schwabsky_an art that eats its own head

8/11/2019 Schwabsky_An Art That Eats Its Own Head

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AN ARTTHATEATS TS

OWN

HEAD

Painting n

the

Age

of

the Image

BARRY CHWABSKY

We

hve n

the

ageof the

rmageBut don't ask

me

o define he word:

ts

veryelusiveness

is

of

the essence.

e talk about magewhen we want to indrca te n

appearance

hat

seems omehow etachable

rom ts material

upport.

hrs s mostobvrous hen we

speak

of

a

photographic

mage. t's the same

mage

whether

t's

presented

s a small

snapshot

r

blown

up

as a big

cibachrome.

towing

on

the

monitor

of

my

computer

r

mechanrcallyeproducedn the

pages

of a

magazine.

It has

oftenbeensard

hat he

invention

f

photography

n the mid-nineteenth

entury

changed he nature

of

palnttnq-by

withdrawing

rom

tr the

task eftprcsentationThat

-Igq q-]9ry_qe9ll 3t

rts core,

hereby

enabhng re emergence,n the

early

wentieth

century,of a fully abstiac-t

it.-Tne nltial

plauslbllify

of

this

story,

however,

houldnot

disguisets falseness.ny

mediocre

ainter

f the nrneteenth entury ould

deprct

person,

bject r andscape

lth

greater

ccuracy

nd

vivrdnesshan

a

photograph

lf

nothlng

else,

he

painter

could show

the

colourof

tlrings.

hardly a

negligrble imension

of

visual

expenence.)

he real

attraction

of

the

photograph

beyond simple

economrcs:

a

photographic orffait

cost a lot less han

one

n oils

-

lay

not ln its capacity or iconic

representationut rather n

what

has been

called

ts indexical

ualrty.

hat s,

he

apparentcausal onnection

ewveen

an objectand ts image.The

mage

comes

rom

what it shows.a sort

of

relic.

Far

rom

rnatronal.here may be an lmportant ruth lurking in this

notion

of the rmage

as a

detachable onstituent

f the realify 1t

pictures.

n any

case,

t frndsan echo not

only in the transformation f art since he adventof

photography

but even n

philosophy.

in the late eighteenth entury. mmanuelKart taught

that

we can

know.

not

tJrings

n

themselves,

ut rather

phenomena,

ppearances.he

'thrng

in rtself is something

whose

existence an only

be

intellectuallydeduced. he

percelvrng

mrnd,

n this vrew,

is something

ike an dea

o{ a

portrait painter.

The subjectof the

portralt,

he sitter. s

over here; he

painter

with his

brushes.

alette

and easel s over

here.

There

s no

direct

contactbewveen he tvvo

of them.

Instead. he

painter

constructsa set

of appearances n

the

canvas

hat somehow onesponds o the features f tie sitter.At the end of

the

nneteenth century.after he

invention

ol

the

camera,

drfferent

dea

of

perception

became

plausible.

Henri

Bergson

declared

hat we are acquainted

with

the world

not

through

mere

appearanceshat

are

somehow ifferent

n

krnd from

hings

n

themseives.

but

through

what

he called,

precisely,

images'.

which are

part

and

parcel

of the real

The

mind, for Bergson,

s less

rke a

painter

han

t is lke

a camera.

ts

sampled mages

not fundamentally tler but slmplyquantitativelymore imited than the

aggregate

f

'images"

that is

reality.

Our

perceptual

appajatuss, one might say, ouched

by the

thing

rt

perceives

s

he

photographic late

or film is touched by

the

light

that comes

from

the object.

Absuact

painting

developed

nder the spell

of a

phrlosophy

not unlikeKant's:

hat

the

ultimate

realitywas not

the one indicated

by

the

senses,

ut somethrngntellectualy

deductble. his was tie era

of

Malevichand Mondrian.And for a

long

rme

t

seemed

misguided

o

think

of

modem

or contemporary

ainting primarily

n

termsof

the

[nages

it

might bear.

The

most

amous

and

most concise ormulationof this view

was,

of

course,

8

Eryyh

The

Tvivaph

oF

P" *ti,,,o

(

e,'L;

b;h,o

.

c_aJa,

trg

"

lrs^d

on,

Jox

atltort

t^pe

*.d

tlt,footzL

i

Qa.tte,j ].o

5

.

??,8

?


2/4

\TS

TS OWN

HEAD

he

Image

Clement reenberq's.

\.A/hereas

ne ends

o seewhat ts n an Old

Master eforeone

sees he

picture

tself.

ne

sees

Moderntst

tcture

s a

pictute

irst'

{Subsequently.

one began o signaladherence

o

thls

dlctum

simplyby adjudng he

word

plcrure'.

prefernng

painting'.

a usage

stiil n force

oday.lTo oqk at a

painting

or ts image

.could

only be

lo]g _e_qshldr}re4aatrngsn"t@he

absurdities

loquently enounced

y Yve-A1alnors n

his well-known ssay

Painting

-sMudell

where he lashes

nto critrcswho

'would

make

Malevich's lock Squore

a solat

eclipse,

othko'sate

work stylized

ersions

f

the PietaandDeposition,r

Mondrian's

BroadwayBoogie-Woogten interpretation f the NewYorksubwaymap'. n thts view,

to

think

of

panting

in relation

o imagewas to see t as a formof representation,

however

eiled,whereas

he

great

abstractlonistsad

shown hat

patnting

could

have

qurte

other unctions.

Of course.

mages ever eft

paintrng,

ot even rl the

work

ol sometime

bstractlonlsts

like Jackson ollock

r Wtllemde Kooning n

the earlyeighties,mage-based

aintlng

took he art

world by s torm.

Yet he renownof the Neo-Expressionists

as

hat

generation

of

painters

was cailed

whether the term suited hem or not)

was

much

esented

and

short-lled.Their

work has neverhad he disinterested

ritical

ssessment

hat.

perhaps,

maynow be

possible.

t was reallya decade

ater hat a new

generation

f

patnters

began o emerge.

more slowly and steadlly

han

tire

Neo-Expressionists,nd

gathering

real orceonly ate

in the ninetres

p_ajnters

*9_19 91_D_g1AC_qSliLUown.

homa,s-

Scherbitz, r many otherswhose fasciilEiiofrlruFhmageswasclearlycentral o their

-

woik.m-ey were clearly up to

something ther than a

simple eversiono the

dogmasof

the

pre-modernist

cademies.

n fact,many of

them may havebeen as much

nfluenced

by

the work of non-parnters

ke CindySherman,Mike

Kelleyor

Jeff

Koonsas

by

anythrng

n the history of

painting,

both Old Masterand

modem.which

they explore

freely.Theu sometimes amest.

sometlrnes lackerlsh

echnique at times academic,

at others

approachinghe slmplicity

of the Sunday

painter

or

the extremestylisatlon

of

the decorator

often seems

o recklessly vokeeverything

hat

had

been off-limits

to

serious

alntrng.

n some of

this work one can see

parallels

n the oncedespised

ate

work of artists

ike de Chirlcoand

Ptcabia.

A criticism

oo

enamoured

of the

traditionof

abstraction,

y now threatening

o become

academic

n

turn.

is rll-equipped o deal

wlth these new manifestations

f the

image n

painting But sowould be a criticlsmbasedon the criteriaof the OldMasters.The image

as we encountert in contemporary

aintlng

rs somethrng

uite

distinct

rom depiction

or representatlonn European

anting

beforeModemism.

Thtnkof ali the

tralnlng ln

perspectlve,

he lnvestigatlons f

anatomy the

painter

was

working,

n a

systematlc,

indeedalmost

scientific

way to

reconstruct

ictorialiy

lte real

world before

his eyes,

and

therefore ad to understand

not

simply

ts surfacebut its strucfure.

Contemporary

painters,

eedless

o say. do nothlngof the sort.

Bergsonians lthout

knowing

it, they

work froma reaiity

hat ts alwaysalready mage.

The Impressionists

ere already

pointlng

n thrs direction

when they changed he focus

rom he seif-subsistent

biect

to the

shimmering

iay

ol its appearances.

more urgent

precedent

or contemporary

paintrng,

owever, s

the PopArt

of

the sl{ties. Roy Lichtenstefr

aklng comlc

strips

as

7-E

coatQ


3/4

his

models, ames

Rosenquist

mrmicking;

illboards. r Andy

Warholwtth hts

grainy

news

photos.

anterswho cultivated

he

look of

the

snapshot.ke Gerhard

Richtel

or MalcolmMoriey.

were

pursurng

imrlar nds

But

notice

he

difference

etvveenhe

image-consciousness

f

the

palnters

who

have emerged n recent

ears

and

that of

theseelders

akng

photographs,

omics r brllboards s

one'smatellal simplybecause

theyarecleariyimitedcategonesf rmagematerral sttllseemso tmply hat iele

could

be

a realm

beyond he

image

hat the artist

might

otherwise

ave

elected o

access:

t

implres

quasl-polemrcal

horce f the rmage-realm ver

someother eality.

That's

polemic

oday's

arnters

o onger eem o feelcalled pon o make.

nstead,

they frndevery'thingo

be of

the

matter

of rmages

Painters

ke

Doig,

MarleneDumas r LucTuy'rnans to name hree

of

the

most

nfluential

artists-arwork oday

-

make work

ftat

is ennrely

permeated

by a

photographic

eality,

that s, a

realrty

omposed l detachaLrleppearances;

et

in contrast o

Rrchter

r

Morley,

hey

feel

no

need

o represent

he

'look'

of the

photograph

The

painting

emains

painterly.

o say hat contemporary

alnters

reat

realityas an aggregate

f rmages,n

Bergson's

hrase,

s not to say hat they

pant

rt wrtlr neutralify , r

with

pure

aesthetic

distance, r wlthout commltment. n the contrary, he[ engagement ith the image

is

precrsely

hat,

a form of engagement.

nd

inevrtably onveys n emotional

tance,

whetlrer t be the

prss-takrng

isdain

yplcalof Tuymans' aturnine

loom,

he

aIIy

bemusement

hat emanates

rom

Sophie

on

Hellerman's

aintings,

an

Monroe's

ense

of claustrophobia.

r

Cecily

Brown's reneticurgency The effects re oftenuncornJortable.

Dana

Schutz'smagesare

mages

f the body,

but

alwaysawkwardand

resrstant, hile

DexterDalwood's re spaces,

lausrble

nough

o

draw one n but

too

drsjornted

o

actually

nhabit.Much of thls work has

a syncretlc

quality

hat couldnot have existed

without

he

example f

modernrst

ollage, ut

by

folding

ts disjunctive ffectback nto

paint

-

an actual

heterogeneity

f

paterials

s exceptional

ere.

and when it occurs,

as

n the work of MichaelRaedeckerr DavrdThorpe, t

represents ot the shock

ol an irruptron f

the

real nto art,as

t

did in

differentway

for

Cubism,Dadaand

Constructrvism,

ut

somethrngmore

ike

an

incursionof

the

homelydistraction f crafts

and hobbies to the artistic ield

Thrs ascrnation

ith

craft

has he samesourceas the morewidespread ttraction o

painterliness.

mong oday's

younger

painteis,

as opposed o the

seamless urface f

photorealism:

ot an overturning f hrerarchies

etweenhtgh and ow cultures. ut a

more

undamentai

oncem

with

a

physrcal

nvolvement

n

tlre

rmage. or although t

was

photography

hat taught

us

the modern dea of the image,

t is

painting

that

allows

us to internaliset lt's a

question

f

touchingand

being

ouched. he

photogtaph

mayhavebeen

ouchedby the

rght

of its object.but the sense

f contact s entuely

subsumedn

the seamlessnessf the

photograph's

urface. ainters

ike Dumasand

Tuymans. nd

so many others

who freely

nterpret

photographic

magery, re attemptlng

neither

o

disgulse ts

photographic

asrs n order o retainan aesthetic ffect,nor

to

reproduce he appearanceof the

photograph

n order to neutra-liset. And their srrategy

ls not

essentiailydrfferent iom that of colleagueswho

may

not

directly use

photoEaphs

rn

the work

process

but

who

neverthelessreat the

world

they

paint

as wholly image.

r


4/4

The

surfaceof

painting.

hen. s for

current

painting

something

hat

partakes

either

of

the homogenelfy f the photographrcmulsionnor the heterogenerty f collage.t rsa

place

where both

differences nd srmilanties

re

consumed.n a

way.

Schutz's

ainting

FaceEater

2004),

an be takenas a

paradigmatlc aintrng

of the moment.

With

ts

evident

allusions o Prcassond Bacon,

t

clearly

signals

ts art-historical llegiances,

ut

the

painting

wears

rts

citationsightly

-

the

painnngs

f the wvo modem masters,

nd

notably

hose of Bacon

which

are

hemselves

ased

on

photographrc

rsion,

resimply

part

of

Schutz's mage-world.

t

is

hilanous

and ternfylngat

once.

A head ries

o

swallow

tself and in the

process

t doesnot disappear, ut

the

senses ecome onfused:

the mouth seesby

consuming

he

organs

of

vision,

he

eyes east

on

their

own

imminent

consumption.

s this

an

emblemof

the

artrst'sso[psism?Not necessarily. he

painting

declares

tself to be

-

borrowing

a

resonant

phrase

rom

he literary heorist

Stanley

Fish

a self-consuming rtefact.

ut

does consumption

eally

ake

place?

Not

eally.

Instead,

we are shown a

commotion

{

the

senses hat seemsas

pleasurably

eductive

as t may be neurotic.To ook at it is practically o feel one's own teeth start reachingup

to bite the upper lp

. It's

an imageabout

nteriorrsing

s mage

even oneself. nd n

that mage,

touching realrry.

f

,1

(outk

schwabsky_an art that eats its own head

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