Dennis Oppenheim, Conceptual artists, pioneer of earthworks and body art who made "made emphatically tangible installations and public sculptures that veered between the demonically chaotic and the cheerfully Pop," died on Friday in Manhattan of liver cancer. He was 72. I had the opportunity to meet him at the home of Alanna Heiss, founder of PS1, at a dinner she hosted in New York for James Franco. Oppenheim was clowning around in Heiss' bedroom in front of one of his works of art. He was charming and silly - almost giddy – and we connected immediately upon discovering a dear mutual Santa Fe friend. Sitting in the room with such an iconic and remarkable artist who challenged so many notions and definitions of art throughout the decades, I had to keep reminding myself that this affable prankster was THE Dennis Oppenheim. His work can be tough to pin down and describe, so I will use the words of Roberta Smith for the New York Times: "Many works involved moving parts, casts of animals (whole or partial), upturned or tilted building silhouettes and sound, water and fireworks, which on occasion prompted unscheduled visits by the fire department....He first became known for works in which, like an environmentally inclined Marcel Duchamp, using engineers' stakes and photographs, he simply designated parts of the urban landscape as artworks. Then, in step with artists like Robert Smithson, Walter De Maria and Lawrence Weiner, he began making temporary outdoor sculptures, soon to be known as land art or earthworks. ...Mr. Oppenheim's art-making could seem simultaneously driven and lackadaisical, fearless and opportunistic. Few of his contemporaries worked in a broader range of mediums or methods, or seemed to borrow so much from so many other artists. His career might almost be defined as a series of sidelong glances at the doings of artists like Vito Acconci, Mr. Smithson, Bruce Nauman, Alice Aycock (to whom he was married in the early 1980s) and Claes Oldenburg." Oppenheim stands out for his impact and wholly original - often inconceivably rigorous - works of art in an era of artists who continually challenged the definitions and status quo of the traditional art world. He was one of the greats.
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In my writing I am acting as a map maker, an explorer of psychic areas, a cosmonaut of inner space, and I see no point in exploring areas that have already been thoroughly surveyed. - William S. Burroughs I just saw the documentary William Burroughs: A Man Within at the Center for Contemporary Arts. Having read and appreciated Burrough's writing, I knew just enough about his life to admire him as both literary and cultural icon. I had no idea that among other things he was the gun-obsessed grandfather of the punk rock movement. The film includes interviews such notable rebels as John Waters, Laurie Anderson, Peter Weller, Patti Smith, Iggy Pop, Gus Van Sant, and Sonic Youth (just to name a few) and explores how the Harvard educated heir to the Burroughs’ adding machine estate struggled throughout his life with addiction, companionship, and tragedy. One of the stunning revelations in the film is that in an altered state and quite young Burroughs accidentally shot his wife in the head in Mexico City while demonstrating his "William Tell Act". To add to his wife's death, his son Billy died of acute alcoholism at the age of 33 in an effort to gain the approval and attention of his otherwise occupied father. Larger than life, Burroughs took every drug available and was addicted to "junk" most of his life. He was also a pioneer of the queer and drug culture in the 1950s and was unquestionably a literary genius. In an article for Drone Magazine, an unattributed writer states that "Burroughs was a man who still continues to defy categorisation, in his work, personal traits, lifestyle and aesthetic. It’s this point that makes him -- to this day -- the most dangerous cultural figure of the last hundred years (if not longer)". Burroughs once stated “what can seem negative can become valuable for a writer." He found inspiration in that dark side - addiction, death, guns, anarchy. He was the poster boy for the tortured genius and it is no wonder the likes of Kurt Cobian, Frances Bacon, Andy Warhol, and Patty Smith held him so dear.Burroughs also opened the door for experimental writing, homosexuality, and the awareness of drug addiction in the United States. Burroughs changed US laws on censorship with the publication of Naked Lunch and inspired an entirely new genre of musical expression - punk. In all of his danger, edge, and iconoclasm, Burroughs effectively paved the way to a more open cultural space in the politically conservative climate of 1950's America. In her journal Turn, Anne Truitt travels to Europe to experience first-hand the masterpieces that she had for 62 years seen only in reproduction. Her descriptions reveal a perception that extends far beyond what most people experience when looking at art of any type, let alone masterpieces that have been reproduced to the point of cliché posters used to decorate college dorm rooms. Truitt experiences a profound synesthesia of sorts, and through her descriptions I felt as though I was experiencing each picture anew through her acuity and perception. Truitt's description of simply entering the Louvre for the first time is astounding, "screams of terror overlaid by screams for blood echoed through corridors dimensionless as those in nightmares, ironically lined with art of such authority that I stood as much aghast as dazzled." Truitt goes on to describe Van Gogh, Monet, and Manet: "Van Gogh's insight is relentless. No matter what the literal subject matter of his paintings, their content, implicit in brushstroke and color, is the interpretation of good and evil rendered transcendent by way of his art... Monet's utter mastery of atmosphere is akin to my own preoccupation with color as a form of an imminent truth otherwise inaccessible. He achieves it stroke by stroke; I attempt to catch it by way of superimposed films of inflected color. Manet's Le Dejuner sur l'Herbe and Olympia are shocking paintings. I felt my bones shake." I could transcribe half her book to include her descriptions of Delacroix, Cezanne, Gericault, Gauguin, Giotto, Piero, Botticelli, Caravaggio, Rubins, and more. My mind was engrossed in her descriptions, wondering if she were unique in her ability to see and perceive artwork in a wholly original and heart-wrenching way when I came across Ed Ruscha's recent description of his ongoing experience with John Everett Millais' Ophelia: "I first saw Millais' Ophelia (1851-1852) when I came to the UK in 1961, and was struck by its originality. It's hard to explain what I first saw in it, but it was a moving picture to me and so realistically painted. I guess I had a fondness for all sorts of Pre-Raphaelite images back then, a feeling which subsequently passed, but the nature of this painting stayed with me. It holds true today as one of the most profound paintings of that period. At first I didn't delve too much into the story and the symbolism behind it. I viewed it strictly as a picture - how it was composed and so on - but later I learned that it had been studied and analysed by so many people, which made it even more interesting. Every little blade of grass and plant has been botanically identified. Someone has discovered almost exactly where Millais set up his easel by the river. Some believe there is a skull hidden in the painting (just to the left of the forget-me-nots on the righthand side). The painting itself is like an embellishment of the Ophelia story in Shakespeare's Hamlet. The fact that she was portrayed as a mad woman during Millais' time was, I guess, considered unsuitable subject matter. You did not paint mad people. However, when I look at the woman in the water there, I don't see a mad woman. I see a tragic woman. I would never realise that this painting would affect me the way it did. Ophelia became a trigger in my art; an inspiration for what I'm doing. You notice here you are looking at the woman from an oblique angle - in a sense, it's an aerial view. The diagonal of Ophelia in the water is an aspect that was made for my work. My study of art and much that came out of it is ordered on that thinking that you look at something almost as if it were a table-top arrangement, as you can find in Ophelia. I regard a lot of my paintings and even photographs (such as Thirtyfour Parking Lots, 1967) as off-springs of this painting. For example, Los Angeles County Museum of Art on Fire, painted from 1965 to 1968, has a similar angle to that of Ophelia - looking down on it from above. Also, the tragic circumstances of a situation in my painting are told, I think, in a very bucolic and pastoral way, just as they are in Millais' picture. The composition of Ophelia is very simple, and yet so complex for what it is saying. And it evolves right into my thinking. When I make a picture that might resemble it, I'm not doing it on purpose. It's just happened from years ago seeing Millais' image. I don't get this response from any other of his paintings that I've seen, but with this one he hit the nail on the head. Of course, my pictures and Ophelia are very different in intent and content. They are worlds apart in so many ways: Ophelia is in the grand tradition of English painting, and the story goes back to Shakespeare, whereas Los Angeles County Museum of Art on Fire goes back to 1968 and, you could say, is the culmination of commercial America. But pictorially they are connected. They are like brother and sister. I feel as if there is a little silver thread between that painting and mine. So maybe the years between the works are not that distant. In some ways I think that I am looking at myself when I am looking at Ophelia. So each time I come to London I feel an obligation to see it, but it is an obligation I feel good about." I am inspired by the way Ruscha and Truitt look at and describe art, by the way pictures affect them profoundly - to the core of their art making practices. This perception is extraordinary and changes the way art history functions within the contemporary dialog. Masterpieces come back to life through their contemporary progeny, contemporary works disclose predecessors that no curator or art historian might detect. What a different course students of art history might take if it were taught through the lens of those who incorporate the lessons and works of the past into their innovations of the future. Park Avenue Winter, one of the New York Times, New York Magazine and New York Observer's best new restaurants in New York City, is collaborating with the non-profit Creative Time to team up with artists including Marina Abramovic, Janine Antoni, Paul Ramirez Jonas, and Michael Rakowitz to create seasonal dishes over the next few months. Abramovic is first, collaborating with chef Kevin Lasko on a $20 dessert called the Volcano Flambe. As described by Florence Fabricant in the New York Times "Its core of dark chocolate ice cream is covered with meringue, decorated with gold leaf and a swirl of spun sugar, bedded on chocolate cookie crumbs and flambéed with rum. The artist's booklet of off-beat recipes, 'Spirit Cooking,' and an MP3 player with a talk by her accompany the dessert." I eagerly await Antoni's dish, though I can't seem get the image of her 2008 piece "Eureka" out of my mind when imagining her in the kitchen... (image above). Santa Fe is an ideal place for such innovation and collaboration. How about convincing our emerging artists in partnership with our art stars like Larry Bell, Ken Price, Sherrie Levine, Susan Rothenberg, and Richard Tuttle to participate? Brian Knox and Bruce Nauman could surely cook up something spectacular and bizarre at Aqua Santa. I would eat out every night just to see what artists dream up with the inspired chefs in our community. Even better if a local non-profit benefits. Creative Time's mission statement asserts that they are "thrilled when art breaks into the public realm in surprising ways... We like to make the impossible possible, pushing artists beyond their comfort levels, just as they push us beyond ours. In the process, artists engage in a dynamic conversation between site, audience, and context, offering up new ideas about who an artist is and what art can be, pushing culture into fresh new directions." This collaboration is precisely an enactment of that mission and I would love to see a non-profit in Santa Fe activate our community beyond the visual arts in a similar fashion. SITE's SPREAD is certainly a start - but I encourage our community to keep pushing the boundaries of how art can function in all of our daily lives. Last Monday's "Antiques Roadshow" was a lesson in the appreciation of art. And that the knack for needlepointing could get you much further than you might expect. The piece in question was an Alexander Calder mobile made around 1950. The owner had inherited the mobile from her aunt who had been an acquaintance of Calder. The aunt, a great fan of his work, had invited Calder to a cocktail party and gave him a needlepoint pillow she had done of one of his earlier works. Apparently Calder was astounded, and a couple of days later returned with the mobile as a thank-you for the pillow. In short, she believed it to be worth around $30,000. The appraiser, Christopher Kennedy, informed her that it "had increased in value a little since then" and informed her that it could conceivably fetch over $1M at auction. He proceeded to say "not bad for a pillow." Which got me thinking, I might just take up needlepoint. The following is the appraisal transcript from the PBS website. The video and an interview with the owner in on the PBS website. GUEST: It's a mobile by Alexander Calder, and Calder gave it to my aunt. My aunt and uncle were having a cocktail party, and Calder was visiting friends of theirs who were invited to the party, so they took Calder along. And my aunt was very creative, and among other things, she had done a needlepoint pillow of one of Calder's works. And he was astounded. He'd never seen one like that before. And so she gave it to him, and a couple of days later, somebody appeared at the doorway, and he had given her this mobile as a thank-you for the pillow. APPRAISER: You've owned this for a while-- since 1985, I believe. GUEST: Yeah. APPRAISER: And you had a slight restoration to it in 1986. Some of the colors were touched up a little bit. GUEST: Yes. APPRAISER: And clearly that's going to have an effect on the value, to a certain degree. This was originally given to your aunt in 1958. GUEST: Yes. APPRAISER: But this probably, as far as the actual date of construction, dates a little bit earlier than 1958. GUEST: Oh, yes. I think it's... early '40s was a guess. APPRAISER: Alexander Calder essentially invented the art form known as a mobile. GUEST: Right. APPRAISER: And it became very iconic of 1950s modern art. And I think the late '50s sort of marks a turning point where he begins to concentrate more on larger installations. It's made on very thin wire, and then these are usually either aluminum or an anodized, weather-resistant material that.. slipped in and then very delicately soldered. And you can see in here where all of the knots and joints, all put in, in a very balancing kind of format. He always liked the use of primary colors. This back one is a little bit more of an orange, and some of the other appraisers on the set thought this might be a little bit unusual for a color. We should mention the Alexander Calder Foundation. GUEST: Yes. APPRAISER: Which is a major element in both identifying the work of Alexander Calder, authenticating it, and I believe that you had sent some letters, some documentation. GUEST: We've sent the documentation and a transparency, and they just said they would need to look at it in person, and we haven't gone to New York to do that. APPRAISER: Calder Association is, like any foundation, is set up so that an artist's work are not diluted. And that's why they're very diligent about keeping up to make sure that things are authenticated so if that they are sold, that they do have that stamp of approval... GUEST: Right. APPRAISER: ...or of authenticity. I know that earlier, back in the late '80s or '90s, you had an approximate value of what it was worth? GUEST: The man who restored it said at least $30,000. APPRAISER: It's gained a little bit in value since then. We worked on the values to somewhat of a consensus and it still needs to be validated. Based upon that, a fair auction value, the range is somewhere between $400,000 and $600,000. GUEST: How much? APPRAISER: $400,000 to $600,000 at auction as somewhat of a wholesale price. Right now, Alexander Calder's market is extremely hot, and in a good retail setting, it would not be at all inconceivable that this very small, wonderful piece of art could probably break $1 million. GUEST: Oh, my God. APPRAISER: Not bad for a pillow. GUEST: Oh! My problem is, I've got one mobile and two children. (both laughing) APPRAISER: I'm sure your husband, who is watching off-camera, will be equally happy with the good news. GUEST: (laughing): Oh, I think so. It was with great sadness that we learned of Helmut Lohr's passing on Christmas Day. A bright and shining heart, incredible intuition, remarkable contributions to the art world. We have lost an elegant and pioneering voice in art, performance, music, energy work, and experimental science. I first met Helmut in the Spring of 2001. A recent transplant to Santa Fe from Paris to direct EVO Gallery, I stood in the crowd at one of our first openings frankly wondering what I was doing in Santa Fe and feeling a little lost. At that moment a stunningly handsome gentleman who beamed with a tender and slightly mischievous grin walked up to me. I held out my hand to formally introduce myself and Helmut enveloped me in a hug, whispering in his thick German accent "thank you for joining this community." That was the beginning of a long and tender friendship. I was still very young and new to the larger art world, Helmut taught me that heady conceptual art can also be beautiful, heartfelt, and energy-giving. Helmut managed a large exhibition schedule throughout the world and together we created exhibitions, performances, and interventions in Santa Fe, Minneapolis, New York, London, Frankfurt, Munich, and Ruhr. Although an internationally celebrated artist, Helmut chose to relocate to New Mexico to lead a solitary and peaceful existence on Rowe Mesa. On the Mesa he created lush gardens, built a contemporary home, nurtured koi ponds and water lilies, and made his extraordinary objects of art. The entirety of his existence was artful and everyone who made the pilgrimage to see him on the Mesa came back restored, inspired, joyful. Helmut leaves behind a legacy of innovation in art, music, energy work, and performance. He also leaves an important lesson in generosity and true love. I will always remember his beautiful face and generous smile, deep and joyful laugh, and the way he looked so deeply into my eyes when we talked that words often felt superfluous. We are all so sad to see him go. Let us all practice love, compassion, and kindness in memory of Helmut Lohr. |
art in lifeThe world as I experience it - through people, exhibitions, books, talks, + random happenings that lead back to art. One way or another. Archives
April 2011
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