NAR #13: Re:CONSTRUCT

NORTHWESTERN/ART/REVIEW

NAR

nuartreview.com / issue 13 / fall 14 / Re: construct / northwestern university

JEFF KO O N S & the luxury commodity empire p.19

MIGRATION PATTERNS p.6 CHALLENGING THE FEMINIST CRITIQUE p.10 RECALLING TRAUMA p.15

Re:CONSTRUCT

NAR NORTHWESTERN/ART/REVIEW

AILEEN MCGRAW PRESIDENT AILEENMCGRAW2015@U.NORTHWESTERN.EDU

EDITORIAL TEAM LINDSAY CHARLES, SENIOR EDITOR KYLIE RICHARDS YUN LEE KATE SLOSBURG CLARE VARELLAS

KATHRYN WATTS EDITOR-IN-CHIEF (JOURNAL) KATHRYNWATTS2016@U.NORTHWESTERN.EDU SAMANTHA GUFF EDITOR-IN-CHIEF (WEB) SAMANTHAGUFF2015@U.NORTHWESTERN.EDU MARIA FERNANDEZ-DAVILA DIRECTOR OF DESIGN MARIAFD@U.NORTHWESTERN.EDU JOO HEE KIM CO-DIRECTOR OF EVENTS JOOKIM2015@U.NORTHWESTERN.EDU OLIVIA LIM CO-DIRECTOR OF EVENTS OLIVIALIM@U.NORTHWESTERN.EDU

WEB TEAM SAMMY ROSENTHAL, SENIOR EDITOR AKSHAT THIRANI, WEBMASTER NICK GIANCOLA ARIANNE MILHEM CLARE VARELLAS KALLI KOUKOUNAS DESIGN TEAM ROSALIE CHAN, JUNIOR DIRECTOR STEPHANIE ROSNER ILANA HERZIG

CHRISTIE WOOD DIRECTOR OF PUBLICITY CHRISTINEWOOD2015@U.NORTHWESTERN.EDU ALYSE SLAUGHTER JUNIOR DIRECTOR OF PUBLICITY ALYSESLAUGHTER2017@U.NORTHWESTERN.EDU NICHOLAS GIANCOLA DIRECTOR OF FINANCE NICHOLASGIANCOLA2016@U.NORTHWESTERN.EDU

STREET TEAM SOPHIE LEE SELENA PARNON CHASE BREWSTER PETER YOO ANDRÉS GIER

This issue’s CONTRIBUTORS GINA KRUPP NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY, GENDER STUDIES AND GLOBAL HEALTH

BAYLEY WILSON UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES ART HISTORY

CHARLES KEIFFER GOUCHER COLLEGE ART HISTORY

CHRIS RUSAK UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES ART HISTORY

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NAR NORTHWESTERN/ART/REVIEW

»NAR

is a student-run organization founded by Northwestern University undergraduates in 2007 that fosters and promotes art historical discourse within the academic community. NAR provides a forum for students who devote their time to the creation, examination and discussion of the visual arts.

NAR biannually publishes one of the most prominent undergraduate scholarly art journals in the country by selecting journal content from a collection of exceptional nationwide submissions.

In addition to providing college students with the invaluable opportunity to publish their work, NAR coordinates art-related programming both on Northwestern’s campus and in the Chicago area. NAR also sponsors career panels with local professionals working in the art world, curates student exhibitions, and runs an annual on-campus art auction.

NAR’s mission is to inspire awareness and appreciation for art within Northwestern’s student body and the greater Chicago community to provide a space in which students inpsired and excited by the arts can share their passion with one another.

If you are interested in submitting an art historical research paper or art-rekated essay, please contact our editor-in-chief Kathryn Watts at kathrynwatts2016@u.northwestern.edu. If you are an undergraduate at any institution of higher education and are interested in contributing in other ways, please contact our president Aileen McGraw at aileenmcgraw2015@u.northwestern.edu.

NAR is a non-commercial journal published by students at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. All images in this issue are copyright their respective owners and are contributed by our authors. Reproduction of images or written content without the permission of Northwestern Art Review is prohibited. Written material is © 2014, all rights reserved.

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From the

EDITOR country bound to outdated, convoluted marital and legal systems.

A generation of feminist theory that has overwritten its contemporary critics. A popular culture saturated in consumerist imagery. An art market so flawed it invites extortionists— self-proclaimed artists—to make extraordinary and controversial profit.

These are building blocks in the foundation of contemporary American culture.

Scary.

Art fosters those who wish to bring down and criticize artistic or societal norms.

During the publication process of NAR’s thirteenth journal, the editorial team discussed these institutionalized or inherited practices as “constructs” and artists as agents of “reconstruction.” We run into these obstacles as young people at every turn as we try to navigate what it means to be a member of the creative community. Down with the patriarchy. Down with the white privilege.

Down with the [insert oppressive construct name here]. So it goes.

The following essays study filmmak-

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ers, artists and trailblazers who tackle the constructs of twentieth and twenty-first century American culture.

Northwestern student Gina Krupp takes on the phenomenon known as “Asian Fever” and explores what it means to be a foreign woman traversing the landscape of hetero-normative American marital and legal systems. Charles Keiffer writes extensively about Carolee Schneemann’s film Fuses and coexisting interpretations of second wave feminist theory. Then, Bayley Wilson details the way in which Joseph Beuys and Andy Warhol separately criticize the spectacle of commercial and popular culture. Finally, Chris Rusak’s essay ends the journal with an unapologetic bang in response to Jeff Koons’ “luxury commodity empire.”

president Aileen McGraw. She is the glue that holds us together. Her energy, dedication and support have been an incomparable support throughout this process. Thank you, also, to my rock star team of editors: Lindsay, Yun and Kate. I am grateful for their time, insight and vision. I would also like to thank the entire Design Team who created beautiful marketing materials to solicit submissions and Maria for this new and improved layout for the journal. Thank you to all of the students who submitted their work to NAR’s editorial staff. I am elated that the future of art history is in our hands.

It is only appropriate that the essays in our thirteenth issue challenge the constructs of the journal itself. I am grateful for these four students and their unique, refreshing perspectives.

I am astounded by their provocative writing and pleased to include essays that examine art beyond the visual realm and dive into the worlds of gender studies, documentary, posthumanism, the art market and beyond.

Best,

On behalf of the entire staff of NAR, I would like to thank our leader and

Finally and most importantly, thank you, reader. It’s time to dig in and reconstruct. Enjoy.

Kathryn Watts Editor-in-Chief (Journal)

From the

PRESIDENT

T

here’s a danger in assuming things simply are. Our world never just is. We make what we live—we construct it—and oftentimes, we do not think to hold ourselves accountable as builders, artists, curators.

In the pages that follow, four undergraduates explore the intriguing, problematic or downright heartbreaking uncertainty that emerges when we challenge what we hold as true.

To a certain extent, this is not new. As we’ve heard before and will always hear in #college, “_________ is a construct.” Cold, homework, grades, gender, art—everything is a construct, right? Well, guess who the maker is: it’s us, and it’s our obsession with and responsibility to what we create that has me so excited about Northwestern Art Review’s 13th issue, Re:CONSTRUCT. Our Fall Journal takes something HUGE—all things constructed—and drills it into specific venues of marriage, feminism, consumerism and art itself.

The issue before you reinforces what I already knew: NAR carefully constructs this publication. We poured over a brilliant pool of submissions to select these essays. I love this process

because, throughout my presidency, it has shown me that undergraduates are the vibrant, driving forces of visual culture. Here, you will find an art conversation that does not go over the head, but rather dives in to the nitty, gritty issues that frame and make art.

Sometimes, we need to shatter our frame. We need to yell, “Art is a construct!” and then ask, “So what?” This issue’s content pushes both textual and visual boundaries. We redesigned our layout to keep the fierce ideas we expect from NAR while introducing an aesthetic clarity like never before.

Credit for this issue’s innovative spirit is due to Design Director Maria Fernandez-Davila and our Design Team at large.

I want to thank our journal’s fearless leader, Editor-in-Chief Kathryn Watts, and the entire Editorial Team for their dedication to ideas that respond to and challenge the things we carry, create and construct.

This dedication runs through every NAR effort. In November, NAR hosted our annual Art Jobs Career Panel. At this event, Chicago’s creative industry leaders reconstructed the professional art conversation. Our panelists revealed a truth that often falls to the wayside in job searches:

people want to pay for your passion.

Success might be a construct, but this discussion invited students to be its builders.

This fall and as always, NAR’s review, response and reconstruction of art is realized through the unwavering support and inspiration of Northwestern’s Department of Art History and Department of Art Theory & Practice. On behalf of Northwestern Art Review, thank you.

Re:CONSTRUCT tells the story of the art spectator who cried the college student’s mantra, “Construct!”

On another level, however, this issue pushes us to reconstruct not only words and discourse, but also actions and the life we make. I am proud, humbled and grateful to present NAR’s Fall Journal to you, reader, because it issues a challenge.

It’s time to reconstruct. It’s time to respond to societal and systemic issues that we take part in creating and sustaining. There’s no time more pressing.

Truly,

Aileen McGraw President, Northwestern Art Review

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IN THIS ISSUE

MIGRATION PATTERNS:

Documenting Marriage, Immigration and Race-Specific Desire BY GINA KRUPP

10 CHALLENGING THE FEMINIST CRITIC: Carolee Schneemann’s Fuses BY CHARLES KEIFFER

15 RECALLING TRAUMA:

Beuys and Warhol in an Era of Spectacle and Superficiality BY BAYLEY WILSON

19 AND SO IT BLOWS: Jeff Koons

and the Luxury Commodity Empire BY CHRIS RUSAK

ON THE COVER: ▲ Jeff Koons. Puppy. 1992, Stainless steel, soil, and flowering plants. Guggenheim Bilbao Museum.

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Jeff Koons. Balloon Dog (Magenta).

1995–2000. High chromium stainless steel with transparent color coating.

Installation view at Château de Versailles, France, 2008.

MIGRATION PATTERNS: Documenting Marriage, Immigration, and RaceSpecific Desire

BY GINA KRUPP

T

ired of being hit on and asked, “How much for a foot massage?” by complete strangers, filmmaker Debbie Lum decided to make a documentary exploring the ideas of dating, desire, courtship and love between Caucasian men and the Asian women they fetishize. The documentary Seeking Asian Female follows the story of Steven, a man with self-proclaimed “Asian Fever.” There are many aspects of the documentary that could be read queerly and independently: the idea of race-specific desire, the effect of technology on negotiating transnational desire, the addition of the documentary-filmmaker as a third party in an otherwise two-person relationship, and more. Through the lived experience of its documentary subjects, Seeking Asian Female makes the social and institutional norms of marriage theoretically visible.

Steven and Sandy navigate the institutions and norms that make their marriage possible, compare the idea of transnational marriage to that of adoption and compare the way that theory intersects the viewer’s understanding of reality to reveal the transactional nature of their marriage. Several questions arise throughout the film: How does Sandy, one of the hundreds (if not thousands) of women that Stephen could court, gain subjecthood?

What allows her or prohibits her from doing do? How does the couple negotiate United States marriage and immigration institutions?

The documentary follows Steven, a sixty-year-old, twice-divorced parking attendant from San Francisco with this self-professed “Asian Fever,” on his quest to find an Asian woman to marry. After communicat-

ing with hundreds of women, Steven meets a Chinese woman named Sandy online. After a few visits to China, Sandy moves in with Stephen in California. From there, the documentary follows their relationship – from their meeting, courtship and conflicts to their marriage.

In the essay “Sexuality and Gender in Migration Studies,” Martin Manalansan states, “By ‘queer’… I am positing a political and theoretical perspective that suggests that sexuality is disciplined by social institutions and practices that normalize and naturalize heterosexuality” (530). A queer analysis of the documentary thus exposes some of the subtle forces at play that encourage or assume heterosexuality, like the legal and social construction and trajectory of marriage.

A queer understanding of the documentary would not be complete without a historical framework through which to place Sandy’s situation as a Chinese immigrant. Manalansan gives a glimpse of the dense history of Chinese immigration to America, and, more specifically, California. Manalansan cites the history of Chinese women in the US in the middle of the twentieth century, who were portrayed as embodiments of “loose morals, elicit sex, and disease.” At the same time, however, Manalansan acknowledges a competing discourse of Chinese “submission and domesticity” that is observed more concretely in Seeking Asian Female (534).

In one of the opening scenes of the film, Steven ponders, “Do I want the farm girl to take care of me? Do I want an intelligent businesswoman to help me grow?

Back and forth. What do I want?” (3.06). In this scene, Steven and a half dozen other men Lum shows clips of interviews with employ an offensive simplification nuartreview.com / fall 2014 / 6

discourses and stereotypes, informed by historical regulations and laws – the exact catalyst for the creation of the documentary.

It is also necessary to unpack the structure of the documentary itself to bring to light the way it is shaped by the filmmaker’s identity. Debbie Lum, the film’s director, editor and narrator, intended to explore the uncomfortable phenomenon she often experienced of

situation, Lum explains, “Sandy comes to the US on a K1 Fiancée Visa. It allows her to be in the U.S. legally for three months before she must either marry Steven, or go back to China” (16:00). From this point, Sandy’s choice whether or not to marry Steven becomes the central question of the film. Steven also frames his desire for Asian women largely around marriage. “One of the things about Chinese girls,” he says in the beginning of

IMMIGRATION LAWS AND PROCEDURES THAT DIFFERENTIATED WOMEN INTO CATEGORIES SUCH AS

WIFE, PROSTITUTE AND LESBIAN REVEAL THE ROLE OF IMMIGRATION CONTROL IN REGULATING ADMISSION ON THE BASIS OF SEXUALITY. some Caucasian men’s seemingly blind obsession with Asian women. On her own identity as a Chinese American, Lum reflects, “I have been the only Chinese kid in this picture,” while the camera shows a black and white class picture of her, which fades into a picture of her as a child doing a split, “but as far back as I can remember, I always thought of myself as totally American” (7:30). Additionally, Lum’s explanation of her parent’s relationship contributes to this understanding. “They [her parents] grew up in American just like us. They were so American, they even got divorced when I was in college” (7:05). This statement exposes Lum’s perception of the “American-ness” of marriage and, even more so, divorce. Lum’s background as more American than Chinese affects the way viewers understand the situation she depicts, since her perspective as a narrator is omnipresent throughout documentary. Understanding Lum’s place within the narrative allows viewers to recognize that Lum as the filmmaker makes a series of decisions about how to frame and construct this narrative, which informs the way one understands Steven and Sandy’s relationship.

Lum’s choice to frame the documentary around Steven and Sandy’s marriage suggests the necessity of marriage from her perspective as the director of the film, and, as Eithne Luibhéid argues in Entry Denied, from the perspective of the United States Government. In her narration of Steven and Sandy’s 7 / fall 2014 / nuartreview.com

the film, is that “they want to marry for real and forever” (14:34). This statement exposes both his comfort in making an extreme generalization about an entire race of people, and shows what he desires in a partner (“to marry for real and forever”). From the perspective of the United States immigration institution, the binary between marriage and deportation are the only two options for a couple in their situation.

In Entry Denied, theorist Eithne Luibhéid argues that immigration regulations monitor sexuality, marriage and behavioral conduct, and privilege heterosexuality, wealth, and whiteness over other characteristics, specifically as they relate to Asian immigration and regulation. Luibhéid explains, Immigration laws and procedures that differentiated women into categories such as wife, prostitute and lesbian reveal the role of immigration control in regulating admission on the basis of sexuality. Historically, laws and procedures granted “preferred” admission to wives, while maintaining the exclusion of … “immoral women” (xi).

Though Sandy falls along the “preferred” category of admitted foreigners, this history nonetheless informs the present understanding of social acceptability of a transnational bride.

Luibhéid’s theory is brought to life when Steven and Sandy apply for a marriage license. Along the trajectory from meeting to marriage, one of the main points

of conflict in the documentary occurs when Steven and Sandy (and Debbie) drive to the government office to get an official marriage license. As they pull in to park, the camera cuts to an official looking office where the camera centers on a sign in with the heading “Marriage License” (27:07). The sign reads “To Obtain a Marriage License, You Will Need the Following: A Government Issues Picture ID; A Completed Application for Both Bride and Groom (Forms Below); A fee of $78.00 (Cash or Credit Card).” In this one shot, the link between citizenship, financial capital ($78.00), and enforced heterosexuality (“Both Bride and Groom”) is established as a necessity to marriage and citizenship.

Moments later, this link is reified as the paperwork is filled out. “Is she taking over your last name?” (27:10) asks the government official, to which Steven answers enthusiastically, “Yes!”

I

n the car on the way home from the marriage license office, this scene erupts when Lum realizes the misunderstanding that has taken place between Steven and Sandy. In the scene, the camera stays fixed on Sandy in the back seat of Steven’s car. “Words can not express my state,” she says, in Chinese (English subtitles are written in for the viewer). “I don’t know how to describe how I feel. I mean, this huge life event, it’s so simple. You just go in, sign the paper... and then you’re married!” “No, not yet,” Debbie corrects her, also in Chinese. “We didn’t just get married? Oh heavens!” Sandy puts her head in her hands, shaken with emotion (28:25). As Manalansan states, “One of the tasks… for queer studies is scholars is to expose [the] privileging and normalizing tendencies in institutions and texts” (530). Multiple “normalizing tendencies” of marriage are exposed in this scene as the difficulties of language and communication become visible. Lum, as the filmmaker, inadvertently becomes the translator for the couple. Since she is the only one to speak both English and Chinese at least semi-fluently, and it is this incongruity in language that allows for this miscommunication, one among many in the documentary, to occur. “Normal” relationship navigation, communication and conflict resolution - something should be “easy” between a couple, as heterosexual norms might dictate - are exposed as much more complicated than it is assumed to be.

This scene exposes the heterosexual marriage timeline in the United States as a construct. United States

institutional norms dictate that a couple must get a marriage license before actually getting married. As a foreigner, Sandy was unaware of this norm, along with other “norms” which are exposed in the documentary, like what the bridesmaids should wear to the wedding (49:44) and how vows are exchanged.

Taken together, these two scenes – in the marriage licensing office and the car on the way home – highlight the way that the marriage licensing system privileges those in Steven’s situation as a white, heterosexual male. Just as the governmental institution dictates marriage, similar discourses of the family unit and capital occur in transnational adoptions, as discussed by David Eng in his essay “Transnational Adoption and Queer Diasporas.” In the essay, Eng compares mail-order brides to transnational adoptees. He points out the inconsistencies in discourses that frame transnational adoption as legitimate and worthy of praise, while transnational desire as perverted and racist. “Is the transnational adoptee an immigrant?” Eng asks (302).

Inversely, is the young Chinese bride of a sixty-yearold man an adoptee? In some ways, yes. Sandy is bound to Steven financially. Logistically speaking, she knows no one else in the United States.

Yet, a closer comparison exposes differences between the two systems. Like the transnational adoptee, the Asian women of Steven’s fantasy gain subjecthood from Steven’s attention and “investment.” What makes someone worthy of subjecthood? For Steven, it’s about “looking Chinese.” Throughout the documentary, Steven’s understanding of Chinese women exposes the discourses at work in his desire. In the beginning of the film, he explains, “I don’t look at blondes or redheads.

I turn and look at Chinese”. In this statement alone, Steven reveals his underlying desire and judgment. In framing blonds and redheads as the opposition to Chinese, he furthers a discourse where hair color, and thus appearance, dictates national identity. Using Eng’s terminology, Steven’s gaze makes someone “worthy of investment” (306).

Steven even discusses the unevenness of their partnership in terms of financial investment, time, and other factors. Near the end of the documentary, after Steven and Sandy’s marriage, Sandy temporarily moves out into the home of Steven’s close friends after a huge fight between her and Sandy. Steven vents to Debbie about his frustration over the situation. “It’s been a hundred and fifteen days today [since their marriage],” nuartreview.com / fall 2014 / 8

mercial that Eng analyzes, it is the investment of distinctly North American resources in these contexts that give the (Asian) outsider their subjecthood. Yet, the documentary introduces the idea that Sandy is also a force to be reasoned with. Ultimately, Sandy chose, independently, to come to America, marry Steven and create a new life in a different country.

In one of the last scenes, Sandy returns from staying with Steven’s friends during their fight. Steven anxiously anticipates her return. “I’m nervous about what she might say, what she’s feeling,” he says. “At first I went into this search thinking the traditional stereotype of, you know, someone who might (laughs) stay home, do the housework, take care of me, that kind of thing. But you know, that’s not very growth oriented…You want to grow, grow together” (1:14:10). This sentiment, of “growing together,” is exactly the opposite of Steven’s original intention from the beginning of the documentary, of finding someone to simply “take care of him.”

Debbie is not shy about her initial disdain for Steven and men like him. Throughout the documentary production, however, she comes to understand that desire and transnational relationships are more complicated than she originally anticipated, and, like all relationships, they are fluid and ever-changing. Manalansan states, “New works suggest that women [involved in “pen pal marriages”] are not innocent victims in these situations but are in some ways complicit with as well as active resisters of powerful structural arrangements and ideas” (536). Like Manalansan’s conclusion, Sandy shows that silenced and marginalized women an “adoptee.” Aside from the financial guilt, howev- can and do subvert theoretical expectations. One queser, nothing ties Sandy to Steven once they’re married, tion remains: In the midst of the recent legal changes to which is why Steven worries that his investment will marriage equality, might the expansion of the concept of marriage have an effect on racialized discourses? not be worth it if she leaves him.

Steven is visibly pained by the conflict between him Time will tell. ■ and Sandy, not just because of the financial investment he has put in, but also because he values her as a subject CITATIONS and life partner. Venting to Lum, Steven explains, “I’m David. “Transnational Adoption and Queer Diasporas” The in love with her, I love her. And, you know, I’ve got my Eng, Routledge Queer Studies Reader. New York. 2013. Print whole life invested. I’m dead without her. My brother put twenty thousand into this wedding. I borrowed Manalansan, Martin F. “Queer Intersections: Sexuality and Gender in a thousand dollars to help out her mother with breast Migration Studies” The Routledge Queer Studies Reader. New York.

2013. Print surgery. I owe money everywhere. She has nothing invested except some time with me. She can go back to Luibhéid, Eithne. Entry denied: controlling sexuality at the border.

China, she might have to” (Emphasis added, 1:08:00 Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002. Print.

– 1:08:45).

Seeking Asian female. Dir. Debbie Lum. Perf.

Like the lesbian parents in the life insurance com- www.seekingasianfemale.com, 2012. Film. he says. “She’s got another side to her; don’t cross it. That’s what I’m dealing with. It’s hard to turn that around again” (1:08:15). This quote both complicates and reflects Eng’s theory. On one hand, Steven’s investment in Sandy is significant and immense. Like the two lesbian mothers in the life insurance commercial that Eng discusses, the investment from the American citizen gives the subject – the Asian baby and Sandy – a “new home” and “new life” (Eng, 303-304). Because she is living in an entirely new country, Sandy’s agency is compromised. However, Sandy’s situation would be dangerously oversimplified if she were understood and seen simply in line with the agency and power of

“New works suggest that women are not

INNOCENT VICTIMS in these situations but are in some ways complicit with as well as active resisters of powerful structural arrangements and ideas.”

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CHALLENGING THE FEMINIST CRITIC: Carolee Schneemann’s Fuses

BY CHARLES KEIFFER from the author:

This paper seeks to expand upon the traditional interpretation of avant-garde artist Carolee Schneemann’s film, Fuses (1965), as primarily a document of early second-wave feminism, and attempts to read the film through the lens of critical animal studies and posthumanism. By comparing the cat in Fuses to the cat in Jacques Derrida’s seminal essay, “The Animal that Therefore I Am,” alongside writing by Schneemann and her critics, I show where the traditional feminist interpretation does and does not do justice to the film. The idea for this paper originated in Professor Herve Vanel’s class “American and European Avant-Gardes” while I was studying abroad at the American University of Paris.

I edited and reformatted it into its current form under the direction of Professor Gail Husch at my home school of Goucher College.

1. Carolee Schneemann. Eye Body. 1963.

Photograph. caroleeschneemann.com/eyebody.html

scene with which she associated, alongside other notable figures Alan Kaprow, Robert Rauschenberg, Claes Oldenburg, George Brecht, Yoko Ono and Yayoi Kusama.1 The film was also in conversation with women’s movement, and Fuses, along with the rest of Schneemann’s body of work, has since been read as a feminist statement, rather than as a contribution to the fluxus catalogue. While “feminist” was a term Schneemann came to embrace in describing herself as an artist2, a different reading of her work shows that this may have been more circumstantial than related to he methodologies and theoretical frame- any organic qualities that her work possessed. Femiworks through which art is read, inter- nist interpretations have since exhausted Fuses, and so preted, and historicized are born out of by placing the film in the more current academic distrends in academia, and serve to reconfig- course of animal studies, or posthumanism, I plan to ure that art in terms of the art historical show the historical specificity of these interpretations. climate at the time. When Carolee Schneemann premiered her film Fuses in 1965, it was in the context 1 Carolee Schneemann, The Obscene Body/Politic, (1991), 31 of the fluxus movement of the New York avant‐garde 2 Ibid.

T

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2-3. Carolee Schneemann.

Fuses (screenshot by author). 1965.

16mm film. caroleeschneemann.com/fuses.html

However, I also believe that both the dominant feminist interpretation and my posthumanist interpretation are equally valid, and so my ultimate goal is to show howmultiple interpretations (feminism, posthumanism, and relation to the avant-garde) compliment each other.

This analysis will reexamine Fuses to discourage reading Schneemann’s, or any other female artists’ work, as only “feminist” before considering both the historical specificity of the work and of the terms being used to describe it.

Posthumanism, my theoretical framework, is a branch of critical theory aimed at, to borrow Derrida’s 11 / fall 2014 / nuartreview.com

term, deconstructing “the foundational assumptions of Renaissance humanism and its legacy.”3 Critiquing biases in renaissance and enlightenment thought was the goal behind much of postmodern and poststructuralist theory. It was these philosophers of the 1960s, namely Foucault and Derrida, who fed some of the ideas behind academic feminism of the 1980s; one such idea is that woman’s difference from man is constructed by language with no inherent reality. Similar concepts are being revisited today, though with more attention paid to the human/animal dichotomy than to the male/female dichotomy. Jacques Derrida’s 1997 essay, The Animal That Therefore I Am, discusses the possibilities of language and relation between animals and humans, and can be used to extract new meanings from Schneeman’s Fuses. I will compare this to the dominant feminist interpretation of the film, considering “The Obscene Body/Politic,” a text Schneemann published herself, alongside an essay by the film critic Shana MacDonald on the feminist politics of Fuses.

Carolee Schneemann was born in Pennsylvannia in 1939 and grew up in rural Illinois. She studied painting in New York City, which she later made her permanent home.4 While in New York City, she met and married the experimental composer James Tenney, and through a series of connections Schneemann became involved in the New York avant-garde scene of the time. At the beginning of the 1960s, she became involved with the Judson Dance Theater, and orchestrated several performance pieces that emphasized natural, spontaneous body movement and improvisation with multimedia sculptural installation. As mentioned before, she was acquainted with Alan Kaprow, and refers to his “Happenings” as an influence on her own work.5 Nudity became a tool in her work in the 1960s, starting with her photography exhibition Eye Body in 1963, where she adorned her naked body in various materials, including snakes to, in her words, “establish my body as visual territory” (fig. 1).6 This was followed by 1964’s Meat Joy performance, in which she and other performers lay covered in raw meat. She described this performance as: 3 Roberto Esposito, “Politics and human nature,” Angelaki, 22, (2011), 77-84, 78 4 Oxford Art Online’s biography of Carolee Schneemann 5 Schneemann, The Obscene Body/Politic, 31 6 Carolee Schneemann, More than Meat Joy – Complete Performance works: Selected Writings, (1979), 52

a celebration of flesh as material: raw fish, chickens, sausages, wet paint, transparent plastic, rope brushes, paper scrap. Its propulsion is toward the ecstatic – shifting and turning between tenderness, wilderness, precision, abandon: qualities which could at any moment be sensual, comic, joyous, repellant.7

B

oth Eye Body and Meat Joy were heavily censored or rejected by many galleries and performance spaces in both New York and Paris, which inspired Schneemann to shoot Fuses. Looking back at her work from the 1960s, Schneemann writes that, “I began shooting my erotic film, Fuses, in 1964. Since my deepest expressive and responsive life core was considered 4. Carolee Schneemann. Fuses (screenshot by author). obscene, I thought I had better 1965. 16mm film. caroleeschneemann.com/fuses.html see what it looked like in my own vision.”8 Fuses was shot in double‐exposure, 16mm film us- waking up and later staring directly into the camera. ing wind‐up cameras that could only record for thirty The rapidly changing colors on the film suggest urgent seconds at a time.9 The film shows her and her hus- movement, even when the subjects are hardly moving. band, James Tenny, in various stages of intercourse, There are also shots, however, where the film does not “with layers of collaged paper, painting and tinting look to be obviously altered, and the subject is still. added directly to the celluloid” (fig. 2-3).10 The shots Here the subject suddenly feels in focus, albeit for the are mostly brief, and feel even more so with the rap- brief few seconds that they are on the screen. This deidly changing colors of the film strip, which have an scribes many shots of the cat (fig. 4). almost dizzying effect on the viewer, making it difficult The abstract patterns that the alterations to the celto focus closely on much of the subject matter but com- luloid make on the screen come in various colors, municating a sense of fleeting, ephemeral moments. or sometimes just appear as bursts of white light in The images of sex, of plant life, of Schneemann and abstract shapes. The rapid pace at which the viewer is Tenny on the beach, and close‐ups of body parts are in- confronted by these abstract lines or shapes is remiterspersed with shots of a cat, first rearing its head as if niscent of the Action Painting of the 1950s. Like Abstract Expressionism, Fuses speaks to something in the psyche. The erotic imagery catches the viewer’s 7 http://www.caroleeschneemann.com/meatjoy.html 8 Schneemann, The Obscene Body/Politic, 31 attention, but one still has to mentally separate it from 9 Ibid. the constant changes in light and color around it. By 10 Shana MacDonald, Carolee Schneemann’s Fuses as Erotic the time we have figured out what we are seeing, the Self‐Portraiture, (2007), 68 nuartreview.com / fall 2014 / 12

scene has changed without warning, and we are once again challenged to distinguish erotic imagery from the abstract color and shapes overlaid on it. As the film progresses, with seemingly no regard for what the viewer would “like” to see (erotic imagery), the viewer begins to feel left behind by the film, and frustrated with their own memory’s inability to preserve the “good stuff,” the sexual images, which are fascinating because they are shot at angles not found in standard pornography.

As more overlaid colors and shapes pop up, it becomes increasingly difficult to remember what we have just seen. Fuses attacks the memory, offering intrigue

For Derrida the category of “Man” exists on one side of a metaphorical abyss, and on the other side are all living things that are called animals. This abyss serves to shield man from his own animality.12 The divide between men and animals is discursively constructed, and functions through language (such as that all species except “Man” can be grouped into the category of animal) and through social practices such as wearing clothing and engaging in politics. To support this hypothesis, Derrida rereads the canon of the past 200 years, and finds that no philosopher or writer has written themselves as “seen” by the animal, only as how they see the animal.

“FEMINIST READINGS CANNOT CLAIM UNIVERSALITY. THE REAL STRUGGLE FOR THE FEMINIST CRITIC IS NOT TO VALIDATE HER/HIS OWN READING BY DISPLACING OTHERS, BUT TO FORCE OTHER READINGS THAT HAVE BEEN NATURALIZED INTO

A POSITION OF COEXISTENCE.” and then taking it away, muddling the scenes with distractions and preventing clear thought.

Meanwhile, the cat is always shot without overlaid light or color, and arrests the viewer as the most consistently focused subject. Schneemann acknowledges that the cat is the voyeur in this situation, so what we are seeing, we are seeing through the cats’ eyes.11 This unique, animal point of view opens the door to a new way of understanding and appreciating Fuses. In The Animal That Therefore I Am, Derrida describes his discomfort at his cat seeing him naked, and how this led to the epiphany that, as long as humans have named, categorized, and exploited animals, the animals have silently looked back at us. The animals, Derrida writes, have always demanded something from us with their gaze, and for him the category of “the human” has been constructed around denying this gaze and its demands that the holder of the gaze (the animal) be treated with respect (i.e. not killed, trapped, or otherwise exploited).

11 MacDonald Carolee Schneemann’s Fuses as Erotic Self‐ Portraiture, 69

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The experience of the seeing animal, of the animal that looks at them, has not been taken into account in the philosophical or theoretical architecture of their discourse. In sum they have denied it as much as misunderstood it. ... It is as if the men representing this configuration had seen without being seen, seen the animal without being seen by it.13 But what about Schneemann? By placing the cat as the voyeur in Fuses, one could say that she is seeing herself as seen by the animal. Indeed, Schneemann has said that she made the conscious decision to show sex on film that did not look pornographic.14 Perhaps, then, she employed the cat’s point of view in order to remind the viewer not to watch the film as erotic or pornographic, but to try and take the objective and curious perspective that the cat would presumably have.

12 Jacques Derrida, The Animal That Therefore I Am, (2008), 31 13 Derrida, The Animal That Therefore I Am, 14 14 Schneemann, The Obscene Body/Politic, 29

Showing sex from a non‐pornographic, “wholly other” perspective is what feminists had originally responded to in Schneemann’s work. In her essay on Fuses, film critic Shana MacDonald wrote that, [Schneemann’s] representation of female sexuality in Fuses does not adhere to any particular code of mainstream film or art.

Her image is not contained or framed by an identifiable male gaze. She does not portray the filmic image of herself as submissive or performing to please the audience. ... As a heteronormative vision of sex ... does not seriously take into account female pleasure ...

Schneemann’s vision of sex is more accommodating to women.15 MacDonald’s essay presumes that Fuses was a document of Schneemann’s own perspective or experience of sex, or at least, only that. However, Schneemann wrote that Fuses, along with Eye Body and Meat Joy, “form a trio of works whose shameless eroticism emerged from within a culture that has lost and denied its sensory connections to dream, myth, and the female powers,”16 and that her work explores “associative margins in which artists are a raw material, as nature is.”17 While the film literally is a document of Schneemann engaged in sex, these quotes suggest it is also about her struggle to connect with something outside of the reach of the culture she was in. Female agency and non‐heteronormative sexuality are certainly relevant here, but I want to suggest that Fuses is about more than just that.

Perhaps, without fully understanding it, Schneemann’s work was an attempt to bridge this abyssal divide between humans and animals.

The feminist theorist Josephine Donovan wrote during the feminist movement for animal rights that, “Speciesism is a concept borrowed from feminist and minority group theory. It is analogous to sexism and racism in that it privileges one group (humans, males, whites, or Aryans) over another.”18 This shows that the logic of fighting against patriarchy is not so far 15 Macdonald, Carolee Schneemann’s Fuses as Erotic Self‐ Portraiture, 69 16 Schneemann, The Obscene Body/Politic, 31 17 Ibid.

18 Josephine Donovan, Animal Rights and Feminist Theory, 1990, 354

removed from the logic of transgressing the human‐animal divide that rejects the gaze and the point of view of the animal, as well as the point of view of women. Both challenge oppressive cultural systems.

It is quite possible that Schneemann had such intentions without the ability to articulate them. In 1991, looking back on her work, she wrote that, “in 1963-64 there was no theoretical structure to ground what I was doing, no feminist analysis to redress masculinist tradition ... no anthropological scan of archetypes that could link our visual images to what I called then ‘primary (primitive) cultures.’”19 Consider then the possibility that Schneemann’s work in the 1960s only became feminist in later years, but could potentially speak to a wide variety of interpretations. Further, this raises questions of the artists’ authority in defining their own work, versus that of the art historian, and how these definitions change over time. Does Schneemann’s account of the art she was producing between 1963 and 1965 hold more weight than Shana MacDonald’s feminist interpretation of it? Is it possible that when Schneemann later encountered “feminist analysis to redress masculinist tradition” and the “anthropological scan,” she felt that those methodologies captured and explained what she was doing in her work perfectly? Or is it just as likely that they fit elements of it, and those that were not articulated, such as the human-animal relation in Fuses, were ignored?

Madeleine Caviness writes that, “Feminist readings cannot claim universality. The real struggle for the feminist critic is not to validate her/his own reading by displacing others, but to force other readings that have been naturalized into a position of coexistence.”20 My aim in this paper was to do exactly that, allowing the feminist reading and the animal studies reading to coexist, not only towards a more robust understanding of the film, but to open a space for further posthumanist and animal studies scholarship on works that have by now been exhausted by the other methodologies. ■

19 Schneemann, The Obscene Body/Politic, 31 20 Madeleine H. Caviness, “Patron or Matron? A Capetian Bride and a Vade Mecum for Her Marriage Bed,” Speculum, 2 (1993), 333-362, 362

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RECALLING TRAUMA: Beuys and Warhol in an Era of Spectacle and Superficiality

BY BAYLEY WILSON

T

he rise of mass culture and the infiltration of commodification within society were most recognizably articulated by Guy DeBord’s 1967 work, The Society of Spectacle. His focus on the individual consumer as a part of the spectacle embraced the notion of a commoditized society in the post-war era of reconstruction. DeBord openly criticized capitalist culture as a society permeated with imagery is inherently mediated by the imagery itself. As DeBord states: “the spectacle is the affirmation of appearance and the affirmation of all human, namely social life, as mere appearance.”1 Representation in itself becomes genuine, creating a highly produced reality. In conjunction with DeBord’s theory, artist Joseph Beuys utilized his work as an attempt to criticize the spectacle, engaging with society in an attempt to democratize art, opening it up to a collective public realm. Like many artists of his time, he rejected modernism through his critical engagement of unconventional modes of artistic production. Through his unorthodox practice, he promoted what he referred to as the “social sculpture,” a concept that emphasized the acceptance of everything and anything as valid material for artistic production.

Beuys’ work idealizes the collective while also recognizing the importance of the individual. The dichotomy of perspective challenges and creates a commentary on social convention in the context of radical political and societal transformation, as it pertains to the rise of commercialism and capitalism. The intention of this paper is to closely examine Beuys piece I Like America 1 Debord, Guy, and Donald Smith. The Society of the Spectacle.

New York: Zone Books, 1994.

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and America Likes Me, in relation to Guy DeBord’s notion of spectacle that influenced the beginnings of PopArt Movement, with a specific focus on how Beuys’ piece compares with Andy Warhol’s Birmingham Race Riots. The comparison presents a relationship between the two artists directly influenced by the radically shifting socio-political climate in both Europe and the United States at the time. This was also a period in which the position and the role of the artist began to change in order to observe and critique the aesthetic nature of the commercial and the popular culture. Both pieces involve spectacle, through the mysteriously convoluted allegorical and symbolic gesture in Beuys’ piece and the integration of duplication and repetition seen in Warhol’s work. While constructing a commentary on historical trauma, these two pieces also contribute to a devaluation of meaning regarding imagery and symbolism, which is designed to emulate while also engaging society as a cultural spectacle.

In an attempt to connect avant-garde art practice to the realities of the world, Beuys’ piece I Like America and America Likes Me appeared to be a direct criticism of the capitalist culture as well as a commentary on the alienation the capitalist culture creates. In May of 1974, Beuys was transported via ambulance from JFK Airport to the Rene Block Gallery at 409 West Broadway in New York, where his performance would be the opening event for that gallery. Beuys’ emphasis on alienation as a part of the spectacle is evident in his performance, which idealizes the representation of disengagement with society. Through his literal containment, he is displaying himself in the act of alienation to the public for media circulation and recognition. Separation, ac-

cording to DeBord’s image, that is repeattheory, characterizes ed not only in the the unified connecoriginal black and tion society creates white form, but also through the spectain various colors. On 2 cle. Yet within that the other hand, comconnection the indiing from a post-war vidual still remains mentality, Beuys, incredibly alienated. who was directBeuys’ own alienly exposed to such ation serves to emuhorrors of the Hololate that inherent discaust and warfare, connect as he wanted attempted to create a to isolate himself, critical commentary and in his words “see regarding victim1.

Joseph Beuys.

I Like America and nothing of America ization that results America Likes Me. 1974. Performance. other than the coyfrom these traumatic New York.

3 ote.” I Like America events. Both pieces operated as a social intently exploited inorganism, taking on its own form to establish a sense stances of trauma but for distinctly different purposes. of recognition of historical wrongs and attempting to I Like America was an extreme symbolic gesture that achieve a new collective understanding to reconcile invited an open exploration of historical trauma from with that past trauma. both an American and European standpoint. ConcernEngagement with mass culture through traumatic ing this piece, Beuys stated: “I believe I made conimagery is where Beuys’ work intersects with Andy tact with the psychological trauma point of the UnitWarhol’s’ Birmingham Race Riots. Warhol’s piece ed States’ energy constellation: the whole American strongly evokes his objective to look intently into what trauma with the Indian, the Red Man.”4 To understand was currently happening in America and to neutralize Beuys’s statement, one must consider the symbolic nasuch traumatic incidents as a subject matter for his ture of the coyote in the context of American culture. work directly for public consumption. Beuys’ I Like The “energy” Beuys referred to was the coyote, which America, on the other hand, used the coyote to repre- served as a representation of Native American genocide, sent past American traumas in relation to Native Amer- and a symbolic image of the victims. Being a predatory ican genocide through an indirect symbol. As a part of creature deemed by western society as a “menace” or the Death and Disaster Series, Birmingham Race Ri- “pest,” one can make the connection to its relationship ots, in particular, depicted Warhol’s representation of a to Native American communities and the western culturbulent moment in time with the intent on critiquing ture by which it was destroyed. The “trauma point,” as constant exposure of distressing imagery in the media. Beuys would call it, stands significant in how traumatic The act of trauma itself becomes alienated through a imagery itself permeates society through its represenmass-produced image, turning it into something to see tation. Through exposure, there is an acceptance of not rather than something to be acknowledged. Warhol cap- only the instance of trauma but also a neutralization of tures Birmingham at a time of protests, discrimination, the entire concept as well. Similarly, Warhol intentionand incursions on civil rights with a head-on confron- ally used repetition of the brutal imagery during the intation of the raw violent nature of the conflict. As it is cidents in Birmingham, mirroring its representation in captured at moment through the stark black and white mass media. Through this depiction, Warhol is probing the notion of the public’s unfortunate desensitization to 2 ibid. it. In both works, the artists established acknowledge3 Beuys, Joseph. Joseph Beuys in America: Energy Plan for the Western Man : Writings by and Interviews With the Artist. New 4 Tisdall, Caroline. Joseph Beuys, Coyote. London: Thames & York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 1990. Print.

Hudson, 2008.

nuartreview.com / fall 2014 / 16

ment of the superficial nature of depiction of trauma as by using multiple roles. Beuys’ dueling personality was it appears in popular culture. ill-received by the American public as Joan Rothfuss While both artists artistically engage with acts of would state that the critics “sniffed that he was far too traumatic violence to create a statement, they differ in masterful at self-promotion and media manipulation; their approaches to DeBord’s theory of spectacle. Tak- even his supporters wrinkled their noses at the ‘cult ing on the role of the icon as an artist meant effective- of personality’ that overshadowed the true aim of his ly attempting to present themselves as a “spectacular work.”6 His engagement with mass media and culture representation of a living being.”5 Guided by this con- can been seen in relation to Warhol, who can be considcept, the artist needed to mold himself into someone ered “business” artist himself, with regard to his own who personified multiple roles that created a market- practices of self promotion and media manipulation. able image for the public. Beuys and Warhol, through Whereas Beuys used his multi-dimensional image to divergent approaches, both engaged with the idea of engage with the public as a figure of enlightenment and “celebrity” and the commodification of themselves as knowledge, Warhol engaged with image fetishization. icons. Warhol emerged as a caricature of himself and The two artists used a tactical means of media exploitaused that image tion to promote as a saleable comtheir work and the modity. In order to message they were market his works attempting to make within the same through these piectraumatic sphere es. as The BirmingBoth Beuys and ham Race Riots, he Warhol used the needed to become constructed image as desensitized as to effectively prothe images he promote the messages duced. Beuys, on they intended to the other hand, create. The emcreated a role for brace of horrific himself beyond the imagery was, in artist. Through his itself, a symbolic elaborate and exgesture. In Bir2. Andy Warhol. Birmingham Race Riots. tensive biography, mingham Race Ri1964. Acrylic and silkscreen. he transformed ots, Warhol used himself through the silkscreened his art into a shamanistic healer, political activist and images to directly engage subjects that were specifioutspoken performer. The inherent pedagogical nature cally designed for media circulation with the intent of behind Beuys’ I Like America adds to its presentation offsetting the very trauma they were associated with: to of spectacle. Although the performance was created as commodify them to make them more acceptable for the an event to engage the public with a powerful message, new “spectacular culture”. Through his concentration it became an image in and of itself. The performance on the mass-produced image, he created a commentary essentially became something that could be marketed regarding the loss of resonance and shock value after and sold to the public, capturing the very essence of being so frequently publicized. Through a different arspectacle through the rise of consumer culture. tistic mode of production, I Like America acted as an Whether it was intentional or not, Beuys came off healer of the wounds affiliated with historical trauma as a figure who was very capable of manipulating and and social alienation due in part to a newfound capitalmarketing a certain image within the realm of media 6 Rothfuss, Joan. "Joseph Beuys: Echoes in America." In Joseph 5 Debord, Guy, and Donald Smith. The Society of the Spectacle. Beuys: Mapping the Legacy . New York, NY: Distributed Art New York: Zone Books, 1994.

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Publishers, 2001. 51.

ist society. By contrast, Warhol presented the horror of these images as they were, implicating a type of unique beauty associated with that trauma. Warhol’s involvement with the mass production of images speaks to his move of relinquishing himself as the artist to this newfound idea of image culture—directly engaging with it.

In Pat Hackett and Andy Warhol’s book POPism, Warhol reflects upon the welcoming of repeated exposure, stating: “the more you look at the same exact thing, the more the meaning goes away, and the emptier you feel.” Warhol purposefully embraced the deterioration of meaning through repetition and flatness, commenting on the paradox that the longer we look at these images the less we feel. The repetition alone signifies Warhol’s attempt to delineate the degradation of traumatic imagery through mass media consumption, while also opening it up to presenting the significance of the image itself. Unlike Beuys, Warhol embraced spectacle through acceptance and acknowledgement of the prominence of image culture in society. Through Beuys’ over complicated gesture of an artistic détente and critique of mass culture, I Like America was essentially stripped of its meaning entirely. His attempt to unify art and life acted as an inherent accusatory gesture, displaying the incursion of evils and trauma of both past and present in our culture.7 Jan Verwoert claims that the coyote, the most prominent symbol in Beuys piece, actually proves to be detrimental to Beuys’ intentions. Verowert states that the coyote “clearly delimits the allegorical meaning of the performance. Through everything he [Beuys] does, the coyote demonstrates his utter indifference to the artistic allegory being constructed around him and, in doing so, destabilizes it.”8 A presentation intended as a powerful gesture, loaded with representation and meaning, collapses due to the opposing dynamic of the two most prominent figures. Thus, the credibility of the performance itself is destabilized, making the viewer uncomfortable and wary rather than informed and inspired through the grand sweeping statement. Going back to DeBord’s idea of alienation, Beuys ultimately continues to isolate himself within his own work, which 7 Durini, Lucrezia, and Joseph Beuys. "The Diamond." In The

felt hat: Joseph Beuys, a life told. New English ed. Milano: Charta, 1997. 82.

8 Warhol, Andy, and Pat Hackett. POPism: the Warhol '60s. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980. Quoted in Foster, Hal. "Death in America."

October 75 (1996): 36-59.

was partly intended as a critique of that very notion.

When looking at the approach of these two artists, however, the easily perceived difference is their attitude towards the audience they were producing their works for. The objective behind Warhol’s Birmingham Race Riots was to represent an American culture so desensitized by the rise of consumer culture that the inherently violent nature of the images they are bearing witness to just becomes something that can be commodified. His independence as an icon and the embrace of spectacular culture through the manifestation of his caricature and celebrity figure reflected almost an indifference to the idea of image culture. Beuys, on the other hand, through his effort to embody the role of a healer in I Like America, attempted to aid in the publics reconciliation with past traumas. In Donald Kuspit’s words, “Beuys represents the most strenuous avant-garde attempt to reconcile the roles of the artist and healer, to make art a kind of healing and to make healing artistic.”9 Beuys’ artistic production during this time relinquished the traditional role of the artist. The multi-role position he played engaged a postwar moment of social and political reconstruction and transformation, connecting the practice of art and life. Both Beuys and Warhol sought ways of engaging the reality of their audiences in order to confront socio-political concerns of the time.

I Like America and Birmingham Race Riots confronted the traumatic imagery filtered through the newly established image culture, and their engagement with spectacle harbored the idea of both a critique and acceptance of society. Warhol, in an ironically enthusiastic way, took it upon himself to embrace the horrific imagery, while Beuys emphatically sought to mend the wounds of historical suffering and to criticize commodity culture. The two artists reflect a moment in time in which art that was once an autographic and privileged concept opened itself up to a more public domain. The two pieces served as a means of both expressing the lack of independence due to commercialism and inherently celebrating it. Both images played ambivalently with mass culture, which was used as a mode of representation to depict the sinful nature of spectacle and the consumer culture of the time. ■

9 Kuspit, Donald B. The Cult of the Avant-Garde Artist.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

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AND SO IT BLOWS:

Jeff Koons and the Luxury Commodity Empire

P

â–˛ Jeff Koons. Lips. 2000. Oil on canvas, 120 x 172 inches.

Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin.

BY CHRIS RUSAK

uppies. Flowers. Inflatables. Smiling, colorful, bouncy elements sold under a phantasmic American Dream. The post-war boom of mid-century modern America, if nothing else, introduced its citizens to an orgasmic and chromatic wasteland of factory-made things.

Blow-up pools, economical flashy cars, and kitschy lawn flamingos all predate that mirrored gala called disco and that cocaine-fueled culture called the 80s. It was in those latter decades that artist Jeff Koons, with his cherubic visage and go-getting spunk, ran onto the New York City art scene, tossed his hat high into the ring, and, with a lifelong dream to become an artist, hoped that he would make it after all.

Nearly forty years later, Koons is one of the wealthiest living artists of all time, estimated to be worth 19 / fall 2014 / nuartreview.com

over $500 million (Yoon). This is an astonishing feat for anyone, especially an artist, a career choice often categorized as one of nagging financial struggle. Yet, monetary value and aesthetic quality never necessarily run parallel, and, in fact, in this case run somewhat drunkenly perpendicular, a point repeatedly made by critics of the artist’s endeavors. As a mass-producer of artsy objects, Koons demonstrates the ill effects of an art market hell-bent on profit and an oeuvre deliriously astray from the great possibilities inherent in artistic expression. His so-called art practice embraces unrelentingly absurd standards, employing a small tribe of artist-workers to churn out products designed by him and ultimately sold at incredible prices that far surpass the comparatively minuscule salaries his employees are paid. In this regard, Koons is not an artist.

He is an idealistic chief executive officer of a luxurious commodity empire, an eponymous brand of goods manufactured by an anonymous working class, an alienated proletariat of artists reduced to artisans.

Perhaps if Koons presented himself as more of a Paul Budnitz, the proprietor of high- design, collectible art toy producer Kidrobot, whose wares are sold in retail stores, critics and aesthetes would unleash less vitriol against his name. Like Kidrobot’s gewgaws, Koons’s works have no real utilitarian function, and, just like the adorable toys, his works are often viciously sought after by collectors (Kidrobot). However, apart from private secondary sales, consumers desirous of a Koons thing must instead head to a mega-gallery like Gagosian or David Zwirner, or an auction house like Christie’s, where Kidrobot, too, has been seen on the block.

Nevertheless, the Koons brand is marketed as fine art, and distributed directly to and sold in its hallowed exchanges.

In 2013, exhibitions were held at those very two galleries, which featured, among other things, gleaming white plaster sculptures that, for the most part, indirectly referenced art work by other artists or directly carbon-copied historical classics — an astonishingly accurate Hellenic Farnese Herakles facsimile, originally by Lyssipos, but interestingly also existent in copied form, was mentioned loudly in the press during the shows (Saltz). A singular, gleamingly hyper-reflective blue “gazing ball” – mirror-perfect and capable of absorbing its viewers’ visages directly into the work – adorns each sculpture. These works are high-tech, indeed, products of sharp eyes, deft hands, technological innovations and unrelenting attention to perfect replication (Yau).

But, they are not Jeff Koons’s art.

Interestingly enough, Budnitz holds a degree in art from Yale University, while Koons’s public eschewal of art history is a well-known fact. Similarly, both men at one time handcrafted (or in Koons’s case, handled) their own work, but each now rely almost entirely on other entities, human and machine, to make what they declare “art.” At least Budnitz’s creations, marketed under a brand name, imply authorship by a company of people (Kidrobot; Allen; Taylor). But, speaking to Klaus Ottman for the Journal of Contemporary Art in 1986, Koons outright admits his scheme: “I’m basically the idea person. I’m not physically involved in the production.” Yet, it is still a Jeff Koons that is purchased, though all of the work has been done by somebody else.

These two men run what Los Angeles Times art critic Christopher Knight calls a “corporate- style contemporary production method” (“Lari”). More simply, with a nod toward Andy Warhol, they both lead factories.

The implications of Koons’s practices for the art world prove equally fascinating and disheartening. A voracious customer base exists, hungry for objects that physically present its creator’s work as his conceptions and not his ability to compose and craft the thing itself.

Former employee John Powers wrote in his New York Times essay “I Was Jeff Koons’s Studio Serf” about the “dozens” of workers responsible for creating a series of paintings for the chief executive for lukewarm wages. He describes in detail the factory-like conditions of the Koons studio environment. Discussing a painting whose fruition he was charged to oversee, he outlines its many methodical steps divided amongst employees: a concept image is photographed in order to transcribe perfectly-traced contours onto canvas; a separate auxiliary team of artists painstakingly replicates each visible gradation of color; Powers then uses custom brushes to “[p]aint by numbers,” previously mapped by the color team, toward an end result that is free of visible texture, void of human touch and ultimately an object with the illusion of having been machined. In terms of fine artistry, this completely inverts the longstanding qualification for painters and sculptors, namely that they participate as creator and maker with their work, that their hand is a crucial tool in the process, even if supported by assistants or apprentices. Perhaps Koons, leaning on the looser, open-ended title of “artist,” sneaks by here, since it’s rare to see him referred to in either of the aforementioned roles. Instead, what really occurs, especially now in Koons’s post-ascendant mature period, is his performance as showman and middleman, a throwback to his first incarnation as an ersatz commodities broker (Allen).

Koons purchases artwork to his specification by investing capital as wages paid to a labor force under his direct control, thereby exploiting skilled workers as a the needed technology to increase the productivity of his brand. He is the first consumer]. These products are purchased as his goods yet sold as his work, their authorship attributed to him in exhibitions and auctions despite broad public knowledge of the contrary.

This creates an ad hoc spectacle, commercial theater masquerading as art practice, when the real art is the salesmanship, cheer-led by gallerists in the wings and nuartreview.com / fall 2014 / 20

a well-heeled audience — expressivity of his staff’s bourgeois capitalists themlabor, but also debases his selves — applauding the viewers’ possibility of crebusiness maneuvers with ative interpretation, a sigtheir checkbooks and taknature of Horkheimer and ing home shiny engorged Adorno of a mass culture tchotchkes as their Playbill. choked by business (108In their seminal work, 111).

Dialectic of EnlightenPerhaps more successment, philosophers Max fully, Koons’s faux art Horkheimer and Theodor works are milestones of W. Adorno foresaw, in their capitalist-inspired ideolocriticism of what they call gy. How can one describe “the culture industry,” of the celebration of these which the art world is a milestones? Echoing words part, this type of farce: the from art market observadulterated, homogenized, er Felix Salmon, they are irrational mass-produc“interior design for the prition of substitutional art, vate-jet crowd.” Salmon created not for “unbridled applies this analogy to the expression,” but commodfrenzied purchase of artified to satisfy “the needs ists’ works selling for more of the consumers” (94-99). than $1 million, a domain (above) Jeff Koons. Balloon Dog (Blue). 1994-2000.

In his review of the aforeof which Koons is healthihigh chromium stainless steel with transparent color coating. LACMA. mentioned two-gallery ly a part. But, like Salmon, (below) Jeff Koons, Tulips.

1995–2004.

High chromium monodrama, critic John professor Mark C. Taylor stainless steel with transparent color coating.

Yau points out such marwarns that this has all beGuggenheim Bilbao Museum. ket-made motivations, saycome a game of speculaing Koons “has his finger to the pulse of the audience tion for collectors, a part of finance capitalism. Taylor whose adulations he hungers after,” and later catego- describes finance capitalism as an abstract spiral of derrizes his work as that of a “visual dullard.” Since all ivation: one investment’s value derives from another’s, of Koons’s products emulate a “systematic literalism,” which derives from yet another, and so forth. He arone in which many of its referential objects can be gues that the art market has mirrored this phenomenon, found in a K-Mart toy aisle or garden shop, intellectu- its wares having been commoditized, corporatized and al and emotional torpidity aren’t far behind (Swanson). transformed into post-consumer financial instruments.

Yau notes how such absence of meaning can confound On one hand, Taylor alludes to valuation spurred by its proponents, declaring that “his audience … will all Koons’s rhetoric that his work “makes people feel good too willingly confuse his fixated perfectionism with ge- about themselves, their history, and their potential,” nius.” This perfectionism is his hallmark, and it is facil- thus symbolically attaching intangible desire to his obitated through elaborate implementations of the tech- jects (Koons qtd. in Taylor). Conversely, whereas the nological advances in photography, as Powers details. patronage of art “had long been limited to the church The only visual success of his products is the proof of and aristocracy,” now non-art corporations hope to bolhis ability to take exploited labor enabled with tech- ster their public esteem as collectors, transposing the nology and mastermind “schema for mechanical repro- church’s fetish-holding nature into their own asset, abducibility” (Horkheimer and Adorno 100; Jones). This surdly driving up prices alongside an aristocracy hunflawed, grandiose attempt to advance the style of Pop gry for ownership of a perfectly rendered, narcissistiart lacks the originality introduced by his predecessors cally reflective, power-of-wealth-affirming object (TayThe glossy Xeroxing not only suppresses the creative lor). A thing, in their minds, that is aesthetically sound.

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This fact is demonstrated no better than the very words of these men running the business end. Tobias Meyer, once-principal auctioneer of Sotheby’s auction house, in an oft-repeated art world sound bite, once declared that “the best art is the most expensive art because the market is so smart” (qtd. in Salmon). This sentiment was several years later supported by then contemporary art chief at Christie’s Amy Cappellazzo, and one-time Koons gallerist and notorious art dealer Jeffrey Deitch, who both argued in favor of market-judged aesthetics on a panel at a 2013 Hong Kong art fair (Knight “Debated”). The same dealers and auctioneers who qualify and venerate the purchases of wealthy consumers as an ideology of optimal aesthetics sell to that market the very objects to be quantified in order to create this new paradigm of art. As Horkheimer and Adorno point out, the art industry “bows to the vote it has itself rigged” (106). This mimics exactly the rhetoric of Koons and his notion of selling glitzy talismans that soothe whatever emotion, memory or dream needs salve. The malady is not the product, but the price, desire quantified, transacted to stave off the “economic impotence” of owning a less expensive and therefore less beautiful toy. Insofar as these various purchased artsy things may decorate their collector’s palatial living room walls or wide accounting ledgers, the true purchases are also always an upholstering of egos and an assuaging of heartfelt needs to transcend the very type of emotional banality in which their commerce just reinvested.

Toys. Overpriced, pristine, compromised by an owner’s physical touch, thus dirtied, thus devalued. Koons knows this well; he wrote the game’s instructions. He knows that should he lay a hand on his works as maker. He knows that touch will burst the balloon he had his workers blow up. Koons claims his theater “doesn’t alienate anyone” (qtd. in Pobric). Bullshit (the only toy he can fabricate by himself). That line is as scripted as his car salesman smile, as hollow as his balloons, what Horkheimer and Adorno would judge “a surrogate of meaning and justice,” yelled over the heads of the laborers of his work (119).

Jeff Koons has not made it, after all.

Some have tried to prize all this as performance, a critique to which no applause should be heard; Koons has yet to take his act directly to the stage. It is precisely because of the extreme alienation of labor that none of his products are art. The true artists, they who hold and stroke the actual material of creative endeavor, remain

unseen, sequestered to a factory of endless replication.

Yet, insofar as his workers make a Jeff Koons, so, too, does the market. He needs object and hot air. Heavily publicized auction hysteria, results of the race to numerical beauty, perform not as journalism of an event, but rather as advertisement for constant attention, the fuel on which the culture industry depends (Horkheimer and Adorno 113; 133). The price of Koons’s next sale derives from the last collector’s triumph on a lot.

A fake classic. A flowered puppy. An inflatable.

And so it blows. ■ CITATIONS

Allen, Greg. “Koons Makes Art the Old-Fashioned Way.” greg.org. Greg Allen, 19 May 2010. Web. 30 May 2014.

Horkheimer, Max, and Theodor W. Adorno. The Dialectics of Enlightenment. Trans. Edmund Jephcott. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2002. Print.

Jones, Jonathan. “From Warhol to Murakami: pop art hasn’t lost its soul, it’s selling it.” theguardian.com. Guardian News and Media Limited, 9 Feb. 2012. Web. 31 May 2014. Kidrobot. “About Us.” Company profile. kidrobot.com. Kidrobot, n.d. Web. 31 May 2014.

Knight, Christopher. “Debating the art market as the best judge of quality.” latimes.com. LosAngeles Times, 16 May 2013. Web. 31 May 2014.

“Lari Pittman’s really, really big paintings.” latimes.com. Los Angeles Times, 8 Nov. 2013. Web. 8 Nov. 2013.

Ottmann, Klaus. “jeff koons.” jca-online.com. Journal of Contemporary Art, Oct. 1986. Web. 31 May 2014.

Pobric, Pac. “Jeff Koons.” theartnewspaper.com. The Art Newspaper, 5 Jun. 2014. Web. 5 Jun. 2014.

Powers, John. “I Was Jeff Koons’s Studio Serf.” nytimes.com. New York Times, 17 Aug. 2012. Web. 19 Aug. 2012.

Salmon, Felix. “The commodification of Gerhard Richter.” reuters.com.

Reuters, 4 Mar. 2012. Web. 5 Mar. 2012.

Saltz, Jerry. “Jerry Saltz on Jeff Koons’s Concurrent Shows.” vulture.com.

New York Media LLC, 26 May 2013. Web. 26 May 2013.

Swanson, Carl. “Jeff Koons Is the Most Successful American Artist Since Warhol. So What’s the Art World Got Against Him?” vulture.com. New York Media LLC, 5 May 2013. Web. 6 May 2013.

Taylor, Mark C. “Is Modern Finance Ruining Modern Art? (Part 1).” bloomberg.com. Bloomberg L.P., 29 Jan. 2012. Web. 2 Feb. 2013.

Yau, John. “Why Koons Made Michael Jackson White.” hyperallergic. com. Hyperallergic Media, Inc., 9 Jun. 2013. Web. 30 May 2014.

Yoon, Joy. “The 15 Richest Living Artists.” complex.com. Complex Media, 3 Feb. 2012. Web. 31 May 2014.

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