It is a perennially woolly question: What makes a work of art stand up and stand out? This query came to mind while reading two recent reviews by Pulitzer prize winning art critic Sebastian Smee in the Washington Post. He veers in two very different directions, from a carefully articulated dissatisfaction with the Cecily Brown show at the Metropolitan Museum to his lavish exaltation of Mark Bradford’s exhibit at Hauser & Wirth.
I was in agreement with the general arc of both reviews, particularly regarding the extraordinary visual pleasure that Bradford affords. A taste of that is captured in Smee’s description of Bradford’s recent topographic mastery:
And how does it look?
.
Soft, like worn velvet. Threadbare, like a sofa spilling its stuffing. Exposed, like a stripped-back billboard. Singed, scalded, soaked, like a warehouse after a midnight fire. Richly colored, monochromatic. Expansive, congested. Coherent, unkempt.
Detail of a Mark Bradford paintings at Hauser & Wirth
What a visceral description of Bradford’s exquisitely concatenated surfaces! I resonate with these words and his respect for Bradford’s astounding visuality. But when Smee delves into the content aspect in Bradford’s work—a style often referred to as “social abstraction”—our views diverge.
Yes, Bradford’s work does incorporate elements that are political, social and personal. References can be found to AIDS, Hurricane Katrina, the economically dispossessed. Content has a foothold in his oeuvre, and he has incorporated it seamlessly into his visual language.
The tension between content and abstraction is a longstanding art world dilemma, and Smee is one of many addressing that ongoing issue. For years a Rubicon ran between abstraction and representation, a division so deep it required allegiance to one side or the other. That apartheid state of the art world has softened since Philip Guston’s dramatic turn in the 1970’s from a non-representational vernacular to overtly political content. Then after 9/11 many artists asked how abstract art could exist in such a violent and broken world.
The answer seems to be found through a recognition that art and art making actually function in many dimensions. As Charlene Spretnak aptly stated it, “One cannot grasp the complexity and depth of modern and contemporary art if the spiritual dimension is ignored, denied, downplayed or dismissed.”
The distinction between representational and non-representational art is now more of a descriptor than an allegiance. But what may need reaffirmation now is the original intention of abstract art to connect more directly with the numinous dimensions of consciousness.
That seems to be something Smee views as having outlived its usefulness. “The spiritual and utopian rhetoric around early-20th-century abstraction no longer carries weight,” he writes. “People have kept on making abstract art. But lacking, like jazz, a clear purpose beyond enhancing interior ambiance, the pursuit has struggled to connect with the zeitgeist.”
Plenty of art is being made today with the simple intention of “enhancing interior ambience.” But that isn’t the raison d’être driving the many highly conscious, dedicated artists whose work I admire. A whole lot of apples, and a whole lot of oranges.
To his credit, Smee does leave the door ajar:
Bradford’s art expresses himself, his history and his surroundings…The stories are real, they matter, they’re part of the work. But there is also something improvisational and, at times, disarmingly nonchalant about the way Bradford invokes certain more tangential narratives. ‘I just kind of made it up in my own phantasmagorical way.’
I read Bradford’s “I just kind of made it up in my own phantasmagorical way” as code for how he accesses what exists outside this linear, content-centric, consensus reality. Content can and does take up residence in his work, but that isn’t what makes his work so memorable. And as Smee points out, it is Bradford’s paintings themselves–in all their glorious complexity–that make him such a “spellbinding” artist.
There is an undercurrent that many artists I know are now tapping into. Charles Eisenstein calls it “The Next Story.” Some view it as ancient wisdom re-emerging. Others call is post-humanism, or 4E Cognition. Whatever name you choose, it is a much more expansive, inclusive way of being and perceiving.
In The Spiritual Dynamic in Modern Art, Spretnak describes it well:
The spiritual dimension of life extends beyond a focus on the self to a sense of our embeddedness in the larger context: the exquisitely dynamic interrelatedness of existence, the vibratory flux of the subtle realms of the material world, and the ultimate creativity of the universe. The cosmos is infused with an unfolding dynamic of becoming and also a unitive dimension of being. Spirituality is the awareness of and engagement with that unity and those dynamics.
Our post pandemic world has a slightly fuller understanding of interconnectedness—with our own bodies and with each other, with nature and the cosmos. Meanwhile visual language is particularly well suited to help us comprehend our place in this unfolding “dynamic of becoming.”
Many artists–abstractionists as well as those who are more representationally inclined–are embracing this dynamic way of perceiving in the work they do. They blend that orientation into the warp and weft of their exquisite art making. While their approach would not be classified as political or socially focused, they are embedding multiple levels in the work they make.
Here are some examples of recent exhibitions that speak to that commingling of visuality and a sense of interrelatedness.
(Intimate Toxicities, Kayafas Gallery, Boston)
In her latest installation, Audrey Goldstein invites us to experience each work as an exquisitely constructed and gracious warning, to wake up and pay attention: our world is beautiful. and our world is imperiled. Her very particular language of abstraction has found its way to the fulcrum of that overarching paradox, one where enchantment and toxicity collide.
Green Skirt, found garment, paper mache, wool, wire, paper, glue, burlap, gouaches, black 3.0, 27 x 19 x 12″
(In the Cloud, Hunterdon Art Museum, Clinton NJ)
The beauty and playful vertiginousness of Nona Hershey’s clouds will, for some viewers, be all they want to see. But other readings are available. Hershey has articulated her concerns about the invisible electronic pollution that permeates our world. “Although we can’t see the signals that all of our devices emit, their energy is palpable, changing our perception of time and place,” she has written. The ubiquitous presence of electronic media, stealth surveillance methodologies, and ambient but undetectable toxicities are all part of our world now too. “What don’t we see?” Hershey asks. “How are we as organisms being affected by the continuous streams of data crazing our sky?”
Sensors 12 (pyrocumulus), watercolor, graphite powder, gouache, 40 x 40″
(Drawing is a Verb, Studio 34, Long Island City)
This exhibit by Taney Roniger is an atmospheric installation inspired by a church in Finland, Myyrmaki, designed by Juha Leiviska. The work brings light into form using nothing but charcoal and paper. Roniger has a body-centric, inclusive and visionary approach: “For we too are oscillators: our bodies are constantly pulsating to rhythms and cycles not under the control of our conscious awareness. The world is abuzz with animate forces, and we are among its many transmitters and receivers.”
Installation view, Drawing is a Verb, Studio 34
(Nomad Walking, David Richard Gallery, New York City)
Phoebe Adams describes her work as having “a sense of rapture at the density of natural phenomenon…combined with a darker view of changes and looming danger from our human interventions. ”Certainly the precariousness of our earthly existence can be perceived amid the lush imagery of these paintings. But her work is neither dystopic nor without hope. Adams instead offers up a sense of how we can humbly learn about being human from the nonhuman, and what it can mean to truly love a place.
Edging In, watercolor on paper, 17 x 21″
(Open Studios, Somerville)
Wire forms seem to float near a wall in Beth Galston‘s studio. They read like delicate pencil sketches of creatures from another world, ethereal and mysterious. These barely there artifacts speak directly to her intentions: “My sculptures exist at the intersection of biology and fairy tales.” In her hands natural objects like leaves, acorns and seed pods become “cell-like building blocks for new structures.”
Installation view, Open Studios
This is a partial list of other artists I know who are also bringing exquisitely dynamic interrelatedness into form: