From: Judy Seigel (jseigel@panix.com)
Date: 04/08/02-01:29:25 PM Z
On Wed, 3 Apr 2002, shannon stoney wrote:
> ... I found the very interesting thread that I'm sorry I missed
> in February about good and bad photography. I only bring this up to
> say that if anyone is still interested in thinking about whether the
> Emperor has no clothes or not, she might like to peruse the most
> recent issue of The New Republic, which has a very trenchant (some
> might say over the top negative) review of the Gerhard Richter show
> in NYC by Jed Perl, and also a shorter article by him about the
> exhibit at the Jewish Museum. He addresses a lot of the questions
> that were raised in the thread on this list and puts it in an art
> historical context. Good writing, most of which I agree with, even
> though I have not had a chance to visit the Richter show and have
> only seen his work in books.
Shannon, I think you haven't read Jed Perl carefully enough, because I
doubt you'd agree with what he's actually saying. You mention "emperor's
new clothes," meaning, I assume, that we dummies/peasants admire "art
world" art just to prove we're in the know. But Perl, who despises
virtually all 20th century art, is poster child for throwing out the baby
with the bath water, and doesn't understand much of either art or
photography.
It is odd that a fellow who makes his living writing about art seems to
hate most of it, but it's there on the page. He gives a pass to Picasso,
Matisse and Mondrian, mirable dictu, but fewer than half a dozen since
then. And the ones he does like -- whew ! His star, his sublime grand
maestro, is -- are you ready ? -- Balthus !
So OK, Balthus has a certain lubricious charm, but can we take seriously
as guide and giver of "art historical context" a man who says Balthus's
"'A Midsummer Night's Dream' constitutes one of the greatest gallerygoing
experiences that New York has ever offered"? That drool is the "good art"
in the Perl article. The main theme is Perl's hatred -- yes hatred -- for
Gerhard Richter.
When this citation arrived, I was working on the P-F index (yeah, it's
taking forever) and there was "Perl, Jed, #5, p. 47". That led to "The
Dumb Quote File," an article of my own. Perl had earned the honor with,
"There can be no grand style in photography since the camera cannot
generalize." (New Criterion, April '85. I'd filed it.)
He didn't say why "grand style," a 19th century notion, is desirable, let
alone why it's supposed to generalize, which might have made an
interesting discussion. Perl doesn't do interesting discussion. He does
angry assertion and rant, repeated in lieu of supporting argument. He also
does gross error -- in this case about photography. As I commented in the
article, "Someone should explain to Mr. Perl that the genius of
photography is exactly the grand way it generalizes."
But Perl has an inferiority complex about painting vs photography
generally, his tin eye perhaps infected by fear of photography -- and in
2002 is STILL sounding the tocsin. He hates Gerhard Richter, largely, it
seems, for playing paintings off photography. He says Richter and Chuck
Close "have ceded the act of creation to the camera." (Tho that bit of
sublime silliness at least defies the conventional assumption that the
camera isn't "creative" !)
Perl is still bitterly lamenting a 1981 show in which most of the painters
"felt a need to slavishly mimic photographs." He wants painters to
"respond to nature" without "a camera to do the looking for them." And so,
failing to understand either art or art history, he falls back on a
romantic notion of painting directly from "life" rather than photographs .
(And thinks he could tell the difference, which he couldn't unless it came
with a printed announcement, like Close & Richter's.)
That this wretched "photo-dependency" has long been a "fact of artistic
life" drives him batty. He even, or maybe especially, finds painting from
photographs made from life an affront. This, he feels, simply shows the
painter's "inability to make anything on their own."
Earth to Perl: "painting from nature" is NOT "working on one's own."
Making it up entirely out of one's head might be "working on one's own,"
somewhat, but who cares? The notion, cobbled up to fit Perl's bizarre
agenda, evokes old ideas of "purity" in photography, but now backwards.
Fifty or 75 years ago, the photo police were calling for photographers to
do it on their own, "pure" and "straight" without a whiff of painting.
Now Perl cries for painters to do it "on their own," without a whiff of
photography. Both notions are irrelevant, a grasping for rules where
there can be none, the wrong rules even if there were any, and a
thoroughly debunked notion of purity.
But, speaking of blind, Perl says "Richter gives us nothing to look at,"
his painting is "without savor, without warmth, without life," and
"stupefyingly lifeless." (Perl fills space by saying the same thing many
times.) I'd say, on the contrary, that whoever can't respond to at least
some of Gerhard Richter's painting shouldn't brag about it. I find it
extraordinary, stunning and quivering with life -- and, yes, I trust my
eye over Perl's.
Most widely seen have probably been Richter's baby on the covers of Art in
America & Artforum (both in the same month!), his wife reading, seen from
the back, and now the painting NR snickeringly puts on its cover, the roll
of toilet paper. (I must add, however, that my then student, Sookang Kim,
did an equally exquisite gum print of the subject, seen P-F #1, tho hers
was TWO rolls.)
As for the toilet paper, Perl seems never to have heard of irony,
apparently assigning exaltation by "subject." By that rule, a depiction of
an exalted or beautiful object would ipso facto be exalted or beautiful,
as is rarely the case. So, along with the tin eye we have the lead brain.
Besides his non-comprehension of irony, Perl has -- oops ! -- missed the
dialog between painting & photography. That is, he has missed the two
leitmotifs of later 20th (& now 21st) century art. As early as Julia
Margaret Cameron, even Talbot, photography was directly inspired by "art"
(remember "pencil of nature"?). Since then, whole movements of painting
have addressed photography. But to Perl, that means they "ceded the act of
creation to the camera."
Shades of 1930 and Lincoln Kirstein on gum printing ("odious"), Helmut
Gernsheim's scorn for Julia Margaret Cameron's tableaux, Beaumont Newhall
& James Thrall Soby sneering at "rayographs," etc. (This is already too
long, so I skip citations, but they're in P-F #1, 3 & 5.) In the 20th
century, pundits from Sadakichi Hartmann to Brett Weston denounced
photography with any hint of painting. Now Perl plays the flip side,
denouncing "photo dependency" in "artistic life."
BUT, he tells us, "Great painters have been working directly from
nature straight through the 20th century." Oh boy. From the moment
photography arrived, the two media have been in conversation. Whoever
wants to go off alone & shut the door can certainly do that. But we have
reams of evidence and testimony of painters AND photographers about their
inspiration from each other, from Vermeer to Degas and forward, not even
counting David Hockney's claims about optical devices used by "old
masters."
True, if you found Perl's hysterical denunciations of what he fails to
understand persuasive, you're in a goodly company, but poke at them with a
feather & they fall into smithereens. I'll add, however, that I suspect
the whole act (the Jerry Springer of art crit ?) is a ploy, a calculated
effort to "epater le culturati"(which worked, as we see above).
We all like a good rant about art, I do a few myself, but Perl substitutes
invective for understanding, assertion for insight, and makes up whatever
"rules" come to mind as he goes along. I'd guess, however, that the New
Republic is trying for buzz. It's sad to see them in such dire straits, &
the magazine so perilously thin, with that too too cute roll of toilet
paper in a gold frame on the cover. That is, the Perl act looks like
desperation -- the poison chalice.
I'll add, for what it's worth, that I heard in a roundabout way that
Balthus himself actually worked from photographs. Whether he did or
didn't, the most interesting topic in latterday art is probably the cross
pollination between "photography" and "painting." And trust me, Balthus is
NOT the greatest art experience in a NYC gallery. (My own last week was
Saul Steinberg on 79th Street, but that would be off topic.)
Judy
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