NGV

Eva Hesse, No Title 1963

~ Melbourne Art Class Hub ~ Leave a comment

In the early 1990’s, while working in a part time job with the installation team at the NGV, an artwork by Eva Hesse, No Title 1963, struck me as being a successful echo of some of my own struggling artistic preoccupations. It was unlike anything I had encountered before. Or rather, it has elements of things I had encountered before but scrambled together in a way I hadn’t seen, at least in the flesh. The explosion of new unbridled painting in the late 1970’s and early 80’s, a lot of which can now seem dated and ego driven, had ended in a suspicion within the curatorial circles of the International and Melbourne art worlds of painting as a viable way to move forward. However with this explosion, the seeds had been sown.

Also at the time a small book of the work of the German artist Martin Kippenberger caught my eye in the NGV bookshop and I was instantly intrigued with this work that also scrambled styles, in a more brutal way than Hesse but with absurd humour and pointed intent. It seemed to be a way forward and at this time the Hesse picture, for me, joined the dots back in time to an idea of multiplicity and possibilities rather than the notion that an artist must choose a single branch in the great arc of art history.

Martin Kippenberger, Untitled (Krieg böse), 1991
© The Estate of Martin Kippenberger. Courtesy the Estate and Hauser & Wirth. https://ocula.com/artists/martin-kippenberger/

Eva Hesse’s No title 1963, gives me the feeling that the artist has decisively chosen to not choose and has preferred to combine the orthodoxies of the day – gestural abstraction and hard edge colour field. Both in danger of becoming clichés and each burdened with their tribes of patriots. Hesse could see, possibly subconsciously, that to break this binary would open again the doors of perception. She brought a voice of Dadaism into the mid-century and as a female artist in New York’s heavily competitive male dominated art scene there was a desperate need for new voices to challenge this status quo.

No title 1963 is painted with oil on canvas, The texture of the ground and paint surface is fresh and directly worked- almost like a large work on paper. To achieve this fresh aliveness demands sure direction and confidence, remarkable here as Hesse was apparently quite unsure of her painting abilities and became more renowned for her sculpture- a form less reliant on the sensitivity of touch in the moment of making that comes to the fore in this painting.

Eva Hesse, No title. (1963), oil on canvas,  183.2 × 152.8 cm, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
© The Estate of Eva Hesse. Courtesy Hauser & Wirth 
https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/work/5356/

On close observation the gestural expanse is composed of rectangles of hand’s width sized marks resembling a scrawling handwriting in greys, ochres, whites and one rectangle in the lower right mainly in blues that pulls the eye down in a cascade from top to bottom. Squinting at the painting, similar to the Sansom painting I discussed last time, the stabbing black chunks punch holes in the surface and give tension and spatial definition to the murkier indistinct scrawling blather. With easy humour that challenges abstract expressionism’s claims to the sublime this dynamic gives articulation to something inchoate and absurd. The one element that completes and adds greater complexity to the chromatic and spatial world is the pinkish brushstroke running from top right to midway. This is echoed with a similar angled white line tucking behind a gestural moment and delving into a dark aperture. Directing this play of forces is the massive intrusion of hard edge wedges of industrial lemon yellow, white and warm ultramarine and cooler teal blues painted toughly yet with give at the top of the canvas. This is a wonderful play on one of the cornerstones of creating space in Western painting- the misty background of a Titian or the Mona Lisa cut over with a more sharply defined figure – here unsettled and topsy turvy.

Despite the vast history of artists pulling the language apart, the state of repose, or at least coherence, seems to be one of the most sought after qualities in art. It’s still really surprising to me that in No title 1963, the hot struggle to resolve the inconsistencies yet keep them living and breathing relaxes into such a natural repose. Contributing powerfully to this resolve is the way the division between the flat wedges and the looser paint below is essentially flat- the primacy of the surface, as the ruling critic of the day Clement Greenberg expounded, is insistent but sneakily there’s a blackish zone that appears to slip behind and under the leading edge of the white triangle.

Eva Hesse No title, 1964 Collage, gouache, watercolour, coloured pencil, and graphite on construction paper
45.9 x 32.4 cm,
Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, Oberlin, Hauser & Wirth
https://ocula.com/artists/eva-hesse/artworks/

In writing about this work I’m surprised how I feel like I’m writing about a painting concerns of my own, however it’s now almost 60 years since Hesse painted it and realise it’s more productive to think about connections and shared ideas and sensations than the delusion of originality. Hesse was a great originator about how the grotesque, awkward and absurd, both visually and psychologically, can be incorporated into a materially rich art. Surrealism, Dadaism, Automatic drawing and writing, the idea of the unconscious and more had come before her but she managed in her short life to bring threads of the play of these forces into an agreement with the demands of the highly tuned modernist mid-century New York art world. She proved that the idea of a single way forward is mere convenience amidst the flux and flow of our contemporary lives.

Written by David Palliser.

Grit and passion in a successful art practice

~ Melbourne Art Class Hub ~ Leave a comment
David Palliser, Mining, 2020, 138 x 153 cm

We welcome artist and teacher, David Palliser to share his art knowledge in this MAC newsletter, beginning with his discussion of a Gareth Sansom painting from the 2017 NGV retrospective. David, who has won the respect of many of our students whilst teaching abstraction at MAC, has committed some of his observations into writing. The article gives some great insights into Sansom’s work.

Over time, I’ve had several conversations with David about the ‘under-appreciated’ quality of perseverance in art practice. David once used another word which I also like, calling this same quality, ‘doggedness’. For me ‘doggedness’ reflects the act of painting with determination while being blindly stuck, progressing slowly and sometimes painfully. Sometimes it seem that we only advance when we finally abandon the known, so as to move forward into the unknown. This is reflected in Edgar Degas’ comment, “Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.” It takes grit to persist to a place where having exhausted what one knows, a door then opens to new possibilities. It’s a desperate act which we undertake as we seek to be a part of the creation of something entirely new. David has described it like this,

“Making something that has never existed before is exciting. We don’t often get it to feel right from the beginning- especially painting. Un-peeling the layers of what we have managed to put down, the picture demands that we give over to the process. You have to be tenacious.”

David’s own endless struggle with the aesthetic vagaries of painting abstraction attests to a life lived to create great art through sheer perseverance. Looking on, I know that David’s contribution to painting is significant but it has not come easily.

There exists in creative practice an inherent and constant need to push through to the next level, attain the next resolution from fragments of ideas, influences and aspirations that assail us. David has described the, “sheer perseverance and final understanding that failing and flailing are part and parcel of continually regenerating in the studio”. This rings true to me- that failure is an inherent part of a process of creating something new.  Faith in the practice, that persistence can build inherent skill, that each failure, is the foundation of a subsequent success- building something new, is to my mind a beautiful description of the creative process.

These aspirations can of course be shut down so as to pursue a more comfortable existence but many of us have concluded that not knowing what could have been, is too big a price to pay for comfort. So we toil, with no guarantee of financial reward, or that we will recognised, or that we will be remembered. We hope that our loved ones will understand why we had to do this and most of us do contribute and maintain responsible lives. It takes grit to do this for a lifetime. For an aspiring or professional artist in Australia, the numbers regarding income are sobering. Salt in the wounds also, are the extraordinary art prices and reputations touted in our media feeds. As Tulika Bahadur describes in her MAC article, Privilege in the Art World—and Two Ways to Circumvent it, success in an art industry of high prices and big names is fickle and in no way relates to talent. Tulika does offer two ways forward though- which I recommend you read.

A combination of grit and passion have also been described by professor of psychology Angela Duckworth as being the basis of success. Duckworth states,

“A bias towards finishing what you begin rather than leaving it half finished, is actually characteristic of some of the most successful people in the world,”

Duckworth also explains, while perseverance, hard work and resilience in the face of adversity are the best predictors of grit and therefore of success, there is also a need for passion. It is passion with grit that get us through the difficult seasons. It seems that it’s not talent rather our passion that will best facilitate eventual success.

There has to be a faith in the practice, that creativity is not capricious and elusive, rather, in searching, we will find. This faith is echoed in comments I have heard made by author Elizabeth Gilbert when she discusses the Roman understanding of the muses, as that which inspire, not from within, but from without. Creativity is bigger than us and it is not self generated, rather something we link in to- receive. I recently returned to reading, The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron which shares with Gilbert, an emphasis on the spiritual aspect of our creativity. Both these writers point us to a place beyond our machinations and supplications to a place which has at its core a sense of provision.

While grit and perseverance keep us returning to work, we need this to be driven by passion to keep us creative and productive. Passion enables the joy of creating to continue in the midst of a working routine. Cameron warns that for an artist, grounding their self image in military discipline can be dangerous. She explains,

“That part of us that creates best is not a driven, disciplined, automaton, functioning from willpower… Over any extended period of time, being an artist requires enthusiasm more than discipline. Enthusiasm is not an emotional state. It is a spiritual commitment, a loving surrender to our creative process, a loving recognition of all the creativity around us.”

Creative success comes through grit and perseverance grounded in passion and enthusiasm. Passion is a commitment, perhaps an act of faith, which is enacted when we accept our creativity, yielding to it, knowing that it is part of a more immense creativity. In short, we are provided for, if we believe in our creativity.

I left my job as an electrical technician at the age of 23 to pursue my dream of studying art. It took till that age to believe that if I took a step towards the vision that tugged at my heart, I would experience provision. As it turns out, that provision was far more complex and elaborate than I could have imagined. Had I not left my previous career, I may never have had the extraordinary creative journey I have had, including, meeting those I have met and realising that not only an artist lay within me, but a teacher also.

Written by Marco Corsini.

Gareth Sansom – A Forensic Possibility 2010

~ Melbourne Art Class Hub ~ Leave a comment
Gareth Sansom A forensic possibility, 2010; Oil, enamel and collaged digital photographs on linen; 183 x 244 cm; enquire
Gareth Sanson, A forensic possibility, 2010
Source: Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery

From the dense and wonderful Gareth Sansom survey exhibition at the NGV in 2017, A Forensic Possibility was one of my favourite works. Gary is a friend, mentor, and adventurous spirit that I have had the pleasure and agony of knowing since I started post-grad studies at the VCA in 1983. For me this painting shows a coming together of Gary’s searching intelligence, wit, appropriation of worlds and styles, craziness, fluent painterly technique combining a huge vocabulary of ways of putting paint down and an encyclopaedic sense of the history of painting.

A Forensic Possibility is spatially multidimensional with all its excavations pushing constantly back up to the surface. If you half close your eyes it appears almost black and white with a few blue and orange blobs and a hard zap of yellow at the top. The purple vertical smeary triangle thing harmonises the yellows with the inky dark blues. One sensation is always challenged by something mocking or at odds with it, such as the intentionally clumsy naïve drawing on viscous white threatened by the ultra sharp shards around the perimeter in their corporate yellows and array of flat office greys . The sharp white fractures, themselves a pure white abyss, on the far left lean with superiority into the brick red smear with its decidedly hand drawn rectangles that then echo the clunky steps in cool blues- a rhythmic metamorphosis with sensations of sharp control , badly lit stairwells and fleshy paint.

Highly focused, odd and intense, wrong handed with intent- what more could you want? Perhaps the loopy sausage stairs traversing the canvas, up or down who knows? So much pleasure from not knowing. It is essential to realise that Gary uses the “casual” but this is not a casual painting. The elements gain drama and the essential tension through their interdependency. The bigger truth is that paintings can contain anything, high and low. The artist strives to establish relationships between the parts. This is where the art seems to seep in.

Image: Gareth Sansom: Transformer exhibition at NGV in 2017
Source: Broadsheet

In the flesh much of the paint is luscious, physical, energised to a variety of pitches. This picture enjoys its own wild ride. Compared to many other pictures of Gary’s this resists a central focus- my eye can wander at will. Apart from the steps there is no definite image to hold onto. I love the list of things I initially thought was an absurd shopping list but apparently derives from a film’s murder victim’s forensic report. Each word in the wonky stack forms a clear and simple image with a tactile resonance in the viewer’s mind. Paradoxically the painting has almost no definite visual images….unless we look down at the bottom section and discover small collaged photos of the artist caught seemingly in the throes of some mad existential play. Nice to note the perfect match of the masked figure with arm resting on the edge of the modernist square complete with soulful drips in the right bottom corner. The switch of languages is deft and exciting.

This painting is an accumulation of things found in the process of making. It is not possible to plan such an adventure. The paint and possibilities of space, image and colour lead the way and the artist follows. Light is the great activating force. The putting down of elements in turn creates the picture’s own appetite for development or elimination and then finding another way. I see Gary opening and descending one trapdoor then finding another. The painting establishes its own desires, the artist must submit.

Windows, gaps, apertures, perimeters, an accumulation of lushly painted grammar never getting to one point but many. Time is elongated and materialised into the picture. The clues keep appearing yet an answer is very happily not revealed. For me, Gary’s lifelong passion for cinema seems to come to a palpable moment in this picture, especially with the pitch black surround- the painting like a bright white burst onto the cinema screen before the celluloid jams and melts in the projector -the audience collectively catch an image, of what they don’t know, in the dazzle.

Written by David Palliser.