Rosy Response to Barnet Newman

This summer I set out on a pilgrimage to DC to visit Barnet Newman’s ” Stations of the Cross” as part of a multi-faceted project.  The project began as a paper presentation for the joint SECAC/MACAA (Southeastern Collage Art Conference and the Mid-America College Art Association)2010 Conference in Richmond, VA in October.  The session was focused on the idea of pilgrimage, but an expanded sense of PILGRIMAGE where the journey’s significant destination was that of an artwork or artworks.  The session was particularly interested in how original artworks are experienced, at a time when their copies are so readily available via the internet and sources.  The chair sought to cultivate a discussion of how the actual artwork might exceed or fail the expectations created by the experience of the copy which prompted the desire or interest to see the original work.  In my case, the “Stations” of Barnet Newman were the subject and destination for the pilgrimage experience.

But like many of the panelists, I found that the more traditional ideas of journey and transformation (as components of pilgrimage) were part of my interest and project.  Barnet Newman’s “Stations” are an interesting historical use of a Christian “type” or “form,” in a non-religious context (the art-world/gallery/museum). Newman’s works are very complex in their seemingly minimalism, and quite grandiose in scope (as many art critics would claim about Newman himself).  Grand, in that they were a long term project (approximately 8 years in completion) and are a meditation on the Holocaust.  Newman, a Jewish artist and conceptual abstract painter, used the Christian tradition of the “Stations,” normally a mediation on the passion of Christ, as a type of frame or lens to contemplate the Jewish Holocaust.  The key to the work, according to Newman, is that the entire set of fourteen paintings are a meditation on the final words of Christ, “My God, My God, Why have you abandoned me?”  The ultimate sense of loss/horror/abandonment symbolized in Christ’s passion and death is used to help frame/understand the ultimate sense of loss/horror/abandonment in the Holocaust.

Why this work for me?  As anyone who reads my blog can put together, Catholicism and Modernism are the two greatest paradigms which have shaped my world view, and are the framework to which I find myself always reacting/responding.  These responses are grounded in a Post-Catholic/Post-Modern (or post-post…depending on your view of the whole post-modern thing) present.  Newman has always been a significant painter for me.  His use of minimalism as expressions of philosophical ideas, combined with his pop-cultural awarenesses, as in the naming of his “Zip” paintings, made him someone of note for my own painting development. But “Stations” became a strong curiosity for me, because of the rich texts and subtexts, pulling from religious narratives for the sake of expressing loss.

My experience of the “Stations’” and this whole pilgrimage are currently part of a paper undergoing review along with the other panelist from this conference. In addition to the paper, part of what I had hoped to do in this journey to see Newman’s work, was to respond to his work, and to the idea of creating a set of “Stations” that might have some relevance now.  And by relevance, I mean a sort of relevance where this “form” could be presented in a non-religious space, and still hold some sense of intention, or meditation like what the “Stations” are meant to do.  Be a frame for considering and experiencing loss, but with an eye to hope.  This studio experiment has proven to be very complicated, as I knew it would.  During the summer, fall and winter months, I have had many ideas as to how I might respond to the idea. What really has proven to be poignant in my thinking is that the emptiness accomplished by Newman in his work, would not be possible to replicate, nor would it hold the same meanings in the current historical moment.  Given the shift away from Modernism, and all the criticism of its sweeping assertions, I have consistently been feeling that the work might be better expressed in busyness, or cacophony.  Another association I keep making is related to the “Via Dolarosa” (the way of grief), and the association of loss/grief with roses.  Roses are found at funerals, and a haunting use of silk roses are found on crosses in the highway in the landscape where I currently live, marking those places of loss of loved ones.  So as a starting point, I have been playing with rose collages.  The photoshop collages are made with photos of roses from my garden and manipulated to become patterns of lines or shifts into bands of color variation, etc.  In my work, when I use photo-collage as a starting point, the final work often varies greatly, as these simply act as an initial idea study.

When considering this idea, I then print out several line/value variations which I project onto paper or canvas for the initial sketches.

Sometimes the variations become different drawings.  Since this is an idea I am really just starting to work with, I have no idea where it will end up.  It might end up being a failure completely, but as for now, it is underway as a starting point in my response.

These are the initial rose drawing lines.  Pink and orange ink on bristol.  Not sure where these will go, but my hopes are that they will become a more organic sort of grid, based on the repetition of the roses.  This repetition will then become richer with the application of washes, drips, marks, and perhaps eventually redeveloped in oil on canvas.

This is a detail view.  Stay tuned for progress on this project.

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