Conversations in Lyrical Abstraction: 1958 – 2009
Morris Louis, Alma Thomas, Howard Mehring Jeremy Blake, Leo Villareal.
September 17 – October 31, 2009
Conner Contemporary Art
1358-60 Florida Ave, NE
Washington, DC 20002
The line up for this show is great, and if I’m not mistaken this is the first time since maybe the late 50’s – Early 60’s that a Morris Louis will be in a DC commercial gallery.
Leave a CommentYesterday I spoke of how museums must be on the run from galleries and how galleries are able to add a little bit of extra titillation with the impact of commerce around the show. The Metropolitan Museum is showing The Pictures Generation 1974 – 1984 and funny enough, it seems to be the show that is the current blueprint for what is being shown downtown right now. Featuring 29 artists – many of whom are now “big names” in galleries it is no surprise that these artists are in sprit leading the current feel for what is being shown. Thats a blessing and a curse. Because yes, you have the big names; Cindy Sherman, Richard Prince, John Baldessari, David Salle, etc. you also have some names that maybe were not as accessible especially to a museum crowd; Glenn Branca, MICA-TV, Thomas Lawson.
The down side to this show is very clear. We are as a culture somehow creating and showing work that is clearly in the shadow of these artists. For some reason we are unable or unwilling to push further away or pull even closer to these ideas and approaches. Granted the pluralistic tendency of the period is hard to get past – however there are people going in different directions that seem to be having at least some success.
I confess to just running out of time tonight with this post – tomorrow I’ll be naming names and discussing some of the more interesting shows I saw in my weekend in New York.
Leave a CommentWillem de Looper was a fairly unique figure in his time in Washington. A painter and high level curator, de Looper was accessible, friendly and genuine. These traits alone make him rare – the fact that our arts community was blessed with someone like him is even rarer.
Leave a CommentThanks for sticking with me today while I continue talking about William Christenberry’s current show at the Katzen Art Center at American University. I have been thinking about a discussion that arises with the idea of the grid and how it relates to WC’s art in an era that could be defined as reductive – by this I mean the early seventies and into the very early eighties, the early stages of his mature artistic output.
I have always thought of the work as documentary in style and presentation – while I still find this to be true, I’m starting to think about the serial nature of the places that are photographed in Christenberry’s work. Why for instance have I seen more that 10 different versions of The Palmist Building, The Green Warehouse, Sprott Church, and The Bar-B-Q Inn. Certainly these images could create a grid of changes to the location or even a timeline of the same, however could we now start to see that structure as a formal 3 dimensional grid that could represent; image of the location, deterioration of the location, year of the location, anthropological uses of the location. An x,y, and z axis if you will. This grid (or cube) could now start to also work in other disciplines – his drawings, paintings, and sculptures of the locations (or details thereof) of said subject combined.
There is a secondary question to this that needs to be asked as well – Is this an intention of the artist or is this something that has sprung from reading the output of his practice. Or is it a combination of both, in my mind, probably both. While this says nothing definitive of WC’s work, it does raise a curious thought about art we (especially in the DC area) have grown very accustomed to.
Clearly this post is as much me thinking aloud as it is definitive theory – I have been kind of rolling the idea around for the last couple of days just to see where it might stick.
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There is a body of Christenberry’s work that I have been interested to see for quite a while. The installation is called The Klan Room. I only knew of The Klan Room by stories I had heard at the Corcoran when I was attending there in the early eighties. The stories were about G.I. Joes dressed up in Klan robes interacting with each other – and still holding a powerful presence – almost like the sculptures were as evil as the people they represent. I believe this show happened at the Corcoran in 1977.
Then the story starts to change.
1979 Christenberry’s studio was burglarized by people who stole the entire contents of what constituted The Klan Room installation. Nothing else was taken, the intruders even locked the door on the way out. 20 years worth of artwork suddenly disappeared. Christenberry started over. He would expand the size of The Klan Room installation to three times its original.
At the same time WC’s fans would ask, why pursue a subject so painful and divisive, galleries and museums have shied away from showing it due to corporate sponsorship concerns, others would say its not the right time or the right place. Others would say it’s not a proper subject to make art about. All the while Christenberry has pursued this part of his work regardless of its desirability. The work that comprises The Klan Room is deadpan and in your face. It is some of the most shocking and shameful artwork I have ever seem that documents the United States.
The amount of The Klan Room shown in the current show at the Katzen is relatively small, however it packs quite a punch. WC is best known for a body of work that is both documentary in style and concerned with a history of story, and place of memory.
My wife joked about the current curatorial initiative at the Katzen when on the way over she said “Last time we got to see the torture at Abu Grahib – and now this – you really are quite the winner at choosing a date for the two of us…
I hope to discuss the rest of the show later this week, frankly there is so much to discuss.
Some research for this entry was gathered from Aperture #96. Copyright 1984, the Aperture Foundation.
Photo from the Klan Room are by me sneaking them when I was told of no photography for this show, my apologies to all.
