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Whither Phillip Smith? Historical Erasure at the Pictures Generation

Metropolitan Museum of Art/Licensed by Scala, Art Resource. “Collection of Forty Plaster Surrogates,” 1982-84, by Allan McCollum, on view in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s current exhibition “The Pictures Generation, 1974-1984.”

First:

Framing the Message of a Generation

By HOLLAND COTTER

Published: May 29, 2009

HOW does cultural history get written? Who chooses which portraits will hang in the hall of fame, which art will live on in museums, which books will end up on the classics shelf, which music will be standard fare in tomorrow’s concert halls?

We are encouraged to think that such judgments have lives of their own, are decided by a kind of natural selection. The most beautiful art will prevail, the most ambitious, the most morally uplifting, the most universal in emotional appeal. Everything else is by default of a lesser order. We shouldn’t fret if it disappears.

This view is, of course, wishful thinking. Moral and universal are concepts up for grabs; my notion of beautiful may leave you cold. Many of our masterpieces owe their origins to the distinctly immoral ambitions of power politics, their survival to prosaic strokes of luck, their present pre-eminence to institutional marketing, scholarly attention and popular sentiment. Even so, survival can be chancy. Fine things are tossed out and crummy things kept all the time.

In the case of art from the deep past we can usually only guess at how the selection process worked. With contemporary art we can see it in operation. We can see history being written — recorded, edited, enhanced, invented — right before our eyes. It can be a disturbing sight.

I was reminded of this after visiting two big history-writing and history-inventing exhibitions in New York this spring, “The Pictures Generation, 1974-1984” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (through Aug. 2) and “The Generational: Younger Than Jesus” at the New Museum (through July 5).
 
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See also: via Carefully Aimed Darts, Thought Things, Sharpish:

Historical Erasure at the Pictures Generation

By the power

The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s current blockbuster, The Pictures Generation 1974-1984 is on the one hand a sprawling historical survey, and yet also a revisionist history. Jerry Saltz describes it as “less a critical survey of a highly influential aesthetic than a feel-good class reunion. Rather than opt for scholarship and tough choices, curator Douglas Eklund cultivated a gang’s-all-here coziness. It’s a huge show, with hundreds of objects, books, posters, films, and videos, and works by 30 artists.”

Philip Smith, All the Answers, 1998

Given the breadth of the show and its apparently inclusive approach, it is particularly surprising that Philip Smith was not included, even though he was one of the five artists that Douglas Crimp selected for the original “Pictures” show at Artists Space in 1977. Crimp’s revised essay, published several years later in October, is arguably responsible for the enduring currency of the “Pictures” moniker, and substitutes Cindy Sherman for Smith. It’s a critical decision that the Met has apparently perpetuated; Eklund has explained to CultureGrrl that “I didn’t respond strongly enough to his work to include it.”

Fair enough.

Remembering that chief photography curator Malcolm Daniel explained the Met curator’s mission as “To collect, preserve, study, exhibit, and stimulate appreciation for and advance knowledge of works of art that collectively represent the broadest spectrum of human achievement at the highest level of quality, all at the service of the public and in accordance with the highest professional standards,” it is clear that Eklund had the license to exclude Smith on the grounds of quality alone.

What disturbs me more is the way that the Met has entirely erased Smith’s inclusion in the original exhibition. At least one wall label for a work by Tory Brauntuch mentions him as one of the four artists in the Artists’ Space exhibition. The didactic material here needs to be qualified.

Reviewing the show, Martha Schwendener perpetuates the error: “The show at Artists Space featured only four artists. Ironically, neither Cindy Sherman nor Richard Prince, who would become figureheads for Pictures art, were included.”

So what happened to fact-checking? The museum gift shop, at the exit to the exhibition, is discretely selling copies of the catalogue for the Artists Space show (only $30). One need only flip to the title page to see that Crimp’s artists numbered five: Troy Brauntuch, Jack Goldstein, Sherrie Levine, Robert Longo, and Philip Smith. CultureGrrl cornered Crimp at the press preview and asked what he thought of the omission:

Q: What do you make of Philip Smith’s absence from the Met’s show?

A: He was not so much of the group, of the social world, of the people who formulated this. He’s gay and this [the Met's show] is a very straight configuration of artists. I don’t know what’s happened to him, career-wise. It’s a slightly touchy subject: I think Philip is upset, reasonably.

Schwendener rightly points out that the show “was organized by a photography curator intent on showing how the medium was integrated into “mainstream” contemporary art.” Beyond the social circle aspects of the show that Crimp and Saltz emphasize, I wonder if Eklund’s curatorial omission also has to do with the fact that Smith’s work seems to be grounded in drawing.

Whatever Eklund’s his reasons for excluding Smith, the historical record is being distorted. It might not make good copy for wall labels and audio guides, but this decision making process should be more transparent, or at least represented truthfully in the history of Pictures.

The Obamas: "sending ripples through the art world"

The Obamas have borrowed Ed Ruscha’s ‘I Think I’ll...’ (1983) from the National Gallery.

via Wall Street Journal, MAY 22, 2009:

Changing the Art on the White House Walls
By AMY CHOZICK and KELLY CROW

Barack Obama is taking on health care, financial regulation, torture and environmental policy. He’s also revamping the White House art collection.

The Obamas are sending ripples through the art world as they put the call out to museums, galleries and private collectors that they’d like to borrow modern art by African-American, Asian, Hispanic and female artists for the White House. In a sharp departure from the 19th-century still lifes, pastorals and portraits that dominate the White House’s public rooms, they are choosing bold, abstract art works.

The overhaul is an important event for the art market. The Obamas’ art choices could affect the market values of the works and artists they decide to display. Museums and collectors have been moving quickly to offer up works for inclusion in the iconic space.

Their choices also, inevitably, have political implications, and could serve as a savvy tool to drive the ongoing message of a more inclusive administration. The Clintons received political praise after they selected Simmie Knox, an African-American artist from Alabama, to paint their official portraits. The Bush administration garnered approval for acquiring “The Builders,” a painting by African-American artist Jacob Lawrence, but also some criticism for the picture, which depicts black men doing menial labor.

Last week the first family installed seven works on loan from the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington in the White House’s private residence, including “Sky Light” and “Watusi (Hard Edge),” a pair of blue and yellow abstracts by lesser-known African-American abstract artist Alma Thomas, acclaimed for her post-war paintings of geometric shapes in cheery colors.

The National Gallery of Art has loaned the family at least five works this year, including “Numerals, 0 through 9,” a lead relief sculpture by Jasper Johns, “Berkeley No. 52,” a splashy large-scale painting by Richard Diebenkorn, and a blood-red Edward Ruscha canvas featuring the words, “I think maybe I’ll…,” fitting for a president known for lengthy bouts of contemplation. The Jasper Johns sculpture was installed in the residence on Inauguration Day, along with modern works by Robert Rauschenberg and Louise Nevelson, also on loan from the National Gallery.

Collectors say the art picks by the Obamas will likely affect the artists’ market values—or at least raise their profiles. After George W. Bush displayed El Paso, Texas-born artist Tom Lea’s “Rio Grande,” a photorealistic view of a cactus set against gray clouds, in the Oval Office, the price of the artist’s paintings shot up roughly 300%, says Adair Margo, owner of an El Paso gallery that sells Mr. Lea’s work. (Mr. Lea passed away in 2001, which also boosted the value of his work.)

The Obamas’ interest in modern art began before they moved to Washington. The couple’s Hyde Park home featured modern art and black-and-white photographs, according to several Chicago friends. On one of their first dates, Mr. Obama took Michelle Robinson to the Art Institute of Chicago.

A White House spokeswoman says the Obamas enjoy all types of art but want to “round out the permanent collection” and “give new voices” to modern American artists of all races and backgrounds.

The changes in White House art come as the Obama administration seeks to boost arts funding. Mr. Obama included $50 million in his economic stimulus package for the National Endowment for the Arts and on Monday Mrs. Obama delivered remarks at the reopening of the American wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The Obamas began their art hunt shortly after the November election, says White House curator William Allman. Michael Smith, a Los Angeles-based decorator hired by the Obamas to redo their private quarters, worked with Mr. Allman, White House social secretary Desirée Rogers and others on the Obama transition team to determine which works would make the Obamas feel at home in Washington.

Mr. Smith and Mrs. Obama made a wish list of about 40 artists and asked for potential loans in a letter to the Hirshhorn, according to Kerry Brougher, the museum’s deputy director and chief curator. Mr. Brougher says Mr. Smith insisted any loans be plucked from the museum’s storage collection and not pulled off gallery walls.

“The White House’s permanent collection is a wonderful record of America’s 18th- and 19th-century classical artistic strengths,” Mr. Smith says. “The pieces of art selected for loan act as a bridge between this historic legacy and the diverse voices of artists from the 20th and 21st century.”

Last week the Obamas decided to borrow “Nice,” a 1954 abstract by Russian-born painter Nicolas de Staël containing red, black and moss-green rectangles; a couple of boxy paintings from German-born Josef Albers’s famed “Homage to the Square” series in shades of gold, red and lavender; and “Dancer Putting on Stocking” and “The Bow,” two table-top bronzes by Edgar Degas. The museum also sent over New York artist Glenn Ligon’s “Black Like Me,” a stenciled work about the segregated South, among others that the Obamas are still considering, according to a White House spokeswoman.

The president can hang whatever he wants in the residence and offices, including the Oval Office, but art placed in public rooms, such as the Green Room, must first be approved by the White House curator and the Committee for the Preservation of the White House, an advisory board on which the first lady serves as honorary chair.

Any works intended for the White House permanent collection go through strict and often lengthy vetting before the White House either accepts them as gifts or, on occasion, purchases them using private donations, says Mr. Allman, who has served as chief curator, a permanent White House position, since 2002 and worked in the curator’s office since 1976.

Potential additions to the permanent collection must be at least 25 years old, and the White House does not typically accept pieces by living artists for its collection, because inclusion could impact an artist’s market value. As a result, there aren’t many modern art choices in the collection, Mr. Allman says.

“We’re not a gallery,” Mr. Allman says. “We’re not a museum. People come to the White House once in their lifetime and have a certain perception of what they’re going to see.”

Currently, the roughly 450-piece permanent collection includes five works by black artists: the Clinton portraits by Mr. Knox; “The Builders” by Lawrence ; “Sand Dunes at Sunset, Atlantic City” by Henry Ossawa Tanner, which hangs in the Green Room and was purchased at Hillary Clinton’s urging in 1995; and “The Farm Landing,” a tranquil landscape painted in 1892 by Rhode Island artist Edward Bannister, purchased with donations in 2006.

The White House may also temporarily cull works from museums, galleries and collectors to display in either the private residence or public rooms. Presidents must return loans at the end of their final term.

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Closings (UES) 112

Closings (UES) 112, originally uploaded by Joy Garnett (archive).

Found Art (Chinatown/Little Italy/Soho): Unmonumental 157

Found Art (Chinatown/Little Italy/Soho): Unmonumental 157, originally uploaded by Joy Garnett (archive).

Found Art (Chinatown/Little Italy/Soho): Unmonumental 156

Found Art (Chinatown/Little Italy/Soho): Unmonumental 156, originally uploaded by Joy Garnett (archive).