Amy Goodwin: What She Saw

What She Saw, a show of paintings by Amy Goodwin at the Albright Gallery(Concord, Ma; Spring 2012) delivered a complete vision:  fresh, a black belt in invention, a retinal tiramisu, a thoughtful and thoroughly considered body of work that resonated with purpose, depth of meaning, and passion. Color, texture, composition and mark! Amy Goodwin carved and forged and nurtured these paintings. She Lewis and Clarked them! She planted her flag in them! And she nailed the dismount!

These are predominantly flower paintings. So you get the idea. And then they are not. Amy Goodwin takes flowers and considers them from every perspective, in every light: first and foremost as just flower, then as flower image, flower idea, flower sign, flower template, flower decal, flower power, flower self-portrait, flower familiar, flower spirit, flower dream, flower memory, flower after-image, etc. They scrape, they day-glow, they drip, they pastel, they articulate, inseminate, and mandate! They are flat, layered, painterly, collaged, post-painterly, Madison Avenue, and Emily Dickinson. They honor Warhol, late Derain, Marimekko, and Mary-Mary-quite-contrary.  And they do it all at once, seamlessly. They are both rat-tat-tat and ommmmmmmm! What we get as viewer reads on all of those levels, and Goodwin would have it no other way. You go around once, and you want it all. These are flower paintings as Icarus, and they are headed straight for the sun.

The show is titled "What She Saw," but it's more like a line from an old Talking Heads song than something literal. These aren't still-life paintings even when they look that way. They have an edge. They muse. And they have a sense of irony and humor. In many ways What She Saw is more about what Jesus Christ saw hanging on the cross in Scorcese's The Last Temptation of Christ: that rapid fire of La Dolce Vita, remembered and imagined, the blood, sweat and tears, flashing before your eyes in a staccato circle of fifths climbing up your DNA code into Dorothy's twister funnel above, coalescing into a painting, stilled into a painting, recorded into a painting, only to be a spring-board for more of the same ad infinitum. Her paintings are peopled with family, friends, gods and all god's creatures, even when you can't see them. Everything that matters to her gets stirred into their swirl, mixed into their perfume, floated into their vortex, pressed into their petals, coded into their message. Amy Goodwin is the Little Prince and her paintings are the story of her little planet. 


It is easy to forget about what is really at work in art, but what is at work, behind all of the ART, is play. Amy Goodwin finds what she finds through the act of play. Carl Jung gave art as play as the gateway to revelation his blessing and 20th century artists said thank you very much. Goodwin muses in her garden, Little Prince on her Little Planet, wandering in the garden, wondering in the garden, and her paintings are her gift. Look what I found, she says, holding her prize up to us in both hands cupped and outstretched. Les grandes personnes sont...bizarres.

Flowers are a gift. They hurt not. They bring us love. They are life for life's sake, beauty for beauty's sake, a smile for a smile's sake. Amy Goodwin brings us roses, or daisies, or dandelions. They're a little more complicated, but they deliver!

Addison Parks

Spring Hill

CONSIDER THIS: ONLY

David Burliuk(1951); oil & collage on canvas, 6" x 8"; w/ Burliuk frame

Art is subjective, that much seems pretty clear. But... apparently it isn't. You always get a lot of "yes...but." So recently I changed my mind. I don't say art is subjective anymore. Recently I've taken to saying that art is only subjective.

I have to say that this meets with even greater resistance. Yes, greater force produces greater resistance. I'm a dad of teenagers, so I understand. I was a teacher for more years than I care to remember, so I get it. But what I've learned is that resistance has to be met with greater force if there is going to be any movement, any breakthrough. That art is only subjective is obvious. That there are boatloads of people who think otherwise, who think that they somehow know better, is just plain arrogance. Neurosis. We all get to think we know better, right? We all get to believe that we have the wherewithal to judge art objectively. Which is just another way of making my point. Individually we get to decide what is art, what is great art, what is bad, etc. Subjectivity. Nothing but. Definition of...etc.

Which is great. Art is only subjective. The power to club other people with objective judgment is within everyone's grasp, but it is stupid. Like teenagers giving whatever the thumbs up or the thumbs down. The fact that grown people, so called experts, etc, want to behave this way is nothing more than ego, adolescent ego. Which isn't really fair of course, since adolescents aren't nearly so bad. We just know that they are exercising their egos in new ways, and opinions as fact are new found power in a world that gives them no power at all.

                                                               ***************

So there you have it. Art is only subjective. It is a gift. Enjoy it. Don't hate me for saying this. Sure we wish it was different. We wish that art could be properly measured. But we're wrong. The beauty of art is that it is subjective. Try it. Go with it. Subjectivity is a beautiful thing. We are alone. We experience things alone, even in the movie theater. Our heads are our own. Our minds are our own. Yes, we share. Sharing is also a beautiful thing. We can even agree. Many of us can even agree. Many of us who are devoted, experienced, enlightened can even agree. But that is all we are doing. That is not objectivity. That is just people agreeing. Let it go. We all still agree as individuals. Subjectivity is not as powerless as it seems.  If artists can play God making something of nothing, well then the rest of us can play God sitting in judgment. Sure. We can do that all we like. Thumbs up, thumbs down. Just one word of caution however; if you are busy judging, then you are missing out. We judge from a safe distance. Art is a dish better eaten with your hands than judged from behind glass. Dive in! Chow down! Or savor each morsel. It is whatever you make it, so make it. In the end we might do the thumbs up and thumbs down, but this would still be just our subjective opinion, no matter how well considered. Art is only subjective.

Addison Parks

Spring Hill

Permit yourself!

   

Self-portrait with Bandaged Ear, Easel and Japanese Print, January 1889, Oil on canvas, 60 × 49 cm., Courtauld Institute Galleries, London (F527)

Self-portrait with Bandaged Ear, Easel and Japanese Print, January 1889, Oil on canvas, 60 × 49 cm., Courtauld Institute Galleries, London (F527)

Sometimes the results are the same; sometimes it is hard to tell the difference. The fine line. The difference between being taught to fish and being given fish. You get fish.

Permission is the same. You can give someone permission, or you can encourage them to permit themselves, to give themselves permission (teaching in so many ways is nothing more than encouragement: helping someone to risk falling down to ride a bike, to brave water to swim, to persevere and be patient to fish).

Permission is key. Permission is power; permission is power over oneself AND power over others. If you can give yourself permission in this life, you don't need it from others, and others can't stop you from doing what you dream to do, need to do, believe in doing.

A person who gives themselves permission and doesn't need it from others is a powerful and even dangerous person.

But you can only do this for yourself, that has to be understood. No one can or will do it for you. Artists have to give themselves permission: to themselves! And then anything is possible.

It goes without saying that one has to accept the consequences; power means responsibility.

Everyone will be an obstacle and will try to stop you, divert you, exploit you, undermine you, crush you, discredit you, ignore you, ridicule you, break you down, turn others against you, withhold support, steal your faith, steal your confidence, steal your well-being, steal your sense of self, steal your mission away from you. They will stop at nothing to wrest permission away from you.

You can't feel sorry for yourself about this. Do something about it. Life isn't fair. It is what it is. Don't expect support for doing what you want to do, especially from people who aren't doing what they want to do. I think what we are talking about here is freedom. It comes at a price.

As an artist permission is all you need. Permission from yourself. You have to pay for it. It is up to you! Pay the price. Give yourself permission! Take it back from those who would try to steal it from you! It is your lunch money. If you are going to survive and flourish you need it!

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Location:Spring Hill

PEGEEN

Pegeen

The story of Pegeen Guggenheim Vail is like something out of a movie, and her work is something else all together. I have never been one to put facts before the experience of the work. We might have a cart full of interesting life story here, but it is the horse where my real interest lies, and the horse in this instance is not the person, but the work. And this work might be as challenging to write about as any work that I have ever written about before.

Pegeen

I haven't seen or read anything serious written about Pegeen's paintings(I am going to refer to Pegeen Guggenheim Vail as Pegeen because it is just easier, and frankly, nicer).

There are probably some very good reasons why not much has been written about her. Lots of them. Her mother was none other than Peggy Guggenheim, one of the most powerful and influential people in the art world. And Pegeen's work was nothing like anything that that powerful art world had in it. Yes, she was a serious painter in that she took her painting seriously. I don't know how or if anyone else besides her mother could have taken the work that seriously. It must have seemed like work only a mother could love. But the work didn't seem serious by its very nature. It was fun and childlike. Defenseless, like a little bird. And it looked like street art! Not to knock street art; art is free, it goes anywhere it wants, and can be just as likely found on the street as in a museum. I’m sure Pegeen believed that too.

Pegeen was said to be self-taught, as if anyone who grew up around as much art as she had could ever be considered self-taught. How artists really learn is a subject for another day, but any artist worth their salt, with even an ounce of authenticity, is of course self-taught, in that being an artist requires having a spirit of one's own, and you can't teach that(or art for that matter). So yes, of course she was self-taught; what she had was good company, and one can learn a lot from that!

Which gets me to what is so fascinating about these paintings. They demonstrate no training! No skill! No measurable degree of "good" painting. The stuff you can teach! They look like bad painting! Like illustrations for the Little Prince! They look like something you would find for sale in Paris along the Seine!

Sort of.

What does that make them? Remarkably pure! Pure of spirit, and this is rare in art. It is also prized! What does this mean; what does pure mean? Well if art is the single voice, the voice of one person in this world, the voice of the individual, the individual spirit, then pure means a clean vision, an untutored, unmaligned, untrampled, unadulterated, untrained and unmessed with vision of life. Pure! Outsider art is fussed over for just this reason. No academic makeover. Not even any handholding. Not the careful development of promise and talent. Just someone alone with their passion.

This work has been called Naive Painting. As though the work of the daughter of Peggy Guggenheim could have been naive. Well maybe it was. Maybe there was all of mother Peggy's world class art by all of these powerful artists, and then there was just Pegeen. Maybe more than maybe! So then what is really going on with this work!

Describing it won't get the job done. Yes, it is bright. Colorful. Figurative in a doll-like way. Flat. Linear. Decorative. Charming. Part carnival, part circus. Personal. Narrative. Tableau. Illustrative. Autobiographical. What serious art people call sentimental. None of that really puts a finger on it.

The work stands there. It gives a brave smile. It says here I am. This is my life. This is me, dancing as fast as I can. This is me making the best of things. This is me giving it everything I've got! This is me in a pretty dress! With a pretty parasol. With a pretty husband. With a pretty family. With a pretty life. This is what matters to me. This is what I love. This is the way I think of myself. This is the way I want you to think of me. This is the way I want to be remembered. This is my brave face! This is me dressed up and stripped naked at the same time! It says I am happy, and that being happy is what matters. It says that I am going to do everything I can to be happy, and to make everyone around me happy. Desperately happy. This is my life. This is my life on parade! This is what matters! Love. Loving the people you love. Love with flowers and music and candles and art and funny hats and shoes and parasols! This is it! This is my gift to you! Now live!

But there is more! The work might actually be deceptively complicated. Surprise! It has roots going back to cave painting. Back to the Egyptians. Back to the Etruscans. Back to the Middle Ages. Look at these paintings! They are modern day documents of where life has been. Mid-Twentieth Century Paris! Venice! The South of France! How easy it is to overlook this! In the drama of Modernism we can't see or hear Pegeen's drama. It gets drowned out by all of the grandiosity of raging, overcompensating male Modernist need, by a lot of self-important men with self-important ideas and self-important agendas.

Peggy Guggenheim showed her daughter's work. She must have recognized something significant about it. Something you couldn't put a finger on. The work is haunting in the way that aboriginal art, medieval art, children's art, haunts us. Something about sincerity, about devotion to what matters. Or an utter lack of artifice! Or contrivance! Or calculation. Or pretense! Or filter! Or filtering! That is why the work is so difficult to write about: sincerity. Sincerity is too damn difficult in this world! What do you do with it? Sincerity. Vulnerability. Innocence. We destroy these things! In so many ways this work is that simple, it is what you see is what you get. And it turns out, sadly, that in the end it is not Pegeen Guggenheim Vail's work that is so complicated or difficult after all, but us.

Addison Parks, Spring Hill

Pegeen Guggeheim Vail was born in 1925 in Ouchy, Switzerland, the daughter of Peggy Guggenheim and Laurence Vail. She was married twice and had four sons. She died in Paris in 1967 after an overdose of pills.

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The Painting in the Painting: Charles Seliger

We forget this.

This thing that can happen in painting. The happen that can happen in painting. It is almost addictive to painters. Finding the painting in the painting, through the painting, with the painting, by the painting. What this means is that the painting is something that happens through the very act of painting, and not the result of some preconceived image that through careful effort produces the desired result. What we are talking about is the painting that evolves, changes, even appears to the painter in the act of painting.

I was thinking about this because I was thinking about Charles Seliger, who was as addicted to this experience as any painter I can think of. At the end of a painting he had arrived somewhere that changed him. That is the addiction. To be changed by making a painting. To learn something, about the world, about art, about ourselves, about the universe.

Because Charles did that as much as anyone. He opened himself up to the universe and said come on in! Make my day! And of course it did! He painted, and he looked and he listened and he mused and he probably prayed in his way, the way that all painters pray, who are looking for redemption and transformation and sublimation and union through the act of painting. It is not because he thought he or the world needed another painting. It is because the act of painting was everything; absolution, affirmation, inspiration, divination, integration, revelation. Through painting Charles Seliger communed with the universe. And that only happens when you find the painting in the painting.

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Forrest for the Trees: Forrest Bess Revisited, Rethought, and Refelt pt2

Having written about Forrest Bess over 30 years ago and wanting to know how my feelings might have changed after all that time because of the recent surge of interest in his work, I find that I need to rethink this complicated artist.

At the time I had immersed myself in everything I could get my hands on. I had Betty Parsons treasure trove of material in my possession, letters, photographs, etc., and some of the paintings themselves.

In retrospect I have to concede that I was probably in too deep, that I was too weirded out, and that I probably lost the forest for the trees. I almost lost my mind, to be honest, and as a result I lost perspective.

In retrospect I find now that I can feel lighter, and less weighed down by the intensity and passion of his quest. I think I failed to give the man as much respect as I gave the work 30 years ago. 30 years ago I was always trying to keep those things separate. Maybe out of respect, ironically, but now I have no interest in separating a person from his or her work. I don't think you can draw that line. A person is their work and vice versa. Richard Tuttle tried very hard to explain that to me just about 35 years ago. Wow!

Forrest Bess had ideas and dreams he wanted the time and space to explore, and Texas gave him that in a way that New York would never have; some artists can never turn off the city completely and just be and work. His paintings were the result of all of that time and space he found on the Gulf. This is a very pure kind of art. Bess was poet, philosopher, scientist, explorer, shaman, channel, vessel, and lone wolf howling at the moon. Visionary, yes, fisherman, yes, in every sense of the word. Primal and divine. Arms stretched out to the universe.

His paintings are inspirations, pictograms, ideograms, diagrams, documents, maps, clues, signs, plans. They take us through his door. And isn't that marvelous? Isn't art marvelous that way? Isn't life marvelous that way?We go through that door and we see life through our brother or sister, even after they've long vanished from the face of this earth. Thank you art. Thank you Forrest Bess.

Long Live The Fisherman King, Long Live Forrest Bess!

30 years ago this month I published a two page spread on Forrest Bess in ARTS Magazine. I've also lived with one of his paintings since then, and am sort of curious to know what I think about it all after 30 years. At the time I had seen a wonderful group of his little paintings, mostly from the 40's and 50's, at the Whitney in a small show on the ground floor curated by Barbara Haskell. I also saw some things at Betty Parsons. Parsons's director, Jack Tilton, let me have all of Betty's letters from Bess, and anything else they had, and for what felt like the entire winter of 1981/82, I lived and breathed this unusual artist. I had the polaroids of his operation on himself to make himself a perfect and complete being. I had letter after letter begging for money because he was broke. You see these kinds of letters at auction by artists like Manet. They are sobering. Parsons was selling Bess's paintings that are all the fuss these days for as little as $45!

Not that I object to the fuss. His work knocked my socks off from the minute I saw it. I just didn't know what to make of it. Still don't. And that doesn't matter. I think my good friend at the time Doug Welch first recommended that I check out these strange little powerhouse paintings by the fisherman savant. Doug had a great eye and was always steering me in the right direction. He was a painter working for the Bernard Jacobson Gallery while I was helping Joe Fawbush at Brooke Alexander. We were always scouting around, mining for gold, and he knew that I was writing for Arts, which was how we met. Bess was the motherlode. He appealed to the painter in all of us. He was a kind of alter ego artist. Someone who brought out the "what the heck" in us. Someone really raw at a time when raw was the order of the day. The word spread and very quickly Bess was the man.

Just shows how crazy things were, and of course still are. Serious. And seriously crazy! Bess was raw and doing his thing. The painting that I have of his sits next to a Marsden Hartley Dogtown painting. Now there is a pair! Two wonderfully strange birds, and great painters! Three cheers for both!

Yes I think Bess is a great painter. I don't care about the other stuff, the strange bird, the private life; I didn't care then and I don't care now. Not because I don't believe there is a connection and not because I love art so much that I can overlook the means to justify the ends. I just believe the work has meaning and power regardless. No one else got hurt. The work transcends the ick! Maybe that is it in a nutshell! The work is as transcendent as transcendent can be. It defines transcendence, which is what every artist strives for. From da Vinci to van Gogh to Kahlo to Hartley!

And of all of them Bess is the purest, rawest butterfly! The fact that he tried to achieve it in real life should come as no surprise.
Forrest Clemenger Bess was unlike any artist before or since. Maybe Roberta Smith is correct to object to a market driven revival, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions and the one to heaven with bad. Some people want to make a lot of money. So what else is new? Ultimately it can't touch who Bess was and what he did. He was the Real McCoy. Parsons recognized that. Also difficult, but who isn't?

Richard Tuttle had worked for Parsons and was only too familiar with Bess and his work. When I told him I was shacked up reading Jung and writing about Bess he lamented the advent of psychology. He said that it just opened a can of worms. When I mentioned the Polaroids Bess took of his naked crotch and sent to Betty, he chuckled and remarked that Bess was just some guy who literally wanted to screw himself. For what? For self love? For completion?

Now Christie's wants to screw a lot of collectors and museums for something that can actually be counted and measured. Money. Forrest Bess appealed to all of us young painters because our only hope was that art was something ineffable, that could never be counted and measured, and no artist ever lived like Forrest Bess that was less able to be counted or measured! Art doesn't add up, and no one adds up less than Forrest Bess.

If Richard Tuttle is our greatest living ineffable artist, Forrest Bess was his father and the father of the rest of us. He is Mr Ineffable! The Fisherman King of the ineffable! And that is all I have to say about that!

I've remarked about this curiosity before. We seem completely comfortable about the idea that people can change for the worse. No problem. Happens all the time. But if you talk about people changing for the better? Forget about it! Doesn't happen! Then the concept of change becomes impossible. Change for the worse? Sure. Change for the better? People don't change! Curious. Schopenhauer didn't think people could better themselves. Our only hope was to sublimate that self, bury it; he did believe in music though. Apparently music was us at our best. The exception that proves the rule. You're not going to get an argument from me about that. However I think we do a few other things that are also what I like to think of as transformative. When taking about change I do what we all do, I point to the butterfly! Art is about transformation. Visualizing it, documenting it, wishing it, making it happen! It is change! It is alchemy and it is metamorphosis! From Lascaux to the Brandenburg Concertos. Transformation and transcendence. Any artist who has ever made anything knows this. Change is something we can do. Everyday! It is palpable, it is powerful, and it is possible! - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Butterflies!

Musical Chairs

Larry Deyab

All any artist really wants is a seat at the table that is art. What does that mean? Good question.

I think what that means is that every artist wants to be recognized as an artist in the first place, and then have a sense of place, both in terms of their work and also in terms of their voice. They want to be a part of the dialogue.

How to achieve that is one question. There is however, another problem. There are only so may seats at the table. The result seems a lot like musical chairs. There aren't enough seats to go around.

Why? Good question. Why not just pull up more chairs? The answers to these questions means a further examination of human nature as well as the human condition. On the other hand it doesn't take a degree in math to see that there aren't enough chairs and never have been. Apparently we like it that way.

All of this makes getting a seat at the table not only a question of survival, but also one of competition. Then of course there is keeping the seat once you get it. None of this is necessarily nice or fair. It is dog eat dog. Someone is going to come up short; someone is going to be without a seat. A lot of someones. Should life be nice or fair? Should the art world be nice or fair? Does should even matter? Isn't "what's what" what matters?

If you're asking why there aren't enough seats at the table you may be asking the wrong question. Or maybe that is what they want you to think. Maybe they want you to think "how do I get a seat, and keep it," and nothing else.

Change happens when people start asking questions. Questions are a big part of how we learn and grow. Just watch a child.

As an artist, do you even want to play musical chairs?

Addison Parks




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The Natural

Some 30 years ago postmodernism rose from modernism's ashes and Larry Deyab was its perfect child. These three large unstretched canvasses from 1982 and 1983 are monument to that moment.

That Larry Deyab was not hoisted onto the shoulders of the ensuing parade is part travesty, part divine providence. That as a result he was forced to play the part of Cinderella and not only watch as other painters were feted by the likes of Mary Boones everywhere, he cleaned their brushes and mopped their studios(Bill Jensen, Ronald Bladen, Milton Resnick...).

Resnick

These paintings(Larry Deyab/Paintings/early 80s NYC; October 8 - November 6, 2011; Bow Street Gallery, Harvard Square), buried in storage these 30 years, are proof that once again the art world got it wrong. What possible silver lining is there to this sad story? Why was Deyab denied, held back, thwarted, unrecognized? Tell me the good news!

Well hear this! Here it is! Hallelujah! Larry Deyab didn't quit! Larry Deyab kept painting! Larry Deyab was never spoiled by success! He was never changed by the art world! While those other artists flamed out or atrophied or grew stunted or not at all, Larry Deyab kept painting and evolving and growing and learning! Today he is every bit the painter of every star who ever drank from Whitney's cup! That is divine providence!

It is a curious phenomenon. Artist as Job. To have suffered so as others triumphed. Will Deyab ever get the call? Like Tom Brady waited so many years ago for that one chance to shine, to march the ball down the field and score!





Larry Deyab sprang from modernism's foam full grown! These paintings are proof! He spoke modernism fluently, his native tongue! He spoke it with an eloquence that was understood, so that the business of postmodernism was at his feet, and he went about making the paintings that told the story of his time! Our time! It is no surprise that any artist who is of his time always appears ahead of his time to all who are actually looking back!

Dealers who were looking back because that was all they were naturally capable of, never saw him, never got him, or worse, feared him.

But look at these paintings! Almost murals really! Hanging in this abandoned building! They are perfect! They should be in a museum so that young painters can look at them the way they look at Delacroix and Matisse and Picasso and de Kooning and Pollock!

OK. I know full well that by '82/'83 it was like Times Square on the morning of January 1st. The party was over. I know, I hung New York/New Wave at PS1! But that was a free for all. A hundred factions. You had no clear voice. Instead it was Basquiat here, Duncan Hannah there, Haring and Futura over there. I made sense out of it but it was the Tower of Babel, no doubt about it. That was the whole point! Pluralism! Anarchy! Anything goes! It was deliriously breathtaking!




And yes, Larry Deyab was the morning after! Pick up the pieces and make a new world, and he did that. Out of paint! He did what the artist does; he went back to his cave and made cave paintings!

And assimilated it all perfectly! Not in a calculated way, but as natural as breathing! Loving breathing! Larry Deyab paints cave paintings, but make no mistake, they only look crude in that sense. They are high art. The real thing. The rare thing. The original thing. Strange and alien and fresh as it is elegant and thoughtful and whole!

Larry Deyab is all observer, and he pays attention. His paintings, then as now, are made of the stuff of life. Like Mary Shelley's monster they are fashioned from the bits and pieces he picks up in his travels about town, about the country, about the world. They seem like disparate parts, but under his expert guidance they come together in a swirl of paint, in an epiphany! Alive!





The new paintings bear this out! They would have been hanging now had Bow Street not closed. They are painted a little differently. Spray paint and enamel instead of thick oils. But the vision is the same, steadily forged by time and experience. At first glance they are nothing, a bunch of paint, and then they start to coalesce, and then just when they seem to make sense, they evaporate and we find ourselves at the bottom of the hill.




This is what he shared so well with Resnick, his paintings never stand still. They are always moving, changing, always showing you something new, something different. Then when you find them again the next day they are reborn! Remade! Alive! Ready for another dance!


Addison Parks,
Bow Street
Harvard Square

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