Art-Heavy Weekend, Pt. 3a

Sunday: MOCA, MOCA, MOCA!

MOCA is currently bursting at its seams--and that's just the Grand Avenue location. Not only do we have the second and slightly more contemporary part of "Masters of American Comics," you've got "Painting in Tongues," a solo space for Karl Haendl, and the fantastic selections from the permanent collections in "After Cezanne". Added to this, MOCA's showing some works by William Kentridge at their Pacific Design Center space, and, of course, "Ecstasy" takes up the entirety of the Geffen warehouse. What's more, these are all high, high quality shows that make me feel lucky I live in Los Angeles. Here are some thoughts on what's currently on at Grand Ave., with more to come about Karl Haendel and "After Cezanne" in a part 3B!

Masters of American Comics, Part 2
I'm not an avid reader of comic books. I'm in fact so un-avid that I still have yet to read Art Spiegelman's "Maus" and the only comics artists I'd heard of before the two-part exhibition were the aforementioned Spiegelman, Charles Schultz, R. Crumb, and Chris Ware. I'd also been familiar with Daniel Clowes because of his script, "Art School Confidential" (which I think will be fantastic fun to watch), and I was recently introduced to Winsor McCay when I went to completely surreal and unfamiliar territory, ComiCon 2005. And even though I'd had to the opportunity to sample comics at last year's behemoth comic book convention, I could only claim to be a tourist.

So, Master of American Comics was supposed to make me a novice. I got to see Part 1 of the show a few weeks ago, and what amazed me was how much Winsor McCay's stuff continues to push the boundaries of comics. His work continues to feel fresh and innovative, trippy and strange, and utterly fantastical, especially in the face of Will Eisner's hoodlums or E.C. Segar's Popeye. Especially when at the Hammer, I couldn't help comparing everyone else to McCay! What Became interesting about the experience of walking through the exhibit was that, as someone completely unaccustomed to pregnant panels of drawings and text, I was utterly exhausted just looking. At first, I was prodigous about looking and reading (i.e. when I stood before "Krazy Kat"), but as I dawdled around, I realized that my patience was being tried by the time I arrived at "Dick Tracy." And I couldn't help imagine that being able to be in bed and lazily flip through the pages of any of these comic books would the ideal way to "see" the exhibition and trace the history of comics.

Thus the question of how one is supposed to read comics -- at least, as far as the comic book artist's intent -- resonates. The idea of giving comics and their artists the proper acknowledgement has much merit; and for all their output -- and intelligent storytelling -- the goal of spotlighting this cultural phenomenon is important. But I keep coming back to a couple of basic questions that one might encounter in an art historical displays and collecting course: how does the museum -- and not just MOCA, but any museum -- and its vitrines change the context of the comics? How does it change how we have to read them? How does the museum negotiate between high and low culture? Also, how does, say, an original Winsor McCay proof alter the value of the original newspaper print itself?

It seems like the answer points to one general thing: elevation. Elevating for the sake of acknowledging and, thus, the move towards inclusion rather than exclusion. I think, in part, the including happens because artists like Raymond Pettibon wouldn't exist if it weren't for comic book artists. And graphic novelists -- to use the upscale term -- such as Chris Ware completely turn the medium upside on its head, turning the sad and melancholy into graphic-cum-literary epics, which inherently change the way one perceives of the medium. Chris Ware also makes really interesting objects, and he one foot drenched in the McSweeney's world of literary culture. Additionally, R. Crumb was at first considered an outcast, but then recast as a comic genius who was then showing in high-class galleries in Chelsea (around 2002-ish). I think the categories for inclusion here are interesting: history -- i.e. "Krazy Kat" and "Peanuts" -- and relationship to high culture -- i.e. Art Spiegelman's covers for The New Yorker.

So we find comics in a both precarious and enviable situation: not only are they read by teenage boys the world over, they have now become an earmarked, museum-approved bastion of underground -- but potentially high -- visual culture. Maybe this has always been the case. But what became such a slight in the modern art movement was if artists were just illustrators. Norman Rockwell is the archetype for this conundrum--how can you be great at rendering charming, narrative scenes and still be accepted by the Art World? What Masters of American Comics does is recast the question: how does the museum include previously excluded media? And Masters has a particular strategy: the show is an incredibly comprehensive look at the pantheon of those who would probably considered forerunners and practioners of graphic novels. It begs the question of where the medium will go and how it will continue to skirt high art, or whether it will recast itself exclusively to the nerdy masses. Perhaps, now, there's no turning back.


"Painting in Tongues"
Oh how false the `80s-coined pronouncement "the death of painting" really was. There has been endless evidence since that, like it or not -- and even in that just-linked Jed Perl TNR piece, we still see that Richter is using painting-- there is something about painting that fascinates and seduces; that still keeps calling for more minds, hands and brushes. Apparently, conquering painting has not been won. Jed Perl's article on Richter comes to mind here... the idea of Richter as "a bullshit artist masquerading as a painter" might seem appropriate and all too relevant for MOCA's latest show, "Painting in Tongues." I think Perl is interested in investigating Richter as a "calculating" artist who just uses imagery that exists in the hard-easy region--in other words, he paints the kinds of objects and moments that seem difficult to excavate from life, but then, on second thought, seem all too easy, and all too easy to manipulate its audience.

I happen to disagree with Perl, and I think what attracts me to Richter's work is not only his technical prowess but a mysterious track record. Richter is the ultimate stylistic chameleon; he has gone through phases of mock-Ab-Ex to blurry realism, glass panels to tiny collages. It's almost unnerving that despite his shifts, one still sees Richter come through in all of his work. The question of what unifies Richter's work is always at the forefront of his admirers -- and his detractors. Though Perl would cry "manipulation," I think it's something different. I believe Richter practices something more like a knowledge of how history is portrayed and how artists fashion images of history--either by referencing them (as Richter seems to have done with his Bader-Meinhoff paintings) or using portrayals of history as an actual strategy for making (one might say that Richter's elegant toilet paper painting is toilet paper constructed to look historical).

The concern is certainly related to Arthur Danto's position of art having become self-referential. And this is quite obviously the case for those artists curated into "Painting in Tongues." Lucy McKenzie paints sexually charged scenes as though they've been painted on brick walls; she merges historically low culture imagery with high culture mentality. Kai Althoff morphs his images, but seems to have a thing for Victorian frocks and either very thin or very thick paint. Rodney McMillan likes to deflate massive symbols like the Parthenon and slap them on the wall, their canvas flapping into the white cube space. Even Anselm Reyle whose work I loved for its hot-ness -- its extravagant but keen use of neon -- takes minimalism and Dan Flavin and heats it up. I'm still interested in figuring out the deals with Ivan Morley and Mark Grotjahn. Both are painterly in their own ways -- Morley taking on painting in many guises (weaving abstraction and then grappling with botanical imagery) while Grotjahn goes thick paint-crazy with primative-looking faces and line and perspectival abstraction. But I'm still trying to work them out in my head. I have always loved Gillian Carnegie and to be able to see her thick-thick again was quite welcome. She makes me believe that there are still ways of abstracting landscapes and still lives that can be incredibly sumptuous; and, even better, sumptuous with gobs of paint.

The show, good and comforting as it was, wasn't necessarily mind-blowing in any startling, stop-your-heart way. It was a really nice show about painting. And, in a sense, it made me question how much we can expect from painting. Anselm's Reyl's work definitely floored me, especially his neon sculpture. But that almost seemed like it would be primarily defined as a painter-ly sculpture, rather than a painting in space. So the question that lingered in my mind was this: How much can painting surprise us now? What can it do to astound? And--the key question--who will step up to the plate and do it? Though it sounds like I'm conceding with the `80s adage of death, I don't think my questions are a matter of painting's being dead. Painting is certainly alive and kicking. I think these painters Michael Darling presents are up to the task of astounding. It's a matter of how these power-morphers of paint can change the terms by which we think of painting--and, even better, how they'll be able to do it convincingly, so much so that it just might boggle the mind.