artists i like: gerry bergstein

Do You Come Here Often?, 2004-2006

What Should I Paint?, 2004-2006

What Should I Paint? (detail)

Gerry Bergstein—as some of you may already know—is one of my favorite living artists. I wrote an excitable (if not altogether approving) review of his recent show This Is Your Brain on Art at Boston's Gallery NAGA. I've learned a lot of things from him, although not so much from taking his painting class at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (also in Boston). Rather, I've learned by absorbing his thoughtful and intoxicating images over the last eight or so years.

In response to a post by Colin Jago on religious art, I once spat out that "the role of art is to present compelling fictions" (comment #23), further claiming that "internal coherence is more important than any resemblance the work might have to something outside of it". Later (#31), I added the following clarification:

By “fiction”, I don’t mean necessarily a conventional narrative. I mean that works of art create their own worlds, with their own rules.

I don't consider this to be a "real" definition of art, a statement of necessary and sufficient conditions for arthood (I don't believe such a definition is possible). But it does point in the direction of what I find most valuable in art. My guess is that many other people feel the same way (but do let me know if otherwise).

I like a broad variety of styles and approaches. Categories and oppositions like "abstraction vs. representation" or "modernist vs traditionalist" are useful signposts, but they appear to have little to do with artistic value. On the face of it at least, Bergstein's work couldn't be more different from that of Syau-Cheng Lai's. Bergstein's is representational, implicitly narrative and "literary", whereas Lai's is abstract, deliberately analogous to music. His are often loud and bombastic, while hers tends to be quiet and delicate. He works primarily with oil on canvas, she with a variety of media on paper. I don't want to paper over (pun intended) such differences or suggest that all art is fundamentally the same. But I do think that both artists—like most others that I admire—are talented and ambitious world-builders.

The world-building in question is at root visual. Bergstein's work cites or alludes to a generous (excessive?) assortment cultural debris: stylistic borrowings and iconography from popular culture (e.g. The Simpsons) as well as from art history (Magritte, Bruegel, Pollock, Philip Guston, Ivan Albright...). Lai's work refers to the real world as well; colors, tones, textures and patterns have the feel of familiar things. In both cases, what first draws you into the work is a internally consistent feel for space—both real and implied. If they don't stand up at this level, they don't stand up at all.

Gerry's paintings make a particularly strong case for art as fiction, because they are—to a large extent—artworks about fictionalizing (art about art). His work in recent years has focused on images of mounds or towers. In the foreground of many of these stands a figure, facing away from the viewer. In This Is Your Brain:

The figure is Gerry himself, but he also acts as a stand-in for the viewer, a way of penetrating these forbiddingly dense vistas. In some pictures, he holds up a map or canvas, contemplating the scene before him. In others, he takes a more active role, interacting with the material of the cities themselves. In both cases, he is an explorer, trying to find a sense of place in world composed of dislocations and nested (ir)realities.

I'll add that in addition to being an explorer, the Gerry figure is also a creator. The "map or canvas"—often depicted as a blank white rectangle—conflates the two. To make art is to explore its terrain.

Also posted today at Art and Perception.

Some Thoughts on Landscape

As Nancy Geyer points out in this thoughtful comment, Ithaca is indeed "inundated with uninspired landscape paintings"; she also points to a similar problem with with landscape photography. Works—often not very well done—do look as if they "could have been painted centuries ago". Since I agree that this an issue (and not just here, I've seen similar work living in Boston), let me offer a few ideas, not all of them specific to the problem of landscape. Also, these may be slanted more towards painting and drawing (my own focus as an artist), than photography or other media. The point is to suggest alternatives to cliche.

*Artists should be aware of art history. This means both breadth and depth. They should look at what artists from a wide range of times and places have done, and have some sense of how it all interrelates. However, it is also important to look closer at things—artists, styles, movements, techniques—that you find particularly interesting or useful. This is important for everyone, but perhaps particularly for those who see themselves as traditionalists. Being a traditionalist without (fully) understanding the tradition in question is a big problem, often leading to bodies of work that are confused and directionless (and boring).

*Artists should be familiar with a wide range of contemporary art. Obviously, this doesn't mean simply looking to jump on whatever the latest bandwagon is, nor does it mean uncritical approval. It does mean being aware of what your options are. It generally doesn't make much sense to just pick a date and say that nothing that developed after that is any good (unless you really know what you're talking about, which is rare). Travel, read, go to school—do what you have to do.

*Look at the connection between landscape and abstraction. Many if not most of the early abstractionists (Mondrian, Kandinsky, Klee, O'Keefe, many others) developed this direction out of earlier work in landscape. You can see precursors of this approach in earlier landscape painting—for example the work of J.M.W. Turner. Landscape can take us away from our usual sense of scale, away from the world of familiar people and objects. It can be macroscopic or microscopic. It can incorporate distortions, other ways of seeing and depicting. NYC artist Josh Dorman (more pictures here and here) does all of this ingeniously. Also worth paying attention to are locals Barbara Mink and (more interestingly) Barbara Page.

*Landscape doesn't have to be pastoral. Cataclysm and chaos are a big part of the natural world. Likewise, violence is central to our culture (and others as well). Local printmaker Craig Mains (see my last post) is a good example, as is (my former teacher) painter Gerry Bergstein (more information and pictures here and here), sculptor Heide Fasnacht, as well as (again) Turner.

*Landscape isn't just natural landscape. It should go without saying that we are constantly surrounded by man-made things, even in the countryside. The interweaving of the natural and the artificial (even to the point where these categories can become blurred) is a particularly interesting subject.

I'm not a art teacher, so I don't have any clear ideas about what should be done in this field. Although I do think traditional techniques and approaches should be taught, I don't think its a good idea to simply pretend that we're living in the nineteenth century.