Crystal Monique Biaño

Statement of Intent by Mark Godfrey

Mark Godfrey talks about the perspective of four female artists: bad education, application of paint, composition and the view of bodies. Jacqueline Humphries, Laura Owens, Amy Silman, and Charline von Heyl have been in an environment in which abstract paintings were discouraged. In the 1970s, a female art student was not expected to create Abstract Expressionism paintings. All four painters in different ways have departed from the authentic gesture of midcentury and emptied postmodern gesture. 

Bad Education

• 1986 – Jacqueline Humphries was a student in Whitney Independent Study Program and received a silent shrug response to her abstract paintings from professor Yvonne Rainer.
• Humphries is one of the most interesting figures in an increasingly celebrated generation of painters (including Laura Owens, Amy Silman, and Charline von Heyl.. Four of them have been in an environment in which abstract paintings were discouraged. 
• Amy Silman, who studied painting in New York highlighted the extent of the professor’s responses inflected by gender expectations.
• In the 1970s, a female art student was not expected to create Abstract Expressionism paintings. It was like trespassing the expectations of the stereotype. (AbEx- It is often characterised by gestural brush-strokes or mark-making, and the impression of spontaneity.)
• In the 1980s, in Germany, abstraction was nonexistent. Charline Von Heyl was confronted with male artists who were very jokey and had an ironic stance towards painting.

Applying Paint

• Sillman: Highly conscious of the heroic and gendered associations of abstract expressionism and Informel brush stroke.

> Deploy gestural mode in a way to indicate hesitancy about its use

> Complicates brushed areas of colours and drawn lines creating a sense of uncertainty. (painting: S, 2007)

• Humpries: “A drip, formerly a symbol of feckless artistic abandon, becomes for a primary structuring agent,” “In 2014, Whitney Biennial, drips that we assume were the product of unintentional runoff are in fact highly constructed, resulting from the the buildup of dry paint rather than the movement of liquid paint: fake drips.”
• Von Heyl’s: “a line of drips changes color, indicating that half of them are “painted” drips rather than trails of paint.” “I never saw myself as appropriating styles. I’m using different effects and procedures, and different materials.” She made marks that looks as if they’ve been mechanically printed – fake appearance of the ink smudge(Painting: Dusty Dafni, 2011)
• “These notions of paint application as faking, even betrayal, are important, as is the distinction from quotation or parody: we feel confused by an act of faking, but sure of ourselves with an act of quotation.” 
• Owen’s: approach to applying paint is best illustrated by her experiments with impasto (Impasto means: the process or technique of laying on paint or pigment thickly so that it stands out from a surface.) – Confined within crisply outlined, bulbous shapes(round or bulging) that must be digitally generated. Projects such as figures onto canvas are filled with impasto. Impression of fakeness.
  > “She said she wanted to emphatically try to inhabit the gesture” “Is it even possible for a woman artist to be the one who marks?” “if painterly gestures have been understood in relation to the male orgasm… the female orgasm has no use in terms of reproduction, no mark, no locatability… is it possible to conceive of the female orgasm as a model for a new gesture”. 
• All four painters in different ways have departed from the authentic gesture of midcentury and emptied postmodern gesture.
  > “…populated by uncertain, fake, or unlocatable gestures.” “where do we find real drips or passages of firm brushwork” (shows the “…artists’ own subjective investments in their decisions around paint handling become indeterminate and unknowable.”)

Composition

• Mondrian– “a painting is understood as a highly balanced assembly of diverse elements unified through the action of an extremely complex system of thought.” – Piet Mondrian was a Dutch abstract painter, born 1872 and died in 1944. He was one of the pioneers of abstract art and a prominent member of the De Stijl movement where alongside Theo van Dosesburg, aimed to create a visual language based on abstraction, simplicity, and geometric forms. His art was characterised by his straight lines, right angles, and primary colours as well as black, white and greys. He sought to express a universal harmony through his compositions.
• Non-composition is highlighted as the defining characteristic of modernism. – Non-compositional art involves creating abstract work without using recognizable subjects or traditional compositional elements, focusing on colours, shapes, lines, and textures.
• The four painters share a sceptical view of the ‘expressionist route’ and do not work in a strict sequence like Mondrian, with one composition. They embrace organic, unpredictable, and contingent ways of composing, avoiding the limitations of non-composition.
• They depart from non-composition due to the realisation of how many artists engaged in non-compositional art may appear as if they are congratulating themselves on each of the decisions made about the elements, from the pigment down to the canvas shape. They also depart from non-composition as it has historically been white male artists that are privileged in being able to distance themselves from subjectivity.
• The artists also face the factor of how the technological changes are reconfiguring and potentially devastating the notion of the subject. The rise of social media has a strong influence on personal expression as people engage in self-advertising.

Viewing Bodies

• Humphries, Owens, Sillman, and von Heyl resist the digital impact on our perception and subjectivity. They create paintings that challenge the effects of technology on real, physical experiences.
• Acknowledging the technological shifts in our lives, the artists explore changes in our sense of space, scale, attention, anxiety.
• They urge viewers to look at their artworks carefully and slowly by working with layers of paint and different materials, embracing the physical presence of the work. The artists aim to create uncertainty and captivate viewers, encouraging them to spend time engaging with the work, emphasising layers and textures.
• Humphries uses silver and black paint to create optical instability much like screens do.
• They also incorporate bodily and physical elements into their work, resisting the impact of digital culture.
• The artist’ use of layering and physicality acknowledges the impact of technology while insisting on the real experience and interactions with the artwork.

Sillman’s animations also explore the rejection of finished work and embrace a constant change and transformation.

Key references: select key terms, artists, art historical/ various contextual references and present your research findings

• Revisiting an old essay of hers titled “Painting and Its Others, In the Realm of the Feminine” (1991)
• “The Feminine in Abstract Painting Reconsidered” (2017) by Shirley Kaneda says;
• ‘exclusionary practices inherent in abstract painting’, (like modernism), Kaneda coined the ‘other’ approaches to abstract painting as the ‘feminine’
• ‘…the nature and language used to uphold certain dominant beliefs in the practice of abstract painting, it became more apparent to me why women were … excluded from this discourse’
• The criteria to distinguish ‘quality’ and what was a ‘legitimate’ painting was often defined by men, but the women of the time were breaking this and making the most interesting work
• ‘The feminine has been the property of the masculine hierarchy until the present and has been defined by and denigrated by it as such.’ Kaneda seeks to ‘reassert the feminine as a thing itself’
• ‘As Walter Benjamin pointed out, the difference between Fascism and Socialism is that the Fascists aestheticised politics and the Socialists politicized aesthetics. The question that has been repeatedly asked since the confusion that has arisen from the notion of the feminine is: are we now to speak of a feminine feminism or a feminist feminine? This is not a word play, but a play of concepts: one conceals and the other reveals, “between the idea of a political identity for feminism (what women require) and that of a feminine identity for women (what women are or should be)” (Rose 2011).’
• ‘The feminine allows for a wide range of approaches and one that does not necessarily conform to any set of given standards.’
• ‘The question of the feminine is a male myth. It is a justification for a fear of becoming a victim, and is tied to an impulse to subjugate.’

https://www.womenandperformance.org/ampersand/shirley-kaneda-27-3

How was this reading useful for you, and why?

• Interesting insight into the art scene of 25+ years ago
• Knowledge on the political views