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French language edition published 1973 by E.P.I. Editions Filipacchi, 65, avenue des Champs-filysees, 75008 Paris. American Edition published 1975 by Rizzoli International Publications, Inc. 712 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10019. All rights reserved.
Nothing herein may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher. Printed in Spain. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 75-18524. ISBN: 0-8478-0001-6.
TOUJ^UBIj] by Linda Chase Introduction by Salvador Dali
^-^ NF\)t' Vt)RK
SHARP SYBARITIC REALISM (Preamble: In 1933, Dali proclaimed that his painting was really hand-made color photography of superfine delirious images of concrete irrationality.)
epoch of intellectual misery we live in, must express myself in terms of caricature
In this
a street in Rouen.
I
the Municipal
my
contemporaries can try to understand me. I will therefore start by quoting my preface for Marcel Duchamp: so that
The first man who compared a young woman's cheeks to a rose was, quite obviously, The second, by repeating it, was a poet. possibly an idiot. All the theories of Dada and Surrealism are constantly being repeated over and over again: their soft waves have given birth to innumerable soft objects.
Readymades" cover the bread fifteen yards long long— This monstrous
engender
A crumb
globe.
is
now
of
fifteen miles
specialization
can
spontaneous phenomena Dada nor Surrealism would ever
certain
that neither
have had the leisure or the desire to bring forth. It
has
already
been forgotten
Dadaism appeared, Tristan Tzara,
that, its
when
original
«
Dada Dada
c'est ceci, c'est ceci,
Dada Dada
in
Dadaism
is
During
left at
all.
On
that day, originality will
convulsively
be
by the if,
making the chocolate grinder, he had made the Holy Ampulla, the only readyinstead of
made divine that might have been used for anointing and consecrating him king. So Duchamp could have been crowned at Rheims, and Dali would have asked his permission to paint a picture called, "The King
The moral
all good faith that its neomore sublime than the art of
enerves
need of the artist. Marcel Duchamp could have been king
c'est cela,
Praxiteles.
attitude of the
not touching
Readymade
at
High
consists
Subterraneously, the Readymade has influenced the conscience of the hyperrealists and has brought them to paint readymades by hand. If Vermeer of Delft or Gerard Dou had lived in 1973, they would no doubt not have considered it unin
reality.
Duchamp
suitable to paint the interior of an automobile
between Arcachon and Bordeaux)
or the outside of a telephone booth, with all the reflections involved. In spite of his
the
(traveling
"Les
also that
the art object created
Speed".
De
believes
and
recalled that
Joan of Arc was burnt at the stake in Rouen. At the time, there were only 1 7 people in Paris who understood Readymades, the very rare Readymades of Marcel Duchamp. Now there are 17 million who understand them. The day that all existing objects are Readymades, there won't be any more Readymades de Jumieges"
c'est cela,
toute facon, c'est du caca... » This more or less black type of humor is unknown to the new generation, which «
must be
and the Queen Traversed by Nudes
leader, declared in his manifesto: «
It
Museum owns
last
war,
Marcel
me of the new interest in the preparation of excrements, of which the small
talked to
passion for Leibnizian holography, Salvador At least he has is more or less an artist.
excretions from the navel are the
Dali
editions.
Well, this same Salvador Dali went this summer from Port Lligat to Barcelona in a nice enough automobile, and as a sybarite he enjoyed all the reflections of the nickel inside the car— to
I
replied that I'd like
"deluxe" to own an
authentic excretion of Raphael's navel. Today in Verona a very well known pop artist sells the excrements of
artists,
presented
in
very
sophisticated containers, as a luxury product.
As soon as Duchamp realized that he had sowed the wind with his youthful ideas until none were left, he very aristocratically withdrew from this game and prophesied that other young men would specialize in the chess game of contemporary art; then he started to play chess.
The chocolate grinder by Marcel Duchamp is sublime when one knows that he chose it in
a certain artistic sensitivity.
such an extent that upon arriving in Barcelona, he noticed that not once had he looked out of
window at the countryside of the province of Gerona, which is the one he loves best in the world. The miracle was entirely due to the hyperrealist rnovement, thanks to which we are now beginning to enjoy sybaritically the modern world that surrounds the
us and that everyone distrusts.
!
Since that
trip,
I
have drawn the
line
!
between the domain of
sybaritic realism
and that of
pathetic romanticism. Sybaritic classicism Estes - Gerard Dou
Pathetic romanticism Rothko - Rembrandt
Information
Tendentious information That which one imagines
That which one knows
Myth
Reality
That which
That which
is
Levi intimus
not
Levi promiscuities
That to which we belong That which belongs to us
That to which we do not belong That which does not belong to us, in this world The world without states Messianism
The Fatherland Patriotism
In the lyric theatre, the two romantic operas which which can be opposed one to the other are:
Norma by
is
The world The universe The cosmos
The province The street The chair
offer the
Bellini
Tristan
Norma from
maximum
and Isolde by Wagner
the beginning the genetic code, the existence in flesh and blood of the two illegitimate children of a Roman father.
Tristan aphrodisiac.
Norma
Tristan and Isolde die of languor.
In
dies in perfect health and, before dying, declares
war on nothing
less
than
Rome
his country sings in full voice sublime, and he follows her in death saying that their love is only beginning.
Norma
In is
Norma
the
first
In the forest of the Druids, booth...
why
is
While Tristan
Norma,
like a
telephone
Tristan
love
potion,
a
legendary
devoured by
dies
his
memories.
is
the defeat of love.
innumerable reflections of the modern the telephone booths are like the mesozoa, a creature that has scarcely 20 cells, which permit the collection of information about the cell in a remarkably reduced content, the urine of the octopus. Herein may lie the clues to the development of multi-cellular organisms. In the forest of
city,
a Catalan esthete, tired of the impenetrable
cried out in front of a hyperrealist painting of
impressive painting showing
Today
a
Tristan ends pianissimo.
steps leading to the sacrifice, which sublime, are the first steps of a triumphal march.
This
Isolde
is
Norma ends fortissimo.
Musically
and
itself.
The Roman betraying
that
In
of contrasts and
six identical
modern
forest
art:
of modern art, have seen a most
of isms
Recon!.
I
telephone booths.
two extremes of hyperrealism are, on the one side Estes, on the other Morley, between the two: Eddy, Salt, Parrish, MacLean, Mahaffey, Kacere, Staiger, Goings, Blackwell, Kleeman. Morley will probably try to kill hyperrealism with a technique which he himself calls brutal, in order to return to the most hyperexagerrated realism. Estes is on the road to perfection and probably a very Gerard-Douesque stereoscopy. Bravo for Norma! the
Bravo for the octopuses Bravo for the telephone booth Bravo for Morley! Bravo for Estes! Bravo, above all, for Salvador Dali! The Telephone Booth
Amid
the innumerable chaotic reflections of the
city, telephone booths are parallelepipeds whose four exterior transparent rectangles are living Leibnizian mirrors of an ultra-local universe, enclosing within them a living informative biology.
strictly
In a universe of virtual images, each telephone booth seems a parallelepipedal holograph of our visible reality, an existential mesozoa. Each telephone booth is like the Perpignan railway station, it is a legi intimus, it is a Father-
>t^_ (On
finishing this article,
y I
hear that the autopsy of Bellini's body revealed an infection of
the kidneys!)
Salvador Dali Translated June 1975 by Albert Field
DON EDDY
Summer Shoes (1972)
—
NEW REALISM At a time when a
New
rebirth of figurative
seemed impossible,
painting
Realism has burst art world as an exciting,
upon the viable,
controversial
and quintessential^ modern art form. With his use of the photograph, the New Realist painter
combines the tools of painting with the tools of technology to record the objects and icons of the
modern world. Rejecting the emotional subjectivity of earlier realist painting, he reports what is. The paintings present visual fact without
comment on The
New
the pictorial subject. like all of us,
Realist,
is
media's
a
new way
child.
He has forged
of seeing
which
derives from the emotional distance of media and employs the wealth of precise and concentrated data available through the camera. In the paintings of Richard Estes, Chuck Close, Don Eddy, Ralph Goings, Richard McLean, Tom Blackwell, John Salt, and other New Realists, we are presented with an easily accessible and visual image which has been robbed of its emotional content. Emotional distance and visual accuracy become equivalents, and reality is rendered with a purity which is both super-real and unreal at once, a purity we have come to accept as real through the ubiquity of the photographic image. New Realism is not a movement familiar
the formal sense. a manifesto: many of these artists have never met. They come from diverse parts or the country Sacramento, in It
does not have
—
San Francisco, Denver, New York but they have absorbed the same influences and are concerned with translating these influences into paint in similar ways.
Perhaps
it
can best be
called a sensibility, a stance which arises from the relationship between the artist and his subject. It is a relationship of distance, both emotional, and through his use of the photograph, actual, but also of total and painstaking involvement in terms of the accurate rendering of form, light and colour.
Several
NEW REALISM
stylistic manifestations are identified with New Realism, such as the cold and objective painting
style of Goings,
McLean and Eddy,
the clean hard paint surface, the absence of visual brush strokes, and the attention to detail. But not all New Realists demonstrate all of The paintings of these qualities. Richard Artschwager, probably the first
New
preserve
Realist,
the grainy textural character of cheap newsprint and John Salt's paintings have a soft hazy quality which results from his particular method of using the airbrush. Richard
Estes and Tom Blackweil both achieve an uncanny precision with the use of traditional painterly techniques. We have come to expect cars, trucks, motorcycles, hot dog stands and plate glass windows as the subject matter
New
for
Realist
painting,
HAROLD GREGOR
Illinois
Barn
aerie* II
:
Route 66 near Lincoln (1972)
yet
McLean's horses and Close's faces remain in the mainstream of
New
Realist painting
because the decisive factor is the way the subject is seen and not the subject matter
itself.
Morley, whose brutally precise renditions of travel posters and postcard scenes qualify him as an early New Realist, painted these upside down and in grids square by square, deliberately obliterating the image in order to paint it. He thereby created the maximum distance between himself and the subject matter and disavowed any connection with
Malcolm
the old realist tradition. It was his intention to create
RICHARD ARTSCHWAGER
The Tree
AUDREY FLACK
Sunset over Florence
a
painting which, when reproduced, would be indistinguishable from the original source material,
thus
letting
art
defeat
itself
in
Duchamp. Morley has since moved away from the spirit of
the precisionistic appearance of his earlier works toward a more expressionistic use of paint while continuing the use of the grid process. The white border, used by Morley and also by John Clem Clarke, is another method of creating distance, of calling the viewer's attention to the fact that he is looking at a painting of a reproduction of the real thing. Although the New Realist painter
has no conscious message, although he is deliberately trying to paint without a message, this attitude and the methods used to achieve the goal of unemotional content become statements in themselves. Often the subject matter adds to the unconscious message. When aspects of the urban and suburban landscape are portrayed, they are not only being recorded, but are also being used to reflect a distance that has become part of our lives. Looking at Estes' subway car or Goings' hamburger stand, we become aware of the alienation that exists between us and the environment we have created. Eddy's cars are often seen through fences
JOHN SALT
Crashed Bonn
and showroom windows. McLean's horses and Blackwell's motorcycles and cars are painted in show situations. Sexually connotive objects of power, they are neutralized by their status as fetishistic objects. All New Realist painting deals with a secondhand, recycled reality; reality recycled first by the photograph and again by the artist.
Photography
is
at
the heart of the movement. Studio realists such as Philip Pearlstein, Alfred Leslie and Lowell Nesbitt can be seen as precursors of New Realism in their incorporation of photographic influences; the use of photographic cropping and frontality. Like the
photo-realists they are concerned with maintaining the awareness of the two dimensional plane while creating the But three dimensional illusion. these artists are firmly tied to the traditions of studio painting which the New Realist
painter rejects. Kanovitz, another precursor of New Realism, has used free standing figures in his optical illusion realism to bring the picture plane into actual space. A kind of play on trompe I'ceil painting, his work is about the paradox between what appears to be there and what is actually there, and the excitement of his work exists in In his the tension between the two. Six Pinned to a Wall he manages
Howard
maintain this tension without breaking the two dimensional picture plane and in painting photographs as photographs he aligns himself closely
to
with the interests of the New Realists. result of the New Realists' rejection of studio realism is the almost total absence of the figure in New Realist painting, and when figures do appear, as in the work of Robert Bechtle, Paul Staiger and Ron Kleeman, they are incorporated into the scene as merely another aspect of the milieu. The New Realist painter is not concerned with the artificial arranging of figures in space or of objects in a still life, but in abstracting from the arrangement of things in the real world. He uses the photograph, often quite consciously, to separate himself from the concerns of classical representational painting. John Salt observed that photographs "made it easier to get rid of other painters' influence," and that the air brush served the same purpose. This awareness that the photograph works to liberate the artist from older forms of realism was reiterated by Tom Blackwell: "The camera distorts according to the mechanics of its lenses not according to classical conventions of perspective or the needs of pictorial representation." In the New Realist sculpture of Duane Hanson and John DeAndrea the
One
technique of molding directly from life has a similar effect, as it eliminates personal emotional choices in the transferring of the object into sculpture and helps disassociate the artist from past representational sculpture by eliminating the possibility of heroic scale and distortions of the body according to classical ideals. The New Realists also use the photograph to create distance between themselves and the subject matter. The photograph transfers the image from a three dimensional
two dimensional plane in a way that precludes decisions by the artist which might be based on emotional or psychological preferences. "You would tend to emphasize one thing over another, to distort the image according to your feelings," observed Salt, describing what would happen if he tried to paint his auto wrecks without the use of photographs. to
a
Thus, Lowell Nesbitt, Pearlstein
photographs,
New
who
unlike
and Leslie does use
Realist
is
nevertheless not a
because he uses the
photograph primarily as a source of information, and although his compositions reflect the influence of the photograph, he interprets the information as he transforms it upon the canvas, placing primary importance on the artist's personal individualistic vision rather than on precise and objective rendition
from the subject matter and to free themselves from artistic conventions of the past, also represents a philosophical it
new way
outlook; a
fronts or automobiles in parking The same paintings lots. could not be painted without
photographs. The artist envisions the painting in photographic terms and the photographic visualization
is part of the idea of the painting.
Photography has changed way of seeing and the
our
Realists
changes. as real," Richard Estes observed. "Media has to affect the way you see things. Even if you don't watch TV you're affected by it." Tom Blackwell takes idea even further:
this
phenomena." New Realists are concerned not merely with painting from a photograph or with painting as realistically as a photograph, but with redefining painting in relation to the photograph. For of actual
it is a new tool and a new source of visual information. "I can't see how could do one without the other," said Estes, describing the symbiotic relationship between the painting and the photograph. "Or maybe could do the photograph without the painting but couldn't do the painting without the photograph.
them
I
I
I
The idea
is involved with the photograph, the creation of it almost,
and the painting is just the method of transmitting it. couldn't really carry it far enough with photography though. You have a I
it
In
and
slide
little if
And
Basically
and
it
I'm
making
a
painting
just using these other
things to do it." Estes actually takes considerable liberty with the photograph. He takes several photographs of an area to get more information and this information is incorporated into the painting. Although the painting will be based on
one photograph, he
is
not
trying to capture the particular
moment
time and space the way the camera would record it. He eliminates people even though they appear in the photographs, "because they are too distracting," and eliminates garbage as well because he says in
he can't make
gain distance
that's nothing.
up and have prints made loses something. It has no surface. painting you have more control.
you blow
really
to
"Today
photographic images, movies, TV, newspapers are as important as actual phenomena. They affect our perception
of the subject matter.
it
New
registering these "We accept the photograph
are
The photograph should not be seen, however, as merely a device. Although the artists may be aware that they are using
of seeing.
The photograph is not incidental, it is essential. The New Realist painter is not using the photograph to do something which could be done another way. It is not merely that it would be awkward to stand in the street and paint store
my
a
part.
look right. "It's deficiency on really try to make things it
technical I
look dirty. But it's funny because even in the photograph
CHRIS CROSS Motor
(1972)
doesn't look as dirty as really is. It's not that try to make it look like that,
of dark and light caused by excessive sunlight, McLean's
what happens." Estes' paintings have a
increasingly abstract. Clarke, having developed a method of realist painting using stencils to recreate both volume and light, is now employing the technique to reproduce, in large scale, photographs of abstract brush strokes. His use of the photograph as source material and his dedication to accurate reproduction of the material are so closely aligned with New Realist concerns that he could almost be called an abstract New Realist. Stephen Posen is also dealing with abstraction, but is much more concerned with illusion of depth than Clarke.
it
ÂŁW REALISM
it
it's
I
most recent work becomes
just
the world of the
purity
This is true of Realist paintings of funky reality, partly because the artists are not trying to expressionistically capture the grit and grime and partly because of their stylistic emphasis on precision and cleanliness of paint surface. As Estes' comments on garbage indicate, the use of the photograph does not preclude a desire to create a satisfying painting lacks.
New
all
abstract terms. Estes feels that the
in
In
fact,
New Realist sensibility related to the influence of abstract painting. "An abstract way of looking at things without any comment or coldness of is
commitment." a
realist
many
He has always been however, whereas
painter,
or the other
began as abstract
New
Realists
painters.
New
of references to abstract painting in the compositions
Realism
is
full
of Salt, Cottingham, Blackwell Even the apparent and others. frontality of Estes or Goings is
composed and succeeds
Reflections an abstract sense. are often used as abstract elements, as are the fences and In parking lot lines in Eddy's work. the extreme fragmentation in
John Clem
Posen's trompe
I'ceil
style
distinguishes him from Clarke and relates his work to the New Realists in spite of the fact that he does not use photographs. His method of creating full scale sculptures of boxes and fabric which he then renders faithfully in paint gives him the kind of distance from the subject that is achieved through the use of the photograph. He too is dealing with a second hand reality. Since he is not using a recognizable image but an abstraction which possesses no inherent emotional content, he does not have the problem
of emotionally
charged choices
transferring the three dimensional object to the two dimensional plane. He eliminates problems of distortion and focus through the use of a fork lift in
device which allows him to paint each area at eye level. Posen's work illustrates, as that New Realist painting is informed and influenced not only by abstract art but by conceptual and process work as well. Often the artist is primarily concerned with the subject matter as a vehicle for exploring visual perceptions. This is true of Chuck Close who denies any humanist intention in his use of the face. He represents, in its purest or most extreme form, the use of the photograph The photograph acts as subject. as a structure within which there are certain absolutes. "My paintings are a result of certain self-imposed restrictions,"
does Morley's,
Close
said.
"No matter how
interesting a shape is, if it isn't the shape in the photograph it is wrong. am trying to get I
my hand
to move out of those personal cliche art marks." The head functions as an extremely familiar type of subject and thus eliminates
for
him the possibility
of taking unobserved liberties. would a lazy person and
"I'm
I
tend to let myself get by If were with things. painting a tree and the colour was slightly off, or the texture of the bark, who would know? Who cares enough about trees to People are important to notice? other people so they're important I
to
me."
He uses photographs
of his
friends rather than anonymous subjects for the same "Likeness reason. work. It is by-product of the way would bother me a lot more if did a lousy job of translating I
I
the photograph of someone knew than if it were a stranger." Close goes to a great deal of trouble to take the kind of photograph which contains the specific information that concerns him. He is interested in blur, which he feels the human eye eliminates but the camera allows us to see and explore. Questions of focus are not decided because of relative importance of the area but because of the focal length of the I
camera
lens.
He wants
to
treat the face as a map with uniformly interesting
topography. The forehead, the eyes, the cheek, the chin are all of equal interest. Closes' use of the three colour separation which he paints layer upon layer, reproducing the colour photograph like a colour laboratory rather than like a traditional puts him on the outer limits of the reproduction painter,
ALFRED LESLIE
Portrait of Robert Scoll
M.
MORLEY
U.S. Marine at Valley Forge
of the photograph among New Realist painters. But other
GUY JOHNSON
November Landscape
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-
Realists are also interested
in
of focus, its relationship to spatial perceptions, and in issues that arise in reproducing blurred slightly out
areas.
i
;ssf-*
cheque painting (1972).
reproducing the photograph; in dealing as painters with questions
and
a ooo
of focus
Mahaffey employs photographic
focus in his aerial cityscapes as an equation for distance, while Blackwell often paints out of focus areas in the extreme foreground so that the focus
becomes a different kind of spatial equation. Blackwell also deals with the problem of translating photographic light refraction into paint.
Reflections as they are perceived
by the eye and as they are
steel
registered
Kacere has
photographically are
obviously a major concern of New Realists. Motorcycles, cars and trucks are used as subject matter by Blackwell, Eddy, Goings
and also by Ron Kleeman and David Parrish, not only because ot their ubiquity on the American scene but also because of the painters' fascination with their shiny painted and chrome surfaces. Estes is obviously attracted to the reflectiveness of plate glass windows as well as to the chrome surfaces in his subway car and diner paintings. John Rummelhoff is concerned with reflective surfaces such as chrome and stainless
kitchen a
John concern plays on the folds
fixtures.
similar
with light as it of his often sleezy satin fabrics. Although included in the movement because of their coolness and the precision of their paint styles, Robert Cottingham and John Kacere are not concerned with the kind of photographic detail
often identified with Realism. Cottingham
New strives
for
dramatic composition and simplifies the subject matter, leaving out
and bolts the photographs. Kacere, in his "idealization" of female anatomy, paints flesh lacking hair, dimples or other details rust spots, stains
that
appear
in
11
possible the New Realist use photograph. But the New Realist sensibility is not
EW REALISM
of the
Pop sensibility. As Estes remarked, "The trouble with Pop Art is that it made too much comment. Playing an intellectual game type thing. Once you get the message you lose interest." Pop used banal subject matter as banal. The New Realist painter does not tell the viewer how to feel about the subject, he merely affirms that it exists and that it is worth looking at because it exists. The artist's efforts (often many months of work on one painting) imbue a
liSA
DON EDDY
MBl
I
the things he paints with a new significance, but they are not lauded or loathed, only given careful consideration. Their reality is irrefutable. Within the bounds of this comment of no comment, there
Private Parking
spectrum of feeling the artist's attitude towards his subject. In some cases the exquisiteness of paint becomes a sort of fetishistic love (Going's Air Flow Trailer, Estes' Subway Car, Blackwell's Triple Carburetor GTO) while McLean's paintings cast is
a certain
in
a chill that seems definitely negative. The beautiful
horses are no more absurd owners. Close's studied avoidance of the "hot" content of his
And
alive than the
J
CLEM CLARKE
FRANZ GERTSCH
Larfv Gorf/va
which he apparently considers blemishes, but which reality would dictate in the scale in which he works. There is a division between
New
Realists who paintings about how the camera sees and those who are interested in using photography to make paintings about how the eye sees. Goings, McLean and Estes all employ an overall sharp focus. For Estes this is part of his non-committal translation of "I don't the subject matter. want to have some things in focus and others out of focus because it makes it too specific what you are supposed to look at in a painting and
those
are making
!
avoid saying that. Everything is in focus because want you to look at it all." For the painters who are translating the photograph exactly, including out of focus areas, their literalness in relation to photographic focus try to
I
becomes
part of the objectivity
of their statement.
These
differences make it clear that the photograph as a tool contains many variables even among those painters who are interested in exact rendition of subject matter. "Some people think that if you use a photograph only one painting can be made. But as many different paintings can be made from a
photograph as from
real
life,"
Salntes Maries de
la
Mer
I
observed Close.
One out
issues that comes Close's statements
of the in
about the New Realists' work is the use of the photograph as a discipline. New Realism is
to a certain extent a
reaction to the freedom of abstraction, a freedom within which it has become increasingly difficult to avoid cliche
and
repetition.
offers
The photograph
discipline within which the New Realist feels free a
explore paint while same time offering new areas to explore. The precise rendition of subject matter divested of emotion is another aspect of this discipline, for inherent in recognizable subject matter is connotation. The New Realist to
at the
painter is interested in denotation, and the process of stripping the object of its emotional connotations and dealing with its concreteness creates a desirable tension, infusing the best work with a dynamic yet controlled energy. The New Realists acknowledge a debt to Pop Art for opening areas of banal subject matter and making it possible to paint figuratively without
reference to
the past, to old masters or to academic considerations. The Pop use of advertising and secondary source material helped to make
paintings combined with the scale of the heads becomes a kind of aggression. Kleeman, whose early work combined sexual anatomy with machine
imagery, is still concerned, although less obviously, with the sexual connotations of his racing cars.
Ben Schonzeit is more concerned with the connotations of what he paints than most of the New Realists. He often juxtaposes objects in unusual ways, i.e. Buffalo Bill riding through a display of kitschy key chains and
pill
boxes
in
his
painting Buffalo Bill. Scale is also used suggestively rather than realistically
in
this
painting.
He
paints with an air brush to achieve an effect of soft focus, and the focus in the painting does not necessarily reflect the focus in the photograph used as a source. Schonzeit develops an interesting tension between the illusion of the reality of the image and the softness of it, and the soft focus often lends an eerie and haunting quality to the objects he paints. Audrey Flack paints subject
matter that has become kitsch with the intention of "recreating images that
have been destroyed by the over exposure resulting from the constant reproduction of photographs." Through the use of zoom and close up lenses she captures details not perceived by the naked eye and renders them faithfully in paint. With
the camera she is "using the tools of the media to resurrect images
and ideas destroyed by media." her paintings of cathedrals art works, such as Michelangelo's David, and in her madonnas with their gaudy dress and glass tear drops, she is asking the viewer to relate to the individual In
and famous
concreteness of the subject, to cut through the haze of our culturally inherited attitudes towards it and see it as it really is. In this sense she could be said to
be making a more specific
statement than most of the
New
Realists, but her incredibly precise
rendition of the subject matter through the use of the photograph relates her work closely to theirs. There is a fascinating and frightening madness in painting colour separations layer upon layer, in building
complete sculptures and then laboriously copying them in paint, in meticulously rendering every flower on a Rose Bowl float or every bolt on an engine, which is
New
part of the
"The
lucidity that
torture
his
at
the
Realist statement. was to constitute
same time
crowns
his victory..."
(Albert
Camus, The Myth
Though
of Sisyphus)
cold and noncommital, New Realism is also heroic, not in the academic artistic sense, but in the existential absurdist sense. It chooses to do slowly and laboriously what media can do quickly and effortlessly and thus to affirm it
is
human effort is valid and that human effort alters the product.
that
and the photograph are Almost inadvertently the artist balances the colour, improves the composition through cropping, and makes it work as painting. Reality
purified.
This irony,
is
the central the philosophical
New
The
tension
grasps and communicates the camera's message, but is not content with the camera's product. He affirms the
of
Realism.
artist
integrity of the object while yearning toward perfection. The painting achieves a Sartrean purity; the hard beauty which "would make people ashamed of their existence" (Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea): the steely cold beauty
beyond pain idealized in Richard Brautigan's Trout Fishing in America. The triumph of skill becomes a triumph of spirit as well.
quotations from the artists come from interviews conducted by the All
author with Ted McBurnett in the fall and winter 1971-72. These interviews appear in the November 1972 issue of Art in America.
LINDA CHASE
CHRIS CROSS
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13
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RICHARD ESTES in Evanston, Illinois. Studied at the Chicago Art Institute 1952-1956. New York. Residence First exhibition 1968 at the Allen Stone Gallery, New York.
Born 1936
:
Cafeteria.
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16
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Richard Estes
:
Helenes Florist (1971) 17" x 23 2/4".
27
DAVID
PARRISH Bom 1939 in Birmingham, Alabama. Studied at the University of Alabama. First exhibition 1962 with a group at the Ringling Museum of
Art, Sarasota.
Motorcycle V (1971) 15 1/4" X 23". 19
20
MALCOLM MORLEY Born 1931
in London. Studied at the Royal College of Art, London. Exhibition in 1964 at the Kornblee Gallery.
Castle.
21
ROBERT COTTINGHAM 22
Born 1935 in Brooklyn. Graduated in advertising art. Teaches at the Art Center College of Design, in Los Angeles, California where he lives. First exhibition
1968.
Signs (1971).
23
\
w
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*
r
SWf?
v
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>'
Bra
JOHN SALT Born 1937 Lives
in
Birmingham (England).
New
York. Studied at the Slade School of Fine Arts, London. First exhibition 1965 at the Ikon Gallery, Birmingham. in
Electra I
20 3/4" X 25 114". 25
it
/ X aHF
.# -
«*
f! l/i
"+â&#x20AC;˘
* DUANE HANSON Born 1925
in Alexandria, Minnesota. Studied at Cranbrook Academy of Bloomfiels Hills, Michigan.
Lives
in
New
York.
First exhibition in
Art,
1946 with a group
Minneapolis.
Motorcycle accident (1969). 27
-
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28
c
W
*
Q:
s
.
S Ssci
Duane Hanson: Bowery
Derelicts
(1967)
29
Duane Hanson
30
:
Artist Seated (1972)
JOHN de ANDREA Born 1941 in Denver, Colorado. Graduated from the University of Colorado in 1965. Taught drawing and painting at the University of New Mexico 1956-1958. Residence Denver. :
First
exhibition
1970.
Arden Ardenson and Nora Murphy (1972) 13 3/4"x36 3/4"x25 2/3".
31
RICHARD McLEAN Born 1934 in Hoquiam, Washington. Teaches at San Francisco State College, California. First
32
personal exhibition 1957 at the Lucien Labaudt San Francisco.
Gallery,
^)ft»
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Persimmon Hill (1972) 23" x
23".
^^flfc*
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sm^^
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Char's Powderface (1969) 18 1/2" X 22 1/2'
3<
RI0HT1
BLOCK
STOPLIGHT
HAROLD GREGOR Born 1929. Lives in Bloomington, Illinois. Has exhibited since 1963 at Purdue University.
? --L^
AV4*? Illinois
Barn
series
:
Steve's cafe (1972) 16 1/2"
x 25
1/2".
â&#x20AC;˘
JOHN KACERE Born 1920 Has taught in
New
in in
Walker, Iowa. Canada, in Mexico,
York.
exhibition 1954 at the Zabriskie Gallery, New York. First
Light purple panties yellow dress, rear view (1972) 23 1/4" x 31".
37
John Kacere.
38
39
RALPH GOINGS Bom
40
1928 in Corning, California. Studied at California College of Arts. First exhibition 1960 in Sacramento where he lives.
Airstream (1970) 23 1/4" x 32 3/4".
41
•
w **
KUIF •
Ralph Goings: Interior (1972) 14" x 20".
42
••
BEN SCHONZEIT Born 1942
in Brooklyn. Studied at Cooper Union, New York City, New York. First exhibition 1965 with a group in Washington, D.C.
Herb's frames (1971) 27 3/4" x 37".
45
I
i
:-fP
:
'I^U&r^ff^-v^'^-'y- At'
ROBERT BECHTLE Born 1932
in
62 Chevy (1970) 17 1/2" x 20 1/4".
San Francisco.
Studied at California College of Arts and Crafts and at the University of California where he teaches. First exhibition 1959 at the San Francisco
Museum
of Art.
49
..
,: (.'••
DON EDDY Born 1944 in Long Beach, California. Studied at the University of HawaT. First exhibition 1967 with a group in Honolulu. Cadillac Showroom 18 1/2" x 23 1/4".
Window
(1972) 51
Don Eddy Wrecking Yard VI :
52
(1971) 25 1/2"
x 25 1/2
'rfiw4
TZMT
Don Eddy: Wrecking Yard
II (1971) 18 1/2"
x 25 1/2'
53
AUDREY FLACK Born 1931 in New York. Graduated from Yale School of Fine Arts. Lives
54
in
New
York.
First exhibition
1-959 at the
Roko
Gallery.
David (1971) 25 1/2" x 17 3/4".
JOHN RUMMELHOFF Born 1942
in
Minnesota. in 1964 at the
First exhibition Art,
Museum
Sink (1972).
of
Montgomery, Alabama. 55
CHUCK CLOSE Born 1940
in
Monroe, Washington.
First exhibition
Massachusetts.
56
1967 at the University of
Susan (1972) 38 3/4" x 34 3/4".
John (1971-72) 39" x
35'
Paper and
Wood
(1972) 13 3/4" x 9 1/4".
HOWARD KANOVITZ Born 1929 in Fall River, Massachusetts. Studied at Providence College, Rhode Island. First exhibition 1962 at the Stable Gallery, New York.
58
,
'WH^Mf-M
',.
Projected Street Scene (1971) 51 3/4" x 31".
59
/
Howard Kanovitz
60
:
Element
of
Prose (1972) 19 2/3" x 12 1/2".
Howard Kanovitz
:
New Sky
with Andre (1972) 31" x 23".
61
NOEL MAHAFFEY Born 1944
in Saint Augustine, Florida. Philadelphia. Studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (1962-1966) where he exhibited for the first time.
Lives
62
in
Saint-Louis, Missouri (1971) 8 1/2"
x 27 3/4
Noel Mahaffey
:
Atlanta, Georgia. 16 1/4"
64
x
21".
jiJtitaPi
%
V=^s
TOM BLACKWELL Born 1938. First exhibition
1961
at the
Roy Parsons
Gallery.
Gary's Hustler {1971) 18 3/4" x 37".
67
Tom
Blackwell: Triple Carburettor
GTO
(1972) 18 3/4"
x
37".
Motorcycle (1971).
69
I—
EL SEGUNDQ
PAUL STAIGER Born 1941
in
Portland, Oregon.
Studied at Northwestern University and at the University of Chicago. First exhibition 1969 at the Michael Walls Gallery,
San Francisco. El Segundo (1972) 32 1/4" x 38 1/2".
71
JOHN CLEM CLARKE Born 1937 Studied
in
Ben (Oregon). Oregon and Mexico. in
First exhibition at the
72
1967 with a group New York.
Witney Museum,
Judgement
of Paris
IV (1969) 84 1/4" x
137".
73
RON KLEEMAN in Bay City, Michigan. Studied at the University of Michigan and at the College of Architecture and Design.
Born 1937
First exhibition
Contemporary
1971 Art,
at the
Museum
of
Chicago.
Spritespit (1971) 18 1/2"
x 23 1/4".
We
express our gratitude to Collectors and Galleries that have kindly lent us their support, among them: all
Mr and Mrs Robert Kogod Carrol Janis Ivan C. Karp
Mr and Mrs
Sidney Lewis Merril
Berman
Barry Morrison Richard Brown Baker Galerie Frangois Petit Galerie de Gestlo Galerie des 4 mouvements Allan Stone Gallery Fischer Fine Art Ltd OK Harris
Hundred Acres Warren Benedek Gallery French and Company Meisel Galery Leo Castelli Gallery Bykert Gallery
Nancy Hoffman Gallery Noah Goldowsky Gallery Waddel Gallery as well as the photographers
New York Dudley Gray Malcolm Varon, New York Eric Pollitzer,
Ralph
B.
Quinke, Kassel andX...
:
7.50
$
raMUMffiMU Linda Chase
With an Introduction by Salvador
Dali
This book presents the era of hyperRalph Goings, Richard Estes,
realism:
Chuck Close,
Tom
Blackwell, and
many
Works by
these artists who are at the same time pioneers and masters, lavishly illustrate these pages. Linda others.
Chase relates the latest adventure of art, and Salvador Dali has provided an introduction. Hyperrealism is neither a movement nor a school. As the natural offspring of our super-industrialized society, hyperrealism utilizes the traditional methods figurative
of painting to desanctify it. Contrary to the realist painter,
the
hyperrealist does not appear, at first, to impose his personality on reality. He
rather
hides
behind
the
represented
object, he carves actuality out of reality.
But, Ly n rurious turn of the objects towards the painter, each work— inspite of itself and inspite of the artist—points to its creator. In a world where everyis questioned, attacked, and thing debunked, where every aspect of the environment appears in all its bareness, hyperrealism records the saga of the motorcycle, the drugstore, the silo, and sex— such as served up by the implacable daily press.
"Every telephone box," says Salvador holograph our visible reality, an existential mesozoa. Each telephone resembles the station at Perpignan, it is a legi intimus Well, in this It is one's home country." country chat has turned surreal by force of reality, everybody can, by turning the pages o f this book, freely carve out their own part of the dream. Dali, "is the parallelepipedical
of
76 pages,
96 37
illustrations with in color.
Jacket illustration
John Kacere Light purple panties yellow dress, rear view. 1972.
ISBN: 0-8478-0000-