East Coast
by Marilyn Mitchell
Every year I make one or two trips to NYC to visit family & friends and to walk through as many galleries as possible. This year I was able to make a trip to the National Gallery in D.C., too, which included one of the highlights of my trip. In the contemporary wing of the National Gallery, top floor, there was a room full of Phillip Guston paintings. Photos were not allowed. The room contained about 15 of his works from his early abstractions to his later comic influenced paintings. They also had a video of Guston speaking about his work on a loop. He spoke of how when he began to bring imagery back into his paintings, many people criticized him. He wanted his works to have meaning once again, though not literal meaning, so the images are not realistic. My favorite works of his are from his later period because they are so unlike anything else anyone was doing at the time. It's interesting to note that Jackson Pollack also attempted to bring back some imagery into his painting before he died and was vehemently criticized for it. Guston also said, "Nothing is ever solved in painting." I think we can say that nothing is ever solved in art. Art is not about the ends or the resolution of a journey - it is the evidence of the lived experience.
Jack Pierson
In NYC there were a number of wonderful shows, including a Kandinsky show for the Guggenheim's 50th Anniversary exhibit, a special Vermeer exhibit at the Metropolitan and a fabulous exhibit called "The Art of the Samurai" also at the Met. To me, though, my time in Chelsea always feels the most important.
One of my favorite exhibitions in Chelsea was at Cheim & Read where they were showing Jack Pierson. He takes old signage and rearranges it so it no longer has the 'meaning' that it had. Instead, the result is calligraphic without language. The pieces are whimsical and dance along the walls.
Jack Pierson
Jack Pierson
Jack Pierson
The other stand out exhibit for me was at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery which had Dennis Hopper's show "Signs of the Times". Hopper primarily exhibited photographs which are impressive for their quality and number. He has been working on the project for eighteen years and accumulated over 10,000 photographs. The exhibition had less than fifty, all worthy of contemplation, and not just because they often were of celebrities. Hopper creates portraits of people in distinct environments. They are photos that are revealing, both of personalities and of certain times.
Unfortunately, Hopper has commissioned some sign painters to create large scale oil paintings from some of the more interesting photographs. It is now common place for artists to hire others to create aspects of their work for them. In fact, for hundreds of years artists have employed assistants to complete works for them. What is objectionable in Hopper's case, though, is that he is not a painter. The paintings are done as thinly as possible so they are as close as possible to the tonality of the photos. Why bother doing an oil paint interpretation when there is no interpretation? Since I use photos as references for oil paintings, it strikes me as a huge missed opportunity to create such bland oil paintings from such wonderful photos. If nothing else, painted pieces must take into consideration the paint but these do not. They are flat, lifeless copies - no better than something a high school student might do. The paintings are not signed and there is no attribution to the actual painter - whoever that is. So, the question is, are they works by Dennis Hopper? If sold, who gets the payment? Is it ethical to sell works as your own when your hand did not participate in the creation of the piece? If those paintings are sold as works by Dennis Hopper, any reproduction would therefore be considered works by Dennis Hopper. If you print out the photo reproduced below, can you sell it as an original Dennis Hopper? Why not? Is there any difference between a sculpture which is cast in a foundry by artisans and an oil painting painted by a sign painter? I believe there is.
Dennis Hopper ©2007 artnet - The art world online. All rights reserved. artnet is a registered trademark of artnet Worldwide Corporation, New York, NY.
I think the process of painting indelibly contains the sensibility of the artist, if it is done with any honest effort. Painting and drawing are so direct that simply telling someone what to do does not include all of the variations of tone, pressure, line, thickness, glossiness or texture that is possible with an oil painting or a drawing. No one can create exactly the same painting twice. There are always variations. A casting is a process that does not vary considerably from the original piece. If, in fact, we all truly believed that others can create our works for us, why do we even have a term for forgery? Why send anyone to jail for forgery? They are only creating the original person's art again. What is wrong with that if we consider artist's hiring others to create their works perfectly okay? For years the whole 'hiring' of others to create one's art has bothered me. After seeing these Dennis Hopper paintings, I can say without hesitation - they are unworthy of the term art.