please read the article and write: 1 what I know when I see the title of the artle 2 what I want to learn from this article 3 what I learn from this article this essay should be at least 300 words. the essay is in the attachments.
Publts r E ecu 1ve Pub lis her
Editor g Editors
A~51S n Edi or Co
D sign
Pr od c ion
Anthony Korner Amy Baker
Ingrid S1schy David Frankel
Germano Celant Joseph Masheck Jamey Gambrell
Charles Hagen M eg Shore
Nancy Foote Brent Saville
Tanya Weinberger Cynthia Carr
Marian Conner Stephen W Soule
Vo1urn" XX o 4 December 198 Contents copyright © 1 8 Ar forum lnterna 1onal Magazine . Inc All rights re - ~e•veo o pa of his publica!lon may be reprod uced or iran~m. ed .n any form or by any means . electronic or rnpc an1ca1 including photocopy, recording. or any 1nfor- rnat1on s orage and retrieval system . without permission in W " .ng from Ar forum lnterna 1onal Magazine. Inc
New Address Arttorum Editorial and Business Offices 205 Mulberry Street New York , N.Y. 10012 (212) 925-4000
European Ed itorial Desk Sa 11 a Oreg1na . Genoa 16134 . Italy
ADVERTISING Anne Dayton . Director Cla ire Mar in Knight Landesman . Associates
Wes Germany Ana Valladares . Karl-Finkeln- burgs r 30 5300 Bonn 2 (0228) 36 .34 81
Subscnpt1ons Orders 1nqu1r1es and address ch anges should be see: 10 ARTFORUM . P 0 Box 980 Farmingdale. N Y 11737 Enclose rr.a "'9 lat>e l w ith address change Missed issues must be claimed W•I on ~tuee mon hs of da e of pubhcaflon Single copies and back •ssues \ 5 75 prepaid to Ar forum . 205 Mulberry St . N Y , N Y . 10012 Complete volumes index (1962·68) Laurence McG1lvery,
P 0 Bo• 852 La Jolla Gahl 92038 O.str1bullon U S and Canada. Eastern News D1stnbutors. 111 8th Ave ew York NY 1001 t UK, COMAG. Tavistock Road . West Draytor> 1ddlesex UB 7 ?OE Belgium . Pos -Sc riptum, rue des
Eoe•or>niers 37 1000 Brussels MICfofilm Xerox University Microfilms 300 North Zeeb Rd . Ann Aroor ich 48 1(>6 Microfiche Bell & Howell. M1cro -Pho10 Division,
O•d Mansfoeld Rd woos er Calif 44691 ART FORUM is indexed 1n he Art Index. ARTb1bllograph1es MODERN
and AILA Artforum (ISSN -0004 -3532) 1s published monthly except July and Augus tor \30 00 per year ($40 00 outside the U S ) by ARTFORU M. 205 Mu1oerry S reet ew York NY 10012 Second-class postage oa id at New York Y and add• 1onal ma1hng offices Postmaster send address changes to ARTFORUM . P 0 Box 980.
ARTFORUM
The Gallery as a Gesture , by Brian O'Doherty
The Radiant Child, by Rene Ricard
A project by Nicholas Nixon
Absent-Minded Female Nude on Bed, by Pete r Schjeldahl
Not Post-Modernism: History as Against Historicism , European Archetypal Vernacular in Relation to American Commercial Vernacular, and the City as Opposed to the Individual Building, by Dan Graham
Looking at Life , by Carol Squiers
A Conversation with Pontus Hu/ten About the New Los Angeles Museum
of Contemporary Art
Reviews, from New York, Cincinnati , Bo ston . Los Angeles , San Francisco , London , Edinburgh , Bristol , Bonn . and Baden-Baden
DECEMBER 1981
26
35
44
49
50
59
67
71
1 l i t' · •" •'> f'/t-; J'v Ar111,..re #-1 7 1 81 , , • 1r:•. 11, ,,
Rene Ricard I emember he 1rst Tags (where is Taki?) , Breaking
(whe e you spin on your head) . Rapping (where I first he rd 1 ) I know the names . but are the names 1rn or an? Where is Taki? Perhaps because I have seeri gr 1 1 hen seen someth ing else. thrown myself on he dance Joor . hen gone on to dance another wa I say tha the reason for abandoning so much dur ng the 70s was that each fad became an institu- 1on Wha we can finally see from the '?Os buried among he revivals and now surfacing (Tagging, Bre king Rapping) was at least one academy without Program Dis inc to the '?Os , graffiti , in particular, was the ins 1 u 1onal1zat1on of the idiosync rat ic that has led o he need for 1ndiv1 duation within th is anonymous Ver acular This 1s why the indivi duals (Crazy Legs)
fT!us d1st1ngu1sh themse lves . Ar is s have a responsibility to their work to raise it
above he vernacular. Perhaps it is the critic 's job to sor ou rom the mele e of popular style the individuals who define the styl e. who perhaps inaugurated it (where 1s Taki) and to bring them to public attention. The communal exh1b1t1ons of the last year and a half or
THE RADIANT CHILD
Jean-Michel Basqu1at. Gnngo Pilot. 1981. mixed media on seamless paper 81 , l 03" .:it w1dC's'. p{wi•
Jean-Michel Basquiat. World Crown . 1981 , mixed media on canvas. approx 60x 72"
so, from the Times Squ are Show, the Mudd Club shows, the Monumental Show, to the New York/New Wave Show at P.S. 1, have made us accus tomed to looking at art in a group, so much so that an exhib it of an individual's work seems almost antisocial. Colab, Fash ion Moda, etc ., have created a definite populist ambience , and like all such organizations. from the dawn of modern , have dug a base to launch new work. Th ese are vas t communal enterprises as amaz- ing that they got off the ground as the space shuttle and even more , fly-by-nig ht, that they landed on solid ground .
The most accessible and immediately contag ious productions in th ese shows we re those of the graffiti stylists. The graffiti style , so much a part of this town . New York , is in our blood now. It 's amazing that someth ing so old can be made so new. There is an instant appeal in the way spray paint looks , ditto markers. Any Tag by any teenager on any train on any line is fairly heartbreaking. In these autographs is the inherent pathos of the archaeological site , the cry down the vast endless track of time that " I am some bod y," on a wall in Pompeii , on a rock at Piraeus, in the subway graveyard at some future archaeologi- cal dig , we ask, ''Who was Taki?"
Graffiti refutes the idea of anonymous art where we know everything about a work except who made it: who made it is the whole Tag . Blade , Lady Pink , Pray , Sex, Taki, Cliff 159, Futura 2000, Oondi, Zephyr, Izzy , Ha ze , Daze, Fred, Kool , Stan 153 , Samo , Crash. (Crash is still bombing .) But trains get buffed (the damnatio memoriae of the Transit Authority), and with the need for identi ty comes the artist 's need for identification with the work , and to support oneself by the work is the absolute distinction between the amateur and the pro. Therefore , the obvious was to raise oneself by the supreme effort of will from the block, from the su bway, to the Mudd , to the relative safety and hygiene of the gallery. Because an art ist is somebody. Say what you will about group shows and collaborative enterprise: Oas Kapital was w.r itten by one man . This is no graffito, this is no train, this is a Jean-Michel Basquiat. Th is is a Keith Haring .
Both these artists are a su ccess in the street where the most critical evaluation of a graffito takes place . Jean -Michel is proud of his large Samo Tag in a schoolyard , surrounded by other Tags on top of Tags , yet not marked over. Th is demonstrates respect for the artist as not just a graffitist but as an individual , the worth of whose Tag is recognized . There's prest ige in not being bombed over. There are also fake Samas and Harings as well as a counter-Haring graffitist who goe s around erasing him. The ubiquity of Jean- Michel 's Samo and Haring 's baby Tags has the same effect as advertising; so famous now is that baby button that Haring was mugged by four 13-year-olds for the buttons he was carrying (as well as for his Sony Walkman.) The Rad iant Child on the button is Haring 's Tag . It is a slick Madison Avenue colophon. It looks as if it's always been there . The greatest thing is to come up with someth ing so good it seems as if it's always been there , like a proverb. Oppos ite the factory-fresh Keith Haring is Jean-Michel' s abandoned cityscape . His orototvoe. the spontaneous collage of peel ing
MUN f> I A i--
Jean-Michel Basquiat. Respo Mundial, 1981 , charcoal and marker on rag paper, sox67"
Aaron Srskmd, Chicago, 1952. silver print. 15 V•x 19'!11'. The Museum of Modern Art , New York , g ift of Edwin A. BerQrnan . Who was "10 '"?
posters , has. been there for everyone 's ripping off. His earlier pa1nt1ngs were the logical extension of what you could do with a city wall . (For the moment he's stopped the collage.) His is a literal case of bringing something in off the street but with th e element of chance removed . I'm always amazed at how people come up with things. Like Jean-Miche l. How did he come up with the words he puts all over everything , his way of making a point without overstating the case , using one or two words he reveals a po litical acuity, gets the viewer going in the direction he wants . the illusion of the bombed-over wall. One or two words containing a full body. One or two words on a Jean- Michel contain the entire history of graffiti . What he incorporates into his pictures , whether found or made , is specific and selective. He ha s a perfect idea of what he's getting across , using everything that collates to his vision.
Where is Taki. When writing or just thinking about say a movement or a style , we automatically attach progenitors of common appearance , attributes of an ind ivi dual or stylistic precursor to the object of con- templation . I bought an assortment of Wild Style and Plain Style (Daze Rocks , etc.) Tags done in marker on a piece of newsprint at the Mudd Club graffiti show because it looked like a late 18th century Chinese literati-type thing , no , maybe more Japane se, yes Japanese . Even the names of the different scripts are like Japanese calligraphic distinctions. (The underly- ing discipl ine is getting a character down so good you can repeat it exactly .) Th is of course leads one into the Zen calligraphic renovations of, say, Mark Tobey , Brad ley Walker Tomlin , and just about everybody in the late '40s, early '50s. And you have no choice but to look at th ings this way because .. . " Doe s His Voice Sound Some Echo in your Heart. " (Source available .) Th is is the double-headed monster of erudition , half seei ng too much and half of it blind .
I asked Jean-Michel where he got the crown "Everybody does crowns ." Yet the crown sits secure- ly on the head of Jean-Michel 's repertory so that it is of no importance where he got it bought it stole it ; it 's his. He won that crown. In one painting there is even a © copyright sig n with a date in impossible Roman numerals directly under the crown. We can now say he copyrighted the crown. He is also addicted to the copyright sign itself. Double copyright. So the inven- tion isn 't im portant ; it 's the patent , the transition from the public sector into the private , the monopolizing personal usurpation of a public utility , of prior art; no matter who owned it before , you own it now . After all , Judy Rifka did not invent the artist's dilemma I think it's hers for the time be ing, however
But influence , when we reach the peak and look down at what we 've come fro m, see mists and clouds under mist, not the base of the mountain . As much as one would like to escape the idea of generation and decade in favor of something better, thi s provides an easy common way to track development. Where is Taki? Graffiti has been around in th e way we recog- nize it now for about ten years and whether one considers this a long or a short amount of time (the
John Ahearn. life-size painted plaster c asts. 198 t_
entire High Renaissance from the painting of the Mona Lisa to the Sistine ceiling covered exactly ten years) it is already in its second generation. The transition , however , was neither sudden nor unex- pected because in the past te n years we see the full exchange of graffiti from trainstyle to museum candi- date. What's unusual is that th e gallery bid was not made by the innovators but by the second generation _ Graffiti has had a dyslexic development in that the secon d generation is capitalizing on territory pioneer- ed by its lost innovators_ More interesting and more possible to scan than the movement leading up to the picture is, rather , the picture 's life after it leaves the artist. The picture must be protected. (I 'm not interest- ed in the prestige of discovery_ Part of the artist's job is to get the work where I will see it_ I have to be aware of it before I can hype it _ I consider myself the metaphor of the public. I'm a public eye. And I only hype the sureshot. The possibility of life without galleries? But how much time , when you really get going , can you spend crating, carrying on correspondences, hiring secretaries , negotiating your appearances in Europe- an museums , in fine all the little labors that galleries are supposed to do and that keep you away from your work? There is a place for responsible representation . Th is is an enormously important season in New York and to make a false step could have severe repercus - sions fo r years_ In a city comprised of individuals it is important at some point to form the right connections; fo r your own protection you have to trust someone. Someone else has to have a personal commitment to your work so that it isn 't shopped like merchandise_ It's cute to be 20 and be pursued when hundreds of young artists are dropping their slides off at these same galleries, but the crass fast-turnover specula- tors ' market can have a deleterious effect on an artist's future career if you don 't have protection we are no longer collecti ng art we are buyin g individuals . This 1s no piece by Samo _ Th is is a piece of Samo . Whe_n the work tops a certa in mark and the collectors begin their wholesale unloading of your old work in direct compet1t1on with you r ne w wo rk you 're in trou-
Mimmie.
ble with no protection Every time one of your old paintings is bought one of your new ones isn 't. Plus , old more famous pictures always cost more and you don't get a cut off the resale . Of co urse a record price a/ways helps an artist, but what if the artist has radically changed sty/es? In any event, it's clear that a good dealer is ve ry ca reful about where the things land . If the re 's no personal commitment the chances are that the dealer-as-just-buyer will unload the stuff anywhere for the money, why not, without thought to possible repercussions it could have in th e long ru n . Whereas if th e dealer has a stake in your dev elopment they will , for example, save the best picture fo r a possible museum sale rather than j ust anywhere the cash is flowing_ Besides , when anything goes wrong you can blam e it on your gallery_)
"What's with artanyway ,thatl We give it such prece- dence?" (Source available.) Most basic is the com- mon respect , the popu lar res pect for living off one 's vision. My experie nce has shown me that the artist is a person much respected by the poor because they have circumvented the need to exert the body, even of tim e, to live off what appears to be the simp lest bodily act. This is an honest way to rise out of the sl um , using one 's sheer self as the medium , the money earne d rather a proof pure and simple of the value of that ind ivi dual , Th e Artist. Th is is a basic class di stinc- tion in the perception of art whe re a picture you r son did in jail hangs on your wall as a proof that beau ty is possi ble even in the most wretched ; that someone who can make a beautiful thing can 't be all bad ; and that beauty has an ability to lift people as a Vermeer co py done in a tenement is sure ly the same as the greatest mural by some MFA. An ob ject of art is an honest way of making a living , and this is much a different idea from the fancier notion that art is a scam and a ripoff . The bourgeo isie have , after all , made it a scam. But you could never explain to someon e who uses God 's gift to enslave that you have used God 's gift to be free .
What is it that makes something look like art? I can 't answer that. I asked someone once why he liked
Antflonv
Jean -Mic hel's work and wh y 1t was being singled out for acclaim and he said . "because tl looks like art." But then again art doesn 't always look like art at first. The way the space shuttle that lifts off doesn't much resemble th e space shuttle as 1t lands .
My favorite Franc esco Clemente. for instance. looks just like something 1n a 1unk store. It's even painted on one of those premade stretched canvases that are the stock in trade of amateurs. The direct and a rtl ess oil paint here, however it looks like a 13-year- old painted it . is ve ry much about be in g 13. I remem- ber still green ponds like that where I'd go . . . and the anomalous sexuality of the frog , that . no matter what sex it is. a frog 's crotch . belly , and thighs, when viewed together , look like a woman . It was brought to my attention that the very th ing that freezes this picture compos itionally , the flashbulbl ike shadow of the arm . is what keeps it from being the work of a child ; children don 't depict cast shadows . Clemente has frozen an instant here. and the sex object of the paintin g , the frog 's crotch . is already underwater. This preservation of a lost moment from child hood , per- fectly seen and remembered in a flash. sets th is picture apart as art , yet it looks like something in a junk store .
Everybod y wants to get on the Van Gogh Boat. Th ere is no trip so horrible that someone won 't take it. Nobody wants to mi ss the Van Gogh Boat. The idea of the unrecognized gen ius slaving away in a garret is a deliciously fool ish one _ We must credit the life of Vincent van Gogh for rea lly send ing that myth into orbit. How many p ic tures did he sell. One. He couldn 't gi ve them away. Almost no one could bear his work , even among the most modern of his colleagues . In the movie Lust For Life there is a scene of Kirk Douglas (as van Gogh) in front of La Grande Jatte being treated rudely by George s Seurat. When I went to the Art In stitute of Chicago to see the GrandeJatte , it was having a hard time competing with the wh ite walls of the gallery _ Th is habit of putting old pictures up against the white walls is deadly , the wal ls reflecting more light than the p ictu re , but van Gogh's Bedroom
Lws. wilh bite in forehead . Ephram
Alain Jacquet. Bathroom Gra ffrt1. 19 71 ball bearings on Masoni:e 18 · 32"
Judy R1fka. Close-ups From Vickie's Dance , 1981. oil on linen. 24 x 30" each .
the comment is that it looks like our expectation of art; there is observable history in his work. His to uch has spontaneous erud ition that comforts one as the ex- pected does. In the first gallery piece I saw by Jean- Michel (as distinct from his Tag Samo) the observable relat ionship of his drawing to past art alienated me as immediately as it gratified. The superbombe rs in the same show, with their egreg ious lack of art history, had the repe llent appeal that commands self-analysis in the viewer (me)_ I did n't want to miss the boat. When you first see a new picture you are very careful because you may be staring at van Gogh's ear_ Th en I stopped caring about what the pictures should (and might later) look like; regardless of what Jean- Mic hels look like now, they are transmitting signals that I can receive , that are useful, and final ly the graffiti bomb style looks like what it's about and what it's ab out is packag ing.
Bomb style packages itself. At its purest, it's a Tag , a perfect auto-logo, not the artists ' names but thei r trademarks. Desig ner jeans? You are buyi ng the label proper: the essential iconic self -representation In any event, the bom bers in the show cl early defined a vern acular and made me wonder how long this would take to g et off the grou nd in a b ig way_ Here was, as
much as it was predicated on commercial art of the past , the commercial art of the future. Here was the look of the times, thi s is what packag ing should look li ke: kid s would buy it. These guys should get them- selves design jobs , before they get ripped off. Several have alread y worked their way into the appli ed arts, where th ey belong: on record covers , doing the art direction fo r movi es , slides behind Rappers, back- drops for Breakers. Sitting by yourself on a wall is different.
An arti st's attitude toward the work is telling . It's all hype , sure , but there can be quality in hype and I've caug ht some sleazy acts _ A guy came to my house to deliver a small picture _ With a friend. No picture Broke. " Give me the money I'll come back later with th e picture _" " OK ." While he was there he told methat he was entertaining the idea of giving Andy Warhol a pi ctu re _ Well , And y is everyone 's culture parent, it's true, but I'm just a poor poet and Andy 's turnover must be thousand s and thousands a week in prints alone , and it hurt my feelings that I had to pay 50 clams and An dy would get it free . I could see , though , that this boy's climb was on . This was my advice: don't give him th e picture. Kids do that. Trade. That 's what real artists do with each other . Since Andy 's a press
junkie , and I see you 're getting the taste , call up page si x of th e Post and get a photographer to the Factory on the " Graffiti goes legi t/street kid trades Tag for Soup Can " angle. You both get your picture in the pap er, An d y comes off looking li ke friend of youth , you get a press clipping , and it's gravy for all parties. Easily $50 wo rth of advice. So he left with the money, and , li ke co p ping drugs in the street, beat me for the picture . A month or so late r, after some fr iends put on a little mu sc le , I finally got the doodad , and promptly gave it away. Foolish way to hype yourself. When you 're climbin g a ladde r, don 't kick out the rungs .
As muc h as undervaluation can kill , so can a false sense of th e va lue of your wo rk. Jean-Michel was advi sed to stop givi ng it away . But if your friends can 't have it , wh y live? Overprotection is deadly; the stuff has to get o ut there to be seen . Making money is something b etween artists and their stomachs. To turn one 's work into fetis h that is almost indistinct from oneself , to ove rpersonal ize and covet one 's own work , is profes sion al suicide . Fear of rip-off is paraly- sis . One is always ri p ped off . Keeping work a secret is the p sycholog y of the ap pl ied artist , not the fine artist who must live in a dialog ue.
Is innovation importa nt? Wh en one compares Jack
tedium of Byars and Beuys , authorship as object , is th e precedent fo r the leg itimacy of th e Tag. Thi s is the rnd 1v1 dual as archetype, where we order a " Bud ,, where every bleach blonde is called " Blondie ," th'e Tag name f.or the individ ual Deborah Harry. If Andy Warhol cant be used as an object lesson in how to become iconic then his life has been a waste. We become our name . I have spent my life becom in g my name. so that it would somehow protect the radiant chi ld it ha s been created to arm .) Judy's perception of thi s is accurate . Her multip le-panel pictures are like movies: She has spent the las t few years evolving a recog ni za ble cast of c harac ters to people her work . She is the eponymous lead. This is about her life in art the frustrations and mome ntary ecstasies of painting a picture ; the sub-mafia of artist's assistants ; the domes ti cation of pet boys refined into their specific types that become at once th e original and the archetype .
Wh e re is Taki? We can't escape the etymology or genealogy of art. It's not co in cidental that the time that saw the gestation of graffi ti was the period of gal lery- re fer e ntial art that flouris hed (wrong word) in the early '70s . During the era of the w hite wall , what would have the greater effect on us now was being produced by guerrilla artists bombing trains during their mechani - cal slumber in Queens. Those teenage prophets are lost in the mists of their own maturity, remin iscent of the way the origin of the blues is lost , the simple expression of the individual followed much later by full -sc ale commercia l exploitation. Contrary to the rul es of modern art that hallow the innovator, here is the se cond generation capital izing on the innovations of the first. Th e com merc ial exp loitation of innovation
is, conversely, the primary logic of commercia l art. Even as I write , the Transit Authority has unleashed
police dogs around the Corona yard , so perhaps there is still hope . Bom bing will cont inue even with the dogs. When it stops you 'll know it 's played out. If it's stil l al ive the autopsy will kill it. What wou ld happen 1f subway graffiti were recognized as the native art it is? Would they find Ta ki and declare him a Nat ional Living Treasure as the Japanese do the ir keepers of the flame of nati ve craft? Or if the TA legitimizes it, 1. e. encourages it with NEA fund ing? What happens when the revolution is tel evised? It bombs out. Train paint - ing has already been severely formalized almost to decadence . It has become historicall y self-con- scious , the progre ssion from expression to Pop; there is a Campbell 's Soup can tra in; sophistication to boredom.
Looking through th e Mailer book on graffiti from 1974, was it photographer 's opt ic al bias , editorial selectivity, or was the classic period of graffiti as "abstract expressionist ," '50s , as the book makes it look when com p ared to the Pop psyched elic '60s of the train I was on today? It looks so much more severe in the book , metalli c style , less balloon style : tou gher , muy switchblade , mas barrio . But who remembers what it looked like? I remember that it was very sexy, the feeling ; I don 't remember the look . Eidetic ove r- lays can 't be trusted . What did it look like?
Jean-Michels don 't look like the others . His don 't have that superbomb panache that is the first turn -on of the pop graffitist. Nor does his marker have that tai- chi touch . He doesn 't use spray but he's got the dope. and right now what we need is information ; I want to know what is going on in people 's minds and these pictures are useful. This article is about work that is information , not work that is about information . No
Fake "Samo" crown on wall. Photo · Mary Bachmann
Ronnie Cutrone. R & B Ants . 1981. acrylic on raw canvas , 60 x 80" An incident from human tile entomorphosed Joe Zucker . Round 14, 1981 , acrylic. Rhoplex . cotton. on c anvas. 72 /::, 72 ''!'
matter what the envelope looks like to get it there , th e dope's inside . Let the Parisians copy the athletic togs le look americain Je une Puma sneakaires le graffiti mignon , style is spin-off; what the pictures are inter- nally about is what matters. If you're going to stand up there with the big kids you 've got to be heavy, got to sit on a wall next to Anselm Kiefer next to Jonathan Borofsky next to Julian Sc hnabel and these guys are tough they can make you look real sissy. There 's only one place for a mindless cutie and it ain 't the wall , Jack.
Judy Rifka and Jean-Michel Basquiat have both evolved a vocabulary , and so in his way has Keith Haring . In his gray eminence enterpreneurial capac- ity as director of the Mudd Club shows he was of particular importance in the general dissemination of work by other young artists, and not secondarily his own. His work is faux graphic and looks ready-made , like international road signs . This immediacy is his trump card . It is the already-existing quality of his characters that deceives one into accepting them as already there without the intervention of an indivi du al will. But he did make them up. In thei r impersonal code they are transmitting a personal narrative. The code is here to be cracked. These poor little cha rac - te rs wigging ou t from the radioactive communications th ey are bombarded with are superslick icons of turmoil and confusi on. Th ey are without will , without protection from im pulses of mysterious sou rc e. We
can laugh at their in vol untary couplings an d tiny horrifie d runn ings aroun d because we see them as we cannot see, as the fi sh cannot see th e water , ourse lves.
Of cour se what artists se e us as can tell us more abo ut themselves than about us. The second-genera- tion Pop artists who 've been popping up behind the ir more in novative c ontemporaries show more interest in the(i r) poor victims of cocktail dresses , in the trials and tri bulations of dressing up and going out, en- chai ned by our fashion sl avery, in Soci ety , than in society. Ch ief of the C lubbists is Robert Longo who in his own way is concerned wi th our contemporary soli psi sm . As an undercover agent of the Fashion Po lice I am reluctantly placing him under arrest partly fo r being two years behind the times but real ly for fo rgetting that fashion imitates art , and that art that imitates fash ion is two removes from the source. Art Deco com es after Cubi sm. On the subject of Troy Braun tuch , and the use of pictures , his work seems to have been antic ipated by an Ed wardian novelist: " 'That habit of putting glass over an oil painting ,' she murmured , 'makes always such a good reflection particularly when the picture 's dark. Many's the time I've run into the National Gal lery on my way to the Savoy and tidied myself before the Virgin of th e Rocks .. .' " (source available) .
We need to see ourselves now but not thi s literally. For some reason we need recoani zable evi d enr.e nf
our existence . Something has happened and we need , if not advice , at least a demonstration of the sit uat ion and many of our fears are in the words co ntained in Jean-Michel 's pictures- Tar, Oil , Old Tin , Gold-we don 't need a lexicon to know what th ese mean . These morp hemes are self-evide nt.
Ph aed rus : Whom do you mean and what is his origin? Socrates : I mean an intelligent word graven on the soul of
the learner , which can defend itsel f, and who knows when to speak and when to be silent.
Phaedrus : You mean the li ving word of knowledge which has a soul , and of which the written word is no more than an image?
Socrates: Yes . of course that is what I mean. - source available.
I'm always amazed by how people come up with thin gs Like J ean-Michel . How did he come up with those wo rds he puts all over everything? Their ag- gre ssive ly handmade look fits his peculiarly political sensi b il ity. He seems to have become the gutter and hi s wor ld view very much that of the downtrodden and di spo ssessed . Here the possession of almost any- thing of even marginal value becomes a token of c orrupt material ism. Th is is the bum coveting a pair of Gu ston 's s hoes . When Jean-M ichel writes in almost sub literate scrawl " Safe plush he think" it is not on a Park Avenue facade that would be totally outside the beg gar's venue but on a rusted-out door in a godfor- s;:i kP. n nP. in h h nrhnnrl Pl11sh tn whnm srif P. from what? 42
I c nc o h cloch rd who Ii hts up 11 Kt r- 1sed I C Tw om bly and
ab b nd ve 1 up for adoption. 1chel The ele nee o Twombly 1s
•ro he sa e source ( raff 1t1) nd so 1s the txu o e oung Du u e [ ce p h e pol itics of Du u'!e• needed a lee ure to sho w needed a sepa-
s in Jean- 1chel hey are integrated he 1c 0 s necess1 y I d ra he r have a Jean-
~ 1chel han a Cy Twombly I do no live 1n the class1c al ne1 hborhood 1s unsa fe Also I wan t my
orne o oo like pile o 1unk o burg la rs Poh '1cs can come up by 1n erence 1n a work . wi th out
pot ng 1 hou over d1alec 1c by the simples t d e- 1c ion (as 1n he case o John Ahearn) of an indivi du -
al hen one looks a Ahearn s p ieces. the sensi b ili ty 1s so spec1 1c and acu e hat we feel we woul d g et the same eehng even 1 1 looked en 1rely di ff ere nt. And his people are abou eel1ngs I don 't know how anyone who could af ord hem would put them 1n the ir homes hy would he boss wan to be remin ded at home o he people wh o kee p ask in g h im for a ra ise? " (source available) They are obiects o f devotion , of love and 1 s ennobling abil1 y . and a re among th e rares and mos moving 1n he h is ory of art. They will command and dom1na e wherever they a re hung and make all art ha 1s anterior to 1t or that bea rs a resemblance seem like 1t was iust lea ding up to Ahearn They wipe out Segal They m ake Duane
Hanso n seem like a snob and an insensitive jerk. When we look at Hanson 's lumpen proles and their dazed stupefaction we feel superior. Ahearns , like mos t physically dominant art , don 't reproduce well . The ac tual confrontation with the work is overwhelm- ing . They are made to be seen from quite specific angles . Ahearn 's work is hung high , and these people up aga in st the white wall of a gallery are looking down at th e vi ewer with dignity , sobriety , querulousness , pe rf ec tly prec ise and specific expressions , fleeting and miraculous ly caug ht. The man seems to be loo king into the future with intense responsibility as the wo man , with her arms around his neck, trusts his abil it y to confront the world . I am that woman . Ahearn wo rk s in the South Bronx the way Caravaggio prob- ably would . He gives his models the first cast . They 're poor and they 're owed the grace of their image . Th is is no exploitation and yet I have heard him referred to (b y an artist) as a racist , exploiter of his sitters. If going into the ghetto and commemorating its inhabitants is raci st, then what do yo u cal l people who segregate themselves and plot genocide?
To Whites every Black hold s a potential knife be- hind the back , and to every Black the White is c oncealing a whip . We were born into this dialogue and to deny it is fatuous. Our responsibility is to overcome the sins and fears of our ancestors and drop the whip , drop the knife . In lzhar Patkin's parable of racial cannibalism we see that when a man with a
.45 meets a man with a shotgun I guess the man wi th th e pistol is a dead man .
Where is Taki? I th ink now about Anya Ph illi ps who so briefly
illuminated thi s fleeti ng world . I th ink about clothes worn by people so re ce ntly and yet how long ago it all seems that Anya wou ld show up in those cocktail dresses and of all things, a Ch inese girl in a b londe wig . And now all the gi rls in the ir cocktail d resses who never heard of Anya an d how quickl y eac h generation catches the look of its creators and forge ts the moral underneath . I think about how one mus t become th e iconic repre sentation of oneself if one is to outlast the vague definite ind ifferenc e of the world . I think about how eve ry b leach bl onde is ca lled Blondie in the street and Deborah Harry 's refutat ion of her iconic responsibility to reify her name as a brun ett e. We are that radiant chi ld and have spent our li ves de fending that li ttl e baby, co nstructing an ad ul t arou nd 1t to protec t it from the un listed si gnals of forces we have no control over. We are that litt le baby, the radian t chi ld, and our name , what we are to become . is outside us and we mu st become "Judy Rifk a" or " Jean-Mi chel " the way I became " Rene Ricar d." •
Rene Rica rd's new book of poems 1s scheduled to appear 1n lhe s ring
Keith Haring. 1981, button