Robert Weingarten: Pentimento Series by Marlborough Gallery

ROBERT WEINGARTEN PENTIMENTO SERIES

JA N U A RY 6 - 3 1 , 2 015

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THE HISTORY OF PHOTOGR APHY A ND PHOTOGR APHY AS HISTORY R O B E R T W E I N G A R T E N ’ S P E N T I M E N TO I N P E R S P E C T I V E COLIN WESTERBECK

Guernica, John Berger observed, “is the most famous painting of the twentieth century,” and Russell Martin went even further in the sub-title to his 2002 book Picasso’s War, claiming that the mural is “the Masterpiece that Changed the World.”1 Robert Weingarten’s own 2012 composition on the same subject, the nearly total destruction by Hitler’s air force in 1937 of the little town of Gernika in Spain’s Basque region, is the first piece I saw in his Pentimento series. But it wasn’t until I’d looked at more of the series that I realized Pentimento was not only significant in its own right, but also as a culmination of the full-time career in photography Weingarten had taken up in the 1990s, after having been very successful as a businessman. I’ve now come to see that the self-confidence he gained succeeding in investment and finance has served him well when carving out a genuinely unique career in photography. How independent he is of current trends was shown by his early series 6:30 AM consisting of Pacific seascapes he made at that hour from his home in Malibu. This series invites comparison to Penelope Umbrico’s 2006 series Suns from Flickr, which looks like a sunset complement to Weingarten’s sunrises. But Umbrico didn’t make the photographs in her series. She lifted them off the Flickr website where thousands of hapless amateurs had posted them. Her project is a savvy, contemporary post-modernist trope, whereas Weingarten’s is a Romantic throw-back bespeaking not so much naiveté as his supreme confidence about going his own way. 2 Photography isn’t a pastime Weingarten took up in retirement: it’s an obsession he’s had since he was a teenager, when he would turn the family bathroom into a makeshift darkroom after everyone had gone to bed. The Romantic roots from which his recent photography has sprung were planted in his youthful enthusiasm. 3 Tuscan landscapes he was doing in the 1990s reflect his love of Monet’s own misty, foggy landscapes and align this aspect of his work with the Pictorialist aesthetic of the 19th century. Later projects like The Portrait Unbound and Pentimento continue to layer the image in translucent veils, though the effect is clear-eyed; in Pentimento, nothing about his treatment of the subject matter evokes a Romantic sentimentality. The shift in the nature of his imagery suggests that his earlier meditations on the history of photography have led him to wonder how photography itself might meditate on history. A crucial passage for Weingarten en route to Pentimento was published in 2004 as Another America: A Testimonial to the Amish. This black and white study of a people determined to live life today the way it was in the 17th century raises questions about how photography records history – questions to which Weingarten would only find his own answers in Pentimento. While the photographs of people who choose to live as if in the past may have encouraged Weingarten’s thinking about his medium’s relationship to history in general, any answers those pictures could provide were too literal-minded to be satisfactory. Photographs of an anachronism don’t liberate photography itself from the present. The medium’s fly-in-amber ability to capture the present has provided historian’s with an invaluable kind of evidence. But the photographers themselves are also, always, trapped in the present instant upon which they seize. An academic who uses photographs as source material when writing history must take into account how the photographers’ own sensibilities were embedded in the time to which they bore witness. But how could photography itself take history into account? The answer to such questions is what Weingarten arrives at in the Pentimento series, including Guernica (1937). His image neither exploits nor defers to Picasso’s role in history; it’s Weingarten’s own commentary on how history is both made

and remembered. In his composition, the past looms in the foreground on both sides of the frame and channels the eye toward a diminished and contained present beyond. We see the past here the opposite of the way we think about it normally, as being contained by and in the background of the present. Here, while a Nazi Heinkel 111 or Junker Schnellbomber swoops out of the past at 11 o’clock, a road to perdition paved with rubble leads us to the pleasant modern town of today. The past, shadowy and monochromatic as it is, contains the present. Beyond the work-a-day life of the people who live in Gernika now, or did then, this place only exists in human consciousness because it was destroyed and its destruction was a prelude – a premonition in miniature – of the destruction of Europe that was to follow. The past and the present meet here, as it were, at cross purposes. A similar dialectic is found in other pieces in the series. In Paris (1940), the gray ghosts of Nazi troops march down the Champs Élysées going against the Technicolor traffic in which the cars of today are stuck. The Nazis are retreating from the Arc de Triomphe, under which the traffic jam will pass. From a supersized image on the back of a van, the delighted face of a boy seems to be watching the soldiers depart. As the signage above the boy announces, he’s in an ad for Disneyland, which is where history gets mythologized for public consumption in our age. (Having seen in his viewfinder the significance of that boy’s face shows Weingarten to be a quick-witted street photographer when need be.) In other images, past and present seem to march in lock step. In Da Nang (1965), as transparent American grunts march up China Beach, their helmets echo the shape of the row of beach umbrellas planted there now, each one bearing the Coca Cola logo. The rest of the present is again in the background, where sunbathers in bikinis look out to sea, oblivious to the history being made behind them. Because both Pentimento and his previous series The Portrait Unbound have relied on picture research, Weingarten could now be considered an image recycler, which is to say, a post-modernist. But he would object to the term because he continues to go his own way without recourse to contemporary theories. The one aspect of his practice unmistakably ahead of the curve is his early embrace of digital technology. 4 In the 1990s he contracted with rock star and photo collector Graham Nash’s company, Nash Editions, to make digital prints for him. By 2004 Weingarten had become adept at making such prints himself. That year he also adopted a 21-megapixel digital camera for the Palette series, thereby leaving the world of analogue photography behind. Now, in the Portrait Unbound and Pentimento, he shows his expertise with the professional version of Photoshop too. 5 Most of Weingarten’s pieces are about conflict, but not all. One that came closer to home for him is of the Great Meadow in Central Park, which was the view he had from a Fifth Ave. apartment where he’d once lived. He was amazed to learn from his picture research that in the 1930s a Hooverville had been where the Great Meadow is now, as his Hooverville (Central Park, NY 1931) reveals. Yet he also takes personally some of the grimmest chapters of history he has surveyed. His masterwork on the Warsaw ghetto, Warsaw (1943), was inspired by the fact that his forebearers were Polish Jews. He himself grew up in a working-class family in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn. Though he showed talent as a musician when a boy, his loving, supportive parents, having only limited means, encouraged him to go to museums instead of concerts, because museums were free. This economy of acculturation is what brought him to photography. 6 In certain respects, beginning with the Tuscan landscapes, Weingarten has worked his way through the history of photography in order to arrive at his unique vision of photography as history. Like the historical past and present conjoined in Pentimento, he has come out of a somewhat drab, overcast past into the vivid color of the present in which, after being a success in business, he now emerges as a gifted photographer. It’s understandable that he’s an optimist who sees today’s world as brighter and more appealing than that of the past. When I look at his work, as my descriptions of it probably make clear, I see a relationship between past and present that is more ambivalent – or anyway, ambiguous. I don’t think that some divergence in the way we view his work diminishes his achievement, though. I would say that a work of art’s ability to evoke different, even contrary interpretations is what makes it art. 1

John Berger, The Success and Failure of Picasso (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1965): 165, and Russell Martin, Picasso’s War: The Destruction of Guernica, and the Masterpiece that Changed the World (New York: Plume, 2003).

As Weston Naef explained in his foreword to the 6:30 AM publication, however, Weingarten imposed on the photographic technology he used a rigorous consistency worthy of a scientific experiment. To have created photographs befitting a Romantic aesthetic as if they had been made by a computer program in a weather satellite is typical of the paradoxes one finds in Weingarten’s work. Such Whitmanesque contradiction between process and composition would become the hallmark of his photography. See Naef, “Foreword” in Robert Weingarten, 6:30 AM (Ostfildern-Ruit, Germany: Hatje Cantz Publishers, 2005): 5. 3

In his introduction to Weingarten’s The Portrait Unbound, Julian Cox describes the enormous influence seeing Edward Steichen’s exhibition The Family of Man had on the photographer in 1955. The optimistic humanism of that show inspired young Weingarten in ways that still shape his own ambitions as a photographer. See Cox, “New Frontiers: The Photography of Robert Weingarten” in The Portrait Unbound: Photographs by Robert Weingarten (Atlanta: High Museum of Art, 2010): 9. 4

There is a post-post-modernist development in the history of theories of photography that does address issues relevant to Weingarten’s work, though he’s not any more beholden to that than he is to post-modernism itself. This recent discussion has addressed the question of how the transition to digital technology is changing the aesthetics of photography on the most fundamental level. After World War I, Pictorialist practice went out of fashion; and from fine-art photographers like Edward Weston and the f.64 group to photojournalists and street photographers like Henri Cartier-Bresson or Robert Frank, the predominant Modernist aesthetic in photography became the “straight print.” That is, the print should be an unaltered translation of the negative that brought out the values inherent in that negative. But digital scans of negatives and digital files produced in camera have obviated the difficulties that made altering, enhancing or combining negatives seem a degradation of the medium. A consensus is perhaps emerging that such manipulations of digital files are now essential to the newly transformed medium. Books about this elemental refashioning of what photography is range from William J. Mitchell’s The Reconfigured Eye: Visual Truth in the Post-Photographic Era (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1992) to Fred Ritchin’s After Photography (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2009). 5

Weingarten’s relationship with Nash Editions and other aspects of his career’s development he patiently explained to me in a conversation we had at his studio on November 3, 2014. On that occasion he also gave me a demonstration of his technique with Photoshop. Knowing that I’d had a long relationship with Chuck Close, Weingarten first peeled apart his unbound portrait of Close and then reassembled it for me in the way he’d originally created it. It was, I must say, a dazzling demo. 6

Conversation with the author, November 3, 20124. See also Cox: 9.

All works pigment print on Hahnem端hle Photo Rag Ultra Smooth Paper

Pentimento Series: Havana, (1955), 2013, image: 40 x 50 in., sheet: 44 x 54 in., edition of 10 Also available in an edition of 5, image: 56 x 71 in., sheet: 60 x 75 in.

Pentimento Series: Guernica, (1937), 2012, image: 35 x 90 in., sheet: 41 x 96 in., edition of 10 Also available in an edition of 3, image: 54 x 143 in., sheet: 60 x 149 in.

Pentimento Series: Little Rock Central High, (1957), 2012, image: 40 x 60 in., sheet: 44 x 64 in., edition of 10 Also available in an edition of 5, image: 56 x 84 in., sheet: 60 x 88 in.

Pentimento Series: Selma to Montgomery, (1965), 2013, image: 40 x 60 in., sheet: 44 x 64 in., edition of 10 Also available in an edition of 5, image: 56 x 84 in., sheet: 60 x 88 in.

Pentimento Series: Seattle, Hooverville, (1931), 2014, image: 40 x 60 in., sheet: 44 x 64 in., edition of 10 Also available in an edition of 5, image: 56 x 84 in., sheet: 60 x 88 in.

Pentimento Series: Da Nang, (1965), 2014, image: 40 x 60 in., sheet: 44 x 64 in., edition of 10 Also available in an edition of 5, image: 56 x 84 in., sheet: 60 x 88 in.

Pentimento Series: London, (1940 - 1941), 2012, triptych: 40 x 40 in., 40 x 60 in., 40 x 40 in., sheet: 44 x 44 in., 44 x 64 in., 44 x 44 in., edition of 10

Pentimento Series: Berlin, (1960's, 1970's), 2011, image: 40 x 60 in., sheet: 44 x 64 in., edition of 10 Also available in an edition of 5, image: 56 x 84 in., sheet: 60 x 88 in.

Pentimento Series: Robert Kennedy, (1968), 2011, image: 40 x 60 in., sheet: 44 x 64 in., edition of 10 Also available in an edition of 5, image: 56 x 84 in., sheet: 60 x 88 in.

Pentimento Series: Warsaw, (1943), 2011, image: 56 x 56 in., sheet: 60 x 60 in., edition of 10 Also available in an edition of 3, four panels: each 56 x 56 in., overall 112 x 112 in.

Pentimento Series: Trang Bang, (June 8, 1972), 2014, image: 43 1/2 x 60 in., sheet: 47 1/2 x 64 in., edition of 10 Also available in an edition of 5, image: 56 x 77 in., sheet: 60 x 91 in.

Pentimento Series: Manzanar, (1942-1944), 2011, image: 31 x 90 in., sheet: 37 x 96 in., edition of 10 Also available in an edition of 3, image: 54 x 153 in., sheet: 60 x 159 in.

Pentimento Series: Antietam, (1862), 2013, image: 40 x 60 in., sheet: 44 x 64 in., edition of 10 Also available in an edition of 5, image: 56 x 84 in., sheet: 60 x 88 in.

Pentimento Series: Paris, (1940), 2012, image: 40 x 60 in., sheet: 44 x 64 in., edition of 10 Also available in an edition of 5, image: 56 x 84 in., sheet: 60 x 88 in.

Pentimento Series: Monk Self-Immolation, (6-11-1963), 2014, image: 40 x 60 in., sheet: 44 x 64 in., edition of 10 Also available in an edition of 5, image: 56 x 84 in., sheet: 60 x 88 in.

Pentimento Series: Hooverville, (Central Park, NY, 1931), 2014, image: 40 x 60 in., sheet: 44 x 64 in., edition of 10 Also available in an edition of 5, image: 56 x 84 in., sheet: 60 x 88 in.

Pentimento Series: September 11, (2001), 2013, image: 60 x 40 in., sheet: 64 x 44 in., edition of 10 Also available in an edition of 5, image: 84 x 56 in., sheet: 88 x 60 in.

ROBERT WEINGARTEN 1932

Born in New York, New York The artist lives and works in Malibu, California.

AWARDS AND ACHIEVEMENTS 1997 1999

Licentiateship, the Royal Photographic Society, Bath, United Kingdom Associate of the Royal Photographic Society, Bath, United Kingdom

2000

Silver Medal, the Royal Photographic Society’s 143rd International Print Competition, Bath, United Kingdom Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society, Bath, United Kingdom

2001

SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2014 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006

Another America: A Testimonial to the Amish, George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film, Rochester, New York Living Legends: The Montage Portraits of Robert Weingarten, Norton Museum of Art, Palm Beach, Florida Pentimento Series, Craig Krull Gallery, Santa Monica, California 6:30 A.M, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts Pushing Boundaries: Portraits by Robert Weingarten, S. Dillon Ripley Center, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Robert Weingarten: Portraits Without People, Marlborough Chelsea, New York, New York Robert Weingarten: Portraits Without People, Craig Krull Gallery, Santa Monica, California The Portrait Unbound: Photographs by Robert Weingarten, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia Robert Weingarten Retrospective, Lumière, Atlanta, Georgia Palette Series, Springfield Art Museum, Springfield, Missouri Palette Series, Galería Marlborough, Madrid, Spain Benham Gallery, Seattle, Washington Palette Series, Lumière, Atlanta, Georgia; traveled to Craig Krull Gallery, Santa Monica, California 6:30 A.M., George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography, Rochester, New York Palette Series, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Palette Series, Marlborough Gallery, New York, New York 6:30 A.M., The Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, Oklahoma Palette Series: Artifacts, Weston Gallery, Carmel, California Another America, Todd Madigan Gallery, California State University, Bakersfield, California

2005 2004 2003

6:30 A.M., Marlborough Gallery, New York, New York 6:30 A.M., Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art, Malibu, California 6:30 A.M., Craig Krull Gallery, Santa Monica, California 6:30 A.M., Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, California 6:30 A.M., Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, California Another America, Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, California Landscape As Symphony, Sidney Mishkin Gallery, Baruch College, The City University of New York, New York, New York

2002 2001 2000 1999 1998

Landscape As Symphony, Edward Carter Gallery, New York, New York Benham Gallery, Seattle, Washington McLean Gallery, Malibu, California Craig Krull Gallery, Santa Monica, California The Pastoral Landscape, Weston Gallery, Carmel, California Intimate Vision, Howard Schickler Gallery, New York, New York Ansel Adams Gallery, Monterey, California Quietscapes, Henry Street Settlement, Abrons Art Center, New York, New York American Landscape, McLean Gallery, Malibu, California Paintings…Through a Lens, McLean Gallery, Malibu, California Quietscapes, Sylvia White Gallery, Los Angeles, California; traveled to McLean Gallery, Malibu, California; Mayer, Brown & Platt, New York, New York; and Sylvia White Gallery, New York, New York (through 1999)

PUBLIC COLLECTIONS Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, Arizona. Center for Photographic Art, Carmel, California. Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, Maine Fernbank Museum of Natural History, Atlanta, Georgia Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art, Malibu, California Frye Art Museum, Seattle, Washington The George Bush Presidential Library and Museum, Dallas, Texas George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film, Rochester, New York High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia The Huntington, Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, California J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, California Los Angeles County Museum of Art, (LACMA), Los Angeles, California

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York Monterey Museum of Art, Monterey, California El Museo de Arte Contemporรกneo (Conde Duque) Madrid, Spain Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center, East Hampton, New York The Museum of Contemporary Art, (MOCA), Los Angeles, California The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, California The Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, California Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of American History, Photographic History Collection, Washington, D.C. Smithsonian Institution, National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C. Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv, Israel Whitney Museum of American Arts, New York, New York The Ansel Adams Home in Carmel, California The Edward Weston Home "Wildcat" in Carmel, California

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E D I T I O N O F 1 7 0 0 P R I N T E D I N N E W YO R K B Y P R O J E C T

Pentimento Series: Selma to Montgomery, (1965), 2013, image: 40 x 60 in., sheet: 44 x 64 in., edition of 10

ROBERT WEINGARTEN PENTIMENTO SERIES

JA N U A RY 6 - 3 1 , 2 015

4 0 W E S T 57 T H S T R E E T | N E W YO R K 1 0 0 1 9 | 2 1 2 - 5 4 1 - 4 9 0 0 | M A R L B O R O U G H G A L L E R Y.C O M