Donald Lokuta: Plato's Cave - Segal's Studio

DONALD LOKUTA Plato’s Cave-Segal’s Studio

URBAN ARTS SPACE August 6 –­ September 12, 2013

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DONALD LOKUTA Plato’s Cave-Segal’s Studio

URBAN ARTS SPACE August 6 ­– September 12, 2013

INTRODUCTION The separate, but connected, working practices of Donald Lokuta and the late George Segal come together in Plato’s Cave – Segal’s Studio at The Ohio State University Urban Arts Space. Conceived of and created by Richard Fletcher, Associate Professor of Classics, the exhibition touches on each aspect of the mission of The Arts Initiative’s Urban Arts Space.

The Space serves as a storefront for Professor Fletcher’s research and creative work by connecting his own interests in the visual with the stunningly vibrant photographic images of Donald Lokuta and with the haunting life-like sculptures of George Segal that draw the viewer to the point of touch. The show brings the Space together in a “town and gown” moment with one of Columbus’ largest arts organizations, the Columbus Museum of Art, through its loan of Segal’s work Girl on Blanket. It directs us to international and national alliances with hpgrp gallery in New York and Tokyo, who represent Lokuta, and who graciously allow us to exhibit his works. As a 1975 Ohio State alum, Lokuta connects with our student interns, assistants, and graduate associates who work at the Space so that they may learn through direct engagement with Lokuta’s residency at Ohio State, and through promoting, designing programming, and coordinating educational activities for the Columbus community.

We welcome the arrival of these two artists’ works, along with the residency of Donald Lokuta. We hope that you will take part in engaging with the artistic process and glimpse the working and collaborative relationship between Donald Lokuta and George Segal.

Our best,

Valarie Williams Executive Director, The Arts Initiative Director, OSU Urban Arts Space

Cover Image: Lifeguard 2008-2009, Left Image: Father With Sons 2008-2009

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WHEN NO ONE IS LOOKING: DONALD LOKUTA’S ART WORLD Glaucon: It’s a strange image you’re describing, and strange prisoners.

Socrates: They’re like us.

–Plato Republic 515a

If you have ever seen any photographs of the artist George Segal (1924-2000) in his studio, at work on one of his signature cast-figure sculptures, you were probably looking at a photograph taken

by Donald Lokuta. From their first meeting in 1984 until the artist’s death in 2000, Lokuta took thousands of photographs of Segal in his 300 foot long former chicken-coop studio, recording every stage of the artistic process, from the casting of models in the working-studio, to their display in the exhibition space, as fully-fledged installation environments. Yet Lokuta’s photographs are no mere documents of the sculptor at work in his studio. Lokuta and Segal were great friends who shared many conversations about their respective arts of sculpture and photography (in fact, Segal was also a keen photographer, and Lokuta has been instrumental in getting this little known work more widely recognized).¹ Furthermore, Lokuta adopted a hands-on role in the studio, working as much as Segal’s assistant within the artistic process as a photographer recording it. He was even one of Segal’s models. But how do these roles of photographer, friend, assistant and model translate into the photographs themselves? Consider one of Lokuta’s photographs of Segal, in the middle of casting the former director of the Walker Art Center, Martin Friedman, for the work Depression Bread Line (1991).

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While the central focus at the forefront of the photograph is the seated Friedman and the imposing figure of Segal, the already finished work behind them intervene in the composition.

When we discover that of the two other figures in the sculpture which have already taken their places in line, one is Segal himself (with his hands in his pockets), as casted by Lokuta, while immediately over Friedman's right shoulder, yet to get in line, is Lokuta, as cast by Segal, we immediately realize that this particular snapshot of the artist at work is far from conventional.

Instead, once we are aware of Lokuta's multiple roles in the studio, we become drawn less to the work-in-progress of the seated Friedman, than to Segal's expression as he looks towards the camera, at Lokuta. We may then ask ourselves: is Segal posing for the photograph or could he be about to call on his assistant to lend a hand? In either case, this photograph is a telling example of the general situation of Lokuta's unique position in Segal's studio. He recalls the first photographs he made of Segal working in the studio seven years before:

¹See Donald Lokuta (2010) ‘George Segal: Recollections of the Artist and his Photography’ Princeton University Library Chronicle 71. 3: 392-424.

I knew that the photographs could never get past a certain point and may look like everyone else's. I also felt odd just standing around and watching, taking a few photographs as we talked.

The defining moment came while he was working on a sculpture and I said, "I think I can do that!"

George said, "Really, you think you can do this?" He paused for a while and said, "Put that camera down" and motioned for me to come over. He was carefully filling the interior of several cast portions of a sculpture with plaster. The pieces were all over the worktable. He slowly explained the procedure and we began to work together through the entire day...While we were working I found perfect opportunities to make photographs. I would wipe my hands of plaster and pick up the camera, make a few photographs, and continue to work again...Now the photographs felt right. Everything changed.² To look at the photograph of Segal casting Friedman with this supporting information, we are confronted by the ambiguity as to whether Segal is posing for Lokuta's camera or gesturing towards his assistant to put down his camera and get his hands dirty. This ambiguity, however, is not just a side-effect of the situation of the studio, but is a key part of Lokuta's own artistic practice; what has called his interest in the 'unseen'³. On one level, Lokuta's photograph depicts the world of the studio, the dynamic between artist and his model, but once we see it as also capturing a moment of exchange between Segal and his friend, photographer, model and assistant, what Lokuta is capturing is an unseen emotional reality.

In short, Lokuta has managed to create a world of his own, one that he is both documenting and also intimately involved in.

Above Image: Casting Martin Friedman for a Figure in ‘Depression Bread Line’ 1991

² Donald Lokuta (2005) Donald Lokuta Photography: George Segal: An Intimate Portrait. (Leigh University Art Galleries/Museum Operation), 64-5. ³ibid., 66.

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The intimacy of the Segal studio photographs initially seems to be in stark contrast with another series that Lokuta also began in 1984, inspired by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato's famous allegory (or analogy) of the Cave (Republic 514a-517a). In these works, we encounter individuals or groups of people looking out to the distance at scenic overlooks or out to sea from a beach, yet the object of their attention - their view - Lokuta has painted out with black acrylic paint. Unlike the photographs of Segal's studio, which are complicated by Lokuta's other roles than documentary photographer in the artistic process, for the Plato's Cave series Lokuta appears to keep a clear distance between his creative role and his subject-matter. In an interview (reproduced at the back of this catalogue), Lokuta has articulated these differences by describing the origins of these photographs as developing during a visit to his family in Maine, when he hiked to the top of Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park: When I got to the top, I noticed people standing on different parts of the mountain looking at the magnificent views.I wondered what they were thinking and what they really saw. We were all looking at the blue sky, the sailboats and the town of Bar Harbor, but it seemed logical to assume that each person saw the scene differently and understood what they saw at a different level based on their own personal knowledge and experiences. Then it occurred to me - it was Plato’s Cave. I now wanted to make the idea of Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” the philosophical idea for a possible project.

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Right Image: Six People on Rocks 1986-1987

Now, we may unpack this 'philosophical idea' by going a little further into Plato's Cave. In one sense, Lokuta's blacking out with paint of what people saw ('the blue sky, the sailboats and town') can very nicely be applied to how Plato's chained prisoners are depicted as a group, who all see the same shadows as their false reality. Yet, in another sense, Lokuta's particular interest in the differences between what each person sees and understands ('based on their own personal knowledge and experiences'), we are closer to what happens to the released prisoner who returns to the cave, from whom the differences between his perception of the shadows and those who remained in the cave is very much marked. Yet to map the stages of development in Plato's analogy onto Lokuta's scene seems too simplistic and not to do justice to what I found, as a Classicist, to be the most intriguing feature of the work. Rather than focus on the differences between the released prisoner as Plato's proto-philosopher, who having encountered the true realm of the Forms, and the prisoners who have remained in the cave on his return, Lokuta's series asks us to remain in the cave, but to consider the individual perspective within the group setting of their imprisonment. In this way, Lokuta is interested in the world of the cave, not the lofty Platonic payoff, but the mundane humanism of the scene it evokes of individual and community. After all, as Plato writes at the beginning of his analogy, in spite of all the strangeness of the image and its prisoners: we are them.

It is precisely this emphasis on personal knowledge and individual experience as framed within the collective context of the Cave analogy that I believe offers the most direct connection with the series of Segal's studio. Just as Lokuta is documenting the artistic process of the sculptor in his studio, he is also capturing his own role as friend, assistant and model in the same scene. While we do have photographs that document these aspects of Lokuta's engagement with Segal, either the sculptor working on a Lokuta-cast, or the two of them out in New York taking photographs, many of the works maintain a tension between the collective setting artists, model, work - and the individual experience.

In what follows I want to briefly discuss the wider implications of juxtaposing these two series and their exploration of these themes of the individual and the collective. I will do this by contextualizing them within Lokuta's work as a whole and then by considering what Lokuta's art world relates to the expansive network of artists, curators, critics, museum directors and collectors we like to call the Art World today. But before opening out in this way, both within and beyond Lokuta's art world, I want to first press some of the Platonic questions raised by Lokuta's work a little further with a rather mundane illustration.

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One and Three Chairs Chairs: the subject philosophers use when they need a 4 thing to talk about.

-John Baldessari In introductory books on philosophy, the chair is often used as a convenient illustration for Plato's 5 Theory of Forms. It typically goes like this: the painted chair is one remove from the chair you are sitting on, which itself is one remove from the ideal Form of the chair. Furthermore, you only know that what you are seeing in the painting and what you are sitting on is a chair because of that transcendental Form. Finally, the only way we can judge a good painter and a good carpenter is to compare their copies with our recollection of that chair-Form. When Joseph Kosuth created his work One and Three Chairs (1965), consisting of a chair, a photograph of that chair and a dictionary entry for the word 'chair', this Platonic illustration seemed to keep up with certain key developments in the Art World of the 1960s. Gone was the painted chair, to be replaced by the two media photography and language - that would better lay claim to painting's privileged mimetic role. Now it is worth recognizing that with Lokuta's Segal and Plato photographs we are far-removed from the overt philosophizing of Kosuth. Yet if we stick with the chair, we may discover what precisely it is that Lokuta's focus is on.

Yet if we do not know of Lokuta's role in Segal's work, we must take Lokuta's interest in the individual experience within a collective setting at a more basic level and just focus on the differences between the chairs (leather, wicker) and how they have been photographed (full-view, partial-view).

Now consider one of the Plato's Cave series, in which we find four people sitting on two benches (yes, I know that a bench is not exactly a chair, but bear with me).

In spite of the composition of the shot, with the central focus of the four figures, the solitary figure on the partially visible bench is marked out by the intervening black backdrop of the 'view'. Furthermore, like Segal's two chairs devoid of human figures, deprived of the facial expressions of any of these figures, we have to focus on the rest of their bodies, the turn of their necks, the positions of their arms and legs.

Consider the photograph of two chairs in Segal's studio: one is Segal's large leather chair, the other more modest wicker-chair, that would be used by Lokuta during his time in the studio. As with the majority of the Segal studio series, where it is the sculptor at the centre of attention, this time it is his absence, substituted by his chair. As for Lokuta, his chair, is only partially captured, in what could be described as a sentimental gesture to mark the assistant's secondary-role. (I am reminded of the use of such partial presences in a series of two photographs by Louise Lawler of 1999/2000 called Sentimental and Unsentimental).

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John Baldessari (2011) John Baldessari/Barbara Bloom: Between Artists A.R.T. Press, 1.

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E.g. Nigel Warburton (1998) Philosophy: the Classics, Routledge, 149.

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Left Image: George Segal’s Chair, 2000, Above Image: Four People on Two Benches 1989-1990

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It is once our attention is directed to their legs that we notice that the differences between the solitary seated figure on the right stretch to their clothing as well, specifically to how the white of his shirt and socks connects him to the other figures, but his pants become part of the blackened scenery. It is as if Lokuta's interest in the unique experience of each of his spectators has bled into other aspects of their existence, so that at the same time as we are presented with a collective image, a group of on-lookers, we too are asked to differentiate between them as a kind of parallel to their differing perceptions and experiences. We need not go so far as to claim that the man on the right represents the prisoner who returns to the Cave. (It would obviously be taking things too far to super-impose Plato's Line, an analogy which preceded that of the Cave in the Republic, onto the linearity of the benches, moving, from right to left, out of the physical world into the realm of the Forms). Instead, these subtle distinctions between the collective and the individual, in the Cave benches, as in the Studio chairs, point less to an interest in Plato's Theory of Forms, but more to the crucial ethical question explored in the Republic of the role of justice in terms of how we act when we cannot be seen or when no one is looking.

As already noted, Lokuta's work expresses an interest in the 'unseen'. He also described it as the 'unexpected gesture between poses'. When thought of in this way, the photographer, somewhat ironically, becomes the agent in recovering someone's behaviour when no one is looking. In Plato's Republic, there are two contrasting accounts of the role for justice in this situation. Early in the dialogue, long before the famous Cave analogy, we are offered two views of injustice by Plato's own brothers in response to the whirlwind attack on this particular virtue by the anti-moralist sophist Thrasymachus. First Glaucon, to prove that injustice is more desirable in itself to justice, tells the story (muthos) of Gyges' ring, in which the tyrant manipulates the ring's power of invisibility to carry out unjust acts (359a–360d). Then Adeimantus argues that no one would choose to act

Right Image: Man at Fountain 2008-2009

justly, aside for the benefits of doing so. In this way, it can only be the case that someone could be truly just (i.e. just when no one is looking) is someone who has a divine nature (theiai phusai) and thus gained the knowledge (episteme) to keep him away from injustice (366c-d). What follows, in many ways for the remainder of the dialogue, is Socrates' response to Plato's brothers by using the example of both the city and the soul to show that justice is desirable in itself, mainly through proving the false benefits gained from injustice, and the true benefits of justice, as grounded in two pillars of his metaphysics and epistemology: the Theory of Forms and Immortality of the Soul. But if we stay with Plato's brothers, we encounter a stark contrast between Gyges, who uses his invisibility to carry out injustice and Adeimantus' hypothetical figure who is only deemed truly just by being just when no one is looking. Where does Lokuta's interest in the unseen and the unexpected gesture between poses fit in here? Is the photographer capturing a Gyges or a philosopher? It is this question, rather than the ultimate answer, that it seems to me is central to Lokuta's art. In short, he is less interested in the metaphysical questions of photography and reality, than the ethical question of who we are when no one is looking and how it is the photographer's duty to capture such moments.

If we now take the briefest of tours through some of Lokuta's other series of work, we encounter a counterpart to this philosophical debate in the division between studio and street photography and in how Lokuta mixes the two genres by his consistent focus on the unseen in terms of the collective and the individual.

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Collected Works What I want is for collecting to be shared by everybody, as a way of enriching human activity, fostering a taste for art and encouraging people to derive pleasure from it.

- José Berardo 6 Beyond the two series that are the focus of the present exhibition, Donald Lokuta's work has ranged widely, in both subject and approach, in their locations (New Jersey, New York, Daytona Beach, Mexico) and their topics (Missing: September 11, 2001; Looking at Art; The Anxiety of Beauty). Lokuta's extensive website allows you to not only explore many of these different series of work, but also to make connections between them.7 In this way, Lokuta has, like many artists today, acted as a collector of his own work, what R. H. Quaytman has described as a 'DIY approach', in which ' if you don't have a collector, become one' 8 . Yet Lokuta, at the same time as creating a coherent collection of completed series of work on his website, also keeps moving, adding to on-going series, visiting new locations, taking on new projects. This means that there is a sense of understanding his whole artistic output in terms of the unexpected gesture captured in individual photographs.

In one of his earlier series on the streets of his native New Jersey, Lokuta took 'a group portrait' of some boys with a donkey. If we look at this photograph with the same attention as we did those in the Segal's Studio and Plato's Cave series, we can appreciate how there are a distinct range of expressions in this group portrait. From the open mouthed boasting of the oldest boy in the center, and the quiet pride of the boy on the horse and the two others holding him. Yet the discomfort on the face of the boy on the left of the photograph and the loose right hand at his side is precisely the incongruity that Lokuta's work is primed for revealing and we may recall the ambiguity in Segal's expression in the photograph already discussed.

There are also some compositional elements that direct our attention to the differences between figures, as in the Plato's Cave bench-scene.

For example, consider the obscured head of the reclining figure in one of the Daytona Beach series. (It even seems to invoke Robert Frank's Public Park, Cleveland, Ohio, 1955 included in The Americans). The immediate incongruity of this scene is established by the clothed reclining figure in the centre being framed by the half-naked sunbathing figures to the right and the fully-dressed and seated figure on the left. If we jump to a more recent work from the series Looking at Art, again it is the play of the body, in its most conspicuous parts, that draws our attention, this time to the dynamic between the art works and their visitors.

The bent arm of the man before that of the young matador, while the decisive moment of the boy's shoe coming off, against the marked posture of Degas' The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer (1922) in the background. Unlike the bench-scene in the Plato's Cave series this chance-mirroring of figures with their ground is more complex than the blackand-white of clothing against the blackened backdrop.

While this is only a glimpse at some of Lokuta's series, they each reward the viewer with their attention to detail and the nuances of composition that allow for the broader issues at stake in the Segal's Studio and Plato's Cave series.

José Berardo’ (2007) ‘Introduction: An Interview with José Berardo’, in Museu Berardo: an itinerary, Thames & Hudson, 9.

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http://www.donaldlokuta.com

R. H. Quaytman (2011) R. H. Quaytman: Spine.

Sternberg Press, n.p...

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Images From Top: Boys with Pony, Newark, NJ, 1977 Man on the Beach, Daytona Beach, Florida, 1989 European Galleries, 2, 2011

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The World Between Artists a feeling of being reflected without knowing it −Jean Baudrillard

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To conclude, I want to attempt to show how the focus on the 'unseen' in Lokuta's own art world in these two series of this exhibition - Segal's Studio and Plato's Cave - may help us understand the ways in which each series and Lokuta's work as a whole, is positioned within the wider contemporary Art World.

In a conversation as part of the series Between Artists, William E. Jones makes the following comment to his fellow-artist and filmmaker, Thom Andersen about the role of Artforum magazine in the contemporary art world as akin to Pravda in the former Soviet Union during the purges:

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Jean Baudrillard (1980) ‘Please Follow Me’, in Sophie Calle Suite Venitienne/Jean Baudrillard Please Follow Me, Bay Press, 77.

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Above Image: Casting Martin Friedman, 8-4-91

It occurs to me that Artforum functions more or less like Pravda in the realm of art today. You read it to see if your friends' careers are still alive. It doesn't matter what anybody says about them.

As long as their names are mentioned, they are still in the arena. The real problem is not being 10 mentioned.

Jones' comment highlights a use of Artforum not as a guide to taste and trend - who's hot and who's not - nor as a mapping of current exhibitions and critical approaches, but as a place to evoke a camaraderie between artists, each rooting for the 'life' of each other's careers. But what would Jones have made of Lokuta's appearances in Artforum? As a photographer of Segal's Studio, Lokuta's appearances in the pages of Artforum have been limited to documenting another artist at work. The article 'Casting Call' by Segal's model, Martin Friedman, is illustrated by Lokuta's photographs and he is given the photo credit, and even mentioned in the essay as 'assisting' Segal, but that is the limit to his role.

Artforum as the beacon of the Art World is not looking at Lokuta's work but still using it, as documentation for the Segal's Studio series. Yet if we see the Art World as an extension of Lokuta's art world, then Lokuta's appearances in Artforum operate in a comparable way to his appearances in Segal's studio as friend, model, assistant and photographer. It is one of the ambitions of this exhibition, in juxtaposing the two series, to reveal Lokuta's art world as separate from Segal's, in spite of some important similarities, especially their dedicated humanism.

Another whim of the Art World explains the two series of Lokuta's Plato's Cave series in the late 2000s. When I first asked Lokuta about this lag in time between the two series, he referred to how the late 2000s may be a more welcoming environment for this kind of work, which in the late-1980s may have seemed too academic with such a title and thematic focus. His answer implied that the Art World had changed in the intervening 20 years. However, more recently when asked the same question, Lokuta emphasized his own role in this transformation of the series' popularity:

William E. Jones (2013) Thom Andersen/William E. Jones: Between Artists, A.R.T. Press, 71.

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In 1984, when I made my first photographs in that series, I was experimenting and trying to get the photographs to match the message. Perhaps those first images were a bit repetitious and stiff, but they were experiments. As I became more focused and sure of the direction, the photographs looked more natural and spontaneous, and the size became larger.

The two answers to the same question that Lokuta has given show a very interesting attempt to take control of artistic individuality amid the collective machinery of the Art World, in a way that is not so very far from William E. Jones' re-appropriation of Artforum as Pravda.

Nonetheless, what both of these rather anecdotal tales of Lokuta's position in the Art World do show is that while we can explore and expound on thematic connections within an artist's work, such connections can expand beyond their work as well.

Given this, as the curator of the present exhibition, I have attempted to not only emphasize Lokuta's art through an illuminating juxtaposition between two series of work, but also by renegotiating the role of Segal and the Art World at the same time. While it does contain a Segal sculpture generously loaned by the Columbus Museum of Art - and a looped film Art for whose sake? which took on the perspective of the artist, the gallerist and the collector recorded during the Four Environments by Four New Realists exhibition at the Sidney Janis Gallery in January 1964, the emphasis is on Lokuta's intervention in Segal's work, in all of his roles. Similarly, even though I am a Classicist, it has not been the aim of this exhibition to showcase Lokuta's Plato's Cave series as yet another in a long list of contemporary art works that either directly reference the analogy (e.g. Mike Kelley) or use it as a way of expounding an artist's work (e.g. Paul Chan). Instead, I have emphasized Lokuta's novel reading of the analogy (i.e. the focus on the individual perspectives within the cave) as a key theme in his work. Finally, it is my hope that this exhibition will showcase the photography of Donald Lokuta, beyond its subject matter, that is, beyond either Segal's Studio or Plato's Cave, but in how it uncannily captures the unseen and allows it to be seen, collectively and individually, by us, his audience. Only then does Lokuta's own art world have a chance of being seen within the broader contexts of the Art World and as offering a potential critique of the unseen in that Art World. –Richard Fletcher

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On the Unseen: An Interview with Donald Lokuta by Richard Fletcher RF: Let us start with Plato. Even though the analogy of the Cave is in many ways a hackneyed theme in contemporary art, at the same time how an artist comes to Plato’s Cave can reveal something specific to that particular artist’s work. How did your series on Plato’s Cave come about and how does it reflect your art as a whole?

RF: And would this particular ‘philosophical idea’ be part of what you have described elsewhere as the investigation into the unseen, specifically the unexpected gesture between poses? If so, could you comment on how the idea of the unseen works in different ways for your two series on Plato’s Cave and Segal’s Studio?

DL: In the summer of 1984 I was visiting my family in Maine. They didn’t live far from the coast, so one day I took my camera and headed for Acadia National Park. It wasn’t my first trip there, but I thought I could make some interesting photographs.

DL: When I talked about the ‘the unseen and the unexpected gesture between poses,’ I was working on video-still photographs of the subway and streets of New York City. Those photographs continue to evolve to the present time. It seems that I am always working on more than one idea at a time.

I found myself in a very touristy location on the top of Cadillac Mountain. I‘ve always been attracted to the beauty of nature, but I’m not usually inclined to make the traditional landscapes or nature photographs that have been made so many times since the beginning of photography. My art usually begins with developing a concept first; an idea about what I want to say, then I find the appropriate subject matter. But this time I had no concept and no real clear direction for my photographs.

When I got to the top, I noticed people standing on different parts of the mountain looking at the magnificent views. I wondered what they were thinking and what they really saw. We were all looking at the blue sky, the sailboats and the town of Bar Harbor, but it seemed logical to assume that each person saw the scene differently and understood what they saw at a different level based on their own personal knowledge and experiences.

Then it occurred to me - it was Plato’s Cave. I now wanted to make the idea of Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” the philosophical idea for a possible project.

Left Image: Self-portrait With George Segal, Asbury Park, New Jersey, 1990

To me, in a more general sense, great art is about what lies below the surface of the work.

It’s not about the subject; it’s about an idea.

There should always be more to it than what one sees at first glance. Art shows us a way of seeing the world from another perspective. So with these images, I don’t literally mean seeing with one’s eyes, but rather a way of understanding a different reality. The photographs ask us to question what we believe is truth by showing a background that is purposely painted out with black acrylic, a space where information is withheld. As Picasso said in 1923, “We all know that art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth. At least the truth that is given us to understand.”

About the unseen in my photographs of George Segal: I would say that on the surface these photographs are a document of a great artist and personal friend. What they really are is a complex portrait of the emotional side of the artist. This is most obvious in the photographs of the studio.

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Above Image: Completing, “Depression Bread Line,” 1991

To be sure, there is much more to George Segal’s work than meets the eye. In all of Segal’s sculpture, there is always at its foundation, a quiet thoughtful analysis of what it means to be human. Segal said, “My sculptures are reflections of the emotional reality of life.” It is that emotional reality that I wanted to photograph.

Most of the Segal studio consisted of rooms that were the artist’s personal exhibition space. It contained mostly sculpture, but also some drawings and paintings filled these spaces. In the individual rooms, sculptures were carefully placed in close proximity to each other, many times blurring the lines between the individual pieces. I saw these rooms as large installations. In fact, all of the rooms in his studio should be viewed as one large installation.

When George gave one of his famous tours of the studio, he rarely said very much unless you asked a question. He would guide his guest from one room to the next watching their reactions. It was about the entire experience. And for most, it was unexpected and overwhelming. Looking at an individual Segal sculpture is one thing, but when seen as a group organized in the studio, the message has a much different intensity. I believe this is what Segal was after, and I hope the photographs of the studio show this side of the artist.

RF: In discussing your relationship with Segal, you have written that you ‘became an insider in a world seldom seen’, which gave you a ‘new understanding of the art world’. How does the art world of Segal relate to what we have come to call the art world today?

DL: The past 30 years has seen many changes in the art world, but the dynamics are basically the same: the artist, the gallery, the collectors and the museums. Segal spent most of his time thinking about and making art.

He had a great dealer in Sidney Janis. Segal was lucky because he didn’t have to worry about the business of art. About the art world, Segal said to me, “There are too many stupid people with stupid money buying stupid art.”

But since then, the art world is much more about promotion and public relations and much more about bigger sales and auction records. The Art Market Monitor quoted financier and art collector Bijan Kherzi as saying that the art world, “has been hijacked by the very same forces that poisoned the world of finance: herding, greed, and short-termism leading to asset inflation, market collusion, lack of substance and too many self-possessed individuals."

But you know, there is always great art being made at any time in history, you just have to search for it.

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Exhibition Map and Checklist

Donald Lokuta: Segal’s Studio 29 chromogenic prints mounted on canvas 30x40 inches A1 (left to right) George Segal's Chair, 2000 In the Studio, 1988 Casting Miles Forst for, "The Red Scaffold," 1990

B4

B3

B5 B2

A2 (left to right) Casting Billy Klüver for, "Appalachian Farm Couple," 1991 Working On the Sculpture, "Parking Garage," 1994 George Segal With Model for,

"Blue Woman On Black Bed," 1996 A4 (right to left) George Segal With, "Woman On Park Bench," 1998 "Woman On Park Bench" in Progress, 1998

B1

B1 (clockwise) View of the Studio, 2000 View of the Studio, 1997 Studio Detail, Body Parts, 2000 View of the Studio with, "Red Woman Acrobat Hanging

From a Rope," 1997 Work In Progress, "Appalachian Farm Couple," 1991

A3 A4 A2 C

B2 (left to right) View of Room 6, 2000 View of Room 7, #2, 2000 Room 8 with, "Street Crossing," 2000 B3 View of Room 10, 2000

A1

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B4 (clockwise) View of Room 7 with, "Dumpster," 2000 View of Room 3, 2000 Room 9 with, “The Graffiti Wall," and "Chance Meeting," #2, 2000 Room 4 with "Depression Bread Line," 2000 Astor Place, New York City, 1991 Diner, Freehold, New Jersey, 1989 Self-portrait With George Segal,

Asbury Park, New Jersey, 1990 Photographing In Asbury Park, New Jersey, 1990 Completing, “Depression Bread Line," 1991 George Segal With Figure for “The Homeless,” 1989 Room 3, the Last Two Sculptures, 2000 Room 4 With Sculpture for the F.D.R. Memorial, 2000

Donald Lokuta: In Plato’s Cave

George Segal

Looped Projections

C Six People on Rocks, 1986-87 Three People and Two Umbrellas,2008-2009 Couple Sitting on Rocks, 1989-90 Sand Sculpture, 2008-2009 Two People among Rocks, 1989-90 Man Seated on Rock, 2008-2009 Man with Binoculars on Beach, 1988 Couple at Stone Railing, 2008-2009 Three People on Walkway, 1986-87 Young Woman Taking a Photograph, 2008-2009 Couple with Daughter, 1986-87 Woman Standing by Large Rock, 2008-2009 Couple on Ferry, 1988 Family of Five, 2008-2009 Two Women on Ferry, 1988 Man and Baby Carriage, 2008-2009 Four People on Two Benches, 1989-90 Packing Up for the Day, 2008-2009 Artist, 1988 Woman Reading, 2008-2009 Couple with Sun Hats, 1988 Woman with Beach Umbrella, 2008-2009 Three People on a Bench, 1988 Woman in Black Bathing Suit, 2008-2009 Man Taking a Photograph, 1989-90 Couple Holding Hands, 2008-2009 Five People among Rocks, 1988 Woman Lying on Rocks, 2008-2009 Couple on Long Bench, 1989-90 Six People among Rocks, 2008-2009 Artist on Rock Jetty, 1989-90 Couple in Shorts and Sneakers, 2008-2009 Women at Lighthouse, 1988 Woman and Pigeon, 2008-2009 On the Deck, 1989-90 Martini and Beer Bar, 2008-2009 Couple with a Camera, 1984-87 Young Couple on Split Rock, 2008-2009 Boy and Man with Binoculars, 1986-87 Five Tourists, 2008-2009 Man with Binoculars, 1986-87 Man with Baseball Cap, 2008-2009 Woman Taking a Photograph, 1984-87 Family at Scenic Overlook, 1984-87 Woman on Cliff, 1986-2009 Man on the Edge, 2008-2009 Father with Sons, 2008-2009 Woman at Construction Site, 2008-2009 Woman at Parapet, 2008-2009 Five Hikers, 2008-2009 Young Man at Stone Wall, 2008-2009 Family of Three, 2008-2009 Couple Embracing, 2008-2009 Man at Fountain, 2008-2009 Couple on Sandy Beach, 2008-2009 Three Hikers, 2008-2009 Woman with Hat Sitting on Large Rock, 2008-2009 Lifeguard, 2008-2009 Man on Stone Bench, 2008-2009 Couple by Iron Railing, 2008-2009 Woman and Girl with Viewfinder Binoculars, 2008-2009 Seated Boy in Shorts, 2008-2009 Couple in Beach Chairs, 2008-2009 Woman on Rock, 2008-2009 Person Lying on Rock, 2008-2009 Woman on Footbridge, 2008-2009 Woman Looking Through Viewfinder Binoculars, 2008-2009 Three Women on the Beach, 2008-2009

A3 Girl on Blanket, Full Figure, 1978 Painted Plaster 76 in. x 42 in. x 12 in.

Columbus Museum of Art B5 Art for Whose Sake?,1964 DVD B&W 25 min Directed by Gordon Hyatt National Film Network

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