Comments on: Roundtable on MoMA’s de Kooning Retrospective

By: Lucy Baker

Lucy Baker — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 22:07:22 +0000

I’ve always thought DeKooning was overated and blah,to my mind he was never what I’d call an “exciting” painter, and I felt he was cynical if even angry with women, in the women series, which he portrays wmen in a beasyly manor.(I always found insulting,though of course some women are, and he had the right to paint women however he wished, though if I’d been Elaine DeKooning , I would have clocked him on the head! Lol!). As far as his painting technique,it is the first one we discover at our frst attempts to paint, and not original even in the slightest. His colors for the most part are uninteresting, boring for the most part with only a very few exceptions.I never could figure out what is was anyone liked about his art.Except that the public has a strong preference for what is known as “painterly painting” and they say he was charismatic , funny (I’m not surprised about Gertrude Stein).And his sculpture reminiscent of human waste products.I am in the minority ,and those who adore him think I am crazy, but time will tell, as I believe he’ll fall by the wayside , a la Ben Shahn(remember him? He was Mr. Popularity!) and a slew of other artists who never really “had it” in the talent department. Here’s another name going back to Van Gogh’s time, was the most popular artist adored by the critics, Anton Mauve, Van Gogh’s cousin

By: Diane Thodos

Diane Thodos — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 22:32:46 +0000

I have to hand it to David Cohen – he set the conversation on the right track particularly regarding his comment differentiating Richard Hamilton’s ironic approach to expressionism from de Kooning’s sensibility, and the grounds for it. I am not understanding why the Richard Hamilton was brought into the conversation by Ivan Gaskell. Cohen also has some good sharp perceptions regarding de Kooning’s late work and a sound critique of Minimalism with its “denial of facture and improvisation.” Less has indeed proven to be less.

I find it fairly alarming that many of the comments by others on the panel muse and meander into areas and comparisons that do not tack to the visual or expressive point of de Kooning’s work, for example when Joan Waltemath says: “Pictorial issues, largely unconsidered in discourse since the anti-formal epoch, are complex and illogical.” Seeing de Kooning through a filter of theoretical discourse is to deny the expressive point of his work. It shows how far the art world has abstractedly meandered away from comprehensibility, and the desire to meaningfully communicate about human life and feeling.

By: Charles Zuppardi

Charles Zuppardi — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 04:45:14 +0000

You stand there, at a remove. Flies bite you. It’s sundown at Louse Point. Willem is old and staring at the water. You recall paint that looks like a mixture of pigment and Mazola oil. You remember damp ratty lofts at Coenties Slip near was it Johns or Rauschenberg? or too much to drink at the White Horse or Cedar and your 17 and paint had a smell and galleries were small and you measured the canvases to get the perfect proportion that Bill had.
And fuck all to the rest of it ’cause it won’t help you. You know you just have to wait for the wheel to spin again and you can’t wait can you?

By: Brian Rutenberg

Brian Rutenberg — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 20:14:24 +0000

I really appreciate Ivan’s remarks which challenged my thinking however the Hamilton reproduction is such an odd hiccup in an otherwise terrific exchange. The Citizen certainly does not contain the kind of “expressive” mark making that we associate with de Kooning. Hamilton is using paint in service of an idea and is engaged in image making, a noun to de Kooning’s verb. Moreover I find his concept (protest against confinement) rather obvious and its execution in paint quite vapid and I do value Hamilton’s work in general. A bird image of Morris Graves speaks just as well about rebellion from confinement.

In this example Hamilton is representing abstraction which is more about style and makes no sense in a conversation about de Kooning. Perhaps it is a question of the artist’s chosen medium. The obdurate properties of oil paint are perfectly suited to the conceptual rigor of de Kooning’s work but not at the expense of it. His rage to live and make things is right there suspended in the stuff, the process embodies the idea it doesn’t illustrate it. A painting like Door to the River is redolent with hierarchies and manipulations of scale and space that momentarily subvert and destruct the way we see the world. For me it is far more political because it is far more personal.

Why is solipsism trivial? Of course the act of making a painting (abstracted or representational) is a totally self-absorbed act, even painters like Leon Golub, John Graham, George Tooker, or Stanley Spencer who address large social and political issues head on are successful because they command the solipsistic properties of paint, and they thrive in it; same is true of contemporary painters like Susanna Coffey and Suzan Frecon. The ideas, no matter how universal or “urgent”, are condensed into the fingerprint of a private moment between two people, the artist and the viewer. This is what painting does best. I think the Hamilton image would be just as potent as a photograph with a real prisoner and actual fecal matter or even a video, it would certainly disseminate its message to a broader audience. I am not convinced why Citizen needs to be a painting? With de Kooning there is no space between stuff and idea. When there is a space it is almost always a lousy painting.

I agree with Ivan about de Kooning’s “Woman” and their lack of control.

David, Sickert also said “drawing is about captivity and painting is about freedom”. I wonder what he would have thought about the Dutchman?

By: Brian Rutenberg

Brian Rutenberg — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 13:50:28 +0000

This was a fabulous read.

By: Stephen Maine

Stephen Maine — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 03:36:44 +0000

Scott, thank you for your note. I agree that the problem of what language to bring to the discussion of an artist’s work is crucial, but I’m not sure that the moment of creative impulse is where to look for it. In my experience that “ongoing dialogue” includes many more moments of repose, of reflection on the significance of what one has done with brush in hand. De Kooning was guided by intuition, for sure, but that intuition was steeped in painting’s history.

Yes, we missed the booze thing. And we missed the humor, too. In 1963 de Kooning told David Sylvester that while he was working on the early-50’s Women he was thinking of Gertrude Stein, which is hilarious.

By: Scott Kahn

Scott Kahn — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 03:21:03 +0000

A fascinating discussion, especially the idea of “freedom”, which is crucial to every artist, no matter whatever their mode of expression. For me, the value of an artist’s retrospective is to follow the development of the artist’s work. It’s akin to reading a biography. No matter what one’s preferences, it’s definitely worth looking at the entire body of work in a chronological fashion. It would be a mistake for curatorial manipulation. Let the work speak for itself; let the artist speak for himself. There was some reference in the discussion to the influence of assistants in the late paintings, and yet there was no discussion of the influence that alcohol also played in DeKooning’s life … and it’s possible effect on his work. For give me all, but there was too much discussion on formal considerations which I highly doubt were right on the surface of his mind as he created his paintings. These are aspects of the work which art historians are interested in … with hindsight. The organic development of an artist’s work happens over time and unconsciously. It’s an ongoing dialogue of the artist with himself. This, to me, is what was so apparent, and compelling about this exhibition. Not always even, but the strength of a singular voice was always evident … charging forward from beginning to end, like life itself.