What is Real?

Josephine Halvorson, "Coral", 2009, 18" x 23", Oil on Linen (image courtesy of Sikkema Jenkins & Co.)



Anne Sherwood Pundyk, " A Little Kiss for Me", 2009, 10" x 8", Oil and Acrylic on Panel


Flesh or living matter is not a subject in Josephine Halvorson’s trompe l’oeil paintings. All of the materials, objects and substances she chooses to paint are inorganic or formerly organic at the time she paints them. Nothing alive can be found in her modest-sized paintings. So why do her paintings have such a palpable presence?

I turn to my own work to help me think through the answer. Several years ago, as I was sorting out an approach to painting, I decided that objects, landscapes and people were three distinct conceptual categories. The way I used paint when approaching each category would have to be completely different. With objects, I felt comfortable painting them. They were known entities and I could use a type of mimicry. With the brushwork I could construct with paint, more or less, how the object itself was constructed, situated and lit.

Landscape, I understood, could be painted (not represented, but conjured in paint) through a dance-like process. Landscape is everything beyond the object or outside the skin. Movement, as orientation, not mimicry, was the key to landscape. And then there was flesh. I studied traditional portraits; I looked extensively at other figure paintings. Sargent, Manet, Vermeer, Morisot, Cassatt. Time passed. My obsession with finding the alchemical formula for painting flesh continued. And it wasn't merely the flesh I wanted to paint. It was the resemblance, the form, the anatomy, the skeleton, the movement, the breath, the expression, the person, and the presence. Cecily Brown's work seemed to point the way -- other artists, too, including Amy Sillman, Francis Bacon, and even almost purely abstract work such as Joan Mitchell's.

Immanual Kant's Critique of Judgment provided the key. His methodological, categorical approach to the mysteries of beauty and the sublime opened a door. I became aware of the correspondence of the painter's body (and consciousness) to the world and the same correspondence shared between the artwork to the audience. I think it is just in my most recent work that -- by not trying to contain the notion of flesh, but paint the spirit contained in the flesh -- I can paint a living presence and world.

Now, back to Halvorson’s work. She has a clear-eyed, stripped down approach to both selecting her subjects (does she find them or do they find her?) and painting them in situ. Her choices appear to be the universe of the inorganic -- the breath, life and growth of her subjects are no longer present. But then it occurred to me what was happening. Her paint is the flesh. The act of painting her “overlooked subjects" (as she describes them) gives them their life.

Halvorson has linked her work to the children’s story The Velveteen Rabbit: or How Toys Become Real by Margery Williams (with illustrations by William Nicholson.) An inert toy rabbit grows conscious of the possibility of becoming not only beloved by the boy he belongs to, but a real flesh and blood rabbit. The toy rabbit must gain the boy’s love while surviving a lifetime of wear and tear. Another toy tells him, “…Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand." Halvorson’s planks, embers, gravestones, twigs and bricks have weathered several lifetimes and through her understanding they are resurrected in paint.

Pecha Kucha: MoMA, M.Y. Art Prospects, CUNY's James Gallery, Cuchifritos, Monya Rowe and CRG

I went to a panel discussion at MoMA expecting to learn about the six artists presenting, and ended up more curious about the format of the lecture: Pecha Kucha.  Each presenter is allowed 20 images and has 20 seconds per image to comment.  MoMA is hosting five presentations in this format this spring in conjunction with the exhibition, “Compass in Hand: Selections from The Judith Rothschild Foundation Contemporary Drawings Collection.”

Pecha Kucha, which translates from Japanese as “chit chat,” is a recent innovation first used by architects.  In 2003, Mark Dytham and Astrid Klein, who have a Tokyo-based firm, saw the potential for expanding the role of the design presentation into the realm of nighttime entertainment. Pecha Kucha tightens up the parameters of a traditional lecture presentation relocating it to a bar or nightclub.  Consider Pecha Kucha as a substitute for Karaoke or a drinking game.  In the new, relaxed atmosphere, the shorter presentations allow architects and designers to quickly share their ideas.

So, does it work for artists?  

To get in on the game, I am modeling this post on the Pecha Kucha style. In addition to the MoMA presentation I will cover several recent art events: a lecture on surf blogging and an exhibition of Carolyn Swiszcz’s paintings at M.Y. Art Prospects; Thomas Torros Cordova’s performance, “Everybody Loves the Sunshine” at CUNY’s new James Gallery; Josephine Halvorson and Andy Rosen ‘s two-person show, “Close to Home” at Cuchifritos; and Angela Dufresne’s new paintings at Monya Rowe and CRG.  This is more than I would normally write about at once, but I’ll try for short and sweet.

Ready, set, go.  

At MoMA, the artists presenting were Christian Holstad, Kim Jones, Julian Hoeber, Dana Schutz, Dannielle Tegeder and Elizabeth Simonson. Most of them started with older drawings from the exhibition, followed by more recent work in other media.  While the styles and subjects of their work were diverse, by the end all of the artists where united in feeling nerve-racked by the constraints of the Pecha Kucha format.  Disco lighting and a pitcher of beer might have helped.

One side effect of presenting under pressure was a generous outpouring during the Q and A and the end. The artists offered personal advice to the audience about countering some common professional hazards.   Elizabeth Simonson stressed the importance of having a studio and keeping a close circle of friends.  In response to a question about disappointment, Dannielle Tegeder offered, “it is a natural part of the process of making and showing work.” Dana Schutz says she fights doubt by making lists of ideas and running.  Several artists agreed with Kim Jones that doing yoga helps.  Looking back, it may be that the artists’ discomfort came from trying to jam the contents of a more traditional presentation into too small a space. The most memorable moments came after the timer had stopped and the artists were more at ease. 

Moving right along. 

To mark her gallery’s 10^th anniversary, Miyako Yoshinga has initiated a monthly informal lecture and discussion series called Telling Evenings (T.E.) at M.Y. Art Prospects. On April 9 -- the debut of the series -- new media artist and filmmaker, Marcin Ramocki talked about the brief history of surf-blogging. He projected on-line examples of this visual telephone game, played by closed surf clubs on the Internet. Surf blogging sprang up from the fertile crescent of amateur pornography connoisseurship and Internet image piracy. The audience’s reaction to Ramoki’s presentation was swift and polarized:  outrage at the unauthorized use of images posted on the Internet, and delighted fascination with the humor and creativity of the results.

Also at M.Y. Art Prospects through May 23^rd, “Minnesota Miracle,” an exhibition of Carolyn Swiszcz’s paintings combines a bleak “South Park” aesthetic with pitch-perfect atmospheric effects also found in Hokusai’s ukiyo-e landscape woodblock prints.  The artist’s use of repeating geometric shapes to depict modern suburban architectural facades – they are “rubber stamped” – becomes a commentary on the winter-weary heartland mindset.  Her gaze at an impoverished, strip mall and beer-pong culture is both sympathetic and steady. 

Next.  

Under the new directorship of Linda Norden, the programs at The Amie and Tony James Gallery at CUNY’s Graduate Center located at 35^th and Madison have nearly exploded out of its large-windowed corner gallery space. Performances, videos, readings, and politically charged exhibitions rotate in and out of the gallery at a whiplash pace.  On April 17, 2009, film-maker, performance artist and crooner,  Thomas Torres Cordova screened his 3-D film “Everybody Loves the Sunshine.” 

During his performance Cordova narrated and sang over his video montage accompanied by Woody "Uncle Woody" Sullender‘s live banjo playing.  Cordova is a full-time on-the-ground airlines employee whose family runs an air-conditioning business.  Airplane crashes, “loony” astronaut love triangles, the American need for artificially controlled air environments, and the mass merchandising of art, piled together spell out an SOS in sky-writing.  Where, in our airtight, super-sonic space age, is there room for the lonely heart to sing out and be heard? 

Home stretch. 

In “Close to Home,” curators Melissa Levin and Mike Quinn have paired fine art “souvenirs” from a northeastern sensibility at Cuchifritos in the East Village through June 13th. The modestly sized still life paintings by Josephine Halvorson exhibit a wry, deadpan humor and play off the physical comedy of Andy Rosen’s nautical sculptures.   

Last one.  

A double dose of work by painter and musician Angela Dufresne’s is now up at Monya Rowe and CRG in Chelsea in “Modern Times I and II.”  Painting the movie of her life, scored by Bob Dylan and scripted by Charlie Chaplin, Dufrese’s friends understudy for contemporary and classic movie stars. She slides a filmic veneer under her painted forms and strokes reminding me of the late Picasso's, and the paintings of Louise Fishman and Cecily Brown.  There’s a split-screen music video made by Dufresne floating around the Internet I wish would show up in her galleries.

Done. 

Pecha Kucha for writing:  is the result a haiku collection or a shopping list? I’ll take their word that it works for architects; the jury is out for fine artists. “Chit chat” implies a tuned out superficiality, but it sounds like the process is supposed to be more like skipping rope, it gets the heart rate up, hopefully pumping more oxygen to the brain.  Maybe fine art is less programmatic than architecture, so its harder to regulate.  Or should MoMA be serving cocktails? 

Above Image by Carolyn Swiszcz, "Walker Art Center, Minneapolis," Acrylic and rubber stamp on canvas, 36" x 48", 2009.  Courtesy of M.Y. Art Prospects.  

Omit Needless Paint

I recently re-read Strunk & White's The Elements of Style, the classic guide to writing.  E.B. White gives us an image, "Will [Strunk] felt that the reader was in serious trouble most of the time, a man floundering in a swamp, and that it was the duty of anyone attempting to write English to drain this swamp quickly and get his man up on dry ground, or at least throw him a rope."  The book's rule number 13 for saving the reader is: "Omit needless words."

Josephine Halvorson's still life paintings save us from the swamp by omitting needless paint.

I was not familiar with Halvorson until I ran into her work at the Perception as Object exhibition opening, January 8, 2009, at Monya Rowe Gallery.  I saw a row of five, modestly sized, immaculate trompe l'oeil paintings.  Fortuitiously, Alyssa Pheobus, a draftswoman I know, was at the opening and is friends with Halvorson.  We were introduced and talk about her work.  Halvorson offered that I can see more paintings down the street at Sikkema Jenkins & Co., but the exhibition closes soon.  

There is suspense and stagecraft in the presentation of the objects in Halvorson's still lifes -- a whiff of Hitchcock.  I  am intrigued by the way they are structured and by the paint itself.  Each of the five works at Monya Rowe Gallery: the envelope, the boarded window, the puzzle, the math worksheet, even the farm machine have a finite space you could measure with a ruler. Within these shallow spaces, however, there are puns and jokes embedded into the paint strokes.  A playfulness abounds.  The colors are somber, humble, as if from an earlier, more simple time, but the compositions are sophisticated, witty and dry. 

Halvorson paints each work in one sitting and in situ.  Her method is exacting and it is not always easy or straightforward to locate her subject and finish the work.  I hear from her about one of the paintings, "Farm Machine (Squeeze Chute.)"  Sitting in front of the machine, in  a barn on a farm she "thought she had permission" to visit, she is interrupted by the farmer.  An inquisition ensues.  It goes both ways; the artist secures permission to paint and learns what the machine does (it holds the cow in place during vaccination.)

Another painting at the Monya Rowe Gallery is "Envelope Back."  The painting was made on the first day of January, 2009 -- we know because the date is written on the painting -- just days before we are standing in front of it.  There is a story about the envelope, but I don't know what it is.  I can only guess.  It has been openend two ways, slit open at the bottom with an opener, and also at the top.  But is has been taped shut.  I surmise one scenario:  what is inside has been sealed, opened, resealed, sent and opened by someone else.  Or was it returned after opening, did it come "back?" What is inside the envelope?  What does the year ahead hold for us?

Several days later, I take in nine of Halvorson's paintings at Sikkema Jenkins & Co.  They are the same modest size.  The list of titles reads like a poem" "Batterie Allemande," "Chateau Souvenir," "Dirty Window," "Hot Coals," " Crumbs," "Three Photo Albums," "Momento Mori," "Meter," "Fireplace Farm."  Unexpectedly, Halvorson walks into the gallery,  I've been speculating about if she works larger?  There is a restraint in her work, and I wonder if it ever takes flight.  Halvorson offers that the work is intentionally small (in "relation to the body") and in keeping with still life tradition -- it is portable work originally intended for a middle class audience. 

Halvorson emphasizes that she often selects subjects that are "inconsequential."  The drama and commitment to the act of painting has consequences that imbue the overlooked objects with a presence.  I feel it is not so much that the subjects she paints lack consequence -- the farm machine certainly has consequences for the cow, the envelope for the sender and the receiver, the tombstone in "Memento Mori," for its owner  -- it is that the consequences are "off stage."  The audience is eavesdropping on the main characters, piecing the story together. 

I don't think I needed to have met Halvorson to have connected with her work.  But her emphasis on being with her subject and finishing it in one sitting is now tied to my experience of meeting her twice -- and of being with her and her work.  It feels like a balanced equation, the prerequisites for transferring experience and meaning.  The paintings don't have figures in them, they are strictly still lifes.  But, they have the evidence of people's actions, their presence imbued by Halvorson's disciplined approach to their creation. 

Image above:

"Envelope Back,"  2009, 14" x 17," oil on linen at Monya Rowe Gallery courtesy of the artist

Related Material:

"Josephine Halvorson", by Litia Perta, The Brooklyn Rail