The current exhibition at the Salt Lake City Art Center: “Printmaking by Four American Masters- Pop Art through the End of the Century” combines collage, drawings and painting from four exceptional and ground-breaking artists: Andy Warhol, Frank Stella, Brice Marden, and Tony Fitzpatrick in four narrative cycles of prints. Each cycle is unique in character and poignancy of form and meaning, representing each artist’s approach to their medium and their approach to their subject matter within a narrative cycle.
Brice Marden’s prints, “Ten Day Series 1971” has arguably the least representational subject matter, yet is charged in content. Marden’s prints are highly minimal, exploring the relationships between space, shape and color. The pieces work together and not individually. One may categorize the works into shape- rectangular or square, and how Marden approaches the spaces within the forms using color. The profundity of his approach is how he contrasts the shapes and the spaces within the shapes using variations of shade: white, grey or black, and the nuances, brought out by these. A harmonious whole in the cycle is achieved which gives an ethereal and contemplative effect to the narrative.
Frank Stella, a pioneer of Minimalism, steps outside of his roots in his narrative cycle “Had Gadya: A Response to Yiddish Passover Song, 1982-84.” These lithographs focus on form and color, each substantiating the other in unified compositions. Unlike Marden, these works are highly expressionistic, uniting recognizable geometric shapes in the style of Leger, and colorful abstractions similar to that of De Kooning. The product is a Modernist use of shape and color to create a flat plane through juxtapositions. Each has its own unique palate of color and form, which gives holistic cohesion to the individual work and together as a narrative a homogenous whole.
Tony Fitzpatrick’s ‘Infinite Wager’ is a more capricious cycle, using a multiplicity of visual puns- iconography of playing cards, astrological symbols, tarot cards, etc., in a collage-like manner creating unique compositions: “Moth of Clubs”, “The King of the Penny Poker”, etc., incorporated into a cycle, which is purely banal or high art. It is the nature of his collage (visual puns) and their relationships within the cycle that makes this high art.
Certainly the ultimate usurper of the everyday to fine art was Andy Warhol. The exhibition shows the silk-screen prints of the artist’s, not merely a pastiche of his work, but a specific cycle documenting prominent Jews from the twentieth-century. Albert Einstein, George Gershwin, Gertrude Stein, Golda Meir, Franz Kafka are but a few. This is the ultimate example in the exhibit of the strength of the cycle, here not only formal but ideological. Warhol, unlike many of his other recognizable works gives each individual portrait a varied, skewed and quilt-like coloring, each unique and seemingly fit to the individual. For example the Kafka portrait has fields of varied blues with a flash of yellow, where as the Stein portrait incorporates softer, pastel fields of hue.
The exhibition is one worth seeing, not merely for the purposes of viewing great artists such as Warhol or a Stella, but to examine and appreciate how each artist approaches a unique concept within a narrative context, and how the relationships of prints in the cycle are articulated. The strength of each can be seen and all may be appreciated as each are considered.

Garrett Adkinson
Sometimes art pieces speak to the viewer. Sometimes you speak to them. Here, in Garrett Adkinson’s exhibit there is a dramatic tension as the art object and the observer are faced one with another. In a manner like Rauchenberg whom has been an influence in Adkinson's work, art as object is placed here in a certain rawness which begs its “artness” to be recognized. It seems that through the density of the leather “canvas” the “artness” from within is pushing itself, thrusts itself, forces itself through the medium, towards the viewer who is left to accept or reject the object. This is a limited proximity whose density pushes and thrusts the limit from the space which it occupies. The uniformness of the cycle of analogous objects, all with like dimension and structure, yet each with its own unique sense of “voice” as it pushes from within, gives the nature of the objects an individuality with sensuousness of that working from within. Only by the amorphous smudges of paint on the exterior of the forms does the viewer reconcile that this is merely a lifeless piece of art.

Brandy Gunnell
Rarely in this cluttered world do we have the opportunity to stop and see a life which is truly uninhabited- an existential experience where spaces we are so used to from day to day without much noticing them, show us what they would be without us. In Brandy Gunnell’s cycle and video, we find one analogous form, a construction of smaller pyramids, together forming a larger-itself a reference to life gone by, history, man extinct. This structure is cannily placed in a laundry mat, a parking garage, a library, a corridor, but this is not Richard Estes’ humanless world, this is more stark and uncanny. This is life which not only is devoid of humans, but so empty, so long since past, that there is a sense of something like you feel at the end of “planet of the Apes”. Only in the video do we find some forms of life- a statue of the virgin, a praying mantis, a cobra- all images of a mystical nature which add an eerie quality to the evocation of memory and loss. Maybe one could discern from all of this the impermanence which we all share.

Sri Whipple
If you were to combine Barnum and Baily with Xaviera Hollander, you would find a very sterile version that what we find in Sri Whipple. Whipple graduated in Fine Arts at the university of Utah and has proven himself to be one of the most imaginative minds to come from that institution. A few words come to mind when viewing his work, and, let it be stated first: pornographic is not one of them because it is not. Thoughts running through my head as I was lured into these images: comical nightmare, gloriously garish, teasing but overtly sensual, graceful corporeal shapes, Disney meets Henry Fuseli, Minnie and Micky on crack! Lyrical and confrontational. There is no simple way to define Whipple’s work and his lucid imagination, but he confronts, compels, provokes, even defies (as in the overtly sexual use of Jean Fouquet’s more subtle treatment of his Madonna). His forms are undefinable, something of a Heironomous Bosh grotesque for the millennium. But however you find this display, you just might be dazzled by a luscious display of some other world which Whipple has created for us which entertains and provokes and is not easily forgotten.

The work of Frida Kahlo, artist from Mexico who is known as a surrealist, through her life-long relationship with Mexican artist Diego Rivera, and her tendency to express her inner turmoil through self portraits which are highly symbolic, has only been popularized in the last ten years. Since then, her image is seen frequently- commercially and through a mass of contemporary literature which attempts to make sense of an artist whose art is as complex as her personality- and in large measure- due to it.
Kahlo, although having lived in Paris and worked with Duchamp and Breton, did not consider herself surrealist . She inherited surrealist associations from the dream like symbolism she used although she states “I never painted my dreams, I painted my reality”. She has publically given little importance to her own art although Rivera consistently supported it and asserted its value and importance as modern art.

Kahlo’s work has a general resemblance to Mexican folk art- in particular, a resemblance to small votive pictures known as retables which devout Catholics consider sacred in their churches. More than that, much of her imagery mirrors traditional Madonnas revered since the middle ages. Like the Madonna images which are frequently eluded to, Kahlo’s images are highly iconic- frontal, formal, serene, reverent, confrontational. More so she is an icon herself -timeless and monumental. She is stoic in expressing the inexpressible- her inner battles due in part to a bus accident which impaired her for life, her intense relationship with Rivera, her status as a Mexican artist, and as a woman. Kahlo is as much a work of art, herself, as her paintings.
However, beyond the symbolism exposing her struggles, beyond the iconic images that have become so familiar contemporaneously- especially to women- we know remarkably little about the “real” Frida Kahlo. Not the tragic Mexican icon in the shadow of Rivera, but thoughts she had, the emotions she experienced, her passions, her desires, her weaknesses. We know about her suffering well from her work, but who was this human being who suffered so greatly and worked so profoundly?
The exhibit “Her Spirit is Stronger than angels: Frida Kahlo Though the lens of Nicolas Muray”, unlocks mystery, reveals another side of Kahlo, through a candid relationship and intimacy which Kahlo and Muray shared, which we, as her audience, hitherto have seen none of in her works. Nicolas Muray, Hungarian, came to America in 1913 to train as a photographer, opened a studio in Greemwich Village, New York City, and through his relationship with artist Miguel Covarrubias, met Kahlo in 1931 and began a relationship that would last a decade.
Twenty-four photographs (some displayed in the United Sates for the first time), intimate letters, as well as pre-Columbian artifacts displayed in glass cases, which appear in some of the photos ( a passion of Kahlos) compose the exhibit. We see photographs which range from several black and whites, some snap shot style, and some more formal. These formal ones, which allow the viewer to see Muray’s virtuosity as a photographer, have a technical execution which is astounding. They are pure, bold and bright- deep colors and contrasts which reflect the vibrancy of Mexico in Frida’s clothing, and there is a clarity which makes her eyes and skin radiate.
They look fresh and new, but the remarkable aspect of this exhibit, these photos, is that these images are seen through the eyes of Muray, someone she knew, trusted, confided in- loved: not some faceless nameless audience. Three of the most technically remarkable images: “Frida with Hand Earrings”, “Frida with Pink and Green Blouse”, “Frida with Blue Satin Blouse”, offer a glimpse of the woman, real and human who has humor, inquisitiveness, vulnerability, coyness, sensitivity, and who is as vibrant as her own country.
Through these images of Frida seen through Muray’s eyes we see someone very human, laughing, emotional, bold, sensitive, sincere, loving, and more honest than we have ever seen her. For one moment, we see her as she lets down her shroud of the tragic figure and she is exposed in all her wonderful vicissitudes, her liveliness and her humanity.

“Nick
I love you like I would an angel
You are a lillie of the valley in my life
I will never forget you, never, never
You are my whole life
I hope you will never forget this
Frida”
May 31, 1931

With the name Rembrandt van Rijn mentioned, certain connotations come to mind: “stuffy old master”, “someone from long ago with little or no importance”, “someone whose paintings are worth more than a 747.” Some may be familiar with his famous use of strong contrasts of light and dark (tenebrism), his mastery at portraits, maybe the Night Watch comes to mind or some other painting not given much attention to in an old gallery on a trip to some city in Europe. But most who know the name Rembrandt do not attach much importance to him and the works he created 350 years ago as relevant to society today. But maybe that doesn’t have to be so.
The LDS Church Art History Museum is running a show displaying 46 various small etchings completed by the artist at certain points in his career, gathered from the museum’s own collection, those at BYU and private lenders; etchings of a religious nature (something not common to the artist as he was a Dutch Protestant and the Protestants were adverse to images of a religious nature). But, as the exhibit reveals to us, these delightful pieces were near and dear to the artist and he created them regardless of the iconoclasism in Holland and represented his deep spirituality. They, despite their minuscule size, have a power and a simplicity and convey a full range of Rembrandt’s talents and a sensitivity which (arguably), is not as apparent in his larger works. There is much which can be learned by a careful viewing of these etching, reduced in their elements, and done at a more rudimentary level and because of this at times Rembrandt’s techniques are even more apparent in this simplicity.
As we have mentioned, tenebrism was something Rembrandt has been associated with throughout history (something seen earlier and probably influenced by Italian Baroque artist Caravaggio), but we can see it vividly here in the etchings, in the flourish of line and the quickness of handling. There is a full range of light and dark that we quickly become used to as we proceed throughout the exhibit. We see light emanating from Christ, divine light from above, natural lighting, lamps, candles, but what we do learn quickly is that Rembrandt’s use of lighting is not arbitrary. It is used symbolically. In the larger etching Christ on the Cross, there is a stark contrast between those figures on the right- Mary, the Magdalen, John the Baptist- bathed in light....those on the left- the Romans, Judas, etc., are cloaked in darkness. Such examples abound throughout the exhibit.
Something further which this exhibit is exceptional in revealing are the subsidiary figures. There are complicated groupings of figures such as peasants, merchants, beggars, old women, children, townspeople, etc., but all are done cursorily in a way (such as the Presentation at the Temple) which captures their simplicity, sensitivity, expression and pathos. More remarkable is the individuality with which these figures, in crowds, groups, literally thrown on top of each other, are given. The 21st century viewer may take this for granted, but in the early 1600's the idea of individuality in society, contrary to the general masses of the middle ages, was coming into being and Rembrandt’s treatment here is remarkable in this respect.
A small etching 3/4 of the way through the exhibit seems to capture what these etchings are about- the potency, the spirituality, the essence of these objects of veneration. This is a self portrait by Rembrandt. We see a man, unsure, humble, clothed in the garments of his century, whose treatment, like the other 45 etchings, handled with such sensitivity and care, invites us, like the other countless figures we have seen in the exhibit, to look closer, and we find a man whose deep pathos, spirituality and vision, gives our soul a bit of a boost. And we leave the exhibit into the open sunshine, back to our 21st century world, with a bit of gladness in our hearts and a little more air beneath our feet.

Bill Viola: Ascension

Bill Viola is not only one of the great video artists of our day but one of the truly great artists of our day. His installation at the Salt Lake City Art Center: “Ascension”, is an exhibition, while combining all of its elements, is not merely comprehensive or analytic but a true holistic experience. In Viola’s case, it is an experience into consciousness, both the conscious and the subconscious. In Viola’s words, these image “wash over you”, and the subject is “revealed on an unconscious level.” Bill Viola’s installation is a timeless narrative.
As one sits in the dark room, the first activity on the large video screen, out of the blackness is a cool blue followed by an underwater scene, not easily identifiable until the sudden plunge of a body from above shatters the darkness- immediately the screen is filled with a figure and a multitude of crystalline bubbles as the surface is broken.
Along with this anonymous figure, the viewer is drawn into this subterranean world, of sights and sounds. There is a serene quiet yet there are subtleties in sound produced in this underwater world, which lends an existential sensibility. We share the space along with this motionless figure, static and transcendent of his surroundings with no distraction than his suddenly felt self-conscious self. The figure seems almost comatose yet one feels the life, which he emanates in this environment.
There is no breath, no movement, and the viewer finds themselves at harmony with this body as he sinks slowly, watching this being sinking deeper into the darkness. The figure, in a cocoon of the crystalline bubbles of crisp light and incandescent blue, ascends once more, not breaking the surface, and then once again descends slowly to the unknown.
He is motionless yet he and we are in a state of flux. Temporality is suspended, yet not temporality of mind. The figure once again ascends to the top of the plane, never encroaching beyond the limits dividing the outside world, and then begins the final descent, ostensibly towards the subconscious. Slowly, with some anxiety from the viewer, the figure transgresses the depths and sinks from sight, below the frame of the imagery.
The viewer is left with an uncanny absence and recognition of their own consciousness- either conscious or subconscious. The frame is phased out and the viewer finds themselves, with neither surface nor depth, with the vague blue that initiated the sequence…and then blackness. The journey is complete and the viewer is left to pure contemplation.
Viola’s exposition is complete, but the viewer must ask, “What is the title ‘Ascension’ to mean? Certainly the figure descended into the abyss.” It may be that Viola’s inquiry is not to explore that, which we descend to on a conscious level, but that to which we ascend to on a subconscious one.

An ode To James Joyce


Speaking to myself, I found a strange impulse to castrate myself onto the ground, lying there for only a few moments as birds started surrounding me till I was lost and found my way by a lady in white who took me by the hand and I did not know where and I found myself being led by a another in someonelses arms and someonelse’s warmth and caressed as her skin melds with your and the passion you feel as you see and cannot touch grows with every step, every moment till she is lost forever and there is no place back just move forward yet who could compare alove so grand that lasted for a flickering of a snowflake and leave you into a dry desert with no water of any sustenance, why would this love so divine leave you in such a place of desolation yet a passing ship threw over its bow a boat upon which you were pulleyed up and made a merry time with the sailors who found the Irish fascinating and love to hear the folk songs of the celtic so they were sung but I left was I in a desolation, inside our can of beer as the sailors walked away humming their Irish tunes just learned and who were so merry yet here you I was trapped in a bottle until I remembered that you can see the universe in the bottom of a glass of beer, so I traveled to a planet called is a core and this land bore fruits of such color and succulence, ass was well with the strange yet beautiful creates who became my friends, with their feathers and shapes and color and majesty in their being creatures of the planet yet existing as one singular unit tilll I found that partridge was not to be eaten so I found myself back in the bottom of the bottle again till some sweed drank me and I followed the pathe to the human heart where I found not the universe but a sea of calmness a copper reddish pinkish gold the sea of love where all dwell and prostate on the ground once more I felt myself beckoned to the sea of love and I found an old dingy lying on the barren shores of the sea in its colour and hazel sky and found myself crossing to the center and I had found my center with leaders who knew my journey jet led me to believe otherwise, as they looked back to insure my safety and I found myself in the sea of love, I found myself.

It is rare to have an individual of Professor Hickey’s talent and prestige in Salt Lake and it is certain that it will be well worth the time of any individual interested in arts and culture in general to attend this event. Professor Hickey’s list of achievements is quite exceptional. Some of the accomplishments of Hickey’s and honors that he has received are: Executive Director of Art in America Magazine, editor to the Village Voice and Art Issues Magazine. He has contributed to publications such as Rolling Stone, Art News, Art in America, Art Forum, Interview, Harpers Magazine, Vanity Fair, Nest, The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times. Hickey is visiting professor at University Texas Austin, University of California Santa Barbara, Otis Parsons Institute Los Angeles, the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University and University of Nevada Los Vegas. He has been the subject of personal profiles in the Los Angeles Times, and airs regularly on PBS and NPR. He also owns several art galleries, written numerous books, and has been the recipient of the 2001 Mac Arthur Foundation Award.
The first thing one learns when meeting Professor Hickey is that he has a genuine love and passion for art. Only an individual with his tenacity could have had such an impact in the art world, and have had so many profound and interesting experiences.
When asked about how he analyzes art he says that he has no preconceived notions; he approaches each work he sees with an open mind. He suggests that developing a value structure for yourself, the viewer, is the best way to see art, focusing your own ideas and seeing works with an individual perspective. Concerning his views on public art- this being very relevant in our community- he mentions the controversy which surrounds works such as Richard Serra’s Tilted Arc in New York, or the Washington Vietnam Veterans War Memorial controversy. To such controversy, such as that concerning the Rodin exhibit at Brigham Young University, one must not be afraid of quarrels and speak freely about your beliefs. Finally, when questioned about the nature of art in the future, he simply suggests that “it is not important, not a critical issue at this point.”
Dave Hickey has contributed to the art community prodigiously throughout his expansive and vibrant career. His profound insights of art, the extent of his contribution to the pool of knowledge in the discourse and his sincere love of art have made him a fundamental and definitive voice in the art world for several generations.

WRITING WHILE HEARING ZOO

I have much to say about my hero Michael Nyman. One of the first things I loved about his music when I secumbed to it in 1993 was the spirit, the energy and realism which captured the essence of London. One feels like one is in a taxi rushing through the busy streets at night, turning the corners rapidly and having to make an abrupt stop underneath the lights of Charring Cross. So since then, since collecting vast amounts of his music, listening to it, devouring it, relishing it, savoring it, developing a taste for his more avant-garde: The Kiss, The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat, Time will Pronounce, Aspects of Beauty, etc. While my love affair with Nyman has progressed, in certain bodies of his work I have acquired a “Coplandesque” essence to much of his music, visions of the Amarican frontier, and being an American and an Anglophile, I do not like it. I know much of Nyman’s inspirations: the baroque, early music, visual art, cinema, eastern music, history, etc., yet I have never heard the word Copland mentioned in all of my readings, and since that aesthetic has developed in my psyche, tarnishing even the most avant-garde works and I cannot loose it and it is very frustrating. So I want to discover Nyman’s true aesthetic, possibly that which I heard when I first encountered it in London. Now, after years of listening, I seek to reassess my Nyman aesthetic and readjust my thinking so I may enjoy his music as I once did and have a cab ride through the east end while in Provo Utah. So I present to myself a continuum from the very “Coplandesque" The Claim, to the less “Coplandesque" in order: Ravenous; Double Concerto for sax and cello; Gattica; The Suit and the Photograph; Libertine; Time will Pronounce; Drowning; Draughsmands contract; Carrington; Piano, End of the Affair; and even less the experimental and often cocophanic works such as ZOO, Caprices; The CTHWAHL; Noises, sounds; The Kiss; The Man and the Hat; Noises Sounds Prospero's Books; and finally Wonderland. It is with Wonderland that I find my way back to Nyman, his aesthetic that has led to a 15 year obsession. I wander the streets of Soho in Wonderland from my bed. I still hear Copland, but this essence evokes thoughts of landscape, “frontiers" Nyman is exploring just as Copland did, but not necessarily the American. This expanse, the landscape, is London, the untamed city, cocophany of the crossroads of the world: the wealthy and the poor, the mania and the calm, the individual and the masses, the storm and the quiet, the despair and the frenzy of boisterousness, the underground and the double decker, the to and fro, the coming and going, the jubilation and degradation, the poor and the rich, the benefactor and the bitch, the townies and the fashionistas. Charing Cross, Islignton, Angel, Holliway Road, Turnpike lane, Bank, Tower Bridge, Tottenham Court Road, (especially Tottenham court Road where I discovered Nyman), Leichester Square, Tuffnel Park, etc……………………………………….Scape, scope, landscape of London………the physical and the sublime, but wherever Nyman goes the landscape goes. And I will follow in my cab of dreams. London is so far away, but still within accesible as I play the Water Dances.