The Painting Corner

With the Belfast art college degree shows just round the corner (opening Friday 8th June) NOCM is carrying a link to the painting shows' online material which can be viewed at: www.thepaintingcorner.wordpress.com/ A quick link can also be found in the BEST LINKS list at the bottom.

The Surface of Design

In his essay of the above title, Jacques Ranciere draws comparisons between Magritte's 'The Art of Conversation' and the German 'Odol' mouthwash advert in which the brand's letters take form in the ruins of an amphitheatre. This image is not easily obtainable, but led me to Stuart Davis's 'Odol' of 1924- a Pop image made before Pop. Ranciere's essay of 2002 links a wide range of subjects, through new ways of thinking about 'design'- from Peter Behrens, to Lois Fuller, to Stephane Mallarme, to Magritte. One of Magritte's works from the series begun in 1950, and Davis's work, enter TOP 10 PAINTINGS to the right.

Rauschenburg talking

I just came across a short video clip of Robert Rauschenburg describing how he erased a DeKooning and also speaking about his own paintings. He seems to be sitting on top of a ladder for most of the time both literally and mentally but he does come out with some gems regarding his approach to painting. I particularly like his idea of the undefined "hole" between art and life.
Or the line "you begin with the possibilities of the material.... [long pause]... and then you let them do what the can do [smile]. So the artist is really almost a bystander while he's working."


The clip comes from a film made about the New York art scene in 1973, called "Painters Painting" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0207645/

Then I came across a more recent clip from 1999 of an older mellower Robert Rauschenburg talking again about the erased DeKooning.

Blue Moves

Looking for Patrick Procktor's 'Long Live the Great Leap Forward' 1965-67 for insert into TOP 10 PAINTINGS, instead had to settle for 'Two Chinese Generals' (see right). Below are two other works, the top one a study for a painting that ended up as the cover for Elton John's 'Blue Moves' album 1976.  Nice, if co-incidental, link between the other example and one of Doig's '100 Years Ago' paintings. Procktor's work, along with Michael Upton's 'room studies', of the mid 1960's (also hard to find examples of) still stand up very well today.

Patrick Procktor/ Study for The Guardian Readers/ 1976

Patrick Procktor/ Hangchow/ 1980

Peter Doig/ 100 Years Ago/ 2000

Duchamp's Last Painting

For some painters, Duchamp may still appear to be 'the enemy'. However, within a now well established eclecticism of Fine Art practice, this sort of positioning may be counter-productive to the rich areas of re-evaluation and re-assessing that may be explored in consideration of painting past and present.  To this end, consider a detail of his last painting made in 1918, and current painter Julie Mehretu's approach...Duchamp's decision to decry and abandon painting after 1918 still holds some currency when viewed from his time, and equally Mehretu's reasons for persisting with it today makes a convincing argument in ours.

Julie Mehretu/ Arcade/ 2005

Marcel Duchamp/ Tu m' (detail)/ 1918

Who's Afraid of...

'Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue? no.2'/ 1967

Apocryphal story: one of the reasons behind Barnett Newman's naming of his 'Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue?' series begun in 1966 was that he wanted to connect it to Jasper Johns' use of the primary colours and stencilling of the words onto his paintings around the same time (we might assume that it was also partly in homage, but equally to do with the challenge being laid down by the brash new painter-in-town.)

This is further embellished by the idea that the series was to initially have been entitled by Newman: 'Who's Afraid of Jasper Johns?', but Johns declined the invitation. All of this aside, Newman mainly talks in interviews about his title's connection to Neo-Plasticism.

There is much more besides I think...a very obvious connection is to the title of Edward Albee's play (1962), and Mike Nichols' film (1966) 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' The play premiered in New York, gaining equal notoriety once on screen, and Newman plays on its title because of this. Albee has said that he had used an actual remark (where he had overheard someone making a gag about Virginia Woolf and 'The Big Bad Wolf' song) and transposed this into the title and plot of his play.

The original song had become something of a popular hit by way of the Disney film 'The Three Little Pigs' in 1933, and was sung during the Great  Depression as a way of lifting spirits. Newman's own father had also nearly lost his thriving sewing-machine and tailoring business at this time (another visual link could be made here to Newman's experience of  'zipped' lines of thread.) Newman himself saved the business and built it back up again- this was the reason he did not get round to taking up painting full-time until quite late in life. Newman must have remembered the song vividly because of this.

Cap it all with this, it's a real flight of fancy but a great game to play when watching 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' on screen: it's called 'Spot Newman's Zips' (one quite startling one, towards the end of the movie, where Elizabeth Taylor's Martha opens the back porch door to reveal a pure Newman painting.)

All of above from 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?'/ Mike Nichols/ 1966

(And Click on Post Title for link to 'Who's Afraid of Jasper Johns?' at Tony Shafrazi in 2008.)

Subjects of the Painter

Jeffrey Dennis is the first interview of 2012 in Subjects of the Painter. Click on Post Title or the SOTP link above.

 The Artist Successfully Levitating in the Studio/ oil and charcoal on canvas/ 35.5 x 40.5cm/ 2011