Roy Lichtenstein at the Art Institute

Roy Lichtenstein’s introduction of commercial graphics and popular cartoon imagery into the black-tie artworld was such a spectacular and immediate success in 1961, one might wonder just how long his 15 minutes of fame was going to last. Which was probably a question he asked himself as he devoted the following decades to riffing on canonical art as well as comic books. It was a successful strategy, and without it, I doubt we would now have such an extensive career retrospective in a major museum. The exhibition’s program notes tell us that “he explored just about every art historical style out there”, but mostly he stayed within canonical modernism: Monet, Van Gogh, Picasso, Matisse, Brancusi, Mondrian, etc, with a final venture into Chinese landscape. All of it chopped up and processed in something of a graphic art meatgrinder, transforming everything to a clean, sleek, decorative style that suits a white cube, modern living space as smoothly as a Breuer chair. But does this work challenge or celebrate that process? Or does it just accept it – as one might accept the other consequences of modern life like air pollution, global warming, periodic financial crashes, and mindless chatter on radio and television? Despite those concerns, many of these productions do look pretty good, often with a hint of whimsy that can’t help but turn a frown upside down. And so he joins Jasper Johns and Gerhard Richter as the only post-war painters to have had something like a career retrospective at the Art Institute since 1980, which seems to recognize photography as the major vehicle for contemporary expression. In the 31 years following 1980,. the museum has given solo exhibits to 111 photographers but only 33 painters from the entire 20th Century. . The sensitive touch of a brush to a surface just doesn’t seem to be so important any more, and all it provided for Lichtenstein’s work was an occasional decorative flourish, as he seemed intent on making his pieces appear to have been mechanically produced. This is the kind of antiseptic nihilism that prominent Chicago artists have been reacting against for 50 years. We like our juvenile nihilism to appear more gritty and soulful.

Molly Zuckerman-Hartung at the MCA

Molly Zuckerman-Hartung at the Museum of Contemporary Art through July 24


Visual art summons meanings, and unrestricted by any obvious intentions, abstract art encourages free association. Abstract artists don’t need to be concerned with public responses like “No, that’s not Martin Luther King”. But unless they consider themselves to be decorators, there is usually some kind of profound association they would like to share with the world. Some offer these explanations in an artist’s statement; some leave it up to the gallerists or critics, but Molly Zuckerman-Hartung posts the 95 theses of her art theory up on an entire wall at the MCA.


The paintings/collages themselves are fascinating because they are so good, combining the effects of forceful self expression with what feels like the passivity of a chemical process, much the same way that colorful glazes play upon the surface of kiln fired ceramics, except that her multi-media technique offers her many more options for color and texture. Her appetite for creativity in these small pieces seems boundless – and indeed she often uses dyed strips of cloth to carry the colors beyond the boundaries of the rectangular surface. But that doesn’t necessarily make the pieces look any better, just as the wall full of text doesn’t especially explain them.


If a thousand people saw her paintings without reading her text, would even a single person guess she had purposed them to explore the “codes of capitalism”? And she doesn’t even attempt to explain which codes are being addressed by which paintings – nor does she seem to take her “95 theses of Painting” all that seriously. Soon after Martin Luther had posted his 95 Theses on the door of the Wittenberg church, the newly invented printing press disseminated his text throughout Europe, marking the beginning of mass communication and triggering the biggest transformation in European history until the French Revolution. But the Zuckerman-Hartung 95 Theses aren't even distributed at the gallery, much less over an internet which could spread her manifesto instantaneously all over the world. If she really wanted to.


So despite the successful paintings, the exhibit as a whole seems to express frustration - either with the limitations of her medium or with a contemporary theory-driven artworld in which good painting has become neither necessary, sufficient, or even relevant.

Petullo Collection at the Milwaukee Art Museum

James Dixon





Accidental Genius: Art from the Anthony Petullo Collection, through May 06,Milwaukee Art Museum


As Anthony Petullo relates, he began collecting art at the Milwaukee Art Museum’s annual “Lakefront Festival of the Arts” exhibit of regional arts and crafts. Now, 30 years later, he has given those pieces to his children, and gifted the museum with 300 works that he has collected with the sophisticated assistance of galleries that specialize in outsider or self-taught artists. But why should sophistication be more important to collectors of art than it was to the people who made it?

Petrullo may not be a self-taught collector, but he does seem to have taken some chances with several European as well as American artists who are neither well known nor self-taught. In addition to iconic names like Henry Darger and Minnie Evans, one can also find work by Sylvia Levine (1911-1998) whose similar work can currently be bought on the internet for under $500. And she wasn’t completely self taught. She took art classes and worked in an early 20th C. figurative style that probably helped her develop the strong quality of her reclining nudes. David Pearce (b. 1963) is also far from famous, though his sparse, lonely village-scapes show that he is also quite adept at presenting a dreamy and beautiful world. His gallery markets him as “self-taught”, but his own website indicates that he studied at the Epsom, Kent, and Chelsea schools of art.

The other artists in this show also create visual worlds that are distinctly their own, mostly self-centered, and some less happy than others. Only some of them can command interest without reference to the life story that has been posted beside the art, another one of those being James Dixon (1882-1970), whose seascapes feel as brisk and fresh as the wind swept Irish island on which he lived.


None of these pieces are distinguished by exceptional virtuosity or important new developments in form or ideal. Do they really belong in the permanent collection of a major art museum? But the show is a good way to connect to the life stories of some very independent people, and many of the pieces are more visually compelling than anything currently found in the Milwaukee museum’s galleries of contemporary art. Art about self may not aim very high, but still it’s usually more interesting than art about art. The show could be even better if it completely abandoned the pretense of “self-taught”, and opened itself to a broader and less ambiguous category like “non MFA”, while hunting for the best pieces culled from the millions of amateur and professional painters of landscapes, flowers, children, birds, geometric patterns, whatever. Sophistication be damned.

Heaven and Hell at LUMA and Intuit

Heaven and Hell; Intuit and LUMA, through June 30

With it’s emphasis on The Word, Protestant Christianity has not had much use for visual narrative art, and when it has been used in Sunday school texts and such, it has run between dry and anemic. But it’s emphasis on individual salvation is a good match for those obsessed with personal visions, i.e. outsider artists, and nothing seems to have inspired them more than the depiction of Heaven and Hell.

This exhibition, drawing from 40 private and museum collections around the country, began as LUMA’s initial venture into the wild and wooly world of outsider art, so they wisely brought in the expertise of the Intuit Center Two curators, one from each institution, collaborated on making all the selections, and then the display was split between both galleries, with, appropriately enough, the Jesuit university hosting heaven and the outsider art gallery raising Hell

And that Hell is really hellish, often envisioned by people who have had difficult lives, sometimes ending up in prison. The life story of each artist is told in some detail, making the bizarre visions more understandable, my favorite being Royal Robertson. After his wife ran off with another man, the artist collaged a few cartoon Godzillas attacking a picture-perfect beach and light house. But even better is the sculpture, which doesn’t rely on any explanatory text, but stands proudly, and freakishly, on its own, as each artist-prophet “sees more devils than vast Hell can hold”.

As one might expect, self-motivated artists can more easily identify with the willfulness of Satan rather than the obedience of angels, and while Hell is supposed to be ugly, Heaven really ought to be beautiful (not just pretty). So the depictions of Heaven are less compelling. But still, some of these untaught artists were quite talented in their chosen media. Clementine Hunter is one of the few painters in the show who seems to respond more to paint than to message, while William Edmondson was so good at carving strong, simple shapes, he was the first African American to have a one-person show at the Museum of Modern Art.

So there are lots of discoveries to be made in both shows. All three of the artists mentioned above were African-American, and a good show might be made including only that ethnic group. While a better show might have given less emphasis to Howard Finster, who has 19 pieces on display. His cheerful, benign images may serve well to introduce outsider art to newcomers, but just like television evangelists, he also seems to have crossed the line between prophet and entrepreneur. If an outsider artist is trying hard to please other people, is he still an outsider?

Jim Lutes at Valerie Carberry

In 1917, after two decades in the insane asylum, Ralph Albert Blakelock (1847-1919) was released to spend his final months painting more of the moody, moonlit landscapes that were then selling for record-breaking prices. Journalism had made the crazy artist a celebrity, but his kind of painting was also respected by critics, one of whom wrote: “He is practically alone in the nervous vibration of his touch, that snaps and sparkles like an electric current." Thirty years later, a critic connected him with the Abstract Expressionist pioneers who valued “experience over perfection, vitality over finish, the unknown over the known.” And 95 years later, in an art world where eccentric visions are the norm, SAIC professor Jim Lutes is once again painting moody landscapes which, as the press release notes, have his “signature calligraphic gestures.” Those who saw his 2009 retrospective at the Renaissance Society might well be surprised. Until now, his career has moved back and forth between abstract expression and spectral, sketchy, flabby figuration. But the four wall-size landscapes now showing in Valerie Carberry are far too picturesque to be considered contemporary, which is not to say he hasn’t tried to bring them up to date. His paintings are still recognizably twenty-first century, with space that feels flat, objects that are pixelated and little concern for Baroque luminosity or realistic textures. They are accompanied by a boulder sized, clear urethane bag stuffed with brightly colored trash, in a strategic nod to Pop and conceptual art. Unless marked “work of art”, the janitorial staff would probably carry it off to the dumpster.

But still, each huge image has given this viewer the overwhelming and uncomfortable feeling of standing smack in the middle of Kelly Creek, Idaho, confronted by impenetrable walls of boulders, encompassed by dark, dangling foliage, with no apparent pathway to escape this dark, remote valley in the Bitterroot Mountains. The Impressionists shared their pleasure with the great outdoors, Blakelock shared his wonder at its mystery, and Lutes shares his anxiety with what he calls the “Dumb Country”. His views are as dramatic, convincing and entertaining as scenes from Jon Boorman’s violent film Deliverance. But so are many of the professionally painted backdrops in the display cases at the Field Museum. What’s missing in all of them is the aesthetic rapture that Blakelock’s tradition of romantic landscape was able to deliver. Those paintings made you want to stare into them for as long as possible. Lutes’ paintings make you want to run back to the car before night falls.

Inscribing the Divine: The St. John's Bible

Inscribing the Divine: The Saint John's Bible, LUMA Museum, through Oct. 23

In 1998, master British calligrapher Donald Jackson (b. 1938) was commissioned to hand letter and illuminate the entire bible, from Genesis to Revelation. No longer proclaimed as the first such project in 500 years, it may well be the first ever that involves an English translation approved by the Catholic Church. The author of “The Calligraphers Art”, Jackson has been a major force in the revival of same, and his abilities have been complemented by up to 20 collaborators under his supervision.

The thirteen bifolia from the Pentateuch and Psalms included in this exhibit only hint at the scope of this project, which cost over 4 million dollars, and has lasted over 10 years. A Committee on Illumination and Text, comprised of Benedictine scholars, supervised theological content. Their approach has been ecumenical and text centered, offering a cogitation on ideas rather than picture windows onto the world.

Chris Tomlin’s meticulous, naturalistic illustrations of plants and insects appear occasionally in the margins and Aidan Hart’s Byzantine figuration appears in the later books. But mostly this project reflects the simple, clean, though sometimes enervated elegance of Donald Jackson’s calligraphy, complemented by the bright, loose splashes of color in his illuminations.

The narrative illustrations are few and far between, but when they occur they can be fascinating and innovative. For example, the dark, spotted, discontented faces of Adam and Eve are a far cry from the sweet, innocent bunglers of tradition. Nor are they full figure nudes. And God does not appear as that big old guy in the “Creation” that Wiligelmo and Michelangelo once imagined him. Indeed, the seven stages of creation, beginning with the “big bang” and culminating in abstract human images that resemble Paleolithic rock paintings, might just as well have been used in a grade school text book on natural history.

The institutional, ecumenical and decorative priorities of this project, and its supervision by a calligrapher, may preclude exciting, visionary imagery, But since the modern technology of reproduction and distribution allows this kind of labor intensive project to be profitable, hopefully, many other Christian institutions will be inspired to commission their own versions with a greater emphasis on story telling. Most of the bible illustration done today is at, or below, the aesthetic level of cereal boxes. From the fall of the Roman empire up to the 19th Century, biblical narration was the primary subject of Western art, and nothing that came after has sustained its focus on human dignity, destiny, and spirituality.

Tass War Posters

Windows on the War: Soviet TASS Posters at Home and Abroad, 1941–1945
Through October 23, 2011, Art Institute of Chicago.

(the text in red was edited out)



In 1939, Clement Greenberg famously distinguished avant garde art from kitsch, the “predigested art” manufactured for the “ignorant Russian peasant” who knows “no discontinuity between art and life”. That distinction has framed the discourse of American art ever since, but it was a matter of life and death for Soviet artists once social realism was officially established by Stalin, and even more so after June 22, 1941 with the beginning of a Nazi invasion that would take 23 million lives.

In 1997, 26 mysterious brown paper parcels were discovered deep in a storage room of the A.I.C. ‘s Department of Prints and Drawings. They turned out to be the legacy of a cultural exchange 50 years earlier that brought to Chicago a collection of war propaganda posters created by TASS, the Soviet News agency. Ranging in size from 5 to 10 feet tall, their irresistible visual impact is stunning, especially now, after they have been restored to their original condition, augmented with spectacular pieces from other museums (including M.O.M.A and the Hoover Institute) and displayed chronologically to tell the story of both the art studio that created them, and the nation that was fighting for its life.

Thanks to Greenberg’s theoretical distinction, American museums have only shown Russian art which is early 20th C. avant garde. . A single example of Russian realism, impressionism, or Orthodox icon painting will not be found in the encyclopedic collection at the Art Institute of Chicago. But now, perhaps, that will change with the impact of these dramatic posters, many of which are as graphically severe and strong as they are narrative. Possibly the art director of the TASS studio, Pavel Sokolov-Skalia (1899 – 1961), himself a very good designer, deserves much of the credit. As one might expect from a government run production studio that employed 300, at least half of the work does not rise above the illustrations one would expect to find in a grade school text book. But there are also many examples of the painterly approach and tendency toward abstraction that characterize the work of Sergei Kostin (1896-1968) even if he was criticized for preferencing aesthetics over message.

And most enjoyably, as the Nazi armies were driven back, there is that dark, cantankerous Russian sense of humor that the war propaganda of other nations just can’t match.

This is a fun show! Now, when do we get to see the great Russian realist painters of the last 200 years?