Marfa
James Bae
Before he died, I was going to ask my friend Julian if he wanted to meet in New York for Wilhelm Sasnals opening and then come visit me in West Texas. The answer certainly wouldve been, Im barely moving these days. I cant leave my house. He was old. He was always sick. During one brief aperture in his health last summer, he planed to visit me in Marfa and see the cloud formations Id described for him. For some reason, I really thought hed make it.
Julian was a friend of Richard Wollheim, who famously (if dismissively) coined the minimalist term for Judd, Flavin, et al. I never asked Wollheim if hed ever visited Marfa, though Im sure he had. And Im sure he wouldve enjoyed it but not talked about it to anyone.
Perhaps Julian agreed with Wollheim in the philosophers assessment of Minimalisms paradox, singular in its strength and fatal errorthe object of art supplied only the minimal conditions of it being art. Undoubtedly, both were put off by the undue common language posturing of Judds writings, which they dismissed as foppishly pretentious graduate student drivel, steeped in the Austen-Wittgensteinian deep grammar so heavy in the fifties. At the time, Judd was at Columbia studying philosophy. (Do art historians really read this atelic babble for a living? This shit is beyond endurance, Julian once said.) Both he and Wollheim believed that a work of arta symbol upon its ownis a speech act. There truly is something quite funny about an artist talking about himself.
Allison V. Smith, Town and Country. October 2004. Marfa, Texas
C-print; Edition 1/20
24 x 20 inches
Courtesy the artist and Barry Whistler Gallery, Dallas
But I imagine Julian would have liked Sasnals show, with its complete disinterest in heroic rhetoric. The work is liminal but to the point and fluid in the precision of gesturea rudiment of practice so anathematic to Minimalism as to be considered a horror vacui. In Sasnal, who was a resident artist at Chinati this year, there are signs that humanism is returning to the arts. Monumentality is trumped through momentary allusion. Its a conscientious idea that art cant create subterfuge time into totemics, making the working principle that informed Judds and the other minimalists work seem utterly outdated. Its too bad Julian missed the show. We wouldve had much to talk about on the way to Texas.
The assumption most friends make about why I came to Marfa centers on a theory of my being a secret adherent to the minimalist temple, which couldnt be farther from the case. While Julian liked Minimalism for its cleanliness, he was ultimately turned off by its bloated, preening self-indulgence. My own interpretation is that Minimalism, like Wollheims reading of it, is mostly silly froth, which attracts a certain audience, like foreign movie fans who believe theyre getting an instant critical upgrade by maintaining consciousness in face of it. Honestly, is there an art form that cultivates more arrogant, refined sensibilities at art openings than a minimalist show? (The type of people that, when it comes down to it, use words like classy in conjunction with steak restaurants.) The answer, I conclude, is no.
Julian partially understood why I came to of all places, Texas. Corinna Schnitt, an artist at the Chinati Foundation, was the main reason. The rest involved understanding the motivations of fetish, or at least, the fascination that can drive people to come to a town three hours from the nearest airport with little other avenues to arrive but to toil. Its a good selling point. Why not turn art into a high-gloss selling point? As much as it is a good way to sell historicized aggrandizement of the artist au fond, religiosity translates well into pounds and pence. How epic.
Therere two sensibilities flocking to Marfa of late, each seemingly in sure confidence of being there. One finds the weather, the open landscape and a modicum of things to do but simply be in Marfa welcoming. The other half wants to tell their friends over cocktails, Marfabeen there. They both seem to be self-possessed in their own truth of what art is. At least, if youve been to Maiyas, the restaurant with the fantasticand fantastically pricedsteak, theyd tell you about the spirituality of art in between latent gasps over their cell phones with built-in cameras. Be prepared to also hear that though they are rich wives of New Yorkers, these walking, talking, yet to be mounted trophy busts are artists, too. (Many tend toward watercolorsof housesand nature.)
Allison V. Smith, Locker Plant. May 2004. Marfa, Texas
C-print; Edition 1/20
24 x 20 inches
Courtesy the artist and Barry Whistler Gallery, Dallas
Speaking to these byproducts of Marfas recent growththe Artist-as-Owners-of-Expensive Lotionsone reaches to the depth of Odradek for empathy: He does no harm to anyone that one can see; but the idea that he is likely to survive me I find almost painful (Franz Kafka).
While dodging fuckers licking ice cream and precariously bobbing through the trellis of their desultory high-fives, there are brief moments of witnessing creativity of the highest order. They undoubtedly seem to be Chinati artists in residence, who most of the time produce works that, in resonance, edge the Chinati collection into the respectableyet categorizedcharnel house of spent modernity. Schnitt surely ranks in this category of critical freshness. A subtle combination of humor, detachmentand, most tellingly, the failure of meaningful social interaction that leads to alonenessabounds in her film work. Most of them are so devoid of panache that they almost come across as deadpan public service announcements for gonorrhea. Its hard not to think these short, densely fragile films will be picked up in the gallery sphere full-stride soon. Robert Miller Gallery in New York sported the first of these filmsLiving a Beautiful Life, a riotously funny and disturbing mime of a young boy and girls notion of the perfect lifestyle, aped by a glamorous Los Angeles couple on top of their canyon homein a group show this past winter.
Quality, however, doesnt necessarily translate into interest in Marfa. Using Schnitts show as a cultural barometer for last yearand the climate changes nearly on a weekly basis, much like land prices depending on which hedge-fund manager is rumored to be buying propertythe audience in attendance gave off collective excitement equivalent to listening to Janet Reno talk about contract law, as interviewed by John Major. Quite simply, it didnt capture or hold the room. Im under the assumption the show was terrific; whoever agreed with me was certainly in the silent minority.
This might say something about the vaunted cultural grading of Marfa, mostly given by its own accord. Nobody wants to think they live in an artistically impoverished place. Yet to sincerely believe Marfa is the second coming of fin de sicle Vienna is patently absurd or simply disingenuous. Art arises out of choice. In a place in which one sensibility holds dominion of artistic merit as Judd supposedly heldand wrongfully so in the democratic spiritthat the transparency of ones allegiances is fruitlessly visible. The attitude came full circle in a tour I gave the day after Schnitts show. A loud, brash man and his wife were felled by the authoritative beauty of Judds 100 Untitled Aluminum Boxes, the centerpiece of the Chinati collection. The husband had a knowing glint in his eyes when he radiated his stare onto my own.
This is fucking art.
What? This?
Yes.
How do you know?
You can tell. This is tasteful.
He looked at me as if I were complicit in this specially granted knowledge, of which I was now finding myself an unwitting (and slightly trembling) initiate into gnosis. Not knowing how to translate in faith feelings of shitload of taste, I stared at the wife as a diversion. She loved the piece as well. She was, through the lens of achievable things, adjusting her lipstick in the reflective surface of box #42. It made me appreciate Schnitt even more.
Allison V. Smith, One Stop Light. October 2003. Marfa, Texas
C-print; Edition 1/20
24 x 20 inches
Courtesy the artist and Barry Whistler Gallery, Dallas
A problematic detail of Marfa is that everybody is an artistor at least thinks of themselves as one. A hazy notion of true art, whatever the hell that may be, seems to parlay itself into the prattle of whos going to hold the flag for the spirit of the true cause. The can of worms Marcel Duchamp opened nine decades ago is fleshing itself out into a battle of Pyrrhic wills: us versus them; elite against the temporally nonelite. Nobody, in the end, really cares much about this.
Of course the people who least give a shit are the artists doing work without any notion of Marfas cultural reinvigoration. By the way, Chinatis recent artist, Wilhelm Sasnal, was working in regards to nobodys agenda; the querulous debate seems to indicate that the battle for the sacredness of art is, at least, a provincial affair.
Sasnal is, most likely, the biggest name-draw of all the artists that have been associated with Chinatis residency program, and hes surely one of its best. Apart from the rabble of daily living in Marfa, which at times borders on the rocky, he produced in his brief stay numerous paintings and a suite of drop-dead, magnificent drawings. He destroyed one of Texas most sacred artifactsa gigantic whale of a Cadillacfilming a local band, S.P.I.C., on top of its carcass on the Chinati grounds. Only thirty-three, Sasnal should be a standard for any artist wishing to be productive while staying in these environs: drive yourself into a rage and use that metaphysical anger to make work.
But it was Sasnals compatriot, Andrzej Przywara, curator of the splendidly rigorous Foksal Gallery Foundation in Warsaw, who had the greatest insight into the local state of affairs, with an outsiders objective distance capable of deciphering the strange quibbles of thought canvassing the area. One has to take into account Przywaras background as well in this discussion; he might be the most earnest of all curators working in Europe. With a list of artists he helped bring into prominence, including Sasnal, he is also one of the more envied in the international art scene. Socially oriented, and within the rising concept that art can have meaningful social applications in the contemporary world, Przywara was woefully ill-prepared to fit into the ethical dimensions of Marfa.
Things came to a head one night over dinner at Sasnals apartment at Chinati. While waiting to eat, two interns came by and informed Przywara and me that we had to leave the apartment since it was after five oclock. The look on Przywaras face was priceless as he witnessed the German intern, smiling at us in face of our removal, Swiss-Miss in bureaucratic austerity: half cheery, half you-must-be-out-of-your-fucking-mind. It might have been some unresolved Germano-Polish relations yet to be laid to rest through the winds of history, but Przywara stayed his ground. Anka was going to make some pasta and he was going to enjoy it.
Unfortunately, so were the interns. One must put aside rationality sometimes, especially in Marfa. Youll eventually break bread with your persecutors regardless of the level of cloistered imbecility you might invariably attain (intentionalitya survival instinct of politesse). When the conversation shifted to art, the dissonance between the interns and Przywara reached a further crescendo. Speaking of Pawel Althamers projects, one of which was working with mental patients of Poland, it was clear the interns had no idea that Przywara was a curatoror talking about art.
Perhaps one of the finest moments in my stay in Marfa happened soon thereafter. A Brazilian intern, surprisingly prone to head-banging speed metal, broke mid-stream into Przywaras talk and said, eschewing reference, I like Judds color. The verisimilitude was ersatz. The radio was playing Leadbellys I Want to Go Home. A feckless commentan honest oneand things came to a crashing head. I remember amazing clouds forming in the dusk outside.
This is a monastery, Przywara said. I like Przywara very much.