by Jan Galligan & Lillian Mulero
Santa Olaya, PR
“When is a painting not a painting?” Lillian says. “Is this a trick question?” I ask her. “Maybe,” she replies. “Think of it as a logic question in the epistemology of art.” “When it is a sculpture?” I suggest. “Good,” she says, “Continue.” “When it's a drawing, or, an assemblage, a photograph, a video, the elements of a painting unassembled, a set of instructions for making a painting, or maybe a book about a painting?” “Excellent, she replies. “Now, reverse the argument.” “O.K.,” I respond, “a sculpture is not a sculpture when it is a painting." “Exactly," she says, “and this is true for all of your previous examples.”
We're surrounded by a dozen works by Michael Linares, presented as examples of what he is calling "unpainting". These include two large canvases, one made in the style of the 1950's Color Field paintings of the Washington Color School, painted with swatches of primary colors, red, green, blue and orange. The other painting is pure white gesso, applied as a thick surface, that has cracked or maybe been incised with a blunt instrument. Next are four small, one-foot square canvases which are covered in a thick layer of impasto paint, one black, one red, one yellow and one blue. Seen from the side, the paint is nearly an inch thick, but the surface is perfectly smooth. Near this work, a large video monitor displays what appears to be a photograph of a female modern dancer in a bright yellow leotard, posed against a green background, standing on a blue mat, and surrounded by a red ball, blue cylinder and black cube. If you look closely, you can see her eyes blink and her chest moves slightly as she breathes. Suddenly she breaks her pose to assume a new position. The video is an infinite loop of slow progressions.
Three empty painting stretchers stand against the wall, one large, one slightly smaller, and much smaller. They are what you would expect to find in a painter's studio, stretchers waiting to have canvas applied, except the wood has been carefully stained as if instead, they were frames. There's a dichotomy here. Next to the stretchers are three photographs, presented as one work. Two photographs are constructed so the frames overlap. Above, is a spectrum, and below, in the second frame, a woman stands reaching up towards the rainbow which drops into her outstretched hands. On the floor, leaning against the wall, the third photo shows a man holding a hammer, ready to pound a nail into the wall.
Next comes another pair of photographs.
The large photo shows a bright blue sculpture of a female torso. The
smaller photo, hinged to the side of the large one, is of a black
bird perched on a limb and silhouetted against the sky. One more
painting, a ready-made stretched canvas, blank except for a coat of
white gesso primer occupies this same wall. Mounted on the top edge
of the canvas is a carpenter's level. The painting hangs in exact,
true orientation to the wall and floor.
In the middle of the gallery is perhaps
the strangest work, a painter's wooden portable easel, the classic
type that might have been used by Van Gogh. Attached to the sketchbox
is a pad of drawing paper. The top page is covered in scribbled lines
in the manner of Cy Twombly's graffiti drawings. The lines are red
and blue, drawn by two magic marker pens suspended over the drawing
pad by a helium-filled green balloon. As the air is disturbed by
people moving around the gallery, the balloon moves the pens across
the page.
At this point, we have a serious
collection of art objects, presented by Linares under the rubric of
paintings, or not-paintings, but it turns out there is more. In the
middle of the much smaller downstairs gallery, a large houseplant has
been mounted on a white sculpture pedestal. The plant's long vines
are suspended in the air by a few dozen red, yellow, blue and green
helium-filled balloons. On one long wall of the gallery, Linares has
installed a mini-exhibition of small paintings which include: eleven
of the artist's rags used to clean his brushes, stretched and
mounted; two large circles which look like irises from two eyeballs;
three paintings in which the eyeballs of large-sized dolls have been
mounted; a FOR SALE sign mounted and framed under glass; the artist's
shoes imbedded in a slab of cement on the floor; two very large
unprimed canvases, one stained with a red blob, the other with a
green blob; a few small geometric designs painted with primary
colors; and three text paintings, one red, one green, and one black
which have been enscribed with the statement, ESTA PINTURA FUE
ENTREGADA CAMBIO DE UN MES DE RENTA DOMICILIARIO. MICHAEL D. LINARES. (trans. This painting can be traded for one month of rent)
“Well, is this painting, sculpture,
video, drawing, or what?” I ask Lillian. “Linares says it's all
painting,” she replies, “So, painting it is. That's one of the
beauties of being an artist, and one of the true pleasures of making
art,” she tells me. “The artist decides exactly what it is he or
she is doing, presents the work, and it's up to the audience to
decide if they believe what is declared; if they concur with the
argument the artist has presented.” “What if they don't agree?”
I ask. “That is part art's sifting and winnowing process,” she
says, “but regardless, we must take the artist's word regarding his
intentions. Then it is up to the spectators to make a decision about
the validity of the work. Of course, the opinions of some spectators
have more impact. Curators, critics and art scholars carry more
weight in this judgment process. Sometimes, despite an artist's
impassioned treatise, the judgment goes against him, the argument is
rejected and the work is either dismissed or ignored. Regardless,
this does not make the art not art. It just precludes the work from
being considered as part of the larger argument about art of the
moment. Clearly, an artist can be working ahead of, or against, his
or her time.”
“That's a rather popular notion,
isn't it?” I ask her. “The idea that an artist is working outside
the mainstream, not appreciated or even respected for what they are
doing. Popular culture seems to perpetuate the myth of the
misunderstood artist. Do you think this actually happens?” I ask.
“It's pretty rare,” she replies, “that an artist is rejected,
works away in relative obscurity, then later is hailed as a long-lost
genius. It is not a fickle or capricious process. Time and history
are the final arbiters.”
We will give Marcel Duchamp, the master
French-American artist who died in 1968 the last word, in the form of
a few quotes that we have collaged together to make one argument
about art and artists:
“In the chain of reactions accompanying the creative act, a link is missing. This gap, representing the inability of the artist to fully express his intentions, the difference between what he intended and what he realized, is the personal 'art coefficient' contained in the work. What I have in mind is that art may be bad, good or indifferent, but, whatever adjective is used, we must call it art, and bad art is still art in the same way that a bad emotion is still an emotion. I don't believe in art, I believe in artists.”
[Spanish version of article as published in En Rojo, cultural supplement of Claridad newspaper]
"UNPAINTING"
by Michael
Linares
http://michaellinares.com
Walter Otero Contemporary Art gallery
#402 Juan Ponce de Leon
Puerta de Tierra, San Juan
787 627 5797
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