Of all the paintings in Matt Bahen's current show at A Space, this one (the PR flagship image, nabbed from the A Space website) is my least favourite because it's the only one with eye contact. This painting has an iconic presence, a valorous, masculine, Harlequin Romance mystique that the others do not share. The formula, however, is pretty much the same throughout; each canvas is divided into two panels,* with a thick-paint-renedered sniper on one, and a series of thermograms on the other. The snipers are wearing ghillies, a term that describes this kind of ribbony, raggedy, flora-esque camo. In most of the paintings the snipers look un-human, like threatening-yet-familiar animalistic blobs of malicious nature. The heavily mediated human forms represented by the thermograms (re-renedered here in pixilated paint chunks) provide a contrast that emphasises a chilling objectification of everyone involved in war. Says Bahen in his artists' statement:
"The target for the sniper is free of context."
...and...
"It is important to pay attention to ongoing world affairs as we are both victor and victim in the same breath"
*Remember 20 years ago when abutting figurative painted images from radically different sources was supposed to mean a negation of content? Hah...thank goodness that's over and done with. I prefer this ernest, perhaps heavy-handed, over-abundance of narrative resonance any day.
Update: my posts in the comments section below much better articulate my interest in the this work than this original post. Thinking out loud.
Tom Moody's animation today resonates on more levels for me than this painting.
It's a good animation, no doubt about it. My impression is that Matt Bahen is a pretty young artist working through some fairly sophisticated dynamics about technology and de-humanisation. There is a lot of much more developed work in this territory (such as Harun Farocki), and paint isn't the medium I'd choose to work through these ideas, but I still think it's an important and necessary investigation and I was glad to see something up in town that refers to the war.
Or maybe I am reading too much into it. A friend just described this work as 'decorative' and I see their point.
From the press release: "They are beautifully rendered life-size images that are painted with a vibrant palette applied in luscious impastos." I could see a certain irony in playing form off content here, but I don't think that's the artist's intent. It's hard to compete with the gritty real life horror of that Apache helicopter video--painting as a means of conveying shock does seem quaint by comparison. I wouldn't say this piece is decorative; I'd say it's a well-intentioned but not particularly hard-hitting almost-narrative. I do think Guy Colwell succeeded with that Abu Ghraib painting--it's old school political caricature but feels like it comes from the gut. The "disjunctional multi-image painting" is very intellectualized by comparison. One can't really critique these paintings without seeing them in person, though--so my comments are just about the jpegs.
War and paint? Hmmmmm.
It brings to mind very successful works by John Scott and Stephen Andrew's recent show (called jpeg).
I know it's much more general than your reference Sal.
Interesting you mention John Scott. He and Bahen collaborated on works under the moniker "Team Apocalypse" that are shown alongside Bahen's show in the A Space Windows. I was interested in them as well, heavy paintings on paper that further mash together animal life with arms and weaponry: a deep sea "recon-turtle" with gun mount and a giant cyclops jellyfish bearing a US Navy stencil.
Bahen's work definitely sits square within a painterly tradition. The ghillies are palette-knife thick, and the thermograms are digitally blocky. It's all competent and well drafted and not dangerous as far as the handling of the material. But that detached aspect has some bearing on my interest. I know this is stretching a point, but paint is techne too. The work made me think about investigating connections between material and materiel. And while the paintings may be kind of pedestrian and obvious, I believe there is something for the artist in the process of making this work that parallels exactly the objectification required to shoot-to-kill. Of course it does not cut to the quick like that horrifying helicopter footage, but then, this guy is a painter, not a sniper. It's another lens, a traditional art lens, on objectification.
If you haven't seen the Stephen Andrews jpeg paintings, check them out. I think he does show a complex & brilliant connections between material and materiel in that series, as well as his earlier Fax series. (I felt humbled, as an artist, viewing some of that work)
There are so many other points being made in these comments that I have to think about.
Back to War and paint...I keep thinking of a Sadko painting of a small boy lighting up a cigarette, painted on a ground of fragmented old wallpaper, probably one of the more powerful and subtle painterly references I have seen in regards to war.
I will definitely look up Stephen Andrews' Jpeg. The Guy Colwell painting is certainly on my mind as a context for looking at these by Bahen. There is a kind of illustrative idealism going on in both (cartoon inspired?), an unusually direct (for fine art) political statement that can be read by just about anyone looking at the work. There is a choice against irony being made by both Bahen and Colwell, an assumption of a very unpostmodern position that feels unseemly. It's gauche. The Abu Ghraib painting is sooo specific that it has proven extremely provocative. These are more aesthetic and generalised in terms of content, but very specific in terms of the language of paint. I'm taking lots of flak in the office for posting this work (the more unpopular it proves to be, the more curious I become...just perversity I guess). Friend J. suggested I look at Jenny Saville for a good example of abject painterly paint.
Based on discussion both here and offline, I realise that in my original post I pretty well utterly failed to articulate my interest in Matt Bahen's painting series currently showing at A Space in Toronto. I'm starting over, maybe I'll get it right this time.
Matt Bahen, round two:
I heard good criticism of this work yesterday from two smart offline sources. Both said (I hope I'm paraphrasing correctly) that the paintings are juxataposing two things, but the two things aren't far enough apart for the contrast to be active or interesting or challenging or new. I know what they are talking about; there may be great visual difference between snipers and thermograms, but the two concepts belong to the same world. However, I don't think the goal of these paintings is a postmodern juxtaposition of wildly different elements, but rather the presentation of two sides of the same coin. There are renederings of two different types of source image - one naturalistic, one a technologically generated map. I would pose that this difference doesn't refer to media and abstraction with the self-referential circularity that we've come to expect from just about all contemporary art. Rather it refers simply and specifically to imaging/killing humans, and the dehumanising objectification that comes part and parcel with militaristic and surveillance technologies. The self-referential bit is that painting is itself a technological means of imaging humans. There are enough nods to painting's history to indicate that this layer of reading is intentional, and so the artist is implicating himself in the dynamic of objectifying other people.
My complaints are that the work is too uniform, too pretty, too easy, and lacking in tension. My interest is that for contemporary, art-educated painting there is a surprising amount of direct, operative political content. It's not something we expect from painting anymore, and I suspect its not something most people want from painting any more. But as someone who is really not engaged with painting at all, I find that intellectually sophisticated yet awkwardly illustrative, narrative, figurative, ernest work is grabbing my attention these days. Maybe its the no-bullshit idealistic zeal of comic book artists, zinesters, anti-globalization activists, and twenty-something peacniks infecting 'high art.' I hope so cause I'm getting bored of empty, quirky, self-effacing, arch and po-mo cool.
Bahen's paintings are obnoxious, and I wish they were even more so: more detached, with a lighter touch and more facility in the paint-handling, so that the horror of this cold gaze cannot be glossed over. The artist is young, and the work is immature. He might start selling these pretty things and get stuck at this unresolved place. I hope not, because I think there is potential if he strives even harder to make his objects better deliver specific, political content on many levels.
I think that you should re-watch The Predator. Not only because of it's latent political content (Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jesse Ventura, soldiers unaware of their operatives) but also because of the obvious visual keys between the film and Matt’s paintings. I will not go into too much detail on the plot of the film but basically the “Predator” is an alien being that is hunting humans for sport. Upon viewing Matt’s work I could only reference the thermogram images as being those from the filmic perspective of the Predator. A distanced, alien, “objective” perspective. The military gillies from the paintings are distilled in the armour and camouflage of the Predator. Um, I know this is a bit of that media and abstraction that sally has mentioned but I do think that it cannot be ignored. Key to this discussion appears to be the notion of seeing. I do not think that the artist is implicating himself in the objectifying of other people. I would argue that he is completely unaware of that argument. Now, to use a bit of pop to base my argument… The Predator has the ability to cloak itself invisible. I like this reference on a couple of levels although I’ve only really given it about 15 minutes of thought. I like the idea of the predator/sniper as “cloaked” and as “alien.” Now for arguments sake I’ll throw in predator/sniper/PAINTER. Therein comes the ideas of hunter/hunted, master/slave, etc… very much like John Scott’s old work (including the paranoid and excluding the technophobe). There is much more to be said about all of this but for now I have to get back to work….
Look here and here
So I guess this discussion is not going in a direction where anyone will welcome my suggestion of putting the harlequin sniper onto one of Jay Isaac's ships.
That sniper...he's hot!
...I mean he's so cool...so aloof...so chilling...
I could change him...deep sigh....
Hey LM - you do the photoshop and I'll post it!!
Bunnie there is lots to think about in your post. love the links and the "cloaked as alien" idea. I think I will take home a Predator dvd tonight.
" I do not think that the artist is implicating himself in the objectifying of other people. I would argue that he is completely unaware of that argument."
I have claimed the opposite. My mistake, I think, for suggesting that I could possibly glean the artist's intent. But I do think that there is an indication of self-referentiality in this work, self-referentiality that it is not located in self-conscious depictions of media, but rather in application of technology (in this case, paint).
Hi all,
Re: "The target for the sniper is free of context."
If I'm not mistaken, the juxtaposition of things, the side by side positioning of images creates context. Juxtaposition contextualizes images in comparative relation to one and other, right?
So you have big images of hunters beside smaller images of the hunted. You have images of men holding guns disguised to the point that they would begin to look like bushes were it not for the fact that the background is so blurry. And you have images of (presumeably) men that are almost naked, revealed to the extent that they have no bodies - only the outlines of bodies defined by heat. The latter images have no visual genesis - the images are perceived by heat sensors prior to optic nerves.
These paintings are flat because contrary to Ullyses Castellanos claims in the pamphlet for the show, they don't refer to anything but the cicuit between the the two types of images depicted. They are not allegorical. They do not lean toward metaphor, or any other kind of journey through the past present or future. They mostly illustrate the news.
Are they disturbing? Yeah they are. Not only because they contribute to the daily deluge...but because they don't go anywhere else. I am kind of with LM on this one. I think the snipers should take a turn on one of Jay Isaaks boats
I agree with anonymous and LM.
I am also interested in the way representational work is so often characterized as it is here by you Sally as "intellectually sophisticated yet awkwardly illustrative, narrative...ernest work" as popposed to "empty, quirky, self-effacing, arch and po-mo cool"? Yet the discussion that has evolved around it is as abstract as can be.
What is the story being told by these paintings? Or is it all just obvious because there was rendering involved.
popposed!! oops HaHa! I meant opposed.
For several years I've been chewing on ideas that sprung from seeing Harun Farocki's films and hearing him talk. His work with prison surviellance systems and bombs with cameras in their noses exposes the power structure inherent in imaging another and shows how the technology of taking pictures is used in systemic ways to dehumanise, control, and exterminate. He could be construed simply as a documentary film maker, but he is construed as an artist as well. What's different between an artist and a documentary filmmaker? Once way to look at it is that artists create meaning through images, while documentarists illustrate meaning with images. Artists and our various uses of technology generally sit outside the systemic violence of western culture. But when the technology of imaging is itself discussed as an act of violence, then artists are implicated as well.
With the release of Abu Ghraib photos the implications around image and power are suddenly very hot. The Guy Colwell painting is unusual, not so much in its style but in the fact that the artwork was ascribed a significant amount of power by its detractors (and with power comes responsibility). I see these paintings as a milder expression, or maybe exposition is a better word, of that dynamic, only in this case the artists' power is assumed, not imposed. Yes, Jennifer, I agree that the idea of paint as technology is a somewhat abstract notion (however not a new way of defining technology...see Ursula Franklin and George Grant), but right now it is directly connected to many frightening social concerns. In a nutshell, the art lens can provide some intellectual probes that just might help some of us get perspective on how we, as a culture of humans, can stop debasing one another.
Here's a quote, a sort of artists' statement, from Harun Farocki's website:
"Even in the days when there were only five TV channels, it was way beyond the intellectual capacity of either of the two Germanys to fill them.
Today, we have at least fifty channels, and all that remains is to kill broadcast time.
It is organized, industrial mass-annihilation of time for living.
Any resistance would be justified!
But whom to hold responsible?
We haven't even managed to name those responsible for threatening to destroy the world with nuclear weapons. "
"In a nutshell, the art lens can provide some intellectual probes that just might help some of us get perspective on how we, as a culture of humans, can stop debasing one another."
I was about to criticize that statement, until I realized that you did use the phrase "can provide..." rather than "must provide..." presenting that intent as an option in an artistic practice. I would add a few other options such as "how we, as a culture of humans, like debasing one another." or ""how we, as a culture of humans, find all sorts of justifications for debasing one another." That list can go on and on in all directions.
Further to another interesting point: "But when the technology of imaging is itself discussed as an act of violence, then artists are implicated as well." If we split that in half, "imaging is itself discussed as an act of violence" is a proposition, and I like that as an approach, a proposition can be argued, a proposition is an exploration. No problem there. But the phrase: "artists are implicated as well." sets off all sorts of responses in me, the biggest ones being: when were we ever not implicated, when were we ever above the culture that we participate in. (But perhaps you are right and it does have to be stated)
"Yes, Jennifer, I agree that the idea of paint as technology is a somewhat abstract notion (however not a new way of defining technology...see Ursula Franklin and George Grant), but right now it is directly connected to many frightening social concerns. In a nutshell, the art lens can provide some intellectual probes that just might help some of us get perspective on how we, as a culture of humans, can stop debasing one another."
Hey Sally,
Thanks for posting on this show - the comments are interesting.
My actual question to you had nothing to do with issues of paint as technology. I'll rephrase because I am still curious.You seem to have characterized representational painting (especially these ones by Matt Bahen) as "intellectually sophisticated yet awkwardly illustrative, narrative...ernest work(s)" as opposed to "empty, quirky, self-effacing, arch and po-mo cool" which is boring.
My question is, what is it, expressly about these works that makes them so compelling to you? To me they seem like illustrations appropriated from the media with some drawing ability. What makes their "story", the narrative you perceive resonate with such sincerity?
LM- thanks for the careful reading. No, you are right, I am not trying to be proscriptive. And I agree with you about the many ways that the "debasement list" can go. I am all jumbled up and upset about systemic torture and the failure of what we call democracy these days to protect even its own citizens. Scared of police discretion, scared about the threat of Stephen Harper for Prime Minister. Scared about the hovering gulf I feel between me and my friends/family in USA, and wanting to find avenues to address these things that are integrated in my day-to-day activity (which happens to be art and art-related). So while I've been loading far too much onto these poor simple paintings, I think its not such a very grave error.
Thank you for that.
|
Of all the paintings in Matt Bahen's current show at A Space, this one (the PR flagship image, nabbed from the A Space website) is my least favourite because it's the only one with eye contact. This painting has an iconic presence, a valorous, masculine, Harlequin Romance mystique that the others do not share. The formula, however, is pretty much the same throughout; each canvas is divided into two panels,* with a thick-paint-renedered sniper on one, and a series of thermograms on the other. The snipers are wearing ghillies, a term that describes this kind of ribbony, raggedy, flora-esque camo. In most of the paintings the snipers look un-human, like threatening-yet-familiar animalistic blobs of malicious nature. The heavily mediated human forms represented by the thermograms (re-renedered here in pixilated paint chunks) provide a contrast that emphasises a chilling objectification of everyone involved in war. Says Bahen in his artists' statement:
*Remember 20 years ago when abutting figurative painted images from radically different sources was supposed to mean a negation of content? Hah...thank goodness that's over and done with. I prefer this ernest, perhaps heavy-handed, over-abundance of narrative resonance any day.
Update: my posts in the comments section below much better articulate my interest in the this work than this original post. Thinking out loud.
- sally mckay 6-09-2004 7:49 am
Tom Moody's animation today resonates on more levels for me than this painting.
- LM (guest) 6-09-2004 8:03 pm
It's a good animation, no doubt about it. My impression is that Matt Bahen is a pretty young artist working through some fairly sophisticated dynamics about technology and de-humanisation. There is a lot of much more developed work in this territory (such as Harun Farocki), and paint isn't the medium I'd choose to work through these ideas, but I still think it's an important and necessary investigation and I was glad to see something up in town that refers to the war.
- sally mckay 6-09-2004 8:27 pm
Or maybe I am reading too much into it. A friend just described this work as 'decorative' and I see their point.
- sally mckay 6-09-2004 9:28 pm
From the press release: "They are beautifully rendered life-size images that are painted with a vibrant palette applied in luscious impastos." I could see a certain irony in playing form off content here, but I don't think that's the artist's intent. It's hard to compete with the gritty real life horror of that Apache helicopter video--painting as a means of conveying shock does seem quaint by comparison. I wouldn't say this piece is decorative; I'd say it's a well-intentioned but not particularly hard-hitting almost-narrative. I do think Guy Colwell succeeded with that Abu Ghraib painting--it's old school political caricature but feels like it comes from the gut. The "disjunctional multi-image painting" is very intellectualized by comparison. One can't really critique these paintings without seeing them in person, though--so my comments are just about the jpegs.
- tom moody 6-09-2004 9:56 pm
War and paint? Hmmmmm.
It brings to mind very successful works by John Scott and Stephen Andrew's recent show (called jpeg).
I know it's much more general than your reference Sal.
- LM (guest) 6-09-2004 10:08 pm
Interesting you mention John Scott. He and Bahen collaborated on works under the moniker "Team Apocalypse" that are shown alongside Bahen's show in the A Space Windows. I was interested in them as well, heavy paintings on paper that further mash together animal life with arms and weaponry: a deep sea "recon-turtle" with gun mount and a giant cyclops jellyfish bearing a US Navy stencil.
Bahen's work definitely sits square within a painterly tradition. The ghillies are palette-knife thick, and the thermograms are digitally blocky. It's all competent and well drafted and not dangerous as far as the handling of the material. But that detached aspect has some bearing on my interest. I know this is stretching a point, but paint is techne too. The work made me think about investigating connections between material and materiel. And while the paintings may be kind of pedestrian and obvious, I believe there is something for the artist in the process of making this work that parallels exactly the objectification required to shoot-to-kill. Of course it does not cut to the quick like that horrifying helicopter footage, but then, this guy is a painter, not a sniper. It's another lens, a traditional art lens, on objectification.
- sally mckay 6-09-2004 11:04 pm
If you haven't seen the Stephen Andrews jpeg paintings, check them out. I think he does show a complex & brilliant connections between material and materiel in that series, as well as his earlier Fax series. (I felt humbled, as an artist, viewing some of that work)
There are so many other points being made in these comments that I have to think about.
Back to War and paint...I keep thinking of a Sadko painting of a small boy lighting up a cigarette, painted on a ground of fragmented old wallpaper, probably one of the more powerful and subtle painterly references I have seen in regards to war.
- LM (guest) 6-10-2004 12:22 am
I will definitely look up Stephen Andrews' Jpeg. The Guy Colwell painting is certainly on my mind as a context for looking at these by Bahen. There is a kind of illustrative idealism going on in both (cartoon inspired?), an unusually direct (for fine art) political statement that can be read by just about anyone looking at the work. There is a choice against irony being made by both Bahen and Colwell, an assumption of a very unpostmodern position that feels unseemly. It's gauche. The Abu Ghraib painting is sooo specific that it has proven extremely provocative. These are more aesthetic and generalised in terms of content, but very specific in terms of the language of paint. I'm taking lots of flak in the office for posting this work (the more unpopular it proves to be, the more curious I become...just perversity I guess). Friend J. suggested I look at Jenny Saville for a good example of abject painterly paint.
- sally mckay 6-10-2004 12:43 am
Based on discussion both here and offline, I realise that in my original post I pretty well utterly failed to articulate my interest in Matt Bahen's painting series currently showing at A Space in Toronto. I'm starting over, maybe I'll get it right this time.
Matt Bahen, round two:
I heard good criticism of this work yesterday from two smart offline sources. Both said (I hope I'm paraphrasing correctly) that the paintings are juxataposing two things, but the two things aren't far enough apart for the contrast to be active or interesting or challenging or new. I know what they are talking about; there may be great visual difference between snipers and thermograms, but the two concepts belong to the same world. However, I don't think the goal of these paintings is a postmodern juxtaposition of wildly different elements, but rather the presentation of two sides of the same coin. There are renederings of two different types of source image - one naturalistic, one a technologically generated map. I would pose that this difference doesn't refer to media and abstraction with the self-referential circularity that we've come to expect from just about all contemporary art. Rather it refers simply and specifically to imaging/killing humans, and the dehumanising objectification that comes part and parcel with militaristic and surveillance technologies. The self-referential bit is that painting is itself a technological means of imaging humans. There are enough nods to painting's history to indicate that this layer of reading is intentional, and so the artist is implicating himself in the dynamic of objectifying other people.
My complaints are that the work is too uniform, too pretty, too easy, and lacking in tension. My interest is that for contemporary, art-educated painting there is a surprising amount of direct, operative political content. It's not something we expect from painting anymore, and I suspect its not something most people want from painting any more. But as someone who is really not engaged with painting at all, I find that intellectually sophisticated yet awkwardly illustrative, narrative, figurative, ernest work is grabbing my attention these days. Maybe its the no-bullshit idealistic zeal of comic book artists, zinesters, anti-globalization activists, and twenty-something peacniks infecting 'high art.' I hope so cause I'm getting bored of empty, quirky, self-effacing, arch and po-mo cool.
Bahen's paintings are obnoxious, and I wish they were even more so: more detached, with a lighter touch and more facility in the paint-handling, so that the horror of this cold gaze cannot be glossed over. The artist is young, and the work is immature. He might start selling these pretty things and get stuck at this unresolved place. I hope not, because I think there is potential if he strives even harder to make his objects better deliver specific, political content on many levels.
- sally mckay 6-10-2004 5:40 pm
I think that you should re-watch The Predator. Not only because of it's latent political content (Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jesse Ventura, soldiers unaware of their operatives) but also because of the obvious visual keys between the film and Matt’s paintings. I will not go into too much detail on the plot of the film but basically the “Predator” is an alien being that is hunting humans for sport. Upon viewing Matt’s work I could only reference the thermogram images as being those from the filmic perspective of the Predator. A distanced, alien, “objective” perspective. The military gillies from the paintings are distilled in the armour and camouflage of the Predator. Um, I know this is a bit of that media and abstraction that sally has mentioned but I do think that it cannot be ignored. Key to this discussion appears to be the notion of seeing. I do not think that the artist is implicating himself in the objectifying of other people. I would argue that he is completely unaware of that argument. Now, to use a bit of pop to base my argument… The Predator has the ability to cloak itself invisible. I like this reference on a couple of levels although I’ve only really given it about 15 minutes of thought. I like the idea of the predator/sniper as “cloaked” and as “alien.” Now for arguments sake I’ll throw in predator/sniper/PAINTER. Therein comes the ideas of hunter/hunted, master/slave, etc… very much like John Scott’s old work (including the paranoid and excluding the technophobe). There is much more to be said about all of this but for now I have to get back to work….
Look here and here
- bunnie 6-10-2004 10:55 pm
So I guess this discussion is not going in a direction where anyone will welcome my suggestion of putting the harlequin sniper onto one of Jay Isaac's ships.
That sniper...he's hot!
...I mean he's so cool...so aloof...so chilling...
I could change him...deep sigh....
- LM (guest) 6-10-2004 11:40 pm
Hey LM - you do the photoshop and I'll post it!!
- sally mckay 6-10-2004 11:40 pm
Bunnie there is lots to think about in your post. love the links and the "cloaked as alien" idea. I think I will take home a Predator dvd tonight.
" I do not think that the artist is implicating himself in the objectifying of other people. I would argue that he is completely unaware of that argument."
I have claimed the opposite. My mistake, I think, for suggesting that I could possibly glean the artist's intent. But I do think that there is an indication of self-referentiality in this work, self-referentiality that it is not located in self-conscious depictions of media, but rather in application of technology (in this case, paint).
- sally mckay 6-10-2004 11:48 pm
Hi all,
Re: "The target for the sniper is free of context."
If I'm not mistaken, the juxtaposition of things, the side by side positioning of images creates context. Juxtaposition contextualizes images in comparative relation to one and other, right?
So you have big images of hunters beside smaller images of the hunted. You have images of men holding guns disguised to the point that they would begin to look like bushes were it not for the fact that the background is so blurry. And you have images of (presumeably) men that are almost naked, revealed to the extent that they have no bodies - only the outlines of bodies defined by heat. The latter images have no visual genesis - the images are perceived by heat sensors prior to optic nerves.
These paintings are flat because contrary to Ullyses Castellanos claims in the pamphlet for the show, they don't refer to anything but the cicuit between the the two types of images depicted. They are not allegorical. They do not lean toward metaphor, or any other kind of journey through the past present or future. They mostly illustrate the news.
Are they disturbing? Yeah they are. Not only because they contribute to the daily deluge...but because they don't go anywhere else. I am kind of with LM on this one. I think the snipers should take a turn on one of Jay Isaaks boats
- anonymous (guest) 6-12-2004 4:46 pm
I agree with anonymous and LM.
I am also interested in the way representational work is so often characterized as it is here by you Sally as "intellectually sophisticated yet awkwardly illustrative, narrative...ernest work" as popposed to "empty, quirky, self-effacing, arch and po-mo cool"? Yet the discussion that has evolved around it is as abstract as can be.
What is the story being told by these paintings? Or is it all just obvious because there was rendering involved.
- Jennifer McMackon (guest) 6-12-2004 5:05 pm
popposed!! oops HaHa! I meant opposed.
- Jennifer McMackon (guest) 6-12-2004 5:07 pm
For several years I've been chewing on ideas that sprung from seeing Harun Farocki's films and hearing him talk. His work with prison surviellance systems and bombs with cameras in their noses exposes the power structure inherent in imaging another and shows how the technology of taking pictures is used in systemic ways to dehumanise, control, and exterminate. He could be construed simply as a documentary film maker, but he is construed as an artist as well. What's different between an artist and a documentary filmmaker? Once way to look at it is that artists create meaning through images, while documentarists illustrate meaning with images. Artists and our various uses of technology generally sit outside the systemic violence of western culture. But when the technology of imaging is itself discussed as an act of violence, then artists are implicated as well.
With the release of Abu Ghraib photos the implications around image and power are suddenly very hot. The Guy Colwell painting is unusual, not so much in its style but in the fact that the artwork was ascribed a significant amount of power by its detractors (and with power comes responsibility). I see these paintings as a milder expression, or maybe exposition is a better word, of that dynamic, only in this case the artists' power is assumed, not imposed. Yes, Jennifer, I agree that the idea of paint as technology is a somewhat abstract notion (however not a new way of defining technology...see Ursula Franklin and George Grant), but right now it is directly connected to many frightening social concerns. In a nutshell, the art lens can provide some intellectual probes that just might help some of us get perspective on how we, as a culture of humans, can stop debasing one another.
Here's a quote, a sort of artists' statement, from Harun Farocki's website:
- sally mckay 6-12-2004 6:58 pm
"In a nutshell, the art lens can provide some intellectual probes that just might help some of us get perspective on how we, as a culture of humans, can stop debasing one another."
I was about to criticize that statement, until I realized that you did use the phrase "can provide..." rather than "must provide..." presenting that intent as an option in an artistic practice. I would add a few other options such as "how we, as a culture of humans, like debasing one another." or ""how we, as a culture of humans, find all sorts of justifications for debasing one another." That list can go on and on in all directions.
Further to another interesting point: "But when the technology of imaging is itself discussed as an act of violence, then artists are implicated as well." If we split that in half, "imaging is itself discussed as an act of violence" is a proposition, and I like that as an approach, a proposition can be argued, a proposition is an exploration. No problem there. But the phrase: "artists are implicated as well." sets off all sorts of responses in me, the biggest ones being: when were we ever not implicated, when were we ever above the culture that we participate in. (But perhaps you are right and it does have to be stated)
- LM (guest) 6-12-2004 11:08 pm
"Yes, Jennifer, I agree that the idea of paint as technology is a somewhat abstract notion (however not a new way of defining technology...see Ursula Franklin and George Grant), but right now it is directly connected to many frightening social concerns. In a nutshell, the art lens can provide some intellectual probes that just might help some of us get perspective on how we, as a culture of humans, can stop debasing one another."
Hey Sally,
Thanks for posting on this show - the comments are interesting.
My actual question to you had nothing to do with issues of paint as technology. I'll rephrase because I am still curious.You seem to have characterized representational painting (especially these ones by Matt Bahen) as "intellectually sophisticated yet awkwardly illustrative, narrative...ernest work(s)" as opposed to "empty, quirky, self-effacing, arch and po-mo cool" which is boring.
My question is, what is it, expressly about these works that makes them so compelling to you? To me they seem like illustrations appropriated from the media with some drawing ability. What makes their "story", the narrative you perceive resonate with such sincerity?
- anonymous (guest) 6-13-2004 3:30 am
LM- thanks for the careful reading. No, you are right, I am not trying to be proscriptive. And I agree with you about the many ways that the "debasement list" can go. I am all jumbled up and upset about systemic torture and the failure of what we call democracy these days to protect even its own citizens. Scared of police discretion, scared about the threat of Stephen Harper for Prime Minister. Scared about the hovering gulf I feel between me and my friends/family in USA, and wanting to find avenues to address these things that are integrated in my day-to-day activity (which happens to be art and art-related). So while I've been loading far too much onto these poor simple paintings, I think its not such a very grave error.
- sally mckay 6-13-2004 1:11 pm
Thank you for that.
- Jennifer McMackon (guest) 6-14-2004 2:45 am