Signifying Art - Cambridge University Pressassets.cambridge.org/97805216/33932/frontmatter/...11. Jasper Johns, Target with Four Faces, 195 5 78 12. Joseph Cornell, Medici Slot Machine,

Signifying Art

Essays on Art after 1960

Signifying Art: Essays on Art after i960 considers the workof a generation of "respondents" to the New York School,including Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, and CyTwombly, who reintroduced pictorialism and verbal contentin their paintings and assemblages. Their work, MarjorieWelish argues, often alludes to the history of art and culture.Also examined are the work of Minimalist and Conceptualartists, particularly Donald Judd and Sol LeWitt, who soughtto make objective and theoretical artifacts in response to thesubjectivity that Abstract Expressionism had promoted. Byinterpreting the work of these artists in light of contemporaryissues, Welish offers a fresh reevaluation of some of the majortrends and production of postwar American painting.

Marjorie Welish is a New York poet and painter, as well asan adjunct associate professor at the Pratt Institute. She hascontributed to Art in America, Partisan Review, andSalmagundi, as well as to several volumes on contemporaryart, including Writing the Image After Roland Barthes,Uncontrollable Beauty: Towards a New Aesthetics, and alsoto the Encyclopedia of Aesthetics.

www.cambridge.org© in this web service Cambridge University Press

Cambridge University Press978-0-521-63393-2 - Signifying Art: Essays on Art after 1960Marjorie WelishFrontmatterMore information

http://www.cambridge.org/9780521633932

http://www.cambridge.org


This book is dedicatedto my motherand to the memory of my father






CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS A N D THEIR CRITICS

Series Editor:

Donald KuspitState University of New York, Stony Brook

Advisory Board:

Matthew Baigell, Rutgers UniversityLynn Gamwell, State University of New York, BinghamtonRichard Hertz, Art Center College of Design, PasadenaUdo Kulturmann, Washington UniversityJudith Russi Kirshner, University of Illinois, Chicago

This series presents a broad range of writings on contemporaryart by some of the most astute critics at work today. Combin-ing the methods of art criticism and art history, their essays,published here in anthologized form, are at once scholarly andtimely, analytic and evaluative, a record and critique of artevents. Books in this series are on the "cutting edge" of think-ing about contemporary art. Deliberately pluralistic in ap-proach, the series represents a wide variety of approaches.Collectively, books published in this series will deal with thecomplexity of contemporary art from a wide perspective, interms of both point of view and writing.

Other Books in the Series:

Beyond the Mainstream, by Peter SelzBuilding-Art, by Joseph MasheckThe Education of the Surrealists: The Gold of Time,

by Jack J. SpectorThe Exile's Return: Toward a Redefinition of Painting for the

Post-Modern Era, by Thomas McEvilleyLooking at Art from the Inside Out: The Psychoiconographic

Approach to Modern Art, by Mary Mathews GedoSigns of Psyche in Modern and Postmodern Art,

by Donald Kuspit











SignifyingArt

Essays on Art after 1960

MARJORIE WELISHPratt Institute

CAMBRIDGEUNIVERSITY PRESS






cambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi, Tokyo, Mexico City

Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK

Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521633932

© Marjorie Welish 1999

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 1999

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library

Library of Congress cataloguing in publication data

Welish, Marjorie, 1944– Signifying art : essays on art after 1960 / Marjorie Welish. p. cm. – (Contemporary artists and their critics) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-521-63301-X. – ISBN 0-521-63393-1 (pbk.) 1. Art, American. 2. Art, Modern – 20th century – United States. I. Title. II. Series. N6512.W39 1999 709´.73´09045 – dc21 99–14189 CIP

isbn 978-0-521-63301-7 Hardback isbn 978-0-521-63393-2 Paperback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Information regarding prices, travel timetables, and other factual information given in this work is correct at the time of first printing but Cambridge University Press does not guarantee the accuracy of such information thereafter.






List of Illustrations page ix

Sources of Previously Published Essays xi

Introduction i

I. NARRATING THE HAND

1 Pail for Ganymede: Rauschenberg's Sculpture n

2 Texas, Japan, Etc.: Rauschenberg's Senseof Place 26

3 The Art of Cy Twombly 3 5Early Paintings 3 5A Discourse on Twombly 3 8

4 The Art of Being Sparse, Porous, Scattered:

Roland Barthes on Cy Twombly 45

5 Narrating the Hand: Cy Twombly and Mary Kelly 59

6 When Is a Door Not a Door?: Jasper Johns j6

7 Jasper's Patterns 84

8 Frame of Mind: Interpreting Jasper Johns 98

9 The Specter of Art Hype and the Ghost ofYves Klein 118

I I . EXPRESSIONISM AND OTHEREXPRESSIVITIES

10 Harold Rosenberg: Transforming the Earth 127

11 The Art of Philip Guston 146Underworld Overcoat 146I Confess 150

12 Gestural Aftermath 159Worrying Man (Jonathan Borofsky) 159Food for Centaurs (Tom Nozkowski) 162






viii CONTENTS

Style Makes the Mark (Jonathan Lasker) 166Body's Surplus (David Reed) 168

13 Contesting Leisure: Alex Katz and Eric Fischl 173

I I I . IDEAS OF ORDER14 Indeterminacy Meets Encyclopedia:

Kestutis Zapkus 183

15 A Greenberg Retrospective 201

16 Abstractions: Barnett Newman and James Turrell 206

17 A Literature of Silence: Nancy Haynes 212

18 Boulders from Flatland: Jene Highstein 217

19 Box, Aspects of: Donald Judd 222

20 Quality Through Quantity: Donald Judd 238

21 Maquettes and Models: Siah Armajani and

Hannes Brunner 253

22 Ideas of Order: Sol LeWitt 257

23 Contextualizing "The Open Work" 276

Notes 287Index 318






List of Illustrations

1. Robert Rauschenberg, Untitled (Venetian series), 1973 132. Robert Rauschenberg, Bed, 1955 223. Robert Rauschenberg, The Ghost of the Melted Bell

(from Kabal American Zephyr series), 1981 334. Cy Twombly, Installation of Fifty Days at Mam,

1977-78, Philadelphia Museum of Art 425. Cy Twombly, The Italians, 19 61 476. Mary Kelly, Post-Partum Document: Documentation I,

1974 617. Cy Twombly, Leda and the Swan, 1962 648. Mary Kelly, Post-Partum Document: Documentation III,

1975 659. Mary Kelly, Post-Partum Document: Documentation VI,

1979 6910. Cy Twombly, Heroes of the Achaeans (from Fifty Days

at Mam), 1977-78 7311. Jasper Johns, Target with Four Faces, 1955 7812. Joseph Cornell, Medici Slot Machine, 1942 7913. Jasper Johns, Gray Rectangles, 1957 8114. Jasper Johns, Diver, 1962 9115. Jasper Johns, Racing Thoughts, 1983 9316. Yves Klein, The Leap into the Void, i960 11917. Philip Guston, Untitled (drawing), 1968 14718. Philip Guston, For M (drawing), i960 15319. Philip Guston, Three Heads (drawing), 1975 15720. Jonathan Borofsky, Installation, Paula Cooper Gallery,

1980 161

21. Thomas Nozkowski, Untitled (4-91), 1984 16322. Jonathan Lasker, Cosmic Self-Evidence, 1989 16823. David Reed, No. 275 (detail), 1989 17124. Alex Katz, Round Hill, 1977 17425. Eric Fischl, The Old Man's Boat and the Old Man's Dog,

1982 175






x LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

26. Kes Zapkus, Raceway, 1976-77 18927. Kes Zapkus, Rations, 1984 19528. Kes Zapkus, Residual Plans, 1986 19729. Nancy Haynes, Situate, \yyx 21530. Jene Highstein, Flying Saucer (drawing), 1977 21931. Donald Judd, Untitled, 1962 22632. Vladimir Tatlin, Corner Counter-Relief, 1914-15 22733. Donald Judd, Untitled, 1976 23334. Installation photograph of Black, White and Gray at the

Wads worth Atheneum, 1964 23935. Donald Judd, Untitled, 1964 24736. Sol LeWitt, Modular Cube/Base, 1968 26137. Sol LeWitt, Untitled 4-Part Set ABCD, 1966 26338. Sol LeWitt, Installation of Incomplete Open Cubes, 1974 26539. Foreground: Ovyind Fahlstrom, Sitting Area Six Years

Later, 1962; background: Jasper Johns, Untitled, 1979 27740. Foreground: Ovyind Fahlstrom, Sitting Area Six Years

Later, 1962; background (left to right): Kes Zapkus,Liberation of Past Tense, 1991; Siah Armajani, Modelsfor the "Dictionary for Building" series, 1974-78; JimHyde, Suit, 1991 278

41. Siah Armajani, Models for the "Dictionary for Building"series, 1974-78 279

42. Siah Armajani, Basement Window Under Front DoorSteps, 1985 280

43. Left: Ron Gorchov, Zoology, 1990; right: Kes Zapkus,Liberation of Past Tense, 1991 283






Sources of Previously PublishedEssays

These conference papers, articles, and reviews, or slightly modified ver-sions of them, have appeared in the following publications acknowl-edged here.

1. "Pail for Ganymede" was written on the occasion of theexhibition organized by Julia Brown Turrell, and it was pub-lished in the catalogue Rauschenberg Sculpture (Fort Worth, TX:Modern Art Museum, 1995), pp. 85-127.

2. "Texas, Japan, Etc.: Robert Rauschenberg's Sense of Place"appeared in Arts Magazine 60 (March 1986), pp. 52-4.

3. "Early Paintings" accompanied the catalogue Cy Twombly:Paintings (New York: Stephen Mazoh Gallery, 1983), for anexhibition of the same name. "A Discourse on Twombly" firstappeared in Art in America 67 (September 1979), pp. 80-3.

4. Written for the conference "After Roland Barthes" organ-ized by Jean-Michel Rabate and held at the University of Penn-sylvania in 1994, "The Art of Being Sparse, Porous, Scattered"appears with the papers collected in Jean-Michel Rabate, ed.,Writing the Image After Roland Barthes (Philadelphia: Univer-sity of Pennsylvania Press, 1997), pp. 201-16.

5. Written for the conference "Assembling Alternatives" thatwas organized by Romana Huk for the University of NewHampshire in 1997, "Narrating the Hand" was to be publishedin Annals of Scholarship 13 (forthcoming).

6. "When Is a Door Not a Door?" is an abbreviated version ofa lecture given first at Fondation Royaumont, Asneres-sur-Oise,France, in 1990 and subsequently published in this form in ArtJournal: The Constructed Painting Issue, which was guest editedby Curt Barnes (Spring 1991), pp. 48-51.

7. "Jasper's Patterns" appeared in Salmagundi 87 (Summer1990), pp. 281-302.

8. "Frame of Mind: Interpreting Jasper Johns" was publishedin Art Criticism 3 (May 1987), pp. 71-87.






x i i SOURCES OF PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED ESSAYS

9. "The Specter of Art Hype and the Ghost of Yves Klein" waspreviously published in Sulfur 12 (Fall 1985), pp. 22-8. This waswritten on the occasion of "Yves Klein 1928-1962: A Retrospec-tive," originating at The Institute for the Arts, Rice Museum,Houston, Texas, 1982.

10. "Harold Rosenberg: Transforming the Earth" first ap-peared in Art Criticism 2 (Fall 1985), pp. 77-87.

11. "Underworld Overcoat" originally appeared in Sulfur 23(1988), pp. 146-50. "I Confess" first appeared in Arts Magazine(November 1988), pp. 46-50. Both were occasioned by the ret-rospective "The Drawings of Philip Guston" organized by Mag-dalena Dabrowski at the Museum of Modern Art in New York,1988.

12. This chapter of short reviews and articles includes: "Wor-rying Man: Jonathan Borofsky," published in ACM: The Journalof the Artists' Choice Museum (Fall 1984), pp. 17-20; "Food forCentaurs," Arts Magazine (December 1991), pp. 46-7; "Jona-than Lasker," New York Painters (Munich: Sammlung Goetz,1994), p. 36; "Body's Surplus: David Reed," Sulfur 27 (1990,the Fall issue), pp. 115-22.

13. "Contesting Leisure: Alex Katz and Eric Fischl" first ap-peared in Artscribe (London) (July 1986), pp. 45-7. It was oc-casioned by the exhibitions coincidentally held at the WhitneyMuseum of American Art in New York in 1986.

14. "Indeterminacy Meets Encyclopedia" is an unpublished es-say commissioned by Kestutis Zapkus and the Lithuania CulturalMinistry.

15. "A Greenberg Retrospective" was published by PartisanReview 56 (Spring 1989), pp. 301-5.

16. "Abstractions: Barnett Newman and James Turrell" ap-peared in Partisan Review ^ (Spring 1992), pp. 328-32.

17. "A Literature of Silence" is a catalogue essay for NancyHaynes, which was written on the occasion of an exhibition atthe John Good Gallery in New York in 1993.

18. "Boulders from Flatland" was written for the catalogue ofdrawings by Jene Highstein on the occasion of an exhibition atthe Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in 1996.






SOURCES OF PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED ESSAYS x i i i

19. "Box, Aspects of: Donald Judd" has not been publishedpreviously.

20. "Quality Through Quantity: Donald Judd" has not beenpublished previously.

21. The catalogue essay "Maquettes and Models: Siah Arma-jani and Hannes Brunner" originally appeared in The Swiss In-stitute's Common Houses: Siah Armajani and Hannes Brunner(New York: Swiss Institute, 1993), pp. 5-25.

22. Originally published in Artstudio 6 (Paris: Fall 1987),pp. 84-101, "Ideas of Order" then appeared in AdachiaraZevi, ed., Sol LeWitt Testi Critici (Rome: A.E.I.U.O., 1995),PP-365-79-23. "Contextualizing 'The Open Work,' " published in Sulfur32 (Spring 1993), pp. 225-69, is a reworked critical statementthat originally augmented "The Open Work," an exhibition or-ganized by me for the John Good Gallery in New York in 1992.






Documents

Signifying Art - Cambridge University Pressassets.cambridge.org/97805216/33932/frontmatter/...11. Jasper Johns, Target with Four Faces, 195 5 78 12. Joseph Cornell, Medici Slot Machine,