Regarding my post on underappreciated photographers, Gabrielle de Montmollin observed that only one woman made American Photo’s list. Among the endless list of women who deserve more attention, I’d like to highlight JoAnn Verburg. I first became aware of JoAnn when I saw her show at pARTs Gallery (now the Minnesota Center for Photography) in 1994. It remains my all-time favorite local exhibition. The salon-style show consisted of hundreds of pictures of JoAnn’s husband, the poet Jim Moore. In his review of the show in ArtForum, Vince Leo wrote:
Like Alfred Stieglitz’s portraits of Georgia O’Keeffe or Harry Callahan’s pictures of his wife Eleanor, Verburg’s photographs of Moore describe the dynamics of their relationship in photographic terms. But instead of Stieglitz and O’Keeffe’s heroic individualism or the Callahans natural harmony, Verburg and Moore’s photographic encounters are about the furtive pleasures available to those who aren’t afraid to look or be looked at.
But this has hardly been Verburg’s only achievement. She first made her name in the 1970’s with her participation (along with Mark Klett and Ellen Manchester) in the highly influential Rephotographic Survey Project.
Despite having showed at Robert Mann, Pace/McGill, MOMA and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, JoAnn doesn’t emphasize self-promotion. As a recent article mentioned, “She doesn’t have a bibliography, a biography or a resume, so I can’t look up where all her work is. She doesn’t know either.”
But the good news is that this is all about to change. In 2007 JoAnn will be having a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art. You can read about it here. (If you are a collector, I recommend buying now!).
Verburg doesn’t have a website, but you can see examples of her work here and here and here.
I like when artists or critics make grandiose and provocative declarations on art. It is usually rubbish, but at least gets you thinking. In her review of the Wolfgang Tillmans show, LA Weekly writer Holly Myers stirred the pot:
In thinking about Diane Arbus, as one does from time to time, I came to a distressing realization: that I couldn’t name a single photographer subsequent to Arbus (and Frank and Winogrand and Friedlander and Eggleston and the other greats of her generation) who ranked on anywhere near the same level, which is to say, who thrilled me near as broadly, deeply or consistently.
The distinction is more romantic than intellectual, I’ll admit — and therein lies the problem. Photography obviously didn’t disappear after 1971 (the year of Arbus’ death), but, like art generally, went the way of the intellect, exalting concept over impression, thinking over looking.
Read the full article here.
My pal Karolina Karlic sent me a link to a fascinating article in the New York Times. William Utermohlen painted self-portraits of his decent into Alzheimer’s:
This is a truly remarkable group of images. But if you forget about the Alzheimer’s, the work looks a lot like Jim Dine’s self-portraits:
Maybe it would help Dine’s perception in the art world if he had Alzheimer’s. Dine is reviled almost as much at Botero. I’ll never forget reading Richard Polsky’s Artnet column recommending collectors sell Dine:
The truly great artists don’t rest on their laurels. They take risks and continue to explore new possibilities. Imagine what would have happened if the great artist Philip Guston had played it safe by sticking with his Abstract Expressionist style. Instead, he chanced everything by painting his now-famous quirky representational subject matter.
For whatever reason, Dine has never felt compelled to endure the painful soul-searching that Guston must have faced. Almost 40 years after painting his first heart and robe, he continues to crank out variations of the same images. This is not to be confused with the example of Gorgio Morandi and his wonderful still lifes. In Morandi’s case, his humble bottles and objects were painted over and over, with an ever greater sense of meaning and spirituality. Dine’s paintings lack that sort of depth. They are what they are — attractive depictions of a limited personal vocabulary.
I don’t know if it is fair to say he has played it safe. Certainly he has experimented. For example, Dine has spent a significant amount of energy producing photographs:
Singing Daily, 1998
But experimentation is not the same as struggle. The art world consensus is that Dine, like Botero, hasn’t struggled enough. Assuming Dine doesn’t aquire Alzheimer’s or commit suicide, what should he to do?
This is similar to the question raised in an earlier post about William Wegman. Whether an artist is successful for dogs or bathrobes, how do you sustain a career? Another recent post discussed the work of Bas Jan Ader. Ader’s entire oeuvre is about twelve minutes long. Much of the Ader legend is built on his disappearance while making In search of the miraculous. Might Wegman be just as highly regarded as Ader if one of the Weimaraners had snapped at his owner’s jugular? In other words, can an artist sustain critical credibility over the long-haul without biographical myth-making?
Related to my post on Brice Marden, the current art issue of W magazine has 45 pictures by Stephen Shore of Marden’s Hudson River home. Not one picture shows a Bounty paper towel. (Nor did Leibovitz’s portrait for Vogue).
I wasn’t invited to the W Magazine Art issue party at Pace. The New York Post made it sound pretty interesting:
October 19, 2006 — NUDITY was the topic at the dinner Fairchild head Patrick McCarthy held in honor of W magazine’s first art issue at the Pace Wildenstein gallery in Chelsea the other night. “I was recently at an art function in Denmark when a man stood up during a speech and started shouting, ‘This is not art,’ ” said Pace Wildenstein’s part-owner Marc Glimcher. “The beautiful blonde he was with also stood up and pulled down her pants. The man then grabbed her posterior . . . It was odd.” The crowd checking out Richard Tuttle’s art installation included WWD chief Ed Nardoza, W creative director Eddie Leide, Chuck Close, Brice Marden, Richard Prince, Mike Ovitz, Donna Karan, Diane von Furstenberg, Si Newhouse, Francisco Costa and photographer Phillip Lorca DiGorcia, who inexplicably fell out of his chair onto the floor during Tuttle’s speech.
Nevertheless, I did make it into the Blackbook art issue. Read James Frey’s nice piece about me here. Yes, that James Frey. Read a little blub (minus the fact-checking) here.
