SFMOMA Artists Gallery
Monday, 12 January 2009
Michelle Mansour
On Thursday of last week I made it out to Fort Mason for openings at the San Francisco MOMA’s rental/artists gallery. With its link to MOMA and reputation for promoting mid-range regional artists, not to mention its commoditized rental program, it is usually pretty low on the hip scale. But with a changing of the guard they are bringing in more diverse artwork and its publics. In addition to the main gallery presentation, the venue is experimenting with mixed results installing younger artists in the loft.
The main gallery featured Michelle Mansour in the front and Michael Hall in the back. Both of these artist are accomplished with cohesive bodies of work. Michelle’s paintings look like strings of beads or Tomaselli pills floating in briny fields of yellowing ether. They are inspired by scientific and medico-pathogenic imagery which adds a mortal edge to their viscous bubbling surfaces. The lines, traced by dots, droop with the fecund gravity or arc-like trails of spider bites, overlapping ringworm marks or other ghastly signs. Even viewed as pure abstraction, there is underlying elegiac tone to the spaces Mansour evokes.
Michael Hall
Michael Hall presented oil paintings based on an acquired collection of photographs from the 1960′s. They are typical family snapshots rendered with deadpan distance. They read as generic and cool documents of a certain era of the the great (and banal) American dream. Hall’s painting style is very satisfying in its consistent and economical impasto, ironically showing off “la pâte de l’artiste” which plays off the photographic subject well. Hall reproduces photographic date marks on the edge of the images and, in one charming painting, the backside of a print. A section of small paintings (very reasonably priced at $145) depict cropped down details which heightens the focus on the style markers of the particular era and consumer space. Here more than in the others Hall reveals his agency as selector.
Upstairs work by Jessica Dacher was a quick read, though typically seemed to attract buyers. In the back loft area, mixed in with the racks of rental work was a group show called New World Order: Ecology with work by Bert Bergen, Charlie Callahan, Tom Hawkins, Carol Newborg, and Jenna North. These artists were able to pull in a crowd of scenesters making the schlep from the East Bay and the Mission. While good on paper (ie their mailinglists) even the artists admitted that the space made for a poor show. Crammed into leftover areas on floating walls, countertop and above doors, only Bert Bergen was able to make something of an installation of the back back room. Bert’s graphic style (he is often seen making posters for local bands) was able to overcome the dominance of the storage racks. His colored sculptures had the feeling of barnacles encrusting the grey shores of dead art. On the furthest wall was a set of his screen prints expanding the titular theme of eco-utopianism.
I applaud the efforts of the organizers to open up and energize this venue, but clearly the addendum exhibit is a second rate context unless the artists are able to engage forcefully with the site.
Bert Bergen
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No. 1 — January 23rd, 2009 at 1:21 pm
I’ve been thinking all week about Michael Hall‘s paintings after reading this post . I’ve seen his work in local Oakland galleries numerous times over the last year, and I know Michael from concurrent study at CCA in the nineties, as well as through mutual friends at Mills.
What I have been thinking about is this: the prospectus for the exhibition has this quirky statement: “[Hall] places himself in the role of “dumb painter” by refusing access to all information except the visual. Happily, we are positioned as clueless viewers who must rely on the physical act of looking in order to understand the artist’s wonderfully emotive paintings.”
Happily clueless? Not me. And, I take umbrage with a “tongue-in-cheek” reference to being a dumb painter, because it is another situation where a funny reference to a stupid thing only perpetuates the stupid thing, i.e., painters aren’t dumb, so why continue the challenge? Does Michael Hall feel dumb? I doubt it. His show is titled Bête comme un Peintre which translates to Dumb as a Painter, but it comes off as sooooo self-reflexive it annoys.
So, if we skip the title and the silly preface of the show, what now about the actual artwork? Deric mentions that with a particular selection of works: “more than in the others Hall reveals his agency as selector.” What is Hall selecting exactly? Something “wonderfully emotive?” Blasé imagery? I’ve very much enjoyed Hall’s painting style and skill as an 2D image maker in the past, but now that he leaves the image making to controlled chance and leaves us with only style and technical skill in painting, what sets his artwork apart, above or on equal footing to say Bechtle or Thiebaud? Is Hall being ironic with his skill, as Deric implies? I DO think it is ironic to consciously make paintings of nothing-esque photographs. That alone seems to be the successful result of Hall’s recent works shown here
Still, I’m curious to know: what does one gain “By drawing from preexisting images he gives up a measure of control over his subject matter and compositions…”? [link]
This isn’t a rhetorical question—I would like to know what other people think.
No. 2 — January 26th, 2009 at 7:16 pm
hmmm, not particularly happy about the “dumb as a painter” reference either. One might assume that this “dumbness” would somehow create a “smartness” in intuitive skill needed to paint? I’m tired of that assumption as well, though – that one can’t be intuitive AND rational, and also – that intuition, emotion, the dream state, etc. are the only tools needed to be a successful painter. There’s an assumption out there that one must turn off your brain in order to properly paint a picture (all those “right brain” books, drawing classes in which we were taught exercises to turn our brain off while drawing). I don’t get this – who decided this? Art should be able to appeal to our minds as well as our guts, why can’t we use our minds to create it?
And back to Michael Hall – why would one want to “give up a measure of control over…subject matter and compositions”? Isn’t that a good portion of what goes into making a painting? Should he credit the anonymous photographer as a collaborator? Is he merely copying? There has to be choice involved – I think an artist primarily makes decisions – what do I paint, draw, sculpt, how do I do it, with what, where do I put it, etc.
No. 3 — January 27th, 2009 at 9:53 pm
Clearly in his title Michael protests too much in a somewhat anxious plea for the viewer to notice that, as we say in French, il n’est pas bête celui-la—he is not stupid. This is irony today—I do this to show I am not this. “la pâte de l’artiste” (the paw of the artist) is what Duchamp railed against as the modern tendency for artist to luxuriate in the virtuosic egoism of his signature mark-making (as a shame cover for lack of thoughtfulness). So yes, the title is a bit tired of a provocation—”I dare you to care”. The MOMA rental crowd, slumming from their Pac Heights reveries, are just the rube viewers expecting to see glimpses of the artist’s paw prints and other romantic titillations. Or so the story goes. But in the instance, I dont think anyone got provoked. It feels like a rote gesture (though we are discussing it). There is another story more apropo these days: I just got out of grad school and I’m freighted by critical awareness. The work is quite satisfying visually and this whole meta-narrative comes off mostly as a too pat rationalization for someone in the thrall of an over-cautious narrative of disavowal. I sympathize. To be annoyed is too fall into the trap and prove the gesture still valid.
No. 4 — January 28th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
Touché! I can only reply that I prefer to stand on the side of sincerity over ironic gestures…unless it is irony used with humor, because we all need a good laugh, now and then.
No. 5 — February 7th, 2009 at 5:14 pm
What I am interested in is historical narratives. Particularly with images and the historical context that they are placed in and how that affects their placement in current and future times. In “Bête comme un Peintre” the series landed squarely in the parallel histories of painting and photography. It started as a wish to simply work with photographs that had a resonance with me – a collection of photographs from a family album gleaned from an antique dealer. The title refers to the admittedly self-conscious feeling I had of just painting from a photograph – the guilty pleasure I felt (at first) in rendering and replicating a photograph – of strict observation.
As I continued with the series I became more and more interested in three parallel narratives that I saw developing in the work. The first was this mysterious narrative of the family depicted, the time they were in and my own relation to that period. Secondly was the history of this particular photographic material – the physical photographs and the lost or dying process used to make them. The final narrative is wrapped up in the historical mythology of the battle between photography and painting. One dismantling the other continuously – both in collusion with each other’s historical demise and rebirth – to the point that they are so intertwined that they are like Siamese twins. In fact it was the invention of photography that forced artists to reconsider what painting did when stripped of the function to replicate life. It is straight out of this that the term “Bête comme un Peintre” came into use as a pejorative term. Like many such terms, through time it became incorporated by those it was intended to offend. It became a badge of honor – to recognize the importance of observation and validity of the creation of a painting.
I’m not interested in irony and the title is not an attempt at irony. It is a sincere acknowledgement of the very feelings of self-consciousness that you have so well pointed out. Often I find that is not received well amongst artists and critics. That being self-conscious about your work somehow equates that you are not earnest or unprepared. I find it to be a natural process that I as an artist often work through. Since this series began in a time of self-consciousness (yes, I had just exited Grad school) and since it continued to reference the historical narrative of photography and painting’s relationship to it, I decided to commit to that title.
No. 6 — February 11th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
I want to extend my appreciation to Michael Hall for joining this discussion—his engagement and thoughtful comments open up a greater dialogue than before, the whole reason for which Artopic exists. It is rare that viewer and artist can present alternative views, and others can witness the connections, the crossed lines and the lingering questions. Art. Lives.
To continue along the thread: there are, I think, a number of different ways that “Dumb as a painter” can be construed.
In my personal experience it has been used pejoratively—yet light-heartedly—to refer to the result of brain mass loss (i.e., smarts) via excess exposure to toxic fumes painters often inhale in the process of using oils and painting mediums…and if you are an oil painter, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Furthermore, painters have jokingly replied in defense: “well, as least I’m not as dumb as a screen printer!” Which, if anyone has ever screened with oil paints, then gone off to clean your screens, you doubly know exactly what I’m talking about. And, this was all in good artist-on-artist jest.
On a more serious note, “Dumb as a painter” also has another common usage: to refer to focusing on the medium over the meaning of the image; a painter’s excuse for not knowing what their painting is about. We are entering contested territory here—is one a painter who worships the act of painting, or is painting a conceptual exercise…with quality, chops, and technic be damned! Sure, I’m exaggerating the extremes. We all can ask: what does painting “do” in the era of photographic reproduction? Has this not already been worked out—at least indirectly—by Walter Benjamin? Has it been answered satisfactorily? Again, we can consult Duchamp who famously garnered attribution for his use of the term:
“Duchamp’s expressed bias—that as a painter it was much better to be influenced by a writer than by another painter—indicates his effort to reinterpret art as “intellectual expression.” His concomitant rejection of painting as “animal expression” reflects his project to overcome the purely visual (retinal) constraints of a medium that reduces the artist to silence, rendering him: “dumb as a painter.“[31] This is not because the verbal is more “intellectual” than the visual; rather, it is the possibility of their interplay that arouses his curiosity.
- Judovitz, Dalia. Unpacking Duchamp: Art in Transit. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1995 1995, p. 88.
Did Duchamp mean that painters need—in order to become artists—more than just the brute knowledge of brushes and pigments, the “animalistic” enjoyment of the process? I interpret Duchamp’s position as demanding that painting have an intellectual “voice.”
To be called “dumb as a painter” can also put emphasis on issues of formalist tendencies, a lack of balanced interplay between object and idea. But all sorts of -ist or -ism painters have successfully defined their artwork precisely as a result of much interplay between ideas, concepts and philosophy, yet hidden to the naked eye: sometimes the answers lie in the title. That conscious “positioning”—of the artist in relation to their artwork and art practice—does not sound dumb to me.
If “Dumb as a painter” alludes to an anti-conceptualist position, we must then reject it outright considering what Michael wrote above, since it is obvious he considered and developed a position as a painter within the series through observing the unfolding narratives as well as becoming aware of conceptual references the title “Bête comme un Peintre” would illicit from an audience. Once again, all this discussion on the topic goes to show how influential show titles can be, something that I myself continue to wrestle with, because titles, especially of bodies of work, can errect a distracting framework in which to view the artwork. Sometimes I think frameworks for one’s art have become almost more important than the the artwork itself, something that I see as a result of Grad School modification of the artist, something to learn to resist.
With that said, I think Michael’s commitment to establishing a position—as the artist choosing to develop these paintings of photographs via the “the guilty pleasure I felt (at first) in rendering and replicating a photograph”—proves a dedication to the mysteries of the daily practice of art. I support that wholeheartedly.
[31] See Duchamp’s comments in “Interview with Marcel Duchamp,” Dadas on Art, ed. Lucy Lippard (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1971), 142.