Does Gainess Work Contribute to the Broader History of LA Conceptualism - Essay Example

Does Gaines’s work Contribute to the Broader History of LA Conceptualism? My visit to the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles left me thoroughly inspired bythe grid work done by Charles Gaines. I visited an exhibition titled Charles Gaines: 1974-1989 that opened on February 7th, 2015. The exhibition brought out some rarely seen work by the born conceptualist that Gains was still alive. His perception of his surroundings are so well captured in his grid paintings that one finds it hard to believe that the paintings are not pixilated when viewing them from a distance. Los Angeles has been a vibrant city for art lovers and the Hammer Museum, which hosted the exhibition has been witness to all eras in the history of painting1. Ever since the 1960s2, when art in Los Angeles was defined by the introduction of abstract depictions, conceptualization has grown steadily amongst artists. Previous, one sees many faces in painting3 which had led to modernism by themed-nineteenth century. In conceptualization, the focus is on using abstract modes of expression to depict materials that we see around us in daily life, in an all new way. The main advantage of having such an art form was that lovers of art got a new perspective to look at nature and things around them. The perspective was believed to be initially impressionistic. Greenberg in his work Towards a Newer Laocoon, historically delineates how art has been evolving to become “pure” in its “medium” and in doing so it must retain the paint and the canvas for what it is and only convey sensation. Once this prescription has been satisfied the painter has achieved the “medium” of abstract art. Clark’s interpretation of Greenberg’s Towards a Newer Laocoon, sparks a heated debate between him and Michael Fried. Clark argues that Greenberg is historicizing in his writing and ignoring that art is a reflection of the artist social environment. Formalism should not be the only thing accounted for in a painting but content as well. Artistic standards in history go hand in hand with social practice, which is evident in nineteenth-century Romantics. According to Clement Greenberg (1982), official painting and art forms were set to take a backseat in new forms of artistic depiction. Greenberg argues that if an artwork can be interpreted and agreed upon to be representative of a specific “situation” or “ object”, then it is merely an imitation rather than a medium. Art (paintings and sculptures) in the 17th and 18th century was directly imitating literature, and so literature being the medium- art was just an illusion of literature. Therefore imitation is when, “All emphasis is taken away from the medium and transferred to subject matter.”4 Romantics for that matter stripped away at art to the point of confusion, according to Greenberg. The Romantics emphasis was in preserving the situation, object, or subject, which was mostly commissioned by the bourgeois. Avant garde paintings5 were amongst the first deviations from official painting strategies. It was soon followed by impressionist painting wherein critical aspects of objects around us were mellowed down to make the painting a suggestion of the object or subject. As TJ Clark put it, these forms of depiction were actually equal to ghosts of the original objects that they represented and were Marxist in their origin6. In Los Angeles, the growth of art was very broad and conceptualism, which slowly developed into a full-fledged form of art, grew very steadily on after this period. Amongst key players who made significant contributions in the growth and diversification of conceptualism in LA, Charles Gaines comes as a bright beacon of light that showed the path of creative and abstract painting to many artistes in the county. On a careful study of his works between 1974 and 1989 through this exhibition, I have come to the conclusion that Gaines has made highest contributions to the growth and popularity of conceptualism in LA. The Master and His Art: Charles Gaines Gaines loved to use abstract artistic depiction to bring forward the beauty of natural things around him. He was a pioneer in grid painting and has created several illusionistic masterpieces through grid paintings. When I visited the exhibition and went through his works, I found that unbeknownst to Gaines, he went through a period of evolution and self-discovery in his chosen form of art. Here is how I came to this conclusion. As is well known, the rudimentaries of grid painting use 0-99 black and white grids created on a grid paper. The creation is an eclectic mix of numbers, graphs and colors and gives people a sense of control over the dimensions, shape and description of the object drawn. Gaines began his journey in grid painting by experimenting with basic shapes and drawing simple objects using this form of art. However, in his later stages of work, Gaines is found to use different color combinations and create layers of the image that he is creating to depict the inner beauty of an object. Astoundingly, his later creations are bold and experimental, and bring new ideas to forefront in the field of conceptualism. Thus he emphasized upon the medium of art instead of imitating a subject as seen through the perspective of Greenberg discussed in previous section. On closer study, Gaines journey started from depicting trees on grid paper to describing their foliage in artistic details to creating portraits of dancers in motion during this period of growth. He began with simple shapes like triangles, squares and circles which familiarized him with the calculations involved in grid painting. He then moved over to creating portraits that depicted trees that he saw around him. A remarkable creation from the Walnut Tree Orchard, which he created during this period introduces the visitor to the technique of creating illusionistic art using color ink on grid paper. The overall appearance of the paintings in Fig 1 are so illusionary that it is difficult to differentiate them from pixel paintings unless you go closer to the painting and then discover finer details to a new form of art. Gaines succeeded in many occasions to introduce grid painting as a rarely known and followed form of art, and actually popularized it through his self-evolution in the collection called The Walnut Tree Orchard series. He began by bringing trees to life and then started using the same color ink in the center technique to describe and illustrate the tree foliage and finer details. The uniqueness of his technique was easy to follow and emulate. He began from the center of the grid paper at number zero and the image extended outwards. By the time the image reaches the outward limits of the paper, it becomes a silhouette of the actual image, thereby adding a spirit to the object in the painting. Viewers are greeted with multicolor creations, which have depth and coloring adventure written largely on them. The beauty of his work also stemmed from the fact that he left the negative values of the grid unused in the painting, although he brought the number into the painting in places where the image required them. The result of this creation was one of high contrast, reflection, and depth. Thus, Gaines’ main accomplishments lay in the fact that he could intelligently put together a colorful and esoteric mix of numbers, graphs and imagery and finish it up with a sheet of plexi glass to complete the illusion. Talking about foliage, the same collection has a great portrait known as the Falling Leaves. This is one trippy creation in which viewers are unable to easily discern the percentage of leaves fallen on the ground. For starters we know that Gaines uses grid work to showcase his understanding of tree foliage. In Kelly Jones’s article, we can observe that the African American artist of the time had a strong desire to make something out to of the destruction caused by the riots. In collecting debris (like the fallen leaves in this case) and incorporating them to their creative ideas, artists were able to repurpose their artwork and give it a political context. However, African American artists were underrepresented in the art world as reflected in the fallen leaves. Instead of keeping the portrait aligned to traditional grid work and uses, for the first time in his work, different ink colors to add a depth of field and foliage details in his art. Gaines form of conceptualism thus, takes a new route of using number grids to discuss perspectives, details and contrasts present in the photographed image. It is clearly understood that it is at this stage when Gaines makes a conscious effort to deviate from traditional grid work and broaden the prospects of conceptualism to newer horizons. His conceptualizations depicted in this manner, start to bring out the abstract from within the regular things we see in life. In the 1960s, printmaking gained dominance when it embraced assemblage art and thus created a new medium of art, mix media. In spite, that art culture in Los Angeles was increasingly becoming recognized internationally the conservative demographics impeded on its inevitable evolution. In addition to the backwardness exhibited by the “progressive” city of Los Angeles in the 60s, museums condemned Modern Abstraction7. Gaines works seem to be a wisely adopted outlet from such restrictions where he used gridwork and abstractions bringing out all emotions through the ‘strength of the medium’ which Greenberg mentioned in his work. My Reflections Recounted: A Graphic Spiral Pad To Life A viewer watching the Falling Leaves portrait goes back with a feeling of more control and beauty to an uncontrollable fact that when tree leaves fall, there is sadness in the beauty of the scene. Gaines brings out the elements of happiness, hope and perfection in the same fact and depicts it through his grid work. As a result, the viewer can spend hours standing in front of this work of art on number grid and finished by plexi glass, wondering whether the incident portrayed reflects happiness or sadness and what the artist has tried to portray though the use of different dimensions, colors and contrast in the painting. One must not forget here that the finish created using plexicated glass further adds to the illusion that the painting is a simple portrait of high definition details, which is broken when the viewer moves closer and finds a complex and adventurous use of grid work to be the heart of the painting. I have always admired nature and all things associated with it, and hold a special love for trees and birds, as they are so close to our understanding of nature around us. If impressionist painting was all about studying a subject matter in its own grounds and emulating its possibilities through a painting, then Gaines has easily accomplished a great deal of impressionist painting through his grid work, and successfully avoided killing the possibilities of the object under study and instead added new perspectives to it through his art. Viewers have an all new perspective of a walnut tree when they view it using his grid work, which is an all-time characteristic of modernism8. As an aftereffect of viewing Gaines’ creations, I experience newer possibilities in discovering about a walnut tree, develop an all new perspective towards how to view life and count infinite possibilities of handling all of life’s challenges that come my way in due course of time. If conceptualism in LA has had a boost in the seventies, then it was only because Gaines added new zeal of colors to portraiture definitions and pixel affect creation through his grid work. As if to reciprocate my thoughts, the very next work of Gaines’ as in Fig 2 that caught my attention had pixel glass painting on a tree image created on the grid. The work involves meticulous darkening of number grid boxes, wherein specific numbers are left blank or colored translucent to add luster to the background of the pixel image. One cannot see the grid lines either on the pixel glass or on the grid paper unless one peeks close to them. I was really overjoyed to find the numbers visible at least in the blank grids as it immediately felt familiar to the art form that I had come down to study. In another creation from the Walnut Tree Orchard collection, we found images with shadows of tree and a few potted plants. Technique that he used in this image shows that he begins his delineation of the image as it goes away from the central point 0. The further it gets away from 0, the darker the grid box gets. When delineating the shadow of pot or plant alone can you see the numbers. Gaines’ genius is further visible in the Trisha Brown dance grid works wherein the dancer and her shadows are flawlessly depicted on number grids directly. Each painting shows a new development in the depiction and conceptualization of the dance move and corresponding shadow moves. It was as if he was depicting motion on a static paper. By the time I reached the close of this exhibition, I seriously liked the illusionary affect that Gaines’ grid work was having on me. It so appeared that Gaines the philosopher had just handed us a graphic spiral pad to life. After witnessing the magic of a dancer’s moves depicted on the grid, I am also of the opinion that creators of the movie Matrix were followers of Charles Gaines’ art and therefore, used animated version of grid work in its scenes. Could this be true? Conclusion: Art is a form of human expression that can cause serious transformations in thinking, attitude, realizations and perceptions of people. The success of art galleries in Los Angeles prove that more and more people want to discover their inner selves through an artist’s conceptualizations, and are looking for direction through different forms of painting. Although different eras have had influences of political culture9, the evolution brought to effect added new dimensions to the world of art in due course of time. Charles Gaines accomplished the same through his grid work that broadened conceptualism in LA to a great extent. Fig 1: Fig 2: References Clark, T.J. “Clement Greenberg’s Theory of Art” Critical Inquiry (1982) 9.1, p. 139-156. Frascina, Francis, Pollock and After: The Critical Debate, London: Routledge, 2000 Fried, Michael “How Modernism Works: A Response to T.J. Clark,” Critical Theory 9.1 (1982) 217-234 Greenberg, Clement, Towards a Newer Laocoon. Harper &Row Ltd: 1985. Jones, Kelly, Now Dig This! An Introduction. Now Dig This! Art & Black Los Angeles 1960-1980, Hammer Museum, 1970 Tejada, Robert, Los Angeles Snapshots, Now Dig This! Art & Black Los Angeles 1960-1980, Hammer Museum, (1970), 69-83 Read More