PAINTED WORD TO THE RESCUE

“If you could say it in words, there would be no reason to paint.” 

Edward Hopper

By Federico Correa

A picture is worth a thousand words so goes the idiom. Today it seems that many a picture....painted image....is in dire straits in desperate need of CPR. Indeed in some cases , the picture may beg for  a thousand words if   the observer is    to  fully comprehend  subject , meaning or essence of the work ....if any.    An unfortunate state of the visual  arts. 

Art appreciation is about  understanding. It is a visual endeavor.  It goes without saying,    the written word is an intellectual endeavor in communicating ideas, information, etc. It is important to understand......that  "while the spoken word stands for something, the written word stands for something that stands for something."   I also understand that the written word can inform the viewer  in regards to the context...cultural perspective ... in which the work was created, etc. , however,  it is quite a different matter when the imperious  writer   floridly dictates what   the viewer  is observing . 

A long time ago, I read "The Painted Word"  by Tom  Wolfe.   Wolf  wrote that  " modern/ contemporary art  was no longer   a visual experience and  more often was the neurosis  of art critics' theories". He wrote that such art   required  a hefty dose of words to tell/explain or  to clue-in  the viewer about what he was viewing. 

"Wolfe's thesis in The Painted Word was that by the 1970s modern art had moved away from being a visual experience, and more often the painted image served to   illustrate the  art critics' theories.  In the book,  Wolfe criticized three prominent art critics whom he dubbed the kings of "Cultureburg", including.... Clement Greenberg, Harold Rosenberg and Leo Steinberg.  Today, their legacy is alive and thriving.   


Plainly, Wolf's contention in respect to the transformation of the  "visual experience" is that the art world..."Cultureburg"  is drowning in a sea of words .....described by some today  as artspeak.  The Oxford Dictionary defines  artspeak as a pretentious, obscure and esoteric  language used to discuss art. .Clearly,  the painted word has become an integral element of the visual experience giving life to the comatose. 

 Briefly,  let me bring Joseph Campbell into the fray.  Campbell  spoke of  "aesthetic arrest" a phrase first used by James Joyce  in "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man".  Elaborating on Joyce's words, Campbell said , " The aesthetic experience is a simple beholding of the object...you experience a radiance. You are held in aesthetic arrest".  In other words you ..the viewer...are stopped in your tracks and held in awe by the object/painting before you. An experience absent of the written word. The painted masterpieces of renaissance master Titian comes to mind. 


   To the point....it seems the  "visual experience" more and more  requires  a hefty transfusion of painted words if it is to live.  On a very simple level,  a successful work of art is defined by the    germane qualities that define art... specifically  human creativity,   skill and imagination.  No crutch  is needed for the work to stand alone on its own merit.   

  Yes,  it is up to the  "artist of the word" ...to resuscitate   the dead giving it   meaning, substance and perhaps life.    

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The following   snippets illustrate the  well written  painterly  word 
that comes with a side order of fries or apple pie. 




 Bold Gestures of Anti-Painting

by Daniel Barnes

The paintings of David Ostrowski present us with a world almost entirely drained of colour, figuration and matter – and yet they are utterly beguiling. There is something about the stark minimalism and ambiguity of these paintings which we would rather deny but simply cannot resist.

The press release for this exhibition takes the form of a question and answer session between Ostrowski and Harmony Korine. Although seeming to provide precious little information about the work, it sets the scene perfectly: Ostrowski responds to apparently banal questions with confident, witty, obscure and sometimes haunting answers, presenting himself as an enigmatic, self-deprecating failure of a painter. When asked how he got into painting, Ostwoski answers, ‘My nana always played a game with me – “who can paint better”. I always won because my nana loved me so much. When I got older, I just kept playing the game, but my opponents didn’t love me any more’. Ostrowski’s is an art of striving and constantly brushing up against the immanent possibility of failure.

The amazing and captivating thing about Ostrowski’s painting is the dazzling illusion of simplicity. A piece like F (A thing is a thing in a whole which it’s not) (2013) is a plain, brilliant white surface with a blue border all around the edge; there is almost nothing there but a void, a frame where a painting either used to be or might one day emerge. It looks as if the painting was made in an instantaneous flash of apathy, with little nor no effort, but that appearance conceals a complex process.

Ostrowski plays down the time he spends in the studio, saying he mostly just listens to music and reads, but this belies the crux of his creative process: these paintings spring forth from long periods of contemplation, suddenly – although carefully – realised in moments of inspiration. They are driven, in part, by the emotional quality of the music he listens to, and also by a skilful hand which steadily applies acrylic and lacquer to the canvas in such a way to make the marks appear gestural and immediate. Consequently, F (Gee Vaucher) (2013), for example, looks effortless, minimal, cool, but conceals a profound striving.

The complexity of these paintings is also found in the way that Ostrowski exploits errors as opportunities, taking the smallest out-of-place mark on the canvas and considering how it may be added to or subtracted from in order to undermine the very notion of composition. The works are replete with these complexities, which gradually emerge as you look more closely, since you also begin to see the possibilities of more or less that Ostrowski has created, accepted and denied. There could always be more or less – in terms of colour and composition – on these canvases, and it is that tussle of the creative process on which Ostrowski is playing. The exhibition title, Yes or Let’s Say No, sets the scene for this uncertainty, which is majestically weaved in to the fabric of these seemingly bold gestures of anti-painting.

—Daniel Barnes 

 (image: David Ostrowski,YES OR LET‘S SAY NO, 2013, Installation views; Courtesy of the artist and Simon Lee Gallery.)

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Source:  Artslant      Wikipedia   The Free Dictionary