. Richard Estes

Double Self-portrait, 1976.

Oil on canvas, 60.8 x 91.5 em

(24 x 36 in). Museum

of Modern Art, New York

120. Vija Celmins

TV, 1964. Oil on canvas,

66.5 x 91.5 cm (26% x 36 in)

121. Gerhard Richter

Ella, 2007. Oil on canvas,

40 x 30 cm (15% x 11% in)

2.
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94
Photographic

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 Painting Today

Just as abstract artists in the 1980s had started act of voyeurism. There was a mismatch between 122. Vija Celmins
to look back at Op art as a source, so artists in the surface and image: what you saw was not what Web #2, 2000-1. Oil on linen,
1990s began to look back at photorealism, an art you experienced. 38.1 x 45.7 cm (15 x 18 in)
movement at its peak at the end of the 1960s. Much as Painters today have a sophisticated
Pop artists had copied advertisements, so artists such understanding of how photography works: they have
as Chuck Close, Richard Estes and many others then read or know of the analyses of the medium by writers
began to make large, meticulous copies of such as Roland Barthes and Susan Sontag. They have
photographs. It was a movement hated by the critics, become accustomed to living in a world of images and
who thought it was inane and said nothing, but loved are its most perspicacious commentators. Mediation is
by the public, who revelled in its technical exactness. everywhere: when Jason Brooks paints himself reflected
If we compare a painting by Chuck Close made in the glass of Turner's watercolour Harewood Castle
in 1968 / 117 / with one made by Jason Brooks in 1997 Seen from the South East (1798), he is making
/ 115 /, we seem to be looking at an identical approach a point not just about photography but also about how
and technique: a photograph is used as a model art itself has always been mediated, by frame, title
for a large canvas; the figure looms, but we are aware and installation / 118 /. Painting where the influence of
because of the blurring in the near and far distance photography is overt is the natural site in which to
that this is derived from a photograph; its presence discuss other forms of mediation, how we perceive art
is mediated, uncanny; every blemish on the skin is and through it the world.
enlarged and exposed. We note also that both artists But —and it is a big ‘but’ — although critics
are using full-frontal, informal images: he looks a mess, can and do pontificate about how this sort of work
she slouches. Just as in 1968, people in 1997 asked, is all about the mediation of the image and the world,
‘How long did this take to do? And why? It's our normal response today is, rather, that, having
extraordinary, but to what purpose?’ If Close seemed noted that it is derived from a photograph, simply to
to paint his own face as though it was as interesting, ask ourselves what experience we actually get from
or uninteresting, as a hubcap, Brooks seems to suggest the painting. We have become so used to paintings
there had been something interesting in the derived from photographs that they have lost their
hubcap that we had missed the first time round. ‘I reject shock effect. This seems to have been recognized quite
humanist issues in my work’, Close had declared in explicitly by Richter: his photo-paintings in the 1960s
1973. Or, in other words, ‘You see what you see’. But as were very much about an analysis of the difference
with Estes / 119 / the viewer will search for more, between painting and photography: hence he often
especially when it is a self-portrait. then painted the margins of a photograph as well as the
It is worth remembering that the late 1960s was photograph itself, to emphasize that he had copied it
the heyday of the colour supplement and the photo- from a book. Similarly he always included a token
journalist magazine: Look, Paris Match and others. It was photo-derived painting of landscape or flowers in any
photography, people argued, that had stopped the exhibition of his abstract paintings. But by the late
Vietnam War: the shock of the image of the girl running 1980s, as we have seen, the subject matter was explicit.
naked down the road after being napalmed, of the In recent years there has been no irony in the paintings
bodies in the ditch at My Lai. It was photographs that Richter has made of his wife and children. He is making
spoke to other people, that purported to make no point about mediation here: they are just beautiful,
the world a global village. It was also the decade when even sentimental, pictures / 121 /.
pornography became readily available: to some this Vija Celmins had been seen in the late 1960s
was the exact opposite of art, but its blatant voyeurism as one of the photorealists, but her images always
made it fascinating to some artists, especially Gerhard had a meditative quality, and even pathos. Many were
Richter and Richard Artschwager. of violent events — cars burning, guns firing, planes
Artschwager's were perhaps the first and most crashing — but presented in an utterly calm way,
hated photorealist paintings: the art historian William as though from a distance / 120 /. While such images
Seitz found them ‘sooty and repellent. Some of reflected her anger at what was happening in Vietnam,
the most distasteful and coldly aversive images of the and even more her recollections of fleeing from Latvia
sixties ... using a rancid liquitex grisaille on Celotex’. as a child before the rampaging Red Army, they
While Artschwager is better known for his sculptures, had more to do with a need to stop and reflect even
which mimic the shapes of furniture, his paintings are at the moment of most heightened action and emotion.
worked on lumpy Celotex and have a patterned surface Painting became the still voice in the tempest. The
that emphasizes their status as objects. His subjects photograph became the object on which to meditate.
are often office interiors, portraits or pornography, In flight from the abstract expressionism that
those areas where the act of looking implies control and she had been trained to paint and which she felt had
power / 116/. The extra alienating nature of the surface transpired to be bankrupt, Celmins began to paint
in Artschwager's paintings disrupted this disembodied simple images of things in her house: lamps, hot plates,

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 Photographic

combs. When she painted the television (or rather painted the photograph was reflective in the same way than once on the same sheet. She returned to painting
a photograph of the television), she combined it with as the Spanish Carthusian painter Juan Sanchez Cotan’s because she needed the layering that only painting
a picture of war disaster. ‘The photo is an alternative images of fruit or Jan Vermeer's painting of milk about could give, the more complicated spatial experience
subject, another layer that creates distance. And to pour from a jar. Celmins, like Sanchez Cotan and that it offered.
distance creates an opportunity to view the work more Vermeer, was an artist who made images of beauty and People have often seen Celmins’s work as

slowly and to explore your relationship to it. | treat calmness, even spiritual calmness, from everyday things. being about homelessness because of its emphasis on

the photograph as an object, an object to scan’, she By 1966 Celmins painted photographs only of deserts and oceans; but contrarily it could be seen

remarked to Chuck Close. For her, painting objects that were flat: the sea, the surface of the moon, as viewing the whole world, indeed the whole universe,

photographs is a dispassionate way of looking at the a letter, the stone-strewn desert. From 1966 to 1985 as home / 123 /. While the work seems so clinical, so

emotive, of re-engaging with reality. Although it was she forswore painting and made only labour-intensive perfectionist, so devoid of a personal touch, it is also

probably not recognized at that time, the way she drawings, often ‘copying’ the same photograph more profoundly romantic. Although she may deny having
 Painting Today

123, Vija Celmins

Untitled (Ocean), 1990-5

Oil on linen, 38,7 * 47.6em

(15% * 18% In)

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 Photographic

=ana q as 4 ne ey
s ~.PON yy: ee i f oreon%*
D

Untitled {

Ojon
 Painting Today

ant
ened
cae
2

. |
i
if od
iy
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the ‘Caspar David Friedrich tendency to project image that went with it.’ / 124 / Perhaps the truth is that The recognizable image is just one element to
loneliness and romance on to nature’ and claim that when we meditate on them, what we think they are — consider. The painting seems more a record of my
she paints photographs of the ocean because it night sky, photograph, painting — is always shifting. grappling with how to transform that image into
is agood way of exploring the process of making, This is curious for such silent, unassuming objects. It a painting and make it alive. | mean, dead and.alive,
the viewer's experience of these beautiful, almost does matter that we know these paintings were made since in the end the paintings (at least lately)
miniaturist images of the ocean is likely to be by repeatedly, gradually sanding down and then have become so restrained and still. ... The surface
profoundly romantic. She may have approached the repainting them to get that sense of depth. This is no is very closed and flat, but the feeling of the
sea in a roundabout way, but an image of the sea will mere spattering of white painting on black: she cannot paintings (I hope) is full and dense — like a chord
always be a metaphor. Yet Celmins speaks insistently make more than two or three a year. of music perhaps.
against such readings, saying of the drawings of distant Although one may seem to get these images
galaxies derived from photographs, which preceded instantly — ‘it's a spider-web’ or ‘it's a night sky’ — We may see the spider's web — Celmins’s most
her star paintings: ‘Even though you may think they if one pauses to look, it is clear that these are images frequent subject today — as something beautiful but
come from lying under the stars, for me they come out made slowly and with terrible meticulousness, in search also as fragile and transitory. In a sense it is a true
of loving the blackness of the pencil along with the of an ultra-precise sensation: memento mori /122 /.

100
 Photographic

Zhang Xiaogang's paintings are more Ostensibly based on the black-and-white or hand- 125. Zhang Xiaogang

coloured photographs of the Mao era, with Bloodline: Big Family, 1993.
specifically ameditation on photography:
their uniforms and earnestness, the paintings are of Oil on canvas, 100 x 130 cm

When| first began painting The Big Family series in monumental size, with a wistful beauty, haunting, yet (40 x 51 in)

1993 | was touched by these old decorative verging on kitsch. The big, imploring eyes capture
126. Zhang Xiaogang
photographs / 125 /. | could not work out why they one’s attention first; later one notices the coral-red
Big Family No. 1, 2001.
moved me so much, but they just made me think lines — blood lines — linking the all-so-passive
Oil on canvas, 200 x 300 cm
and | could not put them down. Upon reflection, sitters. Invariably one or more patches of skin are
(79 x 118 in)
| realized gradually that | was drawn in both by their coloured differently as though a ragged spotlight has
historical interest and their decorative appeal. They fallen on them or some albino-like genetic fault had
have a unique aesthetic sense that springs from manifested itself. Pictorially this disrupts the surface
Chinese popular culture in which there is a blurring illusion. The family had been the anchor of Chinese
of individuality, standardization and the stabilizing society until disrupted by Mao, with his call for
influence of ideology. children to put the state above all else: even, if need

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 Painting Today

127. Jeff Wall 128. Dirk Braeckman 129. Tim Maguire

A Sudden Gust of Wind (after C.O.-I.S.L.-94 (14), 1994. Untitled 20080601, 2008.

Hokusai), 1993. Photographic Gelatin silverprint mounted Oil on canvas, diptych,

transparency in a lightbox, on aluminium (ed. 2/5), 202 x 384 cm (79 Y2x 151 in)
229 x 377 cm (90% x 148% in) 80 x 120 cm (31% x 41% in)

be, denouncing relatives. These families of Zhang If painting meditates on photography, narrative complexity. What was certain was that Wall
are eternal but threatened: the blood lines photography has also meditated on painting, notably was demonstrating something photography could
are fragile. in Thomas Struth’s beautiful series of photographs of do — multi-figure narrative pictures — which painting
There is also in the paintings the suggestion people looking at paintings / see 2, 22 /. Aphotograph could seemingly no longer do without appearing
of genetic mutation or hereditary illness: something that such as Jeff Wall’s ASudden Gust of Wind (after hopelessly stagey.
particularly concerns Zhang, whose mother was a Hokusai) / 127 / is as contrived and composed as any When we see photographs by the Belgian artist
schizophrenic and who himself had a mental breakdown nine-teenth-century history painting. Indeed it is a Dirk Braeckman installed in museums, we seem to be
in the 1980s. The group photographs of the Mao conscious attempt to make a contemporary ‘history looking at photographs that aspire to the condition of
era purged such aberrations: everyone smiled. Zhang's painting’. Echoing the composition of a famous print painting. They are large — he likes them to be life-size.
paintings are not so implacably jolly. The series by the Japanese artist Hokusai, Wall has set up the They are unglazed — he wants no interruption to
seems extremely repetitive, yet when seen together the scene as carefully as any film director, with props and the eye. They demand as slow an act of looking as any
variations, painting to painting, are significant. The actors and lighting. He then used as many as fifty painting. They have the same richness and variety
surface becomes increasingly smooth, more photograph- separate photographs, collaging them together on of tones of grey as works by Richter or Celmins. Indeed
like /126 /. Zhang's shift from his earlier expressionism the computer, much as David or Delacroix would have Braeckman’s most famous photograph, C.O.-I.S.L.-94
to this way of working owed something to his having constructed their great paintings from manifold / 128 /, was a photograph of a painting. Before printing
gone to Germany in 1992 and having seen sketches and drawings. Inevitably people have been he re-cropped it so we see nothing of the frame
Richter’s work; but most crucially he turned away from reminded of how Victorian photographers such or surroundings. But this is no normal reproduction of
the theories that fascinated his contemporaries in order as Henry Peach Robinson, seeking to compete with a painting: the light catches the bumpiness of the
just to paint things and let them speak: ‘| began looking painters, constructed complex figure compositions. painting, the lines made by the vertical stretcher bar.
at what was around me, the people, the friends. ... Certainly there is a sense that the scale and impact Every scratch or nail is as clear as a blemish or mole on
| no longer felt the need for exaggerated expression. serve to show what painting cannot do today without a person's face. A banal painting becomes a beautiful
The flatness captured what | wanted to say. seeming antiquarian: the photograph, despite all its photograph, at once meditative and haunting.
Photographs brought me back to painting.’ One can pre-planning and post-production manipulation, has an Yet Braeckman is seeking neither to be
also say that they brought him back to the past: apparent veracity. When seen in the gallery, the lights a painter manqué nor to supplant painting. When he
his own traumatized childhood and the past of a nation behind the transparency push the image into the talks about photography, he could easily be talking
obsessed with its own lost histories. viewer's space: no-one could deny its presence or its about painting:

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 Photographic

A photograph is, in fact, nothing more than a surface come into being: this is the world seen not as stasis but final work both a strangeness and a tension: between

made up of blacks, whites and greys. This entirely as continual process. It is therefore important to know hand and photograph, between surface and image,

abstract vision for me dovetails with what is pictured in how the paintings are made. If we believe, with the between creation and destruction.

the photo: a portrait, an anecdote. ... It fluctuates, in philosopher Richard Wollheim, that when we look at a The British artist Glenn Brown takes the plays

my own work too, between abstraction and painting seriously we are trying to replicate the position on such uncanniness in paintings to an extreme. His first
representation; between the object, the material and and actions of the painter, then to understand Maguire's exhibited paintings were copied from Frank Auerbach’'s

the representation, the reality behind it, the so-called paintings is at least partly to reconstruct imaginatively works, but whereas Auerbach’s are heavy with

real image. his acts: his selection and cropping of an image, brushmarks and erasures almost to the point of being
his splitting the image on the computer into the three relief work, Brown's paintings were as smooth as a
There are few photographers more committed to the primary colours of video (yellow, magenta, cyan), then photograph. Subsequent work has reworked Salvador

specifics of their own medium. Rather, his antipathy — working from the computer-generated guides — Dali (leading to legal challenges over breach of
to easy snapshots, his concern with the mysteriousness the act of painting. First the yellow is applied with easy, copyright), Fragonard and the sci-fi illustrations of Chris

of banal things and rooms, with letting a place reveal fluid gestures, then it is spattered with solvent; then Foss / 130 /.
itself slowly through time, means his work runs in the layer of magenta and again the solvent — this Another British artist, Richard Patterson, uses
parallel with certain kinds of painting but retains its spattering being done as calmly as the painting. Lastly photography, and more recently Paintbox, to conjure
photographic status. Like some other recent the layer of cyan is added, and there is a final act of the uncanny: ‘I wanted to convey the strangeness of
photographic works, they hang more comfortably spattering. It is like a recording studio, where each track something that was really there, but without the
alongside paintings than many photographs in the past. is put down separately. But whereas in the recording crassness of its materiality.’ Because he was a keen
It is in many cases the photograph allied with studio you can go back and re-record a track, here biker, his girlfriend had given him a toy motorbike; this
what one can do with the computer that has been there is no going back: the yellow and magenta are set. annoyed him because the proportions were wrong, so
liberating to painters. The Australian artist Tim Maguire lf a mistake is made in that first stage of yellow, it is he put lumps of paint on it and then photographed
is a case in point: his paintings represent phenomena, irremediable. Maguire can lose touch with the surface: it against a photograph of an out-of-focus abstraction
but in different ways simultaneously: physical his way of working is unique — acts of touch / 132 /. Riding a motorbike is at once a very physical
things (flowers, berries, branches), activities (painting, (brushwork) alternate with acts where he does not sensation and one that keeps you profoundly isolated
spotting, seeing), states of mind (calm, pleasure, directly touch (spattering). The results are often as you speed past things — not unlike painting:
perturbation) / 129 /. They represent the way things beautiful, lusciously coloured, but the method gives the physical activity in the isolation of the studio

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Painting Today
 Photographic

This play on painting and photography bloodstains. We do not know whether to see them

as voyeurist or participatory was extended in as beautiful or tacky, as full-bloodied paintings or

a series of paintings by Patterson on a character called as a conceptual charade of paintings. Perhaps it is this
Thomson. When speaking on the phone, the artist uncertainty that makes them so fascinating.
found himself irritated by the Thomson trade directory, As noted earlier, painters’ attitudes to
with its image of a cat on the cover: ‘it was so photography have changed: an older generation (those
sanitized, implying nudity without genitals. This kind who came to artistic maturity in the 1970s or before)
FOR THE LOCALANSWER of generic cartooning we have, that our culture does, grew up seeing photography as a competitor, even an
MSON_ | creates something incredibly bland and inoffensive. enemy; a younger generation (that which emerged in
So it seemed that Thomson had to be regenerated as the 1990s) grew up surrounded by photographic
a more aggressive sort of animal/human.’ Having media. As one older artist (Ronald Jones, born 1952)
redrawn the cat as a painterly, carnivalesque character, said of a younger (Elizabeth Peyton, born 1965) and her
in the resulting painting Patterson made him appear contemporaries, they ‘made their peace early on with
to pull back the pages to show all sorts of sexual photographs and all the rest. ... there would never be
activity going on / 131 /. ‘The Thomson character is also the anxiety over the loss of the real which traumatized
a kind of self-portrait, because of the voyeurism my generation’. When Peyton paints after a
of painting.’ photograph there is no sense of her making an ironic
This situation, where painting does not so comment about representation: we know the world
much copy or quote photography as wobble back and through photographs, and we know famous people
forth between it, can also be seen clearly in the Nurse through photographs. People at a rock concert
paintings of Richard Prince / 133, 134 /. Just as in his hold cameras high above their head to take snapshots
De Kooning paintings / see 45 /, some elements seem of the stars, to get closer, to hold that moment of
430. Glenn Brown painted, others derived from photographs, although fervour and love. Peyton’s work segues relatively easily
The Real Thing, 2000. Oil often we are not sure which. Prince uses inkjet printing from paintings after paintings, to paintings after
on wood, 82 x 66.5 cm to reproduce and enlarge the covers of romantic photographs, to paintings after life. Like Peter Doig or
(32% x 26% in) stories about nurses: it is part of a lifetime project to Luc Tuymans, she uses photographs as memory
examine the American dream at its most mundane, traces, as fragments of the past, as a ground on which
131. Richard Patterson a project that began with enlarging and exhibiting the to improvise. ‘Photographs give you distance’, she
Thomson, 1995. Oil on canvas, macho cowboy photographs used to advertise comments. ‘They let you alone to work.’ Aphotograph
148 x 111.8 cm (58% x 44in) Marlboro cigarettes. These are profoundly ambivalent of Kurt Cobain is her starting point for an avowedly
paintings, at once sexy and violent: witness the painterly, unashamedly lyrical image / 135 /.
132. Richard Patterson

Motocrosser II, 1995. Oil and

acrylic on canvas, 208 x 315 cm

(82 x 124 in)

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 Painting Today

133. Richard Prince

Millionaire Nurse, 2002.
Acrylic and inkjet print
on canvas, 147.3 x 91.4 cm

i 5 , (58 x 36 in)

wis ‘ 134. Richard Prince

peu i Dude Ranch Nurse, 2002.

Acrylic and inkjet print on

a canvas, 203.2 x 132.1 cm

(80 x 52 in). Collection

| Julia and Edward J. Minskoff

106
Photographic

107
Painting Today
 Photographic

Something similar happens in the work

of the American artist Karen Kilimnik: photography is
a convenient launch pad for fantasy. Her paintings can
look feeble, as though a teenage girl has copied a
photograph of her favourite pop star. Kilimnik’searliest
work was not painting but rather collecting
memorabilia, and this act of collecting still informs the
paintings: she collects faces of celebrities, people
she would love to be — in this case, Scarlett Johansson
/136/. The act of painting is a way of making that
act of fanzine devotion imaginatively real. ‘To
me painting is magic — it's fun being able to paint
a big house, or lots of animals — there they are
as if they're mine now. ... It makes the world a more
delightful + fun place for me + | hope for you too.’
Her painting style owes a lot to glamour illustration
and those eighteenth-century painters who specialized
in charm, such as Thomas Lawrence. It appears
deliberately naive: we are never to be sure whether she
is painting from the heart or acting out the role of fan.
The Scottish artist Lucy McKenzie / 137 / is
another young painter who has no qualms about using
photographs as the basis for paintings. For her it is just
not an issue any more: photographs are as much
part of the world as trees or clouds; they are part of the
landscape. In her early painting of Olga Korbut she
hints at puppy-year devotion to the famous gymnast,
pastiching socialist realism; that it was first shown
accompanied bya wall of photographs of both Korbut
and McKenzie with her fellow Glaswegians dressed up
as Soviet athletes suggests that the act of identification
is what this is all about.
‘1am an artist,’ remarks Marlene Dumas, who
likewise frequently uses photographs as her starting point,
‘who uses second-hand images and first-hand experiences.’
But she treats the photographic image in such a cavalier
fashion that we scarcely think of the underlying photograph.
For example, her self-portrait / 138 / is so painterly,
so suffused with colours, so punctuated by marks that

135. Elizabeth Peyton 136. Karen Kilimnik

Alizarin Kurt, 1995. The Girl in the Pearl Earring

Oil on canvas, 60.9 x 50.8 cm in Shakespeare's Cottage,

(24 x 20 in) 2005. Water-soluble oil

on canvas, 50.8 x 40.6 cm

(20 x 16 in)

137. Lucy McKenzie

Olga Korbut, 1998. Oil

on canvas, 106 x 400 cm

(41% x 157% in)

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Painting Today

110
 Photographic

138. Marlene Dumas

we can scarcely read it as a photograph — although it as in the German artist Johannes Kahrs’s remaking
Evil is Banal, 1984. Oil on
clearly derives from one. It is a close-up — a type of of a photograph of Nancy Reagan / 139 /. As a painting
canvas, 125 x 105 cm
image unimaginable before photography. it is like a bruise, more wholly intractable than a passing
4 x 41% in)
A portrait painted face-to-face implies a one- photographic glance of a haunted, ageing face.
Abbemuseum, Eir
to-one, an ich-du (|-thou), relationship. It is a weird painter One aspect of this relaxed rapprochement
who does not talk to and get involved with his sitter. But, between painting and photography has been
139. Johannes K
as Dumas points out, ‘my people were all shot by a the phenomenon in recent years of many painters in late
Untitled (Old Wo
camera, framed before | painted them. They didn’t know career — Hockney, Rauschenberg, Scully, Twombly, for
Oil on canvas, 40 =
that I'd do this to them. They didn’t know by what names example starting to release their photographs as
(15% x
| would call them.’ She jokes that she paints because the artworks in their own right. Artists’ photographs are not
world is flat, and, of course, it is photographs that now seen as forms of cheating but as having the status
present the world as a ready-made flat surface. These flat of sketches, the places where sensations are caught or
surfaces can seem bland but be unsettling or nostalgic, ideas first projected.
 Painting Today

Although this book is organized by theme or subject _.

matter, this chapter and the next are about abstraction, at ;
which by definition has no overt subject matter. This is , 5
especially true of process and geometry-oriented work, 4 =
on which this chapter focuses. Yet in its beginnings, a =
with Mondrian and Kandinsky, such work enshrined a Legge!
search for the deepest aesthetic or spiritual meanings.
Then and now this did not communicate to a majority,
but for the minority it was the very crux of painting.
Monochrome painting, especially, was not, is not and
never will be popular. It irritates people. They feel they ;
are being conned, that there truly is nothing there. ‘It is ne a ae = an
always the same,’ Brice Marden remarked when | told | 2 = : .
him in the late 1980s that someone had scrawled graffiti im —

ononeofhisearlygreymonochromes,
‘people
hate is ne eer F
a vacuum, it's horror vacui. That is why museums hang ve, Se,
monochrome canvases so high.’
But it continues. Almost all those who had
been making monochrome paintings in the 1970s and
‘80s carried on making them. For Robert Ryman, as
before, this was a matter of refined sensibility: noting
small nuances and variations, how the light touches
and changes colours and surfaces / 140 /. Ryman’s work
remains highly sensitive to its environment: ‘With
daylight, | like it even if it’s dim. Even if it's a dark day,

it's still nice. The paintings just take on another life.

Daylight is active, so it brings the painting alive with the
constant changing of the light, subtle changes, and so
that's really perfect.’ His explanations are always
straightforward, unproblematic. Ifthe most basic thing is
paint, that is what we will consider — and how it is
revealed through installation and lighting.
The monochrome has its own specific tradition,
from Kazimer Malevich and Alexander Rodchenko
before 1920 to Yves Klein in the 1950s, and this tradition
endures. Although they may find it difficult to believe
totally in the spiritual aura that Klein claimed was
contained in his blue monochromes / 141 /, many young
artists are still enthralled by the intensity of his
work, by the possibility that colour can be a gateway
to transcendental experience. ‘Colour is imbued’,
Klein wrote,

140. Robert Ryman

No Title Required I, 2007-8.
Enamel on wood, 10 panels, overall

dimensions 1.37 x 17.20 m

(4'6 x 56'5 ft), individual panels range

from 127 x 139.7 cm (50 x 55 in) to

139.7 x 139.7 cm (55 x 55 in). Installed

PaceWildenstein, New York

114
Pure Abstraction

115
 Painting Today

ee

with all, just like everything, and partakes of indefinable

sensibility, formless and limitless. ... | call for receptivity
from the viewer to my works. This will allow him to
be aware of everything surrounding the monochrome
painting. Then he can impregnate himself with colour,
and colour impregnates itself in him. Thus, perhaps, he
can enter into the world ofcolour.

The paintings of the American artist Joseph Marioni

offer extremely physical, ‘concrete’ experiences
in which we can, he believes, both become aware of
our sense of being and also sense a spiritual identity.
Marioni applies acrylic paint on to large canvases
with a roller and lets it flow downwards, sometimes
touching it with brush or hand as it goes. The stretcher
at the bottom is rounded, so that paint drips away
rather than drying in a puddle. Several layers may be
painted, producing a generally monochrome, but in
fact highly complex, surface. In Green Painting (1992),
for example, we can see the marks of the downward
flow, the way paint streaks or coagulates as it dries;
we see the darker ground more clearly at the edges
/ 142 /. He uses acrylic paint because it is fluid and
dries quickly; it doesn’t need a ground of gesso, as oil
does, but can be applied direct to the canvas: it has
an immediacy.
According to Marioni,

|
Monochrome painting makes colour more accessible,
it has greater potential for depth in colour experience
and | think it is about emotional intimacy... There
is a vast field of colour experience that painting is just
beginning to enter. | see monochrome painting as
that beginning.

His work is an exploration of the essence of painting

141. Yves Klein
after Rothko: for him Rothko’s chapel is the end of the
Monochrome Blue, 1957.
tradition of Romantic painting searching for the
Dry pigment in synthetic sublime. Now people should focus on the actuality of
resin on canvasboard,
specific colours and paintings. The viewer's experience
152.4 x 101.6 cm should be embedded in the concrete actuality of the
(60 x 40 in). Hamburger painting, its gestalt. For Marioni the key icon in ;
Kunsthalle, Hamburg painting's history has been Veronica's veil, a ‘painting’
made by the sweat and blood ofJesus. The notion of
142. Joseph Marioni the painting as being spirit made flesh, made painterly
Green Painting, 1992. Acrylic trace, intrigues him.
and Linen on Stretcher,
235 x 200 cm (92% x 78% in). In our traditional Western thinking it seems like a
Stadisches Museum Abteiberg, contradiction — ‘transparent concrete’, ‘spiritual |
Ménchengladbach matter’. Transcendence is, for me, the engagement of
the body. It is the spiritual experience. In painting this
is accomplished by the viewer through visual intimacy
with the body paint. It is how we see light and for the
painter light is god.

What that word ‘god’ means in this context is uncertain.

The great merit of Marioni’s position is that, just as

116
Pure Abstraction
Painting Today

t Feats

118
 Pure Abstraction

143. Joseph Marioni 144. Robert Mangold

YellowPainting, 2006. Frame paintings, including (right)

Acrylic and Linen on Stretcher, Four Colour Frame Painting #5,
280 x 300 cm (110% x 118 in). 1984. Acrylic and black pencil on

Kolumba Museum, Cologne canvas, 281.9 x 266.7 cm

(111 x 105 in). Installed at

Parasol Unit Foundation for

Contemporary Art, London, 2009

ee

119
Painting Today

120
 Pure Abstraction

145. Robert Mangold

Curved Plane/Figure IV (Double
Panel), 1995. Acrylic and pencil
on canvas, 248.9 x 363.2 cm
(98 x 143 in)

146. Sean Scully

Wall of Light Fall, 2000. Oil

on linen, 279.4 x 335.3 cm

(110 x 132 in)

with his paintings, it offers what seems to be a very | reacted against the idea of perfection and of
definite statement, but it is one that turns out to end the holistic masterpiece. | wanted to make realities that

in a challenging question: what is this experience in were much more humanistic, where the problematic

front of a painting? Why should one painting be more relationship between things could make a new spirit

compelling than another? / 143 / and beauty. | am not trying to make masterpieces that
are resolved. | want to make paintings to express the
The complexity of the abstract tradition — or
rather, traditions — the width of routes it provides can pathos of relationships.
be seen in the very different work of Robert Mangold
Mangold emphasizes rather the importance of shape,
and Sean Scully. In both cases it was a matter of looking
scale and design: for him ‘the painting process is not
back at the past to re-envisage the future. Mangold
terribly important to me and it takes the least amount
wrote, ‘When | discovered — not looked at for the first
of time ... | don’t particularly like the term “painting”
time, but really discovered — Barnett Newman's painting
because [it emphasizes] process, or applying paint’.
[in] 1961, | gradually realized possibilities in painting
What Mangold has also firmly refused has been
that interested me, a kind of relational painting, [that
part of a tradition of ‘geometric art’. His concern with
is to say] painting you relate to like architecture, shape, scale and how the work and the viewer inhabit a
in a scale related to human size’. But for Scully, the work space has led him in recent years to an interest in Italian
of Mondrian, Matisse and Rothko has been key — all fresco painting — an art that is always related to a
artists who emphasized touch, and who constantly specific space. His frame paintings of the 1980s literally
reworked their canvases. For Scully, the breakthrough to framed the wall itself /144 /. Like Ryman he investi-
a mature style had been in 1981, when after twelve gates the relationship of painting to wall. What stops
years of painting stripes cleanly and precisely he began a painting such as Curved Plane/Figure IV (Double
to make them freehand, painting colour into colour, Panel) / 145/ is its flatness, its play of drawn line against
wet into wet so the trace of the brush could always colour and its relationship to a tradition of shaped
be seen, where the possibility of accident and a sense paintings that includes not only Ellsworth Kelly but also,
of time was apparent. as he realized subsequently, early Italian altarpieces.

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 Painting Today

147. lan Davenport 149. Callum Innes followingpages: Whereas for Mangold a painting is a flat surface
Untitled, 1988. Oil on canvas, Untitled no.2, 2009. Oil on 150. Jane Lee on a wall, in his Wall of Light paintings / 146 / he has
214 x 213 cm (84% x 83% in) linen, 212.5 x 202.5 cm Fetish IV, 2008. Acrylicon made since 1998 Scully transforms the physicality of a
(83% x 79% in) canvas, 100 x 100 cm wall, whether he has seen it in New York or the Yucatan,
148. lan Davenport (39 Y2x 39% in) into light — and, he hopes, feeling. The ‘thinginess’
Poured ReversalPainting: light of these paintings, their bulk, the insistence of the big
blue, blue, 1999. Household oil 151. AlexisHarding brush-marks, has to do with expressing human
paint on medium density Three Wishes, 2007. Oil and emotions and a search for the metaphysical: ‘You get to
fibreboard, 182.8 x 304.8 cm household gloss paint on the spirit through the physical, or through the sensual,
(72 x 120 in) medium density fibreboard, or through being in the world’. ‘Since ultimately all art
100 x 90 cm (39% x 35 Yain) is figurative,’ Scully says, ‘the question has to be
how to put the human beings into it. What | have tried
to do is something close to the ambition of portraiture
or still life. | paint my abstract form as if it were

a portrait ... the task | have set myself is to somehow

reconnect abstraction — to bring it out of a kind of
isolation and make it possible for people to get a direct
feeling about the real world in relation to an abstract
painting that they're looking at.’
It could be argued that the difference between
Mangold and Scully is an old one: between what the
Renaissance saw as disegno and colore (design/drawing
versus colour) or the divide in abstract expressionism
between gesturalism (Pollock) and colour field
(Newman). One may also point out that a key reason
for their difference is that Mangold crucially only
later responded to New York painting culture growing
more attentive to a wider tradition, whereas Scully,
an Irishman brought up in England who moved to New
York aged thirty, has always been conscious of being
in a European tradition.
‘lam fascinated by the way the most simple
devices can lead to the most complex results’, writes
lan Davenport. As a student in the painting studios
he felt stuck and went to work instead with the
sculptors. Subsequently he returned to painting but,
much like a sculptor approaches his material, he
approached paint as stuff that would react differently
to certain processes — dripping, pouring, spattering
and so on. His paintings look as though made by
chance but are in fact made with great precision; they
look immaculate but come out of implicitly messy,
gloopy processes.
In an early painting, Untitled (1988), black
household gloss was poured down a large square can-
vas and then nine pours, or large drips, of white were
made over it / 147 /. A filigree of smaller drips flew
to the side like the ornamentation on a Classical porti-
co. The making of these paintings was highly physical
and demanding, but the resulting images were stable
and calm. This was a paradox typical of Davenport's
work, which seemed able to integrate the rigorous and
the lyrical. His work was closest in approach to that of
Robert Smithson, who had made sculptures or land art
by pouring glue or asphalt and letting nature take its
course. Smithson’s interests were in entropy and gravity:
in what materials naturally did.

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amis
acest

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Painting Today
a =]L o < 2 wn © as; a c
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Lee
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iat
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 Painting Today

In his largest flow piece he had a lorry load of asphalt It sounds a Dada-istic or conceptual strategy,
tipped down a hillside in Italy. To do this in Italy, for but the results are surprisingly organic: ‘natural’, like an
an American the archetypal home of art, was especially eroded riverbank or a landscape dissolving into mist.
poignant. In such ambivalence we find a predecessor The process, as with Davenport, allows for paintings of
for Davenport's flows: he goes to a method seemingly great beauty.
antithetical to painting and then brings it back We can see how disruptive and anti-pure,
within a tradition of painting. It is not irrelevant that anti-geometric, this reversal of normal procedures, of
one of Davenport's great enthusiasms is for Fra Angeli- painting with solvents, can be in the abstract paintings
co’s frescos in the monastery of San Marco in Florence: of Tim Maguire, an artist who normally works in a more
paintings of unequivocal directness. controlled way / 152 /. It is like a double exposure: the
Colour relationships are crucial to the Arch colours are all brushed together, in a state of chaos or
paintings, which Davenport began in 1996 / 148 /. ‘In potential harmony, not so much completed as paused:
the Arch paintings,’ he says, ‘combinations of colour the activity seems still latent. Order in an entropic
were simple to begin with: a colour and white or black world is always likely to collapse again into a situation
and then they became complex, a lemon yellow line of pure process.
with a yokey [sic] orange yellow, or a burnt orange with Elsewhere, the Korean monochrome painters
a vibrant magenta. Later on the same holding colour who emerged in the 1970s were concerned with
line would pan through several coloured panels.’ In emphasizing Korean-ness, with stressing that their
these paintings a large circle of paint poured on with a indigenous culture was capable of responding
watering can would then be tipped off; and then, once coherently to Western modernism. Works such as those
dry, another slightly smaller circle of poured-on paint by Ha Chong-Hyun are comparable to Western
would be run over. The drawing had become tense: investigations of paint: Ha forces paint through the
the lines between the areas of differing colour would rough weave of the hempen cloth and then scrapes it
thicken and thin and slowly curve down towards into a ‘de-materialized’ state, a repetitive uniform
the bottom. In this concentration of the drawing into pattern / 153 /. But the Korean artists are very different
one complex but highly suave line Davenport was in their approach to colour field, seeing it as a mental
echoing Ryman, in whose work, having given over the state, a blending into nature. Moreover it is always
paint surface to nothing but white — or shades of white or near white. This was seen as both natural
white — the edge and how it was described became and recognizably Korean — Koreans had been known
a complex and scantily concealed drawing process. as the ‘people of white cloth’. This work, for them,
Jane Lee / 150 / and Alexis Harding / 151 /, harmonized spirit and matter. With little change,
extend this exploration of paint. Play is important Ha, Lee Ufan and others have continued to this day
to Lee: it is in play that the happy accident can happen making such work, like prayers to be endlessly
— some new motif or way of manipulating paint. In her repeated. In their view, by being at one with their
recent works she has painted strips of paint on glass material they became at one with nature and ina state
and then, when dry, peeled them off, cut them up into of enlightenment. ‘| do not want to express myself
slivers and then, having rolled them up in rosettes or directly,’ Ha writes, ‘rather, | want to talk through the
columns, stuck them to canvas or wood. The resulting neutral materiality. The naturalness | gain in the
paintings — uniquely made with dried paint — are thick process of expressing the materiality and uniting two
and rich; heart shapes lurk archly, as though to different materials can be compared with the way we
emphasize the possibility of passion. Harding has for live in harmony with nature.’
many years painted grids that when only half dried are Lee Ufan plants brushmarks on his canvases
tilted up so that the paint slides down the support, much as one may plant a shrub or stone in a garden.
dragging and distending the grid. In more recent work His work grew more sparse and minimal in the 1990s,
he has allowed himself greater freedom, but the play but the purpose was consistent. ‘My works’, he claims,
between paint as solid and paint as liquid continues.
Like Lee's, his paintings are no mere technical exercise: are a gateway and a path to infinity. Infinity is not the
the results are sumptuous and evocative. space ofan enclosed image but the boundlessness
Painting is traditionally an additive process: sensed in one’s relation to the outside world. Paintings
we put paint on. In actuality many painters wipe, that summon upa vivid image ofinfinity by marking
scrape or sand off more paint than they finally leave a few dots on an empty canvas. ... None of them seeks
on the canvas. Callum Innes unusually makes such a to propagate or expand its own idea; instead they
moment of subtraction as the defining moment of his provide a locus from relations with the outside world in 152. Tim Maguire
paintings: having painted, very precisely, a horizontal order to summon the unknown. According to the true Untitled 20010219, 2001.
band of colour, or the entire surface, sometimes with theory of self and other, when we go beyond the Oil on canvas, 146 x 120 cm
another colour hidden beneath, on to a white canvas, world of human beings and consider our relation with (57 Y2 x 47 % in).
he then washes half of it away with turps / 149 /. the outside world, a new horizon of art is opened. Private collection

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 Painting Today

Lee's paintings are made quickly, but only after Looking at Bernard Frize’s small painting friends to help, so each will pull their brush according
prolonged meditation. He has described his work as Suite Segond, SF N5 from 1980 we may remember that to the plan, their colours covering or blending as they
more like calligraphy than painting, but calligraphy circles were ubiquitous in classic abstract art — often pass and meet. The results are attractive, although
without language: only the traditional encounter of as images of purity or wholeness / 155 /. But when some may dislike the surface: it has been called ‘a shiny
body and canvas / 154 /. we learn how Frize has made the painting, we know substance as slick as oilcloth’. His work has appealed to
this was not his intention. ‘One morning, | came to those who want to emphasize the death of painting and
Contrarily, the French painter Bernard Frize
the studio and all the paint containers | had forgotten choose to see his work as amusing but meaningless,
does not see painting as a route to enlightenment. For
to seal the night before had dried up, so | cut them proof positive of the vacuity of painting. When with his
Frize, as for many in the West, the example of Barnett
out. | had nowhere to put them so | put them on customary nonchalance he self-deprecatingly claims
Newman, whose work he saw in 1971, was crucial:
a canvas and all this was done without giving it much ‘the procedures | use are as trivial as spreading butter
thought.’ He wants to let painting play, not make on bread in the morning’, he may seem to subscribe to
It's not only his work that | admire but also his ethic and
it pray. that view himself. But the more we see his work, the
his political attitude, which | find exemplary — and the
Frize’s work is procedure- rather than process- less it looks like merely a ‘sophisticated entertainment’.
memory of a period when one could take painting
driven. Many recent paintings are made with 18-inch- In much of his work there is a curious beauty, at once
seriously, maybe ... | mean, | take painting seriously as wide (45.7 cm) brushes loaded with assorted colours joyful and free, that goes beyond triviality / 156 /.
a spectator, but as a painter it’s really impossible for me that will be swept in a prearranged pattern around the When in 1994 the Russian artists Komar and
to have the same kind of rapport with the medium that canvas, itself covered with a still-wet resin ground. Melamid did a survey of people's preference for their
Newman had — such a total rapport, so full of faith. Sometimes, to ensure the necessary speed, he will get most wanted and most unwanted painting, every

128
Pure Abstraction

153. Ha Chong-Hyun
Conjunction 03-53, 2003.
Oil on and pushed through from
the reverse of hempen cloth,
45 x 100 cm (17% x 39% in)

154. Lee Ufan

Works installed at Lisson Gallery,
London, April-May 2008

129
 Painting Today

country bar The Netherlands chose an abstract painting as an utterly failed project. Geometry, as Peter Halley 155. Bernard Frize
as its most unwanted. The American representative noticed, had become not the lineaments of the ideal Rispe, 2004. Acrylic and oil

is typical: spiky, with an unsensual surface. In short, but a structure of control, the architecture not of the on canvas, 145 x 175 cm

it is geometrical. pure mind but of the prison. The paintings of Sarah (57 x 69 in)
Geometry had been for early modernists such Morris perhaps best encapsulate this ambivalence for
as Mondrian the lineaments of a better, more ideal us. Modelled on modern office blocks, they now, 156. Bernard Frize

world. Now we look at the buildings of Le Corbusier glossy though they are, suggest dystopia rather than Suite Segond, SF N5, 1980

and are won over by their beauty and their optimistic the Platonic utopia that Mondrian had sought in 35 x 27 cm (13% x 10% in).

view of the future, of ideal communities. But when we his geometric abstraction. These large paintings are De Pont Foundation, Tilburg

look at the tens of thousands of lazily designed and impeccably made, but with the lo-art medium of
shoddily built tower blocks built under his influence, household gloss. They are based on the facades of
we think of the squalor, depression and violence those contemporary corporate buildings: First Bank Miami,
buildings have spawned and cannot but think of this Novotel (Nice), Universal L.A. / 157 /.

130
Pure Abstraction

131
Painting Today

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Pure Abstraction

157. Sarah Morris

Universal (Los Angeles), 2004

Household gloss paint on

canvas, 289 x 289 cm

(113% x 113% in)

158. Dan Sturgis

Insistent Polemic, 2008-9

Acrylic on canvas, 163 x 214 cm
(64% x 84% in)

159. Peter Halley

Indexed, 2007. Roll-A-Tex,
Day-Glo acrylic, pearlescent
acrylic and acrylic on canvas,
244 x 381 cm (96 x 150 in)

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 Painting Today

In today’s architecture the facade, the skin, the urban world. Not the aesthetic of high modernism to view and move on. What they suggest is that
is normally bolted on to the building after the structure but the fragmentary experience that results from urban geometry is always potentially political, for it is through
is finished; it represents not the function of the building sprawl and megastructures. | am more interested in geometry that our world, and how we live, is structured.
but rather what is currently fashionable or what can be corporate hotel design than Le Corbusier although you Dan Sturgis has a similar fascination with
bought most cheaply. Likewise, Morris‘s work tells us can't get one without the other.’ That her experience of patterning and the gaudy colours of post modern
nothing about geometry or modernism — these are the world is one of fragmentation is made clear in the buildings and web design. His early paintings reworked
smart, sexy paintings, but disturbingly empty — yet films Morris makes, which she often shows with the modernist geometry with brash colours and quirky
they make us think about our own response. The paintings. The camera moves from one isolated urban asymmetry. In his more recent paintings a human
paintings are seductive (she sometimes also paints incident to another: men crossing the street, people presence is implied by the dots standing admid what
shoes with high heels), they look iconic, but as we start drinking Coke, lights reflected in the office facade, could be variegated concrete jungles or cartoon
to look at them we become aware that these are details women processing down a catwalk. There is no canyons / 158 /. Geometry can be the lineaments of the
of bigger schemes, that they are fragments of facades. narrative, no commentary, save an insistent, repetitive austere life, or have nothing to do with life, or else have
‘I crop’, she notes, ‘and compile a fragmented view of musical score and the edgy compulsion of the camera the cheap and cheerful vitality of the street market.

134
Pure Abstraction

160. He

Great Wall, 1986, and Death

of a Black Snake, 1999, ins

at Bonn Kunstmuseun

161. Helmut Federle

Untitled (Three Horizontals

One Vertical), 1991

Oil on canvas, 275 x 405 cm

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 Painting Today

Peter Halley's work since the 1980s has become four lines, or else a grid, on his white canvas. But they good — as when a beautiful girl or boy enters a room
larger, more complex, less angry, more at ease with the were always hand-drawn. In the hothouse of New York and we pause — sensing radiance and calm. Being
pleasure he finds in the geometrically derived world. abstract painting every painting can be like a move in concerned with how things are seen and aware that
He wrote that the events of 9/11 had made him realize
a game, a solution to previous problems or a response context is an integral part of experience, he began to
what he had ‘been doing all these years as a New York to preceding hypotheses. ‘| expected the viewer to make specific installations for his paintings, and those
painter without really thinking about it: responding see the work as funky, personal minimalism. One way of other artists when he curated mixed exhibitions,
to the wonder of this city — its cacophonous energy, its | describe these works is as a “cartoony” diagram: changing the lighting, painting the wall or drawing lines
shimmering sense of social reality, its absurd pretences Philip Guston makes a Peter Halley.’ This was a clever with tape on the gallery floors to make it feel more
and grandiosity, the way in which it both crushes and move in the game, a shrewd strategy, yet the paintings enclosed and intimate / 162 /. This concern with the
uplifts our sense of humanity at the same time’ / 159 /. nevertheless had presence. overall effect of a painting, which leads him to hang his
Can there be such a thing as pure abstraction What do we mean by that word: ‘presence’? paintings very low, led him to consider also how
any more? The aspirations of Mondrian and Kandinsky When we enter a room a painting, if it has certain reproduction distorts painting: ‘catalogues objectify
are, it seems, far more dead than those of Fra Angelico qualities, has a presence like a person standing in there. everything. | think it was Newman who said that
and Durer. Yet Helmut Federle continues to make lt occupies the space, not just a segment of the wall.
painting was a battle against the catalogue.’ In 2001
purely abstract paintings not only because that is what It asks to be looked at and responded to, much as
Walsh, unusually for an artist, designed his own
he does but also because that is what he believes in. More a person might. What is odd about a painting is that in
catalogue, redrawing each painting and reproducing it
recent paintings are still direct but with a multiplicity the course of this response it may turn itself into
against a screen of red and blue dots, by way of making
of marks, while he has a great concern with installation a space. Sometimes presence will be there when the strange the background. For every exhibition he now
and how the work interacts with architecture: he also artist did not expect it.
makes an artist's book in which he or an assistant draws
makes architectural reliefs and stained glass / 160, 161 /.
Walsh's early paintings may have been wry or and colours the format of each painting. The pages
Dan Walsh's early work owed much to kooky, but they were often surprisingly harmonious — are embossed or cut into: a surprisingly rare attempt to
minimalism: sometimes drawing no more than three or
beautiful and graceful even. They could make us feel echo or preserve the aura of a painting as a unique

136
 Pure Abstraction

oF

object in the catalogue. Recent paintings have varied As a painter today you have to work without that 162. Dan Walsh

between the more austere — with more direct, frontal essential platform. But if one does not deceive oneself Installation of works at Paula

compositions — and the complex, but the hand-drawn and accepts this lack of certainty, other things come Cooper Gallery, New Yor

into play — they may be the reverse of what one would March—April,f ' 2000
element is still crucial, constantly playing off the quirky
diagrammatic composition and the scale / 163 /. expect. Rather like colour, whose instability can become
Bridget Riley’swork through the 1980s and another form of certainty. 163. Dan Walsh
1990s expanded her exploration not of the hand-drawn Bounty, 2007. Acrylic on canvas
(she is well known for getting assistants to complete the The British painter Estelle Thompson prefers 139.7 x 228.6 cm (55 x 90

paintings) but of colour contrasts, sometimes using as to call her ‘stripes’ ‘bars’: she wants to make them more
many as twenty-five colours in combination / 164 /. complex internally than Riley's, with greater flux
However, this was no mere scientific exploration: as and energy / 165 /. As with lan Davenport in his stripe
always she was concerned with painting as allowing the paintings, the combination of colours and rhythms
most profound experiences. ‘Painting’, she says with causes not just perceptual wobbles but an animation
customary deliberation, of the environment: they activate the whole room they
hang in. These, like Frize’s and Davenport's, are stripe
is, | think, inevitably an archaic activity and one that paintings without the aid of masking tape: painted with
depends on spiritual values. One of the big crises in rollers, each loaded with several colours, each painting
painting — at least a century or two, maybe even three seems, when successful, to have a chromatic life of
centuries old — was precipitated by the dropping its own. By blending the paints, making bars not stripes,
away of the support of a known spiritual context in which she avoids the sheerly geometrical and its associations.
a creative impulse such as painting could find a place. The history of recent abstract painting has partly
This cannot be replaced by private worlds and reveries. been about escaping the banality of trademark painting,

137
 Painting Today

164. Bridget Riley

Harmony in Rose 1, 1997. Oil

on linen, 164.5 x 227.7 cm

(64% x 89 in)

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Pure Abstraction

139
 Painting Today

165. Estelle Thompson where you recognize what you see instantly, whether it because of its formal coherence and complexity and
Skimmy, 2001. Oil on panel, is a 1960s’ Noland or Stella; put another way, it has partly because of the associations we can bring to it:
60 x 80 cm (23 % x 31% in) been about rediscovering complexity and detail. architecture, landscape, microscopic phenomena
Perhaps this is where Gerhard Richter, in such works as or, perhaps, the spiritual. ‘Abstract paintings’, Richter
166. Gerhard Richter
Abstract No. 599 of 1986, is such an exceptional and wrote, ‘are fictitious models because they visualize
Abstract No. 599, 1986.
key influence. The sheer complexity of this abstract a reality which we can neither see nor describe. ...
Oil on canvas, 300 x 250 cm
work is extraordinary, like looking at a cityscape at We attach negative names to this reality; the un-
(118 x 98% in). Museum
evening when light catches all the windows and known, the un-graspable, the in-finite.’
Ludwig, Cologne (on loan
pediments differently / 166 /. We can stand back and The variety of belief — from Frize’s ‘triviality’ to
Stoffel Collection, Pinakothek
sense the whole or go up close, track back and forth, Richter’s ‘in-finite’ — that underpin ‘pure’ abstraction
der Moderne, Munich)
looking at detail after detail with curiosity and show it to be far richer and more problematic than the
satisfaction. This is one of Richter's ‘spatula paintings’, ‘formalist, modernist’ notion of abstraction that has
where paint has been pushed back and forth or been stereotyped and derided by its critics since 1968.
scraped away with a spatula: it fascinates us partly Clearly this is still an ongoing project.

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 Painting Today

‘Subject matter is simply something to hang the with lots of looping lines and quirky hieroglyphs. The 167. David Reed
activity of painting on’, at least one abstract painter transposition of this ‘doodling’ to large paintings is for #521, 2004. Oil and alkyd on
has declared. But in 1986, the year he painted Lasker a way to ‘reference the subconscious in a very linen, 66 x 127 cm (26 x 50 in)
Blobscape / 96 /, the American artist Jonathan Lasker conscious way’.
wrote quite the opposite: ‘I’mseeking subject matter, Lasker was always at pains to say how serious 168. Jonathan Lasker
not abstraction.’ He queried why people thought these paintings were, that they came out of an ethical Domestic Setting with
abstraction had come back: he believed it had died position and that, above all else, they were not techno- Post-partum Anxiety, 1999.
with Stella’s black paintings: he himself sought not funk: ‘One of my intents in making these paintings’, Oil on linen, 243.8 « 325.1 cm
abstraction, something which ‘represented nothing but he wrote in 1993, (96 x 128 in)
its own form’, but a poetics of painting:
is to support the position of the human hand, and thus 169. Jonathan Lasker

A poetics which could also embrace broad topics, the integrity of human identity. It is true that these The Quotidian and the

such as memory and presence, materiality and Question, 2007. Oil on linen,
paintings freely ingest many aspects of our media-
transcendence, and the flattening of high and low based and mechanistic society, but always as a foil for 228.6 x 304.8 cm (90 x 120 in)

culture. It’s to this end that I’ve painted unhappy the expressions of the human hand and psyche. ...
marriages of the biomorphic and the decorative, Paint bears physical record to the expression of the
the mark of the ‘loaded brush’ and the geometric, human hand. It conforms to the trail of the brush being
the psyche and popular culture. driven by impulses of the psyche. In no other art
medium is creation more permanently and intimately
As the 1990s moved on, Lasker's work had bound to the movements of the human body. Nowhere
increasingly developed a gravitas, an almost Classical is the human more empowered to have a direct and
massing of a few architectonic elements, although this immediate effect on the image ofhis world. We are all,
seemed paradoxical because the shapes and drawing at present, more divided, less empowered, and
style are almost cartoon-like / 168 /. This had a lot to certainly far less connected to the effects of our world
do with how they originated: by making postcard-size than we should be. It is for this reason that | am deeply
drawings with ballpoint and oil. They looked a bit like involved with the textures of a medium capable of
the doodles one might do when on the phone, universalizing so much lost intimacy.

144
Ambiguous Abstraction

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Painting Today

146
 Ambiguous Abstraction

170. Stephen Ellis

Untitled (SEVL-06-5), 2006.
Oil and alkyd on linen,
152.4 x 127 cm (60 x 50 in)
ssm2m a~ ALhe | I)
171. Lydia Dona ala
Movement-Image and the
Doors of Reflexivity, 1995. Oil,
acrylic and sign paint on canvas,
213.4 x 162.6 cm (84 x 64 in).
Private collection
eae
=

147
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 Ambiguous Abstraction

This physical actuality of the painted marks cinema. ‘We dream in pans, close-ups, and moving 1975 was even more extreme: 8 inches by 25 foot,
(not always so apparent in reproduction (the paint can camera shots.’ The surface is photographically smooth, or 20.3 cm by 7.6 m), partly because of the seemingly
be as thick as snow cut by skis into channels) is crucial uncannily so given the unceasing motion of the marks arbitrary framing or quoting of elements within the

to his work / 169 /. moving across the canvas: such exuberance of gesture painting. It is as though the camera is always panning from
Lasker was not alone in feeling the need to would normally create a bumpy, whipped surface. one close-up to another. The sense both of disjuncture
open up abstraction to other associations and ideas: if This is like a busy sea frozen on the instant. The frames and of the uncanny is accentuated by the way he installs
truth there was, it was in impurity, not cleanliness. As we within the painting seem like close-ups, or like elements paintings to abut the edge of the wall, as though they had
have seen, in the middle of the 1970s David Reed was, in quotation marks. On the right of the horizontal been sliced open and the content left floating into space.
like many others, at painting degree zero. Where painting the swirl jumps out and stops as though at The metaphor we have so often encountered
others sought in the monochrome the fundamentals a full stop or the crack of a whip. for the experience of painting — music — seems
of painting, he had looked rather to brushstrokes, Unlike Barnett Newman, who has been a major unusually apposite for the work of the American painter
presented in an unabashed, analytic manner. This could influence, Reed cannot invoke the sublime. ‘My Stephen Ellis. At the risk of pushing the simile too far,
easily become a trap: the issue became not how to paintings evoke the fantastic rather than the sublime. we can see the vertical blocks over which everything

repeat it endlessly with (or without) variations, but-how In the fantastic one alternates between supernatural moves as the rhythm, the colour as tone or instrument,
to develop it into something sufficiently dynamic to and rational explanations, never being able to decide the wiggly bits that weave though the divisions as the

sustain a lively and inquiring mind. By the mid-1980s between the two.’ Like many other artists working in melody or voice / 170 /. Just as there is a constant play

Reed had worked a way to mutate this into abstraction, he is at once obsessed with the history of in his work between geometry and gesture, so there is
colour, complexity and sensuality. The brushstrokes abstraction and obliged to mutate it by bringing in between harmony and interruption, energy and calm.

were applied with a squeegee loop and folded one on viruses from other areas: Old Master paintings, cinema The architecture of right angles would be as impassive

another like the drapery of Baroque angels, or like tripe, and interior design. The very word ‘abstraction’ is one as a minimalist grid, but the marks breeze over and
or the swirls made by window cleaners as they swish with which he, like many, now feels uncomfortable, but through it like leaves or fabric in the wind. This is not

away the suds. In a vertical format these could appear he has not yet found a better word to use. recipe art — each painting develops it own particular
as congested crashing waves, in a horizontal format Traditionally painting, whether figurative or mood: ebullience, rage, sang-froid, blissful lyricism or

/ 167 / as cinemascope, or as the plush curtain being abstract, gave a sense of ‘wholeness’: formal unity, whatever. Like Lasker's or Reed's, Ellis's work is also
structural coherence was crucial. With Reed this does not inevitably an ongoing analysis of New York abstraction,
pulled on a cinema screen.
The filmic simile is appropriate, for Reed was apply: one reads his painting in sections, partly because of and one informed by enthusiasm for Old Master
concerned with the way we see the world through the elongated format (his first attempt at such a format in painting and traditional Chinese landscape.

172. Fabian Marcaccio

Come Undone, 1992.

Collograph on fabric, silicon

gel and oil on printed fabric

on wood support, 142.2 x 127 cm

(56 x 50 in)
Carls
i

173. Terry Winters

Graphics Tablet, 1998.
Oil and alkyd resin on canvas,
243.8 x 304.8 cm (96 x 120 in)

149
 Painting Today

174. Monique Prieto

Nobody Here But Us Chickens,
1995. Acrylic on canvas,

305 x 244 cm (60 x 48 in).

Collection David Reed and

Lillian Ball

175. Monique Prieto

Brown Power, 2000. Acrylic
on canvas, 96.5 x 121.9 cm
(38 x 48 in)

176. Ingrid Calame

From #258 Drawing (tracings
from the Indianapolis Motor
Speedway and the LA River),
2007. Enamel paint on
aluminium, 182.9 x 304.8 cm
(72 x 120 in)

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Ambiguous Abstraction

178. Brice Marden

The Muses, 1991-3.

Oil on linen, 274.5 x 458 cm

(108 x 180% in).

Daros Collection, Zurich

153
 Painting Today

No other area in painting has developed such paint — these to her are reminiscent of both Marcel recognizing that you are the river.’ For her the paintings
a complex and theoretical literature as abstraction. Duchamp’s early works and Deleuze’s notion of people have not a traditional presence but rather an absence
Such theorizing reached some sort of zenith in the as ‘desiring machines’. Finally she drips on enamel a la in which we have to find ourselves, making sense of the
mid-1990s, when several exhibitions and publications Jackson Pollock, but this dripping is scrappy, non- various fragments and rhizomes floating in her
attempted to construct general theories to explain new heroic. The colours are unpleasant institutional colours cosmetic-coloured limbo. Her paintings can then be
abstract painting. Often these looked to the writings of or the over-bright tones of cosmetics / 171 /. ‘Colour seen as hypotheses on what identity is, or as models of
the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze, for whom the codes,’ she explains, ‘are both cosmetic and human consciousness. This could, of course, be one
key metaphor was the rhizome, a plant that grows not cosmic. Cultural codifications of the “cosmetic bodies” general explanation of what all abstraction does.
from a seed but from elements of itself constantly of femininity and masculinity are both quoted and The warp and weft of the canvas itself become

spreading across the ground and re-rooting themselves. displaced to build a systemized degendered “code”, rhizomatic in the work of Marcaccio, who silk-screens

In a world where the hierarchy descending from God a third zone of schisms and multiplicities: the zone of images of it on the canvas and then adds vast

has disappeared, such a network, with its almost infinite techno-urban bodies. The ghostly paintings of the brushstrokes, sometimes painted in globby silicon
number of routes, is another way of explaining how the ghosts of the body.’ Everything seems incomplete or rather than paint per se / 172 /. Mounted as they are on
world and the human neural system works. still in process: the painting has an architecture, but one scaffolding, they stick out into the gallery space, like
Such theoretical writing was liberating for the that seems exploded or deconstructed. She is trying Reed's extended paintings; these are as much space
Argentine Fabian Marcaccio and the American Lydia not to be just perverse but to be true to the new type invaders as holders of space. Marcaccio prefers not to
Dona, allowing them to break away from the rules of of identity proper to the postmodern world, where call his work ‘abstract’ but to say that he is rooted in
the New York abstraction game and be far more wilful. we are nota figure plodding the field but someone abstraction and that painting now is in a unique position
In her work of the 1990s Dona accentuates the history surfing the net, goggle-eyed in the IMAX, hooked up to examine the structures that make our world. ‘I like to

of materials, making a car crash of various styles: laying for virtual sex or whatever. In a world of virtual realities think about painting as the most open thing in the world.’

down a ground in acrylic, overlaying it with a grid in ‘the flow of information within systems is more Until the mid-1990s Terry Winters’s paintings
pencil, using masking tape to put in some off-balance determinative of identity than the materiality of physical were populated by floating organic shapes derived
geometry, then adding images from a car manual in oil structures. Plunging into the river of information implies from images of cell structures or newly fertilized ova.

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179. Emily Kame Kngwarreye

Big Yam Dreaming, 1995.
Synthetic polymer paint on
canvas, 291.1 x 801.8 cm
(114% x 315% in). National
Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

154
Ambiguous Abstraction

180. Emily KameKngwarreye

Emu Woman, 1988/9

Synthetic polymer paint on

canvas, 92 x 61 cm

(36% x 24 in). Holmes a Court

Collection, East Pertt

181. Emily Kame Kngwarreye

Awelye, 1990. Synthetic

polymer on composition Doara

45 x 30 cm (17% x 11% in)

Elaine Kitchener and Desiree

Segal Collection

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155
 Painting Today

182. José Maria Sicilia

This Two-coloured Scarf,

Crossing the River
(Cette Echarpe de Deux

Couleurs, Creusant le Fleuve),

2006. Paint on paper,
50 x 50 cm (19% x 19% in)

183. Brice Marden

Couplet IV,1988-9. Oil on

linen, 274.3 x 152.4 cm

(108 x 48 in). Museum of

Modern Art, New York

But a painting such as his Graphics Tablet takes the grid, telephone. It’s the informational space out there.
a format often used in the 1960s to emphasize the It's not immaterial but incorporeal. I’m interested in how
flatness of the canvas, and modulates it so as to create to give a picture of these things we cannot see.’ This
instead deep but indeterminate space / 173 /. These are is also the world of the matrix, the space most of us enter
slow, methodically built-up paintings, informed now by each day when we switch on our laptop. Some painters
a fascination with computer graphics and architectural are wary of such a space and the way the computer can
space as much as organic forms. Like Dona’s or fuse visual bits together, but not Winters: he is fascinated
Marcaccio's works, they act as both critique of and by ‘the seamless space that computers are able to create
homage to Pollockian all-overness. On the one hand, from disparate bits of information — not modernist
these are paintings with very definite, often heavy collage, but a new and uninterrupted expanse’.
marks; on the other, the final composition seems arrived The painterly worlds of the American artists
at uncertainly. There is a tension between the organic, Monique Prieto and Ingrid Calame seem simpler: acrylic
egg-like shapes and the grid: the pulse of this constant poured and dripped on canvas, soaking in and staining
tension solidifies finally into webs of paint. ‘The kind of it; enamel spread on aluminium sitting proud of the
images | was building had, rather than a representational subject like ketchup and mustard on a plate / 174-6 /.
relationship to the world, a kind of isomorphic Their worlds are of clear, lyrical,flat colour. These are
relationship.’ A parallel world. A space we recognize happy colours, suggestive perhaps of the Californian
but cannot see: cyberspace, which, as Winters says, can light in which both artists work. But their shapes are
be defined as ‘the place you go when you are on the tense in their relation to each other: Prieto’s are often

156
 Ambiguous Abstraction

a little like cartoon figures mutated, tensed against

each other; Calame’s shapes overlap and partially cover
each up, as though splattered over one another.
The quirkiness of the paintings seemed to get
more extreme when Prieto began using a computer to
sketch with, but the paintings were in fact never
poured or dripped, always carefully drawn. They always
had some personal meaning to Prieto, and indeed as
the 1990s progressed the shapes in the paintings
became more tensed, like cartoon figures in argument.
If Reed’s ambition was to make ‘bedroom paintings’ full
of intimacy, Prieto’s paintings seemed to belong in the
kitchen: relaxed, domestic in scale and conversational.
They seemed always to be a narrative or story, although
normally she allowed us full freedom to invent that
for ourselves. A clue to the story of one painting, Brown
Power, was given by Prieto’s insistence that it only be
sold to a collector, like herself, of Mexican ancestry / 175/.
Calame’s paintings would rather seem to
belong to the lobby, with its history of people passing
though. She traces on resin the stains left on the
pavement or floors by dropped liquids — human,
animal, mechanical or natural. ‘Itrace’, she writes, ‘the
lacy stains left by the evaporation of nameless liquids,
their contours determined by the viscosity of the
vanished fluid and the texture of the surface onto which
it pools.’ These tracings are laid one over another to
create her ‘constellations’. Like Prieto’s, her work can
seem ‘in between’: between natural and unnatural
process, between the decorative and the explosive / 176 /.
Fred Tomaselli, like Prieto and Calame, looks to
reinvigorate abstraction with the energy of the street
and social life. Born in 1956, close to Disneyland in
California, like most of his generation Tomaselli took
a lot of drugs when young. In the 1980s he gave up
painting because he ‘couldn't figure out a way to
get out from under its burden of [modernist] history’.
When he returned to painting, it was to use it as a
meeting place for all cultures and objects, and as a
place to rediscover that sense of transcendence he had
experienced with LSD, rock music and psychedelia.
Pills, marijuana leaves and tiny photos of fungi, flowers
or body parts all coalesce into extravagant abstractions
— stripe paintings on a trip / 177 /.
It is, however, land and natural form that — as
in the earliest years of abstraction — most often inform,
or corrupt, abstraction, as, for instance, Brice Marden’s
The Muses / 178 / and Emily Kame Kngwarreye’s
Big Yam Dreaming / 179 /. But are they actually
abstract? Made within two years of each other, they are
both large, both seem to be developments out of
Jackson Pollock's drip paintings, both look abstract but
refer to nature, and both purport to tell some sort of
story. The first painting is by a New York male painter,
aged fifty-five when he painted it, an artist educated at
Boston and Yale with a highly sophisticated
understanding of Western art. The second is by an
 Painting Today

Australian Aboriginal woman of about eighty-five who was not so bothered about telling particular dreamings: lines of yam roots under the ground, Marden had been
had only started painting seven years previously and they were all about the same thing as far as she decisively influenced by sitting under olive trees on the
who had perhaps never seen a Jackson Pollock was concerned: ‘Whole lot, that’s whole lot. Awelye Greek island of Hydra, where he spends the summer
painting. But this is no contrast between sophisticate (my dreaming), Artatyeye (pencil yam), Ankerrthe drawing. The breakaway from the monochrome that
and primitive. Before turning to painting Kngwarreye (mountain devil lizard), Ntsange (grass seed), Tingu (a he had been seeking had eventually arrived through
had been a leading batik artist: her work was from the dream-like pup), Ankerre (emu), Intekwe (a favourite constant drawing, through an increasing interest
start highly individual, vigorous, varying in style from food of emus, a small plant), atnwerle (green bean) and in Pollock rather than Rothko; through a fascination in
painting to painting, depending on line rather than dot kame (yam seed). That's what | paint, whole lot.’ The shells, which he had begun to collect, and in Chinese
as the other Aboriginal painters did. As we have noted, paintings were in large measure about the physical calligraphy, which itself was often derived from
cultural activity in indigenous Australian societies experience of making. Kngwarreye was ambidextrous nature. In effect he was using nature, arrived at very
was often visual. and would on occasion paint with both hands at once. elliptically, as a way to re-energize abstraction.
For Kngwarreye this was not an abstract It is no surprise to hear that often she and any fellow Marden has been strongly influenced by Robert
painting but it was a painting of country. It could be painter would sing as they worked: singing and painting Graves's books on Greek myths. ‘He talked about
construed as a painting of the wild yam and its ‘country’ were synonymous. these bands of revelling, orgiastic maenads that
spreading roots, but her paintings are never so literal: Painted over two days in the penultimate year conducted these wild, primal dances in the forest. Later
she often laid in dots or lines as though they were of the artist's life, Big Yam Dreaming has the urgency of they became the muses. | was interested in their early
dancing steps. Other indigenous artists were bemused. an artist who is nearing her end. In comparison, stages, and that's where the first “Muses” painting
Clifford Possum, for one, did not understand Marden’s The Muses is far more considered, layer built came from.’ It is, in short, a Dionysiac painting: the artist
Kngwarreye or why she was so popular. ‘What story is on layer. Both are about an experience of the landscape seems knowingly to echo the circular rhythms of the last
this one? Where are the designs?’ he demanded. She and nature: whereas Kngwarreye sought to show the century's archetypal dance painting, Matisse’s Dance II.

158
 Ambiguous Abstraction

184. Brice Marden

Kngwarreye’s Emu Woman clearly shows more conscious, more slowly looped, worming
The Propitious Garden of Plane
how her paintings derived from ritual practice and dance, around the canvas, in a dance as stately as Cézanne’s
Image, 3rd version, 2000-6.
specifically how women of her kinship group painted bathers / 184 /.
Oil on linen, 6 panels,
their breasts for dances to celebrate country / 180 /. For both Kngwarreye and Marden, and others,
111.8 x 365.8 cm (44 x 144 in)
The spotty dotty effect is very different from that we what remains key is abstract painting's relationship with
find in male Aboriginal painting, privileging energy and pleasure in the physical movement of wrist, arm — the
rhythm over pattern. A later painting entitled Awelye whole body. The paintings of the Spanish artist José
/ 181 / demonstrates the surprising variety in her work. Maria Sicilia appeal directly to the body's senses, their
This was no repetitive churning out of a format, but wax-bound pigments stimulating to both touch and
rather a delight in the material and process. Awelye is smell / 182 /. The flower shapes that fall through many
the name of the woman's ceremony involving both the of Sicilia's paintings suggest a world of delicate lyricism
body designs and the act of painting them — it can and beauty, although the paintings are energetic in
also be translated as ‘connectedness’. scale and execution. A body often seems to be on the
When he made his decisive break from the point of emerging in Ellen Gallagher's paintings, works
monochrome, Marden was dependent on both the that are made with innumerable strips of ink-stained
experience of drawing under the trees and the example newspaper, some of which refer to the notorious
of Chinese calligraphy, to the point of echoing the way Tuskegee Experiment in Alabama, in which 399 black
a two-line poem would be written down on paper men with syphilis were given no medical treatment so
/ 183 /. Subsequently his paintings have again become that the ‘natural’ course of the illness could be
more Classical, less Dionysian. The lines have become observed. Earlier abstract or quasi-abstract paintings

159
a ©fe ~ ee Dn <4k ©>
 Ambiguous Abstraction

been suggested that because Fonseca spent his 185. Ellen Gallagher
of Gallagher's had used as pictorial building blocks
the large lips and rolling eyes that black people are formative years in Europe he was not infected by the AnExperimentof Unusual
stereotypically caricatured with. Such difficult subject self-consciousness of the New York painting debate, Opportunity,2008.Ink,
matter set against her technical dexterity and but had the same freedom that Miquel Barcelo or Sicilia graphite, oil, varnish and cut

the beauty of the paintings makes an uncomfortably has. The lack of irony makes his work popular, albeit paper on canvas,202 x 188cm
judged as naive by some New York critics. For them he (79Y2x 74 in)
political reading inevitable / 185/.
As we have seen, painters today have only demonstrates how nostalgic the market is for
186. Caio Fonseca
approached abstraction with varied theories and what unabashed modernism, although others would claim he
Pietrasanta CO3.24, 2003
shows that a return to the candour of earlier modernism
can seem unusual or eccentric procedures. Abstraction
Mixed media on canvas,
has long since ceased to have a single, purist may in fact still be possible.
Modernist abstraction had begun by 71.1 x 96.5cm(28 x 38 in)
philosophy, but is now more like a souk, a meeting
place for contradictory or perverse ideas, drives and abstracting from nature, and Thomas Scheibitz / 187 /
187. Thomas Scheibitz
methods: the filmic, the rhizome, pastiche, doodling as Tomma Abts / 188, 189 / and Thomas Nozkowski / 192 /,
in that apparently most old-fashioned way, continue Capital, 2006 Oil vinyl and
gesture, nature, Zen, political signs. Abstraction is a
pigment marker on canvas,
very leaky category these days; many of the artists we to abstract from nature: they take what seems like
traditional abstract formats and invigorate them by 300 x 190 cm(118 ~ 74% | n)
have talked about here could easily be discussed in
other chapters — indeed some are — and some artists intense colour relationships, complex textural surfaces
and sheer quirkiness. These are three artists whose following pages:
we will encounter in other chapters have been seen as
188. Tomma Abts
work would seem to fit easily with work made ninety
abstract painters. But for many artists a constant
Teite, 2003. Acrylic and oil
re-engagement with modernism remains the crux. ‘The years ago but whose work actually sits comfortably in
on canvas, 48 x 38 cm
essence of painting for me’, asserts the New York the twenty-first century. The criticism of these artists’
(1834 x 15 in)
painter Caio Fonseca, ‘is the secret nature of forms.’ work tends to skirt around both meaning and
This could be Paul Klee or Joan Miré or another of the experience. Part of our fascination with much abstract
189. Tomma Abts
early modernists speaking, and in Fonseca’s paintings painting is that we find it so satisfying, so moving, so
Meko, 2006. Acrylic and oil
beautiful and yet we are unable to articulate why it is
the shapes float free like in theirs / 186 /. He is on canvas, 48 x 38 cm
unashamed of this: ‘something’, he responds, ‘can only so. The challenge to understand remains, and the
possibility to make new painting remains. Hence this
(18% x 15
in)
be revolutionary if it has some relation to tradition.’ He
constant return to the origins of abstraction, and to
uses the golden section, that geometric formula so
beloved of modernists, to compose his pictures. It has nature as a source.

161
a ©oo ~ i DnE e ©>

aore

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=
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 Painting Today

Like Abts, Mark Grotjahn may seem to play

tled (Cobalt Violet, Mag with geometry but for him too, the source of recent
paintings is in nature, specifically in butterfly wings.
Inevitably this calls to mind the ‘butterfly effect’:
the notion of interconnectivity in recent meteorology,
exemplified by the suggestion that the fluttering
191. Yayoi Kusama
of a butterfly’s wings can cause a tornado on the other
side of the world / 190 /. Mark Bradford in a move that
recalls early work by Jasper Johns has used maps as
a base for large abstract canvases / 193 /.
If ‘How do we still relate to the heroic years of
early abstraction?’ is one key question, another is ‘How
will abstraction be affected and shifted by the merging
artists of Asia?’ It has been claimed that the Thai
artist Udomsak Krisanamis has ‘managed to find a place
for the values and traditions of the Buddhist world in
the web of contemporary painting’ / 195 /. Behind the
complexity of this work, which looks so urban and
busy, there is for many viewers an inner peace. In short,
Krisanamis can be very up-to-date in order to achieve
very old aims. His paintings began as he tried to learn
English: marking out words he knew on the newspaper
page. This became extended further, blanking out
everything bar the empty centres of the 0 and the 0,
criss-crossing them with dried noodles like the street
pattern of New York City. There was something
voracious in the way everything he found could be
ingested in his collages and paintings: tea-bags,
laundry receipts, cellophane.
Such obsessive building up and covering up
suggest a connection with the Infinity Net paintings that
Yayoi Kusama (who, Krisanamis-like, has made work
with dried macaroni) has been making since the 1950s
/191/. A highly stratified structure (an insanely detailed
and distorted grid) induces an optical oscillation
that seems to dematerialize itself. This can be ecstatic
or paranoid, an obsession, as Kusama has said,
with infinite repetition. For Kusama, who suffered from
attacks of an acute sense of loss of identity, these
paintings were a therapy. Her work is a reminder of
what basic psychological effects can happen in abstract
painting: obsessive filling-in, loss of self, repetition,
slashing, dotting, erasing, pattern-making,
pattern-breaking.
Many older Asian artists continue to work in
traditional styles, but often attempt to innovate within
those traditions: the Taiwanese Liu Kuo-sung, for
example, devised a wholly original way of pulling
fibres out of the paper he worked on, giving it a similar
sense of spontaneity to what he saw in Western
abstraction. But otherwise Liu’s work clung to the
eternal verities of Chinese art: seeking to express the
Dao or ‘Way’. The Dao gives life and form to all
material things but is itself ineffable. In landscape this
Dao is evoked by the complementary forces of yin
and yang as represented by mountains (shan) and
water (shui). Sometimes his work shows these seas and

164
 Ambiguous Abstraction

192. Thomas Nozkowski mountains clearly; at other times they are only of the so-called ‘cynical’ generation the only abstract

Untitled 8—100, 2008. Oil on suggested / 194 /. Having reflected on Kant's dictum painter to have gained prominence is Ding Yi / 196 Ms

linen panel, 55.9 x 71.1 cm that ‘beauty can only be felt in the mind’, Liu felt that His work can seem as a development from Mondrian’s
(22 x 28 in) the goal of art was to aspire to beauty and freedom of Pier and Ocean series, where the sea was a horizontal,
mind and to transcend nature: ‘Abstraction is a way to the pier a vertical and the waves a mix. But he brings
distil the character, spirit and power inside nature. ... to it an approach that is inflected by a different
To abstract is to distil ... to enable the sublimation of sensibility, giving what should be a repetitive grid
natural shapes and phenomena into the ch’an a fluctuating, breathing surface. He works on tartans,
[stillness] of painting with its roots in an active, moving which he fills in with variegated marks and colours.
and rhythmic mind.’ Sometimes his paintings are seen as evocations of his
Because of the public’s obsession with younger home town, Shanghai, one of the fastest-growing
Chinese artists, including Fang Lijun and Zhang cities in the world and now often cited as perhaps the
Xiaogang, artists such as Liu have been neglected; future capital of the art world.

165
 Painting Today

193. Mark Bradford

Giant, 2007, Mixed

media collage on canvas,

259.1 x 365.8 cm

(102 x 144 in)

194, Liu Kuo-sung

Fallen Wood Under the Five

Colour Lake: Jiuzhagiou series

no. 57, 2004, Ink and colour

on paper, 44.2 x 60 cm

(17% * 23% in)

195. Udomsak Krisanamis

Rainy Day, Dream Away,

2004. Mixed media and collage

on paper, 97.1 x 55.9 cm

(38% x 22 in)

166
 Ambiguous Abstraction

196. Ding Yi
Appearance of Crosses 2008—

27, 2008. Acrylic on canvas,

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By definition the ‘great tradition’ of painting the becomes more direct and visionary, or is it just loose? 197. R. B. Kitaj
figure should be never-ending: there should always be Similarly, is Lucian Freud's recent work a profound late Los Angeles no. 24 (Nose to
someone carrying the torch for future generations. style, as some have claimed, or a slackening? Nose), 2003. Oil on canvas,
But even if the desire for figure painting is unabated, Although he paints those close to himself, 121.9 x 121.9 cm (48 x 48 in)
the conditions are no longer propitious: life drawing Freud rarely names them in the titles. They do not
has long since lost its importance in art school teaching gesticulate, they do not dress up. If this is a stage, we
in the West (in 2002 even the Royal Academy Schools wonder if this is just a rehearsal, the actors pausing
in London made it only optional); the museum as though to remember their lines. In Painter and Model
world remains ruthlessly uninterested. For most critics / 198 / nothing seems to be happening. Both painter
traditional figure painting is utterly uncool. and model seem to be waiting for something, or
However, what of those painters we looked at in reflecting on something that has been said. We reflect
Chapter 1 who are now in their old age? Have these on the reversal of normal gender roles: the woman
painters become the Old Masters of today as Guston wears the paint-smeared smock, the man is naked. This
and Picasso were for their generation? is meant as a philosophical painting: a meditation
Kitaj’s work after 1980 became looser and on the nature of paint, on the nature of being a model
more expressionistic. Perhaps because of this to the painter, of laying oneself open, of allowing
and his growing propensity for pronouncements, his oneself to be devoured. This devouring can be read as
London retrospective in 1994 was greeted with an act of betrayal or of love (if love is the condition of
an unprecedented attack by the press. The death of being at another's mercy). Whether the model is victim
his wife, Sandra Fisher, of a heart attack in the midst of or accomplice, Freud himself takes the couch here as
this critical assault enraged Kitaj, led to him returning though to show how symbiotic these roles are.
to the USA and, in his last years, painting as though We tend to see the body, especially when
he was a visionary. In his imagination Sandra and he naked, as vulnerable: war photography marks the naked
were reunited:
body as victim, pornography depicts it as merely
usable. Perhaps in opposition to this, since 1960 Freud
Sandra and | became lovers again, after her death, in has sought to imbue his figures with monumentality,
my old age in Los Angeles. The angels. | could make such as Egyptian and archaic Greek sculptures had. This
love to my angel with my paintbrush, fondle her again, seems very un-modern. Yet these works are radically
caress her contours. The greatest story ever told, the modern in that every nude in Freud is so clearly a
Woman-—Man story, has become rare in painting since the portrait and so clearly a sexual being. ‘As far as | am
death of Picasso.
concerned, the paint is the person. | want it to work for
me just as flesh does’, he has said. The analogy
Los Angeles no. 24 (Nose to Nose) / 197 / shows them between the way he moulds paint and the way life and
literally conjoined. Kitaj is influenced here by Jewish age mould flesh remains crucial here. Flesh is at the
philosopher Emmanuel Levinas and his belief that the centre of And the Bridegroom / 199 /. Again it seems the
Bible has been mistranslated: Eve was created from whole room is flesh: the sheet, the floorboards; all, as
Adam’s side (not his rib), men and women are not just the flesh itself, is brown-grey — like meat too long on
equal but joint: ‘Human subjectivity is dual.’ In this the slab. A superficial response would see this painting
union of sexual desire and spiritual transformation as post-coital, but there is no tell-tale scattering of
Kitaj echoes painters such as William Blake or Edvard underclothes, no visible sign of intimacy beyond
Munch. Typically, given his desire to be located in the the fact of proximity. The figures are posed as though
great tradition, the painting also echoes Giotto’s frescos for a funerary monument. It has the same gravitas as
in the Scrovegni Chapel, Padua, where the faces those late medieval funeral monuments of knight and
of Joachim and Anna, Christ's grandparents, seem to wife. The screen acts as a black reredos, closed and
blend into one as they kiss. darkling; only the girl, waif-like against the man, seems
Such highly personal work might be taken as to radiate any light. The interior of both these
evidence of a unique late style. We have an idea paintings is so dreary, like a waiting-room or a derelict
based on Rembrandt and Titian, and especially
hotel room — an anonymous, non-space, unlovable
Beethoven, that great artists in old age develop a late but uncannily familiar.
style where their work becomes freer, more personal No figurative painter has been given as much
and, above all, faced with the end of life, more profound. praise as Freud in the last few decades: and few have
But it has been argued, contrarily, that this is in fact very been so committed to painting the human form.
rare: most artists’ late work tends to be marked by The relevance of the great tradition is only feasible if
repetition and declining eye-hand co-ordination. This is the work is of high quality — hence the crucial status
a key question for today when painting is too often of Freud. Ifthe ‘great tradition’ is truly living, his
described in market terms, not as manifestation of a life painting should be hung beside Rembrandt's without
vision. Is Kitaj’sa true late style, one where his work seeming out of place.

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Painting Today

198. Lucian Freud

Painter and Model,

1986-7. Oil on canvas,

159.6 x 120.7 cm

(63 x 47% in)

199. Lucian Freud

And the Bridegroom,

1993. Oil on canvas,

232 x 196 cm

(91% x 77% in)

The Figure
Painting Today

200. Frank Auerbach

Head of Catherine Lampert,

1986. Oil on canvas,

51.4 x 47cm (20% x 18% in)

201. Fang Lijun

Oil painting III, 1988.

Oil on canvas, 47 x 60 cm
(18¥2 x 23% in)

202. Philip Pearlstein

Two Models with a Fan in Front,

2000. Oil on canvas,

122 x 152.5 cm (48 x 60 in).

Private collection

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 The Figure

Frank Auerbach has continued to paint the

same small number of people again and again, as
though he were seeking something not actually
discoverable by eye alone: ‘| felt that there was an area
of experience — the haptic, the tangible, what you feel
when you touch somebody next to you in the dark —
that hadn't been recorded in painting before’ / 200 /.
Although they are among the most material, heaviest
paintings, these are not about paint per se: ‘Paint is at
its most eloquent when it is a by-product of some
corporeal, spatial, developing imaginative concept, a
creative identification with the subject.’ Painting is, he
claims, alchemy not chemistry.
It is often assumed, incorrectly, that Philip
Pearlstein paints from photographs. In fact, he uses
photographs only at a relatively late stage in making a
OT
OOF
CBr
cts
GD painting — to check his composition. In many ways his
canvases, which for more than forty years have been
precisely composed pictures of nudes and objects, are
Choco made in opposition to photography. Pearlstein has
spoken of how he is seeking to rescue the nude from
a
a
cf
OF
2SEAS
A pornography, by presenting things (including human
weU
bodies) as they are and as they are observed / 202 /.
The making of one of his paintings is a slow, laborious
process: the setting-up of the scenario and the posing
of the models, the sketching, adjusting, laying-in of
colour, more adjusting and so on. In a painting such as
Two Models with a Fan in Front an initial similarity to
photography disappears once we realize the
specifically painterly effects, the monumental stillness
of the models waiting for the long day of posing to
be concluded, the arch precision of the fan’s placement
and the big-eyed image of the artist reflected in the
chrome of the fan. Jokingly he refers back to that great
prototype of the photograph, Jan van Eyck’sArnolfini
Marriage, where in like manner a mirror reflects back the
painter's tiny image and by implication tells us where
we too stand in seeing the painting. But the echo of
Van Eyck is also revealing in a more negative way. It has
been repeatedly asked, ‘Who were those people
posing for Van Eyck — and why?’ We never ask that
question of Pearlstein — the models are models, mere
studio props. The painting is about making a painting:
the aesthetic satisfactions are in the well-made,
complex composition, in the formal, effectively abstract
values. Pearlstein has claimed that, whereas
European artists are trained in a tradition dating back
to the Renaissance, by which they often feel trapped,
American artists have a sense of unlimited freedom.

You have people doing outlandish things, but without

the sense of breaking away from tradition — they
203. Leonard McComb don’t know that tradition. They’re just doing whatever.
Portrait of Phillipa Cooper, | think a lot of it comes from nursery school
2002. Oil on canvas, encouragement, self-expression, finding your own
243.8 x 182.9 cm (96 x 72 in) thing... Here in America we invented our own way of
working with representation.

175
Painting Today

176
 The Figure

204. Fang Lijun

1993 No. 1, 1993. Acrylic

on canvas, 180 x 230 cm

(70%x 90¥2in)

205. Geng Jianyi

Four Heads (The Second
Situation), 1987.
Oil on four canvases, each

170 x 132 cm (67 x 52 in).

Sigg Collection, Lucerne

This does not, however, seem true of younger American | found a shaven head has an ambiguity between
artists such as John Currin and Elizabeth Peyton, who rebelling and obedience. Monks, soldiers and prisoners:
have a far more global perspective and perhaps a more they all have shaven heads. For me the importance
relaxed attitude to traditions. of baldness is that it demolishes one’s personality.

We may not yet know the true followers It represents a much stronger concept of humanity.
of Freud because this is a type of artist who can take a Artists tend to be interested in individuality, seldom in
long time to develop. Leonard McComb, for example, generality. That's why | paint men with shaven heads.
destroyed almost all of his work before he was The generality ofhumanity in such figures is so strong
aged forty-five. Even then he showed only drawings it fascinates me.

and sculptures for many years. Drawing was central,

the way lines could trace energy: ‘Drawing is’, ‘Cynical realism’ was the term often applied to such
McComb believes, ‘the architecture of the Spirit.’ He work. Geng Jianyi's Four Heads (The Second Situation)
took, eventually, to painting with the gentle and / 205 / was seen as a forerunner. Shown in the exhibition
delicate touch of a miniaturist — and with the sense ‘China/Avant Garde’ in Beijing in 1989, this painting
of paper or canvas as a flat surface to be endlessly became iconic of a whole generation's alienation from
touched. But it was ‘vision, not pattern-making’ that official expression. On the same scale as the many icons
concerned him: ‘It is the vision that matters and of Mao that hung publicly throughout China, it shows
not the ideas.’ Art, writes McComb, ‘is the celebration laughter, not the benign smile of Mao. The new art in
of God's radiance; death is also an expression of his China revolved around humour, especially parodies of
radiance.’ What he conveys is not just calmness the official art of the Mao years.
and innocence but a world replete, where contentment In subsequent works Fang Lijun has reflected
is not a passive emotion but a fact of joy / 203 /. more on the polychrome world of post-communist
If traditional training in figurative art has China, although still from a wry, ironic viewpoint. Colour,
become rare in the West, it was most emphatically still flowers and women have entered Fang's paintings,
enforced in the old communist countries. Painting in but they have become decorative and jolly rather than
China under Mao had been concerned with the mass, melancholy, echoing both Fang's personal situation
not the individual, with praise for conformism rather and the ebullient art market of the new China / 204 /.
than eccentricity. Portraits, unless of Mao, were generic: Paintings of the figure and social situations
of happy workers. It was this generic quality that Fang dominate art in Asia and have resolutely failed to
Lijun picked up on in his paintings of the early 1990s, disappear elsewhere. ‘Like the poor, the realists are
but with no happiness and no sense of direction: big, always with us’, sneered the American critic Robert
bald men, with hunched shoulders meander around like Pincus-Witten. His implication was that to paint
hooligans looking for a fight, or the unemployed looking naturalistically was to display nothing but ignorance
for work / 201 /. of how art had moved on since the Pre-Raphaelites

VzZ
Painting Today

178
 The Figure

206. John Currin

Ms Omni, 1993. Oil on canvas,

121.9 x 96.5 cm (48 x 38 in)

207. John Currin

The Pink Tree, 1999. Oil on

canvas, 198.1 x 121.9 cm

(78 x 48 in). Hirshhorn Museum

and Sculpture Garden,
Washington, DC

179
 Painting Today

208. Stuart Pearson Wright

John Hurt as Krapp, 2001.
Oil on gesso on oak panel,
11 x 9.6 cm (4% x 3% in).

National Portrait Gallery, London

in the mid-nineteenth century. Yet the continuance Currin’s recent paintings seem to aspire to
of figurative painting (however untraditional) and its Old Master status. The clinical line and glacial flesh of
ongoing validity are a key aspect of current practice. Lucas Cranach seems the obvious model for a painting
The point is not that such art is repetitious, but such as The Pink Tree / 207 /. The figures here are as
that as our attitudes to the human body have changed spooky as they are seductive. The tree could be
in recent years, so how we paint it and how we made from coral, while the skin is too blemish-free to
see those paintings have changed. Controversies over be true. The smile is from a glamour magazine, not
abortion, plastic surgery, paedophilia, race and gender Cranach; Currin is always at the last a painter of the
have made our attitudes to the body very different. twenty-first century. ‘I’m not like Alice Neel’ / see 432 /,
There is figurative work that seeks to deal with the body he has said. ‘In her paintings you really get the feeling
as it is understood now: more vulnerable, less of a particular person. The people | paint don’t exist.
immutable, still the seat of identity but an identity that The only thing that is real is the painting.’ His works
is understood as problematic, not something to be are a bemusing mixture of observation and magazine-
thoughtlessly celebrated. We must then expect artists culled fantasy.
to have varying degrees of commitment to the ‘great We have already mentioned the contrast
tradition’, and not to turn to it as a touchstone or between the body and the figure. The figure is what we
as a panacea for our current failings but, rather, seek see in Classical painting or much fashion photography
to question it and make it anew. — an ideal or almost ideal form outside ourselves. The
Does, for example, John Currin belong to this body is how we experience our own physical condition,
great tradition? Currin’s early work was often highly and by implication others. Figures do not sweat or fart;
caricaturish, making jokes on American stereotypes, but bodies do. Bacon and Freud were painters of the figure
his recent painting has made him as popular as Freud who tried to make it seem like the body: the paint
and nearly as revered for his technical skill. His early was handled so as to enable the viewer to empathize
paintings were notorious for their women with absurdly with the physical condition of the subject. If we were to
large breasts accompanied by crusty old men with compare two much younger British painters, Jenny
beards. Imprecations of ‘sexism’ and ‘ageism’ were Saville and Stuart Pearson Wright, we might say that
muttered against him. Ms Omni / 206 /, from 1993, looks Saville is more a painter of the body, Pearson Wright of
like a woman from an Alex Katz painting on a bad day, the figure. At the root of Saville’scareer was the painting
someone trying to strike a nonchalant pose, to appear of her own body as experienced; at the root of Pearson
much younger and far more elegant than she is. Wright's was portraiture — making images of others.

180
 The Figure

Pearson Wright's painting of the actor associated with femininity — ‘delicate’, ‘decorative’,
John Hurt, painted when he was acting one of Samuel ‘petite’ — qualities inappropriate for this body / 211 /.
Beckett's most desolate characters, is intense / 208 /. Subsequently Saville became more interested
Small things, especially miniature painting, are often in bodies undergoing surgery or trauma: ‘To see a
seen as intricate and immaculate, but this small painting surgeon's hand inside a body moving flesh around, you
makes the face seem like one large bruise. Paintings of see a lot of damage and adjustment to the boundary
faces are often referred to as road maps; this is more of the body. It helped me to think about paint as
like a geological map that includes all the contours of matter’. Several paintings responded to people having
crags and hollows, all the historical ruins. plastic surgery or even changing sex. These were
Saville, although she refers to Bacon and people in a state of in-between, in passage / 210 /. The
Freud as her primary influences, is doing something far marks have become far more autonomous, they have
closer to Maria Lassnig: situating an understanding direction; like vectors, they lead one around the
of the human body in her own identity rather than in painting. The image is highly confrontational, but the
the perception of others. (She quotes with relish chunky paint marks with their recurrent right-angles give
De Kooning's claim that ‘Flesh was the reason that oil it verve, a more complicated fascination.
paint was invented’.) One empathizes with the body as To see the body as fragmented or as a form
forces work on it — in the paintings Saville made in the of synecdoche, with a part standing for the whole, as in
1990s this was often weight, the skin bulging out like the American painter Catherine Murphy's Persimmon
an overloaded shopping bag, limbs, belly, breasts piled / 209 /, is an uncanny experience. We must learn
above the viewer like crags or hills. In her first major everything about a person from this one detail. It is a
exhibition Saville wanted to face each painting with a self-portrait that denies the supposed essence of a self-
mirror so as most directly and physically to involve portrait: the eyes. Vast, the lipstick smeared, it evades
the viewer. The body was a political battlefield: marked the male's expectation of sexiness. Is this a woman's act

as for liposuction or else with carved into it words of rebellion? A lipstick revolution or a breakdown?

209. Catherine Murphy

Persimmon, 1991.
Oil on canvas, 65.4 x 74.9 cm

(25% x 292 in)

=i7
following pages:
210. Jenny Saville
Passage, 2004-5. Oil on

canvas, 333.5 x 290.4 cm

(132% x 114% in)

211. Jenny Saville

Branded, 1992. Oil on canvas,

213.4 x 182.9 cm (84 x 72 in)

181
Painting Today

182
The Figure
Painting Today

184
The Figure

i “3 eal
Mpa

212. Alison Watt 213. Alison Watt

Fragment I, 1996. Oil on canvas, Odalisque, 1996. Oil on canvas,

152.4 x 183.9 cm (60 x 72 in) 152.4 x 183.9 cm (60 x 72 in)

185
 Painting Today

Murphy suggests that it is ‘a painting about a woman The Swedish artist Cecilia Edefalk’s Echo is 214. Cecilia Edefalk

who is totally obsessed with being in control — and and is not a matter of her looking at herself / 214 /. She Echo, 1992-4. Oil on canvas,
who is totally out of control’. The painting is almost painted not herself but an image of herself. The first three panels, 60 x 42.1 cm
minimalist in its frontality, its refusal, in the end, to say painting was copied from a photograph of herself, (23% x 16% in);
anything. Indeed, Murphy sees her work as being the next from the first painting and so on. Eventually 100.3 x 66.4 cm (39% x 26 in);
parallel to minimalism rather than realism: when she she made twelve paintings. Although, like Chinese 60.1 x 40.2 cm (23% x 15% in).
begins a painting, the form is what she starts with; only whispers, each subsequent painting became less like Museum fiir Moderne Kunst,

subsequently does she begins to weave stories into the original likeness, because it was the painter painting Frankfurt am Main

the painting. herself it could not avoid being a mirror and echo of
For fifteen years the British artist Alison Watt her thoughts and reactions. When a questioner 215. Henry Darger
drew and painted from the nude female model, but she suggested that ‘repetition calls into the question the Untitled (recto), undated.
was always ‘intrigued by the imprint left [on the bed] myth of painting's uniqueness’, Edefalk responded Watercolour and pencil on
when they went ... something beautiful was created by that ‘repetition is a way to underline the uniqueness of paper, 61 x 94 cm (24 x 37 in)

their leaving’. There was always a lot of drapery in her painting’. These are meticulous, very considered
paintings: sheets and curtains and discarded clothing. paintings, each full of subtle differences. Although 216. Henry Darger
‘What | came to realize was that the painting of the representations of people are never the real thing, only Untitled (verso), undated.
fabric were more sensual than the painting of the body.’ echoes and traces, the response of the viewer to them Watercolour and pencil on
In her paintings from the late 1990s the figure became is always as though to a person: Edefalk seems a quiet, paper, 61 x 94 cm (24 x 37 in)

fragmented, floating on a white canvas alongside a meditative presence, the quietness accentuated by
swag of fabric / 212, 213 /. The figure and the drapery the muted tones. If a cursory glance sees a banal image
often echoed Ingres’s paintings of the Grande repeated, the pausing, more sympathetic eye
Odalisque or La Source. The fabric seemed to tell us will perhaps sense vulnerability, attentiveness, even
more than the flesh, its baroque folds implying secrets spirituality. The multiplicity of canvases turns out to be
and sensuality. Although the works seem immaculate, a strategy to meditate on how a painting both can and
when seen close to they are filled with and agitated by cannot be an equivalent to the person it depicts.
a myriad of tiny brushmarks (a sensation inevitably lost The artists discussed above all paint the human
in reproduction). figure (or body), although the differences in approach

186
The Figure

187
 Painting Today

and philosophy are considerable. We must also

consider that the human form can be encountered not
just directly, sitting opposite the painter or as
photograph, but also in fantasy, dream, confession
and memory. It is certain that the American artist Henry
Darger never sat or stood in front of another person
and drew him or her. Indeed his ignorance of human

anatomy was such that when he drew, as he often

did, young naked girls, he gave them penises. Although

one could suggest a more complex psychological
reason for this, it was probably from ignorance: he had
never seen a naked woman. If not mentally disturbed,
Darger was certainly pathologically isolated. Committed
for some years of his childhood to a home for the
‘feeble-minded’, he found it difficult to communicate
with others: his only topic of conversation was the
weather. For sixty years he lived on his own, working as
a washer-up in hospitals, going to church, collecting
junk, shutting himself in his room. Only when he died in
1973 were a 15,000-page novel and thousands of
paintings relating to it found in his room. He had
painted for company. The action of the novel centres on
the Vivian girls: young girls who run, sometimes naked,
sometimes in party dresses, through idyllic landscapes.
Around them a civil war erupts. They flee from or wage
eternal war against the evil Glandelinians, who wish to
ensnare them in slavery. Sometimes they are
surrounded by blissfully colourful flowers; at other times
supernatural beings — the Blengins — come to help
them. Sometimes they are captured and strangled,
even disembowelled by the Glandelinians / 215, 216 /.
There is more repetition than clear narrative: the same
scenarios are obsessively replayed.
The fact that the Darger estate chose in 2005 to
be represented by a contemporary art gallery rather
than one that focused on folk art tells us not only how
intrigued many contemporary artists are by his work but
also that it benefits from being seen in that context.
If we see it as folk art, it is mere eccentricity, but if we
trust our eyes, Darger’s art transcends his bathetic life
with a blend of beauty and paranoia, violence and
serenity. It is no matter that his novel is unreadable: we
can tell the conflict between evil and innocence from
the paintings — we can recognize beauty and rage.
The violence inflicted on them may seem gloating, but
the girls remain innocent; they always come out on top
at the end. To those artists who have not had a

217. PaulaRego traditional education in figure drawing Darger is proof

TheVivianGirlsBreakingthe that sophisticated work can still be made by collaging
China, 1984. Acrylicon canvas, in figures (Darger traced them from news photographs
240 x 180 cm (94% x 71 in) or comics). If the sign of a creative artist is the creating
of an imaginative world, Darger is exceptional.
218. PaulaRego Paula Rego’s work until 1986 bore homage to
TheFamily,1988.Acrylicon Darger: a kaleidoscope of colour and figures; animals
paper on canvas, acting as though in a folk tale, they were people; girls
213.4 x 213.4 cm (84 x 84 in) acting like animals.

188
 Painting Today

The Vivian Girls are the heroines and the slaves of my for what seems an Old Master-ish painting: the flat
219. Ida Applebroog
stories. They have been enslaved by the adult world surface emphasizes the narrative; the skirt with its black Installation at the Whitney
but they always fight back. They are themselves and white checks disrupts the painting's surface, as Biennial 1993, including
capable of evil deeds, as evil as those of the captors. alien and virulent a presence as a black hole. Jack F; Forced to Eat his Own
Nevertheless their evil deeds are always of a private To some extent this concern with both personal Excrement, 1992, oil and resin
and malicious nature, done usually out ofspite fantasy and the confessional means a turning inwards on canvas, four panels, overall
and never out of higher moral ideals, as they know that by artists. Because of the decline of modernism’s 279.4 x 228.6 cm (110 x 90 in);
these are the pretexts used by their jailer-teachers to authority artists have felt freer to emulate artists and Kathy W: Is Told That if

perpetuate the worst tortures. / 217 / from outside its canon: such as Darger or Hieronymus She Tells, Mommy Will Get Sick

Bosch. Often this leads to painting that is small-scale, and Die, 1992, oil and resin on
Subsequently Rego calmed her palette, rationalized delicate and dependent on drawing. Artists tell stories. canvas, two panels, overall
her space and made works with seemingly more The interest that developed in the 1980s in female 279.4 x 182.9 cm (110 x 72 in)

accessible stories. The home becomes more explicitly surrealists such as Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo
the site of psychological trauma. In The Family we and especially Frida Kahlo runs in parallel to this return
see a helpless man being dressed by two women while
to storytelling. These female surrealists were always
a dwarf or child looks on / 218 /. We are uncertain
more inclined to the narrative and confessional than
whether this is an act of violence or kindness: the image
their male confréres. The current fascination with such
on the shrine shows a heron removing a bone from the
a figure as Frida Kahlo parallels the growth of female
throat of its enemy the fox, yet it looks vicious.
(and male gay artists) who use the medium as a site to
An oddity of Rego’s work is that she uses acrylic paint analyse issues of personal life and identity.

190
 The Figure

The American painter Ida Applebroog always upbringing in South Africa during apartheid: ‘All the
leaves the story incomplete, like a comic strip where white artists want to be black. | can’t pretend I’m not
half the images and all the text are missing. We viewers stuck with Snow White as my name.’ However, she
have to complete it. Often some of the paintings are herself claims their original genesis was in her work as
left free-standing on the floor / 219 /. ‘You have to a nurse in a mental health facility.
physically walk through the pieces’, she says, ‘to figure Snow White would have been troubled by
out what the story is or isn't. It's always your story: it's Dumas’s constant play on pornography and sexual
never my story, it’s never someone else's story. You politics. The artist's détournement of the Christ story
come with the content in your head and do a Rorschach is clearer in the paintings she made of Mary
kind of association, so whatever it is you're looking at Magdalene, the great sinner redeemed, whose image
is a do-it-yourself projective test.’ It is impossible to see in Old Master painting, semi-naked and repentant in
these works as about anything except trauma and the wilderness, is often an excuse for unabashed
dysfunction. Applebroog responds to weird radio news eroticism / 221 /. In the ten paintings of her that Dumas
stories and photographs in the newspapers. made she becomes closer to the wild woman of
Painting is actually a bad medium in which to tell a medieval folklore. All the paintings of the Magdalena
story, compared with cartoons or film or novels, but series were mutated together from existent images of
it is a very good medium in which to present a women: aspects of heroines from Old Master paintings
situation and, in the way it is made and presented, morphed with 1990s supermodels, mixtures of fallen
create a particular drama for the viewer to enact. women and fashion amazons, baby dolls and classic
Acting like a psychological block, repetition is frequent temptresses. She announces them as a ‘true bastard
in Applebroog’s work: in Jack F we see a vignette race’ — a term used in South Africa for those who
repeated three times of a man carrying rubbish bags; are half-white, half-black, but here perhaps meant as
elsewhere smaller images undercut the apparent a new stage in evolution.
normality: in Kathy Wwe see, behind Santa Claus, a ‘| situate my art not in reality, but in relation

vignette of a man with his hand up a woman's dress, to desire’, says Dumas, and this is true of all work that

and another of a woman with her hand down the toilet. seems to be about fantasy or dream. All such work is

Applebroog quotes Flannery O'Connor: ‘any person about desire and the need for fulfilment, the need

who has survived childhood should have enough to know another person or another life, the need to set

material to last them their entire life.’ This is aworld up an alternative world through which to comment on

where fairy tales, Freudian analysis, feminist analysis the one that we inhabit. But it is the way Dumas's work is

and a unique chunky painting style commingle. anchored in apparent ordinariness that is key:

Marlene Dumas's work also often focuses on revealingly she talks of that masterpiece of the B-movie

childhood, although re-seen through very adult eyes genre Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956): ‘You see

/ 220 /. ls Snow White her alter ego? As a child she, how loved ones and friends still look the same, but are

like many other girls, identified with that all-so-pure actually aliens with bad intentions. The title of my self-

character: with her situation (condemned by the queen portrait, Evil is Banal relates to these issues too’ / see

for being too pretty) and with her goal (marriage to 138 /. She paints the dwarfs hanging around as though

the handsome prince). But she is an alter ego for many this is normal behaviour in a normal world, and she

million others. Snow White is in the wrong story, the shows everyday life as if it is on the verge of becoming

title tells us, but exactly what story? This is as the miraculous. The paint handling, the strange colours,

incomplete a tale as Applebroog’s. Is this a dream not the floods of paint that suffuse the canvas, keep pulling

only of being beautiful but of being stuck in the one back to this sensuous world. The variations in

morgue? In a text for an exhibition in which her Snow texture, the way her work slips from the voluptuous to

White paintings were included, Dumas wrote, ‘paintings the scratchy, is part of the meaning.

tell stories like zombies walk the earth. ... Snow Dumas’s work has always been overt about
White wants to compete with the man of sorrows.’ The being about a woman's experience, as with pregnancy
Man of Sorrows is Jesus before the Crucifixion; her and the complex emotions of being so, but Pregnant
Snow White is a voluptuous woman (who has pubic hair, Image / see 109 / is such a haunting painting, not
unlike Walt Disney's version). As so often in Dumas’s merely because it is her expressing herself. It haunts us
work, these elements constitute a meditation on how not because it is her self-portrait — it is rather a
both to do the right thing and follow one’s desires. Her compilation of features from elsewhere — but because
pose is that of Christ in the tomb, but why the Polaroid the way it is painted seems to parallel uncertainty
photographs? Because the mythic and the everyday mingled with steadfastness. Sometimes her paintings
mingle in her work? These uncertainties are key: we are are seductive; sometimes they are confrontational. Her
not sure if the voyeurs in Snow White and the Broken set of paintings The First People / 222 / is hung low so
Arm are dwarts or children. It is possible to give a that the figures’ eyes are at the level of an adult's. They
political bent to these works, partly based on Dumas'’s are spooky: when little and viewed through the

191
 Painting Today

ae
SENG
meNite the brokant
ARM--

sentimental mist of parenthood, babies are cute, but Where Kahlo wanted to be as one with the 220. Marlene Dumas

olown up to this adult scale they are grotesque with indigenous people of Mexico, Galan, as a gay man, Snow White and the Broken
ed bellies, old-man wrinkles and was foregrounding the problem of his identity / 224 /. Arm, 1988, Oil on canvas,

disturbingly knowing glances. If Appelbroog and Dumas sought to map the female 140 x 300 cm (55 x 118 in),

In one of her many catechisms on her work imaginary, he wanted to map the gay imaginary. Gemeentemuseum, The Hague
Dumas ironically remarks, ‘I paint because | am a dirty The work of American painter Lari Pittman may
woman’, and then continues: not immediately seem either figurative or personal; 221. Marlene Dumas

rather, it looks like a congested decorative collage. Yet Magdalena (Manet’s Queen),
Painting is a messy business. It cannot ever be a pure a clue to how more than ‘merely decorative’ this could 1995, Oil on canvas,

conceptual medium. ... Painting is about the trace of be is given by the very up-to-date warships lurking in 300 x 100 em (118 x 39% in).
a human touch. It is about the skin of a surface. the pastoral landscapes. Identity and trademarks morph Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
A painting is not a postcard. The content of a painting in his paintings. The figure leaps as he might in one of
cannot be separated from the feel of its surface. Picasso's circus paintings, but he is as stylized as a logo; following pages:

then again, the slashes and the way he balances on 222. Marlene Dumas

This is an artist who, despite her early reliance on a knifepoint, suggest his pose has to do not with a The First People (I-IV),1991
collage, depends on constantly drawing and painting daredevil leap from the wire but with sado-masochistic Oil on canvas, four panels, each

and who, in so doing, often allows accidents to happen, practice / 223 /, Art Deco machinery and spray-painted 180 x 90 cm (71 x 35% in).

letting the liquid ink or paint flow as it wills. Her landscapes such as one finds in Chinese restaurants De Pont Museum of

paintings are not about mastery, making the materials echo the Los Angeles cityscape. This is a world of codes Contemporary Art, Tilburg
do what she wants, but a constant to and fro between and stereotypes that may seem unreal but which is for
her hand and the wayward materials. some the true landscape of desire. To his admirers what
The Mexican artist Julio Galan often cut marks Pittman as important is the way he makes
a hole in his paintings, as though by inviting a viewer gayness and the decorative act not as nouns but as
to put his head in and be photographed with new verbs: as active agents of image construction.
clothes or body. This was a more serious game than Painting is a way of making equivalents to our
anyone would find in an amusement park: this was body experiences, models to think with. We are
about identity. Sometimes the image is of an described by the military as thin-skinned vehicles,
extravagant traditional Mexican dress just like Frida vulnerable to all types of weapon: gas, explosive or the
Kahlo liked to wear, painted life-size, and sometimes kicks of oafs. In a world of surveillance, genetic control,
(as here) there is a whole range of possibilities. smart bombs and technological mastery we are all

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The Figure

readily available as targets. There is, one could argue,

a moral imperative on painting to show this vulnerability
of flesh, but also to show possibilities of how people
may act, subjects as well as objects.
It is difficult to think of any more wretched or
angry complaint from the persecuted than Sue
Williams's early work / 225 /. A reaction to an abusive
relationship, her painting It's aNew Age is raised beyond
desperate griping by the pawky line, the mordant
humour and the sheer effrontery of the presentation. This
is sophisticated graffiti. It is an unusual example of art as
self-therapy escaping mere self-indulgence: the body on
the point of collapse.
Sometimes the figure is there allegorically or by
proxy. Given the acute anthropomorphic tendencies of
Zapotec culture to which Toledo belongs (his double or
other since birth is the iguana) is it not difficult to see
that in his work human ambitions and drives are played
out on our behalf by animals / 226 /.
The miniature tradition of Persia and India was
a narrative one. In its heyday under the Mughal
emperors, by the twentieth century miniature painting
in the region existed almost solely as a minor tourist
industry. It was the least popular course, for example
at Pakistan's Lahore National College of Arts when the
teenage Shahzia Sikander enrolled. At that time there
was only one other student. ‘My interest was and still is
to create a dialogue with a traditional form — how to
use tradition while engaging in a transformative task.
Sikander refused to be subsumed by the craft and to
fulfil the expectations of nostalgia that people had of
the miniature, especially after her move to the USA: her
work would confound and puzzle such preconceptions
Her Extraordinary Realities series of 1996 was painted
over miniatures made in India for tourists, which were
themselves painted over old manuscript pages.
There is a strong residual belief from the
twentieth century that painting should be heroic and
hence large. If, however, we call these works ‘intimate
paintings’, we are closer to a true understanding.
We get close up to look at them, as though peering
through a keyhole, and in so doing we become
enveloped in the complex space, enter into a Tictive
and surprisingly uncertain world. The space of the best
Mughal miniatures was always complex: the space
Sikander creates in her work is even more complex,
inconsistent even, as though different planes are
coexisting. This is made explicit in her installation
works, where she uses translucent paper to overlay
image on image / see 406 /. Narrative happens in
space, but her interest is not in making narratives;
rather, it is in creating intimate space in which we find
our own narratives, our own identities. Hence the
complexity and contradiction in a painting such as
Pleasure Pillars / 227 / which combines F-111 bomber
aircraft with gopis (the lovers of Krishna who dance
joyfully through myriad Indian miniatures), a Venus de

193
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223. Lari Pittman

Once a Noun, Now a Verb #2,

1997. Flat oil on mahogany

panel, 121.9 x 91.4.cm
(48 x 36 in)

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196
 The Figure

224. Julio Galan

Ya No, 1988. Oil and collage

on canvas, 160 x 190 cm

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(63 x 74% in). Private collection
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225. Sue Williams

The Yellow Painting —retitled It’s

Hoices, L choose 6 AN bd Tavst fee me
you nit do ANYTHING WHEN SHE MSE~
FROM perenne: Thingi= A prinsUL Baupaw couLd FAY OFF! a New Age, 1992. Acrylic and
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~- oil on canvas, 162 Y2 x 137% cm
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ns TX The Rabbit Sprays It, 2002. Oil

on canvas, 40 x 50.8 cm

(15% x 20 in)
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197
Painting Today

198
 The Figure

Milo and a Hindu goddess, who stands in the centre

beneath the face of awoman who herself stares calmly at
us. Ared and a blue heart are conjoined, a dog rips the
neck of a deer, a griffin (a chillavain Punjabi) swoops down.
Dots appear everywhere: as jewels or as decorations
or as holes, as in a screen, in the picture plane.
One of the attractions of the miniature for
Sikander is the process: ‘The act ... the materiality,
the seductiveness of the surface, the investment,
the submission, the hours that are put in to create
translucence. In the end, they are very meditative and
meaningful gestures, like ritual. In this sense, miniature
painting is more about subverting modernity than
subverting tradition.’ She is offering us a host of diverse
things, challenging us to weld them together. Using
computers has allowed her to morph and mutate her work
still further, as in Offering |, where she quotes one of her
own earlier works but refits it in the computer-derived
space she has become interested in / 228 /. That she
can combine such a traditional technique with hyper-
modern technology is one of the strengths of her practice.
Storytelling art has emerged, or re-emerged, as
we have seen, as one of the most widespread practices
in the twenty-first century. Often, as in the work of the
American painter Amy Cutler, it is small-scale,
immaculately made but intense. Cutler's work likewise
owes much to a tradition of miniature painting and little
to modernism. It is work that a few years ago would
not have been seen in a museum, being discounted as
‘mere illustration’. There has also been a sexist bias
against this type of work, much of it being by women,
and there has been also a bias against work that
embraces smallness — too nice, not ambitious enough,
too much like playing with Polly Pocket. There are no
men in Cutler's world save the snowmen that women go
to collect, and who melt. These women are strong
women but often in difficult circumstances: in Traction
/ 230 / their braids are used to pull a house across the
snow. The sense of.entrapment is emphasized by
the girls inside the house being forced to sew with their
own hair. Like so much twenty-first-century myth-making
there is a blend of the gothick and sci-fi, of innocence
and cruelty.
The three artists of the Canadian artists’
collective the Royal Art Lodge present a much more
erotically charged world, and one that is also apparently
227. Shahzia Sikander
dominated by rules of exchange / 229 /. Their work, like
Pleasure Pillars, 2001.
Cutler's, is centred on drawing: it is no surprise to find
Watercolour, dry pigment,
that one member (Marcel Dzama) did nothing but draw
vegetable colour, tea and
from 1996 to 2000. The paintings derive from dreams
ink on wasli paper,
— or reveries in that liminal state between wakefulness
30.5 x 25.4 cm (12 x 10 in)
and sleep. This imaginative world seems charming,
innocent even, until we spot the disembowellings,
228. Shahzia Sikander
the interspecies sex. This all seems great fun (Dzama
Offering |, 2003. Gouache and
has had action figures made after the figures in his
digital imaging on paper,
paintings), but it is overshadowed by violent crime, war
32.3 x 24.6 cm (12% x 9% in)
and chronic alienation.

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 Painting Today

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ORS

Likewise the Belgian artist Michaél Borremans because we can see the drips, the scumbling on the
began as a drawer and etcher, and did not show any wall behind / 231 /. That we have to complete the
paintings until 2000. ‘Drawing is something you have image mentally both adds to the mystery and gives the
to get into, painting is something that gets into you.’ sense of us seeing, like archaeologists, only a fragment.
His reasons for using old documentary photographs These people are always absorbed, often looking at
as a source is paradoxically not nostalgic: ‘| want their hands as they write or sort things or draw / 232 /.
to create an image of mankind or womankind from a ‘A painting is not just an image: it is an object, with
distance. | don’t want to show contemporary people: multi-layered character’, Borremans says. In a painting
that would be too anecdotal. But | would like to show such as Colombine we cannot be sure whether we
twentieth-century people like they would be looked are looking at the painting of a figure or of a marionette
at 400 years from now.’ The sepia tones of his paintings / 233 /. Our response is uncertain and troubled.
initially have a nostalgic feel, but when we realize the Much of what we have been looking
weirdness of what seems to be going on we start to find at above has a similar relation to classic figuration as
it unsettling, like the dull colours of a sanatorium. impure abstraction does to the regular stuff: polluted
The most curious thing about these paintings is by many other influences, but blending into a new
how unfinished they seem, as though Borremans cohesive synthesis.
is insistent that we should know that this is painting Sexuality is as key to the work of Jack Vettriano
and nothing but painting. Should we get concerned and Lisa Yuskavage as it is to Freud. The man on
about the four frumpy women in their vat of oil, the street has always wanted paintings that told ‘sexy’
we cannot avoid remembering that it is only paint stories, hence the immense popularity of the self-

200
 The Figure

229. Royal Art Lodge taught Vettriano / 235 /. Collected by film stars but ‘| exploit what's dangerous’, she told Chuck Close,
(Michel Dumontier, Marcel not by museums, Vettriano’s works are detested by ‘and scares me about myself: misogyny, self-
Dzama, Neil Farber) Garbage critics, who despise them as slick and sensationalist, depreciation, social climbing, the constant longing for
Day, 2007-8. Some of around who see his film noir sets as phoney rather than perfection. My work has always been about things
300 panels, mixed media on atmospheric. Nevertheless he does create a nostalgic in myself that | find incredibly uncomfortable with and
board, installed at Bluecoat Art yet edgy atmosphere, and his chunky brushwork can embarrassed by.’ The unreality of Penthouse soft-
Centre, Liverpool give his work vigour. In Vettrianoworld women porn is made simultaneously more unreal and more
always wear stockings and carmine lipstick, people emotive in her paintings and, as she says,
230. Amy Cutler are always about to have sex, often witha frisson of embarrassing. We are not sure whether to laugh or
Traction, 2002. Casein and danger. Yuskavage’s take is rather more problematic cry or gawp. If Yuskavage’s work often seems
vinyl paint on wood panel, / 234 /. At first sight her paintings seem like grotesque or corny, she is exposing what is implicit in
81.3 x 152.4 cm (32 x 60 in). transcriptions of illustrations from the crassest type of our collective fantasies about youth, femininity and
Collection of Francie Bishop soft-porn: nymphettes with big breasts hanging about sexuality. Unlike Vettrianoworld, Yuskavageworld is
Good and David Horvitz
in a state of undress in cheesy interiors. Yet at the one that is aware that it is ridiculous. (How much self-
same time these are well-made paintings, formally ridicule there is in the recent paintings by Currin
inventive and satisfying. If they have a recurrent mood, derived from ‘vintage Scandinavian pornography’ is
it is aparadoxical one: ironic nostalgia. Yuskavage is another matter! / 236 / Not since the days of David
re-imagining her childhood and the schoolgirl Salle have paintings raised so many hackles!)
fascination with the images in 1970s Penthouse, the Elizabeth Peyton's paintings seem exemplary
soft focus nudes of which are a constant inspiration. of much painting of figures and figure situations now.

201
Painting Today

231. Michaél Borremans

Four Fairies, 2003. Oil on

canvas, 110 x 150 cm

(43% x 59 in)

232. Michaél Borremans

The Mill, 2003. Oil on wood,

26.4 x 32.5 cm (10% x 12% in)

233. Michaél Borremans

Colombine, 2008. Oil on

canvas, 52 x 38 cm

(20% x 15 in)

202
 The Figure

ner
 Painting Today

They are copied from photographs she has found Peyton's work has segued from images of the
in the press or taken herself, but they appear famous, often as children, to images of her friends;
to tell no story. At first sight these may seem slight from images derived from news snaps to ones drawn
or sloppy, like amateurish fashion drawings, or from life. She has been open about her love of the
like the drawings a teenage girl might make of her portraits of David Hockney, with their simplicity and
favourite singer and pin to her bedroom wall. They wistful elegance. The way she paints with broad
may seem sentimental, girlie-ish even. Indeed their deceptively casual brushstrokes is akin to Eric Fischl
strength is partly in the devotion, the love they or even Manet: the immediacy of the execution seems
seem to bear for their subject. The longer we look, to catch and place the image at a very precise
the more we realize there is a brio here that helps moment of time. Her intentions are wholly positive, to
communicate the liveliness of a person — her give a sense of a person and the memory and love of
vitality — but often allied with an almost melancholy them: ‘| want to give a lot of beauty and | don’t think
diffidence. Frequently her figures are caught beauty is just pretty — | think that there's a real
paused, in languid meditation, reading books or morality in saying that there are beautiful things in this
looking at pictures / 237 /. world, and you should want that and live for that,

204
 The Figure

234. Lisa Yuskavage

Brood, 2005-6. Oil on canvas,

190.5 x 175 cm (75 x 69 in).

Private collection

235. Jack Vettriano

Between Darkness and Dawn,

1998. Oil on canvas,

76.2 x 61 cm (30 x 24 in)

236. John Currin

The Dane, 2006. Oil on canvas,

121.9 x 81.3 cm (48 x 32 in)

205
Painting Today

206
 The Figure

237. Elizabeth Peyton

r . a 4%
Jarvis on Bed, 1996. Oil on _* A gon.
board, 43.1 x 35.5 cm ad -
(17 x 14 in)
a

238. Elizabeth Peyton

Nick (Poquetanuck Park), 2003.

Oil on canvas, 101.6 x 76.2 cm

(40 x 30 in)

That's what it all about — life and beauty and how ‘What are they doing and what do they mean to us?’
they find themselves in people.’ Other artists of her Celebrities and their lives are an everyday soap opera
generation, such as Cecily Brown and Matthew played out in the newspapers. Painters are like
Ritchie, agree: ‘the work of Elizabeth Peyton implies everyone else, brought up on a television diet of sit-

that it is possible to fall in love again. It might be coms, quizzes and teenage fanzines. For an artist to

risky, but it’s possible.’ reflect that world as Peyton does may be seen as
There is always a potential narrative — we ask vulgar, but she is reflecting a reality that informs our
‘Who are these people? Is that Jarvis Cocker of Pulp?’ culture's imaginative life as much as does the street,
/ 238 /. And then we recognize them and ask, myth or nature.

207
‘ gapsTS nea
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 Painting Today

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Space is not the final frontier Space is where we live you lean into a corner on a motorbike or how you abstraction had become, in effect, silted up by the
and where we see. Onemay make a distinction speed down the motorway at 80 m.p.h. listening paint substance itself.’ In opposition to this an artist
between space and place: place is where we stand at to loud Heavy Metal music, or remember looking out as such as Bridget Riley had used vibrant colour and
a particular moment in time, space is everything else. the plane banks over a big city at night, a sea of lights pattern to energize the space between the viewer and
Place is always specific. We may travel from place to tilting up below. All this has added to our understanding the painting: the colours seemed to move off the
place, but we travel through space. Space is potential. of space — indeed changed it. But the new virtual canvas towards the viewer — it is no coincidence that
It has frontiers only as our vision or the walls or frames space of special effects, computer games and the Riley was a fervid student of Italian Renaissance
we erect around ourselves prescribe. internet is still more radically different, leading, many painting, where space is not only depicted but an active
A painting is normally a flat thing, although it is believe, to an actual change in the very nature of our element in itself.
often made so as to suggest a space behind it, like the consciousness and identity. In recent years, almost as though there was
space beyond a window. Alternatively it may, as we Is painting the medium with which to explore a desire to recapture the excitement of the invention
start to look at it, seem to activate the space between and analyse these new space experiences? Is it, of Leon Battista Alberti’s system of perspective or
us, as with the shapes that float out of Rothko's for that matter, still a useful medium to explore those to emulate science fiction films, many artists have made
abstractions / see 6/. This may make us feel there is an spaces our body normally moves through: landscape paintings that create dynamic, dramatic and complex
equivalent space in our own minds. Three places and interiors? spaces: David Reed and Lydia Dona, for example
for space to expand in or change: in the painting, in our The obsession of formalist painting with attaining / see 169, 171 /. Things and images fly around as in the
mind, and between us and the painting. pure flatness had worked against an experience of vacuum of space, vectors spread out across it and
The twentieth century had already given us space in painting. As the doyen of formalism William space itself seems to have more than three dimensions.
radically new ways of experiencing space: think of how Rubin noted, ‘the sense of space in most vanguard This is true of the work of the German artist Franz

210
Painting Space

239. Franz Ackermann

Ohne Titel (Mental Map: No

Horizon), 2007. Mixed media

on paper, 21.9 x 28.6 cm

(8Y% x 11% in)

240. Franz Ackermann

Gelbe Walk, 2008. Oil on

canvas, 354 x 283 x 5 cm

(139 ¥2 x 114% x 2 in)

211
Painting Today
Painting Space

Ackermann, too, who has also explored how our

understanding of space has been radically altered by
modern tourism. On the tourist circuits of many
towns one can get booklets that show you where to
pause and take a photograph: our experience of space
is presented like a microwave meal, ready to heat
and eat. Ackermann’s approach to tourism is the exact
opposite of such passivity: his paintings can be
described as the re-creation of urban space, hyper
activated by an individual subjectivity. When he arrives
in a town, he meanders the streets, scouring for visual
information — maps, postcards, brochures — that can
be thrown into the visual mix of the urban
contemporary. This heterogeneity of material stimulates
him to make small sketches that he terms ‘mental maps’
/ 239 /. Having set up his studio in a hotel room, he then
proceeds to make large paintings in which the town is
re-imagined in terms of pathways, vectors and virulent
colour contrasts. If this is cartography, it is one of
explosions rather than of the city square and grid. The
space seems to shift and implode much like star cruisers
popping in and out of hyperspace in recent films.
Although Ackermann is normally described as a
critique of modernist urban space, it is also appropriate
to see his work as a delirious celebration of the
postmodern city traversed as much by the information
highway as by the inner ring road. Computer graphics
and the deep space of films such as The Matrix have
made something as visually dynamic as this easier to
live with. Moreover, it is not so difficult for us to imagir
(
someone, like Neo in that film, travelling simultaneously
in real space and hyperspace and, as here, merging
them together / 240 /.
What is most radical in Ackermann is that. in!
understanding, space Is only experienced through time
To some extent this is embodied in his paintings. We
may be slapped in the cornea instantly, but it takes us
some time to work out what is actually happening
Many of his paintings are of cinematic shape and scale,
so it is appropriate that he often moves to paint the
whole room / 241 /. This emphasizes the complexity o1
the space he invents and also emphasizes how cogent
the paintings are as decorative schemes. However, they
are never just decoration: they are models, however
large, of how to experience and enjoy the world. In the

241. Franz Ackermann

Installation Ecstasy: In and About

Altered States, at the Museum of

Contemporary Art, |Los Angeles,

October 2005 —February 2006

213
Painting Today

242. Fabian Marcaccio

Installation at Kevin Bruk
Gallery, Miami, including
Private Contractor
and New Paintants, 2007

243. Fabian Marcaccio

Confine Paintant, 2003,

as installed at Ostend, Belgium.

Pigmented ink, oil, silicone
and polymers on vinyl,
on metal structure, 1 x 334 m

(3x 1100ft)

244. Matthew Ritchie

God of Catastrophe, 2006.

Oil and marker pen on linen,

259 x 361 cm (102 x 142 in)

214
 Painting Space

installation pictured here ‘real’ space is indicated by was to create a pictorial reality that parallels your space in a computer game. For Ritchie the website, the
photographs hung next to one of his mental maps of experience of walking and seeing.’ The space of these painting and the installation are all sites for a personal
the view from his hotel room and of a famous old paintants is as complex as their shapes. The images myth, but a myth that is as derived from science and
Minneapolis pub sign. are myriad: grabbed from the net or shot by Marcaccio psychology as much as ancient yarns. He was wary of
Paintings such as Fabian Marcaccio's can also himself, materialized as though a computer's image quickly concocted myths of the sort that ‘Zeitgeist’
become enormous, filling whole rooms, heavy with bank had been spewed out and made flesh, endlessly artists such as Schnabel had made:
paint, silicon and other materials. These paintings have mutating, replicating and connecting like the
become so large and so different from traditional brushmarks with one another rhizomatically / 242 /. My work was partly presented as a reaction to a climate
paintings that he calls them ‘paintants’, as a way of As long ago as 1979 Jean-Francois Lyotard
where a great deal ofarbitrarily narrative work had
emphasizing them as acts. Sometimes these are wrote that ‘Data banks are the encyclopaedias of
been proposed and subsequently a number of these
vast scrolls that move from room to room, painted on tomorrow. They transcend the capacity of each of their
pseudo-narratives had instantaneously collapsed,
both; sometimes they are hollow, like tubes, so that users. They are “nature” for postmodern man.’ Has
leaving an audience extremely pissed off with the
one can also see inside. Sometimes, as when in 2003 he cyberspace replaced the space of nature? This would
seem at least partly true of two young artists: Julie
possibilities of narrative painting. Because what they
installed a 334-metre (1,100 feet) paintant on a beach
in Belgium / 243 /, one has to take a long walk to see Mehretu, from Ethiopia, and Matthew Ritchie, from were watching was just people in the treasury,
it all. This work was digitally printed on vinyl and then London, but who moved to work in New York — a town ransacking the storeroom, and having a good time
over-painted with oil, silicon and polymers. ‘My idea constructed on a three-dimensional grid, just like the putting on the crowns and swords.

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245. Matthew Ritchie Ritchie's myth is complex but coherent, based

Proposition Player, 2003, as on seven character traits, which each transform into

installed at Massachusetts seven characters, which each have seven modes.

Museum of Contemporary Arts, This has given rise to innumerable writings by him and
North Adams, 2005 underpins the paintings: ‘they were originally an attempt
to simply represent the conditions of any system.’
Each time Ritchie has a major exhibition he tries to push
this narrative or cosmology further, adding ‘physical
details to the overall information architecture, trying to
extend the idea of an open system to the physical
form of the work. ... When | was in high school a digital
watch was a rare trophy. Now a tidal wave of
information engulfs us. ... Howdo we deabwith this? ...
How can we learn to see information as form?’ What
characterizes Ritchie's attempt to create a physical
equivalent to the information age is its extraordinary
sense of speed / 244 /. ‘The information friction is high
— it's a rough little ride when it enters your head." It’s
an exhilarating ride, whether or not one takes on board
the texts as well as the paintings. As with other
artists who want to create these new notions of space,
he turns to the spiral or vortex rather than the grid

so beloved by modernists. This, as has been noted, is

the form that underlies the Baroque. In Deleuze’s re-
reading of the Baroque it is an art that twists and folds,
its multiple exterior surfaces echoing the intuitive
experience of the subject in this ultra-dynamic world,
folding herself in interaction with the flux. There is no
shading, no modelling and no use of the photograph.
If anything, this is a vast diagram imbued with manic
life. And the effect of kinaesthesia is further enhanced
when installed in a complex such as that at Houston in
2003.Proposition Player included wall and floor
drawings, sculpture, texts and even a computerized
craps table where viewers could roll a four-sided dice
and see a projected picture change according to their
throw / 245 /.
Life has become so complex and so difficult to
comprehend that it is arguably easier to create models
of fictional worlds and use them as models or allegories
to understand the real one: hence the popularity of the
Matrix movies, His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman or
the five Cremaster films by Matthew Barney. What is
important about Ritchie's work is not so much the game
elements or the characters as the way it works out as an
exploration of space that seems wholly Baroque and yet
can seem like a model of thought. Although he has a
light, almost decorative touch, the drives beneath his
art are dark:

You've got hundreds of competing impulses —

your skin is itching, you're responding to pressures and
thoughts of age, your body is deteriorating, you're
going to the gym. It’s a mess. This temple of activity.
This hive. The heart's beating, you can hear it ticking in
the back of your mind. And your brain, god knows
what's going on there. No one’s even close to figuring

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that out. And so this is an attempt to try and map Mehretu’s works are the most recent and the German painter Daniel Richter commented in
what it’s really like to be a person, in this simple, among the most extreme attempts at synchronicity, the 1996. ‘| have an unhierarchical approach’, Rae replied,
childish way. attempt to embody the all-at-once complexity of the ‘in that any one kind of painting language is potentially
city. ‘Places like Lagos or Times Square on a Saturday as interesting as another. And in the work itself
For Mehretu the exploration of space is not just about night’, she muses, ‘are completely intriguing to me in nothing takes precedence. | guess that’s what you call
space travel and the infinite spaces one can create in their supreme dazzling capacity. | want my paintings to democratic.’ An increasing amount of material is
the computer but also about sports stadiums and how convey ... this type of speed, dynamism, struggle and included in the mix: Krazy Kat, Vermeer, Lara Croft. By
people flow in and out of them. ‘The coliseum, the potential.’ The struggle is both formal and political: the late 1990s the monochrome backgrounds of her
amphitheatre, and the stadium are perfect metaphoric Black City is based on the notion of collapsing a scheme early paintings had given way to a soup of black and
constructed spaces clearly meant to situate large of a fortress into that of a stadium (both building types white / 249 /. Sometimes the black coagulates into
numbers of people in a highly democratic, organized, are civic expressions of nationalism) while an Islamic architectural forms, or else coloured circles can bob to
and functioning manner. It is in these same spaces symbol flies through the maelstrom of marks / 247 /. the top like croutons or matzo balls. Ifthis black-and-
that you can feel the undercurrents of complete chaos, Space can be as deep as a black hole or as white soup is an equivalent of space, it is one that exists in
violence and disorder.’ Like Ritchie and Ackermann, shallow as a skin pore. No space is as difficult to a permanent state of potentiality and that like the Matmos
Mehretu is attracted to notions of psycho-geography, conceptualize or as important as one’s own brain: there in the film Barbarella can bubble like a living organism,
where one maps the world subjectively, and by is a sense that what Ritchie, Mehretu and others are able to morph like ectoplasm into other forms or let
deconstructionist architects who propose new ways of doing is providing neural maps and seeking to relate alien elements pop out. (| am deliberately mixing my
making cities with more complex flows of movement this to a sense of being in a body subject to gravity metaphors, as Rae's paintings do.) When it was sug-
and communication — she has called architectural plans and motion. One could see this as a twenty-first-century gested that they showed a sense of anxiety, she agreed:
the DNA of her paintings. re-envisioning of Pollock's skeins of gesture.
A painting such as her The Seven Acts of Fiona Rae's earliest paintings were a matter | wanted them to be very unsettling, no clear or
Mercy is typically large, dynamic and based on a vortex, of inventing hybrid forms that sat in rows, derived solid ground, nothing to rely on. | was living in a flat
but that vortex swings over a more stable stadium partly from mail order catalogues and partly from the hundreds of feet above London, a bit like living in
/ 246 /. For here all these marks represent people in inventory of abstract painting but mainly arrived at a space ship. There was no sense of real to comfort and
motion. One could allegorize it as organic through improvisation. However, she was very much reassure, no pavements, roads or trees. It seemed
energy and geometric stasis, or personal resistance transforming all these elements rather than a truly contemporary experience and | wanted
and bureaucratic inaction. The title is taken from appropriating them in an ‘inside quotation marks’, the painting | was making to reflect something of that.
a Caravaggio painting — a painting that has perhaps postmodern sort of way. They hovered, flexing their The delirious angst and ecstasy of the contemporary
both his most complex Baroque space and his muscles, in a limbo. This space became more run parallel here to an understanding of how the mind
most profound humanitarian message about helping complex, more variable, disrupted. ‘The composition works, consciousness sliding across the shifting sea of
the poor, sick and dying. of the painting seems to be very democratic’, the unconscious.

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246. Julie Mehretu In recent paintings Rae has used logos and where the challenge is greatest.’ Richter’s early

The Seven Acts of Mercy, 2004. images downloaded from the net (she always pays the paintings were of abstract, convoluted spaces but were
royalty); however, she never composes the painting filled with elements that could flip into figuration. There
Ink and acrylic on canvas,
289 x 640 cm (114 x 252 in). on the screen. The physicality of paint, the way it seems were frequent references to punk and rock music

Private collection to hold frozen the creative moment of a particular and sometimes, as in The White Gorilla Makes his Way,
person, remains the crux. But of course she, like most the sense that some sort of narrative was imminent
people of her generation, is affected by the space / 250 /. In the next century these virtual spaces of his
following pages:
247. Julie Mehretu of cyberspace and special effects. ‘How’, she asks, ‘can would respond to the call of gravity.

Black City, 2007. Ink and acrylic you not be affected by the way the titles in recent When we are at the computer, the space
is either out there or in our head. If we take our eyes
on canvas, 304.8 x 487.7 cm movies give a glimpse of deep, deep space or the way
away from the screen, we are in a space less alien, more
(120 x 192 in). space wobbles in The Matrix.’
Showing in Japan in 1999 had the effect of familiar and intimate: our own room. In a passionate
Francois Pinault collection
bringing back to the surface memories of Hong Kong, paean to the domestic house and its rooms-the French

where Rae had spent her childhood. The cuteness philosopher Gaston Bachelard wrote that ‘our house is

(kawaii) so prized in Japanese media emerges, but the our corner of the world’.

deer-like animals that litter her recent paintings can

equally seem sinister. Their smooth inanity plays against The house shelters daydreams, the house protects the

the various types of painterliness — gesture, drip, spray dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace. ...

— that fuse to construct a space that seems fictive yet It is body and soul. It is the human being’s first world. ...
familiar / 251 /. The artist talks of how, when the painting Life begins well, it begins enclosed, protected, all warm
is going well, it is as though she is in an enclosed in the bosom of the house.
private space in which time has stopped; ‘it is that
imaginary space’, she says, ‘like being underwater when No-one conveys that glow of an inhabited room as

you are totally enveloped or lost.’ well as Howard Hodgkin. His work has often been

It is not unusual for an artist to say that, when about the sense of being with other people in a social

things are going their way and they are totally situation, in a restaurant or a garden (in effect an

concentrated and totally relaxed, they are enclosed in outside room). Since his first painting of an interior in
their own world. Actors and surfers both talk of the 1949, his work has become progressively abstracted,

green room. It is where actors go when they wait to go so now we are left with only the general sensation
on the stage, a liminal space between everyday life of a place and an occasion. The one recurrent element

and where they have to enact being another. It is where has been the window frame, echoed by the way he

surfers seek to go, sliding along under the almost paints over both the wooden board and its wooden

breaking wave, in an almost mystical state: ‘It is the frame. We cannot be literal about In Paris with You —
we should not see the red rectangle as a blind to be
moment of ecstasy’ another artist, Gary Hill, notes,
‘when the surfer stands and looks down the face of the pulled down across a window — but we can see the

wave he knows he is on the way to being there.’ relationships between the elements as being
very like those between two people and how they
The German artist Albert Oehlen is, in contrast,
inhabit a room and a world of feelings. What matters
a paddler, rather than a surfer. For him creating
complex and contradictory spaces has much to do with in an interior is not its measurements but how it is
filled with memory, presence and — presumably here
opposing the rational space in modernism. There is a
drama to works such as Party Dreams / 248 /, each — passion / 252 /.

element jostling and pushing the other out of the work, But the home is also a place of waiting and
asserting a different sense of space. Because we cannot trauma. | imagine that the eyes we are looking through
make sense of the whole thing, we go to the details, we in Catherine Murphy's Stairwell / 253 / are those of
enter the work like detectives picking up each clue, a child eavesdropping on the grown-ups. This painting
looking for a trail. It is no surprise to find that Oehlen fulfilled one of Murphy's ambitions by simultaneously
often begins with collage, where disparate elements in containing an interior, a landscape (spied through
different scales are brought together in shotgun the window), a still life (a strange line of elephants)
marriages. To create such a complex and inconsistent and figures. The woman at the bottom with her back to
space is also to create complex time. The more we look us is her sister talking to a neighbour: this was, as the
at this painting, the more we see — elements and child’s eyes suggest, a painting about reliving
contradictions. It slows down. and coming to terms with the artist's own childhood.
Like Oehlen, Daniel Richter, his one-time It was her mother’s house: her parents were ageing
studio assistant, seemed more to struggle with painting and indeed died during the three years she spent
than adore it: ‘Painting is the most resistant medium,’ making the painting. The staircase, that transitional
he remarked, ‘the slowest moving, the most weighted space, emphasizes that this is a painting of a
down with tradition, and the hardest to extend. That is meeting or an arrival.

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248. Albert Oehlen

Party Dreams, 2001. Inkjet and

mixed media on canvas,
300 x 340 cm (118 x 134 in).

Centro de Arte Contemperano

Inhotim, Belo Horizante, Brazil

ih 249. Fiona Rae

Tomb Raider, 1997. Oil and

acrylic on canvas,
244 x 213 cm (96 x 84 in)

250. Daniel Richter

The White Gorilla Forges

Ahead (Der Weisse Gorilla

macht seinen Weg), 2000.

Oil on canvas, 368 x 250 cm

(145 x 98% in)

251. Fiona Rae

I'm learning to fly!!,2006.
Oil and acrylic on canvas,
213 x 175 cm (84 x 69 in)

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A series of recent paintings by Eric Fischl of a which she does this, that she is no artist's model but a
man and a woman in an interior (laughing, arguing, professional stripper. We also eventually realize that the
eating together, ignoring each other, having sex) is an film is being projected backwards. The artist's studio is
extraordinary and profound evocation of middle-class a very special space, where normal behaviour is put on
life today, replete with designer objects. The house they hold. Supposedly this is where a woman goes, takes her
are in was designed by Mies van de Rohe for the Esters clothes off, is painted, puts her clothes back on and
family in Krefeld; it is now an exhibition space. When leaves. Sex is never mentioned. Of course, this
Fischl was approached to do an exhibition there, he felt stereotype seems anachronistic after a hundred years of
the need to re-create the house as a domestic interior. abstraction and in a time where so many artists are
Having filled it with furniture from a local shop, he hired female. However, Sarmento’s film serves to remind us
an actor and actress to live there for four days, doing that the studio is still potentially the strangest of spaces,
the things couples do: waiting, eating, arguing, one that may seem a limbo of passions but which can
touching. From the 2,000 photographs he took of them become highly charged by fantasy. For some artists the
he selected twelve, and recomposed some of them studio is an analytical laboratory; for others it is an
using Paintbox, as the bases for paintings. These were empty stage where the fantastic, the imaginary or the
then installed in Haus Esters: an uncanny experience for carnivalesque may be summoned. Although the artist's
visitors as the museum became a home again, although studio may often seem dull, more like a workshop or
apparently for ghosts. Passages of beauty — the light storeroom, it is a room with infinite potential — like a
on the man’s flesh beside the window, the red robe of blank canvas waiting to be painted. It is also a room
the woman spinning — interpolate the emptiness of the with memories: on the walls behind the stripper we see
rooms / 254, 255 /. the marks where paintings once were.
As Fischl shows, interior space is the normal Both Sarmento’s paintings and his sculptures

scene of desire. This is the key to understanding the are fixated on the space in which desire can live / 256,
work of the Portuguese artist Juliao Sarmento. In a film 257 /. ‘It is the practice of desire in a perverse manner,

he made we see a woman enter his studio and, to the because it is a subverted desire.’ ‘| work within the field
rousing music of Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet, strip off of seduction.’ These are white expanses in which

her clothes. We realize by the extended guile with fragmentary figures appear, touching each other or

252. Howard Hodgkin

In Paris with You, 1995-6.

Oil on wood, 71 x 88.9 cm

(28 x 35 in)

253. Catherine Murphy

Stairwell, 1980. Oil on canvas,

104.1 x 86.4 cm (41 x 34 in)

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Painting Today

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254. Eric Fisch

Sunroom Scene 1, 2002

Oil on canvas,

198.1 5 1>/

255. Eric Fisct

Living Room Sc 2002

Ojl on canvas,

215.9 6 cr 114

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a“

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256. Juliao Sarmento

Evocative Consent of Tenderness

(Consentimento Evocitivo de

Ternuras), 1997. Mixed media on

canvas, 188 x 201 cm (74 x 79 in).

Private collection

257. Juliao Sarmento

Licking the Milk Off Her Finger,

1998. Resin, fiberglass, fabric,
acrylic, wood, glass and milk,
110.5 x 262.3 x 139.7 cm
(43 %x 103% x 55 in). Hirshhorn
Museum and Sculpture Garden,
Washington, DC

258. Anton Henning

Pin-Up no. 62, 2002. Oil on linen,

125.2 x 157.2 cm (49% x 62 in)

looking or waiting. Sometimes text will appear, or an from cheesecake magazines — but they are often
echo of cinema, for this limbo or waiting-room he wants changed en route: in Pin-Up no. 62 we see a girl with
us to imagine is for intellectual or poetic reflection as her bra slipping off, but the background is not
well as desire. Several of these white paintings what we expect. Henning jokes that the painting is the
by Sarmento quote from James Joyce’s yearning and ‘Mondrian bride’ / 258 /. Not only did Mondrian
sexually explicit letters to his companion, Nora forswear the figure, nude or clothed, but the abstraction
Barnacle. The image is never complete, unless in our against which this nude stands is far more variegated
imaginings: the canvas is left open as a playground for and impastoed than Mondrian would have accepted.
the libido. The image is important for what it can Henning's work is an unabashed celebration of
suggest: ‘| would find it rather tedious to make a life in which the relationship between people and their
realistic representation ... of awoman sitting on a chair. environment is happy: the woman and the jolly
| am interested in everything which surrounds the fact abstraction behind are in harmony. He pursues the very
that a woman is sitting on a chair.’ The potential opposite of Mondrian’s purity, laughingly referring
voyeurism, even objectionable sexism, of this sense to his studio as a greenhouse where ‘hybrid pictures
of desire forever thwarted becomes even more are cultivated’.
problematic when these female figures, in their
ubiquitous little black dresses, literally materialize in the The sensuality of the painted image lies in the allure
installations that sometimes accompany the painting. of benevolent spirits. The quiet elegance of a
Now the room itself takes on the canvas's role as late afternoon; the simplicity of joy — such things are
uncertain space. beautiful, aren’t they? It’s not that I’m striving for that.
Anton Henning is a prolific German artist who It’s more that I’ve experienced that and will experience
paints in the traditional genres: portraits, landscapes, it again, that | have this sensibility in me, and that it
nudes, flowers, interiors, decorative abstractions. He is so strong that | can charge all of my paintings with it.
shows them on his website as guilelessly as if they were Painting sometimes becomes a narcotic.
plastic gnomes in a mail order catalogue. At an initial
glance they may seem garish and vulgar. The nudes he Henning has become equally well known for his
calls ‘pin-ups’ — correctly, because they are derived interiors, in which he likes to install his paintings and

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objects. He first made one of these as he wanted an of healthy Aryan women) overlaid with a ‘Hennling’ bourgeois sitting-room: a spread from World of Interiors,
environment in which to show his video The Manker (a form derived from Matisse’s favoured agapanthus perhaps — but puzzlement follows / 260 /. Any attempt
Melody Maker (2000), a parody of an MTV programme shape and which pops up in many Henning works). to read it as rational space keeps breaking down; any
in which Henning plays music critic, griping roadie and As the entire room has become an artwork, so Henning attempt to see it as flat abstract surface falters on the
drug-crazed guitarist. Slipping from psychedelia to includes integrated lighting and sofas to relax on, sharp perspectival space of the church or left-hand sofa.
lounge-lizard jazz, from posturing to self-mockery, the although, to show their effective status as works of art, Vermeer's paintings rely on a tension between space
film is much like his painted work, ebullient and these are raised on plinths. Tables, pin-ups and and surface, and so do Weischer’s, but he privileges
humorous. He paints the walls on which the paintings abstractions appear elsewhere in the room. the surface where Vermeer privileged the space.
are installed, picking out with frames architectural If the interior allowed Vermeer, for example, to The picture as a picture is for him the pre-eminent logic,
features such as light switches or fire alarms / 259 /. make some of the most complex and mysterious of all a fact teased by the vestigial shoe, a residue of when
The painting types are varied: a chunkily painted sitting- Old Master paintings, it also allows Matthias Weischer a person sat on the sofa. The window itself is blocked
room, happy children with a cow, a gaily dancing to make late modernist paintings of great complexity with scraped and blotched paint. The lampshade is
group of nude women (derived from Third Reich photos and no little mystery. A cursory glance may see a unmodelled, the table modelled into three dimensions.

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E: ae
Jes
.

A grid, the central split, patches of bare canvas, delicate encloses and protects the individual within; like the 259. Anton Henning 260. Matthias Weischer

dribbles of paint all conspire to refuse a sense of space, body, its walls put boundaries around the self, Installation at Haunch St Ludgerus, 2004. Oil on

but we will always, as humans, see it as an interior — preventing undifferentiated contact with the world, of Venison, London, including canvas, 300 x 251.5 cm

which is, of course, a world of surfaces: wall, tabletop, yet in its windows and doors, crude versions of the Flower Still Life no. 185, 2004, (78% x 99 in). Private collection

carpet. And also, at some subconscious level, as in all senses, it enables the self to move out into the world oil on canvas, 188.5 x 157 cm

the best paintings of the room, we see it as a projection and allows that world to enter. But while the room (74% x 61% in); Play no. 2,

2001, oil on canvas,

of our own skin. ‘In normal contexts’, Elaine Scarry is amagnification of the body, it is simultaneously a
127 x 97.5 cm (50 x 38 ¥2 in);
writes in a famous book on pain and the body, miniaturization of the world, of civilization.
and Interior no. 238, 2004, oil

on canvas, 173.2 x 189.2 cm

the room, the simplest form of shelter, expresses the The room, like the painting, is a place where
(68% x 742 in)
most benign potential of human life. It is, on the one space happens. Weischer's room is silent, empty,
hand, an enlargement of the body: it keeps warm and yet filled with incident. Space in the painting, like the
safe the individual it houses in the same way the body space of the body, is filled with potential meaning.

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 Painting Today

| actually tried not to paint landscape. | thought it was

just too embarrassing ... so old fashioned’, April
Gornik said in 1978 when she arrived in New York. To
the twenty-first-century mind landscape painting sounds
like a cosy and rather old-fashioned genre. Many of
us grew up with a reproduction of a Monet landscape
ra Constable or some other benign vision of nature
in our homes. Although those artists were radical in

their time, the radicalism of their vision has long since

been absorbed. The function of those pictures has,

it seems, now become to comfort us. They act as

pretend windows in our walls that look out to a happy,

recreational landscape — pastoral therapy, visual Prozac.
Art, at every level, is bought by a predominantly
urban audience. The country is where people go
at weekends and where they plan to retire: it is viewed
with nostalgia. It is, we assume, a nicer place than
the city. Our view of the country in art is a pastoral one,
informed both by the classical Arcadias of Claude
Lorrain, where the sun shines and life is blissful, and by
sanitized Victorian watercolours. In this pastoral vision
lite carries on eternally unchanged and we are at
one with the world. When Komar and Melamid did their
series of Most Wanted paintings, sending out
questionnaires in various countries to find out what
people liked and disliked in a painting, and then
synthesizing the results, they ended up with a romantic
(but not too wild) landscape.
The majority of paintings for sale in department
stores, as original or framed reproduction, are of such
charming, unspoilt landscapes — Arcadias. The
paragon here is the American painter Thomas Kinkade,
who has a chain of shops selling his evocations
of a happy innocent world replete with fluffy trees and
chintzy cottages, what he describes as ‘glimpses of a
world that is tranquil, peaceful and full of the beauty of
God's creation’. Others see it as escapist kitch —
degraded Claudianism.
There is another tradition: the dark pastoral.

This may be most clearly associated with the

of the squalid scene in chapter 6 of Hardy's novel Jude

the Obscure, where the girls cleaning pigs’ entrails in the

261. Michael Andrews

The Cathedral, Northeast Face

Uluru (Ayers Rock), 1985. Acrylic

on canvas, 243.8 x 426.7 cm

(96 x 168 in)

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Painting Today

Rien ee pee eal

 Landscape

262. Michael Andrews stream throw a pig's penis at Jude. Jude is not a happy Beyond the wood, were | to slip and fall into the River
Thames Painting: The Estuary, swain: he is a man crippled by lack of educational Stour, it would be a wholly physical experience —
1994-5. Acrylic on canvas, opportunity and social prejudice. The country is not just especially as | can't swim. Dr Johnson, on being told
219.8 x 189.1 cm (86% x 74% in). a place of sun, flowers and peasants dancing; it is where that the philosopher Berkeley was arguing that the
Pallant House, Chichester things rot and die, where night-time predators roam, material world was an illusion, kicked with full force a
where evil as well as the tired city-dweller can hide. The rock, shouted ‘| refute him thus!’ and hobbled on down
novels of Cormac McCarthy or David Lynch's film Twin the path. Were Schama to be hit dh the cheek like
Peaks present other versions of dark pastoral. In the Jude, by a flying pig's pizzle, he would have to concede
cinema the country has often become a place of threat, that first and foremost it was a material experience.
gothick again, as in The Blair Witch Project. Is there a How can painting ever be as radical as that of
landscape painting made today characterized not just an art like Long's and so wholly about experience,
by joy or complacence but also by such fear and about being in the landscape? Is it any wonder that
strangeness, by the uncanny rather than the normative? Andrews focuses on those non-painting artists alone?
Painting will, | would argue, always have an How can painting match the involvement in nature of
especially important role in understanding landscape artists like Long?
because it is through paintings, from Claude to Monet Part of an answer can be found in the late work
to Hockney, that we have made our image of the of the English painter Michael Andrews. Ayers Rock
landscape. Yet when we read books on landscape art (or Uluru) is one of Australia’s great tourist attractions
today, they invariably ignore landscape painting after but also a sacred site to the indigenous population.
1968 and concentrate solely on other subjects. For Whether you view it as a geological oddity, spectacular
example, Malcolm Andrews in his book Landscape and vista, a challenging climb or a taboo depends on
Western Art shows and discusses no landscape painting who you are and how you come to it. But all these
made in the last seventy years bar Komar and Melamid's aspects exist in Andrews's painting, The Cathedral,
Most Wanted paintings. For him landscape painting Northeast Face Uluru (Ayers Rock) / 261 /. At first glance
‘over the last five hundred years can be read as the it looks disturbingly like a postcard view, but far bigger,
elegiac record of humanity's sense of alienation from its brighter: even garish. At a second glance it reminds
original habitat in an irrevocable, pre-capitalist world’. one of the nineteenth-century visionary landscapes of
If landscape painting just reiterates that elegy, as he the American West: Frederic Edwin Church, Albert
claims, then one must look elsewhere for critical work. Bierstadt, Thomas Moran. At a third it gets far more
Around 1968 a new type of art relating to the complex — and strange. Andrews used a variety of
landscape emerged, one that artists no longer drew or techniques to create a complicated surface: spray and
painted but rather one that they walked on — calling brush — also dust or spinifex he had collected at the
that walk the work and, like Richard Long, documenting site sometimes thrown into the paint, as though to
it by photographs or text. Representation seems to be maintain some physical link to the place, to keep fresh
replaced by activity, by a more direct involvement with his own memories of being there and to keep the
landscape. Such an emphasis on direct physical painting, like the desert, explicitly physical.
involvement has much to do with notions of romantic Paradoxically, it is about both the need to belong in
immersion from Wordsworth, Thoreau or Van Gogh but landscape and the otherness of place, the rock
has also been driven by contemporary ecological emerging from the plain as unexpectedly as Moby
concerns. Moreover, this emphasis on being there has Dick breaking from the waves. And it is radiant. When
much to do with the need to counteract the belief, originally exhibited, it was in an exhibition Andrews
nowadays sometimes paraded as common sense, that entitled ‘Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me’ — the first line
we see landscape only through culture rather than as of a popular eighteenth-century Calvinist hymn,
nature — that, as Simon Schama claims in his influential which continues ‘Let me hide myself in thee’ and then
book Landscape and Memory, ‘landscapes are culture proceeds to expand on the metaphor of entering
before they are nature; constructs of the imagination Christ's wound and washing away one’s sins by bathing
projected on to wood and water and rock’. When we in the outpouring blood of Christ.
go to the country, we undoubtedly see the landscape In the last painting Andrews made / 262 / the
we have been taught to see, but being in the landscape flow of paint echoes, or rather re-enacts, the flow
is also a very physical sensation: when | walk out of my of water in tidal London. The paint and spilt turpentine
door in the country, | hear the chatter of birds, | feel the cling and seep just as mud clings and seeps with the
cold west wind, the squelch of mud and wet leaves tide’s pulls and pushes. Over it the city’s fumes and
under foot, | smell the dung of horse and sheep and lights linger, together with the misty exhalations of the
tractor exhaust. Perhaps, most importantly, as | walk water itself. As always, Andrews used a high viewpoint,
down the hill to the woods, | become more aware of my as though to map the place, and also to pull the eye
own body, balanced against gravity, gradient and the down towards what is around the feet. The painting not
wind, balancing against uneven, muddy ground. only re-enacts the motions of the estuarial river, piling

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 Painting Today

1cialisbliss ae ela iS BONG

ho srPa RON a= SSS

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Landscape

263. Michael Biberstein 264. Michael Biberstein

Chasm 2, 1987. Installation of works at Galeria

Acrylic on linen with bricks, Cristina Guerra, Lisbon, 2008

230 x 200 cm (90% x 78% in).

Private collection

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Painting Today

265. Per Kirkeby 267. lan McKeever

The Dream about Uxmal and Lapland Painting: The Moth

the Unknown Grottoes of Tree, 1986. Oil and photograph

Yucatan (Dunkle Hohle), 1967. on canvas, 220 x 170 cm

Mixed media on masonite, (862 x 67 in). Private collection

122 x 122 cm (48 x 48 in)

266. Per Kirkeby

Vibeke Late Summer IV (Vibeke

Sensommer IV), 1983-4.

Oil on canvas, 200 x 130 cm

(78% x 51% in)

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 Landscape

268. lan McKeever

Sentinel X,2003. Oil and acrylic

on linen, 225 x 125 cm

(88 ¥2 x 49% in). Royal Academy
of Arts, London

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 Painting Today

up and trawling back the mud, trickling water and hide in. If Kinkade’s work presents refuges and Andrews the artist was staging the event, but the viewer had
effluent down through it, but also makes a paradoxical prospects (even to the point, in the middle of his career, to enact it. Subsequently Biberstein’s work built on such
conjunction of paint and man. What is paint but of painting people stalking deer!), the Swiss American contrasts of landscape and either monochrome
coloured mud? What are we made from in so many Michael Biberstein deliberately presents both. Until
panels — the epitome, as he saw it, of eighty years of
creation myths but mud? This painting has a funereal lilt the mid-1980s his work was an analysis of abstraction,
modernist painting — or simple brick elements that
to it and is made more wistful by the figures, lifted from context and materials. Then he felt that he needed
referenced Carl Andre's early sculptures, which were in
a Victorian photograph. Not since the time of Whistler, to synthesize things, to re-engage with those traditions
a hundred years ago, has a boatman worn a bowler hat.
his eyes the epitome of modernist sculpture / 263 /.
before modernism. In 1983 he made an installation in
It has been suggested that what we seek the staircase at the museum in Bochum with the
The landscape paintings, which were much
in landscape is either prospect or refuge: that 10,000 somewhat portentous title The Apotheosis of the Human influenced by both Chinese painting and its notions
generations of being hunters or hunted, in search Spirit through the Seeing of Landscape. As one of tranquillity and Western notions of the sublime,
of game or in fear of predators, has made us still always went up the stairs, one saw minimal abstract paintings, became larger. These were paintings about the
search, however unconsciously, for high points where culminating at the top in a cloudscape and a red theory of understanding landscape, but also potential
we can spy out the land or else for dingles or nooks to monochrome. The emphasis was on the viewer's seeing: experiences themselves. ‘Landscape’, he wrote

242
 Landscape

269. Per Kirkeby is a wholly subject-orientated utopia since its Both the Danish artist Per Kirkeby and the
Soft Lapping of Waves, Green concern is patently the elevated feeling that we register, British artist lan McKeever have travelled extensively in
(Leiser Wellenschlag, Grun), for example, when we stand on the summit of a some of the wildest landscapes of this world. Both
2005. Oil on canvas, mountain and gaze on a sublime landscape. The eye studied geology and the scientific forces of nature
200 x 300 cm (78% x 118 in) wanders over the landscape, one’s gaze totally seriously, and both men’s work seemed to be cent
relaxed, never fixed for long on any single point, the on the experience of being in landscape. Yet most
270. Leon Tarasewicz periphery of the field of vision just as present as the people seeing work they have made in the last twenty
Untitled, 1986. Oil on canvas, centre. For a moment the self and whatever is being years would feel that they were abstract painter
130 x 170 cm (51% x 67 in). absorbed coincide. Symptomatically both began by making experimenta
Private collection installation art as well as landscape painti what tt
Even today, when the objects are more specific than were analysing was as much art as the lan
bricks and the paintings are increasingly abstract, experience. McKeever installed a large painting in a
the one offers security, a definite place, the other hole in the ground and documented how its gestural
indefiniteness, even loss of self / 264 /. marks were eroded and added to by birds, anim
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 Landscape

271. Leon Tarasewicz rain and wind. His interest was in how the mark-making in flux, where the forces of sea and wind or decay could
Pictured on his floor painting process of the artist related to the mark-making be seen at work / 267 /. His work at that point combined
installed at the Venice of nature's processes. photography and painting, comparing the grain structure
Biennale, 2001 Kirkeby went on five separate geological of the photograph to that of painting and nature. This
expeditions to Greenland in the 1960s, and at the was, like Kirkeby’s, an analytic procedure that involved
same time in Copenhagen he made performances and not only a theoretical exploration of the way one
environments. His earliest paintings referred to the experienced landscape but also an actual immersion.
landscape in an often indirect way, trying to approach Subsequently for us as viewers the sheer lumpiness of
an experience of Greenland or Yucatan, where he also the paint, its actuality as physical residue, allows us
travelled in 1971, as culture and memory as well as a very different, less disembodied, type of experience
geology / 265 /. ‘It has gradually become clear to me,’ than a solely photography-based medium would.
he wrote some years later, ‘that all my paintings deal The photograph was progressively covered up
with holes or caves. Holes in the materiality, which can by the painting, until by the 1990s it had disappeared.
be like living in caves, looking out. ... | remember McKeever is now as interested in crystallography as
too once in the Central American rain forest, it was in he once was in geological erosion, and to him it is not

Yachilan, a hardly visible exchange between the man- a big shift:

made and nature, a Maya ruin glimpsed at the end
of a long tunnel.’ To understand landscape is not just | have always been interested in the relationship
to look at it, but also it can feed our imagination and between natural and physical processes, in the fact that
dreams, how it can be a site of trauma and revelation. the structuring that goes on in both activities is similar
A geologist of the late twentieth century could — they just manifest themselves differently. | believe
not see the landscape as Claude once did or as Kinkade it is impossible to think of a mental process which does
does: there is neither ideal landscape nor permanence not have an equivalent in the physical world. / 268 /
in a world of plate tectonics, of erosion, sedimentation
and fluctuating climates. There is only flux and endless A word that appears recurrently in Kirkeby’s writings is
process. Sedimentation became the paradigm for ‘light’. Likewise in McKeever: ‘My concern with light
Kirkeby's paintings as he began in the 1970s to become is not to do with depicting light, but in trying to imbue
obsessed with painting. a painting with light whereby the light is actually held
in the painting as an integral part of its structure.’ The
| believe that painting, in our meaning, is structures. structures in Kirkeby’s paintings continue to sediment
Each application ofpaint to a surface is a structure. ... and collapse, at once abstract and inevitably suggestive
| believe that a ruthless accumulation of structure- of landscape. For him these structures are not
reworkings leads to one meeting one’s motif. One's statements but rather questions: the painting is never
life-motif, so to speak ... A sort of geology, as when in a statement, always an open experiment / 269 /.
constant process, sedimentation and erosion makes Leon Tarasewicz's early work, like McKeever's,
the earth we live on like it is now, without any seemed clearly to be about landscape, specifically in
meaning in itself in a rational sense, but accepted as his case the forests around Stacja Wality, Poland,
that upon which we live in this life ... just as the where he grew up / 270 /, but, again like McKeever's,
sedimentation has no particular purpose, neither can it became increasingly abstract. What is consistent
the painterly structures have one. But under way the in Tarasewicz's work from first to last is the emphasis on
‘accidental’ nears something resembling this temporary the experiential, the sense of involvement. The earlier
life. That which we read as the motif. paintings were of trees and the light filtering between
them; painted in a gestural way, these became
ApaintingsuchasVibekeLateSummerIV/ 266/ increasingly devoid of naturalistic details. But they
is constructed with sedimentations of structure never became abstract stripe paintings: their rhythm
on structure: sometimes abstract, sometimes carrying remained that of tree trunks or blades of grass
memories of nature or human — such as the artist's or furrows on the ploughed field. His Venice Biennale
wife, Vibeke — sometimes of tree or moraine installation of 2001, when he painted the floor, may
or building. have seemed like an experience in colour and
Asked whether he travelled the landscape optics — it was a different colour from either direction
for pleasure, McKeever replied, ‘No. It's about — although that echo of furrows, of turned earth,
understanding how one functions in the world.’ remained, however vestigial / 271 /. To walk across
The work in Kirkeby’s paintings is a build-up, a the paint was to re-enact the experience, albeit
sedimentation of memories and motifs. The work in transformed, of walking a ploughed field.
McKeever's paintings of the 1980s was the constant Landscape is acomplex phenomenon. We
mark-making activity that was an equivalent to experience it sometimes directly, immersed in it, and
that in nature. He was always drawn to landscapes sometimes also in passing: a glimpse caught from

245
 Painting Today

272. Carol Rhodes

Houses, Gardens, 2007

Oil on medium density

fibreboard panel,

40 x 60 x 120 cm

(153%4
x 23% x 47in)

246
Landscape

273. April G

Cloud Lake,

193 x 241 cm (76 x 95 in)

Private collection

247
Painting Today

248
 Landscape

274. Maureen Gallace the speeding car or from the plane window as Cloud Lake is at once beautiful and slightly odd
Down the Road from My we descend beneath the clouds. The Scottish painter / 273 /. |t takes us a little while to realize that, although
Brother's House, 2002. Carol Rhodes focuses on that aerial view, but the the landscape seems perfectly formed, it lacks detail,
Oil on linen, 27.9 x 35.6 cm gentle marks, the elegant simplifications, counter the that it is strangely devoid of people or animals, that the
(11 x 14 in) alienation of the distant view with a sense of the reflection seems wrong. The cloud looms. It could

physical and homely / 272 /. Sometimes we be seen as ‘filmic’ rather than poetic, recalling the vast
275. Maureen Gallace skies in John Ford's Westerns. This is no meticulous
experience the landscape indirectly, in memory
Lake House with Forsythia, transcription of a landscape seen and observed
and in dreams. Poetic landscape is where the
2006. Oil on panel, minutely but rather a landscape transmuted to create
artist employs the pathetic fallacy, that the landscape
27.9 x 30.5 cm (11 x 12:in) an equivalent of some state of mind. Gornik comments
mirrors their mood, knowingly — with or without
‘landscape is essentially metaphorical’.
irony, wilfully transforming the actual scene. This is
276. Alex Katz Since 1995 Gornik has sketched her
dangerous territory, for such work can slip easily
May, 1996. Oil on linen, landscapes not in a sketchpad but on her laptop, taking
into kitsch, nostalgia and vapid emotion. However,
305 x 610 cm (120 x 240 in) a photograph and manipulating it through Photoshop
an increasing number of artists work in this area.
until it seems to echo her original or imagined sensation.
April Gornik paints landscape where some
Then it is transmuted again in the process of painting.
element has assumed an unexpected significance,
As in most of her landscapes, she seems to have
depicting moments when a landscape suddenly seems eroticized the landscape, certainly not prettifying it. The
full of import, moments of sudden tranquillity and yearning they often seem to embody is not wholly
puzzling uncanniness. We are haunted, but we don’t comfortable. At a perceptual level they are often about
know what by. ‘How incredibly brief amoment of that liminal moment when water vapour hangs in the air.
beauty really is’, Gornik remarks. Maureen Gallace’s landscapes are likewise
about the distillation of memories of landscape. When
How intense can it be? Compositionally, when I’m she speaks of her work, it is with deceptive simplicity:
finalizing a painting, I'm going for a tension in which it
could almost come apart. Take one little element out | grew up in New England — in Monroe, Connecticut
of it and it wouldn’t work at all. But that’s the fantasy — and spent my summers on Cape Cod, near Wood's
of a poet not of an explorer. Hole. These pictures are sketches and paintings that

249
 Painting Today

ts)
ond Life, 1993. Oil on canvas,

N
240 c m (72% x 94) 2 in)

250
Landscape

251
 Painting Today
.

278. Peter Doig

Figure in Mountain Landscape
I, 1998-9. Oil on canvas,

229 x 359 cm (90 x 141 in)

279. Peter Doig

One Hundred Years Ago
(Carrere), 2001.
Oil on canvas, 240 x 360 cm

(94 V2x 141 % in)

252
 Landscape

aged and bleached photograph or as though this reflections, paint dribbles and spots / 277 /. This is, on as seventeenth-century artists would pilfer and adapt
was the undercoat. Doig wants these paintings ‘to be the one hand, an evocation of a seemingly idyllic images or figures from prints, so does he. The
left incomplete materially but still seem not unfinished’. childhood — this is the artist and his brother skating in transformation is what counts: although there are
There will be space for the viewer to enter. The sketch Canada — but on the other, it is somehow haunted. profound echoes of the world, although there is
the artist works on seems brighter, vivid and more The house looks abandoned. The painting manners are subject matter, the painted surface is what matters.
real than the landscape around him. The figure is as those of abstraction and, were it not for those In reproduction the paintings look more like

anonymous as a wardrobe, a doorway, but we know presences (figures, house), it could read as a wholly ‘regular’ pictures: seeing them in the ‘flesh’, one is more

neither whether it will open nor, if it does, what world it satisfying abstract painting. aware of them as painted surfaces. One becomes

will open into. Although the starting point may have been Both paintings are adventures of unusually interested in what is happening in particular

a specific mountain range that Carmichael sat in front of transformation, dramas of participation in a landscape areas: there is a lot to look at, a lot of small brushwork.

to paint, what we can enter imaginatively is less certain. by remaking it in paint, in which memories of the places Some areas are brushed, others stained, flecks skid

In contrast, an earlier painting such as Pond Life Doig has lived (Canada, England, Trinidad) are mingled across, lines are sharply defined or peter out. When,

seems more ‘finished’; the viewer cannot enter but can with images from other paintings or films or books. many years ago, Doig gave a lecture for my students,
This has nothing to do with ‘appropriation’: much he showed slides of details from his paintings rather
only view through a complex skein of branches,

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Painting Today

280. Laura Owens

Untitled, 2000. Acrylic and

oil on canvas, 279.4 x 365.8 cm

(110 x 144 in). The Museum of

Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

SAN
REAL,

281. Laura Owens 282. Verne Dawson

Untitled, 2001. Atomic Bomb, 2007. Oil
Acrylic and oil on canvas, on canvas, 35.6 x 28 cm
269 V4x 171 ¥%2
cm (14 x 11 in)
(106 x 67 ¥2 in)

254
 Landscape

283. Laura Owens

Untitled, 2000. Acrylic and oil

on canvas, 249% x 365%4 cm

(110 x 144 in). Museum of

Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

255
 Painting Today

than showing whole works, partly because he wanted to [here often seems something childlike about 284. Mamma Andersson
talk about the making and partly to push their eyes, as Doig's landscape, glowing with innocence, yet On Tenterhooks, 2005.
it were, close to the canvas. With similar intent he often haunted, That childlike quality, that desire for innocence Acrylic and oil on three panels,
reproduces paintings in an unfinished state in the studio is present in other painters too, One of the standard 61 * 241 cm (24 x 99 in)

as though what matters is not completion but the subjects of the Renaissance artist was the Golden Age,
process towards completion. This, though, is not about that mythical time when man was at one with nature, 285. Hernan Bas

process per se, but rather about imagining. Making Verne Dawson attempts something similar but more up- Apollo with Daphne as a Boy,

) painting is more an imaginative journey than toil, so to-date, or perhaps more precisely out-of-date, As 2004. Mixed media on board,

likewise looking and thinking about a painting should in C.S, Lewis'sNarnia, so in Dawson's painting of the 79 * 61 cm (31 x 24 in)

involve the viewer's imagination summer solstice a lion walks peaceably with people.
‘In Doig’s simulated memories | participate in His Season paintings are situated in about 23,800 ac,
something | do not own’ '
Daniel Richter writes ;
pointing the time when Magdalenian man was painting in the
out that Doig appeals not to a collective memory but caves at Lascaux, But he can also interrupt this idyll by
rather to ‘the kind of approximated and casual dropping an atomic bomb on it. How better to show
“moments” that immediately click with everybody .,. the fragility of our world than by putting its apocalypse
nature is suspended in a dream-like sequence without where we least expect it: the past? / 282 /,
chronological narrative It conjures up the lhe landscapes of the American artist Laura
beauty of our own transience; the mundane shines with Owens seem both filled with light and freed from
an unknown, ephemeral glow and on closer observation gravity, Butterflies, leaves, stray blobs and squiggles all
dissolves into light, a creation of reason and delight float about in a lyrical limbo, Owens’s paintings seem as
in human beauty.’ This seems correct: the paintings are mannered as Chinese landscapes, but with the gestures
haunted at times by the uncanny and terrifying, but also and shapes of post-war American art, In some of
by a radiant beauty. her landscapes animals —owls, bears, squirrels, rabbits,
Our initial reaction to the way the canvas in turtles — happily coexist much like stuffed toys do in
One Hundred Years Ago (Carrere) has been flooded with the nursery. To some these are coy, charming but
sumptuous colour is quickly replaced by a shock at lightweight fantasies, But she is more cunning than
the spookiness of the image / 279 /. This is a truly dark that. When she showed at Inverleith House, Edinburgh,
pastoral. Why is this long-haired man looking back at in 2000, Owens made two paintings especially:
us? He looks more like a psycho from a horror film than one is a Moonscape with cherry blossom / 281 /; the
a happy fisherman. He is truly uncanny, at once familiar other of is a loch and the hills around it, but it is very
and unfamiliar: gothick, hallucinatory. Yet when we are laid-back scene, very different from what one may
told that the figure is taken from a photograph of see if one drives up from Edinburgh to the highlands,
the band on an Allman Brothers LPand that the island and very different from the view from the window
is a prison island off Trinidad, it does not really explain beside which it was hung / 283 /, As we look from the
away the painting. We are still simultaneously troubled painting to window and then back again, we start to
and entranced by the beautifully realized surface. sense that the colours in her landscape are oddly

256
 Landscape

jarring, and that the contrast between real and fictive rather about responding in a relaxed and natural way to
landscapes is the real subject: the lateral logic what one sees. ‘A painting should fit into your life’, she
connections we can make between the space outside notes. ‘I think | picked up that idea from Mary Heilmann
and the space inside our heads. and her way of working. | met her when she was a
Owens is very much an artist from Los Angeles, visiting artist at CalArts and she had a profound impact

the town with no centre, where space is dislocated, on me. Although she’s extremely serious about what

where one sees everything as one drives along the she’s doing, she has a very casual approach to making

freeway, quickly garnering images glimpsed in a painting.’ Perhaps Owens's work is an attempt to be
a tourist but not be alienated.
peripheral vision. Her paintings are not systematic but

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 Painting Today

286. David Schnell

Flyover (Auffahrt), 2002. Egg

te mpera On Canvas,

150 x 230 cm (59 x 90% in)

258
 Landscape

287. George Shaw

Dead End (Friday), 2008.
Humbrol enamel on board,
77 x 101 cm (30% x 39% in)

288. George Shaw

Scenes from the Passion:

The Middle of the Week, 2002.

Humbrol enamel on board,

77 x 101 cm (30% x 39% in)

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 Painting Today

Owens, along with Hernan Bas and Karen Most popular pictures of the inhabited
Kilimnik, was included in an exhibition entitled ‘Ideal landscape show it as either a fictitious pastoral or else
Worlds’ at Frankfurt in 2005, an exhibition that gathered one that has been generously glazed with nostalgia
together several artists who were using romantic and filled with thatched cottages and milking maids.
imagery and gave Doig a central role. Introducing the The British artist George Shaw paints a landscape
work, Martina Weinhart wrote that these artists were of garages and backyards, empty suburban streets and
‘skilfully combining abyss and idyll, kitsch and virtuosity, parks / 287 /. All his paintings are based on
irony and seriousness’. Underpinning all this, she photographs of the back alleys and fields near the
believes, is the desire to escape the fragmentary and house where he grew up in the suburbs of Coventry.
the everyday. ‘The result is an imagery of experience It feels like the place where one had one's first illicit
between utopia and melancholy. ... The obscure cigarette rather than where one had a visionary
element of the image speaks of the loneliness, isolation experience of nature. These are the actual memories
and desire for intimacy.’ They mirror, albeit sometimes a viewer may carry with them as opposed to ones

ironically, these symptoms of romanticism: ‘a he dreams of. Painted with intricate skill in the enamel
heightened sensitivity to the natural world, combined paint normally used to paint plastic construction kits,
with a belief in nature's correspondence to the mind; a the surface is highly reflective, beautiful but gloomy.
passion for the equivocal ... a celebration of subjectivity However, it is the ambivalence of Shaw's work that
bordering on solipsism, often coupled with a morbid makes it so compelling. This uneasy interface between
desire that that self be lost in nature’s various infinities.’ nature and the built environment allows both social
Bas uses illustrations from the Boy Scout Manual criticism and the discovery of a new, albeit dislocated,
or a child's illustrated Moby Dick to create his figures, but type of beauty. An earlier series of paintings was
these adolescents then appear in a lusciously romantic entitled Scenes from the Passion: despite the banality of
world. These images are, he says, like chapters in a what goes on, this is the stage for normal life, where,
‘coming of age in queer novel’ / 285 /. This interest in a true Christian will believe, Christ is crucified each and
adolescence and the way adolescents can create myths every day / 288 /.
seems key in much of today’s culture: this is the time We have seen artists who focus on being in the
when desire and identity develop. It is a time also of landscape and artists who focus on imagining or
sexual ambivalence and yearning. Bas refers to ‘fag remembering the landscape. However, some artists can
limbo’ as his inspiration, that place or age where convey an authentic sense of belonging in their landscape
heterosexual boys act or let themselves be perceived as paintings, uninflected by irony, alienation or nostalgia.
gay. He feels that, like other artists from Miami, he has a As we have already noted, the paintings made
feel for the artificial: he jokes of wanting to live in ‘a John by Australian Aboriginal artists from 1970 onwards have
Waters universe where the Teletubbies live in harmony been fixated on an experience of the land — on
with the puppets from Peter Jackson’s Meet the Feebles.' belonging there, indeed owning it. They were radically
Mamma Andersson, in her panoramic view of different, however, from the Claudian pastiches that the
camping in Sweden, seems to emphasize landscape as missionaries had once taught them to make. These
a social experience, but her work is much more about paintings were closer to maps, but maps where a sense
a memory of it, about what Wordsworth called emotion of space and time was highly fluid. Clifford Possum
‘recollected in tranquillity’ / 284 /. There is also a clear Tjapaltjarri's Ringalintjita Worm Dreaming depicts the
sense that a play with the differing textures of oil, acrylic ancestor worm men as U-shapes, the lines their
and wood replicates the experience of being there. journeys, the circles perhaps as their camp-sites / 289 /.
Artists in this resurgence of romanticism accept That the painting's association with Ringalintjita, near
a mythical or dreaming dimension to the landscape; the Mount Allan station, is ‘for real’ has to be taken on
unlike Gerhard Richter, they seem happy to work with trust. With its shimmering colours and lines the painting
a mediated layer to the real. They do not want to be bears comparison with much Western stripe painting,
shackled by irony. David Schnell refers to, rather and yet it is crucial that it also embodies a sense of
than evokes, such romantic yearnings. When he was belonging in a particular world (geographical, cultural
near finishing his painting Flyover, Schnell stood back, and sacred). Possum would talk of the dreamings
looked at this crisp orange sunset and said to himself: as though they were equivalent to God, although he
‘no, too romantic.’ And so he added an autobahn himself was always a Christian (his brother was a
above the trees and blocking out half the sky / 286 /. Lutheran priest). ‘We are not painting for fun and
He is fascinated by how the nature we see is often in profit’, the Aboriginal leader Galarrwuy Yunupingu
fact very determined by human planning: the trees in insisted. ‘We are painting as we have always done,
the nursery planted in straight lines. The vanishing point to demonstrate our continuing link with our country
is like a black hole sucking us in. This is, if not a post- and the rights and responsibilities we have to it.
romantic vision, a world where the Unheimlich and the Furthermore, we paint to show the rest of the world
Gemitlichkeit, the uncanny and the comfy coexist. that we own this country and that the land owns us.’

260
 Landscape

To what extent can a painting such as Michael

Jagamara Nelson's Five Dreamings be described also as

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ah
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Aha
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a landscape / see 102 /? We are told that

the horizontal line is Pamapardu (Flying Ant) Dreaming

at Yuwinji,west of Vaughan Springs. The circles at

e2S the lower left and the upper right with radiating wavy
lines represent Possums at Jangankurlangu
Mawurji respectively. The snake figure is Warnayarra,
the Rainbow Serpent at Yirkirdi, near Mt. Singleton:
the animal tracks at the lower right are those of the
and

Se
ae
eS
ees
Two kangaroo (Marlujarra) ancestors at Yintarramurru.
Also at the lower right are circles representing
Mirrawarri, a Rain Dreaming site near Mt. Doreen.

@ First, country was an idea interchangeable with

4“ss

We,
PE:
YE
ancestry;
the landscape
second, it was about movement
rather than its static features; third, the
meanings were strangely provisional and dependent
on

ds on context. We are given quite different explanations

SE of these Dreamings by the artist in another
3 publication. If this is all in doubt, how do we know

CEUYW
what we are responding to? After all, people who buy
Aboriginal paintings normally insist on having the
Dreaming written out. This may give them a sense of
authenticity, but does it connect with their emotional
Ox or aesthetic experience?

5
LG
PG
Ale
ig
i: experience
For Five Dreamings this is a more general
of harmony, excitement, joyousness, beauty
even. The pictorial experience
is why it is amemorable
is very specific, which
painting, although we
can only experience this as a landscape event if we can

Esott,
infetnteh
Ane) empathize with the lifestyle and philosophy of the
person who painted it. At this level these paintings are
challenging rather than charming. They require what

oa.
*
Paul Bowles calls in one of his short stories ‘an act of
monstrous letting go’: letting things happen, accepting
ve
eS the consequences, letting one’s sense organs overload

ae© like a diver dropping backwards into the water.

This is what Miquel Barcelo did in 1988, when

Ase
25
AS he went to live in Mali, western
This was an extreme
was often 50°C or more.
landscape,
Africa, for six months.
where the temperature
‘In Mali | get back in touch
with the essence of the act of painting. It's all so difficult,

289. Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri

Ringalintjita Worm Dreaming,
1986. Acrylic on linen,
121.5 x 75.5 cm

(47% x 79% in). Central Art

Society, The Araluen Centre,

Alice Springs Papunya

261
 Painting Today

wr Fv CEL TE SFr ea
Le, a 2 % 25

mo
a
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a
Rant

290. Miquel Barcelé 291. Miquel Barcelé

White Stone on Black Stone Rain Against the Current (Pluja
(Pedra Blanca Sobre Pedra Contracurrent), 1991, Mixed
Negra), 1988-9. Mixed media media on canvas, 300 x 200 em
on canvas, 230 x 285 cm (118 x 78% in), Collection
(90 Y%2
x 112% in), Private Banco Zaragozana, Zaragoza
collection

262
Landscape
 Painting Today

id Hockney so much heat, so much dust ... the bugs eat the canvas might think. When you look at Mulholland Drive / 292 /,
land Drive: the Road and it's difficult to get materials. ... In those drive is not the name of the road, but the act of driving
itudio, 1980. Acrylic circumstances picking up the brush is a gesture made — your eye moved around the painting at about the
invas, 218.4 x 617.2 cm through absolute necessity.’ The paintings that resulted same speed as a car driving along the road.
seemed as white as Robert Ryman’s but filled with the
things of the world: stones, bulbs, flies, waterholes, It is curious that in his attempt to convey this
shadows / 290 /. The surface, with its lumps and creases, quintessentially modern experience Hockney echoes
bears witness to Barceld’s earlier study in the Prado, the way seventeenth-century artists (who were
Madrid, of ‘rusts, cracks, oxidations, darkenings, that is often also map-makers) would show the far landscape
to say, the material history of painting, the study of almost literally as a map; curious, too, that his
alterations and the phenomenon of natural or induced elongated format echoes that of Lorenzetti’s famous
ageing’. Painted as though by similar geological forces portrayal of landscape and procession The Allegory
to those that formed it, the landscape he showed of Good Government.
was implacable, with the bleaching sun, yet strangely Nostalgia is derived from the Greek word
beautiful. Nor was his a mere aesthete’s experience: nostos, meaning ‘return home’. Nostalgia is thus not
Barcelé was as fascinated by the people, their daily necessarily always escapist: sometimes it can be
life — be it biking, haggling, making things or sailing a vital reminder of a better time that we should seek to
across the turbulent river in the rainy season / 291 /. recover. This would be true of Nilima Sheikh’s paintings
lt was important that he participated, going down by of Kashmir, that most beautiful region of India, now
canoe the 900 miles of the River Niger from Mali to torn by sectarian dissent and ecological collapse / 293 /.
the sea. It was this sense of physically being immersed As one would expect from a creative artist, these are
(hence the twigs embedded in the paint) that made simultaneously traditional and inventive. A set of
these paintings uniquely vivid. six hangings quote and refer to poems by Agha Shahid
Claude and Constable experienced the Ali and the contemporaneous Salman Rushdie’s
landscape on foot, and perhaps sometimes on horse. Shalimar the Clown. Her vision of Kashmir, with its clear
Nowadays we also experience it by bicycle, aeroplane rivers circulating down from the mountains and its
or, most commonly of all, car. Our experience poets below the trees, is an extended meditation on
of landscape is thus far more inflected by time and desire and loss. At the top of Firdaus |: Valley Sheikh
kinaesthesia — the sense of our own body in writes on the void all the names by which it was
movement. David Hockney is rare in overtly trying to known: Kashmir, Kaschmir, cashmere ... / 294 /. Other
represent this: similar hangings by her have referred to shamiana,
the tents that were used for gatherings or marriages
When| started living up in the Hollywood Hills, | drove and which became a symbol for royalty in Mughal
every day down to my studio. | became fascinated by time. To hang these images of Kashmir so that one
all these wiggly lines and they began to enter the walks through them is to embody the lyricism of
paintings ... these paintings are more realistic than you the landscape, its gentleness and calm light; their lack

264
 Landscape

293. Nilima Sheikh 294. Nilima Sheikh

Firdaus |: Valley, 2003-4. Firdaus Il: Every Night Put

Casein tempera with Sanjhi Kashmir in Your Dreams,

stencil on canvas, 2003-4. Casein tempera with

300 x 180 cm (118 x 71 in) Sanjhi stencil on canvas,

300 x 180 cm (118 x 71 in)

265
 Painting Today

295. Tomas Sanchez

The Heron and the Meditator

(La Garza y el Meditador), 2002

Acrylic on canvas,

75.9 x 100.6 cm (29% x 39% in)

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 Landscape

of hierarchy or pomposity makes them

a celebration of the everyday. These are perhaps
surprisingly political paintings in their call to
readdress the division of a country that once knew
harmony not only of man with nature but also
between communities.
A similar nostalgia informs the Cuban artist
Tomas Sanchez's paintings of people being in
harmony with the American jungle / 295 /. Although
we may be wary of such an unironic, Edenic view of
nature, Sanchez counterpoints this with images of
ecological despoliation. It is hard to find any other
artist who attacks this issue so directly, and,
of course, what underlies many of our attitudes to
landscape and nature is how they are changing so
rapidly because of human over-population, factory
farming, genetic engineering and uncontrollable
pollution. Alexis Rockman parodies the sort of image
we see in children’s books on nature or the murals
about previous eras that we might see in a natural
history museum. Except he shows a world where
animals are mutated, nature off-skew or regimented
for human convenience / 296 /. As an art student
Rockman, along with Elizabeth Peyton, was told
by Mary Heilmann that what he was doing was not
art but merely illustration. ‘Good for them,’
Heilmann remarked several years later, ‘they stuck to
their guns and made a go of it.’
Ultimately landscape cannot be a hideaway.
When in 1971 Anselm Kiefer showed his painting
Man in the Wood / 297 /, a friend said he loved the
trees but couldn‘t understand why he had put his
self-portrait in the wood, in a penitential shift,
holding a burning branch. ‘How’, Kiefer responded,
‘can you just paint a wood when the tanks have
passed through?’ The land is the site of history:
some bad things have happened there, it is guilty.
We must do something positive to reclaim its
innocence. Making and looking at painting with its
complex traditions is one place where we engage
with the land, where we remake it and understand
our continuing place in it.
‘Try to think of space as something real.
A friend ... like sound that seeks a voice, space
is what makes material live. ... In the handling of
space lie the clues to everything’, Vija Celmins
wrote in her journal. As we have seen earlier, she
makes small paintings with an apparently smooth
surface but which, first, depict the immeasurable
depths of space and which, second, engage
the viewer in their space: ‘My work does not exist
in a world of its own. It is for the spectator. ...
It asks participation to come alive. | mean spatial
296. Alexis Rockman 297. Anselm Kiefer
visual participation.’ This participation of the viewer
The Farm, 2000. Oil and Man in Wood

(Mann im Wald), 1971.

is key: painters do not create ‘real’ space as
acrylic on two panels,
Oil on canvas, 174 x 189 cm
architects do: they stage an experience of space,
243.8 x 304.8 cm (96 x 120 in).
that the viewer must herself enact.
Collection JGS Inc., New York (68 2 x 74% in)

267
 Ghada Amer Tim Maguire
Ross Bleckner Jonathan Meese

Cecily Brown Beatriz Milhazes

Nigel Cooke Chris Ofili

Carroll Dunham Tal R

Eric Fischl Neo Rauch

Dana Schutz DanielRichter
Barnaby Furnas GerhardRichter
Mary Heilmann JulianSchnabel
Damien Hirst RaqibShaw
Jasper Johns DirkSkreber
Anselm Kiefer PhilipTaaffe
Martin Kippenberger Fred:Tomaselli
Guillermo Kuitca LucTuymans
Liu Wei AdrianaVarejao
lan McKeever John Walker

269
 Painting Today

Whether or not oil paint was invented, as Willem de through which they could achieve some solace. 298. Eric Fischl

Kooning claimed, to portray human flesh, the history of In one of these paintings / 298 / a naked man wanders, Where we go looking to
flesh and the act of painting is deeply connected to an apparently lost, through a vast, sepulchral Baroque Put Down our Dead, 1996.

experience of having flesh, of being mortal. Painting, as church. He carries a naked woman, perhaps dead, Oil on linen, 248.9 x 203.2 cm

we have already implied, is a matter not just of making perhaps dying. The title is ambiguous but can be read (98 x 80 in)

pictures but also of making and being conscious of that as a search for solace — as Adam and Eve attempting
very act of making, and reflecting. Paint is liquid that to re-enter the garden or as an uncanny inversion
turns solid — or, to put it another way, it is live material of the pieta in which Jesus holds the dead Mary. Most
that goes dead. Yet it is assumed rather, paradoxically, importantly, although a comment on our apparent
that the act of painting echoes in some way that of inability to mourn, it is itself an act of mourning.
giving birth. Death seems an alien experience now: when
We should not expect a meditation on the we see Dana Schutz's painting of Michael Jackson's
human condition to be confined to those committed to autopsy, we are struck by its oddness, its humour,
the ‘great tradition’: paint always will be an equivalent rather than its gravitas / 300 /. ‘It was weird,’ she remarks
to the human clay. A painting that seems wholly (speaking some years before his death), ‘painting him
abstract may be for its maker still implicitly imbued with dead, or painting him at all, as if | felt complicit in the
a sense of the flesh. We ask therefore whether painting, whole spectacle craze. [He] is the ultimate self-created
or indeed art generally, can help with the act of man, a site of projection, and a construct of American
mourning or else can do no more than ‘display the culture.’ We may ask how real is death when it happens
wound’, exhibit trauma and convey a state of behind closed doors and we see it now only when re-
melancholy. The art of the Renaissance revolved around enacted in crime movies and serials. Death is equally
not only the living, red-cheeked flesh of the Madonna unreal but perhaps less scary in Barnaby Furnas’s
but also the grey, bruised flesh of the dead Christ. The Vietnam re-creation / 301 /. Despite the machine-gun
representation of birth and death is at the start and fervour of the brushmarks, this is amusement arcade
centre of the Western tradition. slaughter only, although perhaps such irony makes
In an age when death is portrayed endlessly it plaintive. In contrast, one of the more effective of
in the media but in real life is hidden away in hospices Damien Hirst's photorealist paintings was that of
and nursing homes, one role of art is to portray and a mortuary: the cold, unimpassioned paint-handling
discuss the natures of death and illness, and how we matching the cold, impersonal surface of where,
deal emotionally with them. To take a notable example, as we know, having watched enough forensic scientists
Rogier van der Weyden knew the purpose of a pieta: at work on television crime serials, we, if victims, will
to present the horror of death, its finality and end up / 299 /.
brutishness, but also to tell of how that was offset by John Walker's painting Passchendaele I!
the resurrection of Christ. He showed it as a communal attempts to mourn not only the eleven of his family who
act of mourning: we can empathize collectively died in the trenches of the Somme and Passchendaele
with all around the dead Christ, and with each of them in World War | (his father survived) but the death of
as individuals — the stoical John holding the fainting innocence, a whole generation betrayed / 302 /. The
Virgin, the distraught Magdalene. For them and their sheep's skull refers in part to those soldiers who bleated
viewers it was a way of confronting something they saw like sheep in impotent rage and despair as they were
in everyday reality and which, in an age of high infant marched up past officers to the front and impending
mortality, intermittent plague and rudimentary slaughter, but also acts as a strange act of resistance —
healthcare, would be their own inevitable and perhaps a refusal to merely illustrate what happened. The words
imminent lot. that flow across the scene, much as those in Colin
Today we are embarrassed by death, by illness McCahon's work, are from the war poet and painter
and by the signs of ageing. For Eric Fischl our inability David Jones / see 34 /.
to deal with the death of others is part of the collapse Can we mourn with a painting when someone
of social rituals: ‘We don’t know how to bury our dead. we know or know of dies? When lan McKeever made
We treat birthdays as a sentimental occasion, we treat a posthumous Portrait of my Mother, it was, like all his
puberty as an inconvenience for parents. ... All of paintings, wholly abstract, albeit informed by twenty
those profound moments, for both individuals and the years study of nature and its formations. (He re-titled it
collective, we do not know how to ritualize and later, uncertain whether such a private association
ceremonialize.’ For him few paintings addressed such was either communicable or appropriate.) / 303 / When
issues — there was too much irony and cynicism Chris Ofili made a painting in mourning for Stephen
and fixation on style. His paintings made in Rome in the Lawrence, a black teenager murdered ina racist attack
mid-1990s, soon after the death of his own father, in London, he quoted the famous song ‘No Woman No
address how an earlier art, that of the Baroque, made Cry’ by Bob Marley as its title. ‘The image that would
images of death that a community could share and always come up in my mind about Stephen Lawrence

270
Death and Life
 Painting Today

image ot his mother crying’ / 304 The first of and images of work from his youth. Perhaps the ladder and The personal death of one and the communal
rect a private statement, the outstretched hand also suggest the crucifixion but it is deaths of many can take on continuing resonance:
other a more public one. One is about the sorrow but all so hidden, so coded, that it seems more a clue for an Auschwitz was the death knell of Western civilization.
sense O f completion in death, the other is about sorrow investigative art historian than a key to shared experience A great challenge for art has been in responding to the
but anger at murder. McKeever's is more a meditation, / 306 /. These paintings, with their portmanteau of motifs, Holocaust and the unpalatable, discomforting fact that the
Ofili’s more a lament. Different paintings for different from Johns’ early work, were presented as masterworks nation of Beethoven, Diirer and Goethe had perpetuated
occasions, they both present in their beauty and harmony of a late style, but the consensus was that they were too genocide. How could art console us not for just the death
some degree of transfiguration. literary and lacked, despite their more overt content, the of those many millions, but for an extinction of humane
Once we know that the women in Gerhard elusive pathos of his earlier paintings. culture? Anselm Kiefer's early paintings were specific acts
Richter's Eight Student Nurses / 305 / were all murdered, Johns was painting in his late years, a time of mourning for the two victims in Paul Celan’s famous
this too becomes a meditation on death and how when reflection on one’s own death becomes poem Todesfuge (Deathfugue) about the camps:
photographs hold an image of past life in a void. As inescapable. One must note here that an artistic career blonde, Aryan Margarethe and the ashen-haired, Jewish
ever in his work, it is also a meditation on the difference is unlike most others in that it usually culminates not in Shulamith. But the act of mourning — Jewish and
between painting and photography. retirement but in death: no artist ever got a farewell German — runs through all his work. Just as he claimed
In the mid-1980s images of death and sickness speech from the boss and a gold watch. When W. B. that his biography and that of Germany were
appeared in the work of Jasper Johns, but in the most Yeats talked of ‘making his death’, he was claiming that, synonymous, so Kiefer’s paintings are about the very act
coded way. In his four-part series ‘The Seasons’ Johns’ as an artistic career ends with death, it must treat of mourning: loss, despair, pain, melancholy, remem-
own shadow, like a funerary monument, is traced over death as part of that career: a conclusion, not merely an brance, reintegration with the world, reparation / 307 /.
each canvas, and in Summer this contrasts with the sea ‘untimely end’. Artists who commit suicide normally do It is said that the German collector who first tried
horse, an ironic symbol of fertility for an avowedly gay man, so in their studio. to buy Luc Tuymans’s painting Gas Chamber / 308 / had

272
 Death and Life

299. Damien Hirst

Mortuary, 2003-4. Oil on

canvas, 193 x 152.4 cm

(76 x 60 in)

300. Dana Schutz

The Autopsy of Michael

Jackson, 2005. Oil on canvas,

152.5 x 274.5 cm
(60 x 108 in). Private collection

301. Barnaby Furnas

Hamburger Hill, 2002.
Urethane on linen,
182.9 x 304.8 cm (72 x 120 in).

Saatchi Collection, London

273
 Painting Today

302. John Walker noticed neither the title nor the subject. He just liked the bleaching out of colour and synecdoche (the
Passchendaele II, 1996. Oil on the way it looked. It had all the familiar traits of an early fragment standing for the whole) as distancing devices.
two canvases 243.8 x 426.7 cm Tuymans painting: enigmatic, sketchy, muted, slightly But that distance, that apparent detachment, is the
(26 x 168 in) abject (the stretcher has warped, and the paint surface key to their power. ‘My paintings have a sense of
was cracking). The tones, as always, were beautifully being cosy that turns into something terrifying, violent.
303. lan McKeever adjusted. But once Tuymans pointed out the title, he The work revolves around the idea of indifference,
Hartgrove Painting no. 2, declined to buy it. It is a painting of a room in which makes it even more violent.’ As works they
1992-3. Oil and acrylic Mathausen concentration camp, once riven by address trauma rather than, as Kiefer does, the possible
on linen, 300 x 318 cm screaming and heavy with the stench of death. Or, to therapeutic resolution of mourning. Tuymans’s paintings
(118 x 125% in). Tate, London be more precise, it is a painting of awatercolour — seem restrained to the point of silence: ‘pictures, if they
hence the look of yellowed paper — that Tuymans are to have any effect, must have the tremendous
himself made of a photograph he found. An echo of an intensity of silence — the silence before the storm.’
echo of an echo: a rumour of wars and disasters. When Tuymans curated an exhibition ‘Trouble
Typically, Tuymans paints the scene of the crime, not Spot. Painting’ in Antwerp in 1999, he and fellow artist-
the crime. There is no one left there, not even a corpse. curator Narcisse Tordoir made several rules, one being
This painting has become an icon both that they each select the artist they cared for least:
because of the pathos of the object and because of Tuymans chose Gerhard Richter. American writers
Tuymans's direct approach to an unspeakable subject. especially have often tried to see Tuymans as a follower
Such laconic forthrightness has made many tout of Richter because of his use of photographs and, it is
Tuymans as ‘the most influential artist of his generation’. claimed, his formulas. It is rather the case that Tuymans
The artist himself denies any originality, claiming the paints in opposition to Richter and his method. Talking
paintings are no more than ‘authentic forgeries’. of how the new media have made us scared of
For him paintings are always about the past, memories, appearing subjective, he comments: ‘Look at Gerhard
echoes: ‘there is no original image, all images are Richter and his so-called virtuosity within the diversity.
incomplete, they result from one another.’ He uses both This diversity is more of a fear than a stability.’ Whereas

274
 Death and Life

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275
 Painting Today

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276
Death and Life

Tuymans sees each painting as a new start, where

uncertainty and hesitation are inevitable, Richter has
a method, a formula to reproduce work. As a result,
where Tuymans may make a weak or bad painting,
and on occasion does so, Richter never makes bad
paintings. His work is always competent because of its
method, but much of his now immense oeuvre can
seem boringly predictable. Tuymans uses photographs
because that is how we know our world; he despises
Lucian Freud because Freud has ignored what has
happened in the mass media in last sixty years. Freud's
studio may look like a slum, but to Tuymans it is still
an ivory tower — with no sign of a television or laptop.
Tuymans's career began with a radical
denial of style:

| started out as a virtuoso painter with a great deal of

gesturality and colour. That came to a crisis because it
became a flaccid way of working — | found out that
when one tries to cultivate a style, one misses the point
and the necessities. So | tried to go to the other side,
to be deliberately clumsy to research what kind of

immediacy there is to that.

His work is at once insidious and understated; at first

sight the paintings seem devoid of aura, but if they initially
appear flavourless, their aftertaste is persistent. Their
apparent failure to state things leaves them hovering
like questions or a sense of bad faith. ‘They're more
about raising questions than pointing a finger’,
he remarks. ‘That's what makes a work political.’ What
remains uncertain is whether Tuymans's work can help
enact any communal act of mourning or can only function
as a personal display of trauma — or melancholy.
Guillermo Kuitca’s painting here / 309 / shows
the inmates of a concentration camp singing. Above
them are printed words from the Beatles’ song
‘Strawberry Fields Forever’. This seems in poor taste,
especially as the figure on the far left looks suspiciously
like the Fuhrer. There is both a need to save the
opposite:
304. Chris Ofili
Holocaust from statistics and pious sentimentality and

No Woman No Cry, 1998.

to embody W. B. Yeats’s demand for an art that laughs

Mixed media on canvas,

in the teeth of death. By fusing historical horror and

243.8 x 182.8 x 5.1 cm

psychedelia Kuitca makes an icon that is problematic

(96 x 72 x 2 in). Tate, London and hence thought-provoking.

If the Holocaust stands for the symbolic death
305. Gerhard Richter of culture, the AIDS crisis can stand for the unnecessary
Eight Student Nurses, 1966. death of youth. Ross Bleckner, as a painter, had
Oil on canvas, overall been making paintings with increasingly lush surfaces
70 x 95 cm (27 Y2 x 37 Y2 in) and ornamentation. His challenge as a gay rights
activist was to make paintings that memorialized the
306. Jasper Johns AIDS crisis then devastating artistic New York without
Summer from The Seasons, using traditional symbols or declining into kitsch.
1985, Encaustic on canvas, His paintings entitled Architecture of the Sky were about

190.5 x 127 cm (75 x 50 in). contrast of dark and light. They could be seen as

Museum of Modern Art, smoke-filled clubs, as a mausoleum, as the dome of

New York Heaven with a thousand candles burning. Their

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 Painting Today

melancholy was muted by their calm / 310 /. Like all the appears from underneath skin; it is when the abjectness Wagner's Parsifal, for example, is about the search for
paintings we have discussed above they showed both of the stuff we are made of is apparent. The skin of the holy spear (that which punctured Christ's side),
our need for mourning and the possibility of paintings a painting, too, can be slit, split or ruptured. This is the the touch of which will heal the wounded king of the
to some extent to assuage our grief. Beauty can trouble-spot that compels our eyes not to stray. In knights of the Grail. Until that time the whole body
reconcile us to loss painting it is often where paint (that liquid we assume politic of his domain is diseased and doomed. In 1973
In short, before one can be healed, one must solid) seems to have turned to liquid again, dripping or Kiefer made a series of paintings on Parsifal, rerunning
display the illness. ‘Show your wound!’ was coagulating in cruddy lumps. Painting, like healthy skin, the action in his imagination — or rather, in his attic —
an oft-repeated slogan of Joseph Beuys. Beuys and his is meant to be immaculate: we want perfection. in which the wound and quest are restaged / 312-15 /.
tollowers, such as Kiefer, believed in the therapeutic Julian Schnabel’s greatest virtue as a painter Originally it was meant to function as an environment,
role of art, that through art man could be made whole was, arguably, his willingness to be embarrassing. a blood-stained painting on each wall, enclosing the
again. The prevalence of the wound as a subject, No-one else was so prepared to break and rupture the viewer in its psychodrama. The spear, the sword,
hidden or revealed, is symptomatic of painting, indeed painted surface or to portray once more the wounds of the Grail filled with blood and a child's cot are there,
art generally, from the 1980s onwards. Christ on the cross — where the wound can represent the names of the characters are written and under the
Perhaps the most appalling and compelling both death and redemption. The wounds in his main painting: Oh, wunden — wundervoller heiliger
representation of awound — one that still obsesses paintings are the biggest, splitting open the linoleum Speer! ('Oh, Holy Spear of wounds and wonder!’). The
contemporary writers on the body and the abject — or wood support, dripping over the land like a vast, presence of the cot perhaps suggests that the wound
is Caravaggio’s Doubting Thomas in which Christ putrescent sun / 311 /. He is like the dinner guest happens not in some fictional myth but in the nursery,
guides the fingers of the mesmerized Thomas, who had who tells us about his skin disease as soon as he arrives that a psychic wound is the lot of all. Now very
refused to believe in his resurrection, into his wound. and who then, without any encouragement, pulls hard to see, written on the rafters are the names of the
What Thomas is being forced to do is appalling up his trouser leg to show it to us. We are appalled but Baader-Meinhof terrorist group.
because the wound is where pus and blood dribble, fascinated: this is, we know, the human condition. Adriana Varejao seems to be doing much the
slurp or squirt from the body. It revolts us, but we The exhibition and healing of a wound are same as Schnabel in her Tiles with Live Flesh / 316 /, but
cannot take our eyes off it. The wound is where flesh a constant theme in religion, myth and much art. even more literally, for the stuff pouring out of the wall

278
Death and Life

307. Anselm Kiefer 308. Luc Tuymans

The Burning Thornbush (Der Gas Chamber, 1986. Oil on

Brennende Dornbusch), 2007. canvas, 50 x 70 cm

Mixed media on board, in lead (19% x 27 ¥2 in). Museum

frame under glass, four panels, Overholland, Amsterdam

overall 332 x 768 cm

(130Y2x 302¥2in)

279
 Painting Today

seems replete with liver, kidneys and other organs; but

it is one formless mass, as though there were a whole
vat of human guts behind the painting. As with Kiefer,
the painting here appears as heavy as a wall, but it is
a particular wall: as a Brazilian, Varejao knows that one
sign of Portuguese colonialism was azulejos — tiles
used to cover whole walls — and that to disrupt those
tiles is to rupture colonial civilization itself. Here we are
in a double bind: the spilling guts are like a bad dream,
but the tiles themselves are symbolic of an imposed
order, possibly a repressive one. There is an especially
disgusting moment in Alien when Sigourney Weaver
finds a mess of human bodies still alive, fused into
a globby mess, host for the growing aliens. The loss of
individual human form is, like the horror of the void, a
horror at the loss of self. Yet, contrarily, that loss of self
s also the delight of the Baroque, an art style that is V
Hh
7e
ubiquitous in Brazil: to be swept up in the visual rhetoric
of a complex altarpiece is to lose oneself, much as one
toes baying abuse
a football match.
at the referee

Azulejos can be spectacular,

with 50,000

covering whole
walls with pictures. Perhaps the most extraordinary
those found in Lisbon, where, following the devastating
others at

are
OW
Y

earthquake of 1755, collapsed walls of azulejos were

quickly reassembled from surviving tiles with no sense
of a coherent image. Varejao refers to this in works such
1s Entrance Figure Ill, where the tiles do not match up;
she also refers to the way a figure would be depicted in
the tiles at the entrance to a palace or convent so as to
welcome the visitor / 317 /. The reference is ambivalent,
referring on the one hand to bits of Portuguese settlers
cut up for dinner by the supposedly cannibalistic
Indians, and on the other to ex-votos in churches
thanking Mary, the mother of God, for aiding recovery
trom a bad arm, heart disease or a broken leg. Here,
obviously, lament has transmuted into carnival: is all this
Baroque, a celebration of flesh? ‘Joy is full acceptance
of reality’, Varejao says, speaking beside a pile of meat.
Varejao incises her surfaces / see 366 / she
jokes, ‘a la Fontana’, referring to the charismatic
Argentine Italian artist Lucio Fontana, who had spent
the last twenty years of his life slashing or puncturing
his canvases. But Fontana had seen these not as
wounds but rather as gateways: ‘I did not make holes in
order to wreck the picture. On the contrary, | made
holes in order to find something else ... a different
dimension.’ Belonging, like Barnett Newman, to the last
generation that could, without irony, make sweeping
statements about art’s power to change the world,
Fontana had proclaimed a new consciousness, which art
could help bring about through synthesizing space,
sound and the experience of time and movement. Tim
Maguire has made slit paintings too, in homage to
or parody of Fontana, but he paints his slits as trompe
l‘oeil: the slash is not through the skin of the painting.
It is not a gateway to the void: it is only paint / 318 /.

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Death and Life

309. Guillermo Kuitca 311. Julian Schnabel

Strawberry Fields Forever, Painting Without Mercy, 1981

1988. Acrylic on canvas, Plates, plaster, oil paint, wax

200 x 213 cm (78% x 84 in). and epoxy on wood

Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam 240 x 336 cm (94¥2 x 132% in)

Museum Moderner Kunst

310. Ross Bleckner Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna

Architecture of the Sky III, 1990.

Oil on canvas, 269.2 x 233.7 cm

(106 x 92 in)

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 Painting Today

Like so many contemporary painters, Maguire admires In its gaiety and expulsive power it calls up the carnival, inhabitants — although the heads are painted with the
Fontana, but what he paints is rather the condition one where the skeletons dance. delicate precision of the miniaturist / 324 /. A large
of postmodernism: that representation can only echo At a more global level the wound (and the need skull leers through the foliage that has nearly covered
representation. We cannot puncture through to the void for mourning) is seen in a loss of innocence, in dystopic up the graffiti-stained wall. The space does not make
or another dimension any more than we can time-travel. views of nature and civilization. When Dirk Skreber sense; neither does this narrative, nor this mixture of
Mary Heilmann’s Rosebud / 319 / took, she shows a charming country cottage with a vast satellite scales. It plays ironically with the rather juvenile
remembers, a long time to paint. Made after a dish appended, he is doing more than sneering at the appeal of one type of dystopia, the post-apocalyptic
separation and the death of a close friend when she not-quite-so-pastoral, at Kinkadeian ruralism / 323 /. It is scenario that is standard in computer games, and
had forsworn drink and drugs, it could easily not so much a blot on the landscape as a blotch — a inverts Claude's recessive depth and romantic reverie.
be misconstrued as a slight, decorative painting. It is sign of ill health or contagion that will spread. He paints We are mortal: we die, but we live. The
deceptively simple, the title bittersweet, each catastrophe. In a series of paintings made around 2000 compensation for the inevitable decay of the flesh is the
mark either (or simultaneously) a flower or a wound. he shows the world as seen from a helicopter, but pleasure the flesh allows us. Mourning and celebration
For Heilmann, brought up in an intense Catholic the helicopter surveys a flood that has risen around and are intimately linked for we are linked to the world both
round, this painting was, she recalls, ‘her Saint surrounded houses / 322 /. The calmness allows a space by the fact of life and of death. ‘The first merit of a
Sebastian’. (A Catholic conceit was that the wounds for reflection and understanding, Skreber suggests: painting is to be a feast for the eye’, Delacroix wrote in
f a martyr were like blossoms flowering.) his journals. The words ‘pleasure’ and ‘decorative’
Tuymans's original desire for ‘Trouble Spot. The people who are still there or who have come back have become interestingly problematic in today’s culture:
Painting’ was to make an exhibition about the way have all been robbed of their daily lives and find pleasure, especially in the austere 1970s, was seen as
picted in art. Illness and wounds recur themselves in a limbo, a state of suspension they would something art should avoid or treat with circumspection;
fs in Tuymans’s work, often looking simultane- never have encountered by themselves. Only the ‘decorative’ is still often used as a slur on paintings that
ously diseased and beautiful, as in his paintin intervention of nature allows them to enter and become eschew obvious subject matter, but in the writings of and
y
stains / 320 /. \llness can have a horrible beauty, cognizant of this space. It is the tragedy of loss and on Matisse the term is used with approbation. The
vhich we find it difficult to tear our eyes. possibly lost existence, which is embodied in word ‘feast’ means celebration, a gathering of people,
2x and death can be linked in a moment of transformation and purification. a possible excess of eating and drinking, a letting
beauty or orgiastic pleasure, as Cecily Brown shows in go, a release from everyday constraints. The bacchanals
her Skulldiver painting / 321 /. In her work she seeks to Nigel Cooke paints a sylvan glade as though the of Titian or Picasso were carnival celebrations of
xtend the De Kooningesque rule of paint as flesh. barbarians have just passed through and beheaded the the body and its possibility for excess, perversion even.

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 Death and Life

This is an affirmation of life, and Gornik argues 312. Anselm Kiefer

Matisse’s famous paintings Dance I] and Music
Parsifal II, 1973. Oil and blood
can be seen as epitomizing the body transformed in that, like Molly Bloom soliloquizing in James Joyce's
Ulysses, Matisse's odalisques should be seen not On paper laid down on canvas
joy. It is too often forgotten that they once hung close by
as sexist representations but as affirmations of sexuality 300 x 533 cm (18 x 209% ir
each other, forming one synaesthetic unit in which the
Tate, London
senses blend: seeing, hearing, touching and kinaesthesia and sensuality as life: ‘and yes | said yes | will Yes.’
— the sense of our body in motion. In the first canvas We all know what carnival means. It means
313. Anselm Kiefer
the five dancers merge as one into movement; in the going to Notting Hill or New Orleans, or flying to Rio or
Parsifal IV, 1973
other the singers sit isolated yet are still joined in Trinidad and letting one’s hair down. Loud music, exotic
the virtual world of music. Painting, we could argue, is costumes, dancing, drinking to excess, partying
here like music — an art form that is experienced singly, into the early hours of the morning. We may recall that
in one’s head — but it desires to be experienced like historically carnival marked the beginning of Lent,
dance, both communally with others and in (and by) the a celebration based on the Roman festival of Saturnalia
body. We may also add that the two paintings clearly celebrating fertility and directed against the penury of
represent human sexuality: the conclusion of the boys’ winter. Moral prohibitions would — momentarily — be
song and glances towards the girls and of the girls’ lifted. It is to this chaotic, communal form of celebration
dancing will be a joyful sexual union between them. — carnival — that much painting, as an art made by the
Colour in Matisse’s work is consistently more than what fleshy body, aspires.
you fill in the contour lines with: it can be tantamount to In his influential book Rabelais and his World
sexual pleasure — even orgasmic, as April Gornik says: the Russian writer Mikhail Bakhtin analysed the
carnivalesque as a complex and necessary
When he [Matisse] first goes to Saint Tropez and phenomenon where people merge in a tumultuous
Collioure he’s clearly fascinated by the outside colour crowd, when the world is turned upside down — the
and he begins to interiorize the experience and then all master serving the servant, ordinary logic and morals
the paintings seem to get suffused by that. Everything suspended. In carnival the mask is used to adopt
seems to come together and then there’s this colour new roles and play with other identities; our experience
orgasm that must be — lucky for us and lucky for him — of the body as being incomplete or grotesque is lauded
the longest colour orgasm anyone ever had. rather than ignored. In the world of the carnival the

283
 Painting Today

boundaries between public and private spheres,

ie}oOcySs, 19)en performer and spectator, collapse. For Bakhtin

it was a re-enactment of ancient cults of fertility

and rebirth. In carnival, pleasure is acknowledged to be
disruptive. It was not illogical for Oliver Cromwell
to ban carnivalesque maypole dancing from his puritan
state, just as, for similar reasons, Plato banned artists
from his ideal republic.
n Daniel Richter'’s Duueh / 325 / we empathize
with the figures falling through space. As in Dance Il,
this free-falling can be linked to a loosening of desire,
sensuality and sexuality. Fred Tomaselli describes
1g to Fly as depicting ‘a mosh pit situation
— transcendence — oblivion — the modern
sublime’. Aman, as though aquaplaning above the
l
O. hangs in mid-air, ecstatic / 326 /. The figure
sed, not just in drug-induced, Heavy Metal
rock-induced ecstasy but literally, in collage, into
a hundred body parts, insects, flowers and birds. If for
mund Freud falling and flying were symbolic of
sexual desire, so too was swimming. If nowhere were
the body and sexuality more disruptive than in post-
Mao China, paintings such as Liu Weil's swimmers
exalted in this / 327 /. Swimming not only allowed
semi-nudity; it could also act as a ready metaphor for
the body's freedom in carnival.
n Neo Rauch’s Alter / 328 / we ask, ‘Who is this
a

rt, the Green Man wasa fertility figure, and

j

hough clearlya } agan god, he appears carved in

ieval churches,
ch spewing foliage from his
apertures. Carnival is about letting such an other into
the party and dancing with him. As always with Rauch, it
all seems a burlesque, but the inexplicability makes us
wonder whether we can read this allegorically. Could
we read the opened cages as an invitation to let nature
free? Or see the giant fir cones as monstrous fecundity?
Above all, carnival is performative, hence the
exhilaration and wit of making is the key element in this
painting. One should note that below the high heels of
the woman on the right it all goes swirly: carnival
happens right here in the painterly surface.

316. Adriana Varejao 317. Adriana Varejao

Tiles with Live Flesh (Azulejaria Entrance Figure III (Figura de

em carne Viva), 1999. Oil on Convite III), 2005. Oil on canvas,

canvas with polyurethane 200 x 200 cm (78% x 78% in)

on aluminium and wooden

support, 220 x 160 x 50 cm

(86 Yax 63 x 19% in)

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Death and Life

285
 2 i) >
oao £ ~ £ nD[~4
 Death and Life

318. Tim Maguire

Slit Landscape, 97S83, 1997.

Oil on canvas, 50 x 50 cm

(19% x 19% in)

319. Mary Heilmann

Rosebud, 1983. Oil on canvas,

152 x 106 cm (60 x 42 in)

287
Painting Today

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Death and Life

320, Lue Tuymans 321. Cecily Brown

Bloodstains, 1993, Oilon Skulldiver IV, 20067

canvas, 57.5 * 47,5 em Oil on linen, 216 * 226 em

(22 %2 * 18% in) (85 x 89 in)

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Painting Today

The paintings of Philip Taaffe are more overtly

joyous, In 1991, when people had begun to understand
that he was more than an ironic appropriator, he
remarked that for him Matisse was the great artist of the
twentieth century because he accomplished simultane-
ous ‘complexity and grace .,. always putting his
paintings in full bloom’. After his initial appropriationist
paintings (or homages), Taaffe began to make his
paintings increasingly complex, both in their composi-
tion and the variety of cultures they called on,
For Taaffe art is a meeting place for everything and
everyone, If carnival is where cultures come together,
then these paintings are carnivalesque, where
the cacophony of the tower of Babel became exciting
rather than terrifying,
Taaffe is, however, no mere jackdaw, Rather
it is important that he knows the history of the images
he uses, whether it be plaited Bulgarian bread rolls
or Celtic carvings, nineteenth-century natural history
engravings or Islamic tiles. He researches each to
understand ‘the lived reality out of which this imagery
came’, A painting such as Imaginary City / 329 /, made
to be shown at Vienna's Secession building,
demonstrates the way he brings together decorative
elements in a symphonic way so as to say something far
more complex than those elements would have
done individually. He tries to see those elements that
he derived from the Viennese designer Josef Hoffmann
in terms of energy. The lizards and tiny mosquitoes that
inhabit this ideal city are typical of his interest in the
shapes and forms of the natural world, Perhaps no-one
has extended collage as much as Taaffe: these works
are made by silk-sereening, printing and painting on
to translucent pieces of paper, which are then affixed to
the canvas: it is a cumulative, labour-intensive way
of working.
In recent paper works Taaffe has experimented
with the suminagashi technique, whereby pigments are
floated on water, swirled around or otherwise
manipulated and then paper is laid carefully down to
soak up this surface skin. In Japan the technique was
used to meditate: secret visions could be seen in these
chance-derived shapes. For Taaffe they are images
of beauty, with surprising imbalances of symmetry; they
allow the viewer more opportunities for fantasy and
reverie, Often he will repeat the process, adding another
layer of translucent colour, or else paint over it, as here
/ 330 /, where he adds a screen of egg shapes to suggest
either fertility or some secret alchemical meaning.
Like many other artists, Taaffe uses metaphors
of nature, music and dance to explain the effect of his
work: we can see his works, with their repeated but
varied rhythms, in terms of chanting or dancing waves
of delight. If we conceive sexuality not as voyeurism but
as an activity of the body, these are sexual paintings,
ones where the artist plays wilfully with stereotypes of
the feminine and masculine.

290
 Death and Life

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aire
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saith
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, "

291
Painting Today

325. Daniel Richter

Duueh, 2003. Oil on canvas,

300 x 200 cm (118 x 78% in).

Musée National d’Art Moderne,

Centre Georges Pompidou,

Paris

326. Fred Tomaselli

Expecting to Fly, 2002.
Photocollage, leaves, acrylic,
gouache and resin on
wood panel, 122 x 122 cm

(48 x 48 in)

292
 <=©c Tv - = ®
ia)®©ee)
Painting Today

327. Liu Wei

Swimmers, 1994. Oil on canvas,

159 x 209 cm (62% x 82% in).

Private collection

328. Neo Rauch

Other (Alter), 2001. Oil on

canvas, 250 x 210 cm

(98 V2x 82% in)

329. PhilipTaaffe
Imaginary City, 1996. Mixed
media on canvas,
390.5 x 392.5 cm

(153% x 154% in). Broad

Foundation, Santa Monica CA

294
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 Painting Today

330. Philip Taatte 331. Beatriz Milhazes

Votive Painting, 2004 —é The Blue House (A Casa Azul),

Mixed media on canvas 2001. Acrylic on canvas,

280 x 270 cm (110 x 106 in).

21st Century Museum of

Contemporary Art, Kanazawa

332. Beatriz Milhazes

Nazareth das Farinhas, 2002.

Acrylic on canvas, 260 x 240 cm

(94 x 94% in), Carnegie

Museum of Art, Pittsburgh PA

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Death and Life

What does a painting do? What is the best thing it can

do? ... It should be able to turn you on ... Make you
alive, alert, regenerated. Confirming that you occupy
your own boay, and that what you are seeing has
a physiological connection to you in a primary sense,
a connection which has to do something with Eros.

In my work | want to emphasize destre.

One should not be under any misapprehension that

Beatriz Milhazes, or any other Brazilian artist, spends
half her time decorating carnival floats or dancing at
them. She does not go to the carnival, but she lives
in a society imbued with the notion. ‘I’m a conceptual
carnavalesca’, she jokes. It is the idea that matters here,
that of transforming the world. For Milhazes, going
to museums and looking at paintings ‘is the same as
carnival, with all its exuberance. To unite totally diverse
things and create something else.’ In Brazil the notion
and reality of carnival become allied with notions of the
Baroque. ‘The Baroque’, as her fellow Brazilian Adriana
Varejao says,

is a timeless style ... The carnival in Rio is Baroque.

The parade of samba schools is the biggest Baroque
opera on earth. ... The Baroque is also about disguise,
changing skins, make-up, artifice. ... It’s the space
of abundance and excess based on pleasure and lust ..

pure voluptuous extravagance.

Carnival and the Baroque both come down to defying

gravity, to exploding away from the everyday — as
Milhazes’s paintings so often seem to
Like Taaffe, Milhazes does not paint directly
with a brush; she paints patterns or elements on
transparent plastic sheets, then glues them on to the
canvas before peeling off the plastic, rather like decals
/ 331, 332 /. She has used the same transparent sheets
many times, so little traces of previous paintings are left
on them and will add to the mix in each new painting
If this sounds like a distancing device, the paintings are
nevertheless intensely physical. As she said when asked
if she used a computer to compose her paintings (she
doesn't), ‘| have a compulsive need for physical contact
with my paintings.’
As important to Milhazes as carnival are the
botanic gardens next to her studio: she will look at the
colours in flowers to try to resolve a pictorial problem.
Gardens are voluptuous but peaceful. Rosettes and
bouquets are frequent in her work and are the shapes
where the worlds of garden and carnival join. Her work
has become brighter and more complex in recent years,
more and more attentive to colour. ‘If the symphony
of colours does not work, the seduction ends.’ Pattern
here is about not control but exuberance. ‘Carnival
is an explosion of energy: a wild and free interaction
between the human body and rhythm. All kinds of
concepts collide and overlap and a wonderful visual

297
Painting Today

333. Mary Heilmann

Chemical Billy, 2001.

Oil on canvas, 153 x 122 cm

(60% x 48 in)

334. Mary Heilmann

Last Chance for Gas, 2005.

Oil on linen, 61 x 61 cm

(24 x 24 in)

335. Mary Heilmann

All Tomorrow's Parties, 2003.

Installation at Vienna Secession

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 Death and Life

event happens.’ Her titles often echo those of Matisse Loud, hot, very influenced by the culture of the street ... ogling / 336 /. Like many artists, Amer’s background
the painting is kind of a joyous, survivalist type is multicultural: born in Egypt and trained in Paris, she
for she is, in her own way, remaking Matisse — as
of response to living in the midst of a real scary world.’ now lives in New York. In a work from 2001 she had
a woman, as a Brazilian and for the twenty-first century.
This appeal to ‘beauty’ — a word that was for a long descriptions of female sexual pleasure from a medieval
‘Colour is the core of my work. It’sby colour that | begin
time almost forbidden in art writing — is not to classical Arabic text, The Encyclopedia of Pleasure, embroidered
and finish my paintings.’ Recently she has taken on
proportions and balance but to a sudden sense of joy, on to boxes. With this in mind do we see the figures in
many commissions, adapting her working methods to
an implosion of delight in the world. For all their cranky her paintings as ecstatic or as miming an orgasm for the
the outside, making public what is a personal
titles, each painting stands for a transfiguring moment camera? It is the curiosity of her work that it manages to
experience of carnival.
of grace, beauty and pleasure / 334 /. be anti-pornography and pro-pleasure all at once, to be
In the Baroque or carnival, painting moves out
simultaneously Muslim and Western. ‘In these days of
into space as though in a dance. Mary Heilmann Pleasure is not always an unproblematic matter.
Pleasure in an abusive relationship, as described earlier hideous fundamentalism, the capacity to acknowledge
believes her work begins to sing when it is located in
by Sue Williams, comes at the expense of others / see ambivalence is revolutionary.’
space. As we can see from her installation at the Vienna
Secession, a building that is itself an icon of design, she 225 /. Pornography offers pleasure, feminists and others Carnival is not just a celebration but an
argued, at the cost of adebasement of women. In the upturning of the world’s social conventions, hence the
scatters throughout the space movable chairs that she
more puritanical thinking of the 1970s they felt such co-existence in carnival of astonishing beauty and
has herself designed / 335 /. She wants viewers to be
relaxed and comfortable when looking at her work; she pleasure must be eradicated: the more subtle position grotesqueness: glittering queens and farting

wants them to move in response. The presence of child- now would that it should be in some way detourned or competitions. This may help us understand the odd mix
redirected. ‘Feminism’, claims Ghada Amer, ‘can be of political hectoring and chaotic joking in Martin
sized chairs as well emphasizes for her the very
empowered by seduction.’ In her paintings images from Kippenberger / 337 /. His work is always best seen in
democratic nature of her enterprise — it is for everyone.
pornographic magazines are stitched on to the canvas, series, as here, for it is important that his work, like
The way that colour and shape combine in
but the excess of trailing threads and the repetition a drunken monologue, shifts from raucous laughter
Heilmann’s work can be seen as symbolic of a holistic
world where everything comes together / 333 /. Of her of the images make these hard to read: the pleasure is to near cloying sentiment to political statement.
in the delight of thread and pattern, not any sexist The progress from the copy of the silly pornographic
paintings she says, ‘Beautiful choice of colours, yes!

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 Painting Today

336. Ghada Amer

Trini,2005. Acrylic, embroidery
and gel medium on canvas,
167.6 x 200.7 cm (66 x 79 in)

illustration to the skeleton of the lemur is a stream of innumerable photographs of himself. Such art declines This is obviously tongue in cheek, but it gives the
consciousness rather than a calculated series. |s it well any aesthetic good taste, preferring abjection and gist of their post-punk anti-establishment play.
painted? Hardly, but it is painted with brio. excess. Like Tal R., Meese also makes installations, and Meese fills his work with a personal
Kippenberger is always ambivalent: mocking the on occasion the two artists have done so together mythology that elides naff films of the 1960s such
pretensions of the painters of his own generation but / 338 /. In his performances Meese may fall about drunk, as Zardoz with dictators and Noel Coward (who can
himself painting obsessively. play with skeletons or himself, shout, sing and bellow metamorphose into Dracula). Tal R. likewise bundles
Kippenberger has become a cult figure since the names of Hitler, Pol Pot and Stalin. Likewise the all sorts of ideas and images from the past into
his death in 1997. His profound influence is due paintings, with their scrawled slogans, names of father hastily made stews. Finger-applied paint, embroidery,
not to his technical skill or conceptual rigour but to his figures and piles of gooey paint are infantile, anal- collage can all be used. He refers to his method
attitude — one that might be summed up in that expulsive scenarios. Like Tal R., he adopts the as Kolbojnik: kibbutz slang for the leftovers
slogan: ‘DO IT!’ His example has given permission to behaviour of a pre-pubertal rebel. Asked in an interview from a collective meal, recycled here with energy
others to work within their skill limitations, not to what he could say about Meese and Tal R., Daniel and abandon /340 /. ‘| constantly have this hot pot
be scared of making a mess and looking cack-handed, Richter replied: boiling and | throw all kinds of material into it’, he
and to paint whatever interests them or whatever says. Or again, ‘I do painting a bit like people make
comes into their head. He has also allowed them to be As persons they are kind of greedy and clumsy, not very a lunch box. | just pack everything into them,
at once outrageous and vulnerable, for this was the nice. Very often there is this mythology about the artist, leftovers and all.’
boy who, as his sister wrote, ‘often wept’ and who as that he has to be anti-social or egomaniac. And they As well as giving the sense of joyous utopian
aman, for all his ultra-bohemian act, longed for ‘love, both are. As artists they are both very good and this communality and the world turned on its head,
affection and security’. transcends their evilness. The work itself is carnival has a dark side. Here exuberant release and
Other artists take such a notion of elemental formalistically plundering the archives of art history on joy can slip into paranoia. In the paintings of
freedom and the notion of fertile chaos even further: for
one hand — putting penises and infantilism Daniel Richter carnival happens in a place that could
example, the anarchic Israeli-Dane Tal R. or the Welsh- everywhere. Something very relieving and enjoyable, well be dystopia. Around 2000 Richter moved from
German Jonathan Meese with his walls of graffiti, mess because on the one hand, it deals with the seriousness abstraction to figuration: ‘| wanted more trans-
and collage / 339 /. Like the pinboards of a teenager, of history and on the other hand, uses it like a child's parency, beauty, contradiction, unknown elements,
Meese’s paintings are covered with collage, including play — on a high level. But as persons they suck. chaos, intelligence and dreamy elements.’

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337. Martin Kippenberger

What is Happening on Sundays?
(Was ist bloB am sonntag los?),
1982. Oil, poster paint, lacquer
on canvas, ten paintings, each
120 x 100 cm (47% x 39% in)

338. Jonathan Meese and Tal R.

Mother (Mor), 2005, installed

at Statens Museum fur Kunst,

Copenhagen

301
Painting Today

a
&
«

BY)
ae
ro

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 Death and Life

339. Jonathan Meese Richter likes bilingual, punning titles: Fun de uncontrollably, into annihilating aggression. The
My Grimace is as Harmless siecle (a giant wraith plays guitar while couples have Dionysiac grove appears a lot in his work — indeed the
as my Cat (the Friendly sex in the grass near by), The Amazing Comeback city at its most trashed can easily metamorphose into it,
DICTATOR), 2006. Oil, mixed of Dr Freud (where Freud appears naked in red high but then flip back again. This is to do with his merging of
media on canvas, three panels, heels, grinning, leaning against a tree, his bottom worlds, carnival and dystopia, riot and pop concert,
each 365.3 x 600.5 x 4.2 cm
presented to a hooded figure), Punktum / 341 /. Here glade or dump: we are never sure which we are looking
(143% x 236% x 1%in)
a crowd of naked onlookers gape as a pointy-hatted at in his work. But beauty is a key ingredient: ‘| believe in
figure materializes in white before their eyes. The pun the richness and beauty of the human intellect and in its
340. Tal R.
is, first, on the in-your-face music and style rebellion of ability to understand the unknown and strange. ...
Lords of Kolbojnik, 2002.
the 1970s and, second, on the concept of the punctum Beauty through confusion; truth through collision!’ In his
Mixed media on canvas,
advanced by Roland Barthes in his book on recent paintings that classic figure of carnival, Harlequin,
244 x 244 cm (96 x 96 in)
photography Camera Lucida — the incongruous detail appears in his tell-tale costume, wandering about,
in a photograph that grabs your attention and invades looking for ‘the long and winding road’, leaning against
your consciousness. We are uncertain whether these a wall as though puking, collapsed in the gutter, haggling
amazed people are extras from Night of the Living Dead with a death’s head over a box of old vinyl / 342 /.
or fans listening to Motérhead at Glastonbury. The American Carroll Dunham's work can be

Just as in Richter’s earlier work abstraction was seen as an internal, infantile carnival of belly rumbles

penetrated by figurative elements, so here figuration is and farts / 343 / or else a carnival on the surface of the

penetrated by abstract marks, observation by fantasy, skin enacted by boils and phalluses. Sometimes his

angst by horror (or beauty). This is a prolonged centralized shape will become like a planet, but a very
meditation on our deeply ambivalent attitude to different planet from those on which, say, Antoine

violence: Dionysian energy slipping all too easily, all too de Saint-Exupéry’s little prince landed: these seethe

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Painting Today

341. Daniel Richter

Punktum, 2003. Oil on canvas,

200 x 300.5 cm

(78% x 118% in). Frank Cohen

Collection, Manchester

342. Daniel Richter

Elektro/a, 2005. Oil on canvas,

220.4 x 300.5 cm (86% x 118% in)

343. Carroll Dunham

The Sun, 1999. Mixed media

on linen, 254 x 203.8 cm

(100 x 80% in)

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Death and Life

with polymorphous sexuality and rage. In the 1980s

Dunham's work was abstract, but then shapes became
characters and then created a wilful world of
misrule. His job as painter could be defined as being
to control this: ‘My art exists in this kind of tension
between irrational, almost goofy, things and extremely
tight, formal organized things. That tension is where
| live.’ The appeal is in the fact that, appalling though
they are, these eyeless grunts that come from
‘the sludge of the subconscious’, these Id-like thingies,
need to be let out rather than repressed. This is, in
short, catharsis. Their liberated excess owes much, one
presumes, as with Tomaselli and others, to.experiences
with drugs when younger.
When Chris Ofili painted his first Captain Shit
painting in 1996, he introduced a lord of misrule who
was simultaneously a character from a sci-fi adventure,
a drug dealer, a savant and a reggae gangsta / 344 /.
Ofili noted wryly that as a black artist he was fated
always to be seen as ‘the Voodoo King, the Voodoo
Queen, the witch doctor, the drug dealer, the Magicien
de la terre, the exotic’. His response has been to adopt
such stereotypes as disguises and not to seek a single
‘authentic’ style but to let everything in: ‘I always think
of the work as coming out of hip-hop culture, which
is an approach to making and looking at things with no
hierarchy. Everything just gets everything.’
The balls of elephant dung on which his
paintings were balanced work like settings for a jewel,
emphasizing each painting as an object with glittering
colours. ‘The eye is a kind of doorway to the heart and
spirit and mind and the eye mainly gets stimulated by
either of two things, ugliness or beauty. And | think
we've got plenty of ugliness around, so | think beauty
is something worth pursuing and working for.’ He could
have added that the beauty he makes is transformed
from materials we normally conceive as ugly and that
there is an understated political point that the beauty
should be what he calls ‘Afro-beauty’.
One could also go up wooden stairs and down
a wooden corridor to see Ofili’s The Upper Room. This
was an apparent contradiction to the Anglo-Saxon
mind: a carnival chapel —jocular, decorative and
wilfully impure / 347 /. Along the side-walls were twelve
paintings of monkeys in profile looking towards a larger
painting of a monkey in frontal pose. All were isolated
in the dark room by bright spotlights. Christ and twelve
disciples? Blasphemous? Not to a Hindu, for whom
Hanuman the monkey God is regularly worshipped.
As always with Ofili, the decorative fervour is matched
by a use of imagery that in its excess seems possibly
subversive, possibly celebratory, but probably both.
In one recent painting, replete with sensuous dance
rhythms, he evokes the raising of Lazarus: the carnival
victory of life over death come true / 345 /.
Carnival is where we mingle and conjoin with
others. In art that sings the carnival many traditions,

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 Painting Today

ss Yo
we aN

344. Chris Ofili 345. Chris Ofili

Captain Shit and the Legend Raising of Lazarus, 2007. Oil on

of the Black Stars, 1996. Acrylic, canvas, 278.7 x 200.4 x 4.1 cm

oil, resin, paper collage, glitter, (109% x 79 x 1% in)

map pins and elephant dung on

canvas, with two elephant dung 346. Ragib Shaw

supports, 243.8 x 182.8 cm Garden of Earthly Delights XIII,

(96 x 72 in) 2005. Mixed media on board,

183 x 152.5 cm (72 x 60 in)

306
influences and traditions can flow together. In the seemingly underwater space. Shaw paints ridged 347. Chr

paintings of Raqib Shaw we find Kashmiri textiles, outlines with stained-glass paint through porcupine The Upper Room,inst

Persian miniatures, Hieronymus Bosch, Western and quills and then floods the enclosed spaces with enamel; Victoria Miro Gallery, London

Hindu eroticism and many others joyfully brought hence the jewel-like brilliance. He sees his work as like Thirteen ks: Mono Ama

Mono Marron, Mono Tt

together / 346 /. Shaw was brought up in Kashmir, dance or music: pleasurable, liberating, harmonious.
Mono Verde, Mono Rosa, M
a place where, as Nilima Sheikh recalls, communities ‘My work is about a world that exists in my imagination
Naranja, Mono Rojo, M
once co-existed in harmony and natural beauty. —a place where beauty, sensuality, sex and hedonism
Negro, Mono Blanco, Mono
Unlike in Bosch’s version, there is no guilt or imminent are engaged in a delicious orgy — like a perpetual
Azul, Mono Mora
damnation in Shaw's gardens of earthly delights. orgasm, there are no limits, no boundaries, no labels —
Animals commingle and endlessly procreate in this pleasure for the sake of exploring pleasure alone.’
308
 ay aa
aM I
MM th

Fernando
Botero Kerry
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Dodiya
— Richard P
Stephen
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Leon Golub
SubodhGupta aEAas
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NaliniMalani
 Painting Today

In late 2005, in an exhibition at David Zwirner, the mercenaries and torturers / 350 /, Golub’s paintings
gallery in New York, Luc Tuymans showed a medium- were large and rough, painted with a meat cleaver.
size painting of billowing clouds / see 348 /. It was Although his specific target was the white murder
delicately painted in purples and greys. Given the squads in places such as El Salvador that were
poignancy of the assumed subject matter, the Museum effectively funded by the Reagan regime, the paintings
of Modern Art, New York, felt it had to acquire it. This were often so unspecific as to seem universal images
may have seemed a wistful romantic landscape, but to of callous viciousness and abuse of power. However,
the museum it was an avowedly political or historical there appear to have been few paintings made in
painting. Was this, we may ask, the only way in which the last twenty years that try to continue or develop
we can address the traumas of recent history: a Golub’s approach.
beautiful and understated painting that could easily be Cy Twombly’s attempt to evoke the siege of
misread as either an abstraction or an elusive reference Troy seems, in theory, something closer to the old
to the Romantic sublime and Caspar David Friedrich’s history painting, what Denis Diderot called ‘grandes
mists. Only the little detail of the lamppost at bottom machines’. The ten vast paintings of Twombly’s Fifty
left gives a clue as to what photographic image this is Days at Ilium appear like an inventory of the key actors
derived from. This, we assume, shows the destruction of and events of Homer's poem: the vengeance of
9/11; the dust cloud is that of the World Trade Center Achilles, the house of Priam, Achaeans in battle / 351 /.
buildings disintegrating. The marks and the names are in Twombly’s signature
This seems very restrained when compared with style of scrawls and scumbled colours, simultaneously
the grandiose ambition of traditional history painting, scruffy and elegant. Despite the subject matter,
which until the triumph of Impressionism had been seen this seems a very private work: an exploration of scale
as the highest form of painting. If the primary purpose but also of rage, passion and concerted action. The
of painting was its educational role and ability to give phallic shapes emphasize that this is about masculinity.
visual expression to intellectual ideas, this had to be so. The heroism he works on is both beautiful and
History paintings were always given highest status shocking. It is also about those inevitable ends of heroic
in the academy exhibitions: to this day, to walk though action — death and destruction. So in a very real sense
the grand galleries of the Louvre, hung as they it bears witness to those urges that lead to conflict,
are with paintings of Classical and Napoleonic scenes, acknowledges the poetic quality of war.
is to understand that both the state and the artists In contrast to large-scale narrative paintings,
believed that the past was heroic and worthy of cartoon books are a widespread and popular narrative
emulation. Jacques-Louis David's The Oath of the medium. It is therefore perhaps surprising how few
Horatii and Emanuel Leutze’s Washington Crossing the painters feel inclined or free to use that form. Nilima
Delaware were calls for stern moral action, heroes Sheikh’s series of twelve paintings, however, When
swearing to defeat a tyranny or die. In recent paintings Champa Grew Up (1984), tells of the murder of a
there seem to be no such heroic figures as the Horatii teenage bride so that the husband's family can get the
or George Washington — except in the official dowry (in the image shown the bride's mother-in-law
communist paintings of Mao. is berating her) / 352 /. Bride-burning was, and remains,
Judging by Tuymans’s Demolition, it seems that a chronic social problem in India. This work also
the only way in which pairiters can comment on history has a political impact at a formal level because Sheikh is
is by commenting on the photographic residue of those overtly turning away from Western modernism to the
events. Perhaps the purpose of Fernando Botero’s traditions of Indian painting. When she says, ‘Ithink one
paintings of Abu Ghraib is to make more real the grainy of the things that we have to do is to self-consciously
photographs we have all seen of Iraqi prisoners being use the miniature or other Asian traditions to break
abused / 349 /. As always with his paintings, Botero open the question of painting’, she is talking as much
makes the figures — here Iraqi prisoners — unfeasibly politically as formally. It is not only what we picture but
gross. Set out in a triptych format, they call up echoes also how we do so that has an impact on how we
of paintings of Christian martyrs and Francis Bacon's think and act. For Sheikh, as for many women, to paint
sado-masochism. They can offer no clear message save about domestic life is in effect politically revolutionary:
strangeness, the pathos of the inappropriate. They
make us feel awkward. One artist friend said about me, ‘Her paintings are
When history painting appears in recent years, very feminine and domestic.’ Not a compliment.
it has often been, as with Picasso, a painting of political So | said to myself, ‘Whyshould | not paint domestic
protest rather than a celebration of the establishment's scenes? | spend my whole day with my children.
heroes. Very often it is from the viewpoint of those Why should I not make my painting relevant for me?’
minorities who lack a voice in the public domain; for
example, the work of the left-wing artist Leon Golub, In the old communist bloc the twentieth century
who was fixated not on heroes but on dictators, was, Officially, not just a series of calamities but rather

310
 History Painting

Demolition,
2005.
Oilon
canvas,
165x 113.
cm
(65x44% in).Museumof
ModernArt,NewYork

311
Painting Today

312
 History Painting

349. Fernando Botero a triumphant working-out of the dictatorship of the law and history, but through the history of the concept
Abu Ghraib 43 (Triptych),2005. proletariat. There was state sponsorship to make such of spirituality.’ The surface in these paintings by Kiefer,
Oil on canvas, three paintings and, indeed, paintings of relevant events in as always, is like crud: dead skin and personal detritus.
panels, each 130 x 96 cm earlier history. The peasants’ revolt in Germany in His paintings call for paradoxical leaps of faith: from
(51% x 37% in) 1525 could be seen as a precursor of later proletarian the grossly material to the spiritual, from the personal to
revolutions and was hence an appropriate subject in the universal, from the individual to the historical.
350. Leon Golub East Germany for Werner Tubke's vast panoramic The corollary to these vast and lumpen imaginings is his
Mercenaries V, 1984. Acrylic painting / 353 /. ‘History? Of course, there is nothing star paintings, images of the heavens that suggest
on linen, 304.8 x 437.8 cm but history’, Tubke remarked in 1982. Yet for all its the possibility of infinity, of grace / see 483 /. His view of
(120 x 172 in). Broad Art scale, it is hard to see this as having been painted religion is that of Gnosticism, a search for truth hidden in
Foundation, Santa Monica CA in the same spirit of optimism as the vast murals that history. ‘Religion can pretend to be pure. History cannot.’
Diego Rivera painted for the Mexican capital. The history painting of today deals with
There is a sense that it was TUbke’s problems rather than heroism. For the generation of
contemporaries who fled East Germany for the West — Chinese painters that grew up in the upheaval of Mao’s
Baselitz, Polke, Richter and others — who created last years the Cultural Revolution and Mao-worship
the true history painting of their time, one that dwelt were traumas that had to be replayed and reconstituted
on the bad faith of the post-war state and its refusal obsessively. Zeng Fanzhi’s From the Masses, To the
to acknowledge the past. It was Anselm Kiefer who Masses quotes Mao's dictum about learning from and
most overtly took on this issue — and on the scale leading the proletariat: it shows Mao flanked by Zhou
of Twombly, if not Tubke. Although if we look at what Enlai and Liu Shaogi / 355 /. The painting may seem to
Kiefer has done since 1989, it seems paradoxical: be nostalgic for the certainties of the age of Maoist
a private vision painted with all the scale and rhetoric thought, of social solidarity, yet the almost parodistic
of public art; a bizarre mix of hermeticism and distortions of scale imply it is an unreal fantasy rather
the spectacular. Yet as we noted in Chapter 9, what was than reality. The first painting Zeng made on arriving in
important to Kiefer was not the facts of memory but Beijing from provincial Wuhan, it also bears witness to
the act of memory, the act of reparation — the belief that key moment in many twentieth-century lives: the
that painting could bear witness, indeed could heal. Re- country parson’s arrival in the hectic, crowded metropolis,
enactment was a way to understand myth and history: where one is carried away by the surging crowds and
hence his portrayal of himself in Man in the Wood / see spectacle but simultaneously alienated by it.
297 / as Gilgamesh in search of the meaning of life. This experience of the new mega-metropolis
Kiefer’s early work had been obsessed with and of the conflict of traditions and globalization
German history, with what had led to the cataclysm of forms, along with horror at sectarian strife, the impetus
National Socialism and a divided Germany. After the fall behind much Indian painting. Although some Indian
of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and reunification, he left painters, such as Nalini Malani, gave up painting
Germany and spent three years exploring ancient as a medium after the sectarian riots that followed the
civilizations such as those of pre-Columbian Mexico. It destruction of the Babri mosque in 1992, because they
is apparently a pre-Columbian pyramid that he portrays felt they needed a new medium in which to respond,
in the Golden Bull paintings / 354 /. Here a river of gold others attempted to bear witness to what was going on
runs down the steps, whereas on the actual pyramids it in painting, the most famous example being K.G.
would have been blood from human sacrifice that Subramanyan’s The City is Not for Burning / 357 /.
flowed. This is not an attempt at historical reconstruction: When Malani / 356 / re-focused on painting,
those who have visited Mexico know that the pyramids her response to the crisis was to blur together Sita and
in the Yucatan are surrounded by scrub and dust rather Medea, mythical heroines who have to go into exile
than these very European pines and oaks. We are in the and whose stories are filled with desire, violence and
German forest again, the one that Kiefer and Gilgamesh betrayal. A recourse to deep myths can help explain
travelled with their burning branch. ‘Our stories always the present complexity. Another Mumbai painter,
begin in the forest’, Kiefer says. Atul Dodiya, often uses the roller-shutter guards of
At the time when Columbus ‘discovered’ shops to paint on. He writes: ‘Opening/closing [the
America, papal bulls or decrees were sealed with gold. shutter] is a symbol of the daily grind. Time passing by,
The symbolism here (as so often with Kiefer) becomes the cruel industrial sounds, the lonely labourer, the
arcane: we are unsure whether this is symbolic of the glamour and glitz of the city.’ He paints on these shop
search for gold and the enslavement of the Indians or shutters and on other street furniture partly because he
a reference to alchemy. Kiefer has suggested that gold wants to mix up the life of street, studio and gallery,
and blood connect earth and heaven. He may have and partly because they symbolize emergency: shop
begun as a law student, but from the start he sought owners shut up at a hint of a riot or danger. Mumbai is
deeper causes than national ones: ‘| was interested in a city of extremes, where great wealth is displayed
the possibility of going back, not just through German adjacent to dire poverty, where Dodiya cannot show his

313
 Painting Today

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more explicit paintings for fear of Hindu fundamentalists In recent years | have allowed all of the world to enter Mumbai commuter train in 2006 / 361 /. Painted from

and where Bollywood, the Indian film industry, weaves the loneliness of my studio. | have painted, as if, at the a photographic negative, it becomes a puzzle where
dreams to keep the populace happy. The shop shutters crossroads.,.. Almost dramatically the earth has shifted we cannot decipher the marks, where the lurid colours
allow him to play on this complex world where dreams beneath my feet. As my notions of security and beauty register as anxiety rather than gaiety. For these two
have changed, a deluge of images has hit me. Living artists the photograph provides the key to urban
and reality do not match. When closed, the shutter
in a nation seeped in poverty, maybe it is unavoidable. experience better than the complex narrative spaces
shows Laxmi, a much-loved goddess, showering pros-
Death, decay, corruption, compromise, struggle are of the earlier School of Baroda artists, including
perity on her worshippers, and the colours are those
not distant metaphors of the fall of man. These are real, Bhupen Khakkar.
of popular art, bright and happy; when the shutter |
right here, lived with. Daniel Richter also often addresses, however
s open, we see in subdued colours an image of three
indirectly, political issues / 360 /. ‘My shift’, he
young women who hanged themselves because they
Transport and consumerism are causing historic change claimed, ‘from abstract to figurative painting emerged
had no dowry and would never be able to marry / 358 /.
in India, a fact slyly referenced by Subodh Gupta / 359 /. from the need to get closer to a present that | find
Dodiya believes that he must bear witness to what is In Secret Passages into a Terror-infested Landmark unappetizing. My need to express myself as a social
around him: T.V. Santhosh evokes India after a bomb attack on a being was so strong that | wanted to communicate

314
 History Painting

351. Cy Twombly
No. 4, Achaeans in Battle, from
Fifty Days at Ilium, 1978. Oil, oil
crayon and graphite on canvas,
300 x 380 cm (118 x 149% in).
Philadelphia Museum of Art

352. Nilima Sheikh

When Champa Grew Up 6,

1984. Tempera on paper,

20 «x34 cm (12 x 16 in).

New Walk Museum and Art

Gallery, Leicester

315
Painting Today

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 Painting Today

354. Anselm Kiefer

Pope Alexander VI: The Golden

Bull, 1996. Emulsion, acrylic and

gold leaf on canvas,
330.2 x 555.6 cm (130 x 218% in).

Modern Art Museum of

Fort Worth, Texas

318
 History Painting

355. Zeng Fanzhi

From the Masses, To the

Masses, 1993. Oil on canvas,

180 x 200.5 cm (71 x 79 in)

it to others.’ The image in Tarifa seems to be of poor important; it gives one a sense of its stupidity.
migrants desperately trying to get to Europe from ... My images question what can be believed and
Africa, their flimsy boat already awash. But what he what not; in my work you will always be confronted
communicates is no clear statement: he would find that with history and memory, in one way or another.

banal. Rather, he embodies in his work horror,

alienation, ecstasy and beauty. ‘The longing for beauty When invited to fill the Belgian Pavilion at the Venice
is also one of the strongest motivations of all political Biennale in 2001, Tuymans made a set of ten paintings
movements.’ That such contradictory sensations appear about the Congo and Belgium’s role as colonial power
in paintings that apparently depict shipwrecks or / 363-5 /. As always, the colours in these paintings look
political riots is problematic but provocative. In effect, faded or off-key. As has often been noted, they seemed
Richter calls for adeeper engagement than slogan- to smell musty, like long-abandoned rooms opened up.
shouting or liberal head-shaking. The series was entitled Mwana Kitoko (‘beautiful white
Beauty can draw us into a meditation on boy’), the ironic Congolese name for King Baudouin |
conflict or evil, as Tuymans shows in his lyrical (who succeeded early to the throne of Belgium after his
mountainscape The Walk / 362 /. Our pleasure is very father was forced to abdicate owing to his involvement
quickly disrupted when we recognize the figure on with the Nazis). His great-uncle Leopold || had
the right as the Fuhrer. ‘We don't live in an optimistic treated the Congo as a personal fiefdom and plundered
world, do we?’ Tuymans remarks. it with shameless savagery. In one painting we see
Baudouin stepping down from the plane on his first visit
Art can’t change the world, but there's a difference to the Congo in 1955. On the opposite wall hung a
between real and painted time. Painted time is portrait of Patrice Lumumba, the idealistic leader
contemplative, it can allow for thought and make elected in 1960 who, with assistance from the Belgians
people reassess, and the assessment of power is and the CIA, was tortured and murdered by his

319
 Painting Today

356. Na ni Malani 357. K.G. Subramanyan 358. Atul Dodiya

a, 2006. Acrylic and The City is Not for Burning, Maha Laxmi, 2001. Exterior:

enamei reverse painting on 1993. Oil on canvas, oil and enamel paint on metal

121.5 x 121.5 cm roller shutter, 274 x 183 cm

(47% x 47% in) (108 x 72 in); interior: acrylic

and varnish with gold powder

on canvas, 226 x 152cm

(89 x 59% in)

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320
 History Painting

enemies. As always with Tuymans’s way of telling reconstruct what happened from flimsy, time-stained a wound, but in being so flesh-like it is more ‘real’
history by blurred, fragmentary memory and pensive, evidence. It seems elusive and patchy: it does not than the illustrated image. As a vagina it suggests not
hungover mood, we are not told this directly: we see create such a coherent aesthetic effect, and it does not only rape but also birth, both of a new nation and
paintings of a leopardskin, a modernist building with offer any sense of harmony or catharsis. Its sense of of the Baroque, a new type of form.
both Belgian and Congolese flags hanging, a Christian incompletion is crucial: these are symptoms, necessarily For many artists the challenge in history painting
mission building, a carving of a black man, cars fragmentary, of trauma, of unacknowledged guilt. is how to represent the unrepresentable. The abstract
gathering bya tree at night, four black men in suits It has been argued that it is not possible to make a painter Stephen Ellis lived in Tribeca, near the World
and a stuffed rhino in a diorama. This is not quite as ‘masterpiece’ today. Tuymans's Congo series, like Trade Center: for days after 9/11 his street was filled
random as it may seem: it is like an index of things to Gerhard Richter’s October paintings and Lucian Freud's with police and spooks and dust and the ever-
look up: colonial exploitation, modernity as a sign big paintings, is a clear attempt to achieve that present smell of concrete and flesh intermingled. At
of bringing ‘civilization’, colonization through the status: what is interesting is that Tuymans presents it as night he would surf the net, endlessly searching for

Church, tourist tat (the carving is in an Antwerp bar), so incomplete and problematic. some explanation of what had happened. As this need
the murder of Lumumba, Moise Tshombe (leader of It could be argued that history painting is for an explanation grew into an addiction and he found
the white-supported revolt against the elected always inevitably also about how we represent history. no answers he would force himself to go to poetry sites
government), an exotic trophy mouldering in a In some of Adriana Varejao's earlier paintings we see and read poetry instead. One morning he awoke fixated
what appears as an almost banal version of Brazilian on a line of poetry, not as text or sound but as image
museum.
Tuymans does not give us the history of history: native and slave women abused by the colonial This grew into They Feed They Lion / 367 /and a whole
the Congo as muralists Tubke or Rivera might have; lords / 366 /. But the slit that breaks through the exhibition of such word paintings, derived from the poetry
he conceals more than he shows. We have to painting's surface disrupts it in a complex way. It is like of Philip Levine, where exultation and horror commingle:

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321
 Painting Today

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322
 History Painting

359. Subodh Gupta 360. Daniel Richter 361. T.V. Santhosh

Saat Samunder Paar |, 2003. Tarifa, 2001. Secret Passages into a Terror-
Oil on canvas, 167 x 228 cm Oil on canvas, 280 x 250 cm infested Landmark, 2009.

(65% x 89% in) (110% x 98 2 in) Oil on canvas, 122 x 183 cm

(48 x 72 in)

362. Luc Tuymans

The Walk, 1993. Oil on canvas

37 x 48 cm (14% x 19 in)

323
Painting Today

From my five arms and all my hands,

From all my white sins forgiven, they feed,

From my car passing under the stars,

They Lion, from my children inherit,

From the oak turned to a wall, they Lion,
From they sack and they belly opened
And all that was hidden burning on the oil-stained earth
They feed they lion and he comes.

Just as the bars and waves move across Ellis’s abstract

paintings, so words do here — as though from night
itself. We are caught between reading and seeing. This
is the poem not transcribed or illustrated but become
something else. Between this sense of apocalypse that
is bizarrely personal and a visual and poetic rhetoric that
is like a chant swelling up from somewhere unseen, it is
hypnotic and engaging. We may or may not be able to
change the world but we can bear witness. Likewise the
paintings by the Aboriginal Australian Rover Thomas
about the Kimberley massacres in 1924 bear witness to
the past, the need not to let it fade away. Thomas tells
the story:

The manager of [the cattle station] Bedfords Downs

directs some of his workers to stock wood. He gives
food to people laced with strychnine then he shoots
them as they lie around in agony. He and his workers and
other station managers then use wood to cremate the
blackfellas ... one man escapes into mountains. / 368 /

The white farmers’ cattle had displaced the bush

tucker they normally ate so the Aboriginals ate the
cattle; in revenge, the farmers killed them. Thomas's
concern was with painting rather than illustrating;
obsessed with the medium, he would experiment with
materials, using sugar, although it attracted the bugs,
or bush gum. These are sombre, self-possessed
paintings that move one to consider both their sober
beauty and the nature of the acts of remembering
and mourning.
As long ago as 1846 Baudelaire was asserting
that ‘the great tradition is lost’ and that painters should
look not to the past for ideal and beautiful subjects but
to the ‘heroism of everyday life’. One could argue that
that is what Nilima Sheikh and Daniel Richter do, and
what the Congolese painter Chéri Samba also does.
When Samba began painting, in Kinshasa in the 1980s,
maybe a hundred other popular painters were making
small topical paintings, recycling images they came
across in the mass media, trying to criticize, but not be
caught out by, the autocratic regime of President
Mobutu. Paradox and irony were therefore embedded
in their work.
‘Paint what people know, paint their life’, Samba
said. ‘Make painting wherein people can recognize
themselves.’ This was for him the strength of popular
painting: it was rooted. His earlier paintings were heavy

324
 History Painting

363. Luc Tuymans

Reconstruction, 2000.

Ojl on canvas, 113 x 123 cm

(44Yax 48 2 in)

364. Luc Tuymans

Tshombe, 2000. Oil on canvas,

73 x 108 cm (28% x 422 in)

365. Luc Tuymans

Lumumba, 2000. Oil on canvas,

62 x 46cm (24% x 18 in)

325
 Painting Today

with text in both French and the local language / see The recent paintings of the British artist 366. Adriana Varejao

30 /. As he became well known in the Western world, his Richard Patterson can also be described as in some Bastard Son (Filho Bastardo),

work inevitably changed: it became smarter and more sense history paintings / 370 /. They are about the 1992. Oil on wood,

polished. They were purchased not by Kinshasans who social situation, the cultural and ideological history of 110 x 140 x 10cm
passed by the shop but by Western collectors. He a country. Moreover, the way the hero is placed in the (43 % x 55 x 4 in). Museum van

claimed nevertheless that he had not lost his purpose, foreground, as though at the moment when he is Hedendaagse Kunst, Ghent

his messages: ‘One could say that the others paint just to forced to make a choice, is reminiscent of the

please the eye, whereas I’m concerned about saying treatment of heroes such as Hercules or Napoleon, 367. Stephen Ellis
often painted at that moment when their decision They Feed They Lion, 2003.
something ... in any case, my desire is to make very
determined their life. After moving to Dallas in 2000, Oil and alkyd on linen,
beautiful things behind which lie messages.’ The work
127 x 213.4 cm (50 x 84:in)
became more sophisticated: The Renunciation of Patterson became fascinated by the American Dream

Prostitution seems to be a simple image showing a in its most recent form: giant cars, ideal homes,
368. Rover Thomas (Joolama)
woman refusing to have sex with a white man for money women who want to be porn stars. The lines that mark
The Burning Site, 1990. Natural
but is more complex: the picture leant against the wall out the geometry ape Alberti and the creation of
gum and pigments on canvas,
shows a Western pin-up-type African woman carrying rational Renaissance space — a space that here is one
90 x 180 cm (35% x 71 in).
books rather than water on her head: the implication is rather of desire. His work is a discourse on sensuality:
National Gallery of Australia,
that the West brought knowledge and vice at the same he does not seek to evoke sensual materials or flesh,
Canberra
time / 369 /. The extra eyes on the pin-up’s head perhaps but rather the surfaces of reproductions of them. This
suggest wisdom — or mutation through infection. is a limbo of desire.

326
 History Painting

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 Painting Today

369. Chéri Samba

The Renunciation of Prostitution

(Le renoncement a la

prostitution), 1990. Acrylic on

canvas, 150 x 200 cm

(59 x 78% in)

370. Richard Patterson

Back at the Dealership Culture

Station no, 5, 2005. Oil on

canvas, 234.3 x 349.6 cm

(92% x 1372 in)

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371. Kerry James Marshall If all these ‘history paintings’ seem personal, Everyday people and everyday imagery too can carry
The Lost Boys, 1993. it is because as individuals we can only have a worm’s- associations of tragedy, morality and beauty 1S

eye view of history; if they look at media rather than It is this mixture of the everyday, of og14?)
a)
Acrylic and collage on
canvas, 276.9 x 304.8 cm ‘actual’ events, it is because any wider knowledge is carnival, of comedy and fear, that marks Neo Rauch’s

(109 x 120 in). Principal disseminated and received through the media. We Waiting for the Barbarians, a curious image of the scene

Finance Group Inc., Principal may know history through the newscast, but we know before the possible arrival of the hordes / 372 /
Life Insurance Company, it also indirectly by how we experience everyday The defenders of culture are steadfast, unconcerned or
Des Moines life. Like Patterson, the black American Kerry James behaving downright oddly, but the painting is pervade:
Marshall makes history paintings, as it were, of late by such a sense of brio (note the wonderfully painted
capitalist USA dreaming. His problem was in how to blue and white dress) that we feel, if not fully reassured
address issues without just illustrating them. Although at least in good humour, ready for the next instalment,
the inspiration for The Lost Boys / 371 / came from
albeit perplexed. Rauch’s title refers to a poem by
the death of some children caught in gang or police
C.P. Cavafy. Perhaps painting remakes history too as
cross-fire (hence the dates of their deaths written
metaphor and parable:
underneath), it was more generally about innocence
and loss, with the formal combination of Renaissance
What does this sudden uneasiness mean, and this
geometry and collage emphasizing the fact
confusion? (How grave the faces have become!)
that black people too could figure in paintings with
Why are the streets and squares rapidly emptying, and
universal themes: ‘History painting had a strong
why is everyone going back home so lost in thought?
influence on me too. | have always been fascinated by
Géricault, Ingres, Jacques-Louis David. Now | felt that Because it is night and the barbarians have not come
And some men have arrived from the frontiers
| was able to do something comparable, in a
and they say that barbarians don’t exist any longer.
contemporary context, to what the history painters
And what will become of us without barbarians?
had done.’ For Marshall, history is to be found
as much on the suburban street as on the battlefield. They were a kind of solution.

329
 Painting Today

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330
History Painting

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 Painting Today

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Paintings are things, lumps in this material world; they Quite separate from this minimalist concern 373. John Wesley
are also commodities, things to be sold; they are also with the thinginess of the object and this intellectual Showboat, 2000. Acrylic
often pictures of other things or commodities. The early interest in seventeenth-century still life was a continued on canvas, 91.4 x 162.6 cm
aintings of the British artist Gary Hume were not so fascination with Pop art, above all with Andy Warhol, (36 x 64 in)

ch paintings of things as things in themselves / 374 /. arguably still the greatest influence (positive or
or seemed to be, paintings of doors: the negative) on painting today: he remains the ghost in 374. Gary Hume
s with push panels that one came across the machine. Surface and nothing but surface, celebrity, Girl Boy, Boy Girl, 1991.
hospitals or schools. In fact, all fifty or so of the door the world as style, images of death and consumer Gloss paint on two medium
paintings that Hume made were based on doors in dreams, an apparent denial of the need for the artist to density fibreboard

Saint Bartholomew's Hospital, London. More show his or her hand — all these are aspects of Warhol's panels, 209.6 x 281.9 cm
mportantly, they were the same size as those doors and work that we see still in much painting made today. If (82 V2x 111 in)

painted with the gloss paint normally used to paint we are in a state of postmodernism, where images have
doors. They were possessed of the same ‘thinginess’ replaced things and our life is nothing but spectacle,
as the minimal sculptures of Donald Judd: those objects this is due more to Warhol than to anyone else. With
that had been the fulcrum for much discussion on Warhol the painting of the thing is replaced by the
art and things in the world and how we responded to painting of the image. He was a voyeur: a man who
them phenomenologically. liked looking at other people having sex. Fascination he
Hume's work fitted with a shift in thinking about always had, but never involvement. For all this intense
the still life. Still lifes have long been one of the standard sexual curiosity, there is ultimately a denial of the body
genres of painting: collections of apples, flowers, fruit, in his work and, above all, a denial of the body's
skulls and other objects composed on the tabletop and equivalence with the mind, that instinctive sense that
painted with attention to the texture of each object and seeing and touching were necessarily connected. The
how light falls on it. This was both a display of skill and objects he shows have no tactility.
often an allegory, perhaps a memento mori. In the age The image of those desired things is what
of mass media and consumer culture this genre seemed creates the desire, whether candy-coloured or as flat as
moribund — perhaps surprisingly, when we consider a billboard. Other Pop artists were less ruthless in
the rage for things in late capitalism. But by the start of dealing with the world of touch: Richard Artschwager
the 1990s there was a new interest in such painters as / see 116 / emphasizing the textures of his paintings,
the Spanish Carthusian monk Juan Sanchez Cotan, John Wesley pouring in a healthy dose of humour.
whose still lifes, with their austere geometry and sobriety, Crucially, it was cartoons rather than advertisements
seemed the product of simultaneously both looking and that inspired Wesley. In an ongoing series of painting
thinking — of being in the world and thinking of being since 1960 he has turned the dreams of suburban
in the world. The uncanny stillness of this was memorably America into a vision that is witty, aesthetically sharp,
played on by Ori Gersht in a film that shows, in slow pathetic and ironic. ‘Ifyou say foot foot foot foot foot
motion, Sanchez Cotan’s pomegranate exploded by a foot foot foot foot long enough, then foot becomes
bullet, showering the scene with a bloody red. hilarious’, he claimed. ‘If you paint forty Nixons, it puts

334
Still Life

335
 Painting Today

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336
 Still Life

375. Louise Hopkins

16 cabinets, 2008. Watercolour
and acrylic on magazine page, (4.WMqet12
25 x 21 cm (9% x 8% in)

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376. Atul Dodiya
Letter from a Father,

182.9
1994.

Oil and acrylic on canvas,

x 121.9 cm (72 x 48 in)

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337
Painting Today

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338
Still Life

377. Ed Ruscha

HERO, 1995-6. Acrylic, oil and

ink on canvas, 182.9 x 170.2 cm

(72 * 67 in)

378. Angela de la Cruz

3rokeninto Pieces, 1999
Oil on canvas, 200 x 180 cm
(78% x 71 in)

379. Monique Prieto

Walked, 2006. Oil on canvas,

102 x 76 cm (40 « 30in)

339
Painting Today

340
 Still Life

380. Gary Hume

Snip, 2004. Enamel on

aluminium, 256 x 167 cm

(100% x 65% in)

381. Francis Alys

Catalogue 3, 1994. Multiple of
three paintings: Catalogue 3-1,
oil on canvas, 24 x 26 cm
(9% x 10% in), Catalogue 3-2
(by sign painter Noé), enamel

on board, 60 x 70 cm
(23 V2x 27 2 in) and Catalogue

3-3 (by sign painter Huerta),

enamel on board, 111 x 137 cm

(43% x 54 in)

341
 Painting Today

Nixon in his place place.’ Sensuous lines and curlicues, CALLED SUNSET’ with blackberry juice. And this drew 382. Farhad Moshiri
radical simplifications and obsessive repetitions, attention to the painting as the thing in itself. The word You Left but Not From my
endlessly desiring eyes and ridiculous puns all contrive became the image became the thing: indeed the Heart, 2007. Oil and acrylic
for a quizzically humorous art / 373 /. three were synonymous, all infected with a tweak of wry, on canvas, 110 x 180 cm
One response to this bombardment by images laconic, punning, ironic humour. In recent years
(43%x 71 in)
of commodities is to take them over and subvert them, Ruscha has stayed with more conventional materials but
as another British artist, Louise Hopkins, does, here consistently played with how his work is made and 383. Luc Tuymans
literally painting over the mail order catalogue page presented. As in his earliest paintings, he has recently Investigations | —III, 1989.
/ 375 /. A different aesthetic order replaces that of the played further on mimesis by also reproducing in Oil on canvas, three panels,
advertisers: the commodities become more thing-like meticulous details fragments of old comics / 377 /. I: 40 x 42 cm (15% x 16% in);
and the image far less impersonal. Ruscha uses the anonymous typefaces of I: 40 x 40 cm (15% x 15% in);
Alternatively, artists can play with the words advertising with wry irony. It is writing, being made Il: 40 x 45 cm (15% x 17% in)
that describe and announce commodities and things. by hand, that used to have a unique relationship to
We worry about how words and things interconnect, painting, and nowadays we are seeing the virtual 384. Subodh Gupta

whether words can be relied on to describe things. extinction of the handwritten letter, replaced by the Still Steal Steel no. 5, 2008.

Perhaps this is why there are so many paintings now typed text message or email. Such threatened Oil and enamel on canvas,

that focus on words — and logos. We have already obsolescence makes a painting such as Atul Dodiya’s 199 x 364 cm (78% x 193% in)

seen paintings by Colin McCahon, Stephen Ellis and Cy Letter from a Father / 376 / seem more intimate,
Twombly that rely on the painting of words. Like Adam more a private thought process. We still write notes and
naming the animals in the Garden of Eden, we want to jottings, if not letters, by hand. The letter in Dodiya’s
make our world by naming the things in it. Words, painting is copied from a letter that his father sent when
though, can be slippery: in the work of Ed Ruscha it is the artist was in Paris. Written in Gujarati, it tells of
frequently not the image that replaces or substitutes everyday things, family affairs and details of the
for the thing, but its name, a name that is rendered as Ganapati festival. A letter is a thing, a surface covered
a logo. Early in his career Ruscha would play games with marks, but language is a code for everything in the
with the actual materials: painting the words ‘COTTON world: here it becomes a screen through which we
PUFFS’ with egg yolks on moiré, ‘GUACAMOLE see the flying cranes, his father and, mimicking a cliché
AIRLINES’with spinach stains on paper or ‘A BLD. of Bollywood, the artist himself in silhouette, pencil in

342
Still Life

343
 Painting Today

hand. A painting that seems highly conceptual is, in to a desire to humiliate them, to give them a good the development of early modernism. In the 1980s
fact, rich with associations hiding. For example, she will take canvas and stretcher several painters, including Baselitz and Schnabel, began
In 2003 Monique Prieto took a break from and break, buckle and crumple it like discarded paper making sculptures. Their work was unlike that made by
showing her work, angry at the build-up to the Iraq war. or shove it in a corner. ‘My work is about touching ‘full-time’ sculptors, focusing more on making an image
She stopped sketching on the computer: ‘| wanted and dirtying the canvas, | am interested in the abject; or motif concrete. For painters there has always been a
to disassociate myself from the growing numbers of in colours such as red, brown, which are colours of the to-and-fro between the world of things and the world of
paintings/painters that seemed to use computer body. Sometimes my paintings are like faeces.’ When images: painters’ objects are like angels, messengers
programme tweaking in place of content; vortices, we see De la Cruz's paintings scattered on the floor between the two worlds.
distortion, new-age illusionism.' She did not expect that or propped in a doorway, we see them as objects, Painting is about things in the world and is itself
words would replace her shapes, but against ‘the black their paint surface like torn skin. They are, as she says, a thing in the world. The act of making connects them.
magic of the "United We Stand” billboards’ she found ‘figurative objects, not paintings of the figure’. They ‘Because | mostly work’, says Gary Hume, ‘by myself
it was a different form of language, highly personal, that have pathos as the injured in a hospital waiting-room | get lost. | think it all makes sense, and | truly forget
let herself bear witness to the world she lived in / 379 /. do, ‘They are about suffering and pain.’ that the work has to go into the outer world.’ We have
The words here are not hers but from the diaries of The Belgian artist Francis Alys seems to show to remember that painting is often made in states of
Samuel Pepys, arguably the first modern consciousness, similar disdain for his paintings. An ex-architect who trance or near trance, much as when one is writing and
endlessly pursuing his minor complaints and works primarily with performance and video, his all is going well one feels as though someone is writing
experiences, wondering what they all meant. ‘At a loss paintings, like those of De la Cruz, can be assessed as through oneself — the words flow, or as when one
how to get home.’ 'The tide being against us when paintings or parodies. Alys, who lives in Mexico City, plays music and gets lost in it, or when one dances and
we were almost through.’ Here, for the first time, Prieto will make a painting and then give it to the professional so enters into the spirit of it that it seems the dancer
signs her paintings, a modest but definite presence, sign-painters of that town to repaint. The original is becomes the dance. You regain your critical distance
The words are presented forcibly although in fact give then exhibited with its various copies / 381 /. when you sit down again. Making paintings can be
open-ended phrases, leaving us with a wry pleasure A reductivist view would be that this is about casting a way of being at one with the world of things and
more questions than answers. doubt on the aura of the artist's own hand, but most images. Painting for many consists of periods of such
Words imply intelligence: painting has been people get intrigued at how each painting, whether intense, perhaps trance-like, activity interspersed
slurred as dumb or stupid since Marcel Duchamp. copy or original, develops its own character or aura. with inactive periods sitting in a chair, thinking about it.
Younger conceptual artists such as the Spanish Angela As with De la Cruz, reducing a painting to an object Hume's paintings start as A4-size acetate
de la Cruz set out to treat paintings as dead things does not defuse it, tracings of photographs he has taken or purloined:
to be further mocked and taunted / 378 /, Some of the Another way in which painters have traditionally he projects them and works from there. Nowadays he
extreme positions to which her paintings get focused on objects and 'thinginess’ has been by making works on aluminium so that sometimes part of
themselves, twisted and kicked, seem to bear witness sculpture: works by Degas and Picasso were crucial in the surface is left unpainted, acting as a kind of mirror

344
 Still Life

/ 380 /. The quiddity of these paintings is still evident, his own personal history / 385 /. Like Subodh Gupta 385. Zhang Xiaogang
but they attract more complex responses. Asked what in India, Zhang lives in a country rapidly moving Amnesia and Memory,

he sought in the images, he replied, ‘their ability to from a handmade culture to one of mass production 2004. Oil on canvas, seven

describe beauty or pathos’. and consumerism. Gupta paints the stainless-steel panels, each 110 x 130 cm

An equivalent play on the plaintiveness of the tiffin boxes of India as though in celebration of their (43 x 51 in)

handmade object and the immaculate anonymity of the shapes and reflective quality / 384 /. There is a
commodity is at the heart of Farhad Moshiri’s work. He nationalist element here: a protest against the plastic
not only, like many other Asian painters, makes objects, and polystyrene of McDonald's.
but also exhibits manipulated photographs. Many of If Zhang's approach to painting things is
his paintings picture ancient Sassanian amphorae, which meditative and Gupta’s celebratory, the work of the
he overlays with text / 382 /. In this case it is Tehran Polish painter Wilhelm Sasnal is an art of direct
slang. An image of an archaeological object, a beautiful response. As a student in Krakow, Sasnal belonged to
surface and the language of the street co-exist oddly. the group tabnie (‘pretty’ or ‘nice’) who endlessly
Objects have history: sometimes when we learn painted the objects or images around them. It was a
the history of an object, we became affectionate to sort of eroded Pop art where the glossy aura of
it or are disgusted by it. In Investigations / 383 / commerce had been leached out. Sasnal remains an
Tuymans painted three objects he had seen. If we do obsessive painter, but his work seems dispassionate,
not recognize the subject matter, these are rather albeit with a sense of trauma or haunting. He has often
enigmatic, understated paintings. When we know been compared to Tuymans (he too finishes each
that they are a lampshade made of human skin painting in one session), although his work is far more
at Buchenwald, the X-ray of a diseased tooth and a casual: his paintings seem like snapshots from his life,
display case at Auschwitz of fabrics made from human given added tactility by paint, but even more
hair, our response cannot be the same. As Tuymans distanced by the stylizations of painting. His painting
commented: ‘The picture has become urgent, gripping, Girl Smoking: Anka is chic, yet if we compare it with the
unpleasant.’ Odours can cling to objects like an work of Katz, what is striking is how little character or
aftertaste, pleasant or vile: painting can seek to give aura the woman is allowed. Rather, it is a portrait of her
images the same sort of troubling association. haircut and her cigarette / 386 /. After going to a
Zhang Xiaogang increasingly paints objects, concert by Sonic Youth, Sasnal tacked his sweat-stained
often from his life, in order, like Tuymans, somehow to T-shirt on stretcher bars as though it were a painted
portray them as images that carry memory, albeit of canvas and subsequently made a ‘real’ painting of it

345
 Painting Today

386. Wilhelm Sasnal

Girl Smoking: Anka, 2001

Oil on canvas, 45 x 50 cm

346
 Still Life

387. Wilhelm Sasnal

Untitled (Sweat), 2002. Oil and

sweat from T-shirt on canvas,

50 x 40 cm (20 x 16 in)

388. Wilhelm Sasnal

Untitled, 2008. Oil on canvas,

160 x 120 cm (63 x 47 in)

389. Wilhelm Sasnal

Forest, 2003. Oil on canvas,

45 x 45 cm (18 x 18 in)

347
 Painting Today

/ 387 /. In recent paintings by Sasnal forms of letters for example, seven lug-eared children each in a giant
materialize ominously over the landscape / 388 /. We teacup or, in another exhibition, 710 dolls that his fans
are left uncertain whether evil or guilt can cling to an had made based on his figures. To break with the
object, a face or a forest, or whether they are always sterility of the gallery ambience Nara has sometimes
neutral. Sasnal’s concern with Polish anti-Semitism and combined with design groups to create rooms inside
the Holocaust (for example, in paintings derived from the gallery in which his paintings and drawings appear
the film Shoah or Art Spiegelman’s Maus) reflects this. If along with furniture, used pencils, drinks and all the
we look at his small painting Forest, there are no leaves residue of life.
or trees, just grandiloquent swirls of green paint and Jeff Koons does not paint his own paintings.
three tiny figures to suggest where trees may give way Once, when he was asked whether he actually made
to grass / 389 /. On the one hand, Sasnal denies that it anything, he squirmed as though he was being accused
is a forest — this is blatantly just green swirly paint; on of something perverted, ‘Oh, no, that would be too
the other, he shows how instinctively we can make a much like masturbation.’ There are precedents for this:
forest out of such small and inappropriate clues. There Rubens, it is often pointed out, had a large studio with
is; as always, a three-way dramatic tension between the many assistants who did most of his prodigious output.
object represented, its history (it is based on a still from However, this is in part a false comparison because
Shoah) and the way it is painted. Rubens would normally have provided a painted sketch
lf Tuymans and Sasnal seem to be critics of the
and stepped in with a drawing of a problematic leg or
commodification of culture, emphasizing instead
arm when his assistants hit problems. Warhol, who
the shadow of the past that is over all things, Japanese
called his studio The Factory, is the obvious model:
artists such as Takashi Murakami seem happily complicit
where his own input was in initiating and quality control.
with it and the mass media. Having made a reputation
Whereas in Warhol’s Factory the work was done by his
as a painter, Murakami happily moved on, like Richard
hangers-on and was often sloppy and haphazard,
Prince, to making advertising material for Louis Vuitton.
Koons, like Murakami, is insistent on high-quality finish.
No one has loved Andy Warhol so much as the
His paintings are impeccable, smooth, decoratively
Japanese or absorbed his philosophy so wholly without
sophisticated and savvy, and inane / 391 /. Despite
irony. The golden years of the Japanese economy
occasional apparent perversity, his is a view of the world
coincided with the heyday of Pop art. Painters like
of commodification that is wholly happy and benign.
Yoshitomo Nara respond to, or perhaps embody, both
A large part of Damien Hirst's career has
the McDonaldization of global culture and the way
involved playing on art as acommodity: when he made
anime and manga have created a world picture
a heart-shaped painting covered with butterflies and
predicated on cuteness — big eyes and lurid colours.
realized how desirable an object he had made, he
Cuteness, kawaii, is actively promoted in Japan as an
decided to make a further ‘edition’ of fifty. There has
antidote to urban stress.Nara seems the epitome of
never been any concealment (any more than there had
kawaii. He paints girls and dogs and also makes
sculptures of them. Small versions of these works are been with Warhol or Koons) that he got others to make

merchandized in galleries and boutiques around the his paintings. Some of his multiples have played on this
world, or else are printed on T-shirts and watches. lack of the artist's hand by giving the purchaser the
Cute they may be, but edgy. The girls snarl, their faces opportunity to paint one himself / 392 /. Jasper Johns
lack detail. Like the Vivian girls, they end up in both had made a similar multiple forty years earlier, but,
traumatic and radiant situations. Nara returns to more miserly than Hirst, had only given three colours to
a childhood that is part his own and part mythical, to play with.
create a stance closer to the punk rock that he loves We assert or find our identities through
than to Babygro pink. A latchkey kid with working commodities: are you a Giorgio Armani or an Issey
parents, he became introverted, and always insists the Miyake person? Inevitably the still life of today is as
girls are genderless — ‘in-between figures, neither likely to be made with consumer objects as with lemons
male nor female’ — in effect, self-portraits. and tulips. Both remain important, and their relationship
When we look at Nara’s work, we should recall is a key problematic of our world. Why, one may ask, is
that traditionally the Japanese view things in negative, painting objects so important when there is a world of
looking at the space around an object rather than the people, history and philosophy to refer to? The answer,
object itself. The spaces in Nara around the figures are as Norman Bryson points out in his famous book on the
often beautiful. In the large circular paintings the girls still life, the crux of painting is the act of making, that
are, as always, impeccably painted, then the surface is crucial way of making contact with the physical world.
collaged to make strange the space / 390 /. (He claims ‘The central issue is how to enter into the life of material
they suggest the bruised souls of these unfortunate but reality as a full participant, rather than as a voyeur, and
eternally hopeful children.) Often he includes how to defamiliarize the look of everyday without losing
installations in his exhibitions, often of his sculptures — its qualities of the unexceptional and unassuming.’

348
Painting Today

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Painting Today

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 Installation Painting

393. Sol LeWitt ‘So you do a bit of painting too’, house painters like Houston Chapel is the most extreme statement of this
Wall Drawing No. 1131, to say whenever they come across a ‘real’ painter. And / see 22 /. Around the same time the notion of the
‘Whirls and Twirls’ (Wadsworth), indeed for most of us the experience of painting has gallery as a white-walled laboratory space, rather than
2004. Acrylic on walls of nothing to do with self-expression or the sublime and one decorated like an haut bourgeois sitting-room,
museum staircase, 5.5 x 35 m everything to do with not getting paint in one’s hair or emerged. Later, the thinking of minimal and conceptual
(18% x 115 ft). Wadsworth on the carpet as one paints the ceiling. Getting the artists led to a much greater concern with installation
Atheneum Museum of Art,
paint evenly across the walls of one’s sitting-room is the Perhaps most importantly the change in the market
Hartford CT
curse of many people’s summer holiday, a punishment or support system meant that artists started to talk in
rather than a pleasure. They will recognize the sheer terms of exhibitions and the rooms they were held
394. Nedko Solakov
Sisyphean nightmare of Nedko Solakov’s action where in, not in terms of solitary works and the frames that
A Life (Black and White),
two people paint a room, one in white, one in black, enclosed them. We must remember that the solo
2001. Performance: constant
each painting out the other's work as they go / 394 /. exhibition is a very recent phenomenon: neither Durer
repainting of the walls of the
Marcel Duchamp would have relished this reduction of nor Titian had one, and Duchamp didn't have one until
exhibition space, every day
painting to such pointlessness; but elsewhere ‘wall the age of seventy-six, but by the age of forty Elizabeth
of the exhibition
painting’ has become a very thoughtful practice. Peyton had had thirty-seven.
There is nothing new in a painting not being We have discussed already how painting can
395. Blinky Palermo
contained in a frame hung on the wall but appeal to other senses than sight: the sixth sense,
Wall-painting: Window, 1970-1.
encompassing all the walls of a room: anyone who has kinaesthesia, is the sense of one’s own body in motion,
Installed at Kabinett flir Aktuelle
been to Pompeii or the Ajanta caves knows that. And and this is an integral part of the experience of looking
Kunst, Bremerhaven
from 1945 onwards there have been a number of at paintings. Brice Marden spoke beautifully of this:
initiatives that have led to painters thinking of the entire
396. Blinky Palermo
room. The abstract expressionists had thought about How you look at a painting physically is very important.
Blue Triangle, 1972, as installed
art as an act: they wanted whole groups of their work to A good way to approach a painting is to look at it from
in the Galerie Klein, Bonn
be seen together. When they had shows together, they a distance roughly equivalent to its height, then double
wanted a room each to preserve this sense. Rothko’s the distance, then go back and look at it in detail where

355
 Painting Today

you can begin to answer the questions you've posed photographed close up to his vast paintings. The Mel Bochner, for example, drew the measurements of
at each ofthese various viewing distances. If you drive to make large paintings, as we have seen, has not the wall on the wall, while Daniel Buren painted or
go through a museum and you look at a lot of paintings abated since then. However, one answer to this drive pasted vertical stripes each 8.7 centimetres wide. Wall-
in that way, it’s like a little dance; it’s almost a ritual for ‘The Big’ was to go beyond painting. In 1958 Allan drawing has been seen as a tradition that belongs to
of involvement. Kaprow claimed that the way forwards from Pollock's conceptual art rather than painting per se; however,
action painting was not more painting but rather it can to an increasing degree be understood as part of
In short, one’s eyes may be on the painting but one’s happenings or environments. Colin McCahon, on painting as an extended practice. The refusal of
body is exploring the rest of the room in relationship his only trip outside New Zealand, helped Kaprow painting to die, as predicted in 1968, has meant that
to it. Therefore, to expand the painting over the whole install his first environment in New York and as a many of those associated with or influenced by
room so that the motion of one’s body through painterly response began making paintings far larger conceptual art — an activity of ideas and provocation
that room, stopping, going close, backing off, becomes than Pollock's, which could only be experienced — have re-engaged with painting. Of these the
explicitly part of the art experience is wholly logical. as environments. American Sol LeWitt was the most associated with wall-
Scale was also an issue to the abstract Conceptual art in the late 1960s was to drawings: his earliest had been attempts to make art
expressionists: they wanted to escape the boundary a great extent a reaction against the fatuousness of that were literally concepts that could be fulfilled:
of the frame and expand so that a viewer could formalist painting and its critical supporters. One 1,000 straight lines drawn horizontally, 1,000 vertically...
lose himself in the painting, much as Barnett Newman thing the conceptual artists did as an antithesis to such He did not do them himself, nor did he always go
demonstrated by consistently having himself superficiality was to draw directly on to the wall; to the actual site before or during. But the action was,

356
 Installation Painting

397. Michael Craig-Martin

Installation at the Arp
Museum, Bahnhof Rolandseck,

Bonn, 2005

398. lan Davenport

Warwick Wall Painting (Pale
Grey) 2004. Acrylic paints on
,

plasterboard , 7.6 * 10.7 m

(25 x 35 ft)

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 Painting Today

nevertheless, an intense process for the draughtsman, This was to organize the room, to make the room in its 399. Lilyvan der Stokker
and they were physically intense to look at. Over entirety the aesthetic experience. ‘The blue triangle is Jack, 2003. Acrylic paints
the years LeWitt introduced colour and then more and the alarm clock of the spirit’, he would intone. Often he on wall and couch, installed
more elements until he arrived at wall-drawings such would paint one or install one above a doorway / 396 /. at Rooseum Center for
as that at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, By this century Michael Craig-Martin, who had Contemporary Art, Malmo
Connecticut, which seems wholly Baroque and difficult made his name with fiercely austere conceptual works,
to conceive of as anything but painting / 393 /. In effect was making paintings. This was not a planned return to 400. Katharina Grosse

and scale this seems closer to Renaissance frescos than painting, but one that happened naturally: in the late Shake Before Using (Pigments

to Marcel Duchamp. Indeed, although LeWitt had 1970s he had started to make wall-drawings of objects orpara planta y globus), 2008.

a unique position historically as the originator of ‘wall- using tape for the lines. With the introduction of colour Acrylic on balloons, soil,

drawing’, he denied being the originator of such work, Craig-Martin was engaged with familiar issues of wall, floor, 636 x 727 x 145 cm

saying, ‘| think the cave men came first’. painting: how we understand and experience objects in (250 Y2x 286% x 57 in).
Installed Artium de Alava,
Precision, and concern with the whole effect, space. His work, always elegant and thoughtful, is most
Vitoria-Gastein
was key to the work of the German painter Blinky engaging when he takes over entire spaces, as in 2005,
Palermo. When he and his compatriot Imi Knoebel when he was commissioned to work in the Hans Arp
had an exhibition in the Ménchengladbach Museum in museum, established, bizarrely in a grandiose but still
1973, they began by repainting all the walls of the functioning railway station at Rolandseck on the Rhine
museum before installing their own works. For many in Germany / 397 /. One room he had painted magenta,
of his exhibitions Palermo would make paintings and in it he sited, on magenta plinths, eleven of Arp’s
directly on the walls, sometimes drawing attention to sculptures. Another he had painted yellow, against
the nature of a space, sometimes puncturing it or which he displayed eleven reliefs by Arp. They were
highlighting some feature: echoing the shapes of the hung eccentrically as though to prick them into life. The
window frames, painting the space beneath a handrail room between these he had covered with wallpaper on
in a different shade, marking borders around walls which were printed in outline eleven objects: light bulb,
and openings / 395 /. globe, chair ... On them were fixed eleven small, bright
Most of Palermo’s early paintings were small, paintings, one of each of those objects.
monochrome or with a simple motif. Sometimes they For lan Davenport painting the wall is a way to
were eccentric shapes. The painting was not contained envelop the viewer not, as in early Sol LeWitt, with a
in itself; it always activated a wall. ‘Palermo would sit sea of marks, but rather with a waterfall of coloured
in front of his paintings for hours on end, absorbed in lines. Each line is improvised, made by injecting paint
the colour surface, before applying a new layer of from a syringe and letting it slide down the wall / 398 /.
pigment. Whenever he hung a picture, it would take The immediateness of this experience has much to do
him hours to find the correct position and height.’ with being in a particular place. ‘The wall paintings’,

whe
Boughti forin1891
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KHalmost

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Installation Painting

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 Painting Today

401. Craigie Aitchison

Calvary, 1997-8. Oil
on canvas, 120 x 100.3 cm

(47 % x 392 in). Liverpool

Anglican Cathedral

402. Alison Watt

Still, 2003-4. Oil on canvas,

368 x 368 cm (145 x 145 in).

Installed in Old St Paul’s

Church, Edinburgh

Davenport remarks, ‘allow me the opportunity to relate and melancholy than LeWitt or Davenport. Contrarily,
very directly to the space. When | was making the what we see in the wall-paintings of Dutch artist Lilyvan
Warwick University commission [for a painting outside a der Stokker from the 1990s onwards is a mixture of
lecture theatre] there was a bright yellow wall opposite conceptual wall-drawing with magic-marker doodling
where | was working. Every time | used a yellow myself with graffiti with popular graphics / 399 /. Light-hearted
the paint glowed on the wall and so | changed my and decorative, this was nevertheless serious in its
plan for the work and incorporated far more yellow than attempt both to introduce some personal content into
usual.’ If at first one feels one has been faced with a
the wall and to reclaim it from designers.
wall of sound, close up the chance flow of the lines The German artist Katharina Grosse’s wall-
gives us unexpected drama and incident. Such a sense paintings, made more with spray-gun than brush,
of envelopment is exactly what Anselm Kiefer wanted
are more aggressively sensuous / 400 /, exhilarating in
with his four Parsifal paintings — one for each wall / see their scale and ambition. Grosse works against the
312-15 / — although the effect was far more didactic
architecture, destabilizing it. As in her easel paintings !

360
 Installation Painting

these floods of colour, laid one over another, seem to powertul tradition of paintings for altar or church wall
inundate the room. The fragmentary and often contrary and yet provide very different things / 401, 402 /. These
nature of the marks is crucial: edgy and challenging for are initially no doubt challenging to worshippers: the
the viewer rather than decorative and relaxing. fabrics in Watt's paintings are not only sensual but also
Sometimes to take over the room means not to erotically suggestive, and more than one person has
paint the walls but rather to create or use a particular seen vaginas in their folds, while Aitchison’s vision, with
environment for easel paintings. As Craig-Martin his dog included, is highly personal. Nonetheless in their
demonstrated, how paintings are installed can radically understated nature and precision these works do not
change their mood and meaning. When two Scottish conflict with their new homes. As paintings they are
artists, Craigie Aitchison and Alison Watt, install their suffused by the beauty of their surroundings and the
paintings in churches, they make a clear reference to a associations of peaceful meditation.

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 Painting Today

Art installed in specific places is often Karen Kilimnik began her career as an installa- fake birds’ nests with painted eggs, artificial flowers and
necessarily contingent on social context and tion artist scattering memorabilia around galleries glittery jewellery. A tape endlessly played bird song.
circumstances. To enter Damien Hirst's In and Out of to evoke her fascination with celebrities. As her career The Scottish artist Lucy McKenzie creates
Love in 1991 was to go into a London fashion shop has developed, this interest in memorabilia and rooms painted rooms that seem initially to be full of nostalgic
that had gone out of business during a recession: has been blended with her paintings. An exhibition in artifice: they re-create historic nineteenth-century
it was no longer a haunt for the butterflies of 1998 saw the floor covered with artificial snow and the rooms with pastel-coloured walls / 407 /. But the walls are
fashion. First one was struck by the clammy heat: four path for the viewer to follow marked with red velvet separated, standing proud, and they always act as an
humidifiers puffed out clouds of moisture. Five cord and fairy lights, while smaller paintings were
environment for her other procedures: avant-garde
paintings on the wall had nothing on them but lumps propped against samovars and jewels that seemed to
fashion drawings, remade CD covers, political and social
of brown paint and shelves of flowers underneath. have slipped from a portrait of a Tsarist princess were
agit-prop. Delightful though they are to look at, they
When one went closer, one realized that these lumps scattered around. There was piped Christmas music.
create an environment in which to consider how we live.
were not paint: they were the squirming larvae of This was simultaneously kitsch and about kitsch,
Shahzia Sikander never saw herself as just a
tropical butterflies / 403, 404 /, Once hatched, they and a constant ambivalence remains in her work: we
flew about, taking sustenance from bowls of sugared miniaturist (see Chapter 7). Paradoxically, being small,
enjoy the fakery while knowing it is just that. If we
water. In the basement below were eight more miniatures create whole worlds, so it was almost
agree with Nietzsche that what is real in art is the
paintings, each a monochrome in garish house paint, intensity with which a deception is undertaken, we can inevitable that she would expand her work into room-
each with dead butterflies trapped in the dried paint. simultaneously secretly enjoy the kitsch and, more size installations / 406 /. For Sikander the installations
Instead of bowls of water there were ashtrays filled knowingly, laugh at it. Exhibiting in an eighteenth- are evolving processes; the experience of the viewer
with old butts. Upstairs the paintings gave life, but century palazzetto in Venice in 2005, Kilimnik showed happens more explicitly in time, as he or she walks up
downstairs they were the scene of death. The paintings of herself and Scarlett Johansson / see 136 /, to and looks at and through the various layers. The
paintings were, of course, only a constituent element loose copies of Gainsborough’'s cows, Degas ballet contradictions built into all the elements of Sikander’s
here, more important as symbols than things in their dancers, George Romney's Emma Hamilton, dogs and work likewise become more explicit. This she
own right. horses / 405 /. Around them she placed period chairs, associates very much with notions of deconstruction:

362
 Installation Painting

403, 404. Damien Hirst

Everything has a contradiction embedded within it. ... Most of the artists above have seen the
In and Out of Love, 1991. It is not the act of dismantling but recognition of the painted room very much as one in public space.
Canvases, house paint, tropical fact that inherently nothing is solid or pure. | read Contrarily, the American artist David Reed has often
flowers and butterfly pupae, French philosopher Jacques Derrida and was influenced expressed the desire to paint bedroom pictures:
live butterflies, cigarette by his suggestion of binary oppositions as creators ‘A painting in a bedroom can be seen in reverie, where
stubs, ashtrays, sugar, tables, ofhierarchy. | saw my work in connection to notions like the most private narratives are born.’ This is where we
humidifiers, as installed in a west/east, white/black, white/brown, modern/ can have the most intimate relationship with a
disused shop in London, ground tradition, presence/absence, beginning/end, and painting. It is also where we slip most commonly from
floor and basement conscious/unconscious. consciousness to the liminal to dream. Reed
dramatized this by re-creating the two bedrooms from
Alfred Hitchcock's film Vertigo, placing beside a replica
Painters increasingly take an active role in how their of the bed a video player showing the scene where
work is displayed, whether it be Howard Hodgkin it appears / 410 /. However, he had changed the flower
having the walls on which his work is hung painted painting behind the bed in the film for one of his own
different colours / see 252 /, or Mary Heilmann paintings and had that same painting digitally inserted
providing her own chairs for the viewer to sit in / see into the film. This is wonderfully uncanny,
335 /, or Peter Halley layering the walls behind his simultaneously familiar and unfamiliar. But the scene in
paintings with prints and linear diagrams that replicate the film is itself wholly unheimlich, reality and dream
the shapes in his paintings / 408 /. If Halley's early being confused inextricably, and involving obsession,
paintings had echoed the image of an electric cell, here disguise and deception, with fantasy and memory.
one seemed to be in the actual engine. Often graphics Like many artists, Reed does not see the
spell out ambiguous, gnomic phrases that undercut the museum as the only place or the best place to show
paintings to create a delirious but uneasy sensation. his work:

363
 Painting Today

| want my paintings not to be nostalgic or sentimental extend our bodies. And we have internalized the 405. Karen Kilimnik

that means they have to be about this moment. perceptions of technological machines: photography, Works installed at Fondazione
A corollary of this is that they should be an integral part film, and video. We dream in pans, close-ups, and Bevilacqua La Masa, Palazzo

of life, not separated in museums or galleries, Paintings moving camera shots. Tito, Venice, June—October

belong where they can be part of normal life, seen in 2005

private moments of reverie. Rudolf Stingel often presents in lieu
of traditional paintings Celotex insulation boards that 406. Shahzia Sikander

If they have to be shown in museums, he tries to make viewers can carve into or paint, or else he will ‘paint’ To Reveal or Not to Reveal,
them strangely familiar again. Given the opportunity to pictures by gouging polystyrene, Yet the sensation 2004. Acrylic, gouache and ink
show in the Rococo mirror room in the Landesmuseum is still pictorial. His work often expands across the whole on tissue paper, site-specific
at Graz, Austria, he watched film after film about room. As with Yves Klein, what can be construed as an dimensions. Installed at San
vampires / 411 /. Vampire films merge desire and fear, anti-painting act becames subsumed within the Diego Museum of Art
reality and dream. The vampire is both illusory (it cannot discourse, It may suggest the possibility of liberation, of
be seen in the mirror) and real (it sucks blood). By losing oneself in the unreality of the shiny material, but
putting paintings in the mirrored rooms with the films by simultaneously emphasizing the grossness of the
he put them too into a realm of fantasy. But for Reed stuff he works with, materials more associated with the
the vampire also symbolized a wider social condition: packing room than the gallery, Stingel short-circuits
such desires. We are left on our feet, enveloped by the
Vampire stories describe the fear and anxiety caused by sensuality and puzzled by the open-ended concept
the technological extensions of our body. We are part /412/,
human and part machine, part living and part dead, and When, like other Indian artists, especially
we don’t know how to deal with this knowledge. women artists, Nalini Malani turned away from painting
We use hearing aids, computers, and other machines to in despair at the sectarian killings in her country, she

364
 Painting Today

407. Lucy McKenzie

Interior, 2007. Installed at the

Goetz Collection, Munich

408. Peter Halley

Visions of America, 2004.
Installed at Sammlung ane
W
|Aiawa
Essl, Kunst der Gegenwart,
Klosterneuberg/Vienna,
including Disclosing the
Mystery, 2000; Blowout, 2000;
The Drop Zone, 1998; all acrylic,
day-glo acrylic, metallic
acrylic and Roll-a-Tex on canvas

366
Installation Painting

409. Nalini Malani

Stories Retold: The Sacred

and the Profane, 1998. Four

acrylic reverse painted Mylar

cylinders, each 152 x 122

(59% x 48 in). Art Gallery of

Western Australia, Perth

410. David Reed

Judy’sBedroom,
ly 1992,i instal

Main, 2001-2. Painting #328

and video with manipulated

scene from Alfred Hitchcock's

Vertigo

367
 Painting Today

sought an alternative art — video and installation — sense to bring to the mythic being a contemporary 411. David Reed
which could shock people into seeing the horror of potency.’ The results are dreamlike and somewhat Mirror Room for Vampires,
what was happening. But in fact she was returning to like a type of animation, an art form that painters, 1996. Painting #350 and
painting in a different form. In installations such as perhaps surprisingly, rarely try and explore, although videotape of scenes from
her Stories Retold she paints on large transparent Shahzia Sikander is a notable exception. vampire films. Installed in
Mylar columns, which, revolving before lights, project It is probable that in the future we will see the Mirror Room, Neue Galerie

a kaleidoscope of shapes and images on to the wall many more hybrid forms such as these, where am Landesmuseum, Graz

/ 409 /. In protest against the way Hindu fundamentalists projections and painting and installation merge. It also
want to purge Hindu myths of their ambiguities and seems probable that as, on the one hand, painters 412. Rudolf Stingel
fantasies, she has played with stories from the grow less worried of being ‘decorative’ and, as on the Untitled, 2001. All surfaces of

Ramayana epic. She reworked them to give the heroines a room covered Celotex TUFF-R
other hand, curators cease to see installation art
insulating board. Installed at
greater roles: ‘It is the artist's prerogative to push only as a latter-day form of minimal sculpture, we will
traditional stories to encompass the modern — in a Venice Biennale, 2003
see many more painters painting rooms.

368
 Installation Painting

Ss aterSrhealioe sin
ey 14RPAatl
ae Rn
wh
eteettelat

369
DRZE°doN
 Painting Today

5 = 413. Norbert Bisky

Muck Spreader
(Dreckschleuder), 2006.
Oil on canvas, 210 x 420 cm
(82% x 165 2 in)

414. Wolfgang Mattheuer

Behind the Seven Mountains

(Hinter den sieben Bergen),

1973. Oil on hardboard,

170 x 130 cm (67 x 51% in)

415. Neo Rauch

Quiz, 2002. Oil on canvas,

250 x 210 cm (98 %2x 82% in).

Museum of Contemporary
Art, Los Angeles

The so-called ‘Leipzig School’ has been described Various reasons have been given for the
as ‘the first art world phenomena of the twenty-first continuing pre-eminence of German painting: that
century’ and ‘the twenty-first century's first artistic German society takes culture and collecting seriously;
phenomenon’. It is ‘the hottest thing on earth’, we that the art school system works best in Germany,
are told by Joachim Pissarro, a curator from the employing major artists and giving them a free hand to
Museum of Modern Art, New York, and Neo Rauch teach by example; that the trauma of the Third Reich
‘is to the twenty-first century as Max Beckmann is to and division between East and West has provided a
the twentieth century’. These are big claims! need for art as analyst and healer. First, one should add
Historically, the importance of amovement, if it is that we see in Germany a fascinating paradox: a
one, is that it creates a paradigm shift, a great leap generally complacent society that nevertheless supports
forwards; it changes the way we think, as its own critics generously; and second, one could
Impressionism or cubism did. Do the Leipzig artists observe that the German traumas are just more intense
Rauch, David Schnell, Matthias Weischer et al. do this? versions of traumas seen elsewhere.
Many remain unconvinced, seeing these Germany has four myths about its nature and its
artists’ work as nothing but a marketing ruse future, each rich and replete with visual images. Firstly,
concocted by a number of clever dealers, a feeding the Romantic German fixation on nature, often
frenzy for rich collectors grown desperate to have associated with Caspar David Friedrich; the racist,
the latest thing. ‘We're talking fin-de-siécle ennui in militaristic dream of the failed painter Adolf Hitler and
the flesh — the images represent no intellectual the Nazis; the socialist workers’ paradise of the East
threat whatsoever. They lack youthful audacity, anger, German state, the DDR; and finally the capitalist,
ambiguity or allegorical sophistication’, writes the Americanized fantasies of rich, industrial West Germany.
critic Christian Schile. ‘Their appeal is a negative one, Painting had (and has) a crucial part in embodying
their meaninglessness touches a nerve of the present, these four myths or visions. The reunified Germany of
helplessness, loss of utopias, their paintings tell the twenty-first century has no new equivalent visual
of a standstill, of waiting for something vague.’ Other myth, but the four old visions remain syndromes that no
writers decry their melancholy, their loss of purpose, therapy can suppress. For a German, images of nature,
silence and passivity, how, ‘with their set-meal offer people and society cannot but have associations,
of retro-socialist Surrealism all they really display often conflicting ones. This was true of Baselitz or Kiefer
is a certain kind of painterly skill coated in Teutonic and remains true of today’s artists.
ambivalence, with the political sting removed — More than photography orfilm, painting is
paintings packaged like a de luxe brand, with a where these four myths can co-exist, collide or
discreet air of consensus and admiration.’ Rauch, we coalesce. Even those artists who, unlike Jonathan
are told, ‘invokes the taste of German-ness, but he Meese or Daniel Richter, eschew a political position,
fails to grasp the historical realities of the country cannot but let this happen. The inner contradictions
and instead produces images that are as superficial as of this myth-ridden country remain as constant but
they are mythical ... aconfused sense of Germanic profitable irritations to a younger generation, even
identity lacking any critical sensibility’. though they tend to look askance at the earnestness

372
Dresden and Leipzig

373
Painting Today

374
Dresden and Leipzig

416. Neo Rauct

New Drum Rolls (Neue Roll

2005. Oil on canvas,

each panel 27(

(106% x 82% in

375
 Painting Today

with which that older generation of Baselitz et al.

engaged with ‘German-ness’. As Norbert Bisky
remarked, he and his contemporaries have their ‘feet
in the muck, nose in the clouds’. If we look at Bisky’s
phantasmagoric Muck Spreader, we see echoes of
Friedrich, Fascist and socialist heroes (all Aryan blond)
and capitalist advertising, but all now morphed into
something new, simultaneously delirious and wry / 413 /.
Why Leipzig? There is the perverse romance
of the place, which we would once have seen as the
acme of the unromantic: dreary socialist housing, run-
down factories and rotting military barracks. We see
the conjunction of the new with the old: autobahns
and McDonald's alongside the failed project of the
DDR. There was the continuity of the Hochschule
fur Grafik und Buchkunst, where Wolfgang Mattheuer
and Werner TUubkestill taught and where students
learned to draw in a traditional manner / 414 /, and
where they would be asked to consider how Cranach
solved figure—ground problems, rather than the
theories of Derrida. ‘The disadvantage of the Berlin
wall was well known,’ the director of the Hochschule,
Arno Rink, ruefully mentioned, ‘but if you want
to talk of an advantage, you can say it allowed us to
continue in the tradition of Cranach and Beckmann.
It protected art against the influence of Joseph
Beuys.’ In fact, many of the artists now associated with
Leipzig came from the former West Germany,
attracted by the chance to concentrate on painting,
its traditional genres and techniques. The skill levels of
these painters are, indisputably, exceptionally high.
Neo Rauch is a little older than this new lauded
(or hyped) generation and indeed helped teach them.
His early success fed their ambitions and perhaps ‘gave
them permission’ to follow their instincts and keep their
touch light, unlike the older generation, with their paint-
clogged, all-so-serious canvases. We have considered
Rauch’s paintings in terms of carnival, of the world
turned on its head, but it is also wholly valid to see his
paintings in terms of politics, especially when we
remember that he trained in the 1980s to be a painter
for socialist East Germany but graduated in 1990 in
a united capitalist Germany. His painting Quiz could be
read as merely comic, but there is something more
sinister about the man being quizzed or interviewed,
crumpled on his knee, head in hand / 415 /. This is

hui hh
V} i | ht a bad dream: being asked to fit geometric shapes
together while the interviewers mark you, as though
in an ice-skating competition, and one of the shapes
cheekily comes to life and stares at you. It is wholly
feasible to see this as an allegory of the Eastern worker
flung into a Western workplace whose rules he does not
understand and for which he has not been prepared.
The painting, both in content and style, wobbles
between bathos and pathos, between the modernity of
television furniture and the homeliness (Gemiitlichkeit)
of old-fashioned German houses.

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 Dresden and Leipzig

417. Tilo Baumgartel

The Storm (Der Sturm), 2008.

Oil on canvas, 210 x 350 cm

(82% x 137% in)

418. David Schnell

Hunting Lodge by the Sea

(Hutte am See), 2002. Acrylic
on canvas, 180 x 125 cm
(71 x 49% in)

419. Neo Rauch

Seeker (Sucher), 1997.

Oil on canvas, 60 x 45 cm

(23 Y2 x 17% in). Private

collection

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 Painting Today

420. Thoralf Knobloch People have often seen Rauch’s paintings as inner conflicts in my work. There's a healing aspect
Diver (Springer), 2001. Oil on pastiches of socialist realism or as demonstrations of in my art that is based on my command of painting, the
canvas, 95 x 170 cm how empty such works were. This seems wrong. It is professional use of colour and technique.’ Like a
(37 Y2x 67 in) perhaps better to see his work as carnivalesque: for all psychoanalyst, he rides in the liminal area between
his wit and japes, this is serious, solid art. He tells us dream and consciousness, between reason and
421. Tim Eitel nothing directly about Germany, but in endlessly unreason: ‘It's this strange twilight zone between reason
Eye Contact (Blickkontakt), recycling its images he relives much of its recent history. and irrationality where the artist hunts for prey. If | could
2004. Oil and acrylic on canvas, In this he is, perhaps surprisingly, very like Kiefer. Rauch really explain this, | wouldn't have painted it.’
90 x 70 cm (35% x 27% in) himself wishes to see his work as timeless. Everything is New Drum Rolls (Neue Rollen) seems to play on
grist to his mill. the French Revolution: we see men lifting red Phrygian
422. Tim Eitel caps (the symbol of liberty in 1789) on their sabres, while
Boygroup, 2003, Oil on canvas, | refrain both from any hierarchization and from in the background a figure sits on a guillotine / 416 /.
260 «x 190 cm (102 V2 x 78% in)
a conscious evaluation of my pictorial inventory. This ‘For me the function of paintings is to work with myths
means that elements like Balthus, Vermeer, Tintin, ...having set the fundamentals, the stage, | introduce
423. Tim Eitel
Donald Judd, Donald Duck, agit-prop and cheap the actors on the stage.’ If he gets them on the stage,
Hole (Grube), 2008. Oil on
advertising garbage can flow together in a furrow of my he leaves them mid-scene, with the farce — or tragedy
canvas, 221 x 176.5cm
childhood landscape and generate an intermingled — unfinished. Things are always happening in
conglomerateofsurprising plausibility. Rauch’s work, people are always making or searching
but rarely completing or finding. In one of his more dia-
The metaphor he uses to describe himself as a painter grammatic, earlier paintings, Seeker, as aman searches
is an unusual one: ‘| view myself as a kind of peristaltic for land-mines with a magnetic ring, Annunciation-like
filtration system in the river of time. | view the process a beam of light strikes the canvas waiting on an easel.
of painting as an extraordinary natural form of It is typical of Rauch’s ambivalence that we are not sure

discovering the world, almost as natural as breathing’, whether this beam is a quotation from a quattrocento
Rauch says. Natural and therapeutic: ‘I try to evoke painting or, like Roy Lichtenstein, from a cartoon / 419 /.

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Dresden and Leipzig

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Painting Today

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 Dresden and Leipzig

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424. David Schnell

Motorway (Autobahn), 2008

Oil on canvas, 200 x 300 cm

(78% x 118 in)

425. Martin Kobe

Rudera, 2006. Acrylic on canvas,

280 x 450 cm (110% x 177% in)

381
 Painting Today

lied i ECar Seaal

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 Dresden and Leipzig

426. Eberhard Havekost Of the group of painters that have become a television permanently left on in a sitting-room.
Global Player, 2004, famous in Rauch’s wake perhaps only Tilo Baurngartel is As so many of the dramatis personae in paintings by
Oil on canvas, 280 x 145 cm truly similar. He is one of the few Leipzig ‘stars’ actually Leipzig artists, the figures in Eitel’s work are consigned
(109 x 56 % in) brought up in the East, and it is he who is closest to to waiting.
Rauch in creating such stage sets. But his stories are Some of this mood of anomie has to do with
followingpages: more readable: their spaces are more like those in this the way Eitel uses photographs as sketches, perfecting
427. Matthias Weischer world, or those in films. It seems often as though and abstracting them in the paintings. Stoic
Overhead Light (Oberlicht), characters are waiting for something to happen / 417 /. philosophers lamented that we were but strangers in a
2006, Oil and egg tempera Although Baumgartel is closer to direct storytelling like world we had not made, and this is what Francis Bacon
on canvas, 120 x 150 cm Rauch’s, this painting suggests being on the point of often painted — man alienated in nature — but Eitel
(47% x 59 in) demonstrating some allegory. shows us as strangers in the world that we have made.
As David Schnell was finishing his painting Even when they are seen in nature, his figures seem
Hunting Lodge by the Sea (Hitte am See) he painted out superimposed: the boys leave no footmarks in the sand
the legs of the tower from which hunters shoot game as they wander off to the dunes / 422 /. Their wandering
/ 418 /. Likewise he did not paint in the leaves of the is laddish, aimless, unlike the questing poets and
bulrushes and left in all those compositional lines by pilgrims in Friedrich’s paintings. ‘| have no relationship
which he had calculated the painting’s geometry. The to the countryside whatsoever’, Eitel says. ‘For me, the
woods at the back, like the forests he often paints, assumed euphoria, the elegiac, is rather an expression
seem schematic, very different from the archetypal of failure. Since the romantic experience of nature
Romantic German woods as painted by Caspar David does no longer work for me, God is not in every plant.’
Friedrich. Schnell’s paintings, for example his For Eitel, light is ambient, even and artificial —
Flyover (Auffahrt)/ see 286 /, seern to depict a model even nature seems illuminated by tungsten lighting.
of the world rather than reality. In the train stations of Perhaps because this undramatic light is a constant
continental Europe one can often find a glass vitrine in condition in other paintings, his characters, like the
which a beautifully made model landscape, often undead in horror films, seem to cast no shadow;
replete with historical buildings and wooded hills, is generally they are as unanimated as the plastic figures
criss-crossed by trainlines. Inserting a 1 Euro coin will that wait at the platform for the Marklin train. Yet there
send the model trains moving round this landscape. is also an air of calm and beauty in his work, often,
Made with impressive detail by the Marklin Company, recently, accentuated by paintings that evoke the hour
they present an innocent, immaculate world. Much of of twilight / 423 /. Perhaps his appeal is like that of the
the appeal of the Leipzig painters is the way they seem nineteenth-century flaneur, the man disengaged,
to offer a ‘Marklin’ world. window shopping and happy in his disengagement
Partly this is because they often paint scenes in a world of spectacle. He makes manifest the strange
as though they are an unfinished construction site, pleasure we can find in the anonymity and ubiquity
partly it is because they are such conscious technicians of non-places, those museums, offices, municipal parks
and partly it is because their work hovers between and airport waiting-rooms that lack defining
figuration and abstraction. Schnell’s canvases are characteristics.
formally sophisticated, as satisfying as the best abstract It is a rare shock when, in his painting
painting. His newest paintings demonstrate this Eye Contact, one of the women floating through the
concern with complex but coherent composition: there museum turns and catches our eye / 421 /. Her
is greater improvisation, more unexpected colour expression tells us nothing. We cannot tell, as always,
relationships, but above all there is the sense of a well- which museum it is — it could just as well be a
made painting / 424 /. The deeper appeal is in seeing computer simulation. The eye and the way it catches
someone make a new world, not so much unreal as our own remind us that Eitel’s world is perhaps a
parallel to our own. In this world things are precise and parallel one and one that is inhabited.
balanced, despite also being strange: objects fly or Like Julie Mehretu or Matthew Ritchie, Martin
hover, it is very silent. Kobe seems to explore postmodern or cybernetic
Like Schnell’s work, the paintings of Tim Eitel space, but in fact he never uses a computer / 425 /.
can be seen as nice but anonymous, elegant but une- He is fascinated by modern architecture, by what
motional. Again this is slightly inaccurate. People in he terms ‘the frozen beauty of urban situations. The
Eitel’s paintings wander through the museum and pose labyrinthine quality of rooms. The coldness.’ These
elegantly in their everyday clothes. The geometry of complex structures that he invents keep breaking apart:
the museum's architecture is represented meticulously, paint flows and drips:
echoing Mondrian’sgrids — or those of some immacu-
lately kept prison. Above all, they do not connect. While | paint the logistics of the room slip out of my
Eitel rarely paints people looking at paintings: where control; the free play of painting is the precondition for
paintings are shown, they are in the background, like things to gain in openness. ... While | paint | move like

383
 Painting Today

a blind man through the structures | erect. ... tension that we get in the interior paintings of Vermeer,
| repeatedly over-paint, destroy and question the that tease of eyes gazing or averted. It is not so
architecture that | sketch out. ... Painting and much that there is no-one in his interiors as that there
‘architecture aim at something completely different, are no eyes inside the spaces animating them. These
while | understand my form of work as ‘core meltdown’. seem more like meticulous autopsies. Weischer's early
paintings often had a container, a caravan or suit
Freedom and play in opposition to structure are a of clothes that could stand as an equivalent of a figure.
constant theme in Leipzig painting — and elsewhere, In more recent paintings, where people do emerge,
One could see this as synonymous with the struggle they lack faces — they are husks of people or shells
of the individual in society, or of an emotional being in awaiting the presence of life. Sometimes a mere
a world dominated by cybernetics and geometry. fragment will appear: a leg, as in a crime scene, or
The painters of Leipzig’s rival town Dresden are both legs. Objects are key: if we seem strangers in this
presented as both cool analysts of pictorial problems world that we have not made, it is nonetheless
and faithful recorders of the everyday as opposed to strangely familiar to us now because we have filled it
‘languishing in kitschy world-weariness painted in the with the things we have made. These may appear to
manner of the Old Masters, like the Leipzig school’. be highly technical academic paintings, but to a greater
Artists such as Thoralf Knobloch and Eberhard Havekost degree these are paintings about how we attempt to
work from photographs. Knobloch’s Diver / 420 / is an make and inhabit our world. In Overhead Light
intriguing riposte to Hockney’s A Bigger Splash / see (Oberlicht) a man is seen in a top-lit art gallery, waiting,
19 /: Hockney shows us a glamorous and eternally sunny bathing in the light, incompletely formed / 427 /. As
California, Knobloch a time-stained municipal pool. always, tiny smears and snicks of paint forbid one ever to
Knobloch’s image, with its belly-flopping boy, lacks the believe this is an illusion of reality. The lumpiness of the
air of elegant sexiness that Hockney’s poolside paint at the edge emphasizes this.
paintings have. But both play on the unreality of Like Schnell, Weischer uses the word ‘play’
painting: Hockney with his unpainted margin, Knobloch (in German, ‘spiel’):
with his Pollockesque dribbles of green and white.
Havekost sometimes refers to his pictures as At first | think abstractly in terms of the composition,
‘user interfaces’: the on-screen appearance of a form and colour, and then | play around. If! think then
computer's operating system. Between ‘reality’ and the about how to continue, rather figurative images appear
canvas is the camera and the computer. He laments that in my mind. Now I usually over-paint the picture
he can no longer take holiday snaps: everywhere has frequently, and set something new on the canvas.
been taken over by the media, so that our experience
of reality and of the imagery that mediates it seem to It is easy to criticize Weischer’s work as cold
have become synonymous. Havekost’s work can be and artificial, but his is a unique vision, and the skill and
seen as a meditation on this state of affairs: living with deliberateness with which he uses those smears and
apparent loss of reality. The creative work or play for snicks are unparalleled. Such abstract marks are given
him is, first, in the preparation stage, when he adjusts as much attention and weight as the figurative elements.
or distorts his starting image in Photoshop, and second, It may also turn out that Weischer is the
as he adjusts the painting, working ‘like a plastic greatest colourist in German painting since Emil Nolde.
surgeon’, Although he sets the canvases up as places When we look at his Memling, we may be first struck
where we may find associations and sensation, they by the screen with the appended image by the
seem placeless: the faces have become generic Flemish painter Hans Memling and the way Weischer's
or, as here, hidden — or protected / 426 /. Impeccably composition echoes Hockney's portrait of Henry
painted, elegant, cold, the paintings seem to be of Geldzahler / see 63; 428 /. (As part of a scholarship
a world slipping into that abstracted land, Generica. Weischer went to work with Hockney.) We may also
But Havekost's intention is the opposite: ‘Today notice the other elements — the skeletal hat-stands,
painting is a way to get closer to reality. To the reality which are strangely like Schnell’s trees, and the
that is detached from appearances, the counter-world, ubiquitous drips and smears — but what dominates the
the world of thought.’ To a far greater extent than painting and is in fact its heart or voice, is the vast
earlier photorealism, his and Knobloch’s work form expanse of blue, to which all the reds and yellows are
a critique of the way we use representation, in counterpoint.
One thing that is odd about Matthias Weischer's As so often, this is a painting of the studio:
work is that he paints interiors like still lifes. When we on the one hand, we may say Weischer treats it like a
look at still lifes by seventeenth-century Dutch or computer screen on which things can appear and be
Spanish artists, we see a stasis of composition and dismissed or morphed, and yet it is also, above all,
tremendous attention to detail. What we do not get in a homage to other great studio paintings by Vermeer
Weischer's work is anything like the play of erotic or Velazquez or Picasso. As with them, so here

384
Dresden and Leipzig

SE Te SES

385
 Painting Today

428. Matthias Weischer

Memling, 2006. Oil and egg

empera On canvas, diptych,

each panel 210 x 180 cm

82% x 71 in)

386
 Dresden and Leipzig

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 Painting Today

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the studio is a philosophical space where we can The role of women in Leipzig painting has been do. When David Schnell says that for him going to
both embody the world and meditate on it. questioned. People have asked why there are so few Leipzig was like being ‘thrown back into the
Furthermore one must emphasize how very physical women painters in the Leipzig school, and whether this nineteenth century’, many would think ‘Oh great, real
these paintings are, how specifically they are made is a boys’ club, as German painting of the 1980s was. skills at last!’ although others would laugh at such
with paint: in places smooth, in places lumpy, ‘First,’ Baumgartel has remarked, ‘men seek sublimation antediluvianism. (The display of technical skill, as for
scratched and caressed. This is the very opposite in painting: women are too intelligent for that. And, example in Japanese nihonga, is often seen as
of a virtual reality. second, there are women.’ He refers, among others, to equivalent to kitsch.) In Leipzig painting such skill has
Of the six graduates of the Leipzig academy Rosa Loy, whose paintings, as if to make a point, have been turned to the service of both burlesque and a
who are normally cited as the key Leipzig artists a greater irony than those of other Leipzigers. Like critical approach to representation. It is too little
(the others being Baumgartel, Eitel, Kobe, Schnell them, she takes surrealism, as seen ina painting such as noted that the school they went to was Hochschule
and Weischer), Christoph Ruckhaberle is the one Hiding Place, but her emphasis on creating a personal fur Grafik und Buchkunst, or the Academy for
most fixated on human figures. When we consider mythology is far greater: her work is less technical / 430 /. Graphics and Book Arts. In the year 2000 nearly three
that socialist realism was above all a painting Many people abhor contemporary painting times the number of students applied to do
of human figures engaged in making history, it is for its lack of technical skill. Artists come out of art photography there as painting. What distinguishes
telling that Ruckhaberle shows figures almost school lamenting they have not been taught such the painting department is its antagonistic
wholly in private seclusion. Often they are shown in skills — just as many once complained that that was relationship with the photography department, not its
rooms in groups doing nothing but waiting. In all they were taught. The commercial success of privileged isolation. And what distinguishes the
Farewell (Abschied) we see an encounter group stuck Leipzig painting, much like recent Chinese painting, painters that come out of it is their need to negotiate
in a banal flat / 429 /. is due to its technical excellence: it looks difficult to with photography as a medium.

388
 Dresden and Leipzig

Is what we have examined here a movement, East German art. A longing for the former East 429. Christoph Ruckhaberle

a school or a moment? A school implies a shared ideol- Germany is common: the cars were dreadful and the Farewell (Abschied), 2004

ogy or working approach that allows lesser artists to foodstuffs dreary, but it was a secure, comfortable life. Oil on canvas, 190 x 280 cm

produce high-quality works and gives a ready, compre- There was always a job and a place to live, however (74% x 110% in)

hending audience for the best artists. It is a microcosm unglamorous. However, where socialist realism
where competition and collaboration are mutually was optimistic, these painters present the world not 430. Rosa Loy

helpful. Certainly there are shared interests: burlesque, necessarily as pointless but certainly as puzzling: Hiding Place (Versteck), 2003

waiting figures and perhaps, above all else, a concern alternately delirious and wry. If we think of Rauch as Casein on canvas, 100 x 170 Cc aa]

with space. It is a postmodern understanding that restaging Samuel Beckett's plays as comical soap (39 % x 67 in). Essl Collection

psychoanalytic events happen in space and that space operas and Weischer as restaging lonesco’s Theatre of Vienna

is psychoanalytically charged. The spaces in Kobe and the Absurd via The World of Interiors, we may start to
Schnell are as tense as those in Loy or Rauch, despite understand the paradoxes. Ultimately, it is the situation
the absence of figures. Stylistically of course, not the school that matters most: Bisky, for example,
there is a ‘Leipzig look’: one of the painters discussed was born in Leipzig but studied under Baselitz. If 1989
above pointed at some unusually neat, schematic and the collapse of communism was the key event of
passage in one of his works and laughed: ‘Look, | do the last fifty years, then art has been surprisingly quiet
Leipzig school.’ about it. It is to the credit of these artists of the (as we
The work of the Leipzig school has been now understand) partly reunified Germany that they do
termed ‘repo-realism’: a conscious aping of the style of address such cultural sea change, however indirectly.

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Painting Today

431. Yan Pei-Ming

Red Self-portrait, 2007. Oil

on canvas, 350 x 350 cm

(137% x 137% in)

432. Alice Neel

Nude Self-portrait, 1980. Oil

on canvas, 137.1 x 101.6 cm
(50 x 40 in). National Portrait
Gallery, Washington, DC

433. Dana Schutz

Sneeze, 2002. Oil on canvas,

48.2 x 48.2 cm (19 x 19 in).

Saatchi Collection, London

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 Post-feminism

Twenty-five years ago, when | first wrote a book about to some extent, see the painting through the painter —
painting, (shamefully) scarcely any female painters were over his or her shoulder, as it were. We stand where the
represented. About a quarter of the painters included painter did when he or she stood back and considered;
in this book are female. Were | to write another book on we can go up closer to the painting and replay his or
painting in twenty-five years time, | am sure there would her actions: a delicate dab here, an ebullient sweep of
be still more. Likewise, twenty-five years ago | included blue there. We can in our imagination move our hands
no Asian artists at all: in twenty-five years | am sure | would as he or she did, or actually do sb, tracing the gestures
include more than in this book. These are two ways the in front of the painting with our hands and fingers.
painter's world has changed and continues to change. Paint, especially oil paint, has often been
‘Painting’ is an odd word because it can described as not only like shit in consistency but also
function as either a verb or a noun: | can say both ‘I am as having a similarly intimate relationship with the
painting’ and ‘this is a painting’. | can’t do this with ‘song’ human body. Dana Schutz in her painting Sneeze seems
or ‘poem’. There is embedded in the English to make a more unusual point: that it is also like snot
language an assumption that the making of a painting / 433 /. \t is something from the body that we can
is synonymous with the painting itself. Indeed, in the re-form into other forms. It may not be dignified but is
popular imagination the painter is synonymous with the both about actual experience and emblematic of what
painting: we go to look at a ‘Rembrandt’ or a ‘Kahlo’ painting is. There is a similar discourse about the body
or a ‘Dumas’. We don't go to listen to a ‘Beethoven’ and its equivalence in paint in the paintings of the
or a ‘Bach’, although we may perhaps read an ‘Atwood’ Chinese artist Yan Pei-Ming. His self-portraits are always
or an ‘Austen’. What we think a painter is will affect large, frontal and recognizable by the limited
what we think a painting is. colour range — either black or red — and the slashing,
If the thing and the making of the thing seem energetic brushmarks / 431 /. They are the exact
synonymous, it is no wonder that we are so fascinated opposite of the hong-quang-liang (‘red, smooth and
by painters’ self-portraits. Partly, this is also because we, glowing style’) faces of the Maoist era. Yan's action,

434. Jenny Saville

Reverse, 2002-3. Oil on canvas,

213 x 244 cm (84 x 96 in)

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Painting Today

435. Maria Lassnig

The Intimate Link Between

Painter and Canvas, 1986.

Oil on canvas, 200 x 140 cm

(78% x 55 in)

436. Elizabeth Peyton

LA (E.P), 2004. Oil on board,

35.5 x 28.5 cm (14 x 11% in)

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Post-feminism

Shee

395
Painting Today

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 Post-feminism

437. Maureen Gallace

Self-portrait, 2004. Oil on linen,

30.5 x 28 cm (12 x 11 in)

438. Paulina Olowska

Bridget - 1964, 2001.

Oil on canvas, 180 x 120 cm

(71 x 47% in)

making a person out of primal material, seemingly she, like Arendt, bears witness to that evil in everyday
capturing a moment in a person's life, is still compelling banality. The contrast between the white face and the
to us. The tension between the energized brushmarks black hand could be seen as a referring to the
and the calm expression suggests both the bodiliness ambivalence of her political position as a South African
and the mental activity of himself as sitter. in exile. Or perhaps the painting just needed that
‘Did you see my self-portrait? Frightful colour contrast: it has a warmth and intimacy similar to
isn't it? | love it. At least it shows a certain revolt against the numinous domesticity that Bonnard painted, at
everything decent.’ So Alice Neel remarked of odds with any political hectoring. It is these apparent
her self-portrait of 1980, with its revelation of age and contradictions that make the painting compelling.
sagging flesh / 432 /. At the age of eighty she was It is also much larger than life-size, although not to the
maintaining her role as straight-talker and painter. Maria same extent as Yan Pei-Ming’s, and this to some extent
Lassnig similarly has exhibited in her eighties a painting makes it less humane.
of herself nude, posed with legs spread-eagled, holding In Reverse Jenny Saville paints her own head

a gun to her own head. as eight times its actual size / 434 /. This image is

Another problematic self-image by a woman monumental but raw, like a weeping wound or meat.

artist is Marlene Dumas’s Evilis Banal / see 138 /. ‘| look Is this the condition of flesh? The colours are as virulent

like Dolly Parton’, she remarked later, self-mockingly, as a Technicolor sunset. At the same time as being

of the painting. The painting's title is taken from shocked by the scale and image — Is she dead? Is

Hannah Arendt, who, having witnessed the Nuremberg she looking back at us? — our eyes are foiled with this

trials, wrote of how bizarrely ordinary the Nazi mass- vermilion glory, which, like an old plush curtain

murderers were. Perhaps when used here it implies not at the cinema, fills our vision. ‘The flesh becomes like

that Dumas is either evil or banal but that, as an artist, a material’, she remarks. Also it is she who, as this

397
 Painting Today

material, fills and blocks our vista: ‘I see it as withhold meaning, painting herself as an equivalent to 439. Mamma Andersson

empowering that | manage to use my body to make one of the simplified house shapes in her painting. She Magician (Trolkarl), 1997.

something positive — whether | like it or not.’ As a portrays herself neither painting a picture on an easel Oil on canvas, 60 x 85 cm

painting, this owes most perhaps to De Kooning's late nor looking it, but as though she were checking the (232 x 33Y2 in)

landscapes in its fullness: the sensuality is in the paint, catalogue at a private view, her paintings hung behind
swept, scraped, dragged and sprayed. like simple objects on the wall. Gallace becomes an 440. Mamma Andersson

A self-portrait for Lassnig is less about the object too: as calm, pleasant and closed as one of her Dollhouse, 2008. Oil on panel

image as seen by others, or by a mirror, than about the New England farmhouses / 437 /. in three parts, overall

kinaesthetic sense of being herself: ‘| paint sensations Of course, painting is often about 229 x 122 cm (90% x 48 in)

of the body.’ Sometimes this has an element of fantasy identification: we and Dumas may identify with Snow
or projection: herself as an astronaut, the body as White; artists often identify with other artists. When
fragment, with only one eye. Rather than paint herself Lucy McKenzie’s frequent collaborator, both as painter
whole, as she did earlier / see 65 /, she paints how the and conceptual artist, Paulina Olowska paints Bridget
body feels when focused on one action: blinking, Riley in the 1960s, it is an image of someone
grasping, painting — especially in that most intimate who could pass through the glamour world with fewer
of moments when a painter handles her painting doubts and concerns than a woman of the twenty-first
/ 435 /. This is, of course, the moment when a painter century. As with so many images relating to a past and
connects with the outer world and becomes part of it. more innocent world, this work is tinged with a wistful
Elizabeth Peyton's approach would seem less nostalgia / 438 /.
problematic, as though she is saying that, if women We inevitably wonder whether the magician
are normally portrayed in the style of a fashion in Mamma Andersson's painting is likewise a projection
illustration, then that is the style to live with and gently of the artist herself / 439 /. This image is both sexy and,
subvert. In L.A. (E.P.)we see her slouching in a bikini at courtesy of its top hat, ridiculous. In her hands she
the poolside, her goggles and bathing cap cast aside, holds the ace of hearts and two flowers, each topped
perusing a book, her dog waiting patiently beside with a glass globe. Either she is a midget or the flowers
her / 436 /. She shows herself as an intrinsic part of the are gigantic. The surface is equally contradictory,
social scene that she paints: young, fashionable varying from rough marks in the background to the
and relaxed. Maureen Gallace’s approach is almost to delicate tattoos on the magician’s body.

398
 Post-feminism

It is the advent of women that has let auto-

biography, fantasy and domesticity back into painting.
Andersson is paradigmatic here: unlike Eric Fischl, she
paints domestic life from the viewpoint of someone
who cooks the evening meal and brings up two
children. Her Dollhouse refers both to her own role as
‘housewife’ and her childhood / 440 /. The three levels
look like stage sets for Ibsen's play A Doll’s House,
waiting for the arrival of the heroine.
Male self-portraits can be problematic too,
as much projection and fantasy as observation.
At first, Lucian Freud's recent self-portrait The Painter
is Surprised by a Naked Admirer could seem embarrass-
ing, or comic — the fantasy of an eighty-two-year-
old man / 441 /. But perhaps the comedy is in our
being surprised: the girl, like Pygmalion (a sculpture of
a beautiful woman made by a male sculptor in ancient
Greece that came to life), has walked out of the
painting itself. She seems alien to his world: all around
we see the scree of rags on which he wipes his
brushes, evidence of thirty years of painting, of brushes
once over-heavy with intended flesh discharged.
It is weird, rather than merely comic or embarrassing:
the studio is a place of both dire reality and fantasy,
simultaneously a part of this world and an alternative.
Martin Kippenberger parodied the old
expectations of the heroic self-portrait in a series of
paintings from 1988: the thirty-five-year-old artist
is horribly out of condition, flabby and with a vast beer
gut. There is also presumably an ironic reference
to Picasso's penchant for big underpants. The mirror
he sees himself reflected in is, we realize, a giant
balloon: as so often with Kippenberger, we are not sure
whether this is bathos or pathos, whether we should
laugh with him or cry with him / 442 /.
Francesco Clemente has always been content
with his role as seer, and obsessed with his own face:

The face, my face, is something | know. I’m interested

in the body as a conductor between what we show on
the outside and what we feel within. And this is
reflected in our eyes, our mouths. The nakedness of
the human face has a great attraction for me. It is the
one part of the body that we do not cover. | look at
myself and see that my face is always changing.

As a young man, he was charming, ebullient and good-

looking. He sometimes captured this in his early self-
portraits, but more often he appeared almost passive
— like one to whom mysterious things happen —
even as here appearing twice and referred to as ‘She’
/ 443 /. |n an exhibition in 2005 he showed sixteen
self-portraits, in each of which he has a different role:
a Bengali woman, with and without a mask, as ina
family photograph, with a chameleon. As he had said
in 1980: ‘You are expected today to publicly explain
who you are, what you are — and then remain in that

399
 Painting Today

cage. But life is about flow, feeling and change. empty and tedious is disputable / 446 /. Dana Schutz’s 441. Lucian Freud

We change from moment to moment.’ In one painting self-portrait seems a very traditional image of the artist ThePainterisSurprizedby.
he flies on a giant phallus: sexual desire remains a at her easel, but she is not representing so much as a Naked Admirer, 2004-5.

inventing. There is no model: the figure on the canvas Oil on canvas, 162.5 x 132 cm
“constant in his art / 444 /. These images, like any
is Frank, a bearded man she has created and painted (64 x 52 in)
decent self-portrait, also show age. This is also true of
Chuck Close, who has always used his own face as his several times as ‘the last man on earth’ / 445 /. This
442. Martin Kippenberger
primary inspiration — or more accurately, a photograph is a re-gendered version of Pygmalion, where a man is
Untitled, 1988. Oil on canvas,
of his face. Having imposed a grid on it, he paints each made by a woman, not a woman by a man.
120 x 200 cm (47% x 78% in)
square as a mini abstract painting; whether this reveals Self-portraits can also be made to discuss

anything or is just technically brilliant but ultimately problems and pathways, as when the Vietnamese

400
 Post-feminism

Ha Manh Thang uses traditional paper scrolls to In the preceding fourteen chapters we have Contemporary art amounted to about 2 per cent of
depict himself and his girlfriend sitting on traditional treated painting between 1989 and today as an entity, the company’s turnover then, however by 2007
Vietnamese chairs / 447 /. Collaged on the paper are travelling across its complex terrain, acknowledging it amounted to 23 per cent. In 1989 artists would not
myriad signs of consumerism: Chanel, Vichy, DKNY. the vast differences in approach and style and intent, appear at auction until their reputation and price were
Both wear shades. Behind Ha’s girlfriend are a phalanx but acting as though that terrain had not appreciably established and safe, but now, in an age when
of Western perfume bottles, and the magnifying mirror changed since 1989. Yet some things have clearly speculation has again become rife, paintings get sent
shows a Western model's face. It sums up beautifully changed: most especially the market in which to market as quickly and as breezily as a pile of junk
our need to negotiate our routes between West paintings are bought and sold. In 1989, when | worked bonds. Sometimes one can smell the oil paint: it has
and East, personal openness and mask, tradition for Sotheby's, 60 per cent of the works auctioned in not had time to dry, having gone straight from studio
their contemporary sales were by dead artists. to exhibition to auction.
and globalism.
 Painting Today

443. Francesco Clemente The wealthy want, it seems, not so much unique
She and She, 1982. objects as recognizable types of art — brands. Prices
Pastel on paper, 61 « 45.7 cm achieved in 2008 bear this out. The fact that Richard
"(24 x 18 in) Prince has made many Nurse paintings (and
conceptually they look best en masse) is no deterrent:
Millionaire Nurse / see 133 / sold for $4,745,000
(£2,426,117) and a second version of Dude Ranch Nurse
/ see 134/ for £3,177,250 ($6,214,065). Nowhere has
this hyperinflated market been more evident than in the
lust for Chinese paintings: not untypically, a large Yue
Minjun sold in Hong Kong for the equivalent of
$2,485,753 (£1,270,964) / 448 /. The temptation for
Chinese painters to repeat compositions endlessly and
employ armies of assistants was strong. That in the
space of two and a half years over 200 paintings by
eo Zhang Xiaogang were auctioned was a sign both of
market voracity and of his studio's high productivity.
It was not only people in New York or London
who were determined to buy art: so were the oligarchs
of the burgeoning Asian states and Russia (one of
whom forked out £5,732,000 ($11,210,645) for a
painting by Peter Doig). At an Indian auction house
the bidding for a still life by Subodh Gupta rose to
$1,427,000 (£729,624). Even markets such as that for
Indonesian painting, almost unknown in the West, saw
high prices — not only for the favourite of Indonesian
collectors, Nyoman Masriadi, but also for the young
painter Rudi Mantofani, one of whose paintings sold
for $387,460 (£198,108) / 449 /.
After the credit crunch the bubble had, if not
burst, been deflated, and estimates and prices came
down, especially in Asia; although the most desirable
things, those seen as ‘gilt-edged’, still sold well: for
example, John Currin’s Nice ‘n’Easy sold for $5,458,500
(£3,616,050) / 450 /. Prince's Nurse paintings still sold
for several million dollars, as did large Gerhard Richter
paintings, but a supposedly key painting such as Zeng
Fanzhi's From the Masses, To the Masses went unsold
/ see 355 /. This may not tell us anything about painting,
but it tells us a lot about what people want from
painting: a sense of value, of something unique and
special, and recognizably so. In a hyped-up market
people start looking also for what is ‘hot’, for what
seems fashionable. In adownturn they want something
‘safe’. As in the late 1980s, people had become too
fixated on the investment value of art, on making a
profit from a rising reputation.
A major consequence of the ubiquity of art
world marketing, and one associated with the decline
of skills, is the substitution of trademark for style. When
an artist emerges on the market, the galleries, curators
and press want him or her to be readily characterized.
His or her work must obviously always be by them: the
public demands that any Dobbin painting will always
recognizably be a Dobbin. Neo Rauch remarked in
2006 of the zeal of American collectors to buy work by
him and other Leipzig painters: ‘Many American

402
 Post-feminism

444. Francesco Clemente

Self-portrait in an Imperial Age,
2005. Oil on linen,
124.5 x 177.8 cm (49 x 70 in)

445. Dana Schutz

Self-portrait, 2003. Oil on

canvas, 152.4 x 167.6 cm

(60 x 66 in)

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446. Chuck Close

Self-portrait, 2004-5. Oil on

canvas, 259.1 x 214.6 cm

(102 x 84Y2 in)

403
 Painting Today

arene
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The Artist and the Artist's

Girlfriend, 2007. Acrylic on

paper scroll, each scroll

255 x 83 cm (100% x 32% in).

Collection of Pho Hong Long

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404
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405
 Painting Today

collectors buy into this pool of Leipzig very blindly.

They buy it from the trademark “Is he young? Does he
wt

come from Leipzig? Then I'll buy it.”” Damien Hirst

marketed himself with especial brilliance, with in effect
three trademark paintings: spins, spots and butterflies.
These trademarks were so well defined that it was easy
for him and his assistants to make more recognizable
‘Hirst’ paintings. When with Hirst's consent the celebrity
street-artist Banksy defaced a Hirst signature spot
painting with one of his trademark stencilled figures,
the punters obviously saw it as a wonderful two-for-
the-price-of-one offer and paid six times the $300,000
(£150,000) estimate.
When we are informed in the publicity for one
of the world’s major art colleges that visual art is now
one of the ‘fastest growing industries’ (sic) we have to
ask where professionalism now lies. Over twenty years
ago the New York artist Robert Longo remarked that
being an artist was ‘not like cutting off your ear or
hanging out in bars and drawing pictures of barmaids.
It's a very sophisticated thing, very much like being a
lawyer or a dentist.’ One wonders whether it hasn't now
become more like being a public relations consultant or
a futures adviser. Artists can either accept this, hide
from it, or try and work with it. It is noteworthy that
those artists with a strong political/moral viewpoint such
as Lucy McKenzie and Daniel Richter, are those best
able to use the network in a positive, albeit anarchistic,
way. They are the most aware of how weird the art
world has become. ‘Today,’ as Richter remarks, ‘the
greatest criticism of capitalism takes place in art
galleries and institutions which are supported by banks.
This is ridiculous.’
Older, more established artists can turn their
backs on this and shut themselves in their studios.
However, most artists have to deal with this and all the
other phenomena of the art world: the media blitz, the
private views, the parties. Their world is not only the
studio but the gallery, the museum, the collector's
house. This has to be negotiated: as Kippenberger said,
‘Simply hanging a painting on the wall and saying that
it's art is dreadful. The whole network is important.’
Mass-producing ‘trademark’ paintings for what
seemed an insatiable market was at its most extreme in

China. Hence eventually the need for painters such as

450. John Currin 451. ZhangXiaogang Zhang Xiaogang and Fang Lijun to show they were very
Nice ‘n’Easy,1999.Oilon Green Wall—Landscapeand far from one-trick ponies. Even before the economic
canvas,111.8 x 86.4 cm Television,2008. Oilon canvas, crisis Zhang was showing larger landscapes that dealt
(44 x 34 in) 299.7 x 400.1cm with his old subjects of alienation, melancholy and
(118 x 157%in) capitalist objects in a new way / 451 /and Fang was
presenting increasingly complicated compositions: the
452. Fang Lijun one shown here parodies Correggio’s fresco of The
30th Mary,2006. Oilon canvas, Assumption of the Virgin, from the 1520s / 452 /.
400 x 525 cm The credit crunch was a necessary cold shower.
(157¥ x 206% in).Saatchi Afterwards it was easier to concentrate on the serious
Collection,London issues that painting was dealing with, such as identity,
beauty, longing and embodiment.

406
Post-feminism

407
408
Painting Today

453. Laura Owens

Untitled,1997,Acrylicand
pencil on canvas,
243.8 * 304.8 crm(96 x 120 in),
Collection of Frank and
Nina Moore

410
 Painting Tomorrow

sd )
|ed

Asked to respond to a text where | had wondered painting can also be seen as a starting point like
whether his paintings were evidence of extreme Owens's blank canvas — a challenge.
materialism, Bernard Frize said only, ‘Tony Godfrey Following conceptual art, painting has had to
should look at the paintings again’. He was, of course, prove that the doyen of conceptualism Joseph Kosuth
correct: painting is at the start and at the end a matter was wrong when he said in 1970 that painting today
of seeing and experiencing. We need words to help was like Latin — a ‘dead language’. Painting can only
explain, enjoy, explore and muse on painting, but we survive and prosper as an intelligent art form if it can
need always to keep coming back to that actual continue to turn Kosuth on his head and demonstrate
experience. When De Kooning complained that ‘Some its value as a living language. This is why the
guy came to the studio for fifteen minutes and wrote best painting is in constant negotiation both with the
something that took six hours to read’, we are reminded complexity of its own past and with the contemporaneity
of why painters can be so suspicious of writers, of other art forms. It is a noteworthy fact that increasing
especially those who are desperate to appear clever for numbers of painters also make photographs (Twombly,
the sake of it. for example), film (Sarmento) and sculptures (Barceld).
Clearly there must be pleasure in making, The new generation of Indian artists is especially adroit
seeing and owning a painting. Yet there must also be a at moving from one medium to another, or combining
challenge, a negotiation with its potential meaning in them, as Jitish Kallat does / 454 /.
this world. The blank canvas is at once a negation and a This is not to say that wholly traditional
site of possibilities. In a painting by Laura Owens we figurative art is not still being made or that it will not

seem to be entering a museum: there are paintings to continue to be made. This is wholly feasible in a
454. Jitish Kallat left, to right and ahead. Along a corridor we glimpse postmodern world. As that enfant terrible of early avant-
Horrorificabilitudinitatibus, edges of more waiting to be seen. An empty canvas on garde music Arnold Schoenberg once remarked, there
2008-9. Acrylic and glitter on an easel waits there too. It is a space for potential is still a lot of good music to be written in the key of
canvas with bronze gargoyles, images and events / 453 /. A work from 1961 by Giulio C. An artist such as Elizabeth Blackadder paints flowers
350 x 780 cm (132 x 318 in) and landscapes / 456 /. These have traditional virtues:
Paolini / 455 / may be seen, like Mel Ramsden’s
Guarantee Painting / see 12 /, as a parody of painting: colour, light, freshness. One would not describe them
455. Giulio Paolini as radical, though neither would one describe them as
nothing but materials, devoid of meaning. Paolini
Untitled, 1961. Wood, plastic kitsch. Likewise one would not see Catherine Murphy's
remarked that ‘during that period | was trying to free
and can of paint, 21 x 21 cm painting of a sink as especially avant-garde, but, shown
the picture from its function as a vehicle for images: that
(8%x 8%in) is, | presented the picture as its own image, in other in the context of a Whitney Biennial, it looked wholly
words, the image of the picture is none other than the contemporary: a trace of another person, their hairs in
very elements which go to make it up.’ Today even his the sink / 457 /. Murphy's original inspiration was

411
 Painting Today

ANG, | lizaheth
Whackacller

Prultona Dark Table O04

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Hathroom Sink, WYYA Ol

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Painting Tomorrow
Painting Today

aesthetic: a painting of a sink reflected was geometrical,

beautiful yet static. But she woke up in the middle of
the night knowing there had to be hair. Having cut bits
of a wig into the water, she spent two winters patiently
painting it: as she took over the bathroom for so long
that she had to build a second one.
Others place themselves where traditions and
influences meet. Tradition is sometimes seen as a
reading list: we need to read Shakespeare, Dante and
Tolstoy. However, tradition now is less like a reading list,
or even a library, than like a website with lots of links. We
can connect at the press of a button to other countries
and cultures: India, Japan, Tibet in the twelfth century.
This is a generous state to work in, but an insecure one.
Imants Tillers's painting Act of God refers not
only to his earlier work but also to the early
watercolours of Albert Namatjira, an Aboriginal artist
who in the first half of the last century painted Western-
style watercolours, to the word paintings of Colin
McCahon and to the use of words by conceptual artists
/ 460 /. The confluence of these things gives Tillers the
space to make complex but beautiful works.
Christopher Le Brun seems to acknowledge many
influences in his recent paintings, from late nineteenth-
century symboliste painting to Rothko; like Tillers, he
sees these works not as things to parody or lampoon
but as things naturally inherited. In the example
illustrated one can perhaps see the influence of late
Guston with his freedom and directness / 458 /. Perhaps
this marks the beginning of Le Brun’s own late style.
The late style of painters today is an issue: we
have witnessed the falling-off of invention and depth in
Jasper Johns and many others. Indeed many painters
seem to fade well before their grey hairs appear.
In part this is, as we have already noted, an effect of the
market. Contrarily, in recent years Baselitz has made
what he calls ‘remix paintings’ where he takes an
earlier work and makes a new version of it painted in

a ‘young’, vigorous, sketchy style / 459 /. They have

a joie de vivre that one would not associate with his
early work. Picasso joked that at fifteen he could paint
like Velazquez and that it took him eighty years to
paint like a child. Baselitz wants such freedom, agreeing
perhaps with the poet W.B. Yeats when in his final years
he demanded: ‘Why should not old men be mad?’
Cy Twombly would seem to agree with that: the work
he made in his seventies is filled with vast energetic
gestures, as though he too would throw away
all discretion and doubt / 461 /. An exhibition at the

Gagosian in New York in 2005-6 was named

after Bacchus, the god of wine and festivities, who also

uplifts us with wings (psilax) and can be filled with
Dionysian fury (mainomenos).
Have the older generation failed or are they the
new Old Masters of our century? Certainly some have
faded, but there are artists with more than forty years
of coherent work: Kiefer, Katz, Lassnig and Twombly, to

414
 Painting Tomorrow

[;WEDGE.
Shor

458. Christopher Le Brun 460. Imants Tillers

Draw, 2007. Oil on canvas, Act of God, 2008. Acrylic and

151 «x220 cm (59% x 86% in) gouache on 28 canvasboards,

127 x 178 cm (50 x 70 in)

459. Georg Baselitz

Adler 53 —Hero 65 (Remix),

2007. Oil on canvas,

300 x 250 cm (118 x 98% in)

415
 Painting Today

ae

461. Cy Twombly name only four. Their presence is a reassurance. There Mark Francis were filled with forms like spores or
Works installed at Gagosian are abstract painters, too, who can point to forty years spermatozoa. Now he concentrates on the effects of
Gallery, New York, November— or more of serious achievement: Federle, Marden and colour: they are more clearly states of mind / 464 /. We
December 2005, including Riley, for example. Indeed an artist such as Raoul de could see the American James Siena as making late
Untitled V, 2005, acrylic on
Keyser can still be discovered late in life, having built additions to the tradition of New York painting. Siena’s
canvas, 325.1 x 494 cm
up a large and unique oeuvre / 463 /, comprising small deeper appeal is to something common to all people-
(128 x 194.5 in) and Untitled VI,
paintings, each different in form and approach, each doodling — although it is a form of doodling, unlike
2005, acrylic on canvas,
trying to seek out and make manifest a particular Lasker's, that is influenced by the pattern languages of
317.5 x 401.3 cm (125 x 158 in)
sensation. Perhaps most importantly, there are a computer programmers. According to Chrissie lles, it
number of middle-generation abstract painters ‘internalizes the industrial through a synthesis of the
developing thoughtful, coherent and beautifully hand and the mechanical’. The art historian Robert
achieved bodies of work. Abstraction as a tradition is Hobbs claims that this ‘moves abstract painting from its
no longer trammelled by formalist restrictions and can former modernist function as an ontological affirmation
be more generally understood as both a lifelong meditation of being to its postmodern role as epistemological
and a pursuit of the unexpected, bringing new things assessment of thought’. Or one could say, whereas
into the world. The earlier paintings of the British artist abstract painting used to say ‘I am’, it now says, in the

416
 Painting Tomorrow

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462. Mohammad Ehsai 464. Mark Francis

He is the Merciful, 2007. Oil Inertia, 2008. O

<a on canvas, 202 x 347 cm 167.6 x 111.8 cm(66 x 44 ir

RES srs (79 V2x 136 in)

4 463. Raoul de Keyser

Recover, 2003. Oil on canvas,

82 x 67 cm (32% x 26% in)

417
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 Painting Tomorrow

466. Marlene Dumas 467. Jumaldi Alfi

Unkept, 2008. Oil on canvas, Painting Series 092108, 2008.

50 x 40 cm (19% x 15% in) Acrylic and marble powder

on canvas, 222 x 222 cm

(87 ¥2 x 87% in)

468. Gary Hume

Water Painting, 1999. Enamel
paint on aluminium panel,
300.5 x 244 cm (118% x 96 in)

419
 Painting Today

469. Marilyn Minter

Glazed, 2006. Enamel on metal,

13.8 152.4 em (96 x 60 in)

top right bottom right

470. Stuart Pearson Wright 471. Martin Eder

I,K, Rowling, 2005. Oil on La Matematique du Slip, 2006

board and glass construction Oil on canvas, 240 x 180 cm

with coloured pencil on paper, (94 V2 x 71 in)

97.2 x 72cm (38% x 28 % in)

National Portrait Gallery,

London

420
 Painting
Tomorrow

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Untitled, 2007. Synthetic

polymer paint on canvas

National Gallery of Australia,

Canberra
 Painting Today

hands of De Keyser, Francis or Siena, ‘I am thinking that innocence. The painting has great charm and wit:
| am thinking’. There is no doubt that abstraction notice the rhyme of the eggs with her breasts, of her
maintains energy and validity: even Mamma Andersson legs with the legs of the table.
talks of wanting to paint abstractly. The American Marilyn Minter works as both
One enormous challenge for painting in future photographer and painter. Her subject is the body,
years is how to deal with those many traditions that glamorous although presented in such a way as to be
have been ignored by the art world. For example, almost disgusting: blown up and with heightened
traditional Chinese painting has been shunned, and colours / 469 /. Using her fingers, she paints with
contemporary traditional Japanese painting (nihonga) is enamel paint on metal. The glitter attracts and repels.
denounced out of hand as kitsch and inauthentic. Given If we read it as skin, it looks like a wound; if we read it
the growing interest in art of the Middle East, will the as a light show, it is spectacular. Perhaps above all she
rest of the world come to appreciate the very vital makes us think about the nature of feminine beauty and
tradition of calligraphic Islamic painting? The work of artifice in our age, and about our relationship to the
the Iranian artist Mohammad Ehsai uses texts from the photograph: ‘| don’t feel guilty about it’, she says of her
Qur'an and relates to a whole tradition of calligraphy, use of photographs.
although it is also made with modernist materials and is
wholly aware of Western abstraction / 462 /. We in the | don’t make art if | don’t have the photographs. | even
West are a long way off being able to appreciate this, show them together with the paintings. For me the
but the sheer beauty of such work is an invitation to issue is how you get your effects. Are they transcendent
gain understanding. or more like an annual report? All you ever get from
The West is also poor at recognizing art from photographs are clues. You still have to make the space
outside its own boundaries unless it seems exotic — in three-dimensional. You need to create the illusion.
this respect Chinese artists have been very adroit about
playing on their Chineseness. Others consciously avoid The German artist Martin Eder's paintings seem
such ethnocentricity: the work of the Indonesian deliberately repellent too, although he uses elements
Jumaldi Alfi is a case in point / 467 /. It is made in that many would see as archetypes of beauty: a pin-up
Yogyakarta yet the issues and sophistication are akin to and a pussycat / 471 /. We are aware of beauty most
those of New York or London. He writes over his canvas when it seems to be either parodied or in perverse
in English, the international language of the art world. mode: here the artist uses stereotypes of beauty —
He talks of the depression that often affects him when those that easily slip into kitsch — as confrontation.
painting. The words, like the paint itself, are built up in At the beginning of this book we talked of there
layers, as if to create an equivalent to a meditative state being five underlying drives in painting: apart from
of mind. The space of the painting is like the space of placing oneself in tradition and the body, there was the
thought: perhaps the cactus could be an emblem of need for beauty, desire and spirituality. Part of the
growth and persistence, the oval stone on the right could deeper appeal of Australian Aboriginal painting is that
be emblematic of beauty and coherence. The unpainted it seems to show an inner sense of order, a way of
margins with their tags of masking tape play on the illuminating the apparently inchoate world. This is one
nature of representation, insisting that this is a picture. definition of beauty: a demonstration of harmony.
The body, the figure and person will Because these images come from the Dreamtime and
undoubtedly remain the stuff of much Western and from a victimized minority, we are wary of treating them
Eastern painting: after all, the key to painting is hand- with the ironic doubt with which we sometimes greet
eye-brain co-ordination, the unity of thinking and other images of countryside or pastoral. They tell us of
feeling. Marlene Dumas continues her exploration of a sense of belonging in a world and a non-ironic sense
the body and sexuality by way of an essentially abstract of wonder that we too long for. The paintings of Doreen
style of painting in her Unkept / 466 /. The body here is Reid Nakamarra, with their delicate undulating rhythms,
wild, messy, shocking. Stuart Pearson Wright in his show that, although much Aboriginal painting has been
portrait of J.K. Rowling / 470 / does something very mass-produced for the tourist trade, the best artists still
different: despite being apparently more traditional, this make works of great beauty / 472 /.
473. Cynthia Westwood work is playfully mysterious. It is about the individual in Gerhard Richter remarks that '”Beauty” has
Samara #2, 2007. Oil on linen, space and history, about the individual and the act of become a downgraded word, but that shouldn't be the
137.2 «x 91.4 cm (54 x 36 in) artistic creation. He presents the author at the table case, because we would all like to be healthy, perfect,
where she wrote the first Harry Potter book. The magic fulfilled — the opposite of war, crime and sickness. | see
474. Julian Schnabel of the book is here implied by the trompe-lceil beauty in all the works of art we cherish.’ Gary Hume
Untitled (Chinese Painting) 3, construction: writer, table, heater and plant are all free- says likewise:
2008. Spray-paint, ink, resin standing in a shallow box, the window separately lit.
and oil on polyester, The simplicity of the room and her dress reflects her Beauty is a very exciting journey, and it is the mortality
228.6 x 203.2 cm (90 x 80 in) poverty when she wrote and also suggests some sort of which is moving. Beauty contains death rather than the

422
Painting Tomorrow

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475. Bharti Kher

Right in the Middle of it All,

2008. Bindis on painted

board, 244 x 183 cm

476. Elizabeth Magill

Northern Carmine, 2007.

Oil on canvas,

153 x 183 cm (60% x 72 in)

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 Painting Tomorrow

possibility of it. So | like the inevitability of death the Orientalism, of the nostalgia, although we are won We view the visually delectable paintings
there is in beauty: in the end that’s it, and that’s all | am over by the play of gesture against the calmness of the by Bharti Kher differently once we realize they
looking for. / 468 / woman's face. are covered with bindis, those marks worn on the
The American painter Cynthia Westwood was a forehead by Indian women as a sign of marital
Beauty seems to be at the heart of what Julian dancer and sees her models as such. She talks of letting devotion but which in recent years have become
Schnabel seeks in a series of recent paintings based their bodies have their own aesthetic weight, of loving very much a fashion adjunct, available as vinyl stick-
on the image of a woman from an old Chinese mirror the confidence and dignity that they have / 473 /. ons in many different colours / 475 /. They are
/ 474 /. However bombastic some people may find These are paintings about the dynamics of the body, also a sign for the third eye of wisdom. As with much

him, Schnabel is also capable of passages of painting posed and poised, more beautiful than erotic. The Indian art, a delight in the visual/material world is

that are lyrical and tender, where a memory is haunting purely aesthetic quality of the work, and its intimacy, is entangled with serious concerns about the nature

— at once fragile and persistent. We may be wary of enhanced by the paintings being slightly over life-size. of contemporary society.

425
 Painting Today

The Irish artist Elizabeth Magill’s Northern tossed on the stormy seas beneath a louring sky, is At the very start of this book we asked whether
Carmine is beautiful and filled with yearning / 476 /. called up and made, if not ridiculous, rather odd. The painting is obsolete: whether, as Benjamin Buchloh
Space, especially landscape, has become the site where painting — witness the trompe-l’oeil slashes — is always claims, the only thing a painter can do is mourn the
desire is most manifest —whether it be for lost a construction. death of painting. We quoted Robert Storr’s judgement
innocence or for a reintegration with this material world, Landscape painting has also always been about that ‘Painting is in a muddle’, but one man’s muddle is
a respite from our sense of lack or incompleteness. This light, and that is true of the Filipina artist Nona Garcia's another woman's creative chaos. ‘Despite the presence
painting, like much landscape-oriented painting we Bulacan / 478 /. As with many paintings where light of an opinion for most of my working life that painting
have seen, is romantic but not blindly so. Again the is the central feature, it is, it seems, a bringer of beauty. had run its course, | don’t think | could have chosen a
attention to the surface detail, to the abstracted details Yet this light effect, entering this run-down internal better time to paint’, wrote Nilima Sheikh in 2004. ‘The
and textures, constantly foils us: much as we would like space, is clearly derived from a photograph. Today, privilege of painting now is not only in the number of
to, we cannot wholly believe in this place. Painting photo-derived painting has become a tradition in its choices but in not having to choose to exclude.’
is also the place where we can criticize all our own right: so when we see a painting such as this, Flat but lumpy, wet going solid: painting is full
preconceptions of landscape, as the British painter Ged we understand it and assess it in terms of all the other of paradoxes. We must consider all the varieties of
Quinn does in his highly baroque The Inventor of False photo-derived paintings we have seen in the last forty painting experience. Paintings can inform us, amuse us,
Memory / 477/. All the imagery of the sublime, the ship years. Painting coexists with other media. make us ponder, challenge us or invite us in for a more

426
 Painting Tomorrow

phenomenological or religious experience. We can has never gone away, but like a virus exposed to
glance and smile and pass on, or we can stop and enter an antibiotic, it has mutated, imprinting its genetic code
the green room. on an entirely new generation of descendants.’
What is the role of painting today in art ‘| think that painting is a permanent part of
generally? Chrissie Illes, a curator at the Whitney art, just like drawing is, because we have the kinds of
478. Nona Garcia
Museum, New York, remarks: ‘Painting has come to
hands we have’, the photographer Jeff Wall
represent a crucial irritant within that now vastly over-
says unequivocally.
determined collective identity, reasserting the personal
in the face of conceptual and abstract language that
We're always going to have drawing, and by
has been co-opted by the commercial advertising and
extrapolation, painting. It's aconsequence of what we
design world.’ She construes recent portraits by Peyton
and Hockney as both affirming and subversive. The are as organisms. ... I’m very involved with painting,

critic Douglas Fogle uses similar language: ‘it has always have been and always will be, not particularly
become clear once again that reports of the medium’s because | want to paint, but because it is the most
death have been greatly exaggerated. In fact painting sophisticated, ancient practice.

427
Painting Today

428
 Painting Tomorrow

479. Neo Rauch As we have seen, the strength of painting is in its ability of Islamic patterning and calligraphy, although as a
Rosy Dawn (Morgenrot), 2006. simultaneously to occupy past and present. ‘My work’, painting it works by means known to all sophisticated
Oil on canvas, 280 x 210 cm comments Daniel Richter, an artist who began by making cultures: visual chanting, contrasts of dark and light,
(110 x 82 in) posters for punk bands and who scans and scavenges the subtle rhythmic nuance. Mandala, nimbus and calligraphic
media, ‘reflects the flicker of the monitor, the hastiness whirlpool are all much the same thing: mysticism
480. Peter Doig of images, the changing tempo, the density of information in all cultures tends to be similar. An appreciation of both
Inn on the Muldentalsperre and its specific colourfulness. But painting should also beauty and the numinous — that sense of the divine
(Gasthof zur Muldentalsperre), refer to its own history and possibilities.’ Peter Doig has immanent in our world — crosses cultural boundaries.
2000. Oil on paper, greater ambitions: ‘Every painter has the possibility to Painting creates a world where we live with others and
196 x 296 cm (72% x 116% in)
be a shaman. ... That's really the power of painting: communicate with them, and it is essential in this troubled
someone getting across their own world and if it’s done global society that we learn to do so. The play of cultures
well it's truly exciting — shaman-like.’ has informed much of the best art of the last century, from
In an age when organized religion is no longer Picasso and James Joyce onwards. We need to see the
central, painting is an important medium for thinking multitude of cultures in the world as richness, not chaos.
about our yearning for spiritual experience, our desire Neo Rauch's Rosy Dawn may look typically
for some deeper meaning. After all, this is the medium carnivalesque, but it is a work about the numinous too,
with a long history of embodiment, the medium where about the presence of angels / 479 /. In one of the most
light often has sacred associations. beautiful of his early photographic paintings Ema, Nude
Shirazeh Houshiary’sFine Frenzy/ 482/ may refer on the Staircase / 481 /, Gerhard Richter may have been
to Rumi,the Persian poet, and may depend ona tradition echoing Duchamp’s Nude Descending the Staircase

429
Painting Today

481. Gerhard Richter

Ema, Nude on the Staircase,

1966. Oil on canvas,

200 x 130 cm (78% x 51 in)

482. Shirazeh Houshiary

Fine Frenzy, 2004. Black and
white aquacryl, white pencil
and ink on canvas,
188 x 183 cm (74% x 72% in)

430
 Painting Tomorrow

=e ee
 Painting Today

483. Anselm Kiefer

Falling Stars (Sternenfall), 1995.

Oil on canvas, 230 x 170 cm

(90 Y2 x 67 in). Private collection

and ‘copying’ a photograph of his wife, but it remains surface, with its flows and stains, is beautiful. Doig
nevertheless an image of light and grace entering our shows the road leading to a dam, but it seems more as
world. Doig’s Inn on the Muldentalsperre seems equally though the road leads to the night sky.
strange: who are these two figures? / 480 / People from Gross and material though painting is, perhaps
a dream or attendants in fancy dress? Why are the we can believe that it can sometimes lead us to our
stones of the dam multicoloured? The fantastic and the natural home, lying on the earth, looking up at the stars in
banal blend and become believable. The world glows. the immeasurable space of the heavens, knowing where
The painting has its own logic and, as always, the we are, content in what we are, but in rapture / 483 /.

432
Artists’
Biographies
Chronology

Select Bibliography
.

Index
 Painting Today

Tomma Abts. Born 1967, Kiel, West Germany. Hernan Bas. Born 1978, Miami, Florida, USA. Vija Celmins. Born 1938, Riga, Latvia. Lives Réné Daniéls. Born 1950, Eindhoven,
Lives London, UK. Lives Miami, Florida, USA. Long Island, New York, USA. The Netherlands. Lives Eindhoven,
The Netherlands.
Franz Ackermann. Born 1963, Neumarkt Georg Baselitz. Born 1938, Deutschbaselitz,
St Veit, West Germany. Lives Berlin, Germany. Germany. Lives Derneberg, Saxony, Germany.

Craigie Aitchison. Born 1926, Kincardine-on- Jean-Michel Basquiat. 1960-1988. Born

Forth, UK. Lives London, UK and Italy. Brooklyn, New York, USA. Lived New York, USA.

Jumaldi Alfi. Born 1973, Lintau, West Sumatra, Tilo Baumgartel. Born 1972, Dresden,
Indonesia. Lives Yogyakarta, Java, Indonesia. East Germany. Lives Leipzig, Germany.

Francis Alys. Born 1959, Antwerp, Belgium. Gordon Bennett. Born 1955, Monto,

Lives Mexico City, Mexico. Queensland, Australia. Lives Brisbane, Australia.

Ghada Amer. Born 1963, Cairo, Egypt. Michael Biberstein. Born 1948, Solothurn,

Lives New York, USA. Switzerland. Lived 1964—78 USA, since in

Portugal. Réné Daniéls

Mamma Andersson. Born 1962, Lulea,

Sweden. Lives Stockholm, Sweden. Norbert Bisky. Born 1970, Leipzig, East Alan Charlton. Born 1948, Sheffield, UK. Lives
Germany. Lives Berlin, Germany. London, UK. Henry Darger. 1892-1973. Born Chicago,
Michael Andrews. 1928-1995. Born Norwich, USA. Lived Chicago, USA.
UK. Lived London and Norfolk, UK. Elizabeth Blackadder. Born 1931, Falkirk, UK. Manu Chitrakar. Born 1979, Naya, West
Lives Edinburgh, UK. Bengal, India. Lives Naya, West Bengal, India. lan Davenport. Born 1966, Sidcup, UK. Lives
Ida Applebroog. Born 1929, New York, USA. London, UK.
Lives New York, USA. Ross Bleckner. Born 1949, New York, USA. Francesco Clemente. Born 1952, Naples, Italy.
Lives New York, USA. Lives Naples, Italy,Chennai, India, and New
Richard Artschwager. Born 1923, Washington York,USA.
DC, USA. Lives Hudson, New York, USA. Michaél Borremans. Born 1963,
Geraardsbergen, Belgium. Lives Ghent, Chuck Close. Born 1940, Monroe, Washington,
Frank Auerbach. Born 1931, Berlin, Germany. Belgium. USA. Lives Bridgehampton, New York, USA.
Lives London, UK.

Fernando Botero. Born 1932, Medellin, Alejandro Colunga. Born 1948, Guadalajara,
Francis Bacon. 1909-1992. Born Dublin, Colombia. Lives Paris, France and New York, Mexico. Lives Guadalajara, Mexico.
Ireland. Lived Dublin, Ireland, and London, UK. USA.

Nigel Cooke. Born 1973, Manchester, UK.

Mark Bradford. Born 1961, Los Angeles, Lives London, UK.
California, USA. Lives Los Angeles.
Michael Craig-Martin. Born 1941, Dublin,
Dirk Braeckman. Born 1958, Eeklo, Belgium. Ireland. Lives London, UK. JanDavenport
Lives Ghent, Belgium.
Angela de la Cruz. Born 1965, La Coruna,
Jason Brooks. Born 1968, Rotherham, UK. Spain. Lives London, UK. Verne Dawson. Born 1961, Meridenville,
Lives London, UK. Alabama, USA. Lives New York, USA.
Enzo Cucchi. Born 1949, Morro d’Alba,
Cecily Brown. Born 1969, London, UK. Since Ancona, Italy. Lives Rome and Ancona, Italy. Daniel Dezeuze. Born 1942, Alés, France.
1994, lives New York, USA. Lives Séte, France.
John Currin. Born 1962, Boulder, Colorado, |
Glenn Brown. Born 1966, Hexham, USA. Lives New York, USA. Ding Yi. Born 1962, Shanghai, China.
Hernan Bas
Northumberland, UK. Lives London, UK. Lives Shanghai, China.
Amy Cutler. Born 1974, Poughkeepsie,
Daniel Buren. Born 1938, Boulogne- New York, USA. Lives New York, USA. Atul Dodiya. Born 1959, Bombay, India.
Miquel Barcelé. Born 1957, Felanitx, Mallorca, Billancourt, France. Lives Paris, France. Lives Mumbai (Bombay), India.
Spain. Lives Paris, France and Mallorca, Spain.
Ingrid Calame. Born 1985, Bronx, New York,
USA. Lives Los Angeles, California, USA.
 Artists’ Biographies

Peter Doig. Born 1959, Edinburgh, UK. Tim Eitel. Born 1971, Leonberg, West Leon Golub. 1922-2004. Born Chicago, Illinois, Damien Hirst. Born 1965, Bristol, UK.
Lived 1960-6 in Trinidad, 1966-79 in Canada, Germany. Lives Berlin, Germany and New York, USA. Lived 1959-64 Europe, 1964-2004 New Lives Devon, UK.
1979-2002 in London, UK, and since USA. York, USA.
in Trinidad.
David Hockney. Born 1937, Bradford, UK
Stephen Ellis. Born 1951, High Point, North Since 1964 lives Los Angeles, California, USA
Carolina, USA. Lives New York, USA. _LeonGolub
Peter Doig
Richard Estes. Born 1932, Kewanee, Illinois,

USA. Lives New York, USA.

Fang Lijun. Born 1963, Handan, Hebei

Province, China. Lives Beijing, China.

Helmut Federle. Born 1944, Solothurn,

Switzerland. Lives Vienna, Austria and

Diisseldorf, Germany.

Rainer Fetting. Born 1949, Wilhemshaven,

West Germany. Lives Berlin, Germany and
New York, USA.

April Gornik. Born 1953, Cleveland, Ohio,

Lydia Dona. Born 1955, Bucharest, Romania. Eric Fischl. Born 1948, New York, USA. Lives USA. Lives New York, USA.
Lives New York, USA. New York and Sag Harbor, New York, USA. Howard Hodgkin. Born 1932, London, UK

Katharina Grosse. Born 1961, Freiburg im Lives London, UK.

Marlene Dumas. Born 1953, Capetown, Caio Fonseca. Born 1959, New York, USA. Breisgau, Germany. Lives Berlin, Germany.
South Africa. Lives Amsterdam, 1978-83 in Barcelona, Spain, 1985-9 in Louise Hopkins. Born 1965, Hertfordshire, UK
The Netherlands. Pietrasanta, Italy, 1989-91 in Paris, France, and Mark Grotjahn. Born 1968, Pasadena, Lives Glasgow, UK.
since New York, USA, and Pietresanta, Italy. California, USA. Lives Los Angeles, California,
USA. Shirazeh Houshiary. Born 1955, Shiraz, lran
Mark Francis. Born 1962, Newtowark, Since 1974 lives London, UK.

Northern Ireland, UK. Lives London, UK. Sudodh Gupta. Born 1964, Khagual, Bihar,
India. Lives New Delhi, India. Gary Hume. Born 1962, Kent, UK. Lives

Lucian Freud. Born 1922, Berlin, Germany. London, UK and Accord, New York, USA.

Since 1933, lives London, UK. Philip Guston. 1913-1980. Born Montreal,

Canada. Lives New York, USA. M. F. Husain. Born 1915, Pandharpur,

Bernard Frize. Born 1949, Saint-Mandé, Maharashtra, India. Lives Dubai, UAE, and
France. Lives Paris, France, and Berlin, Ha Chong-Hyun. Born 1935, Kyeong-Nam, London, UK.
Germany. Korea. Lives Seoul, South Korea.

Jasper Johns. Born 1930, Augusta, Georgia,

Barnaby Furnas. Born 1973, Philadelphia, Peter Halley. Born 1953, New York, USA. USA. Lives Sharon, Connecticut, USA and
Pennsylvania, USA. Lives New York, USA. Lives New York, USA. St Martin, the Carribean.

Julio Galan. 1959-2006. Born Muzquiz, Alexis Harding. Born 1973, London, UK. Johannes Kahrs. Born 1965, Bremen, West

Coahuila, Mexico, Lived Monterrey, Mexico, Lives London, UK. Germany. Lives Berlin, Germany
Carrol Dunham. Born 1949, New Haven, and after 1984, New York, USA,

Connecticut, USA. Lives New York, USA. Eberhard Havekost. Born 1967, Dresden, Jitish Kallat. Born 1974, Bombay, India
Maureen Gallace. Born 1960, Stamford, East Germany. Lives Berlin and Dresden, Lives Mumbai (Bombay), India.
Cecilia Edefalk. Born 1954, Norrk6ping, Connecticut, USA. Lives New York, USA. Germany.
Sweden. Lives Stockholm, Sweden. Emily Kame Kngwarreye. 1910-1996
Ellen Gallagher. Born 1965, Providence, Rhode Mary Heilmann. Born 1940, San Francisco, Anmatyerre person. Born and lived Alhalkerre,
Martin Eder. Born 1968, Augsburg, Island, USA. Lives New York, USA. California, USA. Lives Long Island, New York, Central Desert, Australia.

West Germany. Lives Berlin, Germany. USA.

Nona Garcia. Born 1978, The Philippines.

Mohammad Ehsai. Born 1939, Qazvin, Iran. LivesThe Philippines. Anton Henning. Born 1964, West Berlin, West
Lives Tehran, Iran. Germany. Lives Berlin and Manker, Germany.
Geng Jianyi. Born 1962, Zhengzhou, Henan
Province, China. Lives Hangzhou, China.
 Painting Today

Y. Z. Kami. Born 1956, Tehran, lran, Jeff Koons. Born 1955, York, Pennsylvania, Jane Lee. Born 1963, Singapore.
Lives New York, USA USA. Lives New York, USA. Lives Singapore.

Udomsak Krisanamis. Born 1966, Bangkok, Lee Ufan. Born 1936, Kyongansnamdo,
Thailand. Lives Bangkok, Thailand. South Korea. Lives Kamakura, Japan and
Paris, France.

Shigeko Kubota. Born 1937, Niigata, Japan.

Lives New York, USA. Sol LeWitt. 1928-2007. Born Chester,
Connecticut, USA. Lived New York, USA.
Guillermo Kuitca. Born 1961, Buenos Aires,

Argentina. Lives Buenos Aires, Argentina. Li Shan. Born 1942, Lanxi, Heilongjiang
Province, China. Lives Shanghai, China.
Yayoi Kusama. Born 1929, Matsumoto,
Nagano Prefecture, Japan. Lived 1956 -73 Roy Lichtenstein. 1923-97. Born and lived

New York, USA, since 1973 lives Tokyo, Japan. New York, USA.
Bharti Kher. Born 1969, London, UK.
Y, Z. Kami Lives New Delhi, India. Liu Kuo-Sung. Born 1932, Bangbu, Anhui
Province, China. Moved to Taiwan 1949.
Anselm Kiefer. Born 1945, Donaueschingen, Lives Taiwan.

Alex Katz. Born 1927, Brooklyn, New York, Germany. Lives Barjac, France.
USA, Lives New York, USA, Liu Wei. Born 1965, Beijing, China.
Karen Kiliminick. Born 1955, Philadelphia, Lives Beijing, China.
Pennsylvania, USA, Lives Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, USA. Liu Wenxi. Born 1933, Shengxian, Zheijiang
Province, China. Lives Yan’an, China.

Martin Kippenberger. 1953-1997. Born

Dortmund, West Germany. Lived Hamburg, Rosa Loy. Born 1958, Zwickau, East Germany.
Germany, and many other places. Lives Leipzig, Germany.

Per Kirkeby. Born 1938, Copenhagen, Yayoi Kusama . Colin McCahon. 1919-1987. Born Timaru,
x

Denmark. LivesCopenhagen and New Zealand. Lived Auckland, New Zealand.

Arnasco, Denmark.

Jonathan Lasker. Born 1948, Jersey City, Leonard McComb. Born 1938, Glasgow, UK.
R. B. Kitaj. 1932-2007. Born Chagrin Falls, New Jersey, USA. Lives New York, USA. Lives London, UK.
Cleveland, Ohio, USA. Lived London, UK, and
Los Angeles, California, USA. Maria Lassnig. Born 1919, Carinthia, Austria. lan McKeever. Born 1948, Hull, UK. Lives
Lives Vienna, Austria. Dorset, UK.
Yves Klein. 1928-1962. Born Nice, France.

Ellsworth Kelly. Born 1923, Newburgh, Lived Paris, France, Lucy McKenzie. Born 1977, Glasgow, UK.
New York, USA, Lives Upstate New York, USA. Lives Glasgow, UK.
Thoralf Knobloch. Born 1962, Bautzen,

Raoul de Keyser. Born 1930, Deisse, Belgium. East Germany. Lives Dresden. Elizabeth Magill. Born 1959, Canada. Raised
Lives Deisse, Belgium Cushendall, County Antrim, Northern Ireland.
Martin Kobe. Born 1973, Dresden, Since 1982 lives London, UK.
Bhupen Khakkar (also spelt Khakhar). East Germany. Lives Leipzig, Germany.
1934-2003, Born Bombay, India. Tim Maguire. Born 1958, Chertsey, UK. Lived
Lived Baroda, India, Komar and Melamid. Vitaly Komar born 1959-92 Australia. Since 1992 lives London,
1943, Moscow, Russia; Alex Melamid born 1943, UK, and France.
Moscow, Russia, Since 1978 live New York, USA

(ceased working as a duo in 2003). Nalini Malani. Born 1946, Karachi, India.
er" Lives Mumbai and Pune, Maharashtra, India.
Willem de Kooning. 1904-1997. Born "Wiaria Lassnig”

Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Lived

New York City, and East Hampton, Long Island,

New York, USA, Christopher Le Brun. Born 1951, Portsmouth,
UK. Lives London, UK.

436
 Artists’ Biographies

Fabian Marcaccio. Born 1963, Rosario, Michael Jagamara (or Tjakamarra) Nelson. Sigmar Polke. Born 1941, Oelsnitz, Germany
Santa Fe, Argentina. Lives New York, USA, Warlpiri person. Born c.1949, Pikilyi, Since 1953 lives Cologne, Germany.
Central Australia. Lives Papunya, Central
Brice Marden. Born 1938, Bronxville, Australia. Jackson Pollock. 1912-1956. Born Cody,
New York, USA. Lives New York, USA, and Wyoming, USA. Lived California and New York,
Hydra, Greece. Barnett Newman. 1905-1970. Born and lived USA. D
New York, USA.

Joseph Marioni. Born 1943, Cincinnati, Ohio, Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri. c.1923-—2002
USA. Lives New York, USA. Kenneth Noland. Born 1924, Asheville, Anmatyerre person. Born Napperby, Central
North Carolina, USA. Lives North Shaftsbury, Desert, Australia. Lived Central Australia

Kerry James Marshall. Born 1955, Vermont, USA.

Birmingham, Alabama, USA. Lives Chicago, Monique Prieto. Born 1962, Los Angeles,
USA. Thomas Nozkowski. Born 1944, Teaneck, California, USA. Lives Los Angeles, USA

New Jersey, USA. Lives New York City, and

Agnes Martin. 1912-2004. Born Macklin, High Falls, New York, USA. Richard Prince. Born 1949, Panama

Robert Mangold. Born 1937, North Saskatchewan, Canada. Lived New York, USA, Lives New York, USA.

Tonawanda, New York, USA. and Tao, New Mexico, USA. Albert Oehlen. Born 1954, Krefeld, West

Lives Washingtonville, New York, USA. Germany. Lives Cologne, Germany.

| Nyoman Masriadi. Born 1973, Gianyar, Bali,
Indonesia. Lives Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Chris Ofili. Born1968, Manchester, UK.

Robert Mangold Lives Trinidad.

Wolfgang Mattheuer. 1927-2004.

Born Reichenbach im Vogtland, Germany. Jules Olitski. 1922-2007. Born Snovsk, USSR.

Lived Leipzig, Germany. Lived 1923-48 USA, 1948-51 Paris, since lives

New York, USA.

Jonathan Meese. Born 1970, Tokyo, Japan.

Lives Hamburg and Berlin, Germany. Paulina Olowska. Born 1976, Gdansk, Poland.

Lives Warsaw, Poland.

Julie Mehretu. Born 1970, Addis Ababa,

Ethiopia. Raised East Lansing, Michigan, USA. Laura Owens. Born 1970, Euclid, Ohio, USA.

Lives New York, USA. Lives Los Angeles, California, USA.

Beatriz Milhazes. Born 1966, Rio de Janeiro, Blinky Palermo. 1943-1977. Born Leipzig,
Brazil. Lives Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. East Germany. Lived Diisseldorf, West Germany Ged Quinn. Born 1963, Liverpool, UK

and New York, USA. Lives Bristol, UK.

Ha Manh Thang. Born 1980, Thai Nguyen, Marilyn Minter. Born 1948, Shreveport,
Vietnam. Lives Hanoi, Vietnam. Louisiana, USA. Lives New York, USA. Giulio Paolini. Born 1940, Genoa, Italy. Tal R. Born 1967, Israel. Lives Copenhagen,

Lives Milan, Italy. Denmark.

Sarah Morris. Born 1967, UK. Lives London,

UK, and New York, USA. Richard Patterson. Born 1963, Leatherhead, Fiona Rae. Born 1963, Hong Kong, Since 1970
UK. Lives Dallas, Texas, USA. lives London, UK.

Farhad Moshiri. Born 1963, Shiraz, Iran. Lived

1984-91 California, USA. Lives Tehran, Iran. Philip Pearlstein. Born 1924, Pittsburgh, Mel Ramsden. Born 1944, Nottingham,

Pennsylvania, USA. Lives New York, USA. UK. Moved to Australia 1963. Lives

Catherine Murphy. Born 1946, Cambridge, Nottingham, UK.

Massachusetts, USA. Lives Poughkeepsie, Stuart Pearson Wright. Born 1975,

New York,USA. Northampton, UK. Lives London, UK. Neo Rauch. Born 1960, Leipzig, East Germany.
Lives Leipzig, Germany.

Yoshitomo Nara. Born 1959, Hirosaki, Japan. Elizabeth Peyton. Born 1965, Danbury,
Lives Cologne, Germany, and Tokyo, Japan. Connecticut, USA, Lives New York, USA. David Reed. Born 1946, San Diego, California,

USA. Lives New York, USA.

Alice Neel. 1900-1984, Born Merion Square, Pablo Picasso. 1881-1973. Born Malaga,
Pennsylvania, USA. Lived New York, USA. Spain. Lived Barcelona, Spain, and Paris,
Rudi Mantofani. Born 1973, Padang, France.

Western Sumatra, Indonesia. LivesYogyakarta,

Java, Indonesia. Lari Pittman. Born 1952, Los Angeles,

UU
rc California, USA. Lives Los Angeles, USA.

437
 Painting Today

Paula Rego. Born 1935, Lisbon, Portugal. Matthew Ritchie. Born 1964, London, UK. Sean Scully. Born 1945, Dublin, Ireland,
ves London, UK Lives New York, USA. Lives New York,USA, Barcelona, Spain, and
Munich, Germany.
Alexis Rockman. Born 1962, New York, USA.
Lives New York, USA, George Shaw. Born 1966, Coventry, UK,
Lives Devon, UK,
Mark Rothko. 1903-1970, Born Dvinsk,

Russia. Lived New York, USA, Raqib Shaw. Born 1974, Calcutta, India.

Lives London, UK.

Royal Art Lodge. First formed 1996, Winnipeg,
Canada. Current members are Marcel Dzama, Nilima Sheikh. Born 1945, New Delhi, India.
Neil Farber and Michel Dumontier. Lives Baroda, Gujarat, India.
T.V. Santhosh

Christoph Ruckhadberle. Born 1972, Jose Maria Sicilia. Born 1954, Madrid, Spain.
Pfaffenhofen, West Germany. Lives Leipzig, Lives Mallorca, Spain, and Paris, France.
Germany. Julido Sarmento. Born 1948, Lisbon, Portugal.
Lives Estoril, Portugal. James Siena. Born 1957, California, USA.
Ed Ruscha. Born 1937, Omaha, Nebraska, Lives New York and West Massachusetts, USA.
USA. Lives Los Angeles, USA. William Sasnal. Born 1972, Tarnow, Poland.

Doreen Reid Nakamarra. Pintupi/Ngaatjatjarra Lives Krakow, Polanel. Shazia Sikander. Born 1969, Lahore, Punjab,
»n. €.1950-2009, Warburton Ranges, Pakistan. Lives New York, USA,
Western Australia. Lives Papunya, Australia Jenny Saville. Born 1970, Cambridge, UK.
Lives Sicily,Italy, Dirk Skreber. Born 1961, Liibeck, West
Carol Rhodes. Born 1959, Edinburgh, UK. Germany, Lives New York, USA,
Lives Glasgow, UK Thomas Scheibitz. Born 1967, Radeberg,
East Germany. Lives Berlin, Gerrnany. Nedko Solakov. Born 1957, Cherven Briag,
Daniel Richter. Born 1962, Eutin, West
Bulgaria, Lives Sofia, Bulgaria.
Germany. Lives Hamburg and Berlin, Germany Julian Schnabel. Born 1951, Brooklyn,
New York, USA, Lives New York, USA, and Frank Stella. Born 1936, Malden,
Gerhard Richter. Born 1932, Dresden, San Sebastian, Spain, Massachusetts, USA, Lives New York, USA.
Germany. Moved to West Germany 1961. Lives
Cologne, Germany. Rudolf Stingel. Born 1956, Merano, Italy.
Julian Schnabel” Lives New York,USA,

Lily van der Stokker. Born 1954, Den Bosch,

The Netherlands. Lives Amsterdam,
Robert Ryman. Born 1930, Nashville, The Netherlands, and New York, USA.
Tennessee, USA. Lives New York, USA,

Thomas Struth. Born 1954, Geldern, West

David Salle. Born 1952, Norman, Oklahoma, Germany, Lives Dusseldorf, Germany.
USA. Lives New York, USA,

Dan Sturgis. Born 1966, London, UK.

Chéri Samba. Born 1956, Kinto M’Vuila, Lives London, UK,
Democratic Republic of Congo. Lives Kinshasa,
Democratic Republic of Congo, and Paris, Elaine Sturtevant. Born 1930, Lakewood,
France. Ohio, USA, Lives New York, USA.

Tomas Sanchez. Born Aguada de Pagojeros, David Schnell. Born 1971, Bergisch Gladbach,
Cuba. Lives Miami, USA, and Republic of West Germany. Lives Leipzig, Germany.
Bridget Riley. Born 1931, London, UK. Costa Rica,

Lives London and Cornwall, UK, and Italy. Dana Schutz. Born 1976, Livonia, New York,
T. V. Santhosh. Born 1968, Kerala, India. USA. Lives New York, USA,
Lives Mumbai, India.

438
 Artists’ Biographies

K. G. Subramanyan. Born 1924, Dan Walsh. Born 1960, Philadelphia, Yan Pei-Ming
Koothuparambu, Kerala, India. Lives Pennsylvania, USA. Lives New York, USA.
Shantiniketan, West Bengal, India.
Wang Guangyi. Born 1957, Harbin, Heilonjiang
Province, China. Lives Beijing, China.

Andy Warhol. 1928-1987. Born Pittsburgh,

Pennsylvania, USA. Lived New York, USA.

Fred Tomaselli. Born 1958, Santa Monica, Yue Minjun. Born 1962, Heilongjiang Province,
California, USA. Lives Brooklyn, New York, USA. China. Lives Beijing, China

Werner Tiibke. 1929-2004. Born Schénebeck, Zeng Fanzhi. Born 1964, Wuhan, China

Germany. Lived Leipzig, Germany. Lives Beijing, China

Agus Suwage. Born 1959, Purworejo, Central
Java, Indonesia. Lives Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Luc Tuymans. Born 1958, Mortsel, Belgium. Zhang Xiaogang. Born 1958, Kunming,
Lives Antwerp, Belgium. Yunnan Province, ' China. Lives Beijing,
JING China

Philip Taaffe. Born 1955, Elizabeth, New

Jersey, USA. Lives New York, USA.
‘LueTuymans Alison Watt. Born 1965, Greenock, UK.

Leon Tarasewicz. Born 1957, Stacja Wality, Lives Edinburgh, UK.

Poland. Lives Stacja Wality, Poland.

Matthias Weischer. Born 1973, Rheine,

Rover Thomas. 1926-1998. Kutaja/ Germany. Lives Leipzig, Germany.

Wangkajunga person. Born and lived Kimberly
region, Western Desert, Australia. John Wesley. Born 1928, Los Angeles,
California, USA. Lives New York, USA.
Estelle Thompson. Born 1960, West Bromwich,

UK. Lives London, UK. Cynthia Westwood. Born 1969, Texas, USA,
Lives Northampton, UK.
Imants Tillers. Born 1950, Sydney, Australia.
Lives New South Wales, Australia. Sue Williams. Born 1954, Chicago Heights,
Illinois, USA. Lives Brooklyn, New York, USA.
Uta Uta Tjangala. c.1926-—1990. Pintupi
person. Born and lived Western Desert, Cy Twombly. Born 1928, Lexington, Kentucky, Terry Winters. Born 1949, Brooklyn, New York,
Australia. USA. Lives Rome, Italy. USA. Lives New York, USA.

Francisco Toledo. Born 1940, Juchitan, Adriana Varejao. Born 1964, Rio de Janeiro, Lisa Yuskavage. Born 1962, Philadelphia,
Oaxaca, Mexico. Lives Oaxaca, Mexico. Brazil. Lives Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Pennsylvania, USA. Lives New York, USA.

Jack Vettriano. Born 1951, Fife, UK. Lives Fife Yan Pei-Ming. Born 1960, Shanghai, China.
and London, UK, and Nice, France. Lives Dijon, France.

John Walker. Born 1939, Birmingham, UK.

Lives Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

Jeff Wall. Born 1946, Vancouver, Canada.

Lives Vancouver, Canada.

439
 Painting Today

1968 New York) sets record prices for many artists Fall of Shah of Iran: Ayatollah Khomeini returns 1984

inc. Johns, Twombly and Warhol to Iran with Islamic revolution

End of first phase of Cultural Revolution: Soviet troops enter Afghanistan (December 25) Indira Gandhi assassinated

Red Guards sent to countryside to learn 1974 Formation of Star Group: beginning of Chinese First Turner Prize at Tate Gallery won

from peasants Contemporary Art by Malcolm Morley

Tet offensive by Viet Cong fails, but shows Gerald Ford becomes president of the USA Velazquez’s Juan de Pareja sold for $5,500,000 ‘Primitivism in Twentieth-Century Art’ exhibition
weakness of US power in Vietnam following resignation of Richard Nixon (world record) at Museum of Modern Art, New York
May Riots in Paris Turkey invades Cyprus MarkusLupertzat WhitechapelGallery ‘Von Hier Aus’ exhibition in Diisseldorf,
Soviet Union invades Czechoslavakia Carnation Revolution ends dictatorship (symptomatic
ofinterestinGermanpainting surveying German Art
Assassination of Martin Luther King in Portugal beyondGermany)
Andy Warhol shot by Valerie Solanas Kirchner retrospective at Berlin (symptomatic of 1985

Hornsey art school occupied by students 1975 renewal of interest in expressionist painting)
Bridget Riley wins prize at Venice Biennale Bonito Oliva invents term ‘transavantgarde’ for Hole discovered in Ozone Layer
Death of Franco: return of monarchy and Clemente, Cucchi etc. Mikhail Gorbachev becomes First Secretary
1969 democracy in Spain Cy Twombly retrospective at Whitney Museum of USSR

Fall of Saigon — end of Vietnam war of American Art, New York, USA (catalogue text Charles Saatchi starts to exhibit his art
Richard Nixon elected as president of the USA Cambodia falls to Khmer Rouge by Roland Barthes) collection in a large converted paint factory
Stonewall riots: Gay Liberation Movement ‘Fundamental Painting’ exhibition at Stedelijk in London
begins in New York, USA Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands 1980 Howard Hodgkin wins the Turner Prize
Details released of My Lai massacre in 1968
Schengen Agreement ends border control
Woodstock music festival 1976 Ronald Reagan becomes president of the USA in much of Europe
‘When Attitudes Becomes Form’ (Bern/London) War in Afghanistan: 65 countries boycott Election of reformer Mikhail Gorbachev as
key exhibition announcing Conceptual Art Jimmy Carter becomes president of the USA Olympics in Moscow Secretary General of Soviet Communist Party
Death of Mao Zedong Death of Philip Guston
1970 North and South Vietnam united as Georg Baselitz and Anselm Kiefer represent
one country West Germany at Venice Biennale 1986

Four anti-Vietnam war protesters shot dead

at Kent State, Ohio, USA 1977 1981 Spain and Portugal join EC
Deaths of Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison and
First laptop computer
Janis Joplin First case of AIDS diagnosed in New York, USA Trial and conviction of Gang of Four: Jiang Ferdinand Marcos ejected from Philippines
Death of Mark Rothko ‘Suicide’ of Baader, Ensslin and Raspe Qing sentenced to death Nuclear accident and radioactive leakage
A Campbell's Soup Can by Andy Warhol sells Death of BlinkyPalermo Guernica returns to Spain at Chernobyl power station, USSR
for £25,000 Opening of Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, ‘Places for People’ exhibition at Jehangir Art Opening of Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid,
France Gallery, Bombay (includes Bhupen Khakkar and Spain
1971 Pictures exhibition at Artist's Soace, New York, Nalini Malani) Death of Joseph Beuys
USA ‘New Spirit in Painting’ exhibition at Royal Opening of Museum of Contemporary Art,
First British soldier shot in Northern Ireland
Academy of Arts, London, showcases Neo- Los Angeles, USA
Greenpeace founded 1978 expressionism and figurative painting
Collapse of International Financial System 1987

(Bretton Woods) Karol Wojtyla becomes Pope John Paul II 1982

Geoffrey Bardon organizes mural painting Deng Xiaoping initiates Open Door policy Stock Market Crash (Black Monday)
at Papunya in China War between Britain and Argentina over Intifada in West Bank

‘New Image Painting’ exhibition at Falklands Islands (Los Malvinas) Van Gogh's Irises fetches £30,000,000
1972 Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, ‘Zeitgeist’ exhibition at Martin Gropius Bau, ‘NYArt Now’ exhibition (Appropriation art
USA West Berlin including Koons, Halley and Taaffe) curated by
First video recorders sold ‘Bad Painting’ exhibition at New Museum Opening of Hans Hollein’s Stadisches Museum Charles Saatchi, Saatchi Collection, London
Arrest of Baader, Meinhof and Ensslin of Contemporary Art, New York, USA Abteiberg Ménchengladbach (postmodern icon) Death of Andy Warhol
Nixon visits China and USSR
Dokumenta VII— curated by Rudi Fuchs, René Daniéls suffers a stroke and subsequently
Intruders caught at Watergate Building 1979
showcases Neo-expressionist painting makes no paintings

1973 Khmer Rouge ousted from Cambodia 1983 1988

Margaret Thatcher becomes British

Yom Kippur war in Middle East Prime Minister Green Party wins seats in German Parliament USSR begins withdrawal from Afghanistan
Arab States cut oil production leading to oil First Spreadsheet programmes (Bundestag) ‘Freeze’ exhibition, curated by Damien
crisis; oil prices quadruple and art market slows Francis Ford Coppola, Apocalypse Now Alfred Taubman buys Sotheby's Hirst (includes lan Davenport, Gary Hume,
Death of Pablo Picasso Publication of Jean-Francois Lyotard’s Assassination of Benigno Aquino discredits Richard Patterson, Fiona Rae)
The sale of Robert Scull’s collection (Sotheby's, The Post-Modern Condition Marco regime in Philippines Death of Jean-Michel Basquiat

ee eee
 Chronology

¢ False Start by Jasper Johns sells for First Asia-Pacific Triennial in Brisbane 1999 DIA Beacon opens in Beacon, New York
$17,050,000 (Sotheby's, New York)— a record Jay Jopling opens White Cube, London First Frieze Art Fair held in London
price for a work bya living artist First Democratic elections in Indonesia for

1994 44 years 2004

1989
‘Trouble Spot Painting’ exhibition at Mukha
Nelson Mandela elected President of post- & NICC, Antwerp, Belgium Terrorist bombs kfll 191 in Madrid, Spain
Protest at Tianamen Square put down by PLA apartheid South Africa Two teenagers kill fifteen students with machine George W. Bush elected to a second term
Berlin Wall is knocked down Russia invades Chechnya guns in Columbine High, Colorado, USA as President of the USA
‘Magiciens de la Terre’ exhibition at Centre Silvio Berlosconi appears on his own television First Liverpool Biennialof Contemporary Art Over 300 children killed in Beslan, Russia,
Georges Pompidou and La Villette, Paris station to announce he is entering politics and is held in Liverpool, UK by Chechen separatists
Gerhard Richter’s painting series Oktober 18, is elected as prime minister within year.
Dutch film-maker Theo Van Gogh murdered
1977 shown in Krefeld, West Germany by Islamic fundamentalists
Art market recession 1995 2000 Tsunami kills more than 250,000 in
‘China Avant-Garde’ exhibition at National Art
Indian Ocean
Museum, Beijing, China First women priests in Church of England India celebrates birth of its billionth citizen Deaths of Agnes Martin and Leon Golub
‘Forest of Signs’ exhibition in Los Angeles ‘Public Information’ exhibition at San Francisco Tate Modern opens in London, UK

showcases art based on media imagery Museum of Modern Art emphasizes impact of ‘After the Wall’ exhibition at Moderna Museet, 2005

photography on painting Stockholm surveys art from Eastern Europe

1990 Microsoft launches Windows 95 which becomes Russian nuclear submarine Kursk sinks Death of Pope John Paul |!
operating system of 80% of computer users First international Shanghai Biennial Hurricane Katrina floods New Orleans, USA
Re-unification of Germany O. J. Simpson acquitted of murdering his wife Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, re-opens ‘The Triumph of Painting’ exhibition at Saatchi
Nelson Mandela released from prison World Trade Organization set up after two years of renovation Collection, London
Iraq invades Kuwait First Gwangju Biennial and first Johannesburg ‘Ideal Worlds: New Romanticism in
"High and Low: Modern Art and Popular Biennialtake place 2001 Contemporary Art’ exhibition at Schirn
Culture’ exhibition at The Museum of Modern
Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, Germany
Art, New York 1996 George W. Bush becomes president of the USA First Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art
9/11: Al Queda suicide attack destroys World
1991 Hindu fundamentalists vandalise M. F. Husain Trade Center, New York 2006

exhibition in Ahmedabad in protest against his Max Beckmann retrospective opens at

First Gulf war: Iraq invades Kuwait and is paintings of goddess Saraswati nude Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris Saddam Hussein hung
driven out Birth of Dolly the sheep —first cloned mammal Takashi Murakami designs handbags for Russian émigré Alexando Litvinenko
Gorbachev resigns: dissolution of USSR; Chinese population reaches 1.2 billion Louis Vuitton assassinated with radioactive material
Boris Yeltsin becomes Russian premier Luc Tuymans shows Mwana Kitoko paintings Record attendance at Tate Britain (7.7 million)
South Africa repeals apartheid 1997 (about Belgian Congo) at Venice Biennial shows massive increase in interest
Opening of Museum Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt China admitted as member of World Trade in contemporary art
Opening of the Irish Museum of Modern Art Tony Blair becomes British Prime Minister Organization Tomma Abts wins the Turner Prize

‘Metropolis’ exhibition at Martin-Gropius-Bau, Opening of Guggenheim Bilbao, designed USA led forces attack Taliban and Al-Queda
Berlin by Frank Gehry in Afghanistan 2007

‘Sensation’ exhibition at Royal Academy of

1992 Arts, London 2002 Tony Blair steps down as British Prime Minister
Hong Kong returned to China Benazir Bhutto assassinated in Rawalpindi
BillClinton become president of the USA Deaths of Willem de Kooning and Roy Communal Hindu-Muslim violence Deaths of So! LeWitt and-Jules Olitski
Destruction of Babri Majid Mosque in Adyodhya Lichtenstein throughout Gujerat ‘Global Feminisms’ exhibition at the Brooklyn
by Hindu fundamentalists leads to communal ‘Dear painter, Please paint me: figure paintings Museum, New York
riots and massacres throughout India 1998 since late Picabia’ exhibition at Centre Georges
Civilwar and ‘ethnic cleansing’ begins in Bosnia Pompidou, Paris, France 2008

Riots in Los Angeles after acquittal (despite Fall of Suharto in Indonesia Euro becomes common currency for twelve

video evidence)of white police who beat black ‘Sensation’ exhibition at Brooklyn Museum nations Collapse of Lehman Brothers Bank heralds

motorist Rodney King causes scandal because of Chris Ofili’s Virgin First Art Basel Miami art fair is held in Miami, Global financial crisis
Death of Francis Bacon Mary painting Florida, USA Olympic games held in China for first time

‘Inside Out: New Chinese Art’ exhibition at Terrorist attack on Mumbai

1993 San Francisco Museum of Modern Art heralds 2003

Western acceptance of New Chinese painting 2009

¢ Internet becomes generally available Chris Ofili wins the Turner Prize US led forces invade Iraq and oust

¢ Israel and Palestine Liberation Organization Jackson Pollock retrospective opens at the Saddam Hussein Art Market slump
sign Oslo accords agreeing to self rule Museum of Modern Art, New York Hu Jintao becomes president of China Barack Obama becomes president of the USA
for Palestinians in Gaza strip and Jericho Death of Bhupen Khakkar

441
 Select Bibliography

Exhibition Catalogues Trouble Spot Painting Horn Please: Narratives in Contemporary Painting People
Mukha and NICC, Antwerp, Belgium, 1999 Indian Art Charlotte Mullins, London, 2006
A New Spirit in Painting Kunstmuseum Bern, Switzerland, 2007

Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1981 Hybrids New German Painting

Tate Liverpool, UK, 2001 Bad painting, Good Art Christoph Tannert, Munich, Germany, 2006
Zeitgeist Museum Moderne Kunst Stiftung Ludwig,
Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin, 1982 Painting at the Edge of the World Vienna, Austria, 2008 Word into Art

Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, USA, 2001 Venetia Porter, London, 2006

Expressions: New Art from Germany The Pictures Generation 1974-1984

Saint Louis Museum, Missouri, USA, 1983 Dear Painter Please Paint Me: Figure Paintings Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2009 Nine Lives: Birth of Avant-Garde Art in

since Late Picabia New China

Von Hier Aus Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 2002 Karen Smith, Zurich, Switzerland, 2006

Books

Cavepainting: Peter Doig, Chris Ofili and Breakout: Chinese Art outside China

Laura Owens Contemporary Indian Artists Melissa Chiu, Milan, Italy, 2007
NY Art Now Santa Monica Museum of Art, California, USA, Geeta Kapur, New Delhi, India, 1977
Saatchi Collection, London, 1986 2002 Chinese Contemporary Art: Seven Things
Italian Transavantgarde You Should Know

Painter- Sculptor Urgent Painting Achille Bonito Oliva, Milan, Italy, 1980 Melissa Chiu, New York, 2008
Whitechapel Gallery, London, 1986 Musee d’Art Modeme de la Ville de Paris, 2002

Hunger nach Bildern

Dreamings: The Art of Aboriginal Australia Painting Pictures: Painting and Media in the Wolfgang Max Faust and Gerd de Vries,
Asia Society, New York, 1988 Digital Age Cologne, Germany, 1982
Kunsthalle, Wolfsburg, Germany, 2003
Refigured Painting: the German Image The New Image in Painting
1960-1988 Life after Death: New Leipzig Paintings from Tony Godfrey, London, 1986
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, the Rubell Family Collection
1989 Rubell Collection, Miami, Florida, USA, 2004 Painting as an Art

Richard Wollheim, London, 1987

The Broken Mirror Painting as Process: Re-evaluating Painting

Kunsthalle Vienna, Austria, 1993 LaSalle-SIA, Singapore, 2004 Painting as Model
Yve-Alain Bois, Cambridge, UK, 1990
Unbound: Possibilities in Painting Edge of Desire: Recent Art in India,

Hayward Gallery, London, 1994 Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, Australia, Abstract Art
2004 Anna Moszynska, London, 1990
Public Information

San Francisco Museum of Modern Ant, California, Remote Viewing Colour and Culture
USA, 1995 Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, John Gage, London, 1993

2005
Painting: The Extended Field Painters and Politics in the People’s Republic
Rooseum, Malmo, Sweden, 1996 Ideal Worlds: New Romanticism in of China 1949-1979
Contemporary Art J. F.Andrews, Berkeley, California, USA, 1994
Birth of the Cool: American Painting Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, Germany, 2005
Deichterhallen, Hamburg, Germany, 1997 Modern Asian Art

Made in Leipzig John Clark, Sydney, Australia, 1998

Objects of Desire: The Modern Still Life Sammlung Essl, Vienna, Austria, 2006
Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1997 What Painting Is

High Times Hard Times: New York Painting James Elkins, London, 1999
The Pursuit of Painting 1967-1975
Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland, Independent Curators International, New York, Quoting Caravaggio: Contemporary Art,
1997 2006 Preposterous History
Mieke Bal, Chicago, Illinois, USA,1999
Abstract Painting Once Removed The Painting of Modern Life
Contemporary Art Museum Houston, Texas, Hayward Gallery, London, 2007 Vitamin P
USA, 1998 London, 2002

442
 Index

Page numbers in italics indicate illustrations Peintre Peignant le Tableau 65, 65 The Real Thing 103, 104 A Fish on the Back of the Adriatic Sea
Rain Against the Current (Pluja Briicke, Die 56 62, 62
Contracurrent) 263, 264 Buren, Daniel 12-13, 356, 434 Currin, John 177, 180, 434
White Stone on Black Stone (Pedra Blanca Burgin, Victor 11-12 The Dane 201, 205
Sobre Pedra Negra) 262, 264 Ms Omni 178, 180
Bas, Hernan 260, 434 Nice ‘n' Easy 402, 406
abstract expressionism 8, 9, 13, 15, 75, 86, 122 Apollo with Daphne as a Boy 257, 260 The Pink Tree 179, 180
Abts, Tomma 161, 434 Baselitz, Georg 61, 76, 313, 344, 372, 389, 434 Cutler, Amy 199, 434
Meko 161, 163 Adler 53 —Hero 65 (Remix) 414, 414 Traction 199, 201
Teite 161, 162 B for Larry 56, 56 Calame, Ingrid 156, 434
Ackermann, Franz 210, 213, 215, 218, 434 Ludwig Richter on his Way to Work 56, 56 From #258 Drawing (tracings from
Gelbe Walk 211, 213 paintings at the Zeitgeist International Art the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the
Installation Ecstasy: In and About Altered Exhibition 60, 61 LA River) 150, 156, 157
States (installation) 212 —13, 213 Supper in Dresden 56, 57 Caravaggio 8, 44, 218, 278
Ohne Titel (Mental Map: No Horizon) 210, 213 Basquiat, Jean-Michel 68, 434 Carmichael, Franklin 250, 253 Dada, Dadaism 13, 126
Aitchison, Craigie 361, 434 Untitled 67, 68 Carrington, Leonora 190 Dali, Salvador 103
Calvary 360, 361 Baumgéartel, Tilo 383, 388, 434 Cattelan, Maurizio 6 Daniéls, René 434, 434
Albers, Josef: Homage to the Square series 85 The Storm (Der Sturm) 376, 383 Celmins, Vija 17, 96-7, 100, 102, 267, 434 Academy 72, 73
Alfi, Jumaldi 422, 434 Beckmann, Max 56, 376 TV 94, 96-7 The House 72, 74
Painting Series 092108 419, 422 Bennett, Gordon 76, 434 Untitled (Comet) 99, 100 Darger, Henry 188, 190, 434
Alys, Francis 344, 434 Possession Island 76, 83 Untitled (Ocean) 97, 98, 100 Untitled (recto) 187, 188
Catalogue 3 341, 344 Bernini, Gian Lorenzo 21 Web #2 97, 100 Untitled (verso) 187, 188
Amer, Ghada 299, 434 Beuys, Joseph 21, 62, 65, 278, 376 Cézanne, Paul 17, 48, 85, 159 Daumier, Honoré 6
Trini 299, 300 Biberstein, Michael 242-3, 434 Charlton, Alan 38, 434 Davenport, lan 122, 126, 137, 358, 360, 434
Andersson, Mamma 260, 434 The Apotheosis of the Human Spirit through Untitled 38, 38 Poured Reversal Painting: light blue, blue
Dollhouse 399, 399 the Seeing of Landscape 242 Chirico, Giorgio de 16, 65 122, 126
Magician (Trolkarl) 398, 398 Chasm 2 238, 242 Chitrakar, Manu 30, 434 Untitled 122, 122
On Tenterhooks 256, 260 installation of works at Christina Guerra Afghanistan War 28, 30 Warwick Wall Painting (Pale Grey) 357, 358
Andre, Carl 242 Gallery, Lisbon 239, 243 Chitrakar, Swarna 30 David, Jacques-Louis 102, 310, 329
Andrews, Michael 48, 237, 242, 434 Bierstadt, Albert 237 Church, Frederic Edwin 237 Dawson, Verne 6, 256, 434
The Cathedral, Northeast Face Uluru Bisky, Norbert 434 Claude Lorrain 234, 237, 245, 260, 264, 282 Atomic Bomb 254, 256
(Ayers Rock) 234-5, 237 Muck Spreader (Dreckschleuder) 372, 376 Clemente, Francesco 65, 68, 399-400, 434 De la Cruz, Angela 344, 434
Thames Painting: The Estuary 236, 237, 242 Blackadder, Elizabeth 434 My Parents 63, 65 Broken into Pieces 339, 344
Angelico, Fra 11, 16, 17, 28, 126, 136 Fruit on a Dark Table 411, 412 Self-portrait in an Imperial Age 400, 403 Degas, Edgar 16, 48, 56, 344
Applebroog, Ida 191, 192, 434 Blake, William 170 She and She 399, 402 Delacroix, Eugene 102, 282
Jack F: Forced to Eat his Own Excrement Bleckner, Ross 277, 434 Two Lovers 65 Dezeuze, Daniel 41, 434
190, 191 Architecture ofthe Sky Ill 278, 280 Close, Chuck 96, 97, 201, 400, 434 Echelles de tartalane 41, 44
Kathy W: Is Told That if She Tells, Mommy Bochner, Mel 356 Big Self-portrait 93, 96 Ding Yi 165, 434
Will Get Sick and Die 190, 191 Bonnard, Pierre 397 Self-portrait 400, 403 Appearance of Crosses 2008-27 167
Arp, Hans 358 Borremans, Michaél 434 Cockrill, Mike 73 Dix, Otto 56
arte povera 11 Colombine 200, 203 colour field paintings 11-12, 122 Dodiya, Atul 313-14, 434
Artschwager, Richard 96, 434 Four Fairies 200, 202 Colunga, Alejandro 69, 434 Letter from a Father 337, 342, 344
Portrait of Holly 92, 96, 334 The Mill 200, 202 Il Santo, the Silver Masquerader (II Santo, Maha Laxmi 314, 321
Auerbach, Frank 21, 103, 175, 434 Bosch, Hieronymus 190, 347 enmascarado de Plata) 69, 69 Doig, Peter 105, 250, 253, 256, 260, 402, 429,
Head of Catherine Lampert 174, 175 Botero, Fernando 32, 434 conceptual art 11, 12, 13, 38, 344, 356 435
Seated Figure with Arms Raised 48, 49 Abu Ghraib 43 (Triptych) 310, 312 Constable, John 6, 51, 264 Inn on the Muldentalsperre (Gasthof zur
The Presidential Family 31, 32 constructivism 37 Muldentalsperre) 429, 432
Bradford, Mark 434 Cooke, Nigel 434 Metropolitan (House of Pictures) 6, 6
Giant 166 Silva Morosa 282, 291 One Hundred Years Ago (Carrere) 253, 256
Braeckman, Dirk 102-3, 434 Correggio: The Assumption of the Virgin 406 Pond Life 250-1, 253
C.O.,-I.S.L.-94(14) 102, 102 Courbet, Gustave 17 Dona, Lydia 154, 156, 435
Bacon, Francis 14, 48, 56, 85, 180, 181, 310, Brooks, Jason 434 Craig-Martin, Michael 358, 361, 434 Movement-Image and the Doors of
383, 434 Harewood Castle Self-portrait 93, 96 installation at the Arp Museum, Bahnhof Reflexivity 147, 154, 210
Portrait of George Dyer in a Mirror 14, 15 Sassy 92, 96 Rolandseck, Bonn 356, 358 Duchamp, Marcel 10, 13, 14, 72, 154, 344, 355,
Balthus 378 Brown, Cecily 207, 434 Cranach, Lucas 180, 376 358, 429
Banksy 406 Skulldiver IV 282, 289 cubism 23, 37 Dumas, Marlene 7, 86, 191-2, 398, 422, 435, 435
Barcel6, Miquel 65, 161, 261, 264, 411, 434 Brown, Glenn 103, 434 Cucchi, Enzo 62, 65, 68, 434 Evil is Banal 109, 110, 111, 191, 397

443
 Painting Today

The First People (I-IV) 191-2, 194-5 270, 271 Untitled (Cobalt Violet, Mag Blue Butterfly Houshiary, Shirazeh, Fine Frenzy 429, 431
Magdalena (Manet’s Queen) 191, 193 Fonseca, Caio 161, 435 729) 164 Hughes, Judge 73
Pregnant Image 86, 86, 191 Pietrasanta CO3.24 161, 161 Gupta, Subodh 345, 402, 435 Hume, Gary 334, 344-5, 422, 425, 435
Snow White and the Broken Arm 191, 192 Fontana, Lucio 280 Saat Samunder Paar | 314, 322 Girl Boy, Boy Girl 334, 335
Unkept 419, 422 Foss, Chris 103 Still Steal Steel no. 5 343, 345 Snip 340, 344-5
Dunham, Carroll 303, 305, 435 Fragonard, Jean-Honoré 103 Gursky, Andreas 93 Water Painting 419, 425
The Sun 303, 305 Francis, Mark 416, 422, 435 Guston, Philip 15-16, 17, 46-8, 136, 170, 414, Husain, M.F. 28, 30, 435
Direr, Albrecht 17, 136, 272, 355 Inertia 416, 417 435
Young Hare 7, 8,9 Freud, Lucian 17, 48, 51, 54, 170, 180, 181, 200, Painting, Smoking, Eating 47, 48
Dzama, Marcel 19 277, 321, 435 The Studio 16, 17
And the Bridegroom 170, 173

The Painter is Surprized by a Naked Admirer

399, 400 Impressionism, Impressionists 54, 310

Painter and Model 170, 172 Ingres, Jean Auguste Dominique 51, 329
Small Naked Portrait 48, 50, 51 Grande Odalisque 186
Edefalk, Cecilia 186, 435 Friedrich, Caspar David 100, 250, 310, 372, 383 Ha Chong-Hyun 126, 435 La Source 186
Echo 186, 186 Frischl, Eric Conjunction 03-53 128 Innes, Callum 126
Eder, Martin 422, 435 Living Room Scene 3 224, 227 Halley, Peter 74-5, 130, 136, 435 Untitled no.2 123, 126
La Matematique du Slip 420, 422 Sunroom Scene 1 224, 226 Indexed 133, 136

Ehsai, Mohammad 422, 435 Frize, Bernard 128, 137, 140, 411, 435 Visions of America 363, 366

He is the Merciful 417, 422 Rispe 128, 130 Yellow Prison with Underground Conduit 75,

Eitel, Tim 383, 388, 435 Suite Segond, SF N5 128, 131 77

Boygroup 379, 383 Furnas, Barnaby 435 Harding, Alexis 126, 435

Eye Contact (Blickkontakt) 379, 383 Hamburger Hill 270, 273 Three Wishes 125, 126 Johns, Jasper 13, 164, 348, 414, 435
Hole (Grube) 379, 383 Havekost, Eberhard 384, 435 Summer from ‘The Seasons’ 272, 277

El Greco 44 Global Player 382, 384 Jones, Ronald 105

El Lissitzky 44 Heilmann, Mary 257, 267, 299, 435 Judd, Donald 21, 38, 41, 44, 334, 378
Ellis, Stephen 149, 321, 342, 435 All Tomorrow's Parties 298, 299, 363

They Feed the Lion 321, 327 Chemical Billy 298, 299

Untitled (SEV-06-5) 147, 149 Gainsborough, Thomas 362 Last Chance for Gas 298, 299

Estes, Richard 96, 435 Galan, Julio 435 Rosebud 282, 287

Double Self-portrait 94, 96 Ya No 192, 197 Heisig, Bernhard 33

expressionism 102 Gallace, Maureen 249-50, 435 Henning, Anton 229-30, 435 Kahlo, Frida 90, 190, 192
Down the Road from My Brother’s House Flower Still Life no. 185 230, 230 Kahrs, Johannes 435
248, 250 Interior no. 238 230, 230 Kallat, Jitish 411, 435
Lake House with Forsythia 248, 250 Pin-Up no. 62 229, 229 Horrorificabilitudinitatibus 411, 411
Self-portrait 396, 398 Play no. 2 230, 230 Kame Kngwarreye, Emily 158, 435
Gallagher, Ellen 159, 161, 435 Herold, Georg 69, 72 Awelye 155, 159
Fang Lijun 165, 177, 406, 435 An Experiment of Unusual Opportunity 159, Herriman, George 16 Big Yam Dreaming 154, 157-8
30th Mary 406, 407 160, 161 Hill, Carl Fredrik 56 Emu Woman 155, 159
1993 No. 1 176, 177 Garcia, Nona 435 Hirst, Damien 348, 406, 435 Kami, Y.Z. 23, 25, 436, 436
Oil painting Ill 174, 177 Bulacan 426, 427 In and Out of Love 362, 362, 363 Endless Prayer V23, 23
Federle, Helmut 85-6, 136, 416, 435 Geng Jianyi 435 Mortuary 270, 272 Untitled (Blue Jumper) 22, 23
Basics on Composition III (Hirohito) (Form Four Heads (The Second Situation) 177, 177 Painting by Numbers 1 348, 351 Kandinsky, Wassily 9, 11, 37, 114, 136
and Ground) 85-6, 85 Géricault, Théodore 329 Hockney, David 14, 48, 51, 90, 93, 111, 204, Katz, Alex 68, 180, 414, 436
Basics on Composition XXX 85-6, 85 gesturalism 122 237, 264, 435, 435 Figure in Mountain landscape |/ 250, 252, 253
Basics on Composition XXXVI (Geschichten Giotto 48, 170 A Bigger Splash 14, 14, 384 The Light 1154, 55
aus dem Wienerwald) 85-6, 85 Goltzius, Hendrik 56 Looking at Pictures on a Screen 48, 49, 384 May 249, 250
Death of a Black Snake 134, 136 Golub, Leon 310, 435, 435 Mulholland Drive: the Road to the Studio Study for Walk 54, 54
Great Wall 134, 136 Mercenaries V 310, 312 264, 264 Walk 52-3, 54, 250
Untitled (Three Horizontals, One Vertical) Gornik, April 234, 249, 250, 283, 435 Hodgkin, Howard 219, 435 Kelly, Ellsworth 75, 121, 436
135, 136 Cloud Lake 247, 249 In Paris with You 219, 224, 363 No. 358 Blue White Angle 13-14, 13
Fetting, Rainer 435 Goya, Francesco de 16, 32, 48 Hokusai, Katsushika 102, 250 Keyser, Raoul de 416, 422, 436
The Harriers | 62, 62 Grosse, Katharina 435 Holbein, Hans: The Body of the Dead Christ in Recover 416, 417
Fischl, Eric 56, 74, 93, 204, 224, 270, 399, 435 Shake Before Using (Pigments orpara planta y the Tomb 33 Khakkar (Khakhar), Bhupen 30, 32, 69, 314, 436
Bad Boy 56, 57 globus) 359, 360-1 Hopkins, Louise 435 Janata Watch Repairing 29, 32
Where we go looking to Put Down our Dead Grotjahn, Mark 164, 435 16 cabinets 336, 342 You Can't Please All 69, 73
 Index

Kher, Bharti 436 Krisanamis, Udomsak 436 Government 48, 69, 264 The Propitious Garden of Plane Image, 3rd
Right in the Middle of it All 424, 425 Rainy Day, Dream Away 164, 166 Louis, Morris 14 version 158-9, 159
Kiefer, Anselm 17, 62, 68, 272, 274, 278, 313, Kubota, Shigeko 436 Loy, Rosa 388, 389, 436 Winter Painting 38, 39
372, 378, 414, 436 E Vagina Painting 10, 13 Hiding Place (Versteck) 388, 389 Marioni, Joseph 116, 121, 437
The Burning Thornbush (Der Brennende Kuitca, Guillermo 69, 436 Green Painting 116, 117
Dombusch) 272, 278 Nobody Forgets Nothing (Nadie olvida nada) Yellow Painting 118, 121
Falling Stars (Sternenfall) 313, 432, 432 69, 69 Marshall, Kerry James 329, 437
Man in Wood (Mann im Wald) 267, 267, 313 Strawberry Fields Forever 277, 280 The Lost Boys 329, 329
Nuremberg 61, 62 The Sweet Sea (El mar dulce) 68, 69 Martin, Agnes 38, 41, 437
Parsifal | 278, 283, 360 Kusama, Yayoi 164, 436, 436 McCahon, Colin 76, 342, 356, 414, 436 Untitled No. 4 40, 41
Parsifal || 278, 282, 360 Infinity Net POXZHOQ164, 164 The Song ofthe Shining Cuckoo (Te Tangi o Masaccio (Tommaso Carsai) 47
Parsifal Ill 278, 283, 360 te Pipiwhararua); APoem by Tangirau Hotere Masriadi, | Nyoman 23, 402, 437
Parsifal IV 278, 282, 360 26, 28, 270 Diet Completed 20, 23
Pope Alexander VI: The Golden Bull 313, 318 Victory Over Death II 26, 28 No More Game 21, 23
To the Unknown Painter 60, 62 McComb, Leonard 48, 177, 436 Matisse, Henri 8, 14, 17, 48, 121, 158, 230, 282,
Kilimnik, Karen 109, 260, 362, 436 Portrait of Phillipa Cooper 175, 175 283, 284, 290, 299
The Girl in the Pearl Earring in Shakespeare's land art 11, 122, 237 McKeever, lan 243, 245, 436 Mattheuer, Wolfgang 437
Cottage 109, 109, 362 Lasker, Jonathan 75, 144, 149, 416, 436 Hartgrove Painting no. 2270, 272, 275 Behind the Seven Mountains (Hinter den
works installed at Bevilacqua la Masa, Palazzo Blobscape 75, 79, 144 Lapland Painting: The Moth Tree 245, 240 sieben Bergen) 372, 376
Tito, Venice 362, 364 Domestic Setting with Post-partum Anxiety Sentinel X 241, 245 Meese, Jonathan 300, 372, 437
Kinkade, Thomas 234, 242, 245, 282 144, 145 McKenzie, Lucy 109, 362, 406, 436 My Grimace is as Harmless as my Cat
Kippenberger, Martin 38, 69, 93, 299-300, 399, The Quotidian and the Question 145, 149 Interior 362, 366 (the Friendly DICTATOR) 300, 302
406, 436 Lassnig, Maria 51, 86, 181, 397, 414, 436 Olga Korbut 109, 109 Meese, Jonathan and R., Tal: Mother (Mor) 300,
Dear Painter, Please Paint Me 90, 92, 93 The Intimate Link Between Painter and Magill, Elizabeth 436 301
Modell Interconti 69, 72 Canvas 394 Northern Carmine 425, 426 Mehretu, Julie 215, 383, 437
One of You, a German in Florence’ 93 Self-portrait with Pickle Jar 51, 54, 398 Maguire, Tim 103, 126, 280, 282, 436 Black City 218, 220-1
Untitled 399, 401 Woman Power 86, 87 Slit Landscape 280, 286 The Seven Acts of Mercy 218, 218
What is Happening on Sundays? (Was ist Lawrence, Thomas 109 Untitled 20080601 103, 103 Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig 224
bloB am sonntag los?) 299-300, 301 Le Brun, Christopher 65, 85, 436 Untitled 20010219 126, 127 Milhazes, Beatriz 17, 297, 299, 437
Kirchner, Ernst Ludwig 56, 72 Draw 414, 414 Malani, Nalini 313, 364, 368, 436, 437 The Blue House (A Casa Azul) 297, 297
Kirkeby, Per 243, 245, 436 Thorn 64, 65 Sita/Medea 313, 320 Nazareth das Farinhas 297, 297
The Dream about Uxmal and the Unknown Lee, Jane 126, 436 Stories Retold: The Sacred and the Profane minimalism 28, 38, 136, 149
Grottoes of Yucatan (Dunkle Hdhle) 240, 245 Fetish IV 124, 126 367, 368 Minter, Marilyn 422, 437
Soft Lapping of Waves, Green (Leiser Lee Ufan 28, 126, 128, 436 Malevich, Kazimer 114 Glazed 420, 422
Wellenschlag, Grun) 242, 245 From Line 27, 28 Manet, Edouard 17, 54, 56, 204 Mird, Joan 161
Vibeke Late Summer IV (Vibeke Sensommer works installed at Lisson Gallery, London 128, Mangold, Robert 121, 437 modernism, modernists 10, 15, 23, 28, 30, 33,

IV) 240, 245 129 Curved Plane/Figure IV (Double Panel) 120, 37, 56, 68, 130, 134, 140, 161, 213, 230, 242, 310
Kitaj, R.B. 48, 170, 436 Léger, Fernand 33 121 Mondrian, Piet 9, 11, 37, 75, 114, 121, 130, 136,
If Not, Not 48, 49 Leipzig School 372-89 Frame paintings, including Four Colour 165, 229, 383
The Land of Lakes 48 Leonardo da Vinci 6 Frame Painting #5 119, 121 Broadway Boogie Woogie 6

Los Angeles no.24 (Nose to Nose) 170, 171 Leutze, Emanuel 310 Manh Thang, Ha 437, 437 Monet, Claude 237
Klee, Paul 161 LeWitt, Sol 356, 358, 360, 436 The Artist and the Artist's Girlfriend 400-401, Mono-Ha movement 28

Klein, Yves 14, 114, 116, 364, 436 Wall Drawing No. 1131, ‘Whirls and Twirls’ 404 Moran, Thomas 237

Monochrome Blue 114, 116 (Wadsworth) 354, 358 Mantegna, Andrea 90 Morandi, Giorgio 250

Knobloch, Thoralf 384, 436 Li Shan 76, 85, 436 Mantofani, Rudi 402, 437 Morris, Sarah 130, 437

Diver (Springer) 378, 384 Mao and the Artist 1 (Rouge No. 60) 84, 85 Chocolate Houses 402, 405 Universal (Los Angeles) 130, 132, 134

Knoebel, Imi 358 Lichtenstein, Roy 378, 436 Manzoni, Piero 14 Moshiri, Farhad 345, 437

Kobe, Martin 383-4, 388, 389, 436 Yellow and Green Brushstrokes 12, 13 Marcaccio, Fabian 154, 156, 437 You Left but Not From my Heart 342, 345

Rudera 381, 383 Liu Kuo-sung 164-5, 436 Come Undone 148, 154 Mosset, Olivier 12-13

Komar and Melamid (Vitaly Komar and Alex Fallen Wood Under the Five Colour Lake: Confine Paintant 214, 215 Munch, Edvard 61, 170

Melamid) 128, 234, 237, 436 Jiuzhagiou series no. 57 165, 166 installation at Kevin Bruk Gallery, Miami, Murakami, Takashi 348

Kooning, Willem de 15, 37, 41, 56, 181, 270, Liu Wei 436 including Private Contractor and New Murphy, Catherine 186, 437

282, 411, 436 Swimmers 284, 294 Paintants 214, 215 Bathroom Sink 411, 413, 414

Woman | 14, 15 Liu Wenxi 436 Marden, Brice 38, 114, 355-6, 416, 437 Persimmon 181, 181, 186
Koons, Jeff 74, 348, 436
Long, Richard 21, 237 Couplet IV 157, 159 Stairwell 219, 225

Triple Hulk Elvis Il 348, 350-1 Longo, Robert 406 Mediterranean Painting 38 Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris: manifestation

Kounellis, Jannis 21, 65 Lorenzetti, Ambrogio: Allegory of Good The Muses 152-3, 157, 158 10) 13

445
 Index

326, 328 Song of Orpheus 5 41, 44, 45

Motorcrosser II 103, 105 Ritchie, Matthew 207, 215, 217-18, 383, 438
Thomson 105, 105 God of Catastrophe 215, 217
Pearlstein, Philip 175, 437 Proposition Player 216-17, 217
Namatjira, Albert 414 Two Models with a Fan in Front 174, 175 R., Tal 300, 437 Rivera, Diego 32, 321
Napalarri, Marjorie 83 Pearson Wright, Stuart 37, 180-1, 437 Lords of Kolbojnik 300, 303 Robinson, Henry Peach 102
Nara, Yoshitomo 348, 437 J.K. Rowling 420, 422 Rae, Fiona 218-19, 437 Rockman, Alexis 267, 438
Good Charlotte/Riot Girl 348, 349 John Hurt as Krapp 180, 181 I'm Learning to Fly! 219, 223 The Farm 267, 267
Neel, Alice 437 Woman Surprized by a Werewolf 36, 37 Tomb Raider 218, 222 Rodchenko, Alexander 114
Nude Self-portrait 180, 392, 397 performance art 11 Ramsden, Mel 437 Rodin, Auguste 21
Nelson, Michael Jagamara (or Tjakamarra) 437 Peyton, Elizabeth 105, 177, 201, 204, 207, 267, Guarantee Painting 11, 13, 411 Romanticism 65, 310, 372, 383
Nelson, Michael Jagamara (or Tjakamarra) and 355, 437 Raphael 8 Romney, George: Emma Hamilton 362
Napalarri, Marjorie, Five Dreamings 83, 261 Alizarin Kurt 105, 108 Rauch, Neo 85, 372, 378, 383, 389, 402, 406, 437 Rothko, Mark 13, 15, 20, 116, 121, 158, 355, »
neo-expressionism 61, 65, 68, 69, 72 Jarvis on Bed 204, 206 New Drum Rolls (Neue Rollen) 374-5, 378 414, 438
Newman, Barnett 37, 75, 121, 122, 128, 136, LA (E.P) 395, 398 Other (Alter) 284, 294 Homage to Matisse 8, 9, 210
149, 280, 437 Nick (Poquetanuck Park) 207, 207 Quiz 373, 376 Royal Art Lodge (Michel Dumontier, Marcel
Noland, Kenneth 17, 140, 437 photorealism 96 Rosy Dawn (Morgenrot) 428, 429 Dzama, Neil Farber) 438
Sarah’s Reach 9, 11 Picabia, Francis 65, 72, 74 Seeker (Sucher) 377, 378 Garbage Day 199, 200
Nozkowski, Thomas 161, 437 Picasso, Pablo 9, 11, 14, 17, 21, 33, 48, 170, Waiting for the Barbarians (Warten auf die Rubens, Peter Paul 44, 51, 56, 348
Untitled 8-100 161, 165 192, 282, 310, 344, 399, 414, 429, 437 Barbaren) 329, 330-1 Ruckhaberle, Christoph 438
Nude on a Bed 10, 12 Rauschenberg, Robert 13, 111 Farewell (Abschied) 388, 388
Piero della Francesca 16, 47, 48 Reed, David 41, 149, 154, 157, 363-4, 437 Ruscha, Ed 438
Pittman, Lari 192, 437 #521 144, 149, 210 HERO 338, 342
Once a Noun, Now a Verb #2 192, 196 the artist in Susan Caldwell Gallery, New York Ryman, Robert 37, 114, 121, 264, 438
Polke, Sigmar 15, 17, 313, 437 41, 41 No Title Required || 114, 114-15
Oehlen, Albert 68, 69, 219, 437 Durer’s Hare 7, 8-9, 11, 75 Judy's Bedroom 363, 367 Untitled 37, 39
Party Dreams 219, 222 Girlfriends 75, 79 Mirror Room for Vampires 364, 368
Self-portrait with Two Skulls (Self-portrait mit Paganini 75, 80-1 Rego, Paula 188, 438, 438
Zwei Totenschadein) 69, 71 Pollock, Jackson 6, 13, 15, 16, 17, 37, 62, 65, The Family 189, 190
Ofili, Chris 437 76, 122, 154, 156, 157, 158, 218, 356, 384, 437 The Vivian Girls Breaking the China 188, 190
Captain Shit and the Legend of the Black Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist) 6, 6 Reid Nakamarra, Doreen 422, 438
Stars 305, 306 One: Number 31 6 Untitled 421, 422 Salle, David 74, 201, 438
No Woman No Cry 270, 272, 276 Pop art 8, 9, 13, 14, 48, 75, 96, 334, 348 Reinhardt, Ad 14 What is the Reason for your Visit to
Raising of Lazarus 305, 306 Possum Tjapaltjarri, Clifford 24, 28, 158, 437 Rembrandt van Rijn 20, 51, 72, 170 Germany? 73-4, 76
The Upper Room 305, 307 Untitled 25, 27-8 Renoir, Pierre-Auguste 13 Samba, Cheri 25, 324, 326, 438
Olitski, Jules 56, 437 Worm Dreaming 260, 261 Rhodes, Carol 249, 438 Chéri Samba implores the Cosmic 23, 25, 326
Instant Love Land 10 Post-painterly Abstraction 11, 14 Houses, Gardens 246, 249 The Renunciation of Prostitution (Le
Olowska, Paulina 437 postmodernism 73 Richter, Daniel 218, 219, 256, 300, 303, 313, renoncement a la prostitution) 326, 328
Bridget —-1964 397, 398 Poussin, Nicolas 44 314, 319, 324, 372, 406, 429, 438 Sanchez Cotan, Juan 97, 334
Op art 75, 96 Pre-Raphaelites 177 Duueh 284, 292 Sanchez, Tomas 438
Owens, Laura 256-7, 437 Prieto, Monique 156-7, 344, 437 Elektro/a 303, 304 The Heron and the Meditator (La Garza y el
Untitled 255, 256-7, 410, 411 Brown Power 150, 156, 157 Punktum 303, 304 Meditador) 266, 267
Untitled [2000] 254 Nobody Here But Us Chickens 150, 156-7 Tarifa 314, 322 Santhosh, T.V. 438, 438
Untitled [2001] 254, 256 Walked 339, 344 The White Gorilla Forges Ahead (Der Weisse Secret Passages into a Terror-infested
Prince, Richard 37, 348, 402, 437, 437 Gorilla macht seinen Weg) 219, 222 Landmark 314, 322
Dude Ranch Nurse 105, 107, 402 Richter, Gerhard 38, 41, 69, 72, 90, 93, 96, 102, Sarmento, Juliao 224, 229, 411, 438
Millionaire Nurse 105, 106, 402 140, 260, 274, 277, 321, 402, 422, 438, 438 Evocative Consent of tenderness
Untitled (De Kooning) 36, 37, 105 Abstract No. 599 140, 141 (Consentimento Evocitivo de Ternuras) 224,
Progressive Artists’ Group 30 Annunciation after Titian 41, 42-3 228
Palermo, Blinky 358, 437 Eight Student Nurses 272, 277 Licking the Milk Off Her Finger 224, 228
Blue Triangle 355, 358 Ella 95, 96 Sasnal, Wilhelm 345, 348, 438
Wall-painting: Window 355, 358 Ema, Nude on the Staircase 429, 432 Forest 347, 348
Paolini, Giulio 437 Lebensfreude 33, 33 Girl Smoking: Anka 345, 346
Untitled 411, 411 Riley, Bridget 14, 21, 23, 44, 51, 75, 137, 398, Untitled 347, 348
Parmentier, Michel 12-13 Quinn, Ged 437 416, 438 Untitled (Sweat) 345, 347, 348
Patterson, Richard 103, 105, 326, 329, 437 The Inventor of False Memory 426, 426 Cataract Ill 14, 16 Sassetta (Stefano di Giovanni) 48
Back at the Dealership Culture Station no. 5 Harmony in Rose 1 137, 138-9 Saville, Jenny 180, 181, 438

446
 Index

ee Branded 181, 183

Passage 181, 182
Polish Village series 44
Zeitweg V44, 45
Tordoir, Narcisse 274

Toroni, Niele 12-13

Bounty 137, 137
installation of works at Paula Cooper Gallery,
Reverse 393, 397-8 Still, Clyfford 75 Tuibke, Werner 313, 321, 376, 439 New York 136, 136
Scheibitz, Thomas 161, 438 Stingel, Rudolf 364, 438 Chilean Requiem 32, 33 Wang Guangyi 76, 439
Capital 161, 161 Untitled 364, 369 History of the Reformation and the Peasant Famous Painting Covered with Industrial Oil,
Schnabel, Julian 17, 65, 68, 215, 278, 344, 425 , Untitled (after Sam) 90, 91 Wars 316-17, 313 No. 876, 83
438 Stokker, Lily van der 360, 438 Turner, J.M.W.: Harewood Castle Seen from the Great Criticism: Coca Cola 76, 84
Aborigine Painting 66 Jack 358, 360 South East 96 Warhol, Andy 13, 65, 73, 75, 334, 348, 439
Painting Without Mercy 278, 281 Struth, Thomas 48, 438 Tuymans, Luc 105, 274, 277, 319, 321, 348, 439 Mrs Nelson Rockefeller 12, 13
Untitled (Chinese Painting) 3 422, 425 Museum of Modern Art | 6, 6, 15, 102 Bloodstains 282, 288 Watt, Alison 186, 439
Schnell, David 260, 372, 383, 388, 389, 438 The Rothko Chapel, Houston 15, 15, 102, 355 Demolition 310, 311 Fragment | 184, 186
Flyover (Auffahrt) 258, 260, 383 Sturgis, Dan 134, 438 Gas Chamber 272, 274, 279 Odalisque 185, 186
Hunting Lodge by the Sea (Hutte am See) Insistent Polemic 133, 134 Investigations |-II] 343, 345 Still 361, 361, 362
376, 383 Sturtevant, Elaine 73, 438 Lumumba 319, 325 Weiner, Lawrence 21
Motorway (Autobahn) 380, 383 Warhol Marilyn Diptych 73, 74 Reconstruction 319, 324 Weischer, Matthias 230-1, 372, 384, 388, 389,
School of Baroda 314 Subramanyan, K.G. 30, 439 Tshombe 319, 324 439
Schutz, Dana 438 The City is Not for Burning 313, 320 The Walk 319, 323 Memling 384, 386-7
The Autopsy of Michael Jackson 270, 273 surrealism, surrealists 190, 372 Twombly, Cy 44, 111, 342, 411, 414, 439 Overhead Light (Oberlicht) 384, 384-5
Self-portrait 400, 403 Suwage, Agus 439 Aristaeus Mourning the Loss of his Bees 44, St Ludgerus 230-1, 231
Sneeze 392, 393 Bob Marley 90, 91 46, 47 Wesley, John 334, 439
Scully, Sean 111, 121, 438 Marilyn Monroe 90, 91 Discourse on Commodus 44 Showboat 334, 342
Wall of Light Fall 121, 122
Fifty Days at Ilium series 310 Westwood, Cynthia 425, 439
Shaw, George 260, 438 No. 4, Achaeans in Battle 310, 314 Samara #2 422, 425
Dead End (Friday) 259, 260 Untitled (New York City) 8, 9, 44 Weyden, Rogier van der 270
Scenes from the Passion: The Middle of the Untitled V 414, 416 Whistler, James Abbott McNeill 242
Week 259, 260 Untitled VI 414, 416 Williams, Sue 193, 439
Scenes from the Passion series 260 Taaffe, Philip 290, 297, 439 The Yellow Painting —retitled It’s a New Age
Shaw, Ragib 307, 438 Imaginary City 290, 295 NOS 197,299
Garden of Earthly Delights XIII306, 307 Mangrove 75, 78 Winters, Terry 154, 156, 439
Sheikh, Gulam Mohammed 30 Votive Painting 290, 296 Graphics Tablet 149, 156
Sheikh, Nilima 264, 267, 307, 310, 324, 426, 438 We Are Not Afraid 75, 79
Firdaus |: Valley 264, 265 Tarasewicz, Leon 245, 439 Van Eyck, Jan: Arnolfini Marriage 175
Firdaus II: Every Night Put Kashmir in Your floor painting installed at the Venice Biennale Van Gogh, Vincent 8, 20, 48, 56, 61, 237
Dreams 264, 265 244, 245 Varejao, Adriana 69, 297, 439
When Champa Grew Up 6 310, 315 Untitled 243, 245 Angels (Anjos) 69, 70
Shen Yaoding: Long Live the Victory of Chairman Thomas, Rover (Joolama) 439 Bastard Son (Filho Bastardo) 280, 321, 326 Yan Pei-Ming 393, 397, 439
Mao’s Proletarian Revolutionary Line 28, 30 The Burning Site 324, 327 Entrance Figure Ill (Figura de Convite III)285 Red Self-portrait 392, 393
Sicilia, José Maria 159, 161, 438 Thompson, Estelle 137, 439 Tiles with Live Flesh (Azulejaria em carne Viva) Yue Minjun 402, 439
This Two-coloured Scarf, Crossing the River Skimmy 137, 140 278, 280, 284 Big Swans 402, 405
(Cette Echarpe de Deux Couleurs, Creusant Tillers, Imants 439 Varo, Remedios 190 The Execution 9, 9
le Fleuve) 156, 159 Act of God 414, 415 Velazquez, Diego 51, 414 Yuskavage, Lisa 200, 439
Siena, James 416, 422, 438 Nine Shots 76, 82 Vermeer, Jan 16, 48, 54, 97, 230, 378 Brood 201, 204
Three Personages Interpenetrating 418 Titian 170, 282, 355 Veronese, Paolo 44, 54
Sikander, Shahzia 193, 362-3, 368, 438 Annunciation 41 Vettriano, Jack 200-201, 439
Extraordinary Realities series 193 Bacchus and Ariadne 44 Between Darkness and Dawn 201, 205
Offering 1199, 199 Tjampitinpa, Kaapa 25 Viallat, Claude 41
Pleasure Pillars 193, 198, 199 Tjangala, Uta Uta 439

To Reveal or Not to Reveal 193, 362, 365 Yumari 24, 27 Zeng Fanzhi 313, 439
Skreber, Dirk 438 Tjapaltjarri, Tim Leura 28 From the Masses, To the Masses 313, 319, 402

Untitled [2003] 282, 290 Tjapaltjarri, Tim Leura and Possum, Clifford: Zhang Xiaogang 101-2, 165, 345, 402, 409, 439

Untitled [2006] 282, 290 Warlugulong 25, 27 Amnesia and Memory 345, 345
Smithson, Robert 122 Toledo, Francisco 32, 69, 439 Walker, John 439 Big Family No. 1 101, 102
Solakov, Nedko 438 The Curled-up Frog (La Rana Ovillada) 30, 32 Passchendaele || 270, 274 The Big Family series 101
A Life (Black and White) 354, 355 The Rabbit Sprays It 193, 197 Wall, Jeff 93, 427, 439 Bloodline: Big Family 100, 101
Stella, Frank 44, 140, 144, 438
Tomaselli, Fred 305, 439 A Sudden Gust of Wind (after Hokusai) 102, Comrade series 9

Bafg 13, 13 Doppelganger Effect 151, 157 102 Green Wall —Landscape and Television
Odelsk | 44, 46 Expecting to Fly 284, 293 Walsh, Dan 136-7, 439 406, 407
 No book appears through the agency © 1998 Kate Rothko Prize! & Christopher Rothko ARS, NY and DACS, © Fernando Botero / Courtesy Marlborough Gallery, New York:349; York/ Photograph: Ellen Page Wilson; 244; © Matthew Ritchie / Courtesy
London; 6; ©2009 Lisa Kahane, NYC; 50; © 2009 Thomas Struth: 2, 22; © Fernando Botero / New York, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Gift of Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York/ Photograph: KevinKennific:245;
© 2009 Zhang Xlsogang / Courtesy Pace Beijing, China and Warren D Benecek / 2009 Digital image; The Museum of Modern Art, © Matthias Weischer / DACS2009 / Courtesy Galerie EIGEN+ ART
of one person alone, This book would not
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have been possible without the patience Photograph; Jobo Bosco; 87, 366; © Adriana Varejio / Photographer: 249; © Francesco Clemente / Courtesy Jablonka Galerie: 443, 444, Gallace / Courtesy Maureen Paley, London and 303 Gallery, New York:
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painters (both those included in this book ® Amy Cutler / Courtesy Leslie Tonkonow Artworks # Projects; 230; Ackermann / Courtesy private collection, Luxembourg; 239; ©Fred 80, 290; © Miquel Barcelé /ADAGP,Paris and DACS, Lonclon2009 /
® Angala cde la Cruz / Courtesy Lisson Gallery; 378; © Anselm Kiefer; 73, Tomaselli / Courtesy James Cohan Gallery, Now York; 177, 326; © Gary
Collection Banco Zaragozano, Zaragoza; 291, ©Mohammad Bhai; 462;
75, 297, 354; ©Anselm Kiefer / 2009 Kunsthaus Zurich; 313; © Anselm Hume / Courtesy Jay Jopling/ White Cube (London); 374; ©Gary Hume
and those not) in the more than thirty Kiefer / Courtesy Gagosian Gallery: 307, 483; © Anselm Kiefer / Tate, / Courtesy Jay Jopling/ White Cube (London) / Photograph: Stephen
© Monique Prieto / Courtesy ACME, Los Angelos: 174, 175; © Monique
Prieto / Courtesy Corvi-Mora, London: 379; © Nalini Malini:356, 409;
London 2008; 312, 314, 315; © Anton Henning / Courtesy Maunch of White: 468; © Gary Hume / Courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery, New York:
years | have been involved in the art world, © Nedko Solakov/ Courtesy 16th Biennaleof Sydney 2008 /
Venison, London: 258, 259; © April Gornik / Private Collection / Courtesy 380; © Ged Quinn / Courtesy Wilkinson Gallery, London; 477; © Geng
Danese Gallery: 273; © Atul Doclya / Courtesy Bose Pacla Gallery; 358, Jianyl / Courtesy ShanghART Gallery: 205; © Georg Baselitz: 70, 74, 459;
Photograph: Jonni Carter; 394; © Neo Rauch/ DACS2009 / Courtesy
Seminars and studio discussions with my 376; © Barnaby Furnas / Courtesy Marianne Boesky Gallery: 301, © Georg Baselitz / Friedrich Christian Flick Collection; 69; © Georg
Galerio EIGEN+ ARTLeipzig/Berlinand DavidZwirner,New York/
© Beatriz Milhazes / Courtesy 219t Century Museum of Contemporary Baselitz / Kunsthaus Zurich; 71, ©George Shaw / Courtesy Wilkinson Photograph: UweWalter, Berlin:328, 372, 415, 416, 419, 479; ©Nigel
students at Sotheby's Institute (London and Art, Kanazawa / Photography: SAIKITaku; 331; © Beatriz Milhazes / Gallery, London; 287, 288; © Gerhard Richter, 43, 51, 52, 53, 54; Cooke / Courtesy The DakisJoannou Collection, Athens / Courtesy
Courtesy Stephen Friedman Gallery, London and Galeria Fortes Vilaca, © Gerhard Richter / Photograph; Cantz: 121, 166, 305, 481; © Ghaco Stuart Shave/Modern Art, Lonclon,and Andrea Rosen Gallery,New York:
Sao Paulo / Photograph: Stephen White: 332; © Bernard Frize / Courtesy Amer / Courtesy Gagoslan Gallery; 336; © Giulio Paolini / Photograph; 324; @ NilimaSheikh;293, 294, 352; © Nona Garcia/ Courtesy Osage
Singapore) and the University of Plymouth Gallery:478; © Norbert Bisky/ Courtesy Leo Koenig Inc.:413; © Paula
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Courtesy Houser & Wirth Zurich London; 475; © Bhupen Khakkar / Tate, Berlin: 130; © Gordon Bennett / Private collection, Brisbane, Australia: Rego: 218; © Paula Rego / Photograph courtesy of Marlborough Fine Art
have also been a constant challenge. London 2008; 90; © Blinky Palermo / DACS 2009 / Photograph: Jurgen (London)Ltel:217; © PaulinaOlowska / Courtesy Galerie Daniel ©
103; © Guillermo Kuitea / Collection of the artist, Buenos Aires /
Wesseler: 395; © Blinky Palermo / DACS 2009 / Photograph; Wolfgang Courtesy Sperone Westwater, New York; 86; @Guillermo Kultea / Buchholz,Cologne/Berlin and Cabinet, London; 438; © Per Kirkeby;269;
The advice and support of my colleagues, Morell, Bonn: 396; © Brice Marden / ARS, NY and DACS, London 2009 / Collection Steven and Solita Mishaan, Miami / Courtesy Sperone © Por Kirkeby/ Courtesy Galerie MichaelWerner Berlin,Cologne & New
Courtesy Daros Services, Switzerland: 178; @ Brice Marden / ARS, NY Westwater, New York: 83; @Guillermo Kuitea / Stedlijk Museum, York:265, 266; © Peter Doig / Courtesy VictoriaMiro:3, 277, 278, 279,
especially Anna Moszynska and Juliet and DACS, London 2009 / Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam: 48; © Brice Amstercam: 309; ©Ha Chong-Hyun / Courtesy PYO Gallery, Seoul, 480; © Peter Halley;94, 408; © Peter Halley/ Stuart Shave/Modern Art;
Marden / ARS, NY and DACS, London 2009 / The Museum of Modern Korea: 153; ©Ha Manh Thang / Courtesy of Pho Hong Long, Director of 159; © PhilipPearlstein / Courtesy Betty Cuningham Gallery,New York,
Hacking, has been invaluable. Sotheby's Art, New York, Promised gift of Donald B, and Catherine C, Marron, Dong Phong Art Gallery, Hanoi, Vietnam: 447; © Helmut Federle / Private Collection / Photograph: Adam Reich,New York:202; ©Philip
2006: 184; © Brice Marden / ARS, NY and DACS, London 2009 / New Courtesy of Peter Blum Gallery, New York/ Galerie Nachat St, Stephan, Toaffe / Courtesy Gagosian Gallery/ Collection The Broad Art
Institute generously gave me sabbatical York, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Fractional and promised gift of Vienna: 106, 107, 108, 160, 161; @ Henry Darger / Kiyoko Lerner / Foundation: 329; © PhilipTaaffe/ Private Collection / Courtesy Gagosian
Kath and Richard S, Fuld, Jr © 2009, Digital image, Museum of Modern Courtosy of Edlin Gallery, New York;215, 216; ©Hernan Bas / Courtesy Gallery;95; © PhilipTaaffe/ Private Collection, Connecticut; 330;
leave and support to write this book — and Art, New York/Seala, Florence: 183; © Bridget Riley 2009, All rights Victoria Miro: 285; ® Howard Hodgkin / Courtesy of Gagosian Gallery / © Philip Taaffe/ Rafael Jablonka Collection: 97;© R.B.Kita}:62; © Rainer
roserved / Courtesy Karsten Schubert, London; 23, 164; © Bridget Riley Photograph; Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd; 252; © | Nyoman Fetting: 76; ©Raoul de Keyser / Courtesy Zeno X Gallery, Antwerp: 463;
2009, All rights reserved / Courtesy Karsten Schubert, London ane Masriacli / Collection Mr, Chris Dharmawan; 27; © | Nyoman Masriadi / © RaqilbShaw / Courtesy Jay Jopling/ White Cube (London) /
special thanks is due to Andy Snyder for his PaceWildenstein, New York / Photograph: John Webb; 54; © Caio Courtesy of Gajalh Gallery; 26; © lan Davenport / Courtesy Waddington Photograph; Tom Powel; 346; © Rend Danidls / DACS2009; 89; © Rand
Fonseca: 186; © Callum Innes / Image courtesy the artist / Ingally Galleries, London / Photograph: John Riedy; 398; © lan Davenport / Danildls/ DACS2009 / Collection Van Abbomusoum, Eindhoven, The
encouragement of this project. As always, Gallery, Edinburgh; 149; © Carol Rhodes / Courtesy Sperone Westwater, Courtesy Waddington Galleries, London/ Photograph: Prudence Cuming Netherlands / Photograph: Peter Cox, Eindhoven, The Netherlands; 91;
New York: 272; © Carroll Dunham / Courtesy Gladstone Gallery; 343; Associates, London; 147, 148; © lan McKeever: 267, 268, 303; © Ida © Richard Artschwager / ARS,NYancl DACS, London 2009; 116;
my wife Peggy and our children Isolde and © Catherine Murphy / Courtesy Knoedler & Company, New York; 209, Applebroog / Photograph: Jennifer Kotter; 219; © Imants Tillers / © RichardPatterson / Courtesy,TimothyTaylorGallery,London: 134,
253, 457; © Cocilla Edefalk / Courtesy Museum flr Moderne Kunst, Courtesy Roslyn Oxley? Gallery, Syeney; 460; © Imants Tillers / National 132, 370; © RichardPrince/ Courtesy Gladstone Gallery
/ Photograph:
Joel have been unfailingly tolerant of Frankfurt am Main / Photograph: Axel Schneider, 214; © Cecily Brown / Gallery of Australia, Canberra; 100; © Ingrid Calame / Courtesy James David Regen: 45, 133, 134; ©Robert Mangold: 145; ©Robert Mangold /
Courtesy Gagosian Gallery:321; © Cheri Samba / Courtesy JM. Patras, Cohan Gallery, New York: 176; ©Jock Vettriano: 235; © James Siena: Parasol Unit foundation for contemporary art/ Photograph: Stephen
my many absences researching and writing Paris; 30, 369; © Chris Ofil; 344, 347; © Chris Ofili / Courtesy Afroco and 465; © Jane Lee; 150; © Jason Brooks: 115, 118; © Jasper Johns / White: 144; © Robert Ryman/ Courtesy PaceWildenstein, New York/
Daviel Zwirner, New York; 345; ©Chris Ofili / Tate, London 2008; 304; VAGA, New York / DACS, London 2009 / New York, Museum of Modern Photograph: KerryRyanMcFate; 140; © Robert Ryman/ Stedelijk
this book, © Christoph Rickhaberle / Courtesy Sutton Lane, London/Paris; 429; Art (MoMA), Gift of Philip Johnson, 2009 Digital image, The Museum of Museum, Amsterdam; 47; © Rosa Loy/ Photograph; UweWalter,Berlin:
® Christopher LeBrun; 79, 458; © Chuck Close; 446; © Chuck Close / Modern Art, New York/Scala, Florence; 306; ©Jeff Koons; 391; © Jenny 430; © Ross Bleckner/ Courtesy Mary Boone Gallery,New York:310;
Collection Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Art Center Acquisition Fund, Saville; 210, 211, 434; © Jitish Killat / Photograph: Iris Dreams, Mumbal: © RoverThomas / National Galleryof Australia,Canberra, Purchased
1969: 117; ©Colin MeCahon Research and Publication Trust / Hocken 454; ® Johannes Kahrs / Courtesy Zeno X Gallery, Antwerp; 139; © John 1990 / Reproduced courtesy of Warmun Art Centre: 368; © RoyalArt
Collections, Uare Taoka o Makena, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Currin / Courtesy Gagosian Gallery: 206, 207, 236, 450; © John Walker /
Most of all | am indebted to my brother Lodge / Courtesy Studio Wolkowiczand Pippy Houldsworth, London:
Zealand; 34; ©Colin MeCahon Research and Publication Trust / National Courtesy Knoedler &Company, New York;302; © John Wesley /
229; © RudiMantofani/ Courtesy of Gajah Gallery,Singapore: 449;
Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Gilt of the New Zealand Government Courtesy Fredericks & Freiser, NY,373; © Jonathan Lasker / Courtesy
Richard who first introduced me to the © Rudolf Stingel / Collection Frangols Pinault Foundation / Courtesy
1978; 35; Courtesy Albertina, Vienna: 4; Courtesy Muller Mulier Gallery, Cheim & Read, New York;96, 168, 169; © Jonathan Meese / Courtesy
Galleria Massimo De Carlo; 111; © Rudolf Stingel / Courtesy Galleria
Knokke-Zoute, Belgium: 12; Courtesy Private collection / Photograph: Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin / Photograph; Jochen Littkemann, Berlin;
Massimo De Carlo / Photograph: Santi Caleca: 412; © Sarah Morris /
world of painting and to whose memory Eric Politzer: 18; © Craigie Aitchison / Courtesy Timothy TaylorGallery, 338, 339; © Jose Maria Sicilia / ARS, NY and DACS, London 2009 /
Courtesy of White Cube gallery: 157;'@ Sean Scully: 146; ©Shazia
Lonelon;401; © Cy Twombly;7, 59; @ Cy Twombly/ Gagosian Gallery / Gasull fotografia; 182; © Joseph Marioni / Galerie Mark Muller, Zuireh,
Sikancler/ Courtesy of Sikkema Jenkins & Co,: 227, 228, 406; ©Shen
this book is dedicated. Photograph; Robert McKeever: 461; © Cy Twombly / Photograph 2007 Switzerland / Photograph: Nicholas Walster: 143; © Joseph Mariani /
The Philadelphia Museum of Art/Art Resource/Scala, Florence; 351; Yaoding / Collection of 7,2, Chang: 39; ©Shigeko Kubota / DACS2009:
Image Courtesy Peter Blum, New York, Collection Allright-Knox Art
© Cynthia Westwood / Courtesy Galerie Bertrand & Gruner, Geneva, Gallery, Buffalo, NY: 142; © Jules Olitski /DACS 2009 / Tate, Loncon 14; © Shirazeh Houshiary / Courtesy Lisson Gallery: 482; © Sigmar Polke
Switzerland, Private Collection, Los Angeles, USA; 473; © Damien Hirst, 2008; 10; © Julian Schnabel / Courtesy of Robilant & Voona, London- / Courtesy Museum Frieder Burda, Baclen-Bacen / Photograph: Volker
All rights reserved, DACS 2009: 392; © Damion Hirst. All rights reserved, Milan; 84, 311, 474; @Juliéo Sarmento / Collection Hirshhorn Museum Naumann, Schdnaich: 5; © Sigmar Polke / Froehlich Collection, Stuttgart;
DACS 2009 / Courtesy of Gagosian Gallery: 299; @ Damien Hirst, All and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Joseph H, Hirshhorn 98; © Sigmar Polke / Photograph: F. Rosenstiel, Kéln / Galerie Klein,
rights reserved, DACS 2009 / Courtesy White Cube / Photograph: Purchase Fund, USA/ Photograph; Courtesy Sean KellyGallery, New Bonn; 99; © Sol LeWitt / ARS,NYand DACS, London 2009 / Wadsworth
Stephen White: 403, 404; © Dan Sturgis; 158; ©Dan Walsh / Courtesy York;257; © Julido Sarmento / Private Collection, Switzerland / Atheneum Museurn of Art, Hartford CT,The EllaGallup Sumner and
Phaidon Press Limited Poula CooperGallery, New York / Photograph; Ellon Wilson: 163; © Dan Photograph: José Manuel Costa Alves; 256; ® Julle Mehretu / Courtesy Mary Gatlin Sumner Collection Fund / Photograph: Allen Phillips:393;
Walsh / Courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery, New York / Photograph; Tom of the artist and The Project, NY.Collection of Dennis and Debra Scholl, © Stephen Ellis / Courtesy of Von LintelGallery: 170, 367; © Stuart
Regent's Wharf Powel: 162; ©Dana Schutz / Courtesy Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin / FL/ Photograph; Richard Stoner; 246; © Julie Mehretu / Courtesy The Pearson Wright; 44; © Stuart Pearson Wright / National Portrait Gallery,
Photograph; Jochen Littkemann, Berlin: 300; ©Dana Schutz / Courtesy Project, NY,Frangols Pinault Collection / Photograph: Tim Thayer: 247; London; 208; © Stuart Pearson Wright / Commissioned as part of the
tho Saatel| Gallery, Lonelon ane Zach Feuer Gallery (LFL),New York: 433; © Julio Galan: 224; ©Jumalell Alfi / Courtesy Enin Supriyanto; 467; © K, Firat Prize, BP Portrait Award, 2001, 2005, National Portrait Gallery: 470;
All Saints Street
© Dana Schutz / Courtesy Zach Feuer Gallery, New York; 445; © Daniel G, Subramanyan; 357; © Karen Kilimnik / Courtesy 303 Gallery, New © Subodh Gupta / Courtesy Hauser &Wirth Zlrich London; 359, 384;
Buren, Oliver Mosset, Michel Parmentier, Nielo Toroni / ADAGP, Paris York: 136; 405; © Katharina Grosse / Courtesy Artium de Alava, Vitoria © Succession Picasso/DACS 2009: 11; © Sue Williams/ Courtesy Regen
London N1 9PA and DACS, London 2009; 13; © Daniel Dezouze / FRAC Bourgogne Projects, Los Angeles; 225; © T.V.Santhosh / Grosvenor Gallery, London:
Gastelz Photograph: Gert Voor in't Holt: 400; © Kenneth Noland / DACS
Collection, France;55; © Daniel Richter / Courtesy Contemporary Fine 2009 / Photograph: Smithsonian American Art Museum / Art Archive / 361; © Tal R/ Courtesy Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin/ Photograph:
Arts, Berlin / Photograph: Jochen Littkemann, Berlin: 250, 341, 342, 360; Scala, Florence: 9; © Kerry James Marshall / Jack Shaniman Gallery: 371; Jochen Littkemann, Berlin;340; © Tate, London 2008: 19; ©Terry
© Daniel Richter / Photo CNAC/MNAM, Dist, RMN / Philippe Migeat; © Lari Pittman / Courtesy Gladstone Gallery; 223; ©Laura Owens / Winters / Courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery, New York;173; © The Andy
Phaidon Press Ine. 325; © David Hockney; 63, 292; © David Reed / Collection of Charles W. Gavin Brown's enterprise: 280, 281, 283, 453; © Lee Ufan / Courtesy Warhol Foundation for the VisualArts / Artists Rights Society (ARS),New
Banta / Photograph: Christopher Burke Studio, New York; 167; © David PaceWildenstein, New York/ Photograph; G.R. Christmas; 36; © Lee York / DACS, London 2009; 15; © The Archive of Frank Stella, New York/
180 Varick Street Reed / Photograph; Boris Becker, Cologne; 410; © David Reed / Ufan / Photograph; Ken Adlarel / Image courtesy the artist and Lisson DACS2009 / Photograph; Art Resource / Scala, Florence: 17, 57, 58;
Photograph; Johann Koinegg, Graz: 411; @ David Salle / DACS, London Gallery: 154; © Leon Tarasewicz / Photograph; Wojciech Zubala; 271; © The Estate of Francis Bacon, All rights reserved, DACS2009 / Museo
New York, NY 10014 /VAGA, New York 2009: 93; @ David Schnell / DACS 2009 / Courtesy © Leon Tarasewicz-/ Private collection, Sweden / Photograph; artist's Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid: 21; © The Estate of Michael!Andrews /
Galerie EIGEN + ART Leipzig/Borlin / Photograph: Uwe Walter, Berlin: archive: 270; © LiShan / Courtesy of Hanart T Z Gallery: 105; © Lilyvan Courtesy James Hyman Gallery, London; 261, 262; ©The Estate of
286, 418, 424; © Ding Yi / Courtesy ShanghART Gallery: 196; © Dirk der Stokker / Courtesy Rooseum, Malmd / Galerie van Gelder, R.B,Kita),Courtesy of Marlborough Fine Art; 197; ©The Estate of Roy
Braeckmann / Courtesy Zeno X Gallery, Antwerp / Gloasner Fotodesign, Amsterdam: 399; © LisaYuskavage / Courtesy David Zwirner, New York: Lichtenstein/DACS 2009: 16; © The Pollock-Krasner Foundation
Berlin: 128; © Dirk Skreber / Courtesy Friedrich Petzel, NY: 322, 323; 234; © LiuKuo-sung / Courtesy Hanart TZ Gallery: 194; © LiuWei / ARS, NY and DAGS, London 2009; 1; ©Thomas Nozkowski / Courtesy
www.phaidon.com © Doreen Reid Nakamarra / Papunya Tula Artists / Aboriginal Artists « Private Collection / Courtesy Christies, London; 327; ©Louise Hopkins / PaceWilelenstein, New York / Photograph; G.R. Christmas: 192;
Agency / National Galllery of Australia, Canberra, Purchased 2007; 427; Courtesy Mummery + Schnelle: 375; © LueTuymans / Courtesy David © Thornas Scheibitz/ Courtesy Produzentengalerie, Hamburg /
© Dr Leonard MeComb RA;203; © Eberhard Havekost / Courtesy Anton Zwirner, New York;308, 348, 383; © Lue Tuymans / Courtesy Zeno X Photograph; Jens Ziehe; 187; © ThoralfKnobloch/ Courtesy Gebr.
Kern Gallery, New York;426; © Ed Ruscha / Courtesy of Gagosian Gallory,Antwerp & David Zwirner,New York:363, 364, 365; © Lue erlin & WilkinsonGallery,London / Photographer:
First published 2009 Gallery: 377; © Elaine Sturtevant; 92; © Elizabeth Blackadder / Courtesy Tuymans / Private Collection / Courtesy Zeno X Gallery,Antwerp: 320, Bettina Schdner; 420; ©Tilo Baumgartel / Courtesy WilkinsonGallery,
Browse & Darby, London; 456; © Elizabeth Magill / Courtesy Wilkinson 362; © Lucian Freucl/ Photograph; John Ridey: 198, 199, 441; © Lucian London; 417; ©Tim Eltel /DACS,2009 / Courtesy Galerie EIGEN+ART
Gallery, London: 476; © Elizabeth Peyton / Courtesy Gavin Brown's Freud / Photograph: John Riddy,Ashmolean Museum; 64; ©Luey
Reprinted 2010, 2011 enterprise: 135, 237, 238, 436; © Ellen Gallagher / Courtesy the artist
Leipzig/Berlinand Pace Wilelenstein/ Photograph; Uwe Walter,Berlin:
McKenzie/ Courtesy Goetz Collection / Photograph: Nic 421, 422, 423; © Tim Maguire: 152, 318; © Tim Maguire/ Private
and Hauser & Wirth Zurich London; 185; © Emily Kame Kngwarreye / Tenwiggenhorn, Berlin:407; @Lucy McKenzie / Courtesy the Saatehi
DACS 2009 / National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Presented through collection, Melbourne / Photograph: courtesy the artist and Tolarno
Gallery; 137; @ LydiaDona / Courtesy private collection , Boston USA;
The Art Foundation of Victoria by Janet and Donald Molt and family, Galleries, Melbourne; 129; © Tomas Sanchez / Courtesy Marlborough
171; © Mamma Andersson / DACS2009 / Courtesy of Galleri Magnus
© 2009 Phaidon Press Limited Governors, 1995: 179; © Emily Kame Kngwarreye / DACS 2009 / The Gallery,New York:295; © TommaAbts; 188, 189; © Udomsak Krisanamis
Karlson, Stockholm / Stephen Friedman, London / David Zwirner, New
Janet Holmes 4 Court Collection; 180, 181; © Enzo Cucchi / Staatliche York/ Photograph: PerErik Adamsson; 284, 439; ©Mamma Andersson /
/ Courtesy VictoriaMiroGallery,London; 195; © Uta Uta Tjangala /
Museen 2u Berlin, Nationalgalerie, Collection Marx, Berlin / Photograph: DACS2009 / Courtesy Stephen Friedman Gallery: 440; ©Manu
Aboriginal ArtistsAgency / National Galleryof Victoria,Melbourne.
Galorie Bruno Bischofberger, Zurich: 77; © Eric Fisehl: 72, 254, 255, 298; Chitrakar: 37; © Maria Lassnig: 65, 435; © Maria Lassnig / Sammlung Essl Purchased through The Art Foundation of Victoriawith the assistance of
ISBN 978 0 7148 4631 6 © Estate Martin Kippenberger / Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne; 85, Kunst-Verwaltungs GmbH, Klosterneuburg/Vienna / Photograph: ICIAustralia Ltd, Fellow,1988; 31; © Verne Dawson / Gavin Brown's
114, 337; © Estate of Alice Neel 2004 / Photograph; National Portrait Graphisches Atelier Neumann, Wien: 110; © Marilyn Minter / Courtesy of enterprise, New York;282; © VijaCelmins/ Courtesy McKee Gallery,
Gallery Smithsonian/Art Resource/Seala, Florence: 432; © Estate of Salon 94, New York:469; © MarilynMinter / Courtesy of Salon 94, New New York:120, 122, 123, 124; © Wang Guangyi / AWAsia/ Private
Bhupen Khakkar / Collection of VivanSundaram; 38; © Estate of Clifford York:193; © Mark Francls / Collection of Donall Curtin &Anne collection: 104; ©Wang Guangyl / Pace Beijing:101; © Werner Tibke /
Possum Tjapaltarri / Aboriginal Artists Agency / Art Gallery of New South O'Donohue, Dublin / Courtesy of KerlinGallery, Dublin: 464; © Mark DACS2009 / Photograph; Dietor Leistner,Wirzburg; 353; © Werner
A CIP catalogue record of Wales / Photograph: Christopher Snee; 32; © Estate of Clifford Possum Grotjahn: 190; @ Marlene Dumas: 109; @ Marlene Dumas / Courtesy Tubke / DACS2009/ Photograph: AKGimages: 42; © WilhelmSasnal /
Tapaltarri / Aboriginal Artists Agency / Central Art Society, The Araluen Zeno X Gallery, Antwerp; 466; © Marlene Dumas / De Pont Museum of Courtesy Sadie Coles HO, London; 386, 387, 388, 389; ©Willemde
this book is available from the Centre, Alice Springs Papunya stock no CP860589: 289; © Estate of Kooning/ DACS2009 / Digital image, The Museum of Mocern Art, New
Contemporary Art, Tilburg, The Netherlands / Courtesy Galerie Paul
Clifford Possum Tjapaltarri / Aboriginal Artists Agency / The Homles & Andriesse: 222; © Marlene Dumas / Gemeentemuseum, The Hague / York/ Scala, Florence: 20; @Y,2,Kami/ Courtesy Gagosian Gallery:28,
British Library Court Collection, Heytesbury: 33; © Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat / Courtesy Galerie Paul Andriesse; 220; ©Marlene Dumas / Tate, London 29; ©YanPel-ming/ Courtesy David Zwirner,New Yorkand Galleria
DACS 2009; 82; © Estate of Leon Golub / DACS 2009 / Collection of 2008; 221; © Marlene Dumas / Van Abbe Museum collection, Eindhoven Massimo De Carlo, Milan/ Photograph: André Morin:431; ©Yayoi
Broad Art Foundation / Courtesy Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, Now York/ / Courtesy Galerio Paul Andriesse: 138; © Martin Ecler / BAGS2009 / Kusama/ Courtesy of VictoriaMiroGallery: 191; ©YoshitomoNara/ *
Photograph: David Reynolds: 350; © Estate of Philip Guston / Courtesy Courtesy Galerie EIGEN+ ARTLeipzig/Berlin/ Photograph; Uwe Walter, Stuart ane SherryChristhilf;390; ©YueMinjun:8, 448; ©YvesKlein/
Designed by Sonya Dyakova McKee Gallery, New York:25; © Estate of Philip Guston / Photograph; Berlin:471; © Martin Kobe / Courtesy Christian Ehrentraut, Berlin;425; DACS2009 / Photograph: courtesy Hamburger Kunsthalle,Hamburg,
David Lee / Courtesy McKee Gallery, New York:24; © Estate of Phill © Mary Heilmann / Courtesy 303 Gallery, New York,Hauser & Wirth Germany / The Bridgeman Art Library;141; © Zeng Fanzhi/ Courtesy
Guston / Stedelijk Museum, Amstercam; 60; @Estelle Thompson / Purely Zurich Loncon / Photograpl: Oren Slor; 333, 334; ©Mary Hellmann / ShanghARTGallery;355, Artists photographs; Diego Singh; Paul
Typeset in Didot and Avenir Hicks Gallery: 165; © Fabian Mareaccio / Beaufort Triennial, Ostende, Courtesy 303 Gallery, New York,Hauser &Wirth Zurich London / Andriesse; Sue Arrowsmith;AlexSmailes;Anton Corbin; David Reynolds;
Belgium / Courtesy Galerie Thomas Schulte, Berlin; 243; © Fabian Photograph: Pat Hearn Gallery: 319; © Mary Heilmann / Secession / Cesar Chavez Lechowick;VivienBittencourt; GalleryChemould); Nalini
Marcaccio / Courtesy Galerie Thomas Schulte, Berlin: 172, 242; © Fang Photograph; Matthias Hermann; 335; © Mattheur Wolfgang / DACS Malini;Thomas Cugini; Ha Manh Thang; Irene Rhoden; Hubert Becker;
Lijun:201, 204; © Fang Lijun/ Courtesy Saatchi Gallery, London: 452; 2009 / Photograph: Christoph Sandig, Museum cer bildenden Kinste TY,Santhosh; Paul Seward; K.G.Subramanyan; Rogerio Cudllar;Graham.
Printed in China © Farhad Moshiri / Courtesy Galerie Kashya Hildebrand: 382; Leipzig: 414; © Matthew Ritchie / Courtesy Ancrea Rosen Gallery, New Wood) YonPelming
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Painting Today

A worldwide survey of painting from the 1970s to the

present. Tony Godfrey guides the reader through the
movements and themes of the last 40 years, embracing
the work of hundreds of artists from more than 30
countries. The book encompasses both abstract and
figurative painting. Portraiture, photo-realism, landscape,
still-life, neo-expressionism, installation painting and
the Leipzig school are just some of the areas of this thriving
art medium explored by the author. Painting Today is
informative, authoritative and challenging and provides a
clear and comprehensive guide to contemporary painting.

Tony Godfrey is Director of Research at Sotheby's Institute

of Art in Singapore. He has worked at Sotheby's Institute,
in London and Singapore, since 1989, and since 2006
is a professor of Fine Art at Plymouth University. He writes
regularly on contemporary art. His books include The
New Image: Painting in the Eighties,1986, Drawing Today,
1990 and Conceptual Art, in Phaidon’s Art & Ideas series
in 1998. He frequeritly reviews exhibitions for
The Burlington Magazine.

ISBN 978-0-7148-4631-6

www.phaidon.com 9
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