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| Richard Estes, 'Nedick's', Oil On Canvas, 1970 |
Context:
My previous post
referred to my recent visit to the exhibition, ‘Photorealism: 50 Years Of Hyperrealistic Painting’ at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery. This post will
focus on that show and my reflections on the work within it.
BMAG seems good
at staging these ambitious shows, (would that someone here in Leicester had the
resources or vision). Last year’s ‘Metropolis: Reflections on The Modern City’exhibition impressed me greatly and I was intrigued to view what is being
billed as the first major UK survey of Photorealism. I hope the horror stories about Birmingham’s
public finances won’t mean that shows of this stature soon become a thing of
the past.
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| Ralph Goings, 'America's Favourite', Oil On Canvas, 1989 |
The use of
optical devices by painters in search of high realism is hardly a new
phenomenon, Johannes Vermeer being an obvious example of a painter whose work
gained an unusual characteristic appearance through reliance on drawing systems
and lens technology as early as the Seventeenth Century [1.].
However, here we’re talking about the movement of representational
painting that arose in America in the late 1960s and 70s, and in which imagery
was derived after the fact of photography rather than just from life through
the lens. Even this was not actually new
but the attempt to create a perfect facsimile in paint was. Photorealism is usually seen as a reaction
against the expressionistic abstraction that dominated mid-century American
painting, and as a more deadpan offshoot of Pop Art’s celebration of industrial
design and commercial culture. Some
accounts regard it as a dead-end in the continuum of painting, but most
practicing artists also know that linear accounts and standard explanations are
of little creative use.
 |
| Ralph Goings, 'Airstream', Oil On Canvas, 1970 |
The curators of
this exhibition identify three generations of Photorealism, charting its
beginnings amongst a group of (mostly American) painters in the late 1960s and 70s; its expansion as an
accepted trope of international painting in the 1980s and 90s; and continuation
into the Twenty-First Century with an increasing reliance on digital technology.
Response:
There’s clichéd sentimentality
about much Photorealist subject matter.
The first generation in particular tends towards nostalgia for the
familiar Americana motifs of classic diners, commercial signage, Art Deco facades
and Detroit gas-guzzlers. It feels like
we drove here from Edward Hopper’s old gas station, maybe watching some Last
Picture Show en route. However, this
work lacks the social history one finds in classic photography or the archness
of Pop Art. It mostly looks like good
ol’ retro Romanticism.
 |
| John Salt, 'White Chevy - Red Trailer', Acrylic On Canvas, 1975 |
Occasionally, we
do see the cracks in the American Dream.
Birmingham-born John Salt depicts once-shiny cars in states of
abandonment and disrepair, typical of those that litter the real American
landscape by the thousand. Jack Mendenhall translates found images of West Coast interiors to disquieting
effect. His ‘Ochre Couch’ (1975), feels like the living room where Laura Palmer
grew up.
 |
| Jack Mendenhall, 'Ochre Couch', Oil On Canvas, 1975 |
The very term
‘Realism’ itself seems fraught with difficulty.
If Pre-Modernist painting was a search for convincing illusions, since
the advent of photography it has really been about questioning the nature of
illusion itself, and the relationship between different media. The lesson of Impressionism, Post
Impressionism and Cubism was that visual ‘truth’ is completely subject to the
vagaries of human perception and that no mode of depiction could be regarded as
realistic that does not account for the shifting viewpoint, the fleeting
glimpse and the duration of time spent in looking. The real Photorealist agenda, then, is not to
nail down how humans see, but how the camera records and these are two very
different things. Part of its madness, but
also what makes it interesting, is how it seeks, (and generally fails), to emulate
the mechanical capture of a brief moment through extended periods of obsessive
labour and incredible manual dexterity.
 |
| Robert Bechtle, 'Alameda Chrysler', Oil On Canvas, 1981 |
Ultimately, these
paintings seem less about actual appearance and more about translation.
Photorealism should be seen as a significant if misguided chapter in the story
of painting’s relationship with photography .
Surely, in Walter Benjamin’s ‘Age
Of Mechanical Reproduction’ [2.], it
would have been remiss not to try this at least.
 |
| Davis Cone, 'Thompson', Oil On Canvas, 1990 |
Actually, none of
these paintings look like the world as we really see it. Neither do most really look like photographs
either. (By now we’re familiar with the
ways photographs don’t tell the objective truth). These pieces lack the residue of a draughtsman’s
dialogue between eye and brain, evident in Euston-Road style objectivity for example,
but many also gloss over the limitations of exposure, lens distortions and effects
of shutter speed that make photographs so of themselves. They resemble idealised paintings of
photographs, - a category in its own right.
 |
| Bertrand Meniel, 'Fairmont Hotel', Oil On Canvas, 1991) |
Once the second
generation get into their stride, the pursuit of artificial pin-sharpness becomes
quite bizarre, as in Bertrand Meniel’s ‘Fairmont
Hotel’ (1991). Each component is so precisely
rendered that he conjures a sort of hyper-real hallucination way beyond either
photography or first hand experience. In
the process, his little fluffy clouds become rigidly sculptural, appearing to
have drifted in from a fifteenth century altarpiece. Even those painters that do consciously
incorporate depth of field effects, like Audrey Flack, still don’t quite capture the essential
appearance of photographs somehow.
 |
| Audrey Flack, 'Shiva Blue', Oil Over Acrylic On Canvas, 1972-73 |
There are a couple
of exceptions to all this. Rod Penner, reaches
near perfect degrees of emulation but doesn't really excite me, whilst Yigal Ozeri, accounts
for the limitations of photographic exposure skilfully, but sadly, in the
service of strangely unsettling depictions of pretty young women in natural
settings. Perhaps it's just me, but they seem only a step away
from a different form of ‘nature photography’.
 |
| Yigal Ozeri, 'Jessica In The Park', Oil On Paper, 2010 |
Another painter
who gets close is Peter Maier. Like
many Photorealists he is drawn to automotive subject matter, (all that chrome
and curvaceous glossy bodywork appears irresistible), and precision-sprays numerous
coats of car paint onto aluminium, achieving a finish of sumptuous, bottomless liquidity. Whilst totally illusionistic, these seem more
about pushing surfaces to an acme of material perfection and interest me more
as objects than as mere images. It’s
car-porn essentially but like most fetishism, psychologically intriguing.
 |
| Peter Maier, 'Gator Chomp', Du Pont Chromax AT On Aluminium, 2007 |
This raises
interesting questions regarding the difference between objectification of the
(here, female), body, and the eroticising of objects. John Kacere’s cheesy depictions of
lingerie-clad female midsections just seem unjustifiable, lacking, as they do,
any discernible element of conceptual rigour or critical context. Even where an entire figure is depicted, as
in the work of Bernardo Torrens, there remains no sense of a living person beneath
the perfect surface. We are reminded
that a figurative photograph, however posed, captures one moment in the
continuum of a life but always implies the animation that preceded or followed
it. To paint from life obviously takes
account of the sitter’s material presence, living and breathing as time
unfolds. To slavishly copy a photograph
of them however, is to create a static monument to an already frozen image, - a
two dimensional statue, if you like.
 |
| Don Jacot, 'Rush Hour', Oil On Canvas, 2009 |
Much safer then,
to take simple visual pleasure in all those lovingly-reproduced polished
metallic surfaces, layers of transparency, and glossy, saturated colours
elsewhere. Be they architectural,
automotive or still life-derived, all demonstrate how much of Photorealism is
the cheerful worship of surfaces combined with a taste for the sweetest eye
candy.
 |
| Chuck Close, 'Self Portrait', Etched Print On Paper (Proof), 1977 |
Ironically, Chuck Close, the one artist here who does successfully marry human subject matter
with photo-emulation, doesn’t really belong in this exhibition at all. Close shows us his construction grid and builds
his portraits by filling each cell with a consciously gestural mark. Where others aim for seamless illusion, Close
deconstructs the process involved in a far more conceptual way.
 |
| Richard Estes, 'Telephone Booths' Acrylic On Board, 1967' |
For me, the real
Old Master of Photorealism appears to be Richard Estes. His depictions of urban frontages use
geometric composition to achieve a rigorous abstract formality, despite their
photographic illusionism. ‘Telephone Booths’ (1967), and ‘Nedick’s’ (1970), achieve great
complexity within their compositional armatures, fragmenting the world in
fascinating ways. With their skillful
colour schemes and love for the abstract qualities of polished metal surfaces,
these are just impressive paintings before and after they are Photorealist
paintings.
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| Ben Johnson, 'Looking Back To Richmond House', Acrylic On Canvas, 2011 |
The most recent
practitioners of Photorealism increasingly rely on digital technology to
realise their images. Disappointingly,
their detailed urban vistas often just resemble a form of ambitious tourist
art. Ben Johnson’s immensely labour
intensive team efforts ultimately feel like architect’s models of sterile ideal environments. Raphaella Spence
uses a helicopter to achieve massive panoramic distance before reconstructing ultra high-res images on a pixel-by-pixel basis. Her
spectacular, light-drenched ‘Vegas’ (2011),
does at least find a subject whose intrinsic hyperreality finally matches the
bizarre nature of its representation.
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| Raphaella Spence, 'Vegas', Oil On Canvas, 2011 |
Conclusion:
Photorealism has
always struggled for critical acceptance, as Alastair Smart’s recent review proves. My own take on it may also seem critical, but
I should point out that I really rather enjoyed this exhibition. I’ll admit to seeking an irony in these
paintings that I suspect often isn’t there, and that I may relate to some of
the work on the level of guilty pleasures.
There’s something a little thrilling about their regular transgressions
of ‘good taste’ and, if nothing else, many of these artists have doubtless
added to the range of things that paint can do.
It’s a genuinely thought-provoking exhibition, as the length of this
post reveals.
[1.]: Useful technical insights into the relationship
between Vermeer’s painting and the science of optics can be found in: Martin Kemp, ‘The Science Of Art’, New Haven & London, Yale University
Press, 1990.
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