Entering the National Academy Museum
I happened to glance upon an ornate hand written message in the visitor's
comment book. "This is one of my least favorite exhibitions at the
Academy…"
I stopped reading because I didn't want to spoil my first impression.
However, what with my contrarian nature, I couldn't help but wish to contradict
the author of the message. I wanted to find something heroic about the
New York painters of the late nineteen sixties and mid seventies who forged
ahead when the market and the larger culture had declared painting to
be dead. So off I went into the formal Academy galleries.
The exhibition "High Times, Hard Times: New York Painting 1967-1975"
promises to shed some light upon a time in the art world when painters
were pushing the boundaries of their craft, opening up new ideas about
process, and adopting new technologies such as video art and the resulting
performance narratives that evolved out of it. The commonalties across
most of the artists' center around new materials, techniques and processes
all resulting in unlikely outcomes. Since painting at the time was dead
and buried these painters through caution to the wind, they had nothing
to lose. The resulting creations such as Mary Heilmann's "The Book
of Night" extend the role of painting into that of an object. The
effect was quiet and less baroque than Anselm Kiefer's later explorations
on the same form but still Heilmann's book is a potent object and one
of the stand-out works on display. Lynda Benglis's lumpy morass of paint-as-sculpture
titled "Blatt" seems comic, strange and an anachronism within
the antiquated galleries of the Academy.
In some ways the experimentation and caution thrown to the wind reminds
me of the New York art world at another transitional time; namely 1991.
It was a time when the market was in a slump, the art world was closing
galleries in droves, Soho was dead, neo-expressionism was suspect and
yet it was at this same time that many younger artists were pushing the
boundaries of what could be art. There was a rapid adoption of new technologies,
new MFA Computer art programs were launching, Matthew Barney was breaking
new ground with performance and film, identity, and queer politics were
raising new questions about representation. Painters were mining graphic
design, Japanese animation and a neo-graffiti street culture was beginning
to assert it self. Before both of these fertile times the cannon was upheld
by heroic and heady ideas about what art was and could be. For the painters
in the exhibition their response to their place and time contained an
appropriate disdain for the cannon amidst an anarchic counter-cultural
revolution. The resulting art seemed to forge ahead tentatively, awkwardly
and in spurts of subversion. This generation on the outside looked not
for answers but better ways to question. Perhaps that is what we can learn
most from them.
Jack Whitten questions what it meant to paint by raking paint across
the canvas. The resulting mash up of color is akin to Gerhard Richter's
later abstractions. Lawrence Stafford also pushed painting forward with
a peculiar process of spray painting canvas which was bound over a turning
drum. The resulting effect looks like the static on television channels
that have gone off air, an anachronism in itself these days.
Peter Young's odd ball "#13" at first seems out of place in
the gallery. It is a simple shaped canvas; awkward in its presence, and
yet it has a disconcerting home made quality. A quality that is queer
the way Robert Gober fashions a sink out of glue and paint and odd bits
of unexpected materials.
The biggest challenge in this exhibition however is not the compelling
story of painters pushing boundaries; the real challenge is getting past
the distractions of the space itself. Much of the work feels out of place,
like a bride at a funeral. The oversized paintings hung haphazardly over
grandiose architectural details seems sloppy and takes away from the art
works' attempt at boldness. For example an Elizabeth Murray painting while
solid on its own merits, looks clunky and awkward hung on a concave wall.
And Ron Gorchov's shaped canvas "Cock Robin" seemed to get lost
in a crowded parlor gallery. There were many other examples of how the
installation and the architecture competed with the overall narrative.
I left the galleries with a sense of frustration because the opportunity
to open a dialogue about how these artist's in spite of or in response
to the market and the cultural climate moved contemporary art forward,
was obscured by the competing visual dialogue between the art work and
the stodgy architecture. In the end the art on the walls was compelling
but the over all effect was a disappointment. Perhaps the curators will
consider expanding upon this exhibition in a space that can accommodate
more artists in a more compelling manner.
By Andrew Cornell Robinson
Written for the Gay
City News
Exhibition Information
High Times, Hard Times: New York Painting 1967-1975
February 15 - April 22, 2007
The National Academy Museum
1083 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10128
Tel: 212.369.4880
www.nationalacademy.org
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