Ineluctable modalities of the visible: at least that if no more, thought through my eyes. Signatures of all things I am here to read, seaspawn and seawrack, the nearing tide, that rusty boot. Snotgreen, bluesilver, rust: coloured signs. Limits of the diaphane. But he adds: in bodies. Then he was aware of them bodies before of them coloured. How? By knocking his sconce against them, sure. Go easy. Bald he was and a millionaire, maestro di color che sanno. Limit of the diaphane in. Why in? Diaphane, adiaphane. If you can put your five fingers through it, it is a gate, if not a door. Shut your eyes and see.
James Joyce[1]
A pluralistic art world calls for a pluralistic art criticism, . . . a criticism which is not dependent upon an exclusionary historical narrative, and which takes each work up on its own terms, in terms of its causes, its meanings, its references, and how these are materially embodied and how they are to be understood.
Arthur C. Danto [2]
There are times that one simply wants to look, simply to see what is about. To look and to put aside for a moment, if one can, the discursive fields which have grown around the practices of the visual arts. Simply to look. Not with an innocent eye; one knows that to be an impossibility, a construction of a specific historicity.[3] As if one can put aside the discursive fields that have grown around the practices of the visual arts, when the convergence of practice and history and theory defines the post-historical.[4] Simply to look, then, if not to look simply and innocently, but to look with critical reflexivity: to look and to look at one’s looking.
The inaugural exhibition in the new Forum Gallery at Brookhaven College is an occasion of such looking; it is, as it were, a new beginning for exhibiting art at Brookhaven College. The mission of the Forum Gallery and the Studio Gallery exhibitions at Brookhaven College as integral components of the art department is to serve students in studio art and art history courses, the College community, and the larger community with a full annual schedule of diverse art exhibitions, supporting the understanding and creation of contemporary art. Concentrating primarily on exhibitions of innovative, significant works of contemporary art, exhibitions feature the work of regional and national artists which, along with annual exhibitions by the art faculty and the studio art students of the College, enrich the intellectual and aesthetic envionment of the College and comprise a cultural resource for the community.
The turn from less than self-critical versions of postmodernism to something more self-critical, the turn of the century and of the millennium, the turn from the facile certainties of September 10, 2001, all suggest that looking around and surveying the terrain is overdue. Thus Modalities of the Visible is apposite: it is a survey of the current practices of the visual arts in north central Texas, and as such endeavors to be representative of those practices, without any pretense of being exhaustive.
Contemporary art in north central Texas is a rich and diverse field. A survey is a looking about to determine the boundaries of a field and of the relationships within those boundaries. The boundaries of a survey exhibition—of any exhibition—as such are ultimately mediated by the physical boundaries of the gallery space itself: the exhibition has to fit within the walls. The limitations of any gallery space forces hard choices: even when the range of works selected for exhibition is considerable, the necessity of selection renders absurd any claim that any survey exhausts the field. A survey results in a map, but a map is not the territory. At best, is is a representative sample that invites and requires further looking.
As the physical space of the gallery mediates the curatorial process, so also the the ideologies implicit in the gallery space[5] and in the curatorial process itself, likewise obviating claims of disinterestedness, perhaps even as such claims obtain in Kant’s notion of purposiveness without purpose in aesthetic judgments.[6] One endeavors to look and to select without preconceptions,[7] but knowing that one’s looking and one’s selctions are mediated by the framework of one’s individual history of looking and selecting must at a minimum dispose one to recognize one’s preconceptions and endeavor to understand them.
As one would avoid urging a claim of exhausting the field, as one would avoid urging a claim of distally surveying the field with detachment from above, as if one were Alberti’s disembodied winged eye,[8] so also would one avoid urging a totalizing discourse framing the field. That is not to seek refuge in a vague claim of pluralism in contemporary practices and theories of art: pluralism is concretely evidenced by the range of works in the exhibition and their concommittant enabling, if implicit, discourses. That pluralism obviates any totalizing hegemony of practice or discourse. As Yve-Alain Bois urges:
To introduce one’s discourse is to attempt to situate it within a field, to measure what it shares with, and how it differs from, other discourses within the same field, to define its specificity. Yet such an analytic posture, which is the stuff of criticism and presupposes a certain distance, no matter how minimal, from the object of inquiry, remains fundamentally unavailable to anyone attending to his or her own discourse. One cannot be, at the same time, embedded in a field and surveying it from above, one cannot claim any secure ground from which one’s own words could be read and judged as written by someone else.[9]
And yet, and knowing all of that, one must choose among possibilities, which is precisely what one must do on entering the studio and setting about the enterprise. Choosing implies both an anaylis and a synthesis, a selection and a narratization of the selected works.
Choosing among possibilities presupposes the modalities. The canonical logical modalities are possiblity, impossiblity, necessity and, contingency. Heinrich Wölfflin concludes the Preface to the sixth German edition of Principles of Art History: The Problem of the Development of Style in Later Art, with the assertion that: “Not everything is possible at all times, and certain thoughts can only be thought at certain stages of the development.”[10] One characteristic of the field of practices and discourses comprising the visual arts since the 1980’s is the seeming obviation of Wölfflin’s dictum: it seems as if everything is possible at this stage of the development, if one can speak of ‘development’ when the notion of progress implicit in ‘development’ is itself in question for us, as it was not—and could not have been—for Wölfflin. Thus Maurice Merleau-Ponty
For if we can neither establish a hierarchy of civilizations or speak of progress—neither in painting nor in anything else that matters—it is not because some fate holds us back; it is, rather, because the very first painting in some sense went to the farthest reach of the future.[11]
Beyond the logical modalities, Modalities of the Visible references what Arthur Danto terms the historical modalities, the possiblity of artness predicated on the historicity of the work. Not all artworks are regardable as artworks at any particular time. Rather, a situation is required in which a particular work can be regarded as an artwork; the possibility within a situation to enable the extension of the term ‘artwork’ to encompass a particular thing as an artwork renders the historicity of the regard and the artness of the thing equiprimordial.[12] As Thierry de Duve has urged, the possibility of the artness of a thing, this shift from the specific—Is it a painting?—to the generic—Is it art?—has been central to the enterprise since Duchamp’s move with Fountain.[13]
If one approaches the enterprise with the presupposition fundamental to postmodernism, that no master narrative can be proffered without suspicion of an at least implicit move toward the establishment of a hegemony, nevertheless one can posit local narratives in an effort to disconceal the conditions requisite to the coming-to-be of particular works, the situation of the field the works enter and modify with their entry, and the relationships between works within the field.
Every work is part of a larger body of work of the individual and of a larger field of practices within the social formation. Even if a particular work is not ‘representative’ of that larger body of work and a fortiori of the larger field of practices within which the body of work and the individual’s work are embedded, in the sense that to be ‘representative’ is to be a token of a type,[14] or an adequate[15] sampling from the larger class, nevertheless the particular work is necessarily a fragment of a whole. The whole itself is necesarily absent, for were it present, the exhibition would consist in the territory rather than a map. The hermeneutic circle entailed is analogous to the problematic of the notion of Being as the set of all possibles in relation to particular concrete actual sense objects, movement from which oppositional pole converges in concept.[16] On this view, the particular work as such entails a perspective from which the whole may be regarded, as a concept if not as an object given in sense perception. The validity of the selection of a particular works or artists for exhibition then turns on the capacity of the selection to reveal the whole as such, even in its necessary absence, as well as to disclose the relationships between the several parts of the whole to each other and to the whole.If the several works in the exhibition seem to be related by dissonance through their several modes of representation, and thus confute a simple totalizing of the ensemble into a whole, that is not merely a matter of manifesting the pluralism of the contemporary situation, but is more saliently at once both a relationship in itself and an index of the desire one may have for consonance and unity within the totality. The operation of the desire for closure of a field into a whole is not confined to the facture or the reception of individual artworks, but applies as well to the conceptualization of a synchronic field of works, and of diachronic fields of works. The desire may obtain notwithstanding knowing that any narratization is provisional, tacit, merely a convenient conceptual framework that is always less than the whole it posits.
Given this caveat regarding the conceptual frameworks mediating engagment with artworks and fields of artworks, some broad generalizations can be made from the works in Modalities of the Visible. One is the obvious individuality of the works, however much they may be, in some cases, superficially similar, and however much they are resonant with concerns currently at issue for artists. That may be obvious, but is bears noting nonetheless. That some of the artists have work in other than their typecast media is notable, as with Linda Ridgway’s inkjet print from a photograph rather than sculpture in bronze, and James Watral’s drawing rather than a work in ceramics. That one can work at a high level in more than one medium should not be a surprise, but it likely will be a surprise for some. If the historical moment is one of a perduring pluralism, it is not immediately evident why that pluralism should not extend to the material cause of artworks within an artist’s body of work. All the more so if it is indeed the case that the specific to generic turn obtains.
The pervasive impact of digital means in the exhibition is striking. One would obviously expect this in those working in digital imaging itself, and also in photography and printmaking, where digital means have had substantial penetration. Susan kae Grant’s gicleé print Night Journey Series, Debora Hunter’s inkjet print Widow Walk 1999 - 2002, Kenda North’s Iris print Atrium in Florence, Andrew Ortiz’s Nuestra Señora del Maiz, Linda Ridgway’s gicleé print Yarrow and Philip Van Keuren’s Iris prints in Concourse:[17] extensions of photography by digital means in works that might have been done by non-digital means, though subtle differences in syntax in the prints would obtain had the prints been made by other processes.
Conversely, while one might suppose that Dornith Doherty’s chromogenic photograph Untitled was executed with the use of digital compositing of images, the work is rather the result of rephotographing a photograph of landscape space projected onto synthetic furry material, and printing the second image.[18] The effect is a stunning sense of the envelope of light and atmosphere modulating landscape space, and is painterly in Wölfflin’s sense of the term, emphasizing unboundedness and visual apprehension of world as a “shifting semblance.”[19]
So also Linda Ridgway’s inkjet print Yarrow. Like her bronze works which make permanent transitory forces and conditions of ephemeral objects,[20] the photograph removes the fleeting from the vicissitudes of time into a perduring domain outside of time. Yarrow is exemplary of Ridgway’s use of plant material of other media; in this work, the relatively low resolution inkjet print interposes a syntax of stoichastic dot structure in interaction with film grain structure to produce a pointillism mediating the thing photographed. Close to, the image dissolves; distally, the image elements fuse in optical mixture. In itself, this aspect of the material cause of the work is a metaphor of the fugitive character of perception and the fixation of the fugitive in memory.
The three images of Philip Van Keuren’s Concourse triptych, comprised of representations of a flying goose, a swimming turtle, and a swimming manatee, are compelling illusions of the represented creatures, mediated by greatly enlarged film grain and the syntax of the Iris printer. It is not immediately evident to even the careful viewer that one is looking at representations of mounted diorama specimens, rather than at living creatures photographed in their respective environments. The uncertainty with which one confronts the animals in the three Concourse images is salient: it is a reinscription of the fundamental animism in one's felt sense of presence in encountering representations, and conduces to the seeing the representation not as a representation, as a mediation, but as the thing represented. The gesture of the respective animals in the three images of Concourse is similar: each is seen in profile, its principal axis parallel to the image plane, directionally oriented in apparent movement toward the left edge of the frame, in an indefinitely deep space in which the objects are given painterly representation with relative clarity. This similarity of form among the Concourse images, no less than their juxtaposition in the installation, unites the three autonomous works into a triptych, while the differences in inflection of gesture—upward in the turtle, forward in the goose, downward in the manatee—sustains one’s engagement.[21]
Debora Hunter’s Widow Walk 1999-2002 juxtaposes two images: at the left, an image of an elderly woman wearing a neck brace, seated in an aircraft, with a glowing patch of warm light falling on her face; at the right, an aerial view of an area of terrain with landmass and water, with a glowing patch of warm light reflected from the water. The juxtaposition of images, and the common element of the patch of warm sunlight, establishes an equivalency. More, the work is poignant, if painful.
Susan kae Grant’s image from her Night Journey series is haunting. A female figure in profile is silhouetted against a foggy nocturnal sky. Bare branches from trees, with five birds, layer the space behind the figure. The figure, with long hair tied back, delicately holds an open box with her fingertips. The series Night Journey is the culmination of a seven year research project, undertaken in collaboration with Dr. John Herman of the Southwestern Medical Center Sleep Laboratory, in which the EEG activity of the artist was monitored, and reports taking when awakening during REM sleep. [22]
One might compare Kenda North’s Atrium in Florence with Suan kae Grant’s image from the Night Journey series. Like Grant’s image, North’s Atrium in Florence seems dreamlike: fragmentary, fleeting, decontextualized, with an evocative object—in North’s case a nightgown—suspended from a clothesline in a luminous, backlit space of indeterminate extension.
Linda Guy’s Vince and Paper Men elicits a complex response to its ultimate material cause, in that the syntax of the image includes ostensibly painted passages that are representations of painterly brushwork, while the layering of image elements continue and extends her earlier work in lithography. The red, yellow, and blue squares, circles, and triangles flirt with an endgame strategy of painting first played out by Aleksandr Rodchenko,[23] and subsequently recapitulated by Barnett Newman, Jasper Johns, and Gerhard Richter, among others.[24] Here, Guy’s work enacts a game of painting beyond the endgame of painting: the work appears to be a painting to the extent of thematizing brushwork as content, employing drop shadows to puch the geometric forms forward, and uses canvas as its support, but is a digital work produced as a gicleé print.
John Pomara’s diptych Cruise Control #1 + # 2 using oil enamel on aluminum panels have the immaculate surface of a major appliance. The horizontal movement of dragging of flowing paint across the smooth panels seems the result of an industrial process in its mechanical perfection. Indeed, like the digital prints ofthe photographically-based images of Grant, Hunter, North, Ortiz, Ridgway, and Van Keuren, and Doherty’s chromogenic photograph, Pomara attenuates the hand as signifier of the artist’s presence by mediating the role of touche and écriture[25] in the facture of the work. The horizontality of the streaking of white in the black field suggest raster lines, with the modulations within the field suggesting emergent information within a system in which the signal threshold barely exceeds ambient noise. That there are two panels, and not one, is crucial as it instantiates comparisson between the two panels, as the two vessel forms in James Watral’s drawing, One and the Same, the two juxtaposed images in Debora Hunter’s Widow Walk 1999 – 2002, and the three images of mounted animals in Philip Van Keuren’s Concourse triptych, instantiates comparison. The horizontal linear elements, white streaks and lines and blue lines, clustered around the horizontal centerline, continue their movement from the left to the right panel, extending to the vertical edges of both panels. The diptych form with its inherent repetition and variation of elements, along with the problematization of the role of the hand in the facture of the work, elicts comparison with Robert Rauschenberg’s move in Factum I, Factum II,[26] in placing into question the role of chance and control, spontaneity and deliberation in the facture of the work.
Vincent Falsetta thematizes the trace of the hand in the vertical movement of paint across the surface in Untitled. The combed paint, in vertical bands of yellowish green, red, and black, are organized into three rectangles: one at the left dropping from the upper edge, another at the left, extending upward from the lower edge and separated from the passage above by an interval of white ground, and a third extending from the upper to the lower edge at the right, separated by an interval of white ground from the two at the left. There is considerable mixture between the colored paint and the rather thick white ground.
Bill Komodore stacks horizontal bands of color in The New City (Foundation Stones). The twelve bands of color turn upward as they near the right edge, as if a detail of an axionometric projection of a corner, producing a strong forward thrust. The emphasis of retinal opticality in the work returns to Komodore’s work in the early 1960s,[27] though the strong brushworks is typical of his recent works. The iconology of the hues of the several bands derives from Revelation 21:19-20, describing the foundations of the wall of the new Jerusalem:
The foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with every jewel; the first was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, the fifth onyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, the twelth amythist.
In the two juxtaposed sheets of Shanidar 1, 5 Mary Vernon works thin, transparent glazed passages against thicker, translucent scumbling and opaque linear elements. The two conjoined sheets divide the work into upper and lower registers. The upper, horizontal register references vegetation, with leaf forms and sweeping linear stems. The lower, vertical register references a roots extending downward. Compositionally connected by the continued downward thrust of the vertical black lines as well as their shared edges, and the similarity of shapes and lines, the two sheets nevertheless remain two realms, upper and lower, one in sunlight with substantial passages of saturated color, and the other subterranean with saturated color confined to a oval form at left and right edges, each realm implying and requiring the other.
The thin layers of Michael Whitehead’s Leman form a surface of quiet luminosity. The close range of value demands one’s close attention. Veiling intense color with translucent white, combined with thicker, more opaque areas, produces the effect of looking through shallow water to a brightly colored bottom. The layering implies depth, but the depth is denied by the assertive materiality of the surface as such. One endeavors to find a way through and below the surface, only to be brought outward again.
The play of light on the various surfaces—water, verdure, flesh—represented in Barnaby Fitzgerald’s The Pool is quiet; a stillness pervades the painting. This is not an evocation of Baudelaire’s luxe, calme, et volupté,[28] however. The scene is superficially bucolic, but on close scrutiny is disquieting. While the seated male figure leaning aganst the central tree playing a lute seems straightforward if detached from the activities going on behind his back, the female figures in the water are enigmatic. The female figure at the left seems to be bathing, while the female figure behind her seems to be drowning her companion; a barely visible head and raised arm of a figure more proximal at the left middle distance is ambiguous—one is not certain if the figure is swimming or drowning. The three figures grouped in the center middle distance are engaged in an indeterminable activity. The disquieting, enigmatic activity within a pastoral landscape, no less than Fitzgerald’s paint handling, reminds one of Nicolus Poussin’s Et in Arcadia ego,[29] and not without reason, for as Fitzgerald has said: “Poussin is important to me because he was rigorous and got more rigorous, and because he was complicated.”[30]
The color woodcut Three Blind Queens by Nancy Palmeri is a representation of overtly violent intersubjective relations. The figure in profile at the left has red flames, or blood spurting like flames from her eye. The center grisaille head is represented full face, a severed arm held in clinched teeth. To the right, a figure in yellow holds a small representation of a framed portrait, an embedded image within the image, perhaps the re-presentation of the absent object and cause of all the violence represented in the work.
Laurance Scholder’s relief etching Whirl, printed in black, has a cluster of overlapping white linear biomorphic forms defining transparent shapes at the center of the black field. The forms are suggestive of plant material without referencing particular plants: the mode and forces of vegetative growth is represented without representing specific vegetation.[31]
The three sheets of Annette Lawrence’s Black 1, 2, 3 present variations open linear areas of ovals, spots and splotches within a black field on a kraft paper support. The placement of the various marks convinces one that no organizing pattern obtains, that the marks are randomly distributed, but perfectly distributed. Within each sheet one compares the several marks, and compaes the marks from sheet to sheet. Not the same, but not different: similar.
The optical effect of interference pattern vibration in Tom Orr’s Flag is produced by superimposed periodic structures comprised of repeated elements. That the material cause of the work is seemingly casual, with wire fencing bent into a segment of a cylinder above clear mylar with black parallel lines makes the effect all the more striking for its economy of means. Flag demands the viewer respond actively: the effects are most evident as one moves forth and back before it.
The bilateral symmetry of Juergen Strunk’s complex color relief print HSH-16 concentrates attention on the center. The luminous bands of color emerge from the black ground of four triangular sheets of paper, producing an effect of wave structures converging toward the center of the work. The repetitive elements, thin printed but intense color, and strong symmetry dematerialize the surface. The advancing and receding color bands form a field of radiating luminosity.
Peter Beasecker’s Carrier consists of thirteen cylindrical cups, glazed white with a ring of ocherous red at the bottom, fitting into a carrier of a double walled cylinder glazed matte black with ocherous red lines marking the gripping point of the handle bridging the open bottom center. Typical of Beasecker’s works, it is at once utilitarian, sculptural, elegantly refined, and exquisitely crafted.[32]
Flagon With Handle by Dan Hammett is a virtuoso ceramic vessel. Ascending from three pointed feet formed by bring the wall of the cylinder inward to produce three downward-pointing conical forms, the piece swells upward to a rounded shoulder terminating in a short neck closed with a finial-topped lid. Three stem-like forms, two on the same side of the vessel and crossing, extend upward from the shoulder to support a handle. The assimilated ash glaze runs from the neck downward, suggesting the contents of the vessel overflowing from within in a perfect metaphor for vesselness:
the taking of what is poured in and the keeping of what was poured belong together. But their unity is determined by the outpouring for which the jug is fitted as a jug. The twofold holding of the void rests on the outpouring.[33]
Benito Huerta’s drawing Fin is another iteration of the motifs in his large painting Fin, 1997, in which the text in the same font is imposed on a painterly color field. As Lauri Nelson Robinson notes, “For twenty years Benito has restlessly explored various media and artistic activity without boundary or regard to their sources: art history, personal history, or everyday life” [34] including works retrospectively documenting his earlier work. It is worth belaboring the obvious: ‘fin’ shifts meaning depending on the language—Spanish or English—within which one reads it, the bilingual polysemy inscribing the duality of “cultural allegences competing for the soul of an artist who happens to be non-white and working in the mainstream art world.”[35]
Andrew Ortiz also engages issues of culture and identity in Nuestra Señora del Maiz, in which the Virgin of Guadelupe is layered with the corn motif. Ortiz notes:
I have always felt “not white; not brown; just beige” as the text accompanying one of my early digital works says. My current artwork explores these feelings of cultural disconnection and the idea of the creation of personal/social identity. My digital collages include symbols of my Mexican heritage juxtaposed with my background growing up in a middle class American family in California. The layering of images to create a final piece is the visual equivalent of the layering of experience that creates who I am.[36]
A dialectic of difference and identity informs James Watral’s One and the Same. The drawing of two vessels represented in elevation, strongly vertical cylinders that seem animated as if still on the wheel, invites the comparison and contrasting of the two forms. The two vessels differ in details, with similar overall form. The drawing might serve as a preparatory study, a projection of what might be undertaken in throwing at the wheel. But it is a preparatory study more in the sense of providing a means of asking the same questions by other means, for it is a finished work in itself.
The drawing Tumbling Bees by Christine Bisetto has three line drawings of bees tumbling across a prepared paper ground. The bees are numbered left to right respectively as 2, 3, 4, implying a preceeding and perhaps subsequent positions in the sequence are not represented, suggesting the horizontal movement, like that in John Pomara’s diptych Cruise Control #1 + # 2, continues beyond the field.
Lorraine Tady’s mixed media work Satellite Glider (VGS) overlays relatively open conté and charcoal passages with dense painted passages. The dense painted passages appear proximally, partly from their greater visual weight and partly from their overlapping of the lighter, more open drawn passsages. The marking references the edges of he sheet except for the stong diagonal bulit up at the lower right of the image area, its difference in orientation emphasises by the vertical and horizontal marks of the field from which it thrusts.
The tension of density, mass and the fragile, almost ephemeral material in James Sullivan’s Untitled standing figure thematizes the lived experience of the body. The confident gesture of the figure, erect and moving in space, is a positing of the possibility of figural sculpture beyond the high modernist repudiation of the figure and the cliché of postmodern irony.[37]
The social coding of gender relations informs the gestural movements of Sherry Owens’ Man Brain / Woman Brain. Peeled, dyed crepe myrtle branches are assembled into two dense clusters representing the brains, held above a looser, more open substructure of peeled, undyed crepe myrtle branches resting on four points on the glass surface of the steel and glass base. The two structures are intertwined, connected but contentious in their gestural movement.
In Confession, Frances Bagley uses a head and bust portrait in plaster atop a wood and steel base to suggest a figure. The bald plaster head, to which a polychromed face-mask in fabric is applied, has the pupils of the eyes rimmed with blue, but with the pupils themselves removed to reveal the white plaster underneath. If the eyes are the windows of the soul, this surely is a baring of the soul, which is the act of confession. The lips and eyebrows and eyelashes are painted, as are the cheeks: blushing red, as if in shame from the act of confession, or of an antecedent cause of shame requiring an act of confession. The presence of the figure transcends the simplicity of the representation; it is resonant with sculpture as diverse as Francesco Laurana’s Eleanora of Aragon and Sumerian votive figures from the temple of Abu at Tel Asmar.[38]
The seven bronze shriveled pears in Tracy Hicks’ Session are indexical traces of the dried fruit, the mutability of the pears transfigured into an immutable material. The very indexicality that underlies the verisimilitude of representation entails the loss of what is preserved in its absence as a bronze simulacrum. The laying out of the bronze pears in a row
Harry Geffert’s Jacob’s Ladder of six bronze branches of mistletoe along an abstracted bronze limb, vertical on the wall, lead the eye upward in a serpentine ascent in counterpoint with the shadows cast onto the wall (and read as if a volume behind the plane of the wall) by the mistletoe. Only when close to the work does the mistletoe read as mistletoe; from a greater distance, the black branches of mistletoe are clusters of line. Together with their cast shadows, the mistletoe branches form a caduceus about the vertical limb, tree and snake formed by implied line wound round it, an immemorial symbol of life.[39]
The tree motif also occurs in David Iles’ bronze Endeavor. The tree rises fron the truncated steel pyramid base, with its incorporated skeletal form on the top plane, and holds aloft a small platform nestled in the branches. One supposes the platform to be the goal of the endeavor of the title, and the vestigial skeleton on top of the truncated pyramidal base, itself a form evoking frustrated effort, the result of dying trying. The tree, an axis mundi, perdures.
The field is rich; this is but an initial sampling. In the end, the curatorial process, and this discourse which endeavors to disclose both something of that process and something of the works selected in that process, is but a polite way of pointing and saying this is worth looking at.
We are indeed grateful to the artists in the exhibition for generously loaning their work for this exhibition, and to the Dallas County Community College District and Brookhaven College for making this gallery and the significant expansion of the art building of which it is a part possible. We are priviledged to have the work of the artists here, and delighted with this facility in which it is presented.
Frances Bagley
The Confession
plaster, cloth, wood, steel
52 x 22 x 17 inches
Dallas artist Frances Bagley's recent exhibitions include To Float . . .Works by Frances Bagley and Tom Orr, Irving Art Center, 1998; Frances Bagley and Cameron Schoepp, Contemporary Art Center of Fort Worth, 1997; Tom Orr Frances Bagley Installations, CRCA Gallery, University of Texas at Arlington, 1997; La Piazza: An Installation by Frances Bagley, Dallas Visual Arts Center, 1996; Establishment Exposed, Dallas Visual Arts Center, 1996; Frances Bagley / Tom Orr: A Sculptural Dialog, Galveston Art Center, 1996.
Peter Beasecker
Carrier
porcelain
3 x 14.5 inches diameter
Beasecker is Associate Professor of Art at Southern Methodist University, where he has taught since 1992 and received anOutstanding Faculty Award in 1997. Recent exhibitions include Peter Beasecker, gallerymateria, Scottsdale, Arizona, 2001; Reunion: Wayne Higby and Graduates fom Alfred University Ceramics Program, The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, 2000; Spokane Collects: Contemporary Ceramics, The Arcade Gallery at Jundt Art Museum, Gonzaga University, 2000; Fireworks: On and Off the Wall, Dallas Visual Art Center, 1998; Within The Borders, NCECA '98, Fort Worth, Texas, 1998; Deep in the Clay of Texas: Clay Works by Texas Clay Artists, Tyler Museum of Art, Tyler, Texas, 1998; Interpretingthe Variorum: Twenty Six Ewers By Peter Beasecker, Studio Gallery, Brookhaven College, 1996; FunctionalWork: American Potters, Arvada Center, Denver, Colorado; An Accessible Art, Fosdick-Nelson Gallery, Alfred, New York;Fletcher Challenge Award 1996, Auckland, New Zeeland. Peter Beasecker is a recipient of a 1995 National Endowment for the Arts artist’s grant.
Christine Bisetto
Tumbling Bee
carbon, latex paint on paper
27 x 23 inches
Courtesy Mulcahy Modern
Christine Bisetto is Director of the Haggarty Gallery and Assistant Professor of Art at the University of Dallas. Recent exhibitions include: Mix!Series, Dallas Contemporary Arts Center, 2002; Substance Abuse, University of Texas at Dallas, 2000; Christine Bisetto, Linda Guy: Lithographs, Forum Gallery, Brookhaven College, 1998; World Women ’98, Dallas Women’s Caucus for Art, Two Printmakers: Christine Bisetto, Donna Stallard, North Lake College, 1997; Taken From Nature: The Prints of Christine Bisetto and Donna Stallard, Brazos Gallery, Richland College, 1995.
Dornith Doherty
Untitled
44 x 55 inches
Courtesy of James Gallery
Associate Professor of Art at the School of Visual Arts, University of North Texas, Dornith Doherty’s recent exhibitions include: Dornith Doherty, John Sparagana, Ann Stautberg, James Gallery, 2002; Texas Tall Tales, Photographs Do Not Bend, 2001; The Shelf-Life of Objects: Contemporary Still Life Photography, University of Texas at Dallas, 2000; Dornith Doherty: New Work, Studio Gallery, Brookhaven College, 2000; Blurred Boundaries, James Gallery, Houston, 2000; Revelation, Dallas Visual Arts Center, 1998.
Vincent Falsetta
Untitled
oil on canvas
40 x 44 inches
Courtesy of Conduit Gallery
Vincent Falsetta is Professor of Art at the School of Visual Arts, University of North Texas. Recent exhibitions include Vincent Falsetta: Recent Paintings, Conduit Gallery, Dallas, 2000; Vincent Falsetta: Other Systems, Conduit Gallery, 1998; Vincent Falsetta: Peripheral Vision -- A Survey of Paintings and Works on Paper 1975-1995, Galveston Art Center, 1996; Vincent Falsetta: Recent Work, Conduit Gallery, 1995; and exhibitions at OK Harris, New York; and the University of Texas at Dallas.
Barnaby Fitzgerald
The Pool
oil on canvas
30 x 36 inches
Courtesy of Valley House Gallery
Barnaby Fitzgerald is Associate Professor of Art at Southern Methodist University. Recent exhibitions include: Barnaby Fitzgerald, Meredith Long Gallery, Houston, 2001; Barnaby Fitzgerald: Legends and Scenarios, Valley House Gallery, Dallas, 2000; Barnaby Fitzgerald Settings, Salander-O’Reilly Galleies, New York, 1997;Barnaby Fitzgerald, Studio Gallery, Brookhaven College, 1997; Texas Realism, Arlington Museum of Art, 1996.
Harry Geffert is a distinguished sculptor and owner of Green Mountain Foundry, opened after a distinguished teaching career of twenty seven years at Texas Christian University. A former recipient of the Dallas Visual Art Center Legend Award, Geffert’s exhibitions include Harry Geffert, Pillsbury and Peters Fine Art, Dallas, 2001; Harry Geffert: New Work, Dallas Visual Arts Center, 1998; Establishment Exposed, Dallas Visual Arts Center, 1996; Harry Geffert and Friends, Dallas Visual Arts Center, 1994; Harry Geffert: Bronze Allegories, Dallas Museum of Art, 1990; Geffert is a 1990 recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artist’s Fellowship.
Susan kae Grant
Night Journey Seriesgicleé print
44 x 22 inches
Susan kae Grant is Professor of Art at Texas Woman’s University, Denton. Susan kae Grant, Night Journey, 5501 Columbia Art Center, Dallas, and Houston Center for Photography,2000; Fact and Fiction: Animal Visions for the 21st Century, Light Factory, 1995; Digital Dramas, Arlington Museum of Art, 1995; Re:Framing the Past, Women and Their Work, Austin, 1993.
Linda Guy
Vince and Paper Men
gicleé print on canvas
60 x 48 inches
Linda Guy is Associate Professor of Art at Texas Christian University. Recent exhibitions include: Linda Guy, Art Space 111, Fort Worth, 2001; The Japan Journal, Cultural Center PUCP, Lima, Peru, 2000; Christine Bisetto, Linda Guy: Lithographs, Forum Gallery, Brookhaven College, 1998; Linda Guy, McMurry University, 1998; Twelve Texas Women, Contemporary Art Center, Fort Worth, 1997; Linda Guy & Robert Lewis: Fort Worth, Texas Printmakers, Nagaoka Lyric Hall, Nagoaka, Japan, 1997.
Dan Hammett
Flagon With Handle
stoneware with blue assimilated ash glaze
31 x 11 x 11 inches
Dan Hammett is Assistant Professor of Art at the University of Dallas. His recent exhibitions include Form, Function and the Boogie Woogie Blues National Invitational, University of Texas Permian Basin, 1998; Claymakers: Clay Under the X—8 Texas Artists, Arlington Museum of Art, 1998; Clay Traditions: Texas Educators and their Teachers, Dallas Museum of Art, 1998; Fireworks: On and Off the Wall, Dallas Visual Art Center, 1998; To Have and To Hold: Ceramic Vessel Making by Texas Artists, Irving Arts Center, 1998; Uniqueness From the Hand, University of Texas at San Antonio, 1997; Form by Fire, Martin-Rathburn Gallery, San Antonio, 1996; Earthen Vessel II, Baylor University, 1996; Texas Clay II, Southwest Texas State University, traveling to Stephen F. Austin State University, Brookhaven College, Corpus Christi State University, Laguna Gloria Art Museum, Austin, University of Texas at San Antonio, 1993.
Tracy Hicks
Sessionbronze
6 x 13 x 3.5 inches (including shelf)
Dallas artist Tracy Hicks works in installation, sculpture, and photography. Recent exhibitions includeGlass Towers at Chenevert Green, Houston, 2000; Salvage Biology, Lewallen Contemporary, Santa Fe, 2000; Correlation and Correction at CRCA The Gallery at the University of Texas at Arlington, 1999; Storeroom, Museum of East Texas, Lufkin, 1998; Freedmens Field, African American Museum, Dallas, 1997; Third Ward Archive, Project Rowhouses, Houston, 1996; and Encounters 5: Tracy Hicks and Damien Hirst, Dallas Museum of Art, 1994.
Benito Huerta
Fin
charcoal, graphite on paper
48 x 48 inches
Benito Huerta is Assistant Professor of Art and Gallery Director at CRCA The Gallery at the University of Texas at Arlington. Recent one-person exhibitions include David McGee/Benito Huerta – Exile Off Main Street, CRCA The Gallery at the University of Texas at Arlington, 1999; Benito Huerta: Arc de Papel, Dallas Visual Arts Center, 1998; and exhibitions at the M.S.C. Gallery at Texas A&M University, Southwest Texas State University, and Lynn Goode Gallery, Houston. He is founding editor of the journal Artlies.
Debora Hunter
Widow Walk 1999--2002
inkjet print
13 x 23 inches
Debora Hunter is Associate Professor of Art at Southern Methodist Univeristy. Women, Photography and Related Technologies, University of Texas at Dallas, 1998; Sitting Pretty: Photographs by Debora Hunter and Sue Packer, Art Institute of Chicago, 1992; Raw Material: Portraits of Persons Under the Age of One, Meadows Museum, Southern Methodist University, 1989. Ms. Hunter was a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts / Mid-America Arts Alliance grant in 1987.
David Iles
Endeavor
bronze, steel
102 x 36 x 36 inches
Courtesy of Valley House Gallery
Sculptor David Iles works and operates a foundry for artists in Sanger, Texas. After several years directing the foundry at the School of Visual Art, University of North Texas, Iles begins teaching bronze casting at Brookhaven College in the Spring 2002 semester. Recent exhibitions include David Iles, Studio Gallery, Brookhaven College, 2001; From Stories Not Told: Recent Work by David Iles, The Center for the Visual Arts, Denton.
Bill Komodore is a distinguished painter, and Professor of Art at Southern Methodist University; Komodore was the Dallas Visual Arts Center 1997 Legend Award Artist. Komodore’s extensive exhibitions include: Bill Komodore & Laurence Scholder, Art League of Houston, 2002; Bill Komodore: Poetry in Paint, Pillsbury and Peters Fine Art, 2000; Recent Paintings of Bill Komodore, South Texas Institute for the Arts, Corpus Christi, 1999; Komodore, Dallas Visual Arts Center, 1997; Content Drives Form: Recent Work of Bill Komodore, Meadows Museum, Southern Methodist University, 1997; Establishment Exposed, Dallas Visual Arts Center, 1996; Marks and Worlds: Twenty-five Small Works by Bill Komodore, Studio Gallery, Brookhaven College, 1996.
Annette Lawrence
Untitled (Black 1, 2, 3)
photocopy, acrylic on paper
three sheets, each 17 x 26 inches
Courtesy of Dunn and Brown Contemporary
Annette Lawrence is Professor of Art at the School of Visual Arts, University of North Texas. Exhibitions include one-person exhibitions at Dunn and Brown Contemporary, Dallas; and Annette Lawrence: Same Way, Gerald Peters Gallery, Dallas, 1996; Annette Lawrence, ArtPace, San Antonio, 1995; Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, 1997; Project Row Houses, Houston; The Texas Collection—Postmodern, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Gender: Fact or Fiction, Laguna Gloria Museum of Art, Austin; 3D Rupture, Contemporary Art Museum, Houston.
Kenda North
Atrium in Florence
Iris gicleé print
32 x 28 inches
Kenda North is Associate Professor of Art and art department chairperson at the University of Texas at Arlington, and serves as President of the National Council of Art Administrators. Recent exhibitions include: Ocean View, California Museum of Photography, Riverside; Stories From Her, Hartnett Gallery, University of Rochester; Between Heaven and Home, National Gallery for American Art, Washington, D.C.; Toward Blue, Photographic Archives Gallery, Dallas, 1997; Kenda North: Photographs, Gallery Min, Tokyo, 1988.
Tom Orr
Flag
mixed media
36 x 40 x 24 inches
Dallas sculptor Tom Orr’s recent exhibitions include: Tom Orr Frances Bagley Installations,CRCA Gallery, University of Texas at Arlington, 1997; Tom Orr, Conduit Gallery, 1996; Establishment Exposed, Dallas Visual Arts Center, 1996;Simple Things, Arlington Museum of Art, 1995; Boat, Pollock Gallery, Southern Methodist University, 1993-1994, Tom Orr: Recent Work, Conduit Gallery, 1993.
Andrew Ortiz
Nuestra Señora del Maiz
inkjet print
54
x 36 inches
Andrew Ortiz is Assistant Professor of Art at the University of Texas at Arlington. Recent exhibitions include: Mi Familia: Unspoken, Words Unheard, Southwest School of Arts and Crafts, San Antonio; Close to the Border VII, New Mexico State University; Art in the Metroplex, Fort Worth.
Sherry Owens
Man Brain/Woman Brain
crape myrtle, wax, dye, steel, glass
32 x 32 x 26 inches on 32 x 32 x 32 inch base
Courtesy of Valley House Gallery
Dallas sculptor Sherry Owens’ recent exhibitions include Earthly Delights, Parchman Stremmel Galleries, San Antonio, 2001; Steel Grrrls, Art League Houston, 2001; Outside In, Ida Green Gallery, Austin College, 2001; Unearthed, Haggar Gallery, University of Dallas, 2000; This Seed of Space, Women and Their Work, Austin, 1998; Patience Toward Obsession, University of Texas at El Paso, 1997.
Nancy Palmeri
Three Queens
color woodcut
22 x 30 inches
Nancy Palmeri is Assistant Professor of Art at the University of Texas at Arlington. Recent exhibitions include: Texas Prints, Border Crossings, Southern Graphics Council National Conference, The University of Texas at Austin, 2001; Naughty and Nice, Decameron Images, A.I.R. Gallery, New York
John Pomara
Cruise Control #1 + # 2
oil enamel on aluminum
diptych, each panel 48 x 36 inches
Courtesy of Barry Whistler Gallery
John Pomara is Professor of Art at the University of Texas at Dallas. Recent exhibitions include John Pomara, Dallas Museum of Art, 2001; John Pomara / New Works, Barry Whistler Gallery, Dallas, 2000; John Pomara / Paintings, Barry Whistler Gallery, Dallas, 1998-1999; Texas Abstract, McKinney Avenue Contemporary, Dallas, 1995;Tad Griffen, Tom Moody, John Pomara, David Szafranski: An Exhibition of Abstract Painting, Eugene Binder Gallery, Dallas, 1994.
Linda Ridgway is Professor of Art at Cedar Valley College, where she was named Minnie Stephens Piper Professor in 2001. Recepient of the 2001 Dallas Visual Art Center Legend Award, and the 1999 Texas Artist of the Year Award by the Art League of Houston,Ridgway’s extensive exhibition records includes Art For Art’s Sake, Arthur Roger Gallery, New Orleans, 2001; House of Sculpture, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, 1999; Linda Ridgway: Receiving Line, John Berggreun Gallery, San Francisco, 1999; Art/30/Base, Galerie Gisele Linder, Basel, Switzerland, 1999; Linda Ridgway: A Survey—The Poetics of Form, Dallas Museum of Art, 1998 and Glassell School of Art of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1997; Poetry of Line, Women and Their Work, Austin, 1998; Establishment Exposed, Dallas Visual Arts Center, 1996; Linda Ridgway: In Search of A Voice, Gerald Peters Gallery, Dallas, Texas, 1996.
Laurence Scholder
Whirl
relief etching
20 x 16 inches
Courtesy of Dunn and Brown Contemporary
Laurence Scholder is Professor of Art at Southern Methodist University. Scholder’s exhibitions include Bill Komodore, Laurence Scholder, Art League of Houston, 2002; Laurence Scholder, Studio Gallery, Brookhaven College, 1996; Laurence Scholder: Recent Prints, Peregrine Gallery, Dallas, 1990.
Juergen Strunck
HSH-16
relief print on Japanese fiber
49.5 x 49.5 inches
Juergen Strunck is Professor of Art at the University of Dallas. A nationally known printmaker, Strunck’s exhibitions include Texas Prints, Border Crossings Southern Graphics Council National Conference, The University of Texas at Austin, 2001; Clemson National Print and Drawing Exhibition, Clemson University, 1996; 1996 Pacific States Biennial National Print Exhibition, University of Hawaii at Hilo; National Print Invitational, New Gallery, University of Miami, 1995; Juergen Strunck, University Gallery, the University of Texas at Tyler, 1995; Juergen Strunck, Museo Nacional de Belas Artes, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1995; Juergen Strunck, University Art Gallery, Baylor University, 1994.
James Sullivan
James Sullivan is Associate Professor of Art and Chairperson of the Division of Art, Meadows School ofthe Arts at Southern Methodist University. Recent exhibitions include James Sullivan: Matter and Meaning, Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi, 2000; The Figure: Experiencing Views, University of Texas at San Antonio, 1999; James Sullivan: Sculpture and Drawings, Longview Museum of Fine Arts, 1998; Requia, Conduit Gallery, 1998; Body : Fragment, Meadows Museum, Southern Methodist University, 1996; Uber Grenzen mit Mitienanderen, Stadt Museum, Erlangen, Germany, 1995; Six Ways of Seeing, Conduit Gallery, 1996; James Sullivan: Sculpture and Drawings, Conduit Gallery, 1994; James Sullivan: Drawings and Sculpture, Studio Gallery, Brookhaven College, 1993; James Sullivan, Galerie Muhlenbusch, Dusseldorf, 1990; Werkspruren, Bildhauerwerkstatt, Berlin, 1990.
Lorraine Tady
Satellite Glider (VGS)
mixed media, conté on paper
29 x 41inches sheet
Courtesy of Barry Whistler Gallery
Dallas artist Lorraine Tady’s recent exhibitions include Lorraine Tady / Paintings, Drawing and Sculpture II, Barry Whistler Galler, Dallas, 2001; Lorraine Tady, MOAT Museum of Agenda and Transgression, Hickory Street Annex, Dallas, 1994.
Philip Van Kueren
Concourse
Iris gicleé prints
three parts, each 37 x 49 inches
Philip Van Keuren is Associate Professor of Art and Curatorial Studies and, Director of the Pollock Gallery at Southern Methodist University. Recent exhibitions include Philip Van Keuren: Night Cometh, McKinney Avenue Contemporary, 2000; Millenial Biennial: National Works on Paper, Marsh Art Gallery, University of Richmond Museums, 2000; Beyond the Lens, Gerald Peters Gallery, Dallas, 1999; v.1, Artists Working in Electronic Media, Houghton House Gallery, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, 1999.
Mary Vernon
Shanidar 1, 5
oil on paper
78 x 50 inches (2 pieces: 38 x 50, 40 x 30 inches)
Courtesy of Valley House Gallery
Mary Vernon is Professor of Art at Southern Methodist University. Recent exhibitions include Mary Vernon: Painting and Collage, Fine Arts Gallery, Anne Dean Turk Fine Arts Center, Kilgore College, Kilgore, Texas, 2001; Mary Vernon: Color Studies for Almaty, Almaty, Kazakhstan, 2000; Mary Vernon: New Work, Evanston Art Center, Evanston Illinois, 2000; Mary Vernon, Studio Gallery, Brookhaven College, 1997; Vernon: Peintures, Maison de Amis de Chateauneuf, Chateaneuf en Auvoix, France, 1998; Contemporary American Art, Budapest and Szekesfervar, Hungary, 1994-1995; Mary Vernon: Cars, Meadows Museum, Southern Methodist University, 1993. Vernon received the ninth annual Moss/Chumley North Texas Artist Award in 1997, and was the Meadows Foundation Distinguished Teaching Professor for 1998-99.
James Watral
One and the Same
conté, pastel, graphite on paper
36.5 x 33 inches
James Watral is Professor of Art at Eastfield College. Recent exhibitions include: Clay Under the X—8 Texas Artists, NCECA, 1998; James Watral—Ceramics, Texas Woman’s University, 1997; Earth Air Fire Water, Midwestern State University, 1996;Watral, Dallas Visual Arts Center, 1995; Texas Clay II, Southwest Texas State University and travelling, 1993; James Watral: Elements of My Desire, Gerald Peters Gallery, Dallas, 1991.
Dallas artist Michael Whitehead’s recent exhibitions include T. Paul Hernandez and Michael Whitehead, The Gallery at UTA, University of Texas at Arlington, 2001; solo exhibitions at: Horwitch/LewAllen Gallery, London; Musee d’Art Moderne, Bourdeaux; Museum of Modern Art, Manchester, UK; Blackburn Museum of Fine Art, Blackburn, UK. Whitehead has received two National Endowment for the Arts Visual Arts Fellowships, and the Anne Giles Kimbrough Award from the Dallas Museum of Art.
[1] James Joyce, Ulysses (New York: Random House, 1934, 1961), 37.
[2] Arthur C. Danto, “Painting, Politics and Post-Historical Art,”After the End of Art: Contemporary Art and the Pale of History[The A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, 1995, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.] (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), 150.
[3] See E. H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation (Princeton:Princeton University Press, 1960, 1961), p. 298 et passim. Mark Tansey provides a trenchent pictorial exegesis in his painting The Innocent Eye Test, 1981, oil on canvas 78 x 120” coll. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Tansey’s painting depicts a cow flanked by six suited and lab-coated researchers who have brought the animal to gaze on Paulus Potter’s painting The Young Bull. See also Roger Shattuck’s The Forbidden Experiment: The Story of the Wild Boy of Aveyron (London: Quartet, 1981).
[4] Thus Arthur Danto in “The Disenfranchisement of Art”:
When art internalizes its own history, when it becomes self-conscious of its own history as it has come to be in our time, so that its consciousness of its history forms part of its nature, it is perhaps unavoidable that it should turn into philosophy at last. And when it does so, well, in an important sense, art comes to an end.
The Philosophical Disenfranchisement of Art (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), 16; see also Danto’s “The End of Art” in the same work, 81-115. By “art comes to an end” does not mean, for Danto, that art is no longer made; it is rather a moment in a Hegelian sublation.
[5] The classic text is Brian O’Doherty, Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space (San Francisco: Lapis Press, 1986); initial publication in somewhat different form in Artforum, 1976. Cf. eds. Ivan Karp, Steven D. Levine, Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991).
[6] ‘Purposiveness’ translates Zweckmäßigkeit; see Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment [1790], §10-11.
[7] With reference to the term ‘preconception,’ see Hans-Georg Gadamer’s exposition of the term ‘prejudice’ in the Enlightenment and later; Gadamer, Truth and Method, 2nd ed., trans. Joel Weinsheimer, Donald G. Marshall (New York: Crossroads, 1989), 269-277.
[8] Reference is to Matteo de’ Pasti’s portrait medallion of Leon Battista Alberti, verso, 1446-1450, showing a detached eye surmountted by wings, which Alberti had adopted as an emblem. George Francis Hill, A Corpus of Italian Medals of the Renaissance Before Cellini, vol. 2 (London: British Museum, 1930).
[9] Yve-Alain Bois, Painting As Model (Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1990, 1993), xi.
[10] Heinrich Wölfflin, Preface, Principles of Art History: The Problem of the Development of Style in Later Art, [Munich, 1922] trans. M. D. Hottinger (New York: Dover, 1950), ix.
[11] Inter alia, Arthur Danto, “Modalities of History: Possibility and Comedy,” After the End of Art: Contemporary Art and the Pale of History [The A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, 1995, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.] (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), 193-219. On the notion of progress, see Georges Sorel, The Illusions of Progress, trans. John and Charlotte Stanley. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969 ) [Initial publication as Les illusions du progrés, 1908]. Cf. Marquis de Condorcet, Outline of the Historical View of the Progress of the Human Mind (London, 1795). Maurice Merleau-Ponty, “Eye and Mind,” trans. Carleton Dallery, The Primacy of Perception and Other Essays on Phenomenological Psychology, the Philosophy of Art, History, and Politics, ed. James M. Edie (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1964), 159-190, ad fin.
[12] Arthur C. Danto, “Works in Progress: Art and the Historical Modalities,” Revue canadinene d’esthétique / Canadian Aesthetics Journal, online at http://wwwuqtr.uquebec.ca/AE/vol_1/danto.html. See also Danto, “The Work of Art and the Historical Future,” Anything Goes [Occasional Papers of the Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities, no. 14, 1-16, presented October, 1997] (Berkeley: University of California, 1998), online at http://ls.berkeley.edu/dept/townsend/pubs/OP14_Anything_Goes.pdf .
[13] Thierry de Duve, Kant After Duchamp (Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1996).
[14] See Charles S. Pierce, Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Pierce, vol. IV, eds. C. Hartshorne, P. Weiss (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1933), 423; also Nelson Goodman, Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1976), 131 n. 3.
[15] One might take ‘adequate’ in the sense of sufficient, but it would be better taken as an echo of the Latin adaequatio, in its usage in the venerable formula that truth is the adequation ofthing and intellect.
[16] See Robert E. Wood, A Path Into Metaphysics: Phenomenological, Hermeneutic, and Dialogical Studies (Albany: State University of New York, 1990), 68f.
[17] See the author’s curatorial essay “Philip Van Keuren: Representations,” for the exhibition Philip Van Keuren, Studio Gallery, Brookhaven College, March 5 - 30, 2001. Online at http://home.earthlink.net/~davidrnewman/pvkeuren.htm .
[18] See the author’s “Dornith Doherty: The Nature of Artifice, the Artifice of Nature,” curator’s essay for the exhibition Dornith Doherty: New Work, Studio Gallery, Brookhaven College, May 15 – June 23, 2000. Online at http://home.earthlink.net/~davidrnewman/doherty.htm.
[19] ‘Painterly,’ translating malerish, as opposed to linear; apprehension of things as shifting semblance rather than as tangible bodies, tending to limitlessness rather than stressing the limits of things. Heinrich Wölfflin, Principles of Art History: The Problem of the Development of Style in Later Art, [Munich, 1922] trans. M. D. Hottinger (New York: Dover, 1950),
[20] See Charles Wylie, “Transparency Visible: The Art of Linda Ridgway,” in the catalogue for the exhibition Linda Ridgway: A Survey The Poetics of Form, Dallas Museum of Art, January 11- April 5, 1998, 24.
[21] Seethe author’s curatorial essay “Philip Van Keuren: Representations,” for the exhibition Philip Van Keuren, studio Gallery, Brookhaven College, March 5-30, 2001.
[22] For the installation to which this work of Susan kae Grant is related, see http://www.5501.com/exhibits/susan.html
[23] Rodchenko’s three monochromes, Chistyi krasnyi tsvet (Pure Red Color), Chistyi zheltyi tsvet (Pure Yellow Color), and Chistyi sinii tsvet (Pure Blue Color), were exhibited in the September 1921 exhibition 5 x 5 = 25, held at the Klub userossis kogo soiuza poetov, Club of the All-Russia Union of Poets, Moscow. Rodchenko wrote in the catalogue for the exhibition: “At the present exhibition for the first time in art the three primary colors are declared.” Quoted in John Milner, “Material Values: Alexander Rodchenko and the end of abstract art,” in ed. David Elliott, Rodchenko and the Arts of Revolutionary Russia (New York: Pantheon, 1979), pp. 50-54, [reprint of exhibition catalogue, Alexander Rodchenko, Museum of Modern Art, Oxford]. Later, Rodchenko remarked “I reduced painting to its logical conclusion and exhibited three canvases: red, blue and yellow. I affirmed: it’s all over. Basic colors. Every plane is a plane and there is to be no representation.” Quoted in online resources for the exhibition Aleksandr Rodchenko, Museum of Modern Art, New York, June 25 - October 6, 1998 at http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/rodchenko/texts/death_of_painting.html . I am indebted to Yve-Alain Bois in his lecture “The Noncompositional Strategy From Malevich to Minimalism,” presented at the University of Texas at Dallas, 16 April 1998.
[24] E.g., Barnett Newman, Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow, and Blue I, 1966, oil on canvas, 75 x 48 inches, coll. S. I. Newhouse, Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow, and Blue II, 1966, acrylic on canvas, 120 x 102, coll. Annalee Newman, Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow, and Blue III, 1966-67, oil on canvas, 96 x 214, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow, and Blue IV, acrylic on canvas, 1969-70, 108 x 238, coll. Annalee Newman; Jasper Johns, Diver, oil on canvas with objects, 90 x 170, Albert A. List Family coll., According to What, oil on canvas with objects, 88 x 192, coll. Edwin James; Gerhard Richter, Red Yellow Blue, No. 333/5, 1972, oil on canvas, 251 x 200 cm., Crex Coll., Hallen für neue Kunst, Stuttgart.
[25] Touche refers to that which is personal and individual in an artist’s brushwork entailing the consideration of style in a subjective sense; écriture entails objective elements of style. See J. P. Hodin, “The Painter’s Handwriting,” in ed. Georgy Kepes, Sign, Image, Symbol (New York: George Brazilier, 1966), pp. 150-167; see also Henri Focillon, “Forms in the Realm of Matter,” The Life of Forms in Art, trans. Charles Beecher Hogan, George Kubler (New York: Zone Books, 1992), pp. 95-116 on the mythology of the hand.
[26] Robert Rauschenberg, Factum I, 1957, oil, paper, fabric on canvas, 62 x 35.5 inches, coll. Dr. Giuseppe Panza, Milan; Factum II, 1957, oil, paper, fabric on canvas, 62 x 35.5 inches, coll. Mr. and Mrs. Morton Neumann, Chicago.
[27] See the exhibition catalog by William C. Seitz, The Responsive Eye, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1965.
[28] Charles Baudelaire, “L’Invitation au voyage,” [1 June 1855] Les Fleurs du Mal (Paris: Editions Garnier Frerès, 1961), 58-59, line 42.
[29] Nicolas Poussin, Et in Arcadia ego, oil on canvas, Louvre, Paris. Cf. Poussin, Et in Arcadia ego, oil on canvas, Chatsworth, Devonshire Coll. See Erwin Panofsky’s magisterial “Et in Arcadia ego: Poussin and the Elegiac Tradition,” Meaning in the Visual Arts: Papers in and on Art History (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1955), 295-320.
[30] Barnaby Fitzgerald, quoted in Peter Lubin, “The Temperature of Light,” catalogue essay for the exhibition Barnaby Fitzgerald: Legends & Scenarios, Valley House Gallery, Dallas, October 6 – November 11, 2000.
[31] See the author’s curatorial essay “Center and Margin: Fifteen Prints by Laurence Scholder,” for the exhibition Laurence Scholder, Studio Gallery, Brookhaven College, October 3-29, 1996, online at http://home.earthlink.net/~davidrnewman/scholder.htm .
[32] See the author’s curatorial essay “Interpreting the Variorum: Twenty Six Ewers By Peter Beasecker,” for the exhibition Peter Beasecker, Studio Gallery, Brookhaven College, March 4 - 28, 1996, online at http://home.earthlink.net/~davidrnewman/pbeaseck.htm .
[33] Martin Heidegger, “The Thing,” Poetry, Language, Thought, trans. Albert Hofstadter (New York: Harper& Row, 1971), 171-172.
[34] Lauri Nelson Robinson, “Exile off Main Street: Benito Huerta and David McGee,” catalog essay for the exhibition David McGee Benito Huerta, The Gallery at the University of Texas at Arlington, January 23 – March 3, 1999. The painting Fin, 1997, 78 x 78 inches, oil on canvas, is reproduced in color.
[35] Lauri Nelson Robinson, ibid. Cf. Lucy Lippard, Mixed Blessings: New Art in a Multicultural America (New York: Pantheon, 1990), 225.
[36] Andrew Ortiz, Statement, Disconnection Reconnection, Digital Image Forum, University of Houston, online at http://www.art.uh.edu/dif/ortiz/menu.html .
[37] See David Newman, “James Sullivan: Matter and Meaning,” essay for the exhibition James Sullivan Matter and Meaning, Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi, April 8 – June 11, 2000.
[38] Francesco Laurana, Eleanora of Aragon, marble, circa 1467, Museo Nazionale, Palermo. Figures from the temple of Abu, Tel Asmar, stone, Sumerian Early Dynastic period circa 3000 B.C.E., Oriental Institute, Chicago.
[39] See Jane Ellen Harrison, Epilegomena to the Study of Greek Religion and Themis: A Study of the Social Origins of Greek Religion (New York: University Books, 1962), 311. As Harrison notes: “The snake, the Agathos Daimon, is the genius of growing things, guardian of the Tree of Life, from the garden of Eden to the garden of the Hesperides.”