Materiality, physicality, and abstraction

Most often I read and hear about abstraction talked about in terms of materiality, but I have been thinking most about physicality (particularly relating to the human body) as of late.  I think the historical texts and analysis of abstraction, particularly abstract painting, have often defaulted to materialism as a means to understand what is going on in a painting--we can't see a subject matter or are told that it is up to multiple interpretations, so we must then talk about the materiality--particularly in gestural and painterly paintings.

I am mostly a materialist, and often find material products that reference non-material ideas (shaker gift drawings, for example) incredibly interesting, but I think there is an aspect of the materials of painting that are important but should not be expected to carry all of the meaning of a work.  Paint is paint, it is itself and nothing more.  

Physicality, however, can reference a broader spectrum of painting's aesthetics.  Paint is physical, but not particularly more or less than other traditional art materials (erasing a charcoal drawing, welding steel, etc).  How a painting--hanging on a wall, either illusionistic or an image in and of itself--interacts with a viewer always has a physical aspect.  Gestural painting can reference movements of limbs, dripping paint can feel like fluids.  Even how the painting enters in to our brain is a physical phenomena as the eyes must interpret, look, and cognitively process a painting with all of these things in mind.

I am not, however, advocating for a reemergence of abstract expressionism as the most important art form.  I often think reflectively about my own work in relationship to this history, and I have a hard time resolving how my work is different or the same as 'ab ex'.  I am, though, attempting to point out something that is overlooked when we start to talk about socially engaged art and public art projects.  Politically and socially engagement is omnipresent in the history of art.  Painting has, for years, engaged viewers and lead non-artists to dialogue, discourse, and theory.  There is plenty of room in this discourse for non-painting, but it seems a bit odd that so many people are abandoning it for quasi-meaningful 'events'.

Below is a recent painting that is three panels stacked on top of one another, hung on the wall but directly on the floor.  The painting, cathedral (bones), is one that I've worked on while also producing a large number of works on paper for an upcoming exhibition in New York.  The painting stands (intentional reference) at 6' tall and 4' wide and has a really interesting scale, even more than I could have predicted--its body size, approximately, and has references to structures within us.  An image of it (and some other works on paper) should be on my website soon.

  

abstraction and subject matter

Just a brief introduction to some of my recent thinking, and some texts that I'll be working on for the next year or so in anticipation of an abstract painting exhibition at Anderson Gallery in Fall 2014.

Abstraction is seen as a type of artwork, but not as a possible subject matter of artwork.  I don't think this has anything to do with the more popular digital media, time-based work, and Relational Aesthetics/ Social engagement trends in contemporary art, I think that it has a lot to do with how we see abstraction and the history of art.

This historical relegation, I might argue, stems from an ability to systematically differentiate representation from abstraction and is a method of distinguishing works.  It is understandable as a category, but most artists that work abstractly would offer that abstraction is more than a category.  I'm not referring to some quasi-physical meaning that comes from "the search", I am referring more directly to abstraction and its ability to be meaningful.

I think that we are still dealing with this division (of the categories of representation/abstraction) in contemporary art, as artists, viewers, collectors, and historians.  It is difficult for us to articulate that abstraction is what a painting looks like, but not that it can be (or reference) subject matter.

More to come on these ideas...in the meantime, there is a great interview with Paul Behnke on Painter's Table called "The Ability of Paint" concerning his exhibition Eight Painters at Kathryn Markel Fine Arts, it is well worth the read.  

first of things

Happy new year.  Its a bit of a miserable day here in Iowa, but lots of exciting things on the horizon.
This post might be a bit scattered, in part because I haven't posted regularly for awhile, but I thought it wise to at least put something to the page (or screen) before time gets away from me.

1)  Amiri Baraka passed away today.  Baraka was incredibly influential to me as a young person, and his poem Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note is, to this day, one of my favorites:

'Lately, I've become accustomed to the way
The ground opens up and envelopes me
Each time I go out to walk the dog.
Or the broad edged silly music the wind
Makes when I run for a bus...

Things have come to that.

And now, each night I count the stars.
And each night I get the same number.
And when they will not come to be counted,
I count the holes they leave.

Nobody sings anymore.

And then last night I tiptoed up
To my daughter's room and heard her
Talking to someone, and when I opened
The door, there was no one there...
Only she on her knees, peeking into

Her own clasped hands'


He's well known for many things, but above everything he was a hell of a writer.

2)  I'm working on a mural for the Des Moines Social Club which should open later this Spring.  The space will have a full restaurant, at least one bar, a large theater, art gallery, and many other venues for various art forms.  It will be the first mural that I've done and I think it is coming at a perfect time.  Once the building is open, it will be open to the public, so please go see it!  Sometime around early summer (well after the opening) I'll post pictures for those of you unable to see it in person.

3)  DUSK.  More to come soon, but another project I'm honored to be a part of, straight out of Brooklyn, NY...

4)  Above and Below, an exhibition with Amy Sacksteder, Nina Rizzo, and Miguel Arzabe and myself, at Wright State University.  Exhibition opens on Sunday, January 19th, at 3:00 pm, and runs through March 2nd.  I'll be at the opening, and I know that Amy Sacksteder will be as well for sure, along with curator Danielle Rante.

5)   A painting was also selected by juror Timothy McDowell for the Young Painters 2014.  The opening reception is at 5:15 on January 31st, with a lecture by McDowell at 4pm on the 31st.  I won't be able to attend the reception, but would be glad to hear how the show looks if anyone can attend!  For anyone who doesn't know about this exhibition, I've submitted for ten years (years alternate figurative and abstraction, so I've only applied to 5 of the abstraction exhibitions) and, at the last possible moment, was accepted (as there is an age restriction of 35 years, and I turn 35 this February!), so I'm happy to be included in this exhibition, too.

And I'll leave you with the first painting of the year.  More images to come!

ascend, don't bend, 2014
acrylic, collage, wood, fabric, cardboard on panel
about 32" x 20"

If first a whisper,

I've redesigned my website: most likely you've navigated here from said website, but thought it best to post here about it, too, in case you are coming in through the virtual back door:

benjaminagardner.com

first snow, 2013  acrylic, tape, ink on paper  15" x 12" 

painting, meaning, and dogma

I re-watched and considered a documentary called Examined Life the other day and, as I was in the studio, I contemplated something that Avital Ronell considers in her segment of the film.  In walking, Ronell talks about our desperate search for meaning and the resulting gravitation towards ideologies as a quick fix to the absence of meaning; which also provides a fast frame of reference for how one should act.  Near the end of her interview she even equates junk food and junk thinking, insinuating that to rely on these quick fixes when it comes to finding meaning is similar to eating a candy bar for dinner--it provides calories, but very little nutritional value in those calories.  I'm asserting my interpretation a bit here, but it lead me to consider (or re-consider, as I feel like I come to this in my studio practice fairly regularly) the idea of meaning in painting, especially in terms of a "search" for meaning.

I think this search for meaning is an integral part of painting (and, ideally, art making in general: though I am a novice photographer I feel that taking photographs can serve the same function as painting does in this regard) as it provides me with a medium to eradicate ideology and dogma.  One could argue, I suppose, that abstraction is its own dogma; but in my own studio abstraction is the path that I often choose (though I do make things, objects, take photographs, etc) without any real reason; none of my paintings necessitate abstraction nor do I have to make abstract paintings (which would signify dogma, I think) in order to use paint.

I've tried a number of times to watch Gerhard Richter Painting and I have to say that it has not happened, for various reasons.  I think there is part of the celebrity of Richter that bums me out a bit.  I have also read parts of The Daily Practice of Painting by Richter, so I thought I would consult the book in terms of these thoughts to see what Richter, who a lot of painters idolize, would have to say.  I have a tremendous amount of respect for Richter, but he has not been someone that I have readily connected with  I found these, at first opening of the book:

"23 July 1989.  However ineptly--desperately ineptly--I set about it, my will, my endeavor, my effort--what drives me--is the quest for enlightenment (apprehension of 'truth', and of the interconnections; coming closer to a meaning; so all my pessimistic, nihilistic actions and assertions have the sole aim of creating or discovering hope).

25 July 1989.  My denunciation of ideology: I lack the means to investigate this.  Without a doubt, ideologies are harmful, and we must therefore take them very seriously: as my behavior, and not for their content (in content, they are all equally false).
Ideology as the rationalization of faith; as the 'material' that credulity puts into words and makes communicable.  Faith, and here I repeat myself, is the awareness of things to come; it therefore equals hope, it equals illusion, and is quintessentially human (I cannot imagine how animals get along without such an awareness); because, without the mental image of 'tomorrow', we are incapable of life. "
Gerhard Richter, The Daily Practice of Painting

I think Richter is hinting at something in these studio notes that I've been working to refine in my own thinking---painting and art making connect me to a type of thinking that the action of painting is rooted in searching and developing the answer, which is inherently anti-dogmatic.  Every surface, then, becomes a new platform for the search, the pushing of materials, the search for idea and meaning.

Though this can be seen as a throwback mentality, I think that it pertains to a culture of contemporary abstract painting that is favoring process-less work, 'bad' abstract painting, and repetition of a shtick.  Is there value in abstract painting beyond this search?  How do we categorize good or bad abstraction, how does the search become visible to the audience?  My instinct is to say that the process-less and repetitive motif/shtick paintings are direct responses and reactions to the history of abstract painting, but maybe I am unaware of my own ideology.

What I can assure you is that I am committed to the exploration in my studio practice, unhindered (at least to an extent) by what is expected of me or how I need to maintain my body of work in its similarity.  I think that this is, at least to an extent, a luxury of the Academy--I am required to be professionally active but do not rely on selling my work for livelihood.  I am, as much as I'm able, going to continue in working this way.

Some recent studio work and photographs via the Instagram link; I hope to add more to the website and Facebook soon.
Instagram Page