Art Moment #3 Addendum: Influences and Second Acts

Roberto Matta, 2000, N’ou’s autres, a very young 89

These past few weeks of working on illustrations for Santosh Shrestha's book "The Color of Life", have been particularly thought-provoking in terms of revisiting old influences and old terrain. When I was 17 or so, I grew increasingly interested in the later works of Ernst and Tanning and began to

Max Ernst, Heavenly Army, 1970

appreciate the animistic elements in Wilfredo Lam. Later, Rufino Tamayo would cast a heavier spell and the throughline has pretty much been Roberto Matta.

I remember my art history teacher Pat Zeitoun, a terrific painter in her own right, opined at me, "well, you know Matta's not a surrealist"; I was totally baffled why she'd state something that 1) I and everyone else already knew and 2) so what? I loved Pat and she was a funny, enthusiastic instructor but that always lingered in the background like a koan. I didn't have any deep reply for her then. I just shrugged my shoulders and went on with my life.

I think what Pat was trying to do was kind of kick the -ism out from under me. I was enamored of Breton's manifestos and the political aspects of the movement, but I found those secondary to what the artists were doing, particularly in the post-war years. By the time I was 20, I kind of realized we already lived in dystopic, rather surrealist nightmare. And it's only grown in in its irrationality.

In the past forty years, I suppose I've changed a bit, but certain elements in me have not. I've met people who have seen flying yogis, talked to snakes, healed cancer, and are at the same time, very rooted in the 21st century. The element of the fantastic remains and my excursions into Daoism, Vajrayana Buddhism, and some western arcana have only served to keep me on my toes.

Dorothea Tanning, Quiet Willow, 1997 (she was 83, I think)

You outgrow the manifestos, the movements, the compartments, the tedious isms that exist primarily for the academics and the staid and stolid. Theories drop away and if you've any balls or sense whatsoever, you will continue down your path, free like a quantum of solace, because, you know, that's what is needed now more than ever.

The recent work was the outgrowth of discussion and collaboration. Santosh saw something in my work that resonated and I know him and trust him. He's a poet. Language is not linear, it's born of relationship, the same way as beings are born.

Language is not bound by logic, good taste, predisposed notions of what is nice. Language can be a prison, but it can also be a key out of the cell. Most often, that key is poetry.

When I settle into India for the winter, I'll be back to working on a larger scale. However, within the confines of the work I've been doing g, I've seen space open up and feel that I'm paying a debt owed for almost half a century.

A friend of mine in school said quite brashly (what are you seventeen if not brash?) when Max Ernst died: "well, he hadn't done anything new in years". It was a dismissive, shitty thing to say. At the time, it might have been critically accurate, even. But it was wrong.

James Rosenquist, Multiverse You Are, I Am, 2012

By "wrong", I don't mean morally, though it's still a shitty thing to say. No, by wrong I do mean inaccurate. Ernst's later work, like Picasso's, like Rosenquist (who just left in March at 83) and Dine (who is still with us) moved forward. People may not be fond of the work because they don't know it or because they're "aesthetes" looking for the next big/young thing (sound like porn), but the later works of the greats demands review and might even inspire confidence or something like longing in younger artists.

There are thirty year olds who would kill to turn a phrase as well as Cohen or Dylan. There's a fifty-nine year old who relished seeing the later works of these worthies because it told him at seventeen, twenty-three and fifty-eight, you don't lose your vision. It doesn't leave you (or frankly, you can't escape it).

Our influences still surge through us. Some folks have said they weren't aware that I could be so "abstract"; little do they know. When I first met John O'Fiel, I had no idea how varied he was as an artist. Over the years, he's routinely blown my shit away, casually, and in a down-home way we're both used to, but goddam if as he gets older, he doesn't stop asking and looking, asking and looking. We should all maintain this discipline. Admittedly, John's taking some time before returning to active service in the art world, but if you look at his calendar/grid pieces from the seventies, the more diaphanous biomorphic stuff from the early eighties and the almost tribal woodcuts from the later eighties/early nineties, you could be forgiven if you thought his rock-painting inspired watercolors were from the brush of a different guy altogether.

The point is: leave yourself open to be surprised. Breton was a pain in the ass and no one I'd ever want to have an espresso or an absinthe with, but he always pressed artists and writers to maintain a sense of wonder.

Just so, we find inspiration and varying operational approaches more available to us as we continue down a path. We break new ground for ourselves (and others) if we keep hiking down a trail. We may come to some brush and if we've matured, we don't hack it down with machetes or bulldozers; we tread delicately into the brush.

Take a look at these late works of Matta. He was old in years, but he was no old fart, no fuddy-duddy.  Nor any anyone else who continued to produce in their later years. In fact, a case could be made that everyone experiences a resurgence in powers throughout decades (Matisse is a great example with the cut-outs and stained glass work based on them, or Duchamp who surreptitiously continued to work on one last piece).

Matta, "Wake"1974-1976

http://www.matta-art.com/
http://www.maxernst.org/
http://www.dorotheatanning.org/
http://www.johnszoke.com/picasso-type/late-work-1954-1972/
http://www.jamesrosenquiststudio.com/