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What exactly is the nature of what we (meaning the collective “us” as society at large) now call art? Frank Stella chose to make this the subject of his talk at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts on the afternoon of Wednesday, April 24th, 2002, here in downtown Copenhagen.
Through the serendipitous loss of most of his slide presentation en route from Singapore, Stella was forced to deliver his points with a limited number of visual examples in hand. But this actually worked in his favor, though I suspect that the large crowd of young Danish art students may have been there to see a visual retrospective of Stella's own work. Stella began by saying he would talk about three things: who he thought was the greatest artist of the 20th century and why; how artists shouldn't communicate with a client; and what exactly he considers to be the key dilemma of contemporary art.
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Hans Hoffman
Gloria Mundi (1964)
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Hans Hoffman
Goliath (1966)
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| Hans Hofmann, a painter born near Munich (1880, Germany-1966, USA), is Stella’s choice as the greatest artist of the modern age. I say it this way because Stella qualified his choice by specifying the period after World War II as the modern period. He then explained the source of his admiration for Hofmann. In this artist, he proposes, we find the bond between European and American art at the half-century mark fully cemented. For Stella, Hofmann's work has an impact like the "force of a bomb."
Two important Hofmann paintings were used to make Stella's case; "Gloria Mundi" (1964) and "Goliath" (1966), both painted near the closing of Hofmann's long career as, arguably, the most influencial teacher of the Abstract Expressionist movement in the United States. Hofmann's composition and color are the engine and fuel which force the expansion of two dimensions into a fractional exploration of space within the picture plane. The color alone activates the surface and dispels the conventional perception of volume. Stella defines this as 2.5 dimensions, a fractional perception of spatial delineation. Through Hofmann's exploration of the hidden possibilities inherent on the painted surface, he made it possible to go beyond the visual deconstruction of cubism to a new, colorful, and exciting expression of abstraction: a re-defined dimensional plane.
This, according to Stella, is modern "exalted" art.
Stella then took a pause from his didactic presentation to read a letter from himself to his corporate patron in South Korea. This was his example of what not to do/say as an artist doing business, and he read it expressly for the benefit of the entry-level fine-art professionals in the audience. Of course, his tongue was firmly planted in his cheek, but I'm not entirely sure the Danes got that. The letter protested the intention of the client to banish Stella's very large outdoor steel sculpture from the corporate headquarters proper; the owner's plan to dismantle it; and his lame assertion that he would reassemble the work at some other location. Stella's letter was very funny, and certainly that humor was lost on the Korean client. But I am sure the recipient recognized the terms "liability," "spring-loaded," and "injuries." It seems that the piece was so constructed as to make the inept dismantling of it a potentially explosive exercise. I must give the artist credit. Those who wish to destroy his work as an act of cultural vandalism must reckon with Stella. Perhaps the U.S. government should not have abandoned art as a calling card when the Cold War was declared over.
Stella then returned to the more serious matter of spirituality in art. This he prefaced with definitions to clarify the terrain. Art is either "exalted" or "ordinary." For example, "genre art" can be easily classified as "ordinary art." But "exalted" -- what does this term mean? It is obviously meant to identify a religious overtone, but to do so does address the credibility of Stella's context. To exalt is to raise up to a greater power and character. Power and Character. Stella gave examples. Abstract Expressionism is "exalted." Pop art is "ordinary." Stella went so far as to call Pop Art "oedipal," a classic expression of the son's wish to destroy the father in order to gain the object of his desire. (Would that object be Warhol's idea of fame?) In today's art world, according to Stella, the chief problem is that ordinary art has been hyped and promoted into the place once rightly held by exalted art.
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Giovanni Bellini
St. Francis in the Desert
(c. 1480)
Agnolo Bronzino
Portrait of Lodovico Capponi
(c. 1550)
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Stella showed slides of some very beautiful paintings, from both the distant and recent past, to illustrate "exalted" art. The modernist works were familiar to most everyone . . . who hasn't seen that Motherwell black painting reproduced many times before? Then we were asked to look at pictures by Bronzino and Bellini. These paintings I know intimately, having spent many occasions standing before them, in awe, at the Frick Collection in New York. Giovanni Bellini's "St. Francis in the Desert," painted in late 15th-century Venice, is itself a study of the experience of exaltation. Here is the moment when the Saint receives the "stigmata" as he stands in a fantastic landscape of God's earthly kingdom. Bellini's pictural plane operates simultaneously on several levels, traveling back and forth within three dimensions of plastic space . . . even lingering, perhaps, in Hofmann's 2.5 dimension . . . while divulging to the viewer the existence of another dimension wholly inexplicable in the material world.
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The Bronzino portrait of the Medici court page Lodovico Capponi, painted around 1550, captivates us with its blatant sensuality. Here we have no mystical story, but rather an explanation. We understand the artist's explanation via the luxuriance of colors and textures, and the sublime composition. A young aristocrat and his world is explained by all this. And our response to his character is controlled by the subtle, basic power of color and composition, in the simulation of the third dimension on the two-dimensional plane.
The Hofmann paintings did not come across with the same visual punch as the Renaissance masterpieces. In the absence of historical and pictorial information to latch on to, photos of paintings simply cannot stand as satisfactory instruments of communication . These works need to be seen in the flesh to be understood fully, and I wager that most of the people in the room that day have not actually seen any of the artworks up on the screen. I had a bit of an advantage in this regard. But I still needed to give Hofmann more of a "look see" to understand Stella's choice, and to assess Hofmann in relation to the company in which he was placed.
I found excellent digital reproductions of the two Hofmann paintings online, along with jpegs of the two Italian masterpieces. I placed all four on my screen and began to collage them. The surprise was the compatibility between them. The colors and compositions could be cut and pasted on and into each other; remarkable harmonies could be made, parallel lines of composition and color began to emerge. Time, style and content were not important. The process was . . . and still is . . . the underlying aspect which marks the beginning of exaltation. Without that hard work and rigorous discipline, "ordinary" is the predictable result, no matter how high the aspiration.
Exaltation is thus an instant response. It does not require lengthy written intellectual analysis or a wad of trenchant press releases confirming the status of the art. Your eye is the only passport you needed. Stella made his significant point by saying: "Spirit is always apprehendable in great paintings."
Stella finished his talk by running down a partial list of what he considers not to be art today. I present the list, as best I can, under the circumstances, as the following: advertising / animation / cad cam / design / display / illustration / music video / performance / photography / porno / typing.
This last statement clearly disheartened some of the audience . . . and maybe gutted the Royal Academy's curriculum, for all I know. But one can see his point of view. For Stella, it is not the medium that is the message, but the art with which the message is delivered that matters. Making art is much harder than learning to manipulate any particular media. And Stella knows of what he speaks; he is a real artist, after all.
Postscript
Afterwards, in the company of my colleague, Chris McShane, Public Affairs Officer of the U.S. Embassy, I had the good fortune to meet up with Stella and share a quick drink before we all moved on to the next Copenhagen art-world event. We three chatted amicably, despite his obvious travel fatigue and a certain world-weariness that must come with the territory. I must confess that I milked the opportunity, and hope I didn't annoy this lovely man. He talked about his dismay at the way our museums have become the instrument of commercial interests, depriving the professional (such as himself) and the public of a substantial experience in art appreciation -- interfering with in-depth learning from the objects under their custodianship.
I pointed out that, with the Guggenheim's interior currently painted black as a decorator's backdrop, the spirit of Frank Lloyd Wright might well come back to haunt them. Stella joked about his kids, wishing they would venture beyond the boundaries of city life which he regularly escapes at his upstate horse farm. Together we walked through the side streets of old Copenhagen to a special gallery reception, and there we parted company. Stella said he would stay on an extra day in Copenhagen just to walk around alone, so he could see this place -- for the first time -- and enjoy its beauty. I hope he had a great day.
To be continued . . .
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Picture captions and credits:
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| Top left: Hans Hofmann, "Gloriamundi," 1963. Oil on canvas, 60 -1/8 x 52 inches University of California, Berkeley Art Museum. Gift of the Artist. Copyright University of California, Berkeley Art Museum. Photographed for the UC Berkeley Art Museum by Benjamin Blackwell. |
Top right: Hans Hofmann, "Goliath," 1960. Oil on canvas, 84 -1/8 x 60 inches. University of California, Berkeley Art Museum. Gift of the Artist. Copyright University of California, Berkeley Art Museum. Photographed for the UC Berkeley Art Museum by Benjamin Blackwell. |
| Middle left: Giovanni Bellini (c. 1430–1516, Venice, Italy), "St. Francis in the Desert." Painted c. 1480. Tempera and oil on panel. Copyright The Frick Collection, New York. |
Middle right: Agnolo Bronzino (1503–1572, Florence, Italy), "Lodovico Capponi." Painted probably between 1550 and 1555. Oil on panel. Copyright The Frick Collection, New York. |
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Unless otherwise indicated, all text and images in this
newsletter © 2002-2006 by Colleen Thornton.
All rights reserved.
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