A Short Art Review + Some Thoughts: Oranges and Sardines at the Hammer

Today, I visited the Hammer Museum in West Los Angeles to see the exhibition entitled Oranges and Sardines: Conversations on Abstract Painting, which opened just under a week ago on November 9, and will be on show until February 8, 2009. For this show, six “hot” contemporary painters have each been asked by the curator to select one or two of their own recent paintings to be shown along with works by other artists who have had a significant impact on their own art-making processes. In this sense, it is perhaps quite different from the typical art exhibition, as it shows both historical work and contemporary work within the same context. The six contemporary artists on exhibit are Mark Grotjahn, Wade Guyton, Mary Heilmann, Amy Sillman, Charline Von Heyl, and Christopher Wool, while the artists selected as influences range from painters of the early twentieth century such as Pablo Picasso and Piet Mondrian to more contemporary artists such as Sherrie Levine and William de Kooning.

Despite the fact that the exhibition has been given the subtitle Conversations on Abstract Painting, the six contemporary artists participating in Oranges and Sardines have chosen a range of various works to show alongside their own, including paintings, sculptures, and works on paper. In visiting the show, it was interesting to see the different works that these contemporary painters have outwardly chosen to show as having a great impact on their thinking and development of their own work. Seeing work that was both familiar and unfamiliar to me, it became somewhat of a game to connect the dots between the works of the contemporary painters and the supposed influential works—to try to see the specific ways in which each of the selected works perhaps influenced the exhibited works of the six contemporary painters. Sometimes trying to connect these dots was not so easy, as the ideas and thought processes behind each of the works don’t necessarily show through in an obvious fashion. However, I personally did not see a problem with this, as abstract works are often difficult to “get” in general. On the other hand, I have the feeling that the wide variety and diversity of art chosen by each of the artists showed to me why abstract painting is still very relevant to the contemporary art scene today—there are still many territories within the abstract art genre that can benefit from further exploration and experimentation, as the six artists from the exhibition demonstrate through their work.

So what does this exhibition have to do with the main subject of my blog—technology and its effect on art? Well perhaps nothing directly. However, as many perhaps already know, abstract art as a genre of artwork emerged about one hundred years ago as a shift a way from representational work. Artists no longer felt the need to be attached to a literal visual description of objects and images from out in the world, and thus allowed themselves to explore a wider range of visual expression, entering into realms untouched by artists of the past. One of the many various factors that led to this shift away from representation and toward abstraction was the development of new technologies, particularly photography, which in many instances devalued the act of reproducing realistic images through painting. In this sense, abstract artwork is a product of technological progress.

…And it very much continues to be so, as art in general is always highly influenced by the various developments that are occurring in the greater world. With our society’s increasing fascination with digital technology, more and more artists are moving into the digital realm to create their works. This applies more so to commercial artists and graphic designers than to fine artists, but there are also plenty of fine artists working in digital media, experimenting with and exploring new methods of art-making. So then, what does it mean for a fine artist to continue working in traditional media, rather than shifting to digital media with the rest of the crowd? Well, for one thing, as I have already mentioned in a couple of past postings, there are some qualities and sensibilities embedded in traditional art forms that can never be recreated through digital means. For example, the texture and quality of paint applied to the canvas cannot (at least at this point in time) be replicated through a computer screen or a standard ink jet print. Thus, going through the physical labor of creating a full-scale image on a large canvas comes to have an even greater meaning than it perhaps had before the explosion of digital culture. Issues of labor and experimentation are always highly relevant to the art-making process and the final output, and as mentioned earlier in this post, for an artist to continue engaging with traditional means of art-making indicates that there are still many territories left to explore within the realms of traditional media.

Abstract painting in particular has always proven to be an experimental genre within the fine arts, and it is interesting to note that the definition as to what constitutes “painting” is still constantly being refined today—as can be seen especially through the work of Wade Guyton in Oranges and Sardines, who actually embraces the use of digital technology within his work, yet continues to identify his works with the genre of traditional painting. Since I feel that Guyton’s works are highly relevant to the subject of this blog, I would like to spend the next post discussing in detail his artistic process in relation to traditional and digital art forms.