WRITINGS

The Orchestra Grid

Guston's Last Laugh

Currin’s Blade

Scavengers

The Good that We Would

His touch avoids eye contact while simultaneously thinking of less important things. Rarely caressing the same place twice, his brush moves from spot "a" to spot "b" until spot "z" announces completion. Never mind if her finely woven linen still clings to her staples. The primary objective being to finish, he just wants to get it over with and so does she. But, there is comfort in going through the motions. Sometimes it’s nice to pretend there is some communicating going on. It’s nice to know what box in the grid they are on and how many more there are to go and that tomorrow’s are already charted out. For theirs is a predictable syntax, or hypnotism, rather than a Rymanesque chanting. They are not there to meditate. Theirs is an arrangement of little box plus little box plus little box…equals big box. Static repetition equals delusions of wellness. Though they know how to finish they know not how to leave. A consuming chitchat fills the thousand frames between them. Unengaged, she sits on the easel or leans against the wall waiting for him to square out every inch of her — a long and slow orchestration. The TV drones along with them. It is their background music, their song. It is their nettlesome staccato in yet another box.

The grid provides a playing field or a prison cell for spontaneity. It may organize thoughts or format fears. The artist Chuck Close is in the prison cell. In the Hollywood squares that have become his typical recourse, something is being obstructed. Perhaps, he harbors a discomfort with abstraction. Picking up style "isms" like Karin Davie’s decorous carnivals, Close dutifully colors in every blank canvas of his grid. One at a time, and keeping to the rules, he outlines portraits and preconceives their imprisonment. Attracted to faces like crows are attracted to shiny things, he squirrels them away in bits and pieces. Each piece has its own closet in the greater grid. Each bit is an unidentifiable abstraction by itself, but an identifiable representation in the collective. The abstractions making up Close’s portraits are individually of no consequence. They have no song of their own. They are "Borg." Their unique personalities have been mechanized to death. They have forgotten how to sing except through other’s voices. Left on their own they just sit there. Enlarge one, isolate it, hang it on a wall and it will be superfluous without the rest of the hive. It remains an "it." In other words, Close the abstract painter is not as developed as Close the realist. His abstractions are unidentifiable as his.

Fear not, however, for the Enterprise is on her way. Spock and even Seven-of-Nine found what they seemed not to have. Close can do it too even though his is, indeed, a daunting task. Artists spend their entire lives searching for their own voices in one style or another. It seems Close is faced with doing so in all the disciplines. His challenge is to find an abstract vocabulary as distinctive as his representational one and to synthesize these within a single painting. Imagine, if you will, a Chuck Close portrait made up of many Malevich abstractions, the harder edges and colorizations of which would be closer in alignment to the former’s sensibilities than, say, a homogenized Davies. Of course, Malevich is mentioned here only to make a point about a type of stylization not to compare the artist’s philosophies. Close is not likely an adherent of Suprematism. Nevertheless, imagine the power of a Close portrait made up of abstractions particular to his hard view of mortality, a view that is his greatest strength as an artist. He knows how matter rots. He knows how to be a clinical observer. Why not bring these attributes specifically to bear in his abstract compositions? The result would be an amazing feat. Then, the painter’s system would reflect the complexity of his experience to sharpened effect. His desires would mirror more fluidly his wisdoms. The intensity to be found in his daguerreotypes would translate a hundredfold into the paintings. The grid would embrace rather than enclose. It would become a gift rather than a game and break the imagination dam. Painting and painter would be engaged on multiple levels. Emboldened, the fine linen lady would spring her staples; halting swift takes through the gallery.

Newly aligned, his touch invites the eye to think. It is a focused, concentrated, sort. Caressing each spot to a quiver, his brush goes from completion to completion. Appreciatively, her finely woven linen conforms to the press. He responds in kind and waits for her to speak. She shows him where to make the next move. They gaze at one another like old friends recognizing the composition of the grid between them. Theirs is a knowing syntax. They clarify and listen to the music of it. She crescendos against the easel while he squares out every inch of her, one note at a time in major and minor scales. Structured like an orchestra without being orchestrated, they know how to finish, when to rest and how to let go. Systems — governments, religions, ways of making art, relationships - are only as worthwhile as those working them. The grid simply serves as a platform.

Jennifer Reeves, NY Arts Magazine, April 2003