Protesting The Painted Protest

Dean Kissick begins his essay, “The Painted Protest,” which appeared in Harper’s, by coolly describing how his mother lost both legs getting hit by a bus en route to an exhibition at the Barbican in London. It’s quite the doozy of an opener, galvanizing the reader’s attention from the get-go. But I can’t help wonder how Mom (or should I say Mum) feels having her personal calamity inserted so casually in a magazine article on art. But whatever. 

The premise of “The Painted Protest” is that contemporary art has destroyed itself by becoming too political. I think we can all agree that there’s been an overabundance of haranguing political tedium taking up far too much exhibition space in recent years, but I would argue it’s the quality of the work, not the subject matter that’s at fault. 

Frankly, I don’t see how an artist can be anything but political these days. Artists are our societal barometers, tapping into the general zeitgeist in ways ordinary slobs do not. Suffering isn’t new, but nowadays we’re connected in ways never before possible—things happening in remote corners of the world are front and center in our lives.

The notion that art used to be free from politics is simply ludicrous. There are plenty of examples of political artwork in the history of art. Aside from the obvious; Goya, Daumier, Picasso, Grosz, there are countless more—we just don’t recognize their work as political because its meaning has been lost over the years, but it doesn’t mean it didn’t deliver a potent message to its contemporaries. More recently, you probably couldn’t get more political than the 1993 Whitney Biennial—perhaps the most controversial in the Whitney’s history. That’s the one where the usual museum entrance tags were replaced with ones by artist Daniel Joseph Martinez bearing the legend: “I can’t imagine ever wanting to be white.”

It’s hard to convey the effect of this bold salvo back then. The button, and the show itself, which featured a diverse group of artists with white male artists in the minority for the first time ever, created a furor. Out of this, a conversation began to develop about culture and who controlled it. Whose province were museums? Did they belong to the white—at the time mostly hetero, or hetero presenting—elite, or were they open to everyone? Kissick may dismiss the identity focus of that show, but it caused a much needed sea change in the art world.

I guess it depends on what you’re looking for, but when I visited the 2024 Whitney Biennial, which I reviewed for Artillery magazine, I didn’t pay much attention to any of the artists Kissick cites, quite possibly for the very reasons he has problems with them. The one exception was Mapuche artist Sebastiana Calfuquero’s piece, which contrary to Kissick, I found both inventive and interesting—I didn’t realize it “was a thing” not having seen “Unravel,” or Antonio Pachijhillá Quiacaín’s version. 

But the point is there was PLENTY of other really compelling work on view—none of which Kissick mentions. The biennial has always been a mixed bag—as is contemporary art itself—it’s not some monolithic movement with all its members proceeding in lockstep toward a common goal. It’s a much messier affair, with all sorts of different things going on at the same time, and a whole lot of trial and error and experimentation of ideas, media, themes, etc. happening.

Kissick spends so much time dissing indigenous artists and complaining about the elevation of traditional “women’s work”, that the leitmotif playing in my head while reading his piece was, “you will not replace us.” Can’t we open the art world up to include marginalized people for a turn? God knows white men have held it in a stranglehold for centuries. 

Kissick looks back with nostalgia to a time ten years ago when he claims the art world with its art fairs and biennials was “a space of spectacle and innovation”. While I certainly agree with the spectacle part, I don’t recall seeing much innovation at any of the art shows I attended (granted, I am not as well traveled as Kissick, but I’ve been to a fair number), nor any “workshopping new cultural forms for a new millennium.” Actually, I’ve seen just the opposite: a lot of derivative or safe work, with artists basically phoning it in.

Kissick cut his teeth working for style magazines in London and it shows. For all his bravura writing ability and knowledge, it’s clear he’s far more interested in the scene than the art: “The art world was where you would find the broadest remit to do whatever you wanted. It was where you could find the most unusual and preposterous ideas—and open bars, sex, and glamour too. This was the art world that I was drawn to.” Interning at the tony Serpentine Gallery under Hans Ulrich Obrist whom he describes as “the preeminent aughts super-curator” no doubt helped cement this attitude of insular superiority. 

“Artists could do whatever they pleased: they were famous, respected, sexually desirable;” he continues. “they could turn anything into art and create their own reasons for doing so; they made huge amounts of money for not doing very much.” Wow. Nice work if you can get it. But seriously, that’s what floats your boat? Most artists I know would howl at the description which sounds like a 16-year old status-seeking boy’s wet dream. I think what Kissick’s describing is an art star, not an artist. And while there are some art stars deserving of the accolades—Gerhard Richter for one—not all artists are famous in their lifetimes. What’s hot now doesn’t necessarily last, and fame doesn’t necessarily equate with quality. 

I do concur that contemporary art is in crisis but the culprit isn’t politics, it’s greed. It’s corrupted the market, elevating mediocre artists, killing off creativity and amplifying the extraneous fluff Kissick finds so appealing. 

Kissick is clearly enamored with Tom Wolfe, using Wolfe’s highly controversial 1975 book, The Painted Word as inspiration for his essay’s title. It’s unclear whether it was Kissick’s decision or Harper’s, but Wolfe’s “Visual Tedium” (an excerpt from The Painted Word) appears directly after Kissick’s essay as a kind of addendum and additional link between the two.

The premise of Wolfe's book (an excerpt of which originally appeared in Harper’s) was that art theory a.k.a. “the word” had gotten completely out of control, taking over the art world and subsuming the actual art. 

It’s true, a good deal of criticism spends far too much time on theoretical bullshit, and far too little on the more challenging feat of analyzing the artwork. But I’d also point out that as art veered away from what Arthur Danto refers to as “mimesis”, becoming ever more nonobjective and conceptual, “the word” became necessary to understand what was going on. Wolfe disparages critics, but critics, especially in the modern and contemporary art fields, are interpreters of often very abstruse work. You may not agree with them, and that’s your prerogative, but even if you disagree, what they say can be catalytic, helping you form your own opinions.

There’s a smart-alecky, sour grapes quality to Wolfe’s writing that suggests he was personally affronted that his preferred style (representational art) was out of favor in the period in which he was writing. He refers to members of the art world (critics and gallerists), who he claims are controlling the art market, condescendingly as “art worldings.”

A highly successful writer, Wolfe pioneered New Journalism, which utilized fiction devices in nonfiction writing. It was revolutionary, but Wolfe himself was a conservative and traditionalist and this is borne out by his attitude towards art.

Wolfe’s piece for The New York Times, “The Artist the Art World Couldn’t See” (January 2, 2000) about American sculptor Frederick E. Hart who’d recently died, provides a real window into his way of thinking. It’s clear from the piece that Wolfe was as taken with Hart the man who possessed an irresistibly colorful southern backstory (which Wolfe describes in detail) as he was with the artist. 

But the real crux of the piece was that he was peeved that Hart had been largely ignored by critics and was passed over in favor of Maya Lin for the Vietnam Memorial commission. Wolfe was appalled by Lin’s design for the memorial, referring to it in braying Archie Bunker fashion as a "tribute to Jane Fonda" and a "nihilistic slab of stone”. He wanted a more traditional narrative  approach that showcased his idea of what a sense of honor and heroism associated with war memorials would look like. 

Hart was a technically gifted sculptor who as a young man apprenticed at the National  Cathedral in Washington D.C. and went on to produce the admittedly stunning “Creation of Mankind” for the sanctuary’s west facade tympanum. The quality of the carving and the conception of the design are extraordinary and it suits perfectly, its traditional ecclesiastical setting. Looking at it you can surmise that had Hart lived in an earlier century he’d have been highly acclaimed. 

Hart ended up being included in the Vietnam Memorial in the end after veterans groups lobbied to have a representational statue added to the design. (It’s important to note that they were reacting to the plans, not the memorial itself, which, when once built, people responded favorably to.)  

There’s no question that Hart’s “Three Soldiers” is skillfully rendered, but it also seems cheesy next to the quiet grandeur of the ineffably stirring monument. The real problem is the statue’s traditional academic style doesn’t relate to the late 20th century experience. As Jackson Pollack put it: "New needs need new techniques. And the modern artists have found new ways and new means of making their statements...the modern painter cannot express this age, the airplane, the atom bomb, the radio, in the old forms of the Renaissance or of any other past culture.”

The Vietnam Memorial and Hart’s statue provide a study in contrasting styles and the responses they provoke. On the one hand, there’s Lin’s abstract design and on the other, Hart’s narrative statue. Lin’s piece is open ended, asking the viewer to bring their thoughts and emotions to engage with the piece. She understood the power in the names, how they would resonate with family members and strangers, and how the list presented the sum total—a grim receipt, if you will—of what the war actually cost us. Hart’s is more directed with a set cast of characters, expressions, circumstances. It spells out in narrative form a characteristic post-combat scene, yet it seems hollow and trite, even hokey with the bronze figures sporting modern clothing which looks a little silly rendered in bronze.

I’ve visited the memorial a couple of times and have noticed that few people pay attention to the sculpture (which was subsequently joined by a second sculpture honoring the 11,000 women who served in Vietnam). Instead, visitors are drawn irresistibly to the names carved in black granite.

I’m glad Wolfe lived long enough to witness the unfolding of the career of the young woman whose work he so denigrated. When he did so, Wolfe was in his prime, a highly lauded member of the white intellectual establishment, while Lin was a 21-year old Asian student. But in the ensuing years, Lin’s proved she’s got the goods, in high demand for both her architecture and artwork since 1981. By the time Wolfe died in 2018, she had attained the status of bona fide art world luminary. Meanwhile, during the same time period, Wolfe’s own star was growing far dimmer than it once was.

I get that Kissick saw similarities between his argument and Wolfe’s and that the play on the title was too tempting to resist, but the idea of turning to Tom Wolfe for insightful observations about modern and contemporary art seems terribly misguided. I wonder if Kissick just couldn’t resist Wolfe’s dashing literary star persona. There’s no question Wolfe, tricked out in his bespoke white suits and spectator shoes exuded that all important glamor.

But I don’t know how you can take someone in the modern and contemporary art fields seriously who’s so dismissive of nonobjective art, one of its cornerstones. In remarkably boorish fashion, Wolfe equates nonobjective art with lack of skill, unaware that most serious abstract artists have a great deal of art training under their belts. The choices that determine the outcomes of their art have to do with aesthetic and visceral decisions rather than a desire to showcase skillfulness and/or to depict the human form. It’s almost like Wolfe needs the figure to keep himself oriented. He also bemoaned the lack of beauty. But isn’t art supposed to encompass all human expression, the good and the bad? Should’t it provoke thought and reflect its era in profound ways? It’s not just decor. 

Wolfe was wrongheaded—and just plain wrong—about Lin’s memorial and about abstract expressionism. Back when he wrote “The Painted Word”, he claimed abstract expressionist paintings were being mothballed in guest rooms in the Hamptons. But, these days—50 years on—they’re very much front and center in museums and still fetch astronomical prices at auctions. Meanwhile, the photorealists Wolfe championed in the same article, Richard Estes and Robert Bechtle, never really took off, and  Hart, whose fame Wolfe suggested would explode ten minutes after his death, remains in the shadows.

In his 2000 New York Times piece, Wolfe goes on to extol the work of long out of favor academic painter William-Adolphe Bouguereau whose idealized landscapes and overly sentimental figures exude a dull, bourgeois respectability. He also expresses dismay that the small, acrylic sculptures that Hart mass produced and which had "grossed $100 million” weren’t ever reviewed by critics. I don’t really know what to say to this. For so many reasons, it’s just plain ludicrous, and along with everything else, should make you seriously question what Wolfe says about art.

I do appreciate Kissick’s writing chops. His virtuosic command of both language and ideas is impressive. I have no clue where he stands in the realm of connoisseurship. He extols work that I find pretentious, or even, meh while ignoring what’s really good. And I’m a little confused by how Kissick really feels overall. Despite his obvious love of the glamor side of the art world, early on in the essay, he acknowledges that by 2016 it had become “frivolous and decadent.” 

Similarly, after trashing indigenous/identity artists at the beginning of the piece, towards the end he makes a complete about face, referencing four (Rember Yuhuarcani, Santiago Yuhuarcani, Susanne Wenger, Xiyadie) whose work he admired at the 2024 Venice Biennale. “What makes these artists great is not that they are foreigners, but that their visions are so foreign.” I take foreign to mean fresh, and I agree with him that originality is one of the keys to a work’s success. But it’s not the whole enchilada. You need execution and something else which I will call soul.

Kissick’s essay created enough of a flurry that he wrote a response published by Harper's. In it he advocates making art that “explores how it feels to be alive right now.” For him that’s heavy on technology. He suggests “developing modes of art making that complicate artistic subjectivity” using things like MRI machines to scan people’s minds, or offering oneself up as source material for bots, as well as, “[creating] more complex models of identity to reflect our integration with media, avatars, and data in the twenty-first century.” Has he been talking to Elon?

It seems pretty unimaginative to think that artists are just going to use these things as tools. Isn’t it more likely they’ll provide a jumping off point for inspiration and subject matter? With Big Brother looming and AI being rammed down our throats, many of us have grown beyond weary of technology. That’s actually “how it feels to be alive right now.” We’re not all tech bros thinking this is peachy keen. I believe it’s far more likely artists will turn their backs on anything that looks remotely like AI and embrace a way forward that is human-wrought and human-driven. But Kissick and his ilk shouldn’t fret too much, someone’s going to produce art for the remaining billionaires and I’m sure there’ll still be plenty of spectacle.