Abstract. The word itself feels detached. As if you are looking at something you are not meant to definitively understand. The abstract art object hangs and speaks, but you may not understand all of its words. Yet after gazing longer than you normally would, you realize that perhaps an entirely red canvas is saying more than just its color, more than simply, “I am red.”
A new exhibition at the UCLA Hammer Museum titled “Oranges and Sardines: Conversations on Abstract Painting” explores the dialogues of six internationally acclaimed contemporary artists and their influences.
But it isn’t just an exhibition that instigates a dialogue on abstract painting. Art itself and what it means to be an artist is questioned. Intention and influence are not as fixed as they seem. The lines of sight between each room allow abstraction to be seen in all of its facets.
Artists Mary Heilmann, Mark Grotjahn, Wade Guyton, Charline von Heyl, Christopher Wool and Amy Sillman each installed their own rooms, choosing several artists that have influenced their individual body of work. They have chosen artists that range from Picasso to David Hockney, Andy Warhol and Paul Klee.
The title “Oranges and Sardines,” chosen by curator Gary Garrels, was inspired by Frank O’Hara’s poem “Why I Am Not a Painter.” The poem traces contradictions and arbitrary choices inherent within the creative process.
“Making the choices for different works was so random,” said artist Amy Sillman.
She compares the process of choosing works to traveling around and through a big map and returning on the same freeway.
Sillman’s room echoes colorful reds, greens and yellows ““ a lightheartedness and punchiness that leaves a lasting impression like a large confident step. Sillman is frank, eloquent and informed. Her chosen works show her interest in a “gestural sloppiness,” as she described.
Yet her room also shows a particular concern for what the word “sculptural” connotes. John Chamberlain’s compressed sculpture of crumpled steel lies in the center of her room, a form that looks both destroyed and created all at once.
“The word “˜crumpled’ is probably important,” Sillman said.
The contortion of Chamberlain’s work reminds the spectator of the conflicts apparent in abstract art.
“There’s a kind of struggle around what abstraction proposes,” Sillman said. “I don’t know if anyone agrees on what abstract painting culture is,” she said, during the artist talk at Hammer Museum.
Artist Wade Guyton also admitted his confusion.
“Sometimes I don’t understand anything about abstract painting,” he said.
Guyton’s room is hot. A cubed dance floor lies in the middle surrounded by light bulbs. A male go-go dancer dances five minutes a day on this platform at an unscheduled hour, wearing silver lamé shorts. In the corner Dan Flavin’s diagonal piece radiates a blue fluorescent light, occupying so much space that the light nearly streams into Mark Grotjahn’s nearby room. Guyton’s own work is an image of fire.
Most of Guyton’s chosen works are concerned with a simplified concept.
“His room occupies the “˜in-between’ category,” Garrels said. “It is super hot, super sexy, super cool and super distanced.”
But do these abstract artists, or painters, consider themselves as such? This is where a fervent dialogue begins.
“I don’t identify myself as an abstract painter,” said New York artist Christopher Wool. “I do identify myself as a painter.”
In his room, Wool’s large painting exudes gestural confidence, which is mirrored in the late Picasso painting he chose.
Garrels describes Wool’s painting as “something you can articulate and something that remains unfathomable.”
Abstract painting can be described similarly.
“For me abstract painting is something that’s out there that can’t immediately be put into words,” said featured artist Charline von Heyl, Wool’s wife.
“At the end of the day there’s just this strange physical object that’s occupying space,” von Heyl said.
Von Heyl’s room feels like an organized and exquisite mess. She chose works by European artists that are less well-known in America, including a reproduction of Raphael’s “School of Athens” by Malcolm Morley. Von Heyl’s belief that “there’s a paradox inherent in making art” rings clear in this Morley work.
“Abstract painting to me is nonrepresentational painting,” Grotjahn said.
Grotjahn’s room features art that is rather minimalist.
His work is monochrome red, and he chose works that depict geometric interactions of color and repetitious pattern.
“Once you understand abstraction, you can tap into universal truths,” Grotjahn said.
The exhibition itself emerged from a conversation between Grotjahn and Garrels about how important Yayoi Kusama’s net paintings were for Grotjahn, which shocked Garrels. It shocked him even more that Grotjahn wanted a Paul Klee.
“The scales fell off my eyes,” Garrels said.
“The purpose of the show is to look at a work of art with closeness, more scrutiny,” Garrels said.
“Oranges and Sardines” forces us to re-examine what we consider to be common sense, including our definitions of separated artistic practices.
For those that know little about abstract art, contemporary art or modern art, by looking closely and letting the artworks speak for themselves, something refreshing could emerge.
For artists currently producing art, “There’s not been a free moment more than now (to create abstract work),” von Heyl said.
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