"POP" CULTURE, METAPHYSICAL DISGUST, AND THE
NEW VULGARIANS
Max Kozloff
Among labels which catch on and hold their place in the
art world, but which were never deemed adequate to begin with, the term "Neo-Dada" is
a lowly one. Before the "Neo" had even been defined properly,
a number of painters have laughed it into obsolescence, even while they
thrive
on the absurdities and confusions which gave it birth. The city has been
playing uneasy host to a group of such artists having first shows this
winter - artists who come on calm and clean but iconoclastic. Naturally
they would
be among the first to disclaim that they form a group. And indeed, since
they were spread out and unknown to each other, this would seem to be historically
true, as it is stylistically obvious. The very fact, however, that they
form a grass roots movement gives authenticity to their common concern
with the
problems of the commercial image, popular culture, and metaphysical disgust.
Upon these themes, too, they superimpose an inquiry into the nature of
the creative act, and the existence of the work as object and /or vision.
Particularly
controversial was the show of Jim
Dine at the Martha
Jackson Gallery. Yet no one has remarked clearly enough that one of his most provocative
gestures
was to return to easel painting, not reject it. Having started his career
with his celebrated "happenings" - that is, theatrical events
created within a totally invented environment, Dine found himself at the
farthest edge
of that development (1950's) which sought to break into the spectator's space.
How significant, therefore, to see him next not only embrace the durability
of paint, but to engage particularly in those issues which finally allow
a considered judgment of his work: the bringing to bear of insights from
a completely
separate métier into the pictorial context. Physical vestiges of the stage
still remain, to be sure, in a platform supporting a black derby, or certain
stage-set colours, but only to be translated into a different language. Similarly,
Roy Lichtenstein (Castelli) and Robert
Watts (Grand Central Moderns) come
to painting originally from engineering, James
Rosenquist (Green), from
billboard
work, and Peter
Saul (Frumkin) might just as well be a refugee from the funnies.
Yet, however varied their previous experience, the point is that they inject
something of its mentality into art, which act is a sign of their conservatism
as much as it is a token of their ambition. It is almost unnecessary to add
that they mostly consider themselves to be interested in form, and that they
compose and execute in no manner contrary to their more conventional colleagues.
Hence,
to explain the shock with which they burst into your consciousness, you
cannot accuse them either of using outrageous materials or of abusing
the time honored rectangle of pigment. (With the exception of Oldenburg and
Watts.)
Rather, they operate by a metaphor which they know very well would be quite
ridiculous for us to accept: that their work is not what it assumes itself
to be - the actual thing, or something terribly close to it. Here I find
myself disagreeing with Lawrence
Alloway, a propos Dine, when he insists
that "the
object is present as literally and emphatically as possible." Such literalness
would be too crass, even for artists who are rather complete vulgarians in
other respects. In the same way, Dine does not show mystery to be unavoidable,
as Alloway suggests, but that recognition of fraud is inevitable. Lichtenstein,
Rosenquist, and Saul may set up an illusion, but only so that they may finally
undeceive the viewer. I suspect they accomplish this on two levels.
The first
is by taking advantage of the proximity of abstract painting. These artists
have a field day with the modern eye that has educated itself agonisingly
to see no associations whatsoever in the physical presence of the painting.
Now, suddenly, blatantly familiar images from reality ram themselves home,
but, as distinct from those in merely representational or story painters, so
magnified as to require reinterpretation all over again. (Oldenburg, Dine,
Lichtenstein, Rosenquist.) Furthermore, the colours are not those of the real
objects, but illustrative of them - those hues we pass by without self-reproach
in catalogues and comic strips, but which seem much more nastily arbitrary
in the new works than the completely arbitrary chromatics of abstract art.
(Dine most successfully evolves a whole new palette from this idea, while Peter
Saul's colours have a remarkable bathroom vitality.) In addition, an artist
like Lichtenstein turns the whole abstract-representational argument inside
out by demonstrating that the recognizable is not necessarily communicative
at all, and that it is just as difficult to abide the known, as it once was
to take the unknown seriously. Here is a pretty slap in the face of both philistines
and cognoscenti alike.
The second twist is more fantastic. With Rosenquist,
for example, the entire concept of the artist creating an image from his inner,
or the outer, world
is reversed. instead, in his I used to have a '50, not merely do the images
appear precreated, but the artist expects us, rather than himself, to contribute
the imaginative values. He poses as the agent, not the author of the work.
In Lichtenstein, this even goes so far as to produce canvases which are great
simulated copies of tabloid engraving, reproduced down to the enlarged dots
of the ink screens. Echoes of Surrealism are contained in this self-effacement
which is nevertheless so ostentatious. One recalls Dali and his concept of
the dream postcard, and even Blake, who considered himself merely God's secretary
transcribing a heavenly vision. In any event, if the metaphor may be purposely
obscured in the two artists just mentioned, or embarrassingly strained as in
Oldenburg, there can be no doubt that all of them want the spectator eventually
to triumph over it, and to recognize a special irony in their mock disguises
- the responsibility behind the irresponsibility.
This brings us to the question:
to just what extent are their themes altered by these kinds of vision? Peter
Saul, after all, depicts grafitti which are
careful re-evocations - in oil paint - of the careless. He is a great homogenizer
of imagery, and tosses together emblems of the supermarket, latrine, and comic
books, none of which, and here is the rub, would occasion a second glance if
they weren't painted with an irritating excellence and organized so interestingly.
Dine is even more shamelessly sensual as he gives us his meaningless illustrations,
his ties and coats, which are not even symbols. (If there is a general rule
underlying the new iconography it is that there is no focus, no selectiveness
about it. Anything goes, just as anything goes on the street.) With Oldenburg,
Lichtenstein, and Rosenquist, not to speak of Robert Indiana, the spectator's
nose is practically rubbed into the whole pointless cajolery of our hardsell,
sign dominated culture. (A recent painting by Joan
Jacobs, Ripe U S.A., has
the same effect, although her general interests are elsewhere.) Oldenburg may
even be said to comment on the visual indigestibility of our environment by
his inedible plaster and enamel cakes and pies. And Robert Watts flippantly
insults the trivia of day to day living by modifying a U.S. Postage stamp machine
so that it issues faintly pornographic stamps. With the exception of the latter,
who is too much of a chameleon to classify, the new artists fall into two camps:
the charmers and The trouble with the former is to determine whether the seductive
surfaces are incidental to the coarse imagery, or vice versa; and with the
latter, whether one derives any pleasure from knowing that others, too, have
felt the tormenting and biting quality of the American urban scape. But the
probability of discovering
their overall attitude to American experience is obstructed by their speaking
farcically in tongues, as if, somehow, we were the witnesses of a demonic Pentecost
of hipsters. Thus, Dine and Rosenquist and Lichtenstein address us as if we
were children, and they, condescending adults, while Oldenburg and Saul pretend
to be the children to our elders. The elaborate sarcasm of these projections
confuses and mystifies their total handling of the problem of disgust - for
no one knows whether there are essentially pictorial reasons for the new form,
whether it is, perhaps, a dialogue with Pirandello (or Ionesco) now transposed
to the realm of visual art, or whether, finally, they are in subversive collusion
with Americana, while pleading the cause of loyalty to high art and a new beauty.
Yet,
concerning that which is artistically new in this work, there is surprisingly
little to say. On one hand, you have the injection of merchandising and "direct
mail" techniques into art, a phenomenon much more sinister than the corresponding
influence of de Stijl and the Bauhaus upon store fronts and display windows
several years ago. And on the other, these curious and rather desperate impersonations,
of which I spoke. For the rest, particularly the aspect of metaphor, there
is a distinguished pedigree which may be worth commenting upon, for a moment.
When Rosenquist paints a metallic scoop of ice cream, or Dine a flesh coloured
tie, for instance, they are pulling down magical curtains over identity which
Magritte had been "photographing" all during the fifties. And when
Lichtenstein edges a contour, he follows in the footsteps of Stuart
Davis,
Richard Lindner,
and Léger,
who stands paternally over the whole mechanization of line, as well as the
metallic shadow occasionally to be seen in Rosenquist.
Then too, Oldenburg's plaster food is related to Picasso's famous
charaded edible, The Class of Absinthe, but where the Picasso had a real
spoon under the wooden sugar, the American attacks the
same problem less humorously. I would also mention, in the more immediate
surroundings,
affinities the new artists have with Jasper
Johns (who should be sulking
over all this), Louise
Nevelson, Cy
Twombly, and Arman.
With all their more or less
good company, however, there is a moral dilemma implicit in these latest vulgarities
which is completely lacking in, say, their
great precursor, Davis. It would be erroneous, for example, to imagine them
quite as dedicated to pictorial self-sufficiency, to sheer energy of form and
composition, as he. On the contrary, they depend too much on the repulsiveness
of their imagery, so that artists as naturally desirous of recognition as they
are, "hardsell" the public by means only of hardsell. Oldenburg has
even cleverly fronted these activities with a "store," where you
can buy his disagreeable pastries at "slightly inflationary prices." (One
good way to starve.) Hence, there is a curious, frank admission of chicanery
among them, that does not necessarily succeed in becoming honest. Nor are they
any the more decent crooks with respect to the central idea - kitsch. Are we
supposed to regard our popular signboard culture with greater fondness or insight
now that we have Rosenquist? Or is he exhorting us to revile it, that is, to
do what has come naturally to every sane and sensitive person in this country
for years. If the first, the intent is pathological, and if the second dull.
The truth is, the art galleries are being invaded by the pin-headed and contemptible
style of gum chewers, bobby soxers, and worse, delinquents. Not only can't
I get romantic about this, I see as little reason to find it appealing as I
would an hour of rock and roll into which has been inserted a few notes of
modern music. Only works of the most exquisite wittiness, such as a few I saw
at the Dine, Watts, and Saul shows, escape the debacle. But I fear very much
for their authors in the future. In the meantime, save us from the "uncharmers," or
permutations thereof, the Rosensteins or Oldenquists to come!
Art International, March 1962: 35-36
