Charles Giuliano is a Boston based artist, curator and critic. He is a
contributing editor of Art New England, and Nyartsmagazine, and the director of
exhibitions for The New England School of Art and Design at Suffolk University. Recent
issues of Maverick may be found at Retro Rocket.Com and East Boston.Com. He is represented
by Flatfiles Gallery in Chicago, and the Lyman-Eyer Gallery in Boston and Provincetown.
Catalogue: 80 Pages: Essays by Joseph D. Ketner,
Lynn M. Herbert (interview), and Gregory Volk, Foreword, Marti Mayo and Ketner
A large, bare, stainless steel tree, "Bluff," is currently
installed in Central Park, in New York City, as a site specific piece included in the
current version of the Whitney Biennial. Either strolling through the Park, or visiting
numerous galleries and museums, it is becoming routine but always stunning and mesmerizing
to encounter the intriguing works by the relatively young (born 1966) experimental,
eccentric, and, arguably, psychologically tormented artist, Roxy Paine.
In addition to exhibitions at Ronald Feldman Gallery, in the past year, I
encountered one of the sculpture extruding machines in London in an exhibition juxtaposing
contemporary artists amid the bric a brac and clutter of the venerable and odd Victoria
and Albert Museum, Give and Take. A field of trompe l’ oeil mushrooms and earth was
included in the notable P.S. 1 exhibition, Greater New York, (2000). Now there is this
major exhibition of works on view in the new Lois Foster Gallery of the Rose Art Museum.
There can be little doubt as to why curators, critics and the general
public are intrigued by the works of this artist. Seemingly, he can be adapted to any
theme or theory concocted by the whim and speculation of a thoughtful and engaged
individual. There are endless and fascinating connections to be made. Place him into the
context of all of the artists who have experimented with the notion of the machine as an
object in itself or as a means of fabrication of an art object. His painting, drawing and
sculpture producing devices serve as literal illustrations, cut from the whole broad cloth
of the seminal Walter Bengamin essay, the very foundation of post modernist theory,
"The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction." Then there are the
meticulously crafted objects that embody the essence of the discussion of simulacra.
You can go anywhere and say just about anything about this artist. Or, at
least make it sound interesting. What a delight. But I will defer to my more learned
colleagues for that philosophical deconstruction.
Reading the catalogue, particularly the interview with Herbert, proved to
be quite surprising. There was information that was never implied or intuited just by
looking at the work itself. This indeed evokes the ancient critical debate as to the role
and relevance of biography as a litmus for interpretation. But it was fascinating to learn
that he grew up in bland McLean, Virginia. Yes, that McClean, Virginia. Ran away from
home. Became a Dead Head. Took lots of drugs, leading to heroin and cocaine. Never got
along with art teachers. And from this concoction of drugs, sex and rock ‘n’
roll evolved into one of the most original and inventive artists of his generation. I hope
no art students are reading this as it is not to be reproduced as a formula for art world
success. Lots of folks who go this route don’t end up in the Whitney Biennial. They
just get fried.
Yes I feel his paine. Been there, done that (minus the hard drugs). But I
never would have guessed this from the works themselves. So then, how do these seeming
disparate elements of information congeal.
One aspect is the surreal, hallucinatory if you will, nature of the
vision. These robotic machines that make art. The incredible surreal complexity of
programming and building them. But no more intellectually complex than playing Exquisite
Corpse, or the various techniques that Max Ernst, Matta, and through them, Pollock used to
free themselves from the tyranny of the hand and mind to create a work of work. Then there
are the exquisite and labor intensive trompe l’oeil objects. Not of something
conventionally beautiful, but walls covered with AnamitaVirosa mushrooms, one of the most
deadly of all species. The implied irritation of Poison Ivy Field, kept safe from
infectious contact by being encased in its own vitrine. And, Crop, a plot of heroin
producing poppies in various stages of growth. All of these works meticulously crafted and
painted like Harvard’s collection of Glass Flowers, or specimens in a science museum.
The obsessive compulsive nature and dedication of crafting such precise and delicate
objects. Some kind of far out trip man. Wiggy.
Then those incredible machines slowly and methodically making paintings,
drawings and sculptures. Just what are we looking at? Is it the machine, the entire
apparatus, as a kind of performance art piece? Or the resultant object? The minimalist,
white, layered "painting" and its relationship to the monochrome as it has
evolved from Malevich? Or those colorful blobs of dripped resin that may be regarded as
sculptures? Undoubtedly these end products are sold and marketed and for good money,
avidly sought after, one might think. Why not. The artist has to support his habits.
It is also implied in the interview and essays that the artist is finding
his way out of the period of drug dependency. When he was making Crop (Poppies) the artist
told Herbert, "…it was one of those periods of my life that was hell. I was
working feverishly on it and started getting into cocaine. And I was playing basketball
and broke my foot. I was basically trapped in this studio as it was difficult to get
around. So I was doing coke and making leaf after leaf after leaf. The level of detail on
that piece is pretty insane."
The bare trees, for example, seem to be more "healthy" objects
as they imply no psychedelics or narcotics. They are also stunning but somewhat bleak,
cold, barren objects. Perhaps this is a more chilling and difficult, raw and naked view of
a world stripped of its vegetation. Reduced to a skeletal essence. Not propped up with Les
Fleurs du mal. The flowers stripped of their colors, reduced to a steely essence. But the
survivors of the period of delusion and fantasy, enduring. Manet. It remains. They
survive. In them every day is fall and winter after the delusion of summer and youth. But,
I wax poetic. Have I the right? It is, after all, some other dude’s trip.
Those machine are so ripe with associations. They make me think of Chaplin
in Modern Times. The Little Tramp sucked into the machine. The factory and worker as a
Marxist analogy. Or Kafka and that macabre machine that etched slogans into the backs of
victims with a needle. The self destructing machines of Jean Tinguely. Or the spin art
carnival games of the 60s. Damien Hirst has revisited that theme. The mechanical devices
of Rebecca Horn. The moire machines of Duuchamp and the various inventions of
Rauschenberg. Seen in this context there is nothing new, original or unique in these
devices and concepts of Roxy Paine.
But, ah, they are sublime. That is quite enough. Today, perhaps, there is
no originality. No need. It has all been done. But we do crave artists with such
commitment, passion and perversion. In this regard, perhaps, Paine is more to be pitied
than censured. No Paine. No Gain.
