Inward Maine: Alan Bray at GARVEY|SIMON, Chelsea, Manhattan (November 2017, WSI)

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When Alan Bray was studying at the Villa Schifanoia Graduate School of Fine Arts in Florence, he was deeply influenced by the sincere faith and genuine spiritual aspirations in the work of the early Renaissance masters of that city. As he said before an audience in his home state of Maine, these were artists who “…actually believed in something”. It was a departure from the cynicism and irony he had experienced while studying in the US and, from this point on, Bray began to focus more on “stuff” he “cared about” – like his community and the natural environment of Maine.

He also picked up the method of casein-on-panel painting at that time; casein is a type of paint derived from milk protein which was used before oil paint. This type of paint dries so quickly that if an artist makes a mistake, or wants to change something, he/she has to use sandpaper. But this type of paint also seems to help to give nature, in his work, the exciting sheen and piquancy that elicits wows and oohs from many folks who look at it. To me his work is a bit like Andrew Wyeth mixed with Casper David Friedrich (many writers have mentioned a “mystical” quality to Bray’s work) with a little, to my eyes, Henri Rousseau eccentricity in there (although, unlike Rousseau, Bray does not create anything that does not exist in its original setting). 

Bray’s images compel an immediate, stunning engagement that allows us to absorb the image at a pre-cognitive or super-cognitive level. When Heinrich von Kleist first saw the paintings of Casper David Friedrich, he remarked that looking at that work was like having your eyelids torn off. Bray also offers that intense novelty or newness of vision. The intellect remains dazed for a while as we do not feel the need to articulate. Bray’s work is a narrative killer (although there are often stories behind individual pieces), a Broca’s area stupefier. It represents Bruno’s approach to the universe and not Galileo’s: a bridge between nature and us, lacking any potential to exploit the earth for profit. You do not tell yourself anything about what you see because this capacity for narrative now seems a bit anachronistic. The work packs a wallop beyond words, and becomes the type of art fully accessible beyond interpretation.

To me it packs the same wallop as, for example, something like Fra Filippo Lippi’s Annunciation at the Frick Collection. We have the basic knowledge of the story ahead of time, we know what the Annunciation was, but seeing the postures of Gabriel and the Virgin, the tilts of their heads in relation to each other, the ‘hot’ red of Gabriel’s cape and ‘cool’ blue of the Virgin’s, their spatial relationship within the framing of the pillars, their facial expressions and gestures – this all reaches us immediately and cumulatively with a big swoosh and emotional impact beyond any narrative. It is as if all previous knowledge has primed one for this direct experience. Language and knowledge took us only so far and now we can get walloped by color and form. Bray’s work, like all work that can reach beyond interpretation, is like an injection that yields immediate results instead of a slow-working ingested pill. Bray’s work gives us that big swoosh which comes from when an artist incorporates details for an effect on the viewer and not as elements of narrative analysis.

Another influence on Bray was the book by Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, which encouraged Bray to paint ‘natural phenomena’. Bray often will sit in an area for hours until the visual begins to reveal secrets (about structure?) to him. To me, Bray’s approach asks: What can we get from nature without imputing our knowledge back to nature? What can happen when we are patiently in the presence of and within nature, allowing the mind to become a part of nature and nature to become a part of the mind? What can we glean when we try to experience nature with no scientific preconceptions but trust that nature itself can reveal deep and transformative secrets to us? Bachelard’s book is a contribution to phenomenology, which has been called the ‘science of experience’. I would suggest, however, that phenomenology should be called the experience of experience. A phenomenological approach makes one not only aware of experience but yields insights into our experience of the world. 

The mysterious contrasts between aspects of nature, familiar structures which now look a little strange and the brilliance of the colors work together in Bray’s work to represent the super-enriched experience of our experience of nature. It is the joy of the perception of perception fueling deeper engagement with the perceived, without knowledge or desire.

The fact that Bray does not paint people within his landscapes is also significant. Often, by including a person or people, a painting merely becomes a work about transience. Nature and its cycle become the permanent or eternal and the presence of people reveals how brief our hour upon nature’s stage is. Adding people also adds ‘grandeur’ to nature as there will always be a contrast between the fleeting and puny human figure and the seemingly eternal and robust nature.

Interestingly, Bray tries something a bit different as he often, in this series, shows the traces of humans within nature instead of people themselves. The scaring effects of us puny and transient people is evident in many of his works to varying degrees of severity. We see, for instance, traces of a cross-country skier on a thawing lake. In one painting we see a circular pond which was created by a farmer as a source of water for potential fires on his property. As Joseph Gross of the gallery explained to me, by creating this type of pond, the farmer’s property insurance rates dropped. In Bray’s work showing such traces of human action, we see the working of the human mind and desire on the land and the land’s always benevolently regenerative response.

 

The Future Is Elsewhere (If It Breaks Your Heart): Heidi Hahn at Jack Hanley Gallery, Lower East Side (November 2017, WSI)

The women in Heidi Hahn’s latest series of paintings at Jack Hanley Gallery are presented in profile, almost like subjects in Muybridge motion studies. Muybridge, of course, did his motion study photos in order to be able to see details that normally escaped the eye. So, basically, what do we see in these paintings of women schlepping around in inclement weather, with leaves falling from trees, among big plastic garbage bags? Is there something about being in motion, carrying their groceries among the backdrop just described, that might better reveal the identities of these women or a deeper truth about their lives to us? Can we really get who these folks are by capturing them in a freeze frame on their way home from the supermarket or do we merely exercise our capacities to falsely characterize others based on our own biases? Actually, we are not exactly getting a freeze frame here; in the past other reviewers have mentioned that Hahn uses a Munch-like expressionistic style to convey her women, but the subjects are frozen, in transition, for our inspection.

So, first of all, perhaps, we are compelled to wonder why, wandering the streets with our own plastic bags of veggies and humanely killed chickens, we might play amateur sleuth and try to discern as much about the others on the street as possible. What are we looking for when we check people out on the street? Why are we doing this? And yet, one might ask whether anyone would really pay extra attention to this type of person  – she is somewhat common in New York City. If we take a closer look, however, we might see that she warrants being seen more closely because she very well could be suffering. This type of expressionistic, Muybridge motion study seems to reveal that this person we encounter everyday and dismiss, perhaps, as a benign presence, a well-heeled member of the liberal, intellectual class in New York City, may actually demand our sympathy and fellow-feeling as well. And, of course, many of us who wander through the Lower East Side galleries may recognize ourselves in her/them.

These women are not moving forward very decisively or enthusiastically. We are encouraged, through our educational system, to pursue our own excellence often to the neglect of others; has this type of person finally left school and arrived at her long-struggled-for, beyond-reproach niche in the Big Apple only to find it is not all that it was cracked up to be? Perhaps all the competition and anxiety was not really worth it? Are these folks schlepping in callous self-absorption? In liberal guilt? In longing for something or someone lost? In self-pity? In the awareness that their lives may have been altered or constrained due to their gender? Are they just schlepping while thinking of nothing? Is this just neutral wandering back home with groceries? In these periods of transition do these women reflect on the nature of their lives or do they unconsciously betray some unspoken form of distress while wandering home with their plastic bags of foodstuff?

These folks seem inaccessible and not inviting even though they are not moving forward with an aggressive purpose. They seem to have accepted things, yet they are not comfortable in this acceptance. They are clearly showing external pressures, stresses or concerns that are not currently present. They are preoccupied. They seem alienated from us through their hardship.

Other art writers have pointed out that these figures are a bit gangly and awkward. These women do not conform to the golden ratio in their body proportions and might be missing most if not all of the traits that typically confer ‘beauty’ to a woman from the traditional male perspective. Hahn’s work in the past has referenced the way women have been depicted throughout the history of art – is the perceived distress of these women due to the lack of attention these women have paid to meeting the expectations of men? Are these women who have read ‘The Beauty Myth’ and stopped trying to conform to some male expectations that if they are to be successful they must also sexualize themselves as a type of compensation? Are these women who have struck out on their own, are not trying to meet physical or beauty standards, and who are suffering the consequences, and perhaps even surprised at themselves for suffering these consequences?  We still live in a society where body shape and gender can determine success. It could well be that this is the source of the discomfort in these women.

So another important aspect of Hahn’s work might be that the history of art has been so badly tainted by negative and sexist depictions of women, that when we see women depicted in visual art, we almost always, despite ourselves, are forced to view them within the reference of the skewed perspective of art history. We have a frame of reference toward the depiction of women in art which is a distorted and sexist frame of reference and it might affect the way we see any depiction of women in art. By this, I mean that even a ‘neutral’ attempt at a depiction of a woman might be interpreted as either following a harmful tradition or diverging from a harmful tradition, and not viewed on its own terms, necessarily. Given the flawed history of the visual arts, and the oppression of women historically, maybe Hahn is asking: Can a woman just be a woman in a painting, with no historical baggage (ah, that’s what might be in the plastic bags!)? Isn’t that an interesting interpretation!? Maybe these women are figuratively carrying such baggage home with them in these pieces.

We still live in a society where body shape, gender and conforming to the beauty myth can determine success. It could well be that this is the source of the discomfort in these women who walk down the street with their expressions of apparently forlorn apathy in lieu of the excitement you might expect for a young, independent woman in the city. But, then again, the beauty of this show is that one is encouraged to ruminate on various interpretations as to what is ailing these women on their way home.  The show ends on the 12^th.

Hallucinatory Enhancements: Kris Kuksi at Joshua Liner Gallery, Chelsea, Manhattan (October 2017 - Wall Street International)

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In this latest show by Kris Kuksi, at Joshua Liner Gallery, it looks as if the line between Guan Yin and Jenna Jameson might be starting to blur. By my completely subjective estimation, the central godlike figures seem, overall, less pacifistic than in previous shows and the chaste Athena-like goddesses have been replaced by more sexualized figures sometimes just bearing the trappings of religiosity, sometimes just baring themselves. It is as if we are witnessing a turning point in the relationship between religion and society, where the feedback loop is changing traditional religious iconography by infusing it with human sexual desire, a lust for power and greed. Traditional images once embodying ideals to challenge egocentric predispositions seem now to negate the pro-social and exult the will to everything Schopenhauer and Nietzsche drooled over. 

My first take on Kuksi, a few years ago, based on his iconic church-tanks and pieces similar to these in this show, was that he seemed interested in the paradox in which only terrifying weapons and various types of awe-inspiring military deterrence could possibly create the possibility for a peaceful spiritual pursuit within a nation that possessed this type of might. For example, indigenous religious practices were obliterated by the force of U.S. military technology. Is Kuksi saying there can be no pacifistic spiritual quest outside of a society that does not protect that quest with a zillion-dollar weapons’ industry and military complex?

Gandhi, for example, opposed violence even against the Nazis during World War II. The implication was, I am assuming, that true pacifism and non-violent resistance must be followed even if it meant the thugs and beasts would temporarily take over the world. This would be the ground zero from which real world peace would germinate. Kuksi’s pieces might also be asking: Should we take the gamble that REAL world peace can only be ultimately created by following extreme and true pacifism (and let the monsters take over) or should we keep hedging this bet with our weapons systems (just today Boris Johnson said the free world exists under America’s nuclear umbrella)? North Korea and ISIS seem to have shown that the monsters can, however, create hopeless self-contained systems and how many Jews and others were going to be killed by Hitler before Gandhi’s pacifism really kicked in and germinated enough to change the system? Is this paradox of religions of peace propped up by weapons of war the best we can do in this imperfect world?

It could also be that the godlike and heroic idols, in Kuksi’s work, are the ones generating the warlike preparations and actions. This, in fact, seems to be an interpretation easier to gravitate to in this as opposed to earlier shows, where I feel Kuksi showed more ambiguity about who was starting what. Also, the variety of sizes of figurines, interestingly, makes it impossible for us to tell which are ‘alive’ and which are statues or dolls being worshipped or toyed with. Obviously they are all figurines, but within the context of the diorama, for the diorama to work, we need some of them to be ‘real’. Are the central images real beings surrounded by dolls and figurines of their imagination or are some of the small figurines real and worshipping giant statues while playing with dolls? Or is there another reason for the wild discrepancies in the sizes of the figures?

If this is not enough to ruminate on, Kuksi, to me, could also be parodying the idea of the allegorical spiritual fight to attain perfection, which is also a paradox. This goes way back. Seth represents an aggressive and destructive inner trait that destroys the inner peace and humanity that Osiris represents and Horus is that within us which has to knock off Seth, after Seth knocks off Osiris, to re-establish real inner peace for us. There seems to be a belief that, in order to attain peace and humanity, some battle between agents of the light and dark must happen (within us but represented by symbols). This is not always the case, however, as Buddha attains Enlightenment by sitting under a tree for 40 days and Jesus gets basically the same thing by fasting for 40 days – nary a demon, uncle, usurper or adulterer killed between the two of them. But it is always more fun when you can violently conceptualize your humane development in terms of slaughtering stuff that deserves to be slaughtered for an allegedly ‘higher’ end.

In his artist statement Kuksi says that he is fascinated by the design of pipework and mechanized systems as well as the flourishes of the Baroque. His ultimate goal, perhaps, therefore, is an abstract baroque design structured according to the principles of a piping system. You get the utilitarian structure to optimize space supplemented by a design that both obfuscates and glorifies the function of the piping. The placement of the figurines and their sizes, therefore, may have more to do with this need for Baroque design than their place in the overall spiritual war-hive. The baroque beauty is provided by the cumulative effect of figurines of violence and especially a type of violence which cannot be separated from religion. Considering that the core of the Baroque Era was the 30 Years War between Protestant and Catholic national leaders, it should be no surprise then that the medium is clearly the message in these pieces. The show closes on November 11.

Carts: Daniel Turitz at Carter Burden Gallery in Chelsea, Manhattan (October, 2017, Wall Street International)

 

The homeless crisis which still plagues American cities began in the early 1980s as a result of the conservative economic policies of President Ronald Reagan. No longer encouraged or held accountable by government, housing developers stopped creating low-income housing units (opting for more lucrative projects), and as the number of these units dropped the number of poor folks rose. Reagan, furthermore, cut off government funding for the poor who needed help paying their rent and people were literally pushed into the streets of America in the early 1980s. No president since Reagan has attempted to fix this problem and in the last presidential election there were no discussions concerning homelessness in America. This problem was created by the Federal Government but it has been dropped into the laps of city governments that may not have the resources to do enough.

As of the summer of 2017, there were over 60,000 homeless people surviving in the New York City shelter system. About one-third of this population are children – homeless families comprise about three-fourths of the New York City shelter population. There are also about 4,000 people who choose to live their lives on the streets of New York. Perhaps this should not be surprising for the American city where the income gap between rich and poor is the most extreme, where folks in the top 20% of income earnings make 40 times what folks in the bottom 20% make.

The 60,000 people in the shelter system are largely invisible to the rest of society; the established press never bothers writing about them. In America, if there is a social problem, we are good at providing services, but not so good at providing solutions. Often the services are mistaken to be the solutions and as long as these 60,000 people are not wandering the streets, further work does not seem needed. The homeless folks who will not go into the shelters and who pile all their belongings into shopping carts and wander around the city as eyesores, however, simply cannot be ignored. Slowly but surely sentiment in New York City seems to be turning against these folks due to negative stories by the established press.

Daniel Turitz has created a series of paintings featuring these carts used by the homeless, thus disrupting the normal Chelsea gallery hop with a stark dose of social reality. He told me, “Walking across the street at 57^th street and 10^th avenue on a fall day, I came across a line-up of homeless carts and like most of the people on the street I found myself averting my eyes, keeping a safe distance and generally finding a way to make AS IF they weren't there. Words came to mind - incompatible, inconceivable - how can homelessness and the ever presence of these carts still exist amid the prosperity of such wealth in the city?”

Turitz was, thus, motivated to create the series through his sense of wonder and shock concerning the carts. He also meets the challenge of painting them in a way that does not show insensitivity to the misery of the homeless nor preach to or self-righteously demand action from those viewing the carts. He seems to have accepted this challenge: Would it be possible to paint these carts without an agenda, just as the carts are, on their own terms, as urban phenomena? Thus, the viewer responds to the carts in the gallery without the mediation or manipulation of the artist’s will. The response of the viewer is not manipulated toward some end by the artist.

To do this, it is possible that Turitz might have had to divest himself of some level of sympathetic engagement in the actual painting process, although I feel the pieces make quite a powerful emotional impact in the gallery space. “I thought about how my questions regarding proximity, distance and intimacy led to making every small decision about the painting. Clarity, obscurity, and the mark-making itself was akin to establishing a buffer between image and viewer, painting and painter- similar to that same safe buffer we create between ourselves and the unsightly…each garbage bag, taut rope, loose piece of detritus or piece of discordant paint became more interesting as objects to move in and around the painting. I've thought about adding figures and still might going forward but these pieces are more influenced by the plasticity of still life than that of documentation or the narrative.”

Despite the buffer mentioned in the creative process, it is undeniable that these carts are going to arrest the attention of the viewer and demand some type of response, and this response should, perhaps, be examined by the viewer to determine its source, validity and level of humanity. The people who most need our sympathy and activism are often the people who test our patience and tolerance and who appear ‘unsightly’. This type of cart is enough to put anyone off and to hate the person pushing it – how do we overcome this and truly feel for the other and reach him/her somehow with love, compassion and help? The homeless person’s shopping cart is considered a huge irritant among the press and those others who simply wish a problem and the people responsible for the problem would disappear. This is not an acceptable attitude.

By separating the person from the cart and just presenting the cart, Turitz also provides us with the riddle of what exactly is contained in each cart. Is there a common denominator of things that one who has to live on the streets takes along? Does each homeless person pack different things? Are all of these objects really necessities? Could a person not live much more easily without all of the things being carried in such a cart? Therefore, the carts seem to point to the fact that there are some belongings which we cannot abandon even under the most adverse conditions and seems to ask what creates the emotional pull of those items that would make a person lug them around so painfully every day? What is it in these carts that the homeless refuse to abandon and are willing to suffer so much to preserve? Do we who have housing have such parallels in our own lives? What kind of shopping cart am I carrying around, figuratively, on a daily basis?

Because these carts contain every precious and priceless possession that one person owns and the cart becomes something to be guarded, protected and preserved day to day, Turitz can invite us to take the  important step of looking at the cart differently from the irritant we are being told it is. It can, instead, be viewed as a source of life, hope and comfort to people who are struggling in a daily effort not just to survive but to live as and be viewed as human beings in a heartless city of greed, malice and selfishness. The show runs until the 26^th at 548 W. 28^th street.

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Desire as a Self-Contained Environment - BD White at Castle Fitzjohns, Lower East Side, Manhattan (October, 2017) Originally in Wall Street International

In allegorical literature, ‘coming home’ often meant the union of masculine and feminine that brings peace and stability. In the ancient world men were generally active and women were generally passive (due to social expectations and constraints) and this provided the substance for this type of symbolism. The active male became symbolic of a desire for something higher or more pure while the passive female represented the fulfilment of that desire accomplished through the male quest, battle or journey. This can be seen in such stories as Rama/Sita, Odysseus/Penelope and even Tamino/Pamina in the Magic Flute. 

Perhaps there is no more extreme or salient contemporary example of leaving and returning home than that of the astronaut’s journey. In his current show Love, Loss and Longing at Castle Fitzjohns, BD White plays with the concept of astronaut as it relates to his personal life and lost love for a woman but, to me, the show is also an absurdist Bowie-like, Major Tom-take on the greater theme of union or failed union between the masculine and feminine that has dominated aspects of our art. 

The astronaut is a quester who literally leaves the safety and warmth of his/her planet for a higher goal in the void of space. He/she must replicate a basic artificial and self-contained, though unsustainable, environment consisting of heat, breathable air and a suitable air pressure. He/she becomes alienated from both the earth and space through the life-sustaining mechanism he/she wears. The astronaut literally enters a void and can experience extreme isolation where one might be forced back on one’s own (painful) memories instead of dealing with new experiences. It might be like sitting under a bodhi tree for 40 days. 

Indeed, the astronaut journeys into the ultimate hostile environment – the ultimate desert. Jesus was called into and fasted for 40 days in a desert before this process of isolation and self-denial changed him to the extent that he could pass the three tests of Satan and enter the world as an agent of transformation. The astronaut in the work of BD White, floating in his tin can, floating in the void, represents our contemporary symbol for desert transition and transformation – to me at least. In some of his depictions of his astronaut, we see postures of ecstasy, abandonment, being lost and/or liberation.

Yet, the space suit with its artificially self-contained environment also represents our act of will – our way and our choice to explore what should not, apparently, even exist in the first place (How could something come from nothing? How could something always be?) without any real hope of getting to the real answer of how the universe came into existence. As Augustine, Luther, Calvin and a host of others have argued, salvation is not something that can be chosen or pursued as a goal. It is something that happens through Divine Grace and mercy. When we choose to be ‘saved’, a Catch 22 kicks in, and we fall short. Our own will can never lead us to the fulfilment dreamed of in allegorical literature and its many quests and conquests.

So in the works of BD White, we see this impossibility of union which is brought about through the spacesuit. What if, in our self-chosen quest, painful memories and reflection on them do not change us? What if we recognize and feel social shame toward, but cannot truly detest and overcome, our sins? What if we cannot reach the ‘ex ante’ and are left wallowing in the ‘ex post’ of unwanted emotional and behavioral responses? This leads to the absurdist comedy where the astronaut can see the woman, can ostensibly desire the woman, can have some contact with the fulfilment of a desire to return home but realizes an incomplete homecoming and this becomes the true reality of his quest…the circuit’s dead, there’s something wrong. The quest is kept alive but the possibility of consummation is rendered impossible. In his attempt to create imagery to capture and convey the inconsolable emotions involved in a difficult break-up, BD White also touches upon one of the most commonly used literary and cultural themes, pointing toward the difficulty of abandoning a self-destructive will to accept real deliverance.

Markus Lüpertz at Michael Werner Gallery, London (2021)

 Markus Lüpertz at Michael Werner, London (as viewed online, January 2021)

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In his latest show at Michael Werner in London, Markus Lüpertz reveals that capacity which alienates us from Arcadia through our ability to refashion nature toward our desires and needs. The same capacity also seems behind the epic quests toward redemption and salvation embodied in the classical ideal. His focus on the concept of Arcadia, along with his choice of types of figuration within in, seems to call for a grand synthesis in which a new relationship to nature becomes part of the overall scheme of individual and social development.

Lüpertz takes figures from Italian Renaissance and Dutch Golden Age paintings and uses them in landscapes primarily based on the wilderness surrounding his studio. He could be acknowledging the lingering meaning and impact of the classical stage of art but also implying that the figures present a type of flawed visual language which must be tweaked. Or, the flawed concept of humanity as the measure of all things, and the capacity of humanity to continually fall and rise and overcome, or the inherent strength of the figures in Renaissance and Dutch paintings might be the language being spoken vis-à-vis nature in these works. Is Lüpertz implying we are still, in a de facto sense, in this classical stage, despite all the superficial innovations in the visual arts from the Dutch Golden Age onward and all the talk of post-modernity and metamodernity? So Lüpertz strips the classically inspired figures of clothing and places them in landscapes he is familiar with, but declares the landscapes to be Arcadia.

What could it mean, then, to begin with figures from the Renaissance and Dutch Golden Age of painting? Well, who were these folks? They were, primarily, the patrons who funded the Renaissance or Dutch Golden Age. These were power brokers. In Italy they often demanded figures from Greek mythology to be in commissioned works. Their demands influenced the development of art. Lüpertz is starting out with visual imagery pleasing to the Italian and Dutch middle to upper classes.  So Lüpertz tips his hat, as it were, to the financial basis of art which forms the core of the canon we see in our museums. He is acknowledging that you just do not get art without an economic system, and the economic system determines, to a great extent, what art you get. Basically, your buyers are your art. What they want to buy gets placed in a museum someday.

He is placing naked patrons of the arts and their whimsies in a bucolic paradise. And why does he use the forests around his studio for Arcadia? Well, our concept of Arcadia is flawed as well and based on the limited experiences city dwellers have had during brief jaunts into nature. The big irony involved in landscape painting, after all, is that it was begun in Holland, the UK and Germany by city-dwelling artists who knew very little of the workings of nature and who imputed their romanticized or mystical visions onto dirt, mountains, rivers and trees. Arcadia embodied the concept of nature as the placid setting for an easy life.  

But we also have to realize that Arcadia or Paradise, as a pure form of nature where humankind lived in innocence pursuing a sustainable type of life, is the core of the Western religious tradition. The fact that we screwed this up becomes the beginning of our holy book. We do not view Adam and Eve as early Homo Sapiens with dark skin hunting and gathering through African savannahs or Anatolia. We view our concept of Paradise due to a classical tradition as being populated by husky, muscular men and women of the white race. Albrecht Dürer had a bulked-up white couple in that garden. The exact race which ruined Paradise and brought about industrialization and the destruction of our planet are suddenly embedded into a sustainable Paradise at the very beginning. Meaty white folks in Paradise getting tricked by a snake into losing everything becomes the beginning of white history and religion and the basis of the quest to get back to that garden. The race which ultimately began the destruction of nature created the ideal of the classical figure living in harmony in Arcadia. But nobody is just relaxing and playing the flute in Lüpertz’ Arcadia – thought, planning, anxiety and cunning are apparent in body gestures and facial expressions.

It could be that Lüpertz asserts, by doing this, that the potential for self-destruction was always inherent in humanity and that there was never a stage of innocence. Nature, take it for what it is, provided a sustainable system and we were never fully integrated into it – even as hunter-gatherers we caused extinctions. If you take a bunch of rats and put them on an island and let them reproduce, they will ultimately devour all the food on the island, kill and devour each other and the king rat will starve to death. Despite our fully developed neo-cortex, the development of humanity seems to involve such a situation as well, as we have made no concerted attempt to control population growth or the emissions of pollutants into our atmosphere developed to indulge the consumer whims of an ever-growing multitude. Like rats we, apparently, will eat through and use everything until nothing is left. We dream of Arcadia as the starting point, dream of a return, but our oceans are turning into acid and temperatures rise each year.

When we view Lüpertz’ human figures, they are monumental or stone-like in nature. Alienated, scheming, planning, partially inside and partially divorced from and at an advantage toward nature. Nudity does not make these figures seem more natural. They are the drama queens which emerged from nature to inadvertently destroy nature. This new relationship to nature also allows for the human figure to undertake the grandiose mythic journey. Indeed, Adam and Eve can be found among the figures in this show. Adam is shown on multiple canvases, in two instances he sits in the shadow, as if newly awakened, looking on to a sun-bathed landscape of possibilities. Another is called Anticipation Adam in which he is literally divided from nature by a thick white line. Eve is frozen in thought as she prepares to eat of the knowledge of good and evil. The fall of humanity is already planted inside of her, she has not taken a bite yet. There is no snake in the vicinity.

We see a ghostly figure on a white horse transitioning through nature. Nature is not the end or purpose, it is the middle ground between urban centers that one must traverse for one’s safety, comfort and development. In a painting labeled Jason’s Farewell, the masculine (desire) is departing from the feminine (fulfilment) as an aged man looks on. Actaeon is turned into an animal after viewing a goddess bathing. He will be torn to pieces by his own dogs.  His transgression seems akin to Eve’s and maybe Jason’s departure, which will lead to so much tragedy. We see a black boat beckoning a journey. A tree fork is embraced by a female nude. We see a female nude racing down an allée evoking a desire for escape.

The theme of the show to me is that we have couched our hope in our transgression. Both come from the same source. One implication is that we have to choose whether nature or humanity will be the dominant force, although we dream of and talk of a synthesis. One, however, most likely must become integrated into the other for the survival of both. The recent work of Lüpertz seems to question whether there is any other alternative.

Too much art, not enough humanity

I think John Ruskin had it right. Art is solely about humane development. Art is about rising as an individual and a society. Why is this a good definition of art? Because nothing else that art might be matters.

So if this is a good, working definition of art, every artist creating art should be rising toward a higher level of being - toward kindness, tolerance, compassion, brotherhood, equality, mercy...all the positive, pro-social things we should all be shooting for. 

We can all find ourselves to be flawed but the least we owe each other is to examine our flaws and always aspire toward becoming more humane. We'll fail and fail a lot, but we need to keep striving. Art is about this striving. 

This is a good, working definition of art. You look at a guy like Balthus, who enjoyed painting female children in panties. Not art. That's something different. Throughout the history of art you've had a lot of dirty (rich, white) guys working out their demons on canvases. Putting anything on a canvas does not make you an artist. A chimp who creates a work of abstraction that fools an art critic is not an artist.

Gombrich once said, "There is no such thing as art, only artists." He was echoing Ruskin. It's easier to think putting anything on a canvas is art, it's easy to think there are a lot of different types of artists, but Ruskin and Gombrich knew otherwise. There is one and only one type of artist, and his/her art is an off-shoot of that person's desire for something more than our world expects of us.

In my dealings with folks in the art community, there have been some wonderful people. Really amazing people. Yet, I have seen raw greed, unmitigated ambition, pettiness, corruption. Indeed, lately I have been thinking that art, as it is in the USA, breeds corruption.

Let's be honest, we're getting too much art and not enough humanity. We are getting too much sizzle and not enough sausage.

If every artist were actually aspiring toward a greater sense of humanity, we would have so many amazing influencers in the world naturally and organically bringing about change. The folks who seem to run the art world, however, often invite an artist to become a member of an upper social class, instead of making it possible for a person to always look for ways to become more humane and challenge what's wrong around us.  Art is a form of integrating those who might initiate change into an economic system as harmless producers for higher members of that economic system.

We've got people fighting for gallery shows, fighting for representation, fighting for money, fighting for fame. Those creating and writing about art should be fighting for impact, struggling for a meaningful way to engage others so that we can participate in each other's humane development. Let's face it, the goal of the contemporary American artist is, ultimately, FAME and MONEY not the amount of humanity he/she can bring into the world. Many artists settle into a niche as producers within a system driven by wealthy gallery owners, wealthy buyers and hapless lap-dog museums. They begin producing a mere husk of art, and not the real pith which can truly engage and change.