HANS HOFMANN: How It's Done!

"The significance of a work of art is determined then by the quality of its growth." Hans Hofmann

Hans Hofmann, Self-Portrait, 1902

Hans Hofmann understood this; an artist wears many hats. Many many hats. If paintings were made like films are these days, then each of these hats would have a title, like director, cinematographer, editor, casting director, costume design, sound editor, etc. A painter does all of these things. Maybe Rubens didn't, and maybe not Sol LeWitt, but Hans Hofmann and everybody else has made it part of the job.

Hans Hofmann, The Lark, 1960

The job of director vs cinematographer vs editor is particularly interesting. David Lean comes to mind as one of the few filmakers who found it impossible to separate these jobs. Hans Hofmann, the director, preached push and pull. Hans Hofmann the cinematographer and editor had to put that into practice. They had to walk the fine line between image and painting. They had to decide when one dictated the outcome over the other. Balance and timing.







Timing and balance. When did the image decide how the paint would lie? Push or pull? Flat, side by side, out in front, or in the back. When was it about the paint? When was it about the picture? The composition? The visual narrative? When was it important to maintain the mission? When were all bets off because only one thing mattered: the success and survival of the painting at hand?







Ultimately every painter knows this one rule above all others! Yes, the one rule above all, that the painting should fly! Or float! Or actualize! Become! Transform! Ascend! Transcend! Etc. Etc. Etc.

Hans Hofmann, Golden Autumn

AND YET, the painting still has to be true. Philosophically true. There is no success at the price of philosophical truth. Many a "successful" painting has been scraped down, overpainted or trashed because it tried to slip by as successful without being true. Therein lies the rub. And that is the director's job.







So when we look at Hans Hofmann's work we always somehow get one of his most famous hats: the teacher. We get a first hand tutorial on how it is done. No tricks, nothing up the sleeves, all out in front for all to see: yes, pay close attention, this is how a painting is made! This is how it is done!








Addison Parks
Spring Hill, 2016

Hans Hofman, High Summer, 1961

Hans Hofmann, Song of the Nightingale

CAROL HEFT; Work on Paper at the Blue Mountain Gallery

SMOKE on the WATER

Carol Heft is a gifted artist. What we get in her work is the tip of the iceberg. Smoke on the water. Somewhere there are flares and fire; somewhere, someplace gets burned to the ground. We might sense that, but completely unconsciously. Instead we luxuriate in the smoke; we see across the water.

Carol Heft, Untitled, 2016, on paper, 18x24",
collage w/ watercolor, gouache, charcoal, pencil

For 40 plus years Carol Heft has contemplated this place in painting. Cy Twombly may have opened the door, but Carol Heft was already there. Who knows how? It was a dream. On the water. 

Carol Heft, Untitled, 2016, on paper, 18x24",
collage w/ watercolor, gouache, charcoal, pencil

I watched her contemplating this dream through the end of a cigarette in our studio on Benefit Street at RISD. It was the shiny swell of the late 70s, and we were just battered art students with a headful of dreams. A few years later I read the scrawls on her studio walls on the Bowery on New York's Lower Eastside. We were at the bottom of the heap but we were in it, up to our eyeballs, and that was all that mattered. So much has changed since then, but that remains true.

Carol Heft, Untitled, 2016, on paper, 18x24",
collage w/ watercolor, gouache, charcoal, pencil

Back at the very beginning, however, it was drawing and then printmaking that helped Carol Heft etch out the faint outlines of what could be. That was the power and magic of suggestion at the beginning. The raw and contemplative that would define her work forever. Poetry was at the heart of it. Poetry that could make out a golden kingdom in a wisp of smoke, when prose was just signage on the New Jersey Turnpike. Poetry that could sink a well that gushed to the heavens, when prose would just let you down. Prose that could only get you close, but never there. Poetry that could do it all and carry you to the top, when prose just ended up proving that more was sadly less.

Carol Heft, Untitled, 2016, on paper, 18x24",
collage w/ watercolor, gouache, charcoal, pencil

But there is so much more. Carol Heft is so much more. What you see is not what you get. At first. Carol Heft's depth, her raw and contemplative power, is actually matched by a surprise, by her sense of humor. Her wisecracking sense of humor. Her troublemaking, mischievous, irreverant sense of humor. It follows her around like a nuisance, like a terrier. Yipping. It can spoil her so serious and so sincere moments. The little devil that keeps those heavens on their toes. The little devil that keeps it real.

Carol Heft, Untitled, 2016, on paper, 18x24",
collage w/ watercolor, gouache, charcoal, pencil

So when her work seems too touchy feely, too heartfelt to believe, look around. Something is at play. Somewhere there is a giggle. Somewhere there is a guffaw! As she scratches her way to heaven, humor is the tail to her kite. As she carves up the wind, something else is afoot. Something else lurks. Some true delight curled inside the smoke. 

Carol Heft, Untitled, 2016, on paper, 18x24",
collage w/ watercolor, gouache, charcoal, pencil

Carol Heft is a fabulous painter, and maybe you get that, but the key to her magic, to her exuberance, is her fabulous sense of humor. Those of us who have been within that blast radius, doubled over by it, consider ourselves lucky indeed, and cherish the true radiance and value of her work.

Addison Parks

Carol Heft: Work on Paper

THE BLUE MOUNTAIN GALLERY

530 West 25th Street  4th Floor, New York, NY 10001 tel: 646.486.4730, infor@bluemountaingallery.org

The Blue Mountain Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of work by Carol Heft from March 1 – 26, 2016.  The exhibition will include collage, drawing, painting, digital images, and constructions in a variety of materials. Ms. Heft’s work is inspired by an exploratory approach to materials, and the interchange of two and three dimensional space on flat surfaces. Her new work combines physical and illusionary layers of space populated by imaginative formal combinations. Careful attention to composition born of random arrangements are juxtaposed in compelling designs.

There will be a concert and gallery talk on March 26, Saturday, from 2:00 – 4:00  at the gallery performed by The Bill Warfield Hell’s Kitchen Funk Orchestra.

Born in 1954, Carol Heft studied painting with Robert Brackman, National Academician, from the age of 12 – 16.  She then attended the Rhode Island School of Design where she studied with Lisa Chase, Leland Bell, Judy Pfaff, and other visiting artists and instructors.  After graduating in 1976, Ms. Heft moved to New York City, where she currently lives and works.  Carol Heft teaches drawing, painting, 2 dimensional design, and technical drawing at Muhlenberg College, and Cedar Crest College, in Allentown PA, and St. Joseph’s College in Brooklyn, NY.  Contact Marcia Clark at the gallery for further information

CORN/UNICORN: Addison Parks @ Nielsen @ Bow Street Annex

Addison Parks @ Nielsen @ Bow Street Annex Installation

It sounds corny, but artists have a lot of nerve. They have to. Art takes nerve. It has been suggested by at least one writer that I essentially steal a painting, that after muddling my way through, at the last second I heave up a Hail Mary and do some "how did he do that" Johnny Football magic to win the game. The suggestion is that I do not play fair, the right way, earning my victory through some consistent hard work ethic... that I am not Yankee, reaping and sowing, plodding and sweating, calculating and executing my way to my intended goal, to a sportsmanlike victory. That I cheat. Some nerve.

Addison Parks @ Nielsen @ Bow Street Annex Installation

This is in part true. True because I do not believe that art is something that you can calculate, measure, size up, scheme, formulate, or get to by the numbers. Farming is wonderful, but art is not like farming. Art is about balance and it is also about surprise. A field of corn is about hard work, taking care of business, determination, and patience, as much as nature is the grandest miracle, day in and day out.

Addison Parks @ Nielsen @ Bow Street Annex Installation

I don't believe art is anything like that, you cannot tame it, domesticate it, or harness it for a purpose. This is the unspoken law of art. So unspoken that many choose to ignore it altogether, and at great cost. And deep down every artist knows this. Art takes nerve. It is like some utterly elusive unicorn that you might scour the earth to find, and when you think you have, you put out some food for it and wait and hope that it makes a brief appearance, that you may bask in its radiance, but you can't go back again to the same place to find it, you can't trick it, you can't try to capture it and hold it, or surely you will scare it off or kill it. It will disappear or die. Art is above all a free spirit.

For thousands of years people with power have tried to say that it is "here," but it just eludes them and pops up over there. In this regard it is no different from love. It cannot be forced.

Addison Parks @ Nielsen @ Bow Street Annex Installation

This should speak for how I feel about a painting. It is not something you start and put in the work and finish and then you are done. Next. People have asked me how long one of my paintings takes. My answer is always the same: it takes as long as it takes, no more, no less. In this a painting is like a mountain, if you want to get to the top, it decides how long and how high you have to climb.

Addison Parks @ Nielsen @ Bow Street Annex Installation

Addison Parks @ Nielsen @ Bow Street Annex Installation

But there is this other unspoken law: balance. And here is where the idea that I steal a painting is false. Balance is everything. Balance and then consciousness. Above all consciousness. Consciousness and becoming. A painting cannot helicopter its way to the top of the mountain by being exceptional in one regard, it can't be a good likeness as a portrait and sneak in as a good painting. There are a billion portraits, but what sets a Rembrandt apart is balance: it is everything else too, and no one thing in particular; it is awesome in the abstract for example. Big picture and small, broad strokes and detail. Color and value. Object and space, figure and ground, open and closed, positive and negative. And for all of this Rembrandt's portraits are often rewarded with an appearance by the unicorn.

Addison Parks @ Nielsen @ Bow Street Annex Installation

So yes, I worship and respect the unicorn. The ah! The surprise. The revelation. Never the same. Never predictable. Never calulated. The everlasting kingdom of hope. And yes, there is glory there, just not the kind you think, not a ticker-taped parade, but the glory of a sunrise. Morning glory. It is not the land of tried and true. You can't retrace your steps or follow the beaten path. Every day you have to start out anew. You have to believe. You have to hope. And as inconvenient as it might seem, you have to discover everything all over again.

Addison Parks @ Nielsen @ Bow Street Annex Installation

Recent Paintings of Addison Parks, 2014-2015 this November 2015 thru January 2016     NIELSEN GALLERY

Organized and curated by Nina Nielsen and John Baker.

To see the exhibition please visit: www.nielsengallery.com