Enduring Meaning in an Old Medium - WordPress.com · Siegel joked that the audience was likely full of painters before introducing her guests: poet and art critic Raphael Rubinstein;

Enduring Meaning in an Old Mediumby Patrick Neal on January 18, 2013

The panel, from left to right: Raphael Rubinstein, Merlin James, Dana Schutz, Richard Shiff, and KatySiegel(all photos by the author for Hyperallergic unless otherwise noted)

Despite cold, rainy weather, a large audience turned out for “… towards meaning in a pluralpainting world,” a panel discussion moderated by Katy Siegel at Hunter College’s MFA building.The room was filled with young artists and MFA candidates eager to participate, and the placeswelled to standing room only. Siegel explained that the modus operandi for the evening wasdriven by questions from and conversations had with students, and that it was only necessary tocross the hall or walk downstairs to view artwork from the Hunter MFA Thesis Fall 2012exhibition.

The press release for the event had said that participants would

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… discuss whether the current plurality in painting dilutes meaning, or if it is just acase of many people doing many interesting things. How do we advance meaninggiven the plethora of dispersed, diverse, yet all seemingly functional approaches? Isthe basic idea of advancement even a useful paradigm anymore?

Siegel joked that the audience was likely full of painters before introducing her guests: poet andart critic Raphael Rubinstein; author and professor Richard Shiff; and painters Dana Schutzand Merlin James.

The crowd at the Hunter College event

Siegel pointed out right away that the focus on painting at this event was noteworthy. Similarevents were more likely to discuss topical ideas surrounding art in general. Shiff mentioned thatwe don’t see panels on the state of sculpture or installation art and that talking about painting hasbecome an avatar for talking about art in a larger sense. The panelists agreed that there’s still alot of anxiety about painting as a medium, the “dumb blonde of the art world,” as one audiencemember called it. Schutz mentioned her frustration that this way of thinking persists. Sherecounted watching visitors in a gallery do a quick check of everything three-dimensional in theroom, ignoring a painting on a wall and avoiding the slower, more subjective reading it required.

This led into a discussion of how photography, film, installation, and art practices involvingrelational aesthetics and social media tend to be more overtly political and are often givenprominence at biennials today. Painting is often positioned as a foil to this kind of art. Shiff told a

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story of walking through the contemporary wing of the Museum of Modern Art and reading somany wall labels that said a work “challenges the assumptions of painting,” leading him towonder what these so-called assumptions of painting are. Rubinstein said that a lot of art is takenin quickly and “comes with its interpretation pre-packaged,” the meaning already decided by theartist. Because of this, viewers may pass over a painting, which requires time spent examiningthe picture’s internal logic.

R. H. Quaytman, “iamb, Chapter 12 (lateralinhibitions in the perceptual field)” (2008), silkscreenink, gesso on wood, 52 3/8 x 32 3/8 inches (courtesyMiguel Abreu Gallery)

A consensus emerged that painting’s intrinsic qualities, as an infinitely plastic medium, are whatgive it strength. Shiff mentioned how close painting is to thinking, a very immediate process that ishand and body oriented but can also assimilate other technologies. Because its mechanics are sosimple, painting allows for tremendous inventive freedom, and may for that reason be spawningso many of the hybrid offerings we have today. He mentioned R.H. Quaytman as an example ofa painter maintaining an ongoing historical dialogue while broaching new ground as well.Likewise, James mentioned the artist Soutine, whose work could be perceived as political, but

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those passions are subsumed into the warp and weft of his paint handling.

Siegel brought the panel back to the central question of what’s at stake for painters today, sayingthat students often express a sense of loss that painting has vanquished its progressiveness andtranscendental qualities. “Has pluralism created an atomization that’s done away with a collectivemeaning?” she asked. The participants brought up modernist art and criticism, when a union ofartists and writers worked exclusively around the tenets of movements like Color Field andMinimalism. They agreed that doctrinaire credos are a thing of the past, but that the real energygenerated by small groups, such as graduate programs or artist-created forums, has value.Siegel mentioned the creative synergy of Frank O’Hara and his circle, but the question remainedof how to tie the aesthetic interests of a specific community to the larger art world. Rubinsteinmentioned that we no longer work toward some sort of “teleological endpoint,” that there are a lotof genres today, the way Hollywood has Westerns, sci-fi, film noir, etc.

In regard to writing about painting, Siegel broughtup the so-called “crisis in criticism” diagnosed during the last decade. She described thedifficulty of providing focused literary material to young artists eager to enter into a discourse onpainting. The conversation turned toward the need to refocus written attention on the scrutiny ofartworks themselves. James spoke about the New Criticism, expounded by figures like I.A.Richards and Cleaneth Brooks, as a possible idea for where to go from here. Those criticsperformed close readings of poetry, concentrating solely on the formal properties of a given piece

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without being didactic. Rubinstein said a poem, rather than an art review, can sometimes bettercapture the “unspoken phenomenology” involved in looking at a painting. The panel singled outthe translator Edward Snow and the painter Andrew Forge as exceptional artists who havewritten about art.

Rubinstein, who has previously written about the crisis in art criticism, said he now believesthis crisis is waning. Speaking to young writers and artists, he gets the feeling that criticismdoesn’t need to go through the tortured self-examination of the past several years. Newtechnologies allow faster access to sources and have created novel ways to share information,such as blogs and social media. He added that some of the best criticism is done by artists citingDonald Judd and Frank Stella, and expressed a desire to see more artists devote time to writingabout their chosen medium.

A question from the audience at the end of the evening squared the circle — the asker remarkedthat painting is best when it has some pressure placed on it, whereas “right now it feels soft andtreated as an allegory for all art.” Shiff reasserted the independence of the painting medium byway of a breakdown of the big arguments of the last century. From 1900 to 1960, painting waseither representational or abstract. By the ’70s, the question had become, “is painting dead?”partly because of the work of Judd, Minimalism, and the serious attention given to photography.The last five decades have homed in on the nature of perception, i.e. temporality throughpainting, how we perceive a figure, and the difference between reading and mark making. Shiffreminded the audience that these were often academic arguments, and that through all of thedicussions, “painting just kept going.”

“… towards meaning in a plural painting world,” a panel discussion moderated by Katy Siegel,was held at the Hunter College MFA building (450 west 41 st, Times Square, Manhattan) onFriday, January 11 at 7:30pm.

Tagged as: Dana Schutz, Hunter College, Katy Siegel, Merlin James, New Criticism,painting, Raphael Rubinstein, Richard Shiff

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Enduring Meaning in an Old Medium - WordPress.com · Siegel joked that the audience was likely full of painters before introducing her guests: poet and art critic Raphael Rubinstein;