Recent Readings; Nancy Spero and Jo Baer
I’m saddened by the death of Nancy Spero this past weekend; I had known little about her until rather recently. What prevented me from knowing more about her sooner was a typical sort of smugness found in a lot of artists–the idea that I knew enough already. That changed when I actually saw her work in person a year and a half ago. I wish I could say that it was the first time I’d been gobsmacked by my own idiocy and another’s wonderfulness, but it wasn’t. I hope I won’t be such a clod again, but I probably will.
In case you–reader–don’t know enough about her, I highly recommend that you first read Tyler Green’s post marking her passing, followed immediately by an article he recommends in which Spero and her husband, Leon Golub, accompany Michael Kimmelman to the MET.
Her NYTimes obit is here.
On the topic of artists one may not know enough about, I’ll now segue to an article in the latest CAA Art Journal about Jo Baer by Patricia Kelly titled Jo Baer, Modernism, and Painting on the Edge. Given that the body of work I made for my MFA show was an attempt on my part to (retrospectively, of course) infiltrate and undermine historical Modernism, specifically that of the era discussed in the Kelly article, I was interested to learn that Baer’s work at the time bridged the disciplines of painting and sculpture while using visual formalist and dance/movement-based strategies as mental triggers to enhance the conceptual reception of her work on the part of the viewer.
Baer strongly made her own path, challenged contemporary artists and critics (such as Donald Judd, Robert Morris, Michael Fried and Clement Greenberg), and suffered for it, unsurprisingly. Unfortunately, the article is not available online (it might be on JSTOR, I’m not sure); I could hardly excerpt enough to do the article justice, though there are some choice quotes. Of Judd, Baer wrote that he
implies that any vacuformed plexi-bas-relief is automatically superior to any contemporary ideated marks on a flat surface. But ideas are ideas. Ideas and materials have a functional relationship, not an identity.
That is to say that ideas and materials are tools whose worth lies in their joint function, rather than as individual keys to objective ideals one can appeal to or attempt to attain via art. Though art now seems to be quite a distance off from the hegemony of minimalist sculpture’s era past, I suspect that there is an aspect of wanton materialism in much art today (very general statement, I know, but I’m just musing here–starting to stew these ideas up) which is like a flip side to an attitude of minimal austerity, as if we are now more weighted toward the allusive potency of a cacophony of material rather than toward idea, as in the past.
The relationship of works on paper (‘ideated marks on a flat surface’) to both is a question I’m pondering quite a bit lately. Personally, I feel that works on paper are more effective at evincing sustained, dynamic thought from a viewer than sculpture or painting (also ‘ideated marks on a flat surface’), in large part because we are a literate culture, and are habituated to paper being the prime vehicle of our own literacy and life of the mind. But that’s a topic for another day.
In 1983, after stating that she was “no longer an abstract artist”, Baer addressed some of Judd’s arguments against painting:
When in 1966 Judd attacked illusionism in painting he neglected to explore or even question its presence in sculpture–their aim was an ‘objectivity’ to be derived from the ‘making of non-illusionary specific objects’ (via numerical concept and a mundane restraint against philosophy’s ‘seondary properties’ –i.e., they used prefabrication, metals, geometric forms, bricks, mirrors, lamps, car paints, uniform colors, etc.). Sculpture’s basic, scandalous fiction went unregarded. All sculptures pretend to contain the real.
Certainly, this always seemed obvious to me, of course with the benefit of distanced observation. Sculpture and theater have much in common.
Kelly does address the powerful ideological climate of the time, which would have–and did–prevent most artists from questioning the era’s artistic tenets to the degree that Baer (and many other women artists) did. Relevant to this idea is a quote Kelly included from David Reed:
I am convinced that the one reason the innovations of ’70’s painting were unrecognized is that four of its leading practitioners were women: Lee Lozano, Jo Baer, Dorothea Rockburn, and Ree Morton. It’s very strange that the history of painting could be thought to end just as women were beginning to make their contributions.
Reed’s observation is quite like one made by Adrian Piper which asserts that women’s successes during Post-Modernism were met with a backlash, among which was a claim for the end of art. Danto’s essay (The End of Art) doesn’t even mention any women (to my recollection), but it is indeed strange that art would ‘end’ just as women gained greater artistic prominence than ever before.
A paternalistic atmosphere is reflected in the last bit I’ll share from the essay; in an anecdote about an encounter with Clement Greenberg, Baer recalls
Greenberg was a brilliant writer, a brilliant critic, and slimy as hell. I remember a conversation he and I had about color . . . . Clem said, ‘Jo, you know this is all very well,’ by which he meant he couldn’t promote my work if it was all white and gray. Too stark. ‘Why don’t you use pink or some other color?’ And I said, ‘Because Ken Noland already does that. You don’t need me doing it’. By which I meant . . . I wasn’t a Color Field painter. I was working with degrees of light, and he wasn’t paying attention to that. I was supposed to apologize, but I didn’t.
What I’ve excerpted here reflects my concerns–the article is rich with other information: considerations of the science of visual perception, women artists’ relationship to movement, the intersection of politics and art, as well as more detail concerning minimalist sculpture’s epic* battle with painting. If you can find a copy to read, I strongly recommend doing so (Fall 2009, Vol. 69, No. 3). The issue also has articles about Walter de Maria and Louise Bourgeois.
*I use ‘epic’ in with a tongue-in-cheeck awareness of the internet parlance of the day.
Franklin November 2, 2009
The interesting thing about the Greenberg story is its faithfulness to type: someone has a single encounter with the man that proves unsatisfactory and they come away from it forever irritated. Even Fairfield Porter had a story like that. Whatever that might say about Greenberg, the fact remains that many, many people sought his blessing in one form or another and never forgave him for failing to bestow it. His tastes were specific, so this happened thousands of times, often without his knowledge. Finally there was a horde of slighted artists and art writers, and they exacted their revenge on his reputation. Thus we have the story of Slimy Greenberg, and not the story of the Jilted Army, in which any soldier would have fought for the ostensible enemy if he would only have them.
Greenberg was cool to that kind of extreme, black-and-white minimalism even when Frank Stella was painting that way. He liked Truitt’s work better. He was a color guy, and I find it hard to hold that against an art critic.
KH November 3, 2009 — Post Author
Franklin, what I found to be interesting about the Greenberg tale (which was in the footnotes to the article) was what it indicated about Jo Baer more than what it suggested about him.
You see in her a slighted, petty artist, while I see her as a strong, independent woman. Your view privileges Greenberg, while mine privileges Baer. She respected him greatly, but still did not bend to his power, will, or taste. I don’t think this translates into lumping her into an imaginary horde of the jilted.
Franklin November 3, 2009
She can be strong, independent, slighted, and petty. In fact, this is how she comes off in the excerpt. I gather from her own words that she had promotion and differentiating herself from colleagues (Noland in this case) on her mind, not making her art better. Meanwhile, it sounds like Greenberg told her the same thing he told Stella and Kline. And she thought (but didn’t say), “I was working with degrees of light, and he wasn’t paying attention to that.” Well, right. Her intentions at the time were holding her art back, which I think is proven by her later work with color. Good for her for not being a shrinking violet, but even a mule has strength of will.
Perhaps it reads differently in context; I would no sooner put my hands on a skunk carcass than CAA’s Art Journal, so I’ll take your word for it if it does. But that Jilted Army is only too real. I have interviewed people who watched it form.
KH November 4, 2009 — Post Author
Maybe she didn’t feel a need to explain herself to Greenberg. Maybe she made the remark about Noland because she had observed Greenberg trying to push other artists into a certain type of mold. Maybe your perceptions of this excerpt are (still) colored by your estimation of him.
You should probably read the article before assuming your role as Worldwide Internet Defender of Greenberg. But you never will read the article until it appears in another publication, because of your personal feud with CAA, and because of your ideological stance on art (criticism and theory). As you said, even a mule has strength of will. 😉
Franklin November 4, 2009
I know the drill: my perceptions are clear, yours are colored, his/hers are tainted. I have a belief, you have an ideology, he/she has a sinister agenda.
It’s exactly because I don’t have an ideological stance on art that I will not again read the Journal, which would have me believe that the art world is describable only in terms of politics that range from academic leftism to progressive utopianism. So thanks for introducing me to Baer and her work. She looks like a deservedly minor figure but one can often learn much from such figures.
KH November 5, 2009 — Post Author
I’m not suggesting my perceptions aren’t also colored (I did, in fact, say that I privileged Baer over Greenberg), but I would have used that excerpt had it been a “slimy” Rosenberg or Krauss–that it was Greenberg is irrelevant to me. It’s more of an artist-against-critic moment to me, not artist-against-Greenberg.
I’m bemused by your insistence at addressing what to me is a relatively unimportant point in the entire post. If it’s not part of an ideological stance, then why are you so fixed on the issue of Greenberg and your (his) “jilted horde”?
I can’t help but think you are overlooking a more interesting, more autonomous read of Baer. I also find it amusing that you feel the need to indicate that she’s a “minor” artist. Especially in light of the fact that she didn’t do what the major critic wanted her to. I mean, seriously, it’s almost comedy.
Franklin November 5, 2009
I’m bemused by your insistence at addressing what to me is a relatively unimportant point in the entire post. If it’s not part of an ideological stance, then why are you so fixed on this flattering reading of Baer?
I can’t help but think you are overlooking a more interesting, more autonomous read of Greenberg. I also find it amusing that you feel the need to indicate that he exemplifies a “paternalistic atmosphere.” Especially in light of the fact that he gave her the same feedback he gave to contemporaneous male painters. I mean, seriously, it’s almost comedy.
KH November 5, 2009 — Post Author
Your strategy is mind-blowing, really. Kind of an I’m-rubber-you’re-glue-nyah-nayh-technique, I’d say.
Franklin, I have no problem accepting that we have differing perspectives, and that we disagree, or that I am unable to see what you find to be so interesting about various things.
Any critic can display a paternalistic atmosphere, regardless of sex or gender presentation. As I said, it would have been the same for me no matter what critic it was.
I get that you care about the idea of Greenberg and some “jilted army”, but I was interested in the idea of a woman artist going against the tide, against the trend of the moment. What about the idea that at the moment painting was considered poorly it was because the most innovative painters were women? This is part of the topic at hand, but you, as a painter, didn’t even seem to note it, instead seeming to accuse Baer of a sour grapes thing, even thought it was made very clear that Baer respected him quite a bit and considered him to be brilliant. I think this goes against your jilted army theory.
The article has much more to say about Greenberg and his role at the time, as well as painting more generally. I still think you should read it.
Franklin November 5, 2009
The technical term is “reflection,” and it’s useful when someone is pejoratively framing your statements instead of legitimately arguing against them.
As I said, she deserves credit for not being a shrinking violet. But what tide was she going against? That mix of facile disparagement and grudging respect regarding Greenberg is the tide. And if you look at her later work, whaddaya know: pink. The hard part isn’t ignoring the advice of the famous critic – it’s getting out of your own way.
What about the idea that at the moment painting was considered poorly it was because the most innovative painters were women?
It sounds like the rest of the calculated, ill-argued identity politics that has served so many art careers so handsomely. Baer’s work from that decade didn’t produce major innovations on top of California Hard-Edge being done ten and twenty years earlier. (See, especially, John McLaughlin and Helen Lundeberg.) By the ’70s Lozano had given up the interesting work she had been doing the ’60s (which prefigured Guston) in favor of terrible geometric paintings and painfully lame conceptual projects. Rockburne spent the ’70s repeating her folded paper idea, which started out nicely and turned into a routine. (Have you seen her ’80s work? Ouch.) Morton was far stronger as a sculptor than a painter.
The idea that the ’70s had some “ideological climate” with ostensibly unquestionable artistic tenets is wrong on the face of it, and requires selective lapses of memory about what went on both at the time and in the previous decade. Lumping the ideas of Judd, Fried, Morris, and Greenberg into a hegemony is comic. But making Baer’s story conform to a leftist narrative, in which a disenfranchised party struggles against its oppressors, is typical of CAA publications. There’s your ideological climate for you.
KH November 6, 2009 — Post Author
Technical terms do tend to make unpalatable and/or desperate tactics seem more acceptable. 🙂
Your remark: “That mix of facile disparagement and grudging respect regarding Greenberg is the tide” was not perhaps true of the day, and the essay’s section on Greenberg addresses his position more in depth. Why not read it?
And your “whaddaya know” remark is somewhat facile itself–if a critic recommends to you something inappropriate to your work at the moment, you reject it in the moment, and later, when your work changes you decide to do that very thing, it doesn’t necessarily validate the critic’s advice or make invalid your own past rejection of it.
I didn’t intend to lump Judd, Fried, Morris and Greenberg into a hegemony–I was referring to minimalist sculpture as seen from a historical perspective. I may not have clearly articulated that. Whether or not the article expressed anything similar I actually can no longer recall.
I don’t have the kind of time to devote to blog-comment debating that I used to. It’s not even what I want to do anymore! I have comments set for approval because I don’t want to give a significant portion of my time up to the comments thread–and I don’t want to have to police them the way I had to in the past (or the way you had to in the past!).
I appreciate your thoughts on painting. I disagree with your position concerning identity politics and art careers, and think art history backs me up–if careers were served so well by identity politics, then why are the highest paid, most valued, most successful (and most exhibited) artists still white men overwhelmingly?
Also: I like stories about “disenfranchised party struggles”!
I still think you should read the article.
Since this post is now 17 days old, I’d like to consider this thread closed. You’re welcome to make one more rejoinder, if you’re so inclined; I promise to approve it! It just might take me a day to get to it.
Franklin November 6, 2009
Thanks for your conversation and hospitality.
KH November 9, 2009 — Post Author
You’re welcome, Franklin. 🙂 Thanks for being interested enough to comment!