Representing the undiscovered

In a world obsessed with photography and its technology,
UCLA’s Hammer Museum is now presenting an exhibition showing
the revival of representational painting called “The
Undiscovered Country.”

While many have forgotten or ignored painting as an adequate
means to depict reality since the popularization of photography,
the Hammer Museum hopes to dispel such thoughts by displaying works
representing modern reality in ways photography can’t.

The exhibition, put together by the Hammer Museum’s chief
curator, Russell Ferguson, features 65 works from various artists
around Europe and the United States.

“(The one constant in the exhibition is) the desire on the
part of the painters to paint a recognizable image and at the same
time accept that at any moment the recognizable image has
completely evolved into what is again nothing more than paint
smeared on the canvas,” Ferguson said.

The collection of works presents a wide variety of artists,
including some from several decades back and some younger painters.
The more contemporary artists include Edgar Bryan, Mari Eastman,
Enoc Perez and Lucy McKenzie. They are placed alongside more
influential artists, such as Vija Celmins, Philip Guston, Fairfield
Porter and Gerhard Richter.

In addition to diversity among the artists, the content in the
works also varies. Some paintings are natural landscapes, while
others depict city views, self-portraits and a wide variety of
other subjects.

This diversity helps enhance Ferguson’s goal of
illustrating the revival of painting as a representational means
throughout time and the world.

The exhibition’s title, “The Undiscovered
Country,” references William Shakespeare’s
“Hamlet,” as the phrase used to describe the afterlife
“from whose bourn no traveler returns.”

The title was chosen to suggest the paintings and artists in the
exhibit are among those exploring such a country since photography
and the so-called death of painting pushed the form almost to the
brink of extinction. The exhibit’s title compares the artists
to the traveler in Shakespeare’s line.

In addition to this idea, the exhibit juxtaposes stability with
instability, both literally and metaphorically.

In an untitled painting by McKenzie, in which a man is depicted
painting a brain, the image is clear and defined. But bright red
painted graffiti smeared across the work brings to mind an image
that should belong in a high school bathroom.

A painting by Richard Hamilton entitled “Soft Pink
Landscape” displays two young girls in a lush forest scene,
but the mood is punctured by a small roll of toilet paper in the
middle of the canvas.

Like “Soft Pink Landscape,” many of the
exhibit’s final paintings depict natural images in which
focus frequently creates effect. Landscapes are painted in long
strokes, creating a blurry sense, yet next to the painting, or
sometimes in the middle of the canvas, images become more defined.
While Hamilton’s forest is blurry, the roll of toilet paper
is much more clear.

In the same room as “Soft Pink Landscape,” which
Hamilton painted in 1971-1972, hangs a painting by Eastman called
“U.S. Soldiers Dismantling the Bust of Saddam Hussein,”
which was painted in 2003. Ferguson purposefully placed older
influential artists next to younger contemporary ones, showing
painting’s ability to survive as an artistic medium.

“(It shows a) hidden and unconscious continuation from one
generation to another,” he said.

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