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| Joseph Beuys, Telephone, 1974 |
Of course, part of the work here involves a certain kind of seeing in. That was Richard Wolheim's phrase for how the painter makes a mark, and sees in it the sense of the figure he or she is pursuing. A particularly apt way of characterizing that relationship. (We can discuss this in class.) But what if the seeing in involves not so much strokes of paint, but an object in the world? Joseph Beuys was a master at this--his well-honed personal mythology, always on the lookout for situations in which it could be mirrored. (See photo of Beuys standing in concrete bunker on the coast of Ireland--or the photographs of his aktion at the Rene Block gallery in New York, I Love America and America Loves Me--with live coyote...
In fact, much of Beuys' work depends on photography--the way the work is pictured has a great deal to do with how we understand it. Usually a kind of grainy black-and-white in situ verisimilitude--which means that the photo above is unusual, having been shot in color (well, muted color) on a white seamless backdrop--which today of course invokes the world of advertising. Hence in part its charm...
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David Hammons provided a good balance... When I wrote the above, about Beuys, I hadn't been thinking about showing you his work. But after reading the NY show review (Holland Cotter, NYTimes), it seemed an important parallel... Along with out discussion of Duchamp's "house of mirrors." The subject in David Hammond's work (both senses of the word) is crucial...
