Willem De Kooning at Colorado State University by Hatton Gallery

WILLEM DE KOONING:

Recent Works An exhibition organized by Colorado State University Fort Collins, Co lorado March 6-30, 1984

Colorado State llniversity is proud to present Ibis exhibition of reunt paintings, prints, drawings and sculptures by Willem de Kooning. This is tbe first one-artist sbow of de Kooning work ever presented in Ibis 11re11. This event is part of an ongoing program designed to bring tbe work of major contemporary American artists to tbe campus, to tbe community of Fort Collins and lo tbe residents of tbe Rocky Mountain region. During recent years tbe llniversity bas presented exhibitions by sucb renowned contemporary American artists as Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Christo, Red Grooms, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, James Rosenquist, Ernest 'hov11, Richard Hunt, Carl Andre and Sam Francis. The impact of these artists and tbeir work on our students and tbe community in general bas been substantial. We owe II special statement ofgratitude to Xavier Fourcade, de Kooning's dealer and representative, without whose cooperation and interest Ibis exhibition would not bave been possible. Also, to Jobn and Kimiko Powers wbo have shared, for many years and on many occasions, freely of their time, knowledge and art collections witb Colorado State llniversity and UJitb tbe citizens of Colorado. A sister exhibition featuring selected works by de Kooning from tbe Powers' collection is on display in tbe Intimate Gallery, Fort Collins Lincoln Center. Tbis exhibition is made possible, in part, by II grant from First Interstate Bank of Fort Collins. We are indeed pleased to present these exhibitions, DE KOON/NG IN FORT COLLINS, and we bope you enjoy tbis opportunity to view tbe work of one of tbe great artists of our time. PETER A. JACOBS

Art Department Chairman and Director of Special Visual Arts Program

Special Vlsual Arts Program Peter A. Jacobs, Director Pac Coronel, Assis1a111 Director 011d & hibi1io11 Coord1i1ator Karen Waddell, Secretary

Preface

1u,intings, drawings, sculpture 1111d litbograpb, In h,ld at the same time as tbe retrospective exbi/11 1io 11hr, place at the Wbitne1• '" ~fi • n Amerir11n 1rf

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Preface

Tbis exbibition ofpaintings, drawings, sculpture and litbogropbs by Willem de Kooning is beld at tbe some time RS tbe retrospeetive exbibition ~f bis complete UJork tokes plMe at tbe Whitney Museum ofAmerican Art ,,, New York, and later on at tbe Akodemie der Kiinste in Berlin, Germany, and at tbe Musie Notional d'Art Moderne, Centre Notionol 6eorges Pompidou in Paris, Fronce. Tbis exbibition includes only UJorks done ofter 1970. Tbe period covered bRS 11, great significance in tbe career of Willem de Kooning. A remarkable group of UJork UJbicb be pointed since be moved from New York to ERSt Hampton began UJitb Pastorate, 1963, and culminated in one of bis most remarkable mRSterpieces, Montauk I, 1969, noUJ in tbe collection of tbe WRdsUJortb Atbmeum in Hartford, Connecticut. BetUJeen 1969 and 19 72, de Kooning completed very few paintings, betUJeen 1972 and 1975, none. He UJRS constantly talking about tbe group of UJorks UJbicb be bod in mind, and didn't seem to be able to express. In 1970, be UJorked almost tbe UJbole year on litbogropbs and produced IUJenty-four imoges UJbicb UJere RS fresb, RS free and RS new RS bis paintings UJould be from 1975 on. BetUJeen 1970 and 1974, be also UJorked extensively on sculptures, creating tbe extrROrdinory group of life-sized pieces UJbicb UJere totally misunderstood 11,t tbe time and appear today in tbe eyes of colleetors, museum curators (especially in Europe) and art critics to be some of tbe most innovative sculptures of our time. Recently, de Kooning bRS token on sculpture again, producing over tbe lRSt tUJo years tbree monumental pieces. Tbis exbibition includes Large Torso, one oftbe 1972 life-size pieces, and tbe smoll version of tbe Seated Woman, 11, model for tbe lorge piece meRSUring 9-112 feet bigb. Suddenly, in January 1975, be RSked me to come and see 11, pointing be bod just flnisbed, UJbicb be tbougbt UJIIS IJUite good and UJbieb be tbougbt I UJould like. It UJIIS Untitled I, 1975, and from tben on be eompleted 11, group oftUJenty paintings, all meRSUring 80 x 70" or 88 x 77", betUJeen Jonuory and September, 1975. Tbis UJIIS tbeflrst group of a series of UJork UJbicb bRS been completed every year since, offering one more RSpect in 11, career UJbicb bod already been knoUJn for its constant rmeUJol and its different and new 11,pproMbes to tbe art of our time. Tbe late de Kooning, like tbe lote Titian, tbe lote Rembrandt, tbe late 6oyo, tbe late Monet, tbe late Cezanne, tbe late Matisse, presents on extrROrdinory new cbopter in tbe UJork of one of tbe greatest artists of our time. XAVIER FOURCADE

WILLEM DE KOONING: SOME REMINDERS What, then, Is art? Nothing simple, that Is certaln.-Albert Camus It Is the philosopher's task to assemble remlnders.-L. Wittgenstein

I. INTRODUCTION A. ABrief Chronology: For more than four decades, Willem de Kooning has been a major force in American art. His career reaches from Cubism and Surrealism to Pop and beyond. As this exhibit testifies, he continues today to experiment and explore new directions and techniques. Born in Holland in 1904, de Kooning studied for eight years at the Rotterdam A~ademy of Fine Arts and Techniques, an institution dedicated to the integration of applied and fine art. De Kooning came to the United States in 1926, and by 1934 was devoting himself to painting full time. There followed a brief tenure in the WPA art project and a first show in 1942, but the thirties and forties were years of intense struggle with minimal income: ' 'We never thought of selling a painting. '' Partly because of this it was a time of unusual freedom and experimentation: "It is exactly in its uselessness that it [art] is free ." These were also years which saw the creation of the lively and ongoing debate among New York artists about the nature and direction of art. All this was soon to flower, of course, into the New York School of abstract expressionist artists with de Kooning as one of its central figures in spite of the fact that a case can be made for his work's being neither abstract nor expressionistic in the senses intended. B. The Woman Paintings: De Kooning's early fame, not to say notoriety, arose in part from a series of abstract paintings of women begun in the early fifties. This motif has continued to be a significant one in his later work. It is sometimes overt, more often veiled. Woman I (1953) was the result of a difficult two-year confrontation with the canvas. It was not so much finished as relinquished. The early Woman paintings, limned in surprising and sometimes disquieting colors, began with the smiles of the toothpaste ads, but under de Kooning's brush these smiles turned to grimaces. Critics spoke of monstrous, perverted, savage images and more sophisticatedly of Death Mothers and Black Goddesses. It was difficult to resist psychoanalyzing the artist from a distance, a procedure less tempting now after three decades of de Kooning's further development of the theme. Subsequently, his images of women were painstakingly dismembered and rec?mbined until portions of anatomy became autonomous forms, "words" in a new ana- .th logical language; and simultaneously the image of woman metamorphosed into landscape wi the result that he achieved a more complete portrait of womankind. Furthermore, we should remember de Kooning's admonition not to fail to notice the hilarity in these grotesque figures. If we are still tempted to psychoanalyze, we ought to consult not only Freud but Jung for whom there was no opposite sex, but only contrary tendencies in us, female and ma~e. Ins_ofar as these paintings are self-revealing, they manifest an interior struggle to recogmze, nd ~rticu~ate, and perhaps temporarily reconcile these conflicting tendencies, to explore a mhabit more psychic territory. . C. Process: Woman I was painted and re-painted each change requiring new st m~nts_and introducing new problems. Later, de Kodning said, "The woman beca~t~ck . :ulsive m the sense of not being able to get hold of it-it really is very funny to g~t d 1·t's ~it a ~oman 's knees, for instance ... sort of silly. But the moment you take th is atutu e Just as silly not to do it.,'

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Catalogue of Works DRAWINGS

PAINTINGS

I. Untitled XII

1977

59" X 55 " Oil on canvas XFX P 1549 2. Untitled II 1978 55" X 59-1/4 " Oil on canvas XFX P 1885 3. Untitled V 1980 70" X 80" Oil on canvas XFX P 2954 4. Untitled V 1981 80" X 70" Oil on canvas XFX P 3122 5. Unlllled VII 198 1 80" X 70" Oil on canvas XFX P 3124 6. Untltled #1 1977 30" X 41 -1/2 " Oil on paper mounted on canvas XFX P 3493 7. Unlltled , 2 1977 30" X 41- 1/2" Oil on paper mounted on canvas XFX P 3494 8. Untitled #11 1977 30" X 4( -(/2 " Oil on paper mounted on canvas XFX P 3498 9. Untitled #14 1977 30" X 41 -1/2 " Oil on paper mounted on canvas XFX P 3500, Collection of Dr. and Mrs. Philli p T. George

10. Drawing 18-3/4 " X 24 " Charcoal on paper FOX D 297

1967

11' Untitled 18-3/4 " X 24 " Charcoal on paper XFX D 397 12. Untltled 24" X 18-3/4 " Charcoal on paper FOX D 399 13. Untitled 18" X 24 " Pencil on paper FOX D 586 14. Untltled (8" X 24" Pencil on paper FOX D 588

1967

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18" X 24 " Pencil on paper FOX D 589 16. Untitled 24 " X 19" Charcoal on paper XFX D 984

1968

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17. Untitled 1968 24 " X 18-3/4 " Charcoal on tracing paper XFX D 986 18. Untitled 1969 23 " X 18" Charcoal on paper FDX D 1139 19. Unlltled 1968 19" X 24 " Charcoal on paper XFX D 11 40

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AT COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY LITHOGRAPHS

SCULPTURE

20. Woman at Clearwater Beach 1970 28-1 /4" X 40-1/2" Lithograph, ed. 44

31. Large Torso 1974 36" h, 31 " w, 26-l/2 " d Bronze, FDX S 1204 32. Seated Woman 1969-80 26-l /2 " h, 36" w, 21 " d Bronze, XFX S 3255

21. The Marshes 40" X 28" Lithograph , ed. 20

1970

22 . Big 40" X 28-1/2 " Lithograph, ed. 10

1970

23. Clam Digger 40" X 28-1/2 " Lithograph, ed. 34

1970

24 . Weekend at Mr. and Mrs. Krisher 1970 50-1 /2" X 35 " Lithograph, ed. 75 25 . Wah Kee Spare Ribs 57" X 37 " Lithograph, ed. 57

1970

26. Woman with Corset and Long Hair 1970 37" X 30" Lithograph, ed. 61 27. Reflections: To Kermit for our Trip to Japan 1970 50-1/2 " X 35 " Lithograph, ed. 28 28 . Figure at Gerard Beach 40" X 28-1/4" Lithograph, ed. 32 29. Minnie Mouse 30" X 22 " Lithograph, ed. 60 30. Landscape at Stanton St. 30" X 22-1/4" Lithograph , ed. 60

I '., ' · Untitled #14 , 1977 , 30" x 41 -1/2 ", Oil on paper mounted on canvas

1970

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What emerged was a layered record in paint of the struggle toward new forms of representation and expression, a history of aesthetic choices co-existing on a crowded canvas. De Koo~ing' quick and energet!c brushstrokes and his incorporation of accidental drippings led to his bemg classed along with Pollock and others as an "action painter." But his strokes were not so much direct residues of the artist's movements as they were a controlled record of choices and the painting's changes over time-a history, portions of which were covered or altered or re-interpreted by subsequent strokes. As traditional figurative works had called our attention to the depicted subject, de Kooning's paintings called attention to the processes of their formation. They conveyed a different kind of time in painting, not the subject's time, but the artist's. To emphasize process, whether in painting or metaphysics, is to de-emphasize static objects: the world becomes event rather than thing; and it is to de-emphasize planning, preconception, and purpose in favor of spontaneous activity done in response to preceding activity. Finishing a painting becomes less important, because the painting as static thing has been replaced by the painting as record of artistic activity. Further, as de Kooning often reiterates, idea in art and commitment to aesthetic theory are of only secondary importance: doing precedes thinking.

II. The TENSION of OPPOSITES My business Is Circumference. -Emily Dickinson

There are two logics abroad in the world. The first and typically Western logic is encoded in Aristotle's Law of Non-contradiction: if A is true, then not-A must be false. It is the logic of analysis evident, for example, in the claim that if evolution theory is correct, the contrary Christian account of creation must be false. In contrast is the logic-call it Asiansymbolized by the idea of the complementarity of Yin and Yang; if we have A, we must also add not-A to have a complete picture. This is the logic of paradox: both A and its opposite; it is the logic of myth, mysticism, and synthesis. It is evident, for example, in the Indian's claim that Hinduism and modern science are two among the many possible complementary paths to truth. Though in most respects de Kooning stands solidly in the Western tradition and has little patience for mysticism or Asian philosophy generally, the ''logic' ' displayed in his works is of the latter, synthetic variety. He has consistently exercised his uncanny ability to remain with opposing tendencies and viewpoints, resisting either taking sides or adopting a too-easy resolution. It is thus that his work is beyond ideology. In his paintings, the classic nude vies with the pop ad image, and more generally, tradition counter-balances innovation. Symbol, surreal image, and metaphor ~ompet~ for our attention with the physical, fleshy-thick paint stroke. These are wo~ks w~erem multiple solutions are simultaneously visible, where illusionistic space co-exists with the flat canvas. They are at once representational, expressive, and formal; they c~n ~so be savage and pastoral, confessional and coolly detached, figurative a?d non-obJe_ctive. The outco~es_of_ _ _ accident and automatic processes as well as of compulsive re-workmgs, th ey are thmgs wi th a history, speaking to us equally of activity and result . . In the early fifties, while de Kooning was struggling with Woman I, the French w~1ter and philosopher Albert Camus was proclaiming, "art advances between two chasms, which are frivolity and 'propaganda , , 'For Camus the excesses of twentieth century art were pure ' · · ' d soci'al'is t realism 1ormahsm, degenerating into empty grammar, an . . .' an. unfree art . ' the. . tool f r·t· 1 . K ing's defenses against tr1v1ahty mclude his preddect10n to o po 1 1ca opportumsts. 0 e oon . . th corres onding to the remain with opposing tendencies. Perhaps there 1s an ae sth etic tru . . P k 'd psychological truth that though it's a human trait to flee from conl trad1cth1onldor tta / one s1 e · · the other, it is often frmtful • to keep a1·1ve co ntrary impu ses or o ou 1or a more tgnormg profound resolution.

As for propaganda, de Kooning shares with Camus a distaste for fixed commitments; at least half of the time, ideas should emerge from activity, not precede it. Finally, the wide range of choices available to de Kooning combined with his emphasis on process and on the painting as a record of choices allow him to construct complex visual metaphors. The pop smile of the ad image covered but not obliterated by the leer of the dark goddess is an obvious example.

Ill. FREEDOM and RESPONSIBILITY For me the only realist Is the visionary be• cause he bears witness to his own reality. -Federico Fellini

The whole work of a man really seems to consist In nothing but proving to himself every minute that he Is a man and not a piano key. -Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Many European philosophers from Nietzsche to Sartre and Camus insisted on replacing the concepts of God and His order with those of chance, possibility, and freedom from authority. It was a momentous shift occurring in one way or another in the sciences and arts as well. For these Existentialist philosophers, the only essential feature of human nature is that we are free to re-create our natures; we are, in their phrase, condemned to freedom in a world bereft of all external authority, including God's and even the authority of reason. This is, so they said, an absurd situation, since we must continually choose courses of action without being able rationally to justify our choices. We recoil from the anxiety arising from this situation by pretending to be unfree, by giving over our choices to others, by for example, relinquishing our freedom to causes or ideologies. Such pretense is action " in bad faith, " the only sin in a world in which all things are permitted. The opposite of bad faith , authentic action, is action undertaken in full knowledge of our essential freedom and taking full responsibility for what we do. For when we choose, we implicitly choose for all persons in like situations. To put it paradoxically, the Existentialists' analysis is that each of us is absolutely free and at the same time absolutely responsible . Such an anti-authoritarian philosophy can easily become an ideology in its own right, and I would not ascribe to de Kooning adherence to any such philosophical ' 'system.'' Nevertheless, his life and his work can be viewed as capturing something of the spirit of Existentialism, as if the process of his painting were an acting out of these philosophical axioms . Each painting displays a history of freely chosen paint strokes made in response to preceding choices, to the subject, to present insight and feeling and the requirements of form , and ma?e in the context of what has gone before in art's history. Insofar as it is possi~le, these are_ c~ 01 ~es not dictated by allegiance to some aesthetic ideology, nor by purposes outside the act~vity itself, nor even by habit. Their authenticity is to be gauged by the strength of the a~ti st ' s com~itment to the struggle, his ability, for example, to continue resisting trite or s1 mple solutions ~nd to remain capable of surprise and discovery. This is an endless p~ocess . except that occasionally one may notice that this thing which is the vehicle of the actwn, th is palntln~, is a goo~ thing in its own right and worth another's time. . w st10 The que n for all those who cannot live without art .. . is merely to fmd out ho ' among th e po1ice · 10 r · · rces of so many ideologies, the strange liberty of creat10n 1s posSi'ble" (Camus). F_rom the point of view of the philosophy I am discussing, de Kooning's pro~ess s ~odel~ (~irrors) man's true condition: our history is the history of our choices. Ao d insofar a he arti st1 c process is connected with the artist's life that life will also be part of the model. ' To be painting at all ... Is a way of living today, a style of living so to speak. -deKoonlng

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Acknowledgments Robert 0. Phemiscer, !,11eni11

President, Colorado Stole U11iversity Frank Vaccano, Dea11 , Arts/ H11ma11ities/Social Scimces, Colorado Stole University Willem de Kooning Xavier Fourcade John and Kimiko Powers Or. Phillip T. George Robert P. Buford Ron G. Williams Jack Curfman , £xhibi1io11 Desig11 John Sorbie, Poster Desig11 Melissa Katsimpalis

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32. Catalogue: COPYRIGHT 1984, Department of Art, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado 80523 All illustrations copyright of Willem de Kooning, courtesy of Xavier Fourcadc, Inc. Catalogue Design, Bob Coonts

Graphic Design , Inc.

Typography, B. /ladtr

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Priming, Citizms Printing

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