I’m making a book today. An art book. One filled with poorly reproduced images of
art that brings me comfort. Or art that, when I think about it, brings
me comfort. Because even good digital images can’t come
close to recreating what a real life art encounter is like, in physical space, where you can
sense its texture and dimensionality and changing appearance, as light shifts and you shift
around it. Sigh… I miss real life. But even when there’s not a global pandemic,
we often settle for these not-artworks to remind us of the real artworks. It’s why we have art books, museum instagram
accounts, and this channel. We like to be reminded of artworks even if
we can’t experience them first hand, even if we’ve never seen them before, or never
will. Robyn O’Neil gave me this idea. She who makes painstakingly detailed, often
monumental drawings of imagined landscapes. She also makes these little low-fi books of
art that inspires her practice--images she wants to be thinking about as she goes about
her work. Robyn doesn’t copy the images, but uses
them as jumping off points, reminders of the inventiveness of others, and looks for ways
their work might inform her own. My book is going to serve a different purpose. Over the past week, I’ve been thinking about
the artworks that I want to be reminded of right now, whose existence in the world gives
me some sense of reassurance, of calm, reminding me that, yes, there are whole other worlds
out there, objects, histories, and other sensing, feeling beings. The first work I’m going to put in my book
is a photograph by Alec Soth, titled Cammy's View, Salt Lake City, taken in 2018. It’s from his series “I Know How Furiously
Your Heart is Beating”, a fantastic series title if ever there was one, taken from a
1917 poem by Wallace Stevens titled The Gray Room. Each picture in the series is an interior
shot, or a portrait in an interior, the result of Soth’s interactions with individuals
across the US and Europe, and his consideration of the limits of what a photograph can convey
about the inner life of its subject. I liked this photo before, but it resonates
even more strongly now. There is an overwhelming quiet about the picture,
its gauzy light and selective focus obscuring what’s outside and drawing my attention
to the stack of holy books on the windowsill and, of course, the bird. It’s a pet bird, I think a cockatiel? Anyway, it’s a domesticated animal, one
that has counterparts in the wild, but that exists within the framework a human has constructed
for it. From the window, it can see out to the wider
world of Salt Lake City, a climate it’s no doubt not suited to, but inside here it’s
safe. The bird’s not in a cage, but it’s still
caged. Granted some freedoms, but not in charge of
its destiny. We are the bird. We are always the bird to some extent, but
we are really the bird right now. Soth’s stated goal while making these pictures
was “to simply spend time in the presence of another beating heart.” Here I’m not sure if that beating heart
was Cammy’s--it’s her view, we’re told, her space, her books, her pet-- or if it's
the beating heart of the bird that we’re spending time with. Maybe it's both, or neither. A photograph grants us certain access to a
space, a subject, a moment, but it does not and cannot recreate it fully. I identify with the bird, but I also connect
with the conundrum of representation the image embodies. We have our spaces, our lives, other people
have theirs, and there is only so much we can do to bridge that divide. The next work is another window of sorts,
this one a painting by Miyoko Ito titled Oracle, made in 1967 and 68. I learned about her work when I was in college
in Chicago, where Ito was based for most of her career, and her canvases have always fascinated
and mesmerized me. Like much or her work, this composition is
grounded and solid, but the expert application of carefully calibrated color makes it atmospheric
and light. It’s abstract, but with playful references
to lumpy organic and human forms, like these funny tongues right here, and this hair stuff
over there. It feels like we might be simultaneously inside
and outside, this herringbone pattern reminding me of floorboards, and a framed view out to
a gradient of blue. But then there are multiple horizon lines,
a desert-like landscape view here, a sea-meets sky view there. Ito had a difficult life, which included narrowly
escaping the 1923 Tokyo earthquake, and being pulled from college in the US during World
War II and sent to an internment camp for Japanese Americans, and later living through
breast cancer. She was much admired and influenced many,
but Ito was largely an outlier, carving her own path and practice despite and alongside
the trends and movements. She struggled with her mental health throughout
her life, but made her work seven days a week, viewing her painting as a kind of therapy. “I have no place to take myself except painting,”
she said in 1978. The precision and singularity of Ito’s vision
both excites me and leaves me with a feeling of profound calm. Her paintings are places I want to take myself
to all the time, and especially right now. One of Ito’s favorite painters was Giorgio
Morandi, who I’m including in the book next. There is a lot written about this guy, an
Italian artist very well known for his still life paintings of pretty basic objects arranged
on plain surfaces. He started making still lifes in the 1910s
and just kept on going, collecting bottles, boxes, jars, pots, pitchers, and the like,
and replaying them again and again in different configurations. This work, and all of his works are just so
CAREFUL. He’d sometimes take hours to arrange his
objects, and you can feel that. These things weren’t casually set down in
this strangely aligned and ordered manner, and they weren’t painted in a casual manner
either. The forms aren’t crisp, but you can tell
that they’re exactly as the artist wanted them to be. The tones are precise, as is the light and
shadow. It’s abundantly clear that it was Morandi’s
intensive looking that brought this work, and all of his work, into the world. I’m including it in my book because I want
to give my own surroundings the kind of careful attention Morandi gave his own. He rarely left Italy and painted the same
bottles and cans over and over again, but his visual world was immense, infinite. Another acute observer is Vija Celmins, and
next I’m going to add an image from her work beautifully titled To Fix the Image in
Memory, created from 1977 to 1982. What you’re seeing here is a rock, alongside
Celmins’ recreation of that rock. For the series, she found eleven rocks in
nature, and then cast them in bronze and painted them to resemble the original rocks as closely
as possible. They are displayed all together, so that it’s
then left to you to work out which are the real rocks, and which the recreations. (And no, I’m not going to tell you which
is which.) What I love about this is that it forces close
observation. Not the kind of cursory looking we often do
in a gallery or art book, but the kind of intense, close-up, sustained scrutiny that
enables us to appreciate Celmins’ remarkable achievement in verisimilitude, as well as
the intricacies and details of the specific rocks she’s chosen for this exercise. Something as common as a rock has become extraordinary
because of the artist’s act of looking, and the extreme care she took in reproducing
it. After all that exactitude, we really need
to loosen up a little. And to do that we’re going to include this
work by Sam Gilliam, titled 10/27/69. It’s one of Gilliam’s drape paintings,
an approach the artist landed upon around 1965, inspired in part by the laundry hanging
on clotheslines that he could see from the window of his DC studio. He had been experimenting with his materials
in the lead up, pouring paint colors, folding wet canvas to imprint lines and forms, working
consciously in the language of the Washington Color School. But Gilliam’s drape paintings were the first
to get rid of the stretcher bars completely, taking paint stained canvas and draping and
hanging it in arrangements on the wall or floor, or suspending it from ceilings. They can be arranged and rearranged, necessarily
different every time they’re installed. Painting had been a flat affair, and Gilliam
made it sculpture. The title, clearly a date, October 27, 1969,
roots it firmly in time. Much was happening in America and in particular
DC--the civil rights movement, the black power movement, anti-Vietnam war protests. Gilliam had made another painting that same
year titled April 4, which was the first anniversary of the assasination of Martin Luther King
Jr. For me, the drape paintings both reference
that time and are also their own world apart. Embodying rupture and freedom and change,
and also bringing me joy whenever I’ve encountered them in a gallery and revelled in their tactility
and resplendent color. While we're revelling in tactility and color,
let’s bring Sheila Hicks into the mix. This is her monumental installation Escalade
Beyond Chromatic Lands, created in 2016 and 17, which I lucked into seeing at the 2017
Venice Biennale. This pathetic computer printout is about the
opposite of an experience of this work, an immersive environment of color, created through
the placement of soft bales of fiber and hanging tapestries. You really want to lie down in this, but aren’t
allowed to for reasonable safety concerns, so in some ways it’s better to just see
the work here, like this, without the overwhelming temptation to take a nap in it. Sheila Hicks herself can lie in them, though,
and I’m happy to know at least someone can. Hicks’ interest in the handmade is evident
here and throughout her work, and it’s the handmade that I find myself yearning for right
now. Not Zoom meetings and instagram stories, but
texture and warmth and three dimensions. Even the acoustics change when you enter a
room with a work by Hicks in it. I want to luxuriate in this environment as
a fully sensing being, but for the now I’m just going to transport myself there mentally,
and try to appreciate the domestic environment I find myself in right now. This seems like a good place to stop, but
I feel like maybe we need a snack? Let’s add a Wayne Thiebaud painting in here,
Dessert Tray frotm 1992-94. It looks delicious. I have a very uncomplicated relationship with
this painting, not unlike my relationship with dessert. I love how the paint is applied thickly like
frosting, and I find it very satisfying and untroubling. Well, that was easy. I made a book, filled with art I want to think
about right now. I found this lovely little painting my daughter
made and doesn’t care if I cut up that I’m going to put on the cover, too. What art do you want to think about right
now, or wish you could see firsthand? If you want, make your own art book in whatever
way you like, using the materials you have around, and share it using the hashtag #youareanartist. Or if you’re interested in making some real
life art of your own, check out this other book I made that took a heck of a lot longer. It’s filled with art and ideas and 53 assignments
based on the practices of a wide range of brilliant artists working today. Click the link in the description to find
out more. Thanks to all of our patrons for supporting
the art assignment, especially our grandmasters of the arts David Golden and Divideby Zero
Collection.
