Wes Mills and Nudity

7/28/2019 Wes Mills and Nudity

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WES MILLS AND NUDITY, a response by Paul Henrickson,2007

(A record of an exchange of missals)

Paul--here is an interesting email I got this AM, from a fellow who had spoken about buying some of myart...he then fell off the radar...He had talked, too, about possibly giving me a show (I did not qualify in his

bosses terms as an emerging artist, so not in the context I had previously mentioned to you) in the City of

Roanoke Library system...I found the juxtaposition of topics interesting...& this came outta the blue, not

having heard from the chap for months...O, my response is first, below..have to read from the bottom up...

From the bottom up? what an interesting and intriguing phrase in

(under(?) the circumstances.

Hey, you are an artist so maybe u can provide insight. Why in USA is

there a shock response to male nudity? I saw a movie "28 Days Later"

with some friends the other day. Its a horror film, an intelligent one,

but the movie opens with a lengthy shot of a male patient in a hospital

bed without clothes. Its a front shot and his equipment below the belt's

not hidden. There were giggles, embarrassment, from my friends. But female

nudity seems to be almost expected. We chatted about it after and agreed

that it's very unusual in USA culture for male nudity to happen in

films. So when it does it shocks. What is it about USA and men being

butt naked?!! In Europe it seems about 50/50 for male and female nudity

(actually, personally I would prefer to only ever see my wife naked, no

one else - the thrill would be increased so much if that were the case),

but anyway. One friend even said she'd read that the media in the USAairbrush photographs of men that display evidence of something actually

existing between his legs and make groin area all smooth, no bumps or

disturbing shapes evident! This is wild! Anyway, comments appreciated!

River

(response follows)

Nice to hear from you...I called you back this AM--...had --for once --gone to bed early...I was amused by

the email subject...not knowing initially who the email was from...I couldn't guess the relationship of WM &

Nudity!

Anyway, in answer to your question (which is not really an answer): art through the centuries has dealt

with male --and female--a)nakedness, and b) nudity...Some art historians differentiate, as I just did,seeing the difference between anatomical nakedness, and purportedly "prurient" nudity.

Perhaps more females are shown because the male (supposedly) is more attracted by sight, the female

by touch...tho that is probably oversimplified (after all there is or was "playgirl" magazine...) ...And

perhaps as the times have changed, there is not as much difference in one sex's preference......

But then I wonder: IS there really more female nakedness or nudity? I really don't know. What an


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interesting sociological study that would be, huh?

BBB: I, too, find the juxtaposition of Wes Mills and the subject of nudity

rather surprisingnot because Wes Mills has never appeared nude, like

Jeff Koons *I have often rather perversely wondered whether Koonsequipment functioned as well as it looked]. Should one wonder now

whether Mills equipment is significantly different in

appearance?certainly their artistic efforts are at opposite poles

(oopps! wrong word!)

His small, spare drawings involve a minimum of form

as well. Simple, isolated shapes or lines float on {very good expression}

the paper. The drawing becomes almost a foil to

the neutral ground, as though Mills were trying to

give shape and color to the space of a room, or to

the quality of the mind in meditation. (I like this last bit)

I was particularly struck by the similarity in nuance between the Mills work and the carefully worded

description given the writers responses. The marriage of the two vehicles of communication is vitally

important, that is, what one reads, hopefully, will mirror, to some extent, what one feels. Of course,

all this depends upon the observers aesthetic development.

Not to leave the original subject of this discourse behind, what does it mean that the observer may be

more aroused by Koons equipment than by the materialization of his aesthetic imageryand further,

I think, BBB, your having brought the matter up rather choked my

engine for about two days until I slept on the matter. I then did someadditional research on this fellow Wes Mills and came across a

statement I find most perceptive and it came from, if I recall, the

Hosfelt Gallery website

Wes Mills drawings are like complete thoughts thatarrive spontaneously and unexpectedly, not as reso-lutions of an idea, but rather as clear, direct, and

whole in and of themselves. (except for this which seems contrived and nonsensical)

Mills finds materials, like ideas, to be distracting.Hence hes pared down his medium to essentiallypaper and graphite, with occasional use of pigment,ink or other materials.


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what does it mean that a patron would offer him $1,000,000 and I am not sure I ever knew what

work it was that was for sale.

.

His (Mills) restlessness is represented in the searching nature of his work, which usually consists of

atmospheric drawings on paper, done in tiny, introspective scale with gentle pencil tracery, using

blown and rubbed powdered pigments to great gaseous effect.Michael Brennan

Unfortunately, the hardness of the wood panels in two slightly larger paintings seems at odds with the

general fuzziness of the work. That wood probably needs to be pulverized into paper in order to

surrender itself to the gentle content of Mill's diffuse imagery

I tried to discover something about this Michael Brennan and really got divertedlike having the raod

signs switched and ended with all kinds of Michael Brennans from medical students in Kentucky to

electricians elsewhere whose naked appearances were nowhere in

evidence, I did find a Michael-Brennan-Wood whose mixed media

assemblage seemed an aesthetically richer item than those rather mindless

circles of Paul Brach.

Michael Brennan-Wood: embroidered flowers

and acrylic

Paul Brach

When I did,

finally, locate

what I thought was Michael Brennans work at the Henry Gregg Gallery website they were prohibitedfrom being copied ( presumably for copyright reasons)But copyright allows reproduction for critical

purposes and, in this instance, my rights, as a critic, are being thwarted. I wanted to evaluate some

Brennan characteristic in relation to his comment on the work of Wes Mills.

Michael Brennans work


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Heart 22 red trolleys

From these examples I am unable to understand the comments byBrennen. Maybe these are not his works.

Peter Paul Rubens Rolf Koppel


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Resurrection (sic?) I think this a self portrait

Jeff Koons Odd Nerdrum

(just playing around) (well, we all know those Vikings

did a lot of raping and ravaging)

I do not know for sure what these images contribute to the discussion

which seems to be American reticence as opposed to European Let it

all hang out. I suppose there is still latent in man (if not also in woman)

a fascination with the potentially progenerative projectile a degree ofphallic worship. (It is, otherwise and in earlier times, known as a pee

pee) This concept may have taken Gustav Mahler so much by surprise

that when informed by Sigmund Freud, during a twenty minute

analysis, that he may be a repressed homosexual he died on the

Venetian beach watching an adolescent perform. Only after Mahlers

death did Freud send the bill to the widow. Unngh!

I do not wish to imply that I think there is enough male nudity in our

culture, nor that there isnt.my present preference is that we spend

ourselves (the verb word is purposefully chosen) on trying to decided

whether the interest in such works as the following is an expression of


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our need to escape contemporary confusions and, therefore a form of

escapist therapy or the emergence of an emotional exuberance of a

tactile nature truly announcing a new and meaning art style. After all,

why should mankind have run out of art styles already?

OR

The 3 above by Wm.Beamer this and the 2 below by Henrickson


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and this one too, just so that we do not forget the nudity question.


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Henricksons drawing of a volunteer model who made him promise he

wouldnt touch him. I wonder what he meant. I wonder what might

have happened if he had. It was all rather beside the point, but the

model wasnt sure.

Now were I still a teacher I would ask my students to identify the

commonalities in this drawing of the male figure and the two that

follow:


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And then I would ask: what is the most significant difference in attitude

between those above and those below?


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and there I would leave it for one should never over cook.


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Paul Henrickson

www.tcp.com.mt

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Wes Mills and Nudity