This exhibition looks at figurative works of art and landscapes theme
through the works collected from the first acquisitions in the late 80s to
the present. It is a brief survey touching on only a small selection of
works in the Microsoft collection. At the heart of contemporary art are two
classic themes, the landscape and the figure. Both are traditions in
painting and sculpture, these double traditions, identify what we are as a
country and who we are as a people, but also suggest what is at the root of
the artistic process by those who create the things we collect.
Some general notes:
The figure is both symbol and sign, it is an emotive, suffering, ennobled,
heroic, dramatic and wild character. In contemporary art it can be a picture
of someone or the representation of the self as seen in someone. Furthermore
often times the figure is caught between a real sense of freedom and a sense
of mediation; between what we feel individually and what we find represented
within the larger scope of society. The figure ultimately suggests what we
desire or how we are seen in our culture.
But for the most part with regards to the works in this exhibition as part
of the Microsoft Collection the figure is costumed and placed in a
particular contemporary setting. Rather than be part of historic or
religious events, the figure is portrayed in contemporary everyday life.
For decades the figure and the landscape were not considered to be topics of
substance, especially by artists and critics engaged in a dialogue about
more abstract pursuits. Yet since the 80s much about avant-garde art has
significantly changed. While employed by many artists in America including
several in the Microsoft collection such as Nicholas Africano, Alex Katz and
Malcolm Morley, the figure was re-launched and re-included into the canon of
contemporary art in the early 80s. In Europe whether England Germany or
Italy (Frank Auerbach and Lucien Freud are two examples in the collection)
the industrialized West was now keen on seeing and collecting figurative
works as opposed to the general swell of abstract art that marks collecting
in the post war and cold war eras.
Today the distinction between representational and abstract work is a matter
of individual choice and not dominated by any single authority or critical
doctrine-criticism has for the most part collapsed replaced by editorial
opinion or policy, gossip and anecdote.
As for the landscape theme, the entire notion of the landscape is now under
reevaluation by critics and art historians such as Simon Schama. Added
to the more bucolic image of " purple mountain majesty " or the ideal of
the" golden plain " it is a much more realistic conception of the landscape
that we as an audience confront. It is a place that is an admixture of the
rural and urban. It is a place no longer of virgin forests and pure waters,
but a setting infused with the workings of man and womankind.
Figures in the collection.
In 1999 and
2000 important figurative works continue to be added to the collection.
Included in this group of some 400 works are new prints by David Bates.
Bates might be considered somewhat of a regionalist because his home and
subject matter are one and the same, Texas. Likewise Northwest painter Fay
Jones' figures are about home. Her scenes are based on facts or
recollections and then further embellished. The Art Student is a tribute to
a friend who passed away. It is a visual essay, a composite of stories akin
to the strong literary tradition of the Northwest told through multi
pictures and overlays of imagery abstract and representational at the same
time. Nicholas Africano's Making a Recording addresses the same issue of
memory but the painter centralizes a single event within an abstract field.
Africano, who is associated with the New Image Painters of the late 70s,
works to get every detail of the event right. Boston based painter Deborah
Putnoi places her figures adjacent to their (or her) thoughts. She literally
incorporates clearly written texts on the surface of her panel paintings.
She makes her figure part of a social contract with the viewer; much like
other emerging artists today whose focus is on such issues as the politics
of cultural and personal identity.
Michael Brophy, Randy Hayes, and Chris Woods share an interest in the
representation of the figure in a particular location or setting. Hayes
looks at and is fascinated by the figure at sporting events creating from
these scenes large-sale pastels. Brophy is a painter of narrative episodes
and scenes in which the unnamed figure is definitely the daring protagonist.
The Canadian artist Woods' subject matter is the lives of his friends. Each
painting presents a story of unabashed late 20th century consumerism set in
the world of fast food restaurants and shopping malls. What could be more
contemporary and recognizable to today's audience? Similarly Attila Richard
Lukacs chooses his subjects from his own unique circle of friends, leather
boys and skinheads.
Drawing is often the key to defining and describing the figure. Drawing is
key in the mind of artists such as Troy Brauntuch (Fence, 1991),
Alex Katz's
(3pm, 1988) and Robert Longo's (Raphael, 1998). Though their approaches
differ significantly it is interesting to note in these three examples how
extremely varied the drawing process and the use of black and white medium
can be. In two of these examples the settings are urban. Brauntuch's
subjects sit behind a wire fence observed from a distance; while Katz's
portrait of a couple, the art dealer Peter Blum and his wife appear in his
very linear woodblock print as one might see them in a snapshot photograph:
up close and personal. Longo abstracts the male silhouette allowing it to
float and move freely in space unencumbered or weighed down by gravity yet
the printed form of Longo's dancing figure itself is rich and dense.
The figure is also the subject of many photographers in the collection. Tina
Barney, Robert Lyons, Tracy Moffatt, and Graciela Sacco are the authors of
ambitious large-scale color images. Some are reproduced as traditional
photographic prints, other as color lithographs such as Australian artist
Tracy Moffatt and still others use found materials such as the wood Sacco
uses to carry the image in her wall piece. Other examples include social
documentary photographs by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Diane Arbus, and
Carrie
Mae Weems.
At the same time long time artists like the late Jacob Lawrence, and
Alice
Neel bring to bear the struggles of life, its successes and disappointments
as best can be portrayed and demonstrated by painting the figure. The figure
may stand-alone or within a group but its use can reveal intimate truths and
strange stories.
Among the figurative sculptors in the collection there is abundance again in
term of styles and materials. Not limited to any single medium one finds
examples of figurative works in glass, paper, wood, clay and cloth. The
primary examples are mostly by Northwest and West coast artists including
John Buck, Akio Takamori, Charles Parriott, Viola Frey, and
Patti Warashina,
and the figures they present are both real and fictional, imagined and
observed. There is even a recent trend toward more conceptual figures; that
is symbolic figures, represented through cloth and paper dress forms of
Beverly Semmes and Lesley Dill.
Landscapes in the collection.
Beginning in 1987 with some 1,800 employees at Microsoft the art collection
was born. Particular attention was paid to artists of this region, from
California to Vancouver, B.C., and among the first acquisitions was the work
of Northwest artist, Lockwood Dennis. Dennis's woodblock prints are
nostalgic views of Seattle. Some color, some black and white works depicting
the buildings, streets, and viaducts of Seattle along with the traffic of
trucks, buses and trains. His prints are small brooding images reminiscent
of the American scene painters of the 20s and 30s and such printmakers as
Rockwell Kent and Louis Lozowick. While not a traditional landscape artist
his images are about and devoted to the town in which he lives and works,
Seattle. Similarly Ray Meuse's black and white photograph is also a tribute
to the city and the region. He presents Seattle the city as a creature set
in its natural surroundings John Stamets also of Seattle documents the city
as it has grown and continues to grow. Like the figurative photographs in
the collection, there are also those photographers devoted exclusively to
landscape, and many to just the American landscape. Doug Hall, Richard
Misrach, Jo Ann Verburg, and John Jenkins to name just four. Another group
of photographers including Michael Kenna, Vera Lutter and James Casebere
wrestle with issues of urbanism and industrial settings in their black and
white representations. (The use of black and white film, in spite of the
great quality available in color technology, underscores the moody tenor
they express through their imagery.) At the same time Amir Zaki 's color
photographs look at the seedy back drop of Los Angeles at night
concentrating his attention on the city's back alleys and side streets,
while Arthur Aubrey creates photographic series of artificial or man-made
landscapes.
There is a long tradition of landscape painting in America going back to the
18th century but with the collection's early commitment to contemporary art
the viewer will discover a extremely diverse rather than encyclopedic
representation of landscape styles and techniques. This diversity ranges
from the painterly realism of Alfred Leslie and Larry Gray to the more
romantic visions of Gregory Amenoff, April Gornik and David Kroll. The
collection also contains a strong and not surprisingly west coast contingent
of three generations of artists. This distinguished group includes Guy
Anderson, Wayne Thiebaud, and Ed Ruscha. Each represents a distinctive
aspect of the American landscape art whether it is mythic or realistic in
perception or inspired by rural or urban subject matter. Rebecca Morales and
Meg Harders subject for example is the California landscape. The former
looks at the desert, the latter at the low lying hills east of Los Angeles
along route 101 Malcolm Morley, however, is addicted to the sea. He spends
much of his time traveling making watercolors and prints of these trips. One
such journey took him Easthampton, New York in1987 and the result was the
lithograph Kite on Gibson Beach
In this collection there is no one landscape ideal. For contemporary artists
the landscape can be seen or invented; set in parks and fields such as Dona
Nelson's Tented Park or along the rivers and waterfronts as in Richard
Bosman's dark blue work on paper. The countryside of upstate New York and a
neighborhood in Berkeley, California get equal attention in the works by
Jake Berthot, Robert Bechtle and Christopher Brown. Kathryn Lynch has
similar ideas about her vistas but these are primarily urban, and in many
instances witnessed from indoors looking out. Lynch's late night picture
contains the drama and character of the urban locale.153 Hudson Street, 1999
was he artist's studio address and from there she could watch. Late night
traffic and windows are the face of the sleeping city. On the other hand
David Kapp's city is awake and alive and hectic. Like Lynch his perspective
is also a city viewed from the studio window. He constructs paintings that
focus on the color and light and shadows of the buildings surrounding his
viewpoint. Sarah McEneaney shares a similar commitment to urban life. The
setting for her works is also in and around her neighborhood town in
Philadelphia, but her sense of things is more intimate and personal. Her
style is reminiscent of the naïve styles of early Italian painting of the
14th century characterized by herring bone perspective and remarkably
brilliant coloration. The young Seattle painter Julia Ricketts is also a
vibrant colorist. Her view of the city, Portland in this instance, is seen
from the air. She treats the ground as if a map, painting a grid of
intersecting bands of abstract lines.
As the collection grows the representation of these two themes will also
grow and no doubt be challenged by new artists and new propositions about
what constitutes the figure and the landscape. The contemporary nature of
the art in the Microsoft collection is such that we anticipate and embrace
this continual growth and transformation. It very much reflects the spirit
of the company.
Michael
Klein
Curator
Microsoft Art Collection |
