THE

LOVE
OF
PAINTING
 T U L isabelle
I nL GRAW

LOVE
OF
I
PAINTING

GENEALOGY OF
A SUCCESS MEDIUM

Sternberg Press
 Introduction
pp. 9-27

CHAPTER I CHAPTER II

PAINTING'S INTENSIFIED ANTI-SUBJECTIVE

EXTERNALIZATION AND PROCEDURES AND
INTELLECTUAL PRESTIGE SELF-ACTIVE PAINTINGS

For Connoisseurs Only- The Force of the

Painting Specialists Impersonal Brush-
and Their Subject Matter Reflections on
pp. 32-47 Frank Stella's Early Work
pp. 88-101
For my mother, The Knowledge
Annette Eisenberg-Graw, of Painting- Painting as
who loved music Notes on Thinking and "Object-Tableau"—
and painting Subject-Like Pictures Ellsworth Kelly at
pp. 48-58 Haus der Kunst, Munich
pp. 102-107
The Outside Is
the Inside— The Gray Haze of
On Edouard Manet at Subjectivity—
the Musee d'Orsay, Paris On Gerhard Richter at the
pp. 60-67 Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin
pp.108-116
Painting in a
Different Light— Unreconciled: De-skilling
A Conversation with versus Re-skilling—
Jutta Koether about A Conversation with
Joan Mitchell Charline von Heyl
pp. 68-82 pp.118-130

CONTENTS
 CHAPTER IV CHAPTER V CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER III

PAINTING AGAINST PAINTING WITHOUT BEYOND NETWORK THE VALUE OF

PAINTING PAINTING PAINTING PAINTING

Painted Critique The Absent Painter- Frozen References The Economy of

of Painting— Six Theses on the to Life in Avery Painting-
From Anti-essentialism Reflection on Value Singer's Paintings Reflections on the
to the Myth of Self-Activity and Painting in pp. 262-274 Particular Value Form
in the 1960s and 1980s the Work of of the Painted Canvas
(Immendorff, Polke, Koether, Marcel Broodthaers The Curse pp. 316-333
Oehlen, Kippenberger) pp. 206-223 of the Network—
pp. 136-157 A Conversation Questions of Value—
Painting without with Myself about A Conversation between
"Hi, Here 1 Am, That a Painter— Jana Euler's Paintings Kerstin Stakemeier
Must Be Enough"— A Conversation with pp. 276-287 and Isabelle Graw
The Persona and the Wade Guyton pp. 334-347
Product in Martin pp.224-239 Follow Me:
Kippenberger's Work Painting in the Age
pp.158-181 Human Figures with of Social Media— Acknowledgments
a Painterly Appeal- A Conversation with pp. 352-356
Painting as a On Anthropomorphism Alex Israel
Cover Story— Mannequins, and pp. 288-312 Author Biography
A Conversation with Painting in the Work p.357
Merlin Carpenter of Isa Genzken
pp.182-199 and Rachel Harrison Bibliographic Note
pp.240-257
p. 359

Image Credits
pp. 361-364

CONTENTS
CONTENTS
 Introduction

Painting and love are like sisters; they are very different, of course,
but are tightly connected and related in many ways. Since antiquity,
the idea that the painter (always male) is inspired by love has been
widespread: painting, the object of his passion, is assigned the status
of a (female) lover.1 Once love is declared as the driving force of
his practice, the painting resembles a projection of his love—a male
fantasy. Although this gendered scenario hindered the emergence
of,female painters for a long time, it does posit love as the decisive
drive of the painter's practice.2 If we regard painting and love as insti­
tutions, as "disembodied beings" that bestow substance on non­
existent ones (such as painting or love),3 then similarities can also
be found in the history of their development. The normative ideal of
romantic love and the formation of modern painting, with its aca­
demies and discourses, were widely established and institutionalized
Where painting is, in the eighteenth century.4 In both cases we are dealing with cultural
love is not far away. and social structures that—as institutions—determine the scope
of what can be said and done in certain areas. Painting and love thus
operate like "success media" insofar as they have been symbolically
generated and have become institutionalized since the eighteenth
century.5 Success media in Niklas Luhmann's sense are more powerful
than the usual "media of distribution" because they are able to con­
struct worlds and produce universal values. They are also associated
with a production of truth found in both love and painting.
Love and painting are thus brought closer together historically:
since a single horizon encompasses their common emergence, it
seems appropriate to emphasize this through the title of this book,
The Love of Painting. In much literature focused on painting, writers,
both male and female, have often described an overwhelming feeling
of love for what is depicted in a painted image.6 In the eighteenth
century, above all, painting prompted what Ulrich Pfisterer has
termed a "loving vision"—a kind of sensory-affective perception. As
this book will show, this mode of seeing is at the same time quite
valid and projective, equally phantasmatic and caused by something
concrete.7 The main characteristic of this projected love is that it

INTRODUCTION
is grounded in painting's materiality; nonetheless, something must of course, assume the possibility of distinguishing painting as a genre,
also be projected onto the picture. However, rather than indulging in medium, or at least as something special. Even where painting has
the love of painting—twentieth-century French theories of painting been excluded in exhibitions or major art events, as seen at the 9th
are particularly inclined to do this8—I attempt to trace the material, Berlin Biennale (2016), one encounters installations, videos, photo­
art-historical, and sociological reasons for this art form s specific graphs, or assemblages that appear distinctly painterly. By painterly
potential in view of a contemporary capitalist system that has increas­ I mean these works activate various rhetorics associated with paint­
ingly turned into a digital economy.9 ing, for example, in their formal references to the tableau.11 Even for
non-painting practices, painting has clearly become a key frame of
Painting's Exceptional Position reference. Recent publications, including the new edition of Painting
in the Twenty-First Century Now (2015), the anthologies Painting: The Implicit Horizon (2012)
and The Happy Fainting of Painting (2014), and most recently
This book is also a study of painting under the often-invoked post- Vitamin P3: New Perspectives in Painting (2016), testify to this re­
medium condition. In the twenty-first century, unlike the early to mid- newed interest in the medium.
twentieth century, painting was no longer a dominant art form. Painting is also still very popular at auction houses, although
From the 1960s onward, the much-discussed "dissolution of artistic it has always traditionally been at the apex of the hierarchy of forms.
boundaries" completely dismantled hierarchies of genre. This is par­ Nonetheless, it is notable that painted pictures—for example, by
ticularly the case today, as seen with the many artists who favor a Pablo Picasso, Christopher Wool, Gerhard Richter, or Jean-Michel
multimedia approach or have installation-based practices.10 Painterly Basquiat (all male painters)—always set record sale prices at auction.
practices, too, have long since pushed the limits of the painted In pragmatic terms, I will connect this particularly high regard
picture: the specific way of hanging paintings can be considered es­ for painting in the commercial sphere of the art world to the mercan­
sential to art, as with the work of R. H. Quaytman, or the way the tile advantages of painted canvases, which are particularly well
outside world (e.g., buildings) is treated as a canvas/surface for paint, suited to international—and now global—transactions. In addition to
as in the work of Katharina Grosse. Some galleries and large-scale relatively easy transportation, paintings have comparatively low
exhibitions—from documenta to the Tate Modern extension, say— production costs. But setting aside what Martin Warnke has called
are already dominated by non-painterly formats, such as performance, "logistical considerations," which were already decisive in the inven­
film, and photography. Nevertheless, I will propose the almost tion of painting on canvas in the fifteenth century,121 argue that
counterintuitive sociological argument that painting holds an excep­ the high status of painting is above all explained by its intellectual
tional position under the post-medium condition. In recent years, prestige. More than any other art form, it has a long history of theoret­
painting has received much more attention in critical writing and ical exaltation. Its flat pictorial arrangement and the limitation of
theory, and contemporary painting exhibitions have been extremely its surface have contributed to this process of intellectualization: as a
popular, bolstering an increased interest in the art form. A growing symbolically loaded mode of distancing, whose spatial limits force
number of exhibitions have proclaimed its resurgence, from MoMA's it to represent its contents in compressed form, the painted canvas
widely discussed survey show "The Forever Now: Contemporary demands intellectual abstraction on the part of the spectator, too. It is
Painting in an Atemporal World" (2014-15) to "Painting 2.0: literally open for speculation.
Expression in the Information Age" at Museum Brandhorst in Munich Early theorists of painting such as Leon Battista Alberti (1404-
(2015-16) and mumok in Vienna (2016). These affirmative gestures, 1472) and Leonardo da Vinci (1404-1519) were still primarily

THE LOVE OF PAINTING

INTRODUCTION
 concerned with distinguishing painting from technical craftsmanship to art criticism, which has (rightly) liberated painting from its nim­
and lionizing it as a manifestation of a universal knowledge. Today, bus of "obsolescence," releasing it from modernist self-reference by
however, as described in David Joselits essay "Painting beside Itself fusing it with the tradition of the readymade.17 In his study on
(2009), painting is viewed as a medium destined to absorb social Francis Picabia, George Baker has demonstrated how painting loses
and digital networks into itself.13 It is worth noting that from the early its essence once it incorporates the readymade.18 Instead of holding
modern period to the present, painting has been continuously asso­ on to the fictive ideal of an aesthetic immanence, such painting
ciated with intellectual capacities: it has either been thought to display strongly advocates that which is outside of its aesthetic realm. For the
knowledge (as expressed in Alberti's or Leonardo's writings) or as­ past twenty years, I have also pointed out that painting and Con­
sumed to possess the power to do things and act, as argued by Joselit ceptual art are not, as was once assumed, polar opposites; rather, they
when he declared it able to visualize digital and social networks. In are directly related to each other.19 I still think this insistence on
other words, intellectual or acting capacities have been frequently painting's conceptual nature was a necessary and absolutely appropri­
ascribed to painting, which also lend it the appearance of a superior ate step—particularly given artistic practices like those of Stephen
practice. Prina, Sherrie Levine, Jutta Koether, and Albert Oehlen—to break
Ever since the early modern treatises on the medium were down the entrenched polarization between a type of painting that was
written, in relation to a long-running debate known as paragone regarded as expressive and an allegedly anti-expressive Conceptual
(comparison), the uniqueness and durability of paintings have been art. But looking back, it is also clear that such an expanded and more
presented as a decisive argument for the primacy of painting over conceptual understanding of painting has helped to restore the
other arts. For example, in his writings on painting, Leonardo stressed medium's cachet. When painting is declared to also be a form of
that painting (unlike literature) was unique because it could not Conceptual art, institutional critique, or performance art, it ceases
be reproduced. Moreover, unlike music it did not vanish or decay and to be questionable and becomes a kind of meta-medium, viewed
remained "precious and unique."14 An obvious and significant con­ as entirely unproblematic—although of course it never is.
nection links uniqueness and preciousness: a painting's uniqueness
underlies its status as a precious object. I would suggest that these Painting as a Formation
factors—the singularity, preciousness, and longevity of the painted
picture—continue to have a latent resonance in painting's contempo­ Then again, the term "painting" is also a collective singular noun.
rary status as, in Hans-Jiirgen Hafner and Gunter Reski's words, a Like many blanket terms, it can mean a wide variety of things: paint
"supreme discipline."15
on a flat surface, a concrete artistic practice, an eighteenth-century
An art-sociological look back at the past several decades tends to institution, an early modern invention, or just a specific painted
confirm painting's contemporary relevance. The pressure on painters picture. The concept as such clearly exceeds individual paintings, but
to legitimize their choice of medium has eased since the turn of the its vagueness correlates to the changing historical development of
millennium. In the 1960s, '70s, and '80s, painters still felt compelled the art form. With the historical avant-garde of the early twentieth
to extensively justify their recourse to the medium, but in the dec­
century, painting began a process of expanding and opening up to the
ades since, painting has come to be seen as a largely unproblematic
world around it, whether by inscribing external lifeworids literally
practice in many art academies where students choose to paint
and materially within paintings (as in the collages of Georges Braque
without a feeling of guilt or unease—as if it was a natural possibility,
and Picasso), or by extending into space and thus, metaphorically,
a given.16 This boost to painting's legitimacy is also indirectly linked
into lived reality (as in El Lissitzkv's installations). The restrictive

THE LOVE OF PAINTING

INTRODUCTION
 modernist concept of painting is clearly inadequate to these dev e - of crucial importance. In my perspective, formations do not generate
opments: championed by Clement Greenberg, it held that the picture themselves quasi automatically, as Foucault suggests, but rather
stops at its frame and is subject only to immanent and supposed!) emerge because of specific practices that generate products that can
given conventions.20 Instead, a different conception of painting is be assigned to the singular agents who produced them.
needed, one that can take into account the medium's openness
as well as its specificity. (Or perhaps its residual specificity: if it were Genealogical Critique in
entirely without specificity, the word itself would no longer have the Light of Affectivity
meaning.)
Against this backdrop, I define painting by using Michel Foucault's To define painting as a formation means to not conceive of it as a given
term "formation" to describe the specificity of painting as well as or self-evident. Lovers of painting are especially inclined to hvpos-
its current despecification.21 According to Foucault, formations are tasize and naturalize the medium by invoking it in a pathetic or
historical structures that change over time while also obeying cer­ reverent tone, as if it had always been in existence.23 Moreover, the
tain "rules of formation." The Love of Painting therefore focuses on mere mention of painting creates a mental image of a grand unified
the genesis of painting as a formation, on the historical changes it entity, appearing imperious before us. In German grammar this
has undergone, and on its enduring characteristics. In conceptual totality seems all the more subject-like: a direct article makes it not
terms, the advantage of the formation is that it allows us to conceive just "painting" but "the painting," die Malerei. In truth, of course,
of changes, openings, and boundary shifts, alongside aspects that painting is not a higher being with a capacity for action. Nor has it
persist over time. ever been.
Like other Foucauldian formations—the "economy" and "psychi­ For this reason, I will use a genealogical approach to trace the
atry," to name two—the formation known as "painting" has contin­ historicity of this formation. In doing so, I will locate the genesis of
ually absorbed new phenomena. Think, for example, how many early the painted panel in early modern Western Europe between the
modern painters routinely assimilated the lessons of other media, fifteenth and the eighteenth centuries.24 Around this time, painting
including poetry, rhetoric, dance, sculpture, and theater, a list that freed itself from its existing contexts (e.g., frescos, altar pieces,
later included photography. However, although painting's absorptive book illustrations) to emerge stronger still in the form of a painted
capacity has made it an extremely heterogeneous medium, it has canvas that was moveable. The historical arguments for painting,
also "obstinately maintained itself," as Foucault put it.22 This is typical whose current relevance I am assessing, were essentially developed
of formations: for painting, a key symptom has been the particularly in Western and Eastern Europe, and more specifically between Paris
tenacious existence of the "painted canvas" format. Right up to and northern Italy (and with the historical avant-garde throughout
the present day, painters have returned to or referred to this format Europe and Germany and Russia in particular). After 1945, by
or some variation of it. Painting, it seems, dies hard. This holds contrast, the debate shifted: from then on, it was conducted princi­
even for non-painterly practices such as Isa Genzken's or Rachel pally between Western Europe and North America. The ideas and
Harrison's assemblages: I will show that they, too, take guidance from values associated with painting in this book are thus characterized by
painting conventions and adopt painterly rhetorics, for example, Western thought, and are not easily applicable to non-Western
by applying Impressionist-style brushstrokes to the surface or graffiti­ painting.
like spraying. Whereas Foucault's formation plays down the im­ Recalling this formation's specific geography and historical evolu­
portance of acting agents and their products, I consider them to be tion also means looking at it from the distance of a perspective

THE LOVE OF PAINTING

INTRODUCTION
15
 informed by the present; this opens up painting to potential critique.-3 the idea of the formation is based on the insight that we cannot regard
But, as I will repeatedly demonstrate in this book, painting is quite individual paintings, or works of art of any kind, as "isolated reali­
capable of absorbing critique, possibly more so than other media. ties."29 In this book, I do sometimes immerse myself in the specific
When I discuss postwar painting, it will become clear that criticism of visual idioms of individual paintings, but my analysis does not stop at
the medium has made it stronger and more revitalized. This does their edges. In essays and case studies, I also examine how forma­
not mean that critical analyses of painterly practices are altogether tions extend into the paintings, and how, conversely, the fact that
superfluous. On the contrary, the model of genealogical critique this paintings are deeply embedded within a formation is reflected within
book proposes can weave together closeness and distance, analysis them. Painting's exteriors—the art world, the art market, society
and affectivity. One of the main reasons I turn to this approach is that at large—are thus interpreted as its interior.
it can create distance while also drawing attention to the subject's The artworks I analyze were selected first and foremost because
entanglements and complicities.26 My genealogical historicization of of their exemplary character within painting as a formation—they
painting as a formation goes hand in hand with an engagement with typify the theses of the study particularly well. Yet it is not my objec­
the specific potential of paintings, and even more, with a readiness tive to impose a theory from outside. Instead, I confront the works
to be affected by them. It is often claimed that the affective power of with a theoretical intuition, one that grows more concrete but also
painting surpasses reason and cannot be captured in words.27 Indeed, encounters complications. Rather than attempting a survey of paint­
this book will show how paintings address us in sensory terms. But I ing as a formation in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, this
tie this affective potential back to painting's distinctive media and book subjects painting's extraordinary vitality to closer examination,
material characteristics—and that is crucial. The Love of Painting thus including through case studies. Ultimately, of course, my choice of
insists on a less mythically charged concept of affectivity, one that works is based on personal preferences, informed by exhibition visits,
seeks out the causes of affect within paintings themselves, while also discussions, and research.
stressing the projective dimension of affective responses.28 As a formation, painting can be understood not only as a set
of artistic practices but also as a historically situated set of rules that
Methodological Premises— can resurface and remain effective under new historical conditions.
No Picture Ends at Its Edges, Exemplary For example, early modern arguments for painting continue to exist
Case Studies, and the Afterlife of the Past in our own time. Conventional art-historical periodization—for
example, into classical, modern, and postmodern epochs—rarely
Formations are not characterized solely by their products—in our focuses on these kinds of connections. Nor can a linear art-historical
case, these products include individual paintings but also variations narrative properly apprehend the interplay of discontinuity and
on the format, such as Wade Guyton's digital prints or Ken Okiishi's continuity that shapes a history filled with contingencies. The Love
painted screens. Instead, they are defined by a variety of actors, of Painting thus opts for a model of history that uses existing classifi­
theories, and institutions. In the case of painting, these include the cations while also questioning them, aiming to illustrate unexpected
painters themselves and also apologists, patrons, collectors, gallery linkages and the afterlife of old tropes. This animated engagement
owners, critics, agents, and museums, as well as the creation of legends with the past also opens up a different approach to the present.30
and discourses surrounding painting. All of these characters and So if there are sometimes leaps through time in this book, it is owing
entities stand in complex reciprocal relationships, which in turn feed to an archaeological conception of history that, following Foucault,
into painting as a formation. From a methodological perspective. believes the present can only be understood if we continue to keep the
past in view.31

THE LOVE OF PAINTING

INTRODUCTION
 However, unlike Foucault's "discursive" formations, which, as the I discuss the tension between the "inside" and "outside" in Joan
term suggests, are above all linguistic in nature, painting as I under­ Mitchell's paintings with Koether in chapter 1, making particular
stand it is a formation that, though discursive as well, largely manifests reference to Mitchell's gradual withdrawal from the professional New
itself in the visual realm. This means that its rules are not estab­ York art world in the late 1950s. In my conversation with von Heyl
lished solely by discourses, such as theories of painting, but are also in chapter 2, we consider the current shift from "de-skilling"—that
formulated on a visual and material level. is, the deliberate rejection of painterly skills—to "re-skilling," the
renewed significance of skills like composition. In chapter 3,
No Theory of Painting "Painting against Painting," Carpenter rejects my attempt to discuss
without Conversation his work under this heading in order to describe how his painted
pictures are primarily commodity-like "by-products" of his artistic
Every painted picture thus contains genuine painterly pragmatic practice. The conversation with Guyton in the in chapter 4 centers
knowledge. However, this knowledge remains dependent on experts. on whether his laser-printed pictures are examples of "painting
The codes at play in an artwork—such as lumps of paint, silk- without painting." In chapter 5, I speak with Israel about the effects
screen marks, or the visual language of figuration—have to be deci­ of social media on his conception of painting, as well as the attrac­
phered, along with their historically variable meanings.32 Paintings tion of painterly material signs in a digital economy. Finally, in
do not explain themselves: that is one of my fundamental presup­ chapter 6, my conversation with the art historian Kerstin Stakemeier
positions. This is the case even for paintings inscribed with textual attempts to apprehend painting's particular value form: here, paint­
messages, which in this respect seem to suggest their own interpreta­ ings are understood as ideal commodities, possessing a specific power
tion.33 Even a "speaking" painting needs an expert who can identify of attraction.
and interpret its performative move. However, painting historians do
not accumulate knowledge merely through perception and by read­ Painting as a System of Signs
ing texts and documents. Since the early modern period, their knowl­
edge has above all derived from conversations with painters they Beginning with Quintilian, the influential Roman teacher of rhetoric,
are friends with. Painting theorists like Alberti or Felibien always em­ observers noted the particular affective power that paintings exert
phasized the importance of these conversations, suggesting that on their viewers. He attested to painting's ability to deeply penetrate
their insights resulted from discussions with practicing artists.34 In the our "innermost feelings," far exceeding the power of the spoken word.36
Renaissance, conversations were a more widely used format for Interestingly, this capacity to profoundly move the spectator is
scholarly treatises, offering a framework in which to discuss technical ascribed to paintings in comparison with—and in contradistinction
or thematic questions.35 To an extent, the course of these conversa­ to—speech. In the Renaissance, too, painting and language were
tions helped decide the direction of painting as a formation. Given often discussed in close conjunction. It was assumed that eloquent
the historical significance of the conversational format in theories of speech and painting "sprang from the same source," which meant
painting, I have included conversations in this book even con­ that their relation was also one of rivalry,37 fueled in no small part,
troversial ones—with painters who are my friends, including Jutta it was suggested, by the fact that both arts aimed at "persuasion"—
Koether, Charline von Ileyl, Merlin Carpenter, Wade Guvton, and Alex in other words, they both sought to convince their audience of a par­
Israel. These conversations have helped me discuss, deepen, revise, ticular position.38 In terms of affective power, painting was regarded
and test the theoretical presuppositions presented in each chapter. as clearly superior: Leonardo, for example, claimed that the erotic

T H E LOVE O F P A I N T I N G
INTRODUCTION
 appeal of pictures was far stronger than that of love poetry.-1' Compar­ De Pury confesses to his belief that the artist and his or her work are
ison with speech served to highlight the superior capacities of paint­ a coherent whole, which is why he always wants to meet artists
ing, which was seen as having greater sensuous and erotic allure. whose work he was fascinated by. He also considers artworks to be
While this juxtaposition of painting and language was intended to "living objects" that "lead their own life and are equally energetically
prove the superiority of painting, it also highlighted the language-like charged as we are"—in other words, he perceives them as quasi
qualities of the art form. This long-established theme was addressed subjects that are saturated with the life of their creator. And this is why
as far back as Horace's dictum ut pictura poesis ("as is painting, he encounters them like beings. The phantasmatic idea of a living
so is poetry"), which stressed the similarity of painting and poetry. artwork is presented as something that de Pury has experienced and
This tradition suggests that to gain a more precise understanding of is therefore convinced by.
painting's affective potential, it may be useful to understand it as
a language, albeit from a semiotic perspective, which is to say, as a Vitalistic Fantasies
sign system. There is a deep connection between the sign and its
affective force, which is why I link painting's affective potential to I consider painting to be the area in which such vitalistic fantasies
the particular materiality of its signs. flourish if only because there appears to be a close bond between
From a semiotic point of view, a sign is, to use Umberto Eco's painter and product. Many painters have aimed to produce vitalist
phrase, a "physical form" that refers the receiver to something it de­ effects of this kind in manifold ways. I am not only examining the
notes, designates, or names, while not itself being that thing.40 Now specific processes in which painters have personalized their work, or,
the particularity of painterly signs seems to reside in their constant in other words, how they charge them with personal specificity. I'm
foregrounding of their physical form, their materiality and cor­ also interested in the larger question of how—in view of the person­
poreality. In painting, we perceive the sign's materiality above all alization of products not only in painting but also in the media society
else, independently of its referent or its mode of reference, whether more generally—a rigorous distinction can still be drawn between
iconic or symbolic. This materiality can have varying degrees of persons and their products. I will argue that the overlap between
conspicuousness, depending on the style of brushwork and how product and person, or more precisely, between person and persona,
paint is applied. It becomes tangible as form in what Merlin Carpenter is something we need to acknowledge so we can continue to keep
calls "haptic events," often intentionally deployed by twentieth- them apart.
century painters who were well aware of the affective charge of rips, The reason why the vitalistic fantasy of a persona inside the pro­
streaks, and smears of impasto. Visible brushstrokes and glossy duct is produced is seen in the specific materiality of the product,
oil paint can trigger a haptic longing to touch the painting's surface. which gives the fantasy a concrete basis while simultaneously open­
Moreover, these kind of haptic events can give rise to what I call ing it up to analysis. Within this kind of fantasy, materially visible
vitalistic fantasies": for example, the belief, going back to painting painterly signs, like brushstrokes, are read as "traces of an activity."43
theorists in antiquity, that paintings bear some resemblance to their In this context, however, fantasy does not indicate a purely illusory
creators.41 Despite actually being absent, the artist is imagined production.44 On the contrary, vitalistic fantasies need a material
into the picture she or he has created and seems to maintain a ghostly anchor that occasions them. In other words, they are not conjured
presence within the work. It is important to realize that animistic out of thin air, but artists deliberately prompt them, in full awareness
concepts of this kind are not a thing of the past, as some recent remarks of their vitalistic effects. At the same time, these fantasies remain
by former art auctioneer and agent Simon de Purv demonstrate.42 dependent on the viewer's projection of meaning onto them; these

THE LOVE OF PAINTING

INTRODUCTION
fantasies can only be called into existence through an act of projec­ Various TVpes of Aliveness
tion. One key reason I call these fantasies vitalistic is because they
imaginatively assume qualities of living beings such as subjectivity, Throughout this book, I will put forward what I regard as the proto­
liveliness, and animation for dead material. In a vitalistic fantasy, type of vitalistic fantasies: the trope of liveliness. This has been a
human attributes—like self-command, will, and energy—are projected basic anthropological figure since the early modern period, although it
onto lifeless material. Such fantasies are vitalistic inasmuch as they has taken on a wide variety of forms since its original emergence.47
posit that life, imagined as a kind of elan vital, is capable ot blazing As seen in the writings of Alberti, liveness functioned first as an
its own trail without encountering limits or conflicts. What they hold aesthetic ideal that was the yardstick of the aesthetic success of a
out is, in Samo Tomsic's formulation, a "life without negativity.' 4s painting. For the Italian humanist, painting's task was to "[let] the
This is an imaginary life, of course, all the more imaginary in a capi­ absent be present" and to show the dead to the living.48 Accordingly,
talist society with its coercions, inequalities, and antagonisms. These a painting, acting like a "divine power," had to ensure that the fig­
vitalistic fantasies are repeatedly sparked by paintings, which might ures it represented appeared as alive as possible. Color was constantly
be said to serve as an ideal hook for them, even embody them, when­ declared to be the most important vehicle of this aesthetic, which
ever paintings create the impression of possessing subjectivity or of is to say that it contained artificial aliveness and was credited with the
having painted themselves. capacity to bring dead matter to life.49 Color seems to me to have
The contemporary relevance of such fantasies is illustrated by been predestined for this task thanks to pigment's inherent relation to
the trope of the "living picture," which has enjoyed considerable pop­ nature. Pigments are harvested from nature and thus come with an
ularity in recent years, especially in visual studies.46 The premise immanent aspect of life and self-agency.50 In addition, the corporeality
that images are alive, that they lead lives of their own, has largely been of pigments, their connection to the material world, is apt in creat­
discussed without particular regard for the projective aspects of vital­ ing the impression of life. In the course of modernity, aliveness has
istic fantasies. Moreover, visual studies does not differentiate ade­ certainly lost some of its centrality as a criterion. However, this book
quately between various types of images, as between aesthetic images will show that contemporary painterly practices continue to refer
and advertising images, and tends to neglect questions of the his­ to this trope inasmuch as they aim, in a variety of ways, for an effect
torical position and context of images. Nonetheless, the emphasis on of aliveness. Even nineteenth-century realist paintings hewed to
the energies that seem to emanate from the image itself has helped the ideal of aliveness, although it was redefined as arising from demon­
bring the specifics of particular artistic works into focus. The insis­ strative artificiality.51 Through the emphatically theatrical staging
tence in visual studies on the living picture, however, runs into an of the figures in their portraits, artists like Edouard Manet created
additional problem, one it shares with the Deleuzian form of vitalism: a second-order aliveness, one that emphasized the manner of its mak­
both approaches presume the possibility of an autonomous dynamic, ing and presented itself as an effect of the painterly process. In the
an unfolding without negation. In other words, they sketch an imag­ early twentieth century, non-painterly strategies became the principal
inary scenario from which the obstacles and resistances that actually way in which life was breathed into art, from collages containing
thwart the dynamism of the semblance of self-acting life (including elements of "life" to readymades, which could be said to incorporate
within painting!) are largely absent. This may help explain the appeal the living labor of manufacturing workers.52 Even nonfigurative
of the idea of a living and somehow autonomous painting that lets painters like Wassily Kandinsky and Piet Mondrian understood the
us forget an antagonistic reality and its constraints. picture as a living organism that seemed to exist and change autono-

THE LOVE OF PAINTING INTRODUCTION

mously.53 Aliveness is clearly not exclusive to a figurative visual implicated into the value-sphere if only because of the products that
idiom—the impression of a living picture can also be achieved in ab­ result from this labor. I illustrate that this is especially true for
paintings because they nourish the fantasy that they are enriched
stract painting.
The Pygmalion myth proved to be another variant of the ideal of with artistic labor. Artistic labor is drawn into the value sphere be­
aliveness, and a particularly tenacious one. Already in the nine­ cause of the product it is associated with. Marx's concept of value has
teenth century, we find it in updated form in novels about artists, a further advantage in that it relates value to labor in an unsubstan­
with Honore de Balzac's Le chef-d'oeuvre inconnu (1831) and Emile tial way. According to Marx, value is the place where concrete labor is
Zola's L'ceuvre (1886) as the most pertinent examples.54 In these abstracted from, where concrete labor is transformed into "abstract
books, not only did the painter render and the viewer perceive the labor." In other words, value is seen as the place where a transfor­
subject of a painting as brimming with life, but the painting itself mation from concrete to abstract labor takes place—and this is why
mutated into a quasi-human (always female) entity, a being making it is so hard to grasp value, why it is such a slippery, chimeric, and
relentless demands of its creator and abiding no rivals. Here again elusive concept. In the case of artworks, and paintings in particular,
we are faced with a vitalistic fantasy, one that interestingly appears in we must realize that their value is not inside them but is always else­
modified and updated form today. In interviews, painters such as where. And it was Marx who insisted on the social dimension of
Francis Bacon and Charline von Hevl have described, with varying value he described as a thoroughly social phenomenon. He also under­
degrees of irony, the act of painting as if the painting itself had guided lined value's metonymic nature: how the value of one commodity
the brush.55 On the other hand, the mythic idea of an autonomous, is expressed by another in a process of exchange. Thus, artworks and
subject-like painting capable of action does not come from nowhere; paintings are not valuable as such.
it resonates with the experience of production. While working on a Like the commodity fetish described by Marx, paintings are also
picture it can seem to the painter as if his or her work were painting said to possess a "mysterious" power of agency, at times appearing
itself. The vitalistic fantasy, in other words, is based on something like "independent beings endowed with life."59 But painting commod­
concrete: the vitalistic potential of painting itself. ities also differ from the commodity insofar as they suggest, in var­
ious ways, that their labor process is directly contained within them.
Painting's Specific Value Form This holds even in instances where the painter hasn't touched the
canvas—such works can still create the impression that the labor
Finally, I argue in this book that paintings bear a structural resem­ process, the artist's ideas and initiatives, have condensed in his or her
blance to the commodity fetish as described by Karl Marx, while re­ product. It is the value-theoretical proposition of this book that
maining to be commodities of a special kind.56 My recourse to Marx's works of art have the capacity to fill the illusion of their value with
labor-value theory might seem controversial at first since he occa­ substance. To put it another way, artworks nourish the precapitalist
sionally considered artistic labor an ideal case of unalienated labor that fantasy that their conditions of production are contained directly
doesn't fall under the law of value.57 But when examining his writ­ within them. If we consider that these vitalistic fantasies are a central
ings in more detail, one realizes that he did count "all products of art driving force within capitalism, as Tomsic also emphasizes, it follows
and science, books, paintings, statues, etc." as material production, that painting occupies a privileged position in the capitalist system
which means they are to be considered things of value, or "value as a preferred supplier of such fantasies. It takes the position here
things as Marx also called them."vS Even if artistic labor is not produc­ of an ideal commodity, an aspect I will discuss in more detail in
tive wage labor that generates surplus value, it is nevertheless chapter 6, "The Value of Painting."

THE LOVE OF PAINTING

INTRODUCTION
 Unlike normal commodities, paintings are unique material prod­ editions and with motifs from the history of painting. But despite
ucts that are marked by their singularity—a singularity that points attempts in recent years to give luxury goods the same status as art­
to a singular creator. Only the artist could have produced (or initiated) works—and especially paintings—they haven't been able to claim
the product, and so the artist/painter occupies the position of a similar cultural importance and intellectual prestige. Paintings hold
monopolist. He or she is—and this in contrast to the wage laborer- a special status in this regard because they are symbolically loaded
irreplaceable. However, it is possible that others gain profit from value-things that can't just be reduced to their economic dimension.
his or her product or enrich themselves by selling it (e.g., collectors
or auction houses). But even in those instances when the product
circulates independently of its author, without the artist being able to
control it, it will still be associated with his or her name, as when
the artist is absent from its circulation or after his or her death. I will
therefore argue that artistic labor—and this is true for the labor
of the painter in particular—comes with the privileges and freedoms
that somehow seem to get deposited in his or her product.
Painting is thus declared to have a specific value form that also
derives from the fact that it is associated with a comparatively
self-determined work process and with a material product that results
from this work. Both the self-determined work and the resulting
product have become rather unlikely in an increasingly digital eco­
nomy. And since painting is associated with the diminishing availabil­
ity of this coming together of artistic labor and product, a fascination
for painting increases in such an economy. More than other com­
modities, the painting-commodity appears to be enriched with the
privileges and freedoms of artistic labor. It is the materiality of this
product that is seen as nourishing this fantasy: the product is often
perceived containing traces of artistic labor and is therefore experi­
enced as self-active or alive. But it is important to note that paint­
ing s materiality doesn't only trigger such vitalistic fantasies; it also
demonstrates and reminds us of the fact that we are ultimately only
dealing with dead matter. In my mind, painting has a dual nature
because of its materiality: it equally prompts vitalistic fantasies and
iterallv stands in their way. And this dual nature renders painting
so attractive in our increasingly digital economy. Painting's special
appeal becomes particularly visible in luxury goods that are de­
signed to mimic them, for example, in the branding and advertising
o commercial products (as a way to individualize them) as limited

THE LOVE OF PAINTING

INTRODUCTION
 10 Amy Sillman, for example, regards films and
Notes diagrams as an integral part of her painterly
Martin Kippenberger: The Problem la peinture," in CEuvres esthdtiques, ed.
Perspective, ed. Ann Goldstein, exh. cat., Paul Verniere (Paris: Free University of
practice. In the work of Martin Kippenberger, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles Bordas, 1991), 714.
1 See Daniel Arasse, Vermeer: Faith in printed matter such as posters has the same (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press), 184-215. 28 This mythically inflected idea of affect can
Painting (Princeton, NJ: Princeton significance for him as painted pictures. IS See also Baker, "Artwork Caught by the Tail," be found in theories of affect influenced by
University Press, 1994), 23: "Here we find On the theme of the "dissolution of artistic 95-156. Deleuze such as Brian Massumi's, who
a popular theme of the day according to boundaries," see also the work of the 19 See my essay, "Conceptual Expression: On suggests that affect is an "excess" over what
which the highest degree of artistic fulfill­ research group SFB 626 (Asthetische Conceptual Gestures in Allegedly Expressive language can express. Brian Massumi,
ment is reached when the painter paints for Krfahrung im Zeichen der Entgrenzungder Paintings, Traces of Expression in Proto- Ontopower: War, Powers, ami the State of
love of his art." Kiinste) at Freie Universitat Berlin. Conceptual Works, and the Significance of Perception (Durham, NC: Duke University
2 On love as a driving force in painting, see 11 See Helmut Draxler, "Painting as Apparatus: Artistic Procedure," in Art after Conceptual Press, 2015).
Ulrich Pfisterer, Kunst-Geburten: Kreativitat, Twelve Theses," trans. Gerrit Jackson, Art, ed. Alexander Alberro and Sabeth 29 The notion that a painting can be viewed as
Erotik, Korper (Berlin: Verlag Klaus Texte sur Kunst, no. 77 (March 2010): Buchmann (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, an "isolated reality" can be found, for
Wagenbach, 2014). 108-11. 2006), 119-33. example, in Gilles Deleuze, Francis Bacon:
3 Luc Boltanski, "Die Macht der Institutionen," 12 See Martin Warnke, Hofkiinstler: Zur 20 See Clement Greenberg, "Modernist Painting" The Logic of Sensation (London: Continuum,
in Soziologie und Sozialkritik (Berlin: Vorgeschichte des modernen Kiinstlers (1960), in The Collected Essays and 2004), 2.
Suhrkamp Verlag, 2010), 82-129. (Cologne: DuMont Buehverlag, 1985), 266. Criticism, vol. 4, Modernism with a 30 On a living relationship to the past, with
4 See, for example, Nathalie Heinich, Du peintre 13 See David Joselit, "Painting beside Itself." Vengeance, 1957-1969, ed. John O'Brian reference to Foucault's archaeological
a I'artiste: Artisans et academiciens a I'age October, no. 130 (Fall 2009). 125-34. (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1993), method, see also Giorgio Agamben, "Europa
classiqne (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1993). 14 Leonardo da Vinci, Leonardo on Art and 85-93. Greenberg speaks of "essential muss kollabieren," Die Zeit,September 10,
On the development of Romanticism in the the Artist (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications. norms or conventions of painting," so by 2015, http://www.zeit.de/2015/35/giorgio
eighteenth century, see Gerhard Neumann, 2002), 85. his account, these are something objective -agamben-philosoph-europa-oekonomie
"Lektiiren der Liebe," in Ober die Liebe: 15 See Hans-Jiirgcn llafner and Gunter Reski, and given. -kapitalismus-ausstieg.
Ein Symposion, ed. Heinrich Meier and "Vorwort. The Happy Fainting of Painting," 21 See Michel Foucault, "History, Discourse 31 On Foucault's archaeology, see Agamben,
Gerhard Neumann (Munich: Piper in The Happy Fainting of Painting: and Discontinuity," Salmagundi 20 "Europa muss kollabieren."
Taschenbueh, 2001), 9-79. Ein Reader zur zeitgenbssischen Malerei. (Summer-Fall 1972): 225^18. 32 On the significance of practical knowledge
5 See Niklas Luhmann, Die Gesellschaft der ed. Hans-Jiirgcn llafner and Gunter Reski 22 Foucault, 225-48. in painting, see Jacqueline Lichtenstein,
Gesellschaft (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp (Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther 23 I regularly witnessed this reverent, pathos- Les raisons de I'art: Essai sur les theories
Verlag, 1997), 203. Kcinig, 2014), 8-9: "However, if painting filled tone in the Cologne art world in the de la peinture (Paris: Editions Gallimard,
6 See, for example, Diderot on Jean-Baptiste can so easily win back its place as a supreme late 1980s and '90s: it was adopted as soon 2014).
Greuze's Young Girl Crying over Her Dead discipline, when and how did critical as conversation turned to painting. 33 On self-interpretation in painting, with
Bird: "I don't like to trouble anyone; despite discourse become too exhausted to prevent 24 Hans Belting and Christiane Kruse made a focus on Poussin's images, see also Marin,
that, I wouldn't be too displeased to have this? To put the question another way: reference to painting's historicity, stressing To Destroy Painting, 24-29.
been the cause of her pain." Denis Diderot, what happened to the old enmity between that painting in the fifteenth century was 34 See Leon Battista Alberti, On Painting, ed.
The Salon of 1765," in Diderot on Art, criticism and painting?" a "new manifestation." See Hans Belting and trans. Rocco Sinisgalli (Cambridge:
vol. 1, The Salon of 1765 and Notes on 16 This is not only true for the Staatliche Hoch- and Christiane Kruse, Die Erfindung des Cambridge University Press, 2011), 17-20;
Painting, trans. John Goodman (New Haven, schule fur Bildende Kiinste (Stadelschule) Gemaldes: Das erste Jahrhundert der and Andre Felibien, preface to Entretiens
CT: Yale University Press, 2009), 99. in Frankfurt where I teach but also for many niederltindischen Malerei (Munich: Hirmer sur les vies et sur les ouvrages des plus
7 On the theme of "loving vision," see other national and international art Verlag, 1994), 10. excellens peintres anciens et modernes,
Pfisterer, Kunst-Geburten, 29. academies. 25 On the genealogical method and its critical 2nd ed., 2 vols. (Paris: S. Marbre-Cramoisy,
8 An example of theories that are infatuated 17 For an exemplary study that linked painting potential, see also Martin Saar, Genealogie 1685-88), n.p.: "II est vray que j'ay eu cet
with painting, I would refer to Louis Marin, to the readymade, see Benjamin H. D. als Kritik: Geschichte und Theorie des avantage de connoistre les plus excellens
To Destroy Painting, trans. Mette Hjort Buchloh, "Readymade, Photography and Subjekts nach Nietzsche und Foucault Peintres de nos jours."
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, (Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 2007), 9-22. 35 See Louis Marin, De I'entretien (Paris:
Painting in the Painting of Gerhard Richter,"
1995); Georges Didi-Huberman, Die 26 On the relation of the subject to
in Neo-Avantgarde and Culture Industry: Editions de Minuit, 1997); and Heinz Georg
leibhaftige Malerei (Munich: Wilhelm Fink Essays on European and American Art genealogical critique, see Saar, 16. Held, Die I^eichtigkeit der Pinsel und
Verlag, 2002); or Daniel Arasse, Histoires de from 1955-1975 (Cambridge, MA: MIT 27 For one example of this view, see John La Federn: Italienische Kunstgesprache der
peintures (Paris: Editions Denoel, 2012). Press, 2000), 365-403. See also George Farge, Considerations on Painting Renaissance (Berlin: Verlag Klaus
T- J. Clark's In Sight of Death: An Experiment Baker, "The Artwork Caught by the Tail: (New York: Macmillan, 1895). He writes: Wagenbach, 2016).
in Art U riting is also marked by a similarly Dada Painting," in The Artwork Caught by "Art begins where language closes" (p. 118). 36 Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, trans.
strong enthusiasm for his subject. the Tail: Francis Picabia and Dada in Diderot also insisted that paintings moved Harold E. Butler (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
9 On digital capitalism, see Michael
Paris (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 2007), him first on a sensory level: "First touch University, Press, 1922), XI, 3, 67.
Betancourt, The Critique of Digital Capi-
95-156; and Pamela M. Lee, "'If Everything me, astonish me, tear me apart; startle me, 37 See Held, Die Leichtigkeit der Pinsel und
ta/ism: An Analysis of the Political Culture
Is Good, Then Nothing's Any Good Any make me cry, shudder, arouse my Federn, 19.
and Technology (New York: Punctum
Books, 2015). More': Martin Kippenberger, Conceptual indignation; you will please my eyes 38 Held, 25.
Art, and a Problem of Distinction," in afterward, if you can." Diderot, "Essais sur 39 See Pfisterer, Kunst-Geburten, 53-54.

NOTES TO PAGES 9-13

NOTES TO PAGES 13-20
29
 40 Umberto Eco, La struttura assente 53 See Fricke, Lebendige Bilder. Chapter I
(Milan: Bompiani, 1968), 57. 54 On the contemporary relevance of the
41 On the fantasy that paintings resemble their Pygmalion myth, see Victor Stoichita, The
creators, see Pfisterer, Kunst-Geburten, 72. Pygmalion Effect: From Ovid to Hitchcock

PAINTING'S
On the further fantasy, derived from the (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2008).
first, that the creator is present in his or her 55 See David Sylvester, The Brutality of Fact:
picture, see Arasse, Histoires de peintures, Interviews with Francis Bacon (London:
26. Thames & Hudson, 1987), 194, http://www

INTENSIFIED
42 Simon de Purv, "Kunst zu sammeln ist die .artinfo.com/news/story/31577/painting
sehonste Krankheit, die es gibt," by Sven -paradox: "I find that if I am on my own I
Michaelsen, SZ-Magazin, no.13, 2017, can allow the paint to dictate to me." See
http://sz-magazin.sueddeutsche.de/texte also Charline von Ileyl in an interview with
/anzeigen/45810/Kunst-zu-sammeln-ist Modern Painters: "For me, what makes a
-die-schoenste-Krankheit-die-es-gibt.
43 On this question, see Hubert Damisch, La
peinture en echarpe: Delacroix, la
photographic (Paris: Klincksieck, 2010).
painting is a mixing of authority and
freedom, where it really just wants to be
itself, where there is no justification, or
explanation, or anything like that. Where
EXTERNALIZATION
AND
44 On the non-illusory character of fantasy in it's just what it is for whatever reason."
psychoanalysis, see the entry on "Fantasy" 56 See Karl Marx, "The Fetishism of
in J. Laplance and J. B. Pontalis, The Commodities and the Secret Thereof," in
Language of Psycho-Analysis (New York: Capital, vol. 1, The Process of Production

INTELLECTUAL
Norton, 1994), 313-18. of Capital, trans. Samuel Moore and Edward
45 Samo Tomsid, The Capitalist Unconscious Aveling, ed. Frederick Engels (London:
(London: Verso, 2015), 7. Lawrence & Wishart, 1996), 81-94.
46 On the trope of the living picture in visual 57 See Dave Beech, Art and Value: Art's

PRESTIGE
studies, see Anne Fricke, Lebendige Bilder: Economic Exceptionalism in Classical,
Literarische und malerische Konzepte Neoclassical and Marxist Economics
belebter Bilder im 20. Jahrhundert (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2015), 29.
(Wiirzburg: Verlag Konigshausen & 58 See Karl Marx, "Theorien fiber produktive
Neumann, 2017), 65-69. und unproduktive Arbeit," in Theorien iiber
47 See "Vorwort," in Ulrich Pfisterer and Anja den Mehrwert: Vierter Band des Kapitals,
Zimmermann, eds.,Animationen/Trans- 1. Teil (Berlin: Karl Dietz Verlag, 1956), 135.
gressionen: Das Kunstwerk als Lebewesen 59 See Marx, Capital, vol. 1, 83.
(Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2005), 7-8.
48 Alberti, On Painting, 44.
49 See Frank Fehrenbach, "Kohasion und
Transgression: Zur Dialektik lebendiger
Bilder," in Pfisterer and Zimmermann,
Animationen/Transgressionen,1—40.
50 See Anita Albus, Die Kunst der Kiinste:
Erinnerungen an die Malerei (Frankfurt:
Eichborn, 1997), 69, 88, 125, 127. Albus
aptly refers to color as an "essential feature
of the living" (p. 127).
51 On the ideal of artificiality, see Barbara
Wittmann, "Anti-Pygmalion: Zur Krise der
Lebendigkeit der realistisehen Malerei,
1860—1880," in Vita aesthetica: Szenarien
asthetischer Lebendigkeit, ed. Armen
Avanessian, Winfried Menninghaus, and Jan
Volker (Zurich: diaphanes, 2009), 177-91.
52 See John Roberts, "The Commodity, the
Readymade and the Value Form," in The
Intangibilities of Form: Skill and Deskilling
in Art after the Readymade (London: Verso,
2007), 22-47.

NOTES TO PAGES 20-25

 For Connoisseurs Only For a long time, being an art specialist meant having a deep under­
standing of painting. As late as the nineteenth century, art and paint­
ing were virtually synonymous terms—art, in a sense, was painting.
Painting had triumphed over other forms of artistic expression
mainly because it had been able to absorb the lessons of different
Painting Specialists art forms, such as poetry, sculpture, dance, and, later, photography
and film.1 In the early twentieth century, the boundaries between

and Their Subject the genres and media began to blur and stopped being viewed in a
hierarchical order—this was because of the avant-garde shift toward

Matter intermedia and installation practices that, in our age of "boundary-

defying arts," seem to be complete, so much so that we tend to con­
sider it a historical given.2 Painting, it appears, is a hybrid form
that no longer occupies a special position. That may be true in theory;
in practice, however, it is still accorded a place of honor. For ex­
ample, many critics believe that to assess painterly practices requires
special knowledge—a kind of connoisseurship. While they are more
ready to give an opinion about works in other media, critics often
prefer not to write about painting, arguing that it isn't their field of
expertise.3 It is as though specific training is required to understand
painting, a training that not all art critics possess. Painting, seen
from this perspective, represents something unique; it is an art apart.
But how do we assess the competence of someone who speaks
about painting with authority? Is it his or her public activities and/or
published writings that attest to such expertise? There's more to it
than that. Knowledgeable essays about painted pictures are essential
in establishing someone's reputation as a painting connoisseur, but
writing alone doesn't make someone an expert. What's crucial, in my
experience, is a tight-knit social network with close and personal—
and, ideally, friendly—contact to painters who are regarded as rele­
vant or influential. Needless to say, building such a network requires
not only a grasp on art history, but also an intimate knowledge of
current painterly languages and preferences as well as social skills.
The fact that membership in this social scene is premised on
personal contacts and privileged access to painters, which allows for
discussions to take place about their ideas and work habits, is hardly
novel. Early painting experts from the fifteenth to the seventeenth

FOR CONNOISSEURS ONLY

PAINTING'S INTENSIFIED EXTERNALIZATION AND INTELLECTUAL PRESTIGE 33
 centuries—Leon Battista Alberti, say, and Andre Felibien—were In this text, which reads like advice for his aspiring colleagues,
excellent networkers. And they lacked impartiality owing to their Alberti emphasized that certain aspects of the painters' art remained
close ties to artists, which came with disadvantages as well as advan­ opaque to him until he conversed with his friends and fellow painters—
tages. From today's perspective, as the sociologists Luc Boltanski the fact that they shared his.convictions lent substance to his claims.
and Eve Chiapello have demonstrated, the defining feature of the The closeness to a specific sort of artists' knowledge is the source
contemporary world is a "networked capitalism" that extols commu­ of the tract's legitimacy. Knowledge based on friendships and social
nication and contact as the paramount virtues. Considering the friend­ privileges as the foundation of art theory is also characteristic of
ship networks of the early modern period can thus help us have art theorist Andre Felibien's Entretiens sur les vies et sur les ouvrages
a better understanding of the problems the contemporary critic with a des plus excellens peintres anciens et modemes (1666). His deci­
network of contacts faces. For instance, in the early stages of art his­ sion to present ideas in the form of an "intimate conversation"
tory we realize how art specialists were often intimately familiar is indicative: it presupposes as well as signals a cordial relationship.5
with the lives of the artists they wrote about and tended to personal­ The dialogue format had been a popular and widely used stylistic
ize artistic practices—a tendency encountered today as well. But device in Italian literature on art, but as the art historian Stefan
this focus on the circumstances of an artist's life and his or her alleged Germer has noted, Felibien specifically sought to convey the "pleasant
intentions, I would argue, is also fostered by the effect of painting casuality of worldly conversation."6 So the relaxed conviviality
or, more precisely, the potential of the medium to produce a feeling
of liveliness. The question we need to ask is whether the "alive-
ness" traditionally attributed to painting could be connected to the
painting specialist's interest in life in general or the painter's life
in particular. Meanwhile, the necessity for a painting-specific knowl­
edge also seems questionable from a contemporary perspective.
One could argue that such expertise becomes largely obsolete at a
time when the cross-disciplinary nature of art today has drained the
individual arts of their specificity. So how can one delineate paint­
ing in a meaningful way under such circumstances when it has
become difficult to set it apart? How can we pinpoint what makes it
special when the barriers isolating its content, its intrinsic organi­
zation from the outside world, has disintegrated—when it has thus de-
specified?

Close to the Source

In Delia pittura (On Painting, 1435), the very first treatise on paint-
hy architectural historian, painter, and painting theorist Leon
Battista Alberti, he illustrates the nexus between the genesis of expert
knowledge and the familiarity with practicing artists quite well.4
Florentine school, Leon Battista Alberti, 1 6 0 0 s

34 PAINTING'S INTENSIFIED EXTERNALIZATION A N D INTELLECTUAL PRESTIGE

FOR CONNOISSEURS ONLY
 and cultured exchange that sometimes ensue when artist friends get lack of impartiality is that he or she no longer even pays lip service
together form the framework for this connoisseurship, and the con­ to the ideals of neutrality and objectivity that have long been ques­
noisseur is arguably the historic precursor to today's expert. Hence, tioned in art history and cultural sciences. We are reminded that all
Felibien's credo stated that the novice looking to become knowl­ knowledge is situated and also motivated by specific interests. Still,
edgeable about painting must spend a great deal of time talking to it's one thing to point out the limitations of overblown aspirations
people versed in it.7 The genesis of this specialized knowledge is to impartiality and another to indulge in unbridled subjectivism in
manifestly predicated on personal dialogue with practitioners. Need­ which favors among friends trump everything else. A certain degree
less to say, the latter do not speak to just anyone interested in art, of objective distance is desirable, but personal involvement is its
which means it can be difficult to access this type of knowledge. inevitable and necessary basis. Negotiating this conflict—there lies
That's why Alberti's and Felibien's writings always have the aura of the crux.
insider knowledge, an arcane science of sorts that only initiates are In another respect, the art expert's partisanship toward certain
competent to pass on. This, I would argue, is the primal scene of the artists can be interpreted as a strength. Critics and curators com­
conjunction between expertise, privileged access to a specific social mit to a given artistic practice in part because they identify with the
space, and friendly exchanges between its protagonists that the concerns it articulates or believe they recognize their own concerns
"networking imperative" of today's art world has taken to a new level,5 in it. Their partiality, in other words, may stem from a shared commit­
stipulating that the citizens of the art world must incessantly strive ment to a common political or aesthetic ideal.
to make new contacts and strike up collaborations. Art experts' affiliation with a specific social universe also has
the advantage of drawing them into what Michel Foucault describes
The Advantages and as "real, material, everyday struggles."9 They are fairly good exam­
Disadvantages of Partisanship ples of Foucault's definition of the "specific intellectual": ideally, this
intellectual is engaged in specific struggles and actively committed
Art experts—art critics or art historians—then, can't claim critical to a particular concern. Alberti's Delia pittura is a case in point; it is
distance or impartiality, and in this regard are different from medical informed by the techniques and methods of his favorite artists—
or legal experts. More specifically, art experts are surrounded by Brunelleschi, Donatello, and Masaccio—and champions their work.10
and connected to the social universe from which these artworks Similarly, Felibien modeled his art theory on the practice of Nicolas
emerge but they nevertheless need to maintain a relative distance Poussin, who was the ideal embodiment of an artist who had carved
from such ties. This complicity might lead some observers to com­ out an existence independent of courtly patronage.11 Alberti's and
plain that such art experts, given their cordial ties, are hopelessly Ielibien's texts also iUustrated the price the inteUectual inevitably pays
compromised. But what matters more, I believe, is what they make for focusing on a specific artistic concern: they fail to offer a wider
of this situation—how they handle it. Yes, there are critics whose theoretical perspective on art in its social context.
view is affected by their friendships with artists, whose constant In a sense, the task of these earliest painting experts was simple:
wish to do their friends a favor turns criticism into obsequious and they mediated the meaning of the works in question and taught
uncritical reporting. Then again, it's not impossible for a critic to the reader to appreciate them. This changed with the emergence of
stay true to their opinions, to reserve the right to express objections, art criticism in the eighteenth century. Diderot's regular reports
and to criticize practices while also remaining on friendly terms trom the Salons, for instance, established art criticism as an authority
with whom they are writing about. One advantage of the art expert s that not only sorted the wheat from the chaff, but also formulated

PAINTING'S INTENSIFIED EXTERNALIZATION AND INTELLECTUAL PRESTIGE FOR CONNOISSEURS ONLY

 an aesthetic ideal. Paintings, the Enlightenment philosopher argued, to run the risk of spoiling his or her primary source of information.
should provide the feeling, quality, and presence of nature itself.1-' Artists, moreover, often reward certain writers by commissioning
But once nineteenth-century artists like the painter Gustave Courbet them to write catalogue essays. Given the ubiquitous networking im­
increasingly took on the task of communicating the qualities of perative, it would be extremely imprudent to alienate an artist
their work into their own hands, art criticism started to evolve into friend and the gallery that represents him or her with harsh criticism—
an autonomous discipline, a process that continued into the twen­ the critic may soon enough need them as collaborators. The blurred
tieth century, with important impulses from the rise of Russian Con­ line between friendships and professional contacts, which has in­
structivism and, later, Conceptual art. Artists themselves produced tensified in many other sectors of the economy, has long been famil­
programmatic statements and writing they regarded as integral to iar to the denizens of the art world. There has traditionally been an
their artistic practice. This in turn allowed critics to intertwine the instrumental aspect to camaraderie within this social universe;
discussion of specific works with more wide-ranging theoretical re­ consider, for example, the "friendship" between Vincent van Gogh
flections on society. The critics Clement Greenberg and Benjamin H.D. and Paul Gauguin. When artists invest energy into friendships, it's
Buchloh, who both have very different approaches, can serve as inevitably also because they hope to benefit from them artistically,
examples of this expansion of art criticism beyond the study of selected for their respective work.
objects. Their advocacy of certain artistic practices was always
inseparable from their insistence on a critical perspective of culture
at large.

Courteous Restraint

The fact that art experts are fundamentally entangled by personal de­
pendencies, by partisanship and involvement, does not diminish
the value of their insights. Ideally, they identify these entanglements,
as Alberti and Felibien did—neither made secret of the fact they
each wrote about specific practices and explicitly mentioned they had
privileged access to "their" artists. By contrast, most critics today
keep silent about such ties; a reader usually looks in vain for hints of
friendship and social connection between writers and artists. Insiders,
of course, know who is a friend of whom, or why a curator posi­
tively campaigns for an artist that he or she is closely associated with.
Yet it seems like disclosing such alliances, which are generally also
based on agreement on substantial artistic and social issues, is taboo.
If most curators and critics are tied up in webs of obligations
and dependencies that friendships produce, it follows that they will
dlcuycr «/*. dcsAraux et~dedarerey IIistaricyraphe duRry.Garde de.x
rarely express doubts concerning their friends'practices even when Antiquej de S JI- de I Academic- Rcv.dc dec Inscriptions Ssc.decede
•' Paris /<- it de .'utti • Aac de ixxvi ans -
such doubts exist. The reasons are manifold. For one, no critic wants

Pierre Drevet, after Charles Le Brim,

Portrait of Andre Felibien. 1700s

38 PAINTING'S INTENSIFIED EXTERNALIZATION AND INTELLECTUAL PRESTIGE FOR CONNOISSEURS ONLY

39
 In these friendships tinged with professional cooperation, any crit­ historians working today. In particular, an otherwise brilliant book
icism is expressed behind closed doors; it is rare that an artist openly on American artist Tony Conrad by Branden W. Joseph seemed to
criticizes the work of a colleague. This observation was recently accord absolute authority to the artist's pronouncements; you might
made by the artist Merlin Carpenter when he proposed that we should think that the idea of the author had never come under withering
start to criticize our friends' practices and said that circles bound critique.14 Joseph and other art historians quote artist's statements
together by friendship should welcome vigorous mutual criticism.13 as though they contain the key to the true meaning of the work.
Leading by example, he then launched attacks on his closest allies: This widespread blind faith in authorial intention, I would argue, is
a critic (me) and a gallerist. As far as I can see, though, his initia­ the contemporary variant of the fixation on the circumstances of
tive has not found many imitators because to do what he did is asso­ the artist's life constructed by early biographical art writing.
ciated with the risk of professional isolation. The primacy of the artist's own words is symptomatic of the ten­
dency toward a personalization of artistic production that is currently
Putting in a Good Appearance being promoted in the art world at several levels and in a wide va­
riety of ways.15 The methodological groundwork for this tendency has
To understand why art connoisseurs benefit from being on cordial been laid, for example, by the critique of representation in art that
terms with their subjects—or, when the latter are dead, study the assumes works of art are about or convey something, a supposition
circumstances of their lives and their recorded statements—we that attributes quasi-subjective faculties to them. As Louis Marin
should turn to the early days of the historiography of art. Art history has observed, "Representation in the work has the effect of a subject;
was originally the history of artists, as in Giorgio Vasari's Levite the work is objectively speaking a subject."16 In other words, its
de' piii eccellenti pittori, scultori e architetti (Lives of the Artists, representational functions lend it the appearance of a subject. In
1550) of the Renaissance masters and, later, Felibien's account of a very different corner of the art world, the thoroughly commercial
Poussin's life (Entretiens sur les vies et sur les ouvrages des plus sphere of auctions, works of art are similarly spoken of as though
excellents Peintres anciens et modernes, 1686). Biographical narra­ they were persons—"a Warhol," "a Koons," and so on.
tive is \ asari's basic register, and Felibien, too, treats Poussin's This personalizing approach to the artist's work has considerable
artistic output as subordinate to the portrait of the artist's life. The repercussions for the artist's self-presentation. Just as the artist's
circumstances of the artist's life is still a focus of art writing today: output now shows subject-like traits, he or she must conversely act
the monographic account of the artist's "life and work," whereby the part of an object. Alberti already counseled the painter to care­
life is modeled as something akin to a work of art. But when the par­ fully control his or her bearing in public. Collectors, he wrote, were
ticulars of the artist's life become the principal subject of scholarly often swayed by personal sympathies rather than expertise in art:
interest, as in the Vite and its more contemporary version, the the wealthy were apt to shower rewards on an artist who cultivated
artist s monograph, the biographical approach becomes obligator)'. a mien of modesty and pleasantness, preferring him or her over
While more recent scholarship in art history certainly has aban­ one whose work was of superior quality.17 Even in the sixteenth cen­
doned the blind faith in the explanatory power of the artist's biogra­ tury, an artist obviously had to create an intriguing persona for his
phy in relation to his or her work, the nexus between art and life or her art to be perceived as compelling. Today's celebrity culture, in
has not been severed. I would argue that the life-orientation of the which everyone and everything is assessed in personalizing terms,
monographic study and the early vita lingers in the fixation on the only reinforces this tendency to make the individual's charisma the
artist s intention felt in the writings of even the most progressive art yardstick of the work. Most artists today can't afford to bank solely on

PAINTING'S INTENSIFIED EXTERNALIZATION AND INTELLECTUAL PRESTIGE FOR CONNOISSEURS ONLY

the aesthetic appeal of their artworks. They are forced to bring art properly speaking. That this belief is rarely a conscious convic­
their personal presence to bear—they must be persuasive as individ­ tion makes it no less powerful, as auction results show: painted
uals as well. This blurred boundary between product and person pictures still tend to fetch the highest prices. The esteem in which
is once again connected to the abovementioned restraint shown by painting is held in the commercial sector is a reflection of its his­
critics. When product and person coincide, any challenging of the toric special status.
former will be perceived as an assault on the latter. In such a situ­ Painting did not attain this status until the eighteenth century,
ation, any attempt to keep the debate factual would seem futile, espe­ when painters irreversibly broke free of external constraints (such
cially considering that the separation between the person and his as guild regulations, subjects chosen by patrons, or literary para­
or her product is increasingly dissolved. digms). This liberalization had also been stimulated and made possi­
ble by institutions such as the Academie rovale de peinture et de
The Knowledge of Painting sculpture, which was founded in 1648 in Paris after the encourage­
ment of the painter Charles Le Brun.19 As part of its activities, the
Assaults on others and attacks of those perceived as enemies in academy mounted survey exhibitions at regular intervals, which ulti­
full view of the public, the sort that were characteristic of the avant- mately evolved into the Salons. But the fact that painting could
gardes (Dada, Surrealism, Situationism), and, more recently, the rise to a sort of leading medium had not only institutional but also
Cologne art scene of the 1980s, are a thing of the past. I would argue medium-specific reasons. A fifteenth-century innovation, painting on
that we have no reason to wax nostalgic about this preference for canvas was rapidly adopted partly because it facilitated circulation—
the ad hominem attack, which was sometimes also fueled by sexism. paintings of any size could now be conveniently shipped.20 In other
The good old ideal of a culture of vigorous debate (Streitkultur), words, the painted canvas enhanced the mobility of art, allowing
however, is something I believe is worth holding on to. Rarely do art works to be sent from country to country, from court to court. But
critics write essays that aren't ultimately supportive and affirmative, painting also gained intellectual prestige that derived from another
and rarely do they argue about their differences in public. In the one of its central characteristics: the planar arrangement of its constit­
domain of painting, in particular, critics with the greatest theoretical uent elements. Proficient organization of the flat surface required
ambitions and most rigorous standards tend to avoid raising objec­ a certain level of knowledge of geometry, implying an intellectual-
tions or strong opinions. Asked to explain this unwillingness to ization of the practice. More than anything else, Alberti argued, the
express definite views about painterly practices, they will olten pro­ painter needed to master geometry.21 Setting painting on a new
mathematical foundation promoted it from the level of craft to science.
fess they lack the requisite familiarity with the peculiar codes and
Moreover, the planar order of painting presupposes a faculty of
debates within the field and defer to the authority of those art critics
and art historians who ostensibly know more about painting. Dele abstraction: the artist and, subsequently, the viewer face a delimited
surface on which symbolic significance seems to condense and ac­
gating the discussion of painting to experts effectively reaffirms the
special status the genre has never quite lost, despite the critique ot cumulate knowledge.
painting in the historic avant-gardes and Duchamp's invention o t ie It is then a small step to an idea that's still widely held by theo­
readymade in the early twentieth century.18 While it looks like rists of painting: the idea that painting possesses intellectual faculties
the barriers between genres and media have long since been swept and is even capable of thinking for itself. The writings of the art
historian Hubert Damisch contain many variations on the idea that
away, as the prevalence of multifaceted and installation-based PraC
tices in contemporary art demonstrates, many people in the ait there is a kind of intelligence at work in painting.22 French art histo­
world still seem to cling to the belief that painting is the true art rian Louis Marin, too, has described Poussin's pictures as "learned

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P A I N T I N G ' S I N T E N S I F I E D EX T E R N A L I Z A T I O N A N D I N T E L L E C T U A L P R E S T I G E
 dispositions."23 And Werner Busch has argued in a recent book that But when the decisive yardstick of aesthetic accomplishment
Titian's pictures "not infrequently" employ the means of painting is a matter of life, it makes perfect sense that art experts would look
to propound "art-theoretical arguments."24 The trope of painting's own to an artist's way of life and its various representations via the me­
intelligence has a long history. Alberti, for instance, acknowledges dium for guidance on how to understand the work. Furthermore, if we
the merits of sculptors but then adds: "I will always prefer the genius consider that all art movements starting with the historic avant-
of the painter because he applies himself to an extremely difficult gardes have championed an emphatic idea of life, it is impossible to
thing."25 Painting is superior, that is to say, because it poses problems maintain the sharp distinction between life and work in painting
for the artist via the material and can be intellectually challenging. and in other arts.27
Not only does the painter apply him- or herself to a difficult task, but Life, however, is a shimmering concept, and one that encourages
painting itself is credited with the intellectual faculties associated essentialist beliefs in a life as such. There's no such thing as life—
with subjectivity. we only encounter it in a mediated form; its manifestations are always
However, when painting is said to think for itself—when it has mediated. Following art historian Sabeth Buchmann, I would vote
irreversibly shaken off the shackles of external thematic requirements for a less essentialist conception of life and consider it instead as an
and systems of rules—there's a growing demand for mediators, "aesthetic and political form of interrelation"—a form, in other
experts in other words, who translate painting's thinking into words words, that consists of interrelations between matters of life and
and concepts. This is where we come full circle: understanding matters of art.28 This emphasis on interrelation brings the dynamic
the painting as a quasi subject that can think makes the art expert's interaction between life and art into view and allows us to understand
focus on the artist subject seem like a methodological necessity. artistic practices as processes in which both—art and life—contin­
Although there is of course a categorical difference between the intel­ ually reconfigure each other.
ligence of painting and the artist's own thoughts, the attribution ?et has painting not long ceded its claim to "aliveness" to other
of subjectivity to painting arguably leads critics to believe they ought media i Doesn't film translate life into art more successfully than
to try to become intimately familiar with its producer and consult any other art form? That may well be so. Other media—photography
what he or she had or has to say about the work. and film foremost—cater much more fully to the demand for alive­
ness. That is why, in the past few years, another trope has widely
Aliveness and the Fixation on Life superseded that of aliveness in painting: materiality. The writings of
todays painting historians describe this specific materiality, which
Another reason why painting specialists in particular have tradition­ is now said to set painting apart. Georges Didi-Huberman, for exam­
ally taken an interest in who their subjects were and how they ple, has written about its "profoundly material operation."29 T. J.
lived, I would argue, is the medium's own distinctive association with Clark, meanwhile, has argued that "painting is these uncontrollable
life. Since the Renaissance, the painter's mission has been char­ materialities always coming into contact with the understanding
acterized as the production of aliveness: "In Renaissance poetics, and maybe substantiating it, maybe putting it into doubt."30 But this
animation and 'liveliness' figure as widely used and prominent codes motif of materiality, I believe, preserves the reference to life. Most
designating praiseworthy vividness or stimulating qualities in artis­ basically, materiality inevitably brings to mind the "matter" from
tic representation. 26 The production of a sense of animation within w hich everything is made. In insisting on painting's materiality, critics
the picture itself and its vitalizing effects on the viewer, manifestly ascribe to it a quasi-divine creative potential. Its materiality, one
coincide in the aesthetic ideal of aliveness. might say, is life itself. And so painting doesn't merely intend to

PAINTING S INTENSIFIED EXTERNALIZATION A N D INTELLECTUAL PRESTIGE FOR CONNOISSEURS ONLY

breathe life into things: by dint of its materiality, it's now possessed history of its internal codes, its semantics, I would nevertheless argue
of life's very own spiritual-creative energy. It is no wonder that that such expertise isn't enough. Art criticism ideally not only de­
theorists of painting strike a distinctly solemn, pathos-leaden note scribes and mediates, but also transcends its object, which is neces­
when discussing this special materiality of painting, as though the sary because this object itself is traversed by social conditions.
subject prompted them to try for an equally creative literary style. What this kind of art criticism I have in mind—an art criticism that
Such mimesis is tangible in the attempts by writers like Clark, is also social critique—might actually look like in concrete terms
Marin, Damisch, and Didi-Huberman to approximate painting's mate­ will hopefully become clear in the following chapters.
riality by inscribing their words into it, "exploring [...] paintings
through discourse written in the here and now," as Marin aptly put
it.31 Clark also openly acknowledges the subjective mimesis that
animates his writing: "But I do believe that writing can mimic what
I take to be the kind of movement involved."32
Painting seems to occupy the apex of the cultural hierarchy tor
these writers. However, one wonders if its special status can be main­
tained in this way considering the often invoked "fraying' (Adorno)
of the boundaries between the arts. With such an overtaxing ot the
medium, can painting still be meaningful?
When considering the productions of contemporary painters,
we may also have doubts about the need for a special knowledge of
painting. The most interesting painters of the recent past, from
Ed Ruscha and Albert Oehlen to Jutta Koether, Avery Singer, and Jan:
Euler, have incorporated the demands of the critique of painting
into their practices and internalized the lessons of Conceptual art
and institutional critique, rejecting the notion of a purely imma­
nent and unambiguously circumscribed painterly idiom.33 In work­
ing on their paintings, they are of course still confronted with the
problems of painting and its specific history, but their works are no
longer primarily about those problems and that history. For paint­
ing experts this means that they need to be art experts first and
foremost—it is the debates in the arts of the past hundred years thai
inform the most relevant painterly practices today. It also seems
advisable to retain an external perspective on these practices that,
ideally, also approach painting from the outside and remain
traversed by—and articulates a stance vis-a-vis—the social condi­
tions that shape it. While it can be helpful if a critic who discusses
paintings is familiar with the specific rules of painting and the

FOR CONNOISSEURSONLY
PAINTING'S INTENSIFIED EXTERNALIZATION A N D INTELLECTUAL PRESTIGE
The Knowledge Strategies of Valorization

of Painting
Attempts to intellectualize painting are as old as the reflections on it.
The very first systematic treatise on painting in the modern era—
Alberti's Delia pittura—already aimed to improve painters' reputa­
tions by setting their art apart from the work of craftsmen. The text
seamlessly blends specific instructions for the "good painter" with
Notes on Thinking praise for the practice of painting, declaring it to be the "flower
of all the arts" and thereby installing it at the apex of a hierarchy of
and Subject-Like media and genres.34 Yet this drastic upward revaluation of painting
was predicated on another innovation: a new conception of painting

Pictures founded on mathematical knowledge. According to Alberti, to be­

come an "excellent" painter one needs to "have learned impeccably
not only the edges but also all properties of surfaces."35 In other
words, the painter's ennoblement is closely associated with an insist­
ence on his or her art having mathematical foundations. Moreover,
Alberti writes that any good painter is expected to work hard and
be highly skilled. The treatise continually shifts back and forth be­
tween normative and descriptive levels: enumerating normative
requirements that constitute the painter's occupational profile,
Alberti, in his praise of painting, refers to observations that presum­
ably substantiate its special status, such as the fact that paintings
are expensive—"one tells of unbelievable recompenses for painted
panels."36 So the rumors of jaw-dropping prices paid for pictures
already circulated in the modern era. Yet Alberti—and this is remark­
able—in fact seems to think that high prices are entirely justifiable,
and more: he proposes they attest to painting's special status.
He writes about the painter Zeuxis (4-5 BG), who was said to have
given his works away for free, claiming that no price could be
adequate because, like a second god, he had created living beings.37
Alberti uses the story of Zeuxis to put a new spin on the Renais­
sance trope of the artist as a godlike magician: painted pictures, so the
logic goes, are ultimately priceless.38 Like acts of God, they cannot
be purchased for any amount of money. The same quasi-religious
belief echoes in today's record prices paid for works of art at auction,
and especially for painted pictures, whose prices seem to have no
limit. The ability to breathe life into dead matter that has been attrib-

PAINTING'S INTENSIFIED EXTERNALIZATION A N D INTELLECTUAL PRESTIGE

THE KNOWLEDGE OF PAINTING
49
uted to painters since the Renaissance is manifestly connected da Vinci's treatise on painting, too, he discusses painting in general
to the economic value of their products, or to be more precise: the while also offering guidelines for painters: not only does he declare
theological analogy between God and painter credits the latter with painting to be a science, but he also calls on the painter to acquire
producing the impression that his or her pictures are animated, comprehensive erudition and strive to make him- or herself into
a creative capacity in the strict sense that's in turn directly related a universally knowledgeable polymath.42 When painting is conceived
to the issue of value. as an intellectual pursuit, a cosa mentale, as Leonardo famously
But in addition to intellectual prestige and quasi-divine powers, called it, the painter's status rises accordingly: he or she becomes a
Alberti also accords painting a central place among the arts, thinker. That's why codes of conduct for the painter are integral
writing that "the stonemason, the sculptor [...] all the artisan work­ to the early theories of painting—Leonardo, for example, envisions
shops, and [...] all the manual arts are certainly guided by [...] the painter sitting "before his work at the greatest of ease, well
the art of the painter."39 With its foundation in mathematics, he pro­ dressed and applying delicate colours with his light brush. [...] His
poses that painting provides a sort of basic knowledge that all other residence is clean and adorned with delightful pictures, and he
arts are reliant on. Remarkably, this argument conceives of the arts often enjoys the accompaniment of music or the company of the
as interrelated but then takes this interrelation to be evidence of authors of various fine works."43 In this scene, the painter is transfig­
painting's superiority. It's an early version of a paradox that is en­ ured into an elegant and universally erudite aesthete whose bearing
countered again and again in the history of painting: whenever paint­ and lifestyle promote his artistic program.
ing embraced the influences of other media, such as photograph) The fact that theories of painting always also include directives
for the painter suggests something specific about painting: that the
or sculpture, whenever it became heterogeneous and renounced its
bond between the product (the painted picture) and the creative
specificity, such despecification/hybridity only served to reinforce
subject (the artist) is unusually close. That's why theories of paint­
its special status.40
ing are also theories of the painter.
Meanwhile, there is another property of painting Alberti describes
It is through the act of painting—putting brush to canvas or
as its defining feature: its flatness. The reasons for an art forms
panel—that the painter's person appears to be brought into play, cre­
special status, in other words, must be sought also among its intrinsic
ating the phantasmatic impression of a presence that turns out to
qualities, in the potential that is associated with it. Because painting
be an absence. The tension between the two—between presence and
is flat, he writes, the painter must master geometry.41 The peculiar
absence, between the suggestion of life and dead matter—is the
"nature" of painting thus needs a particular kind of artist an idea
source of the fascination of painted pictures. Needless to say, this is
painter-scientist Alberti champions. From a quality said to be essen
especially true of representative painting that, as Louis Marin has
tial to painting spring specific requirements for the practitioner.
noted, is torn between death and life: precisely because pictures
When painting is discussed in a theoretical and practical perspective,
that depict something might almost be mistaken for the object itself,
it appears, reflections on the painter are never far off. non-presence and death are woven into them.44 Painting, in other
words, fosters the illusion that we can grasp what it represents but
The Close Bond by the same token it withholds its presence from us. It thus suggests
a presence and at the same time confronts us with an absence, an
Considering both the material qualities of a painting and addressin, absence that can be representative of its creator who is often projected
the painter's persona at the same time is a pattern that recurs wit onto the work. Daniel Arasse mentioned the "folly" that led him to
neat regularity in the early modern theories of painting. In L e o n a r o

THE K N O W L E D G E O F P A I N T I N G
51
P A I N T I N G ' S I N T E N S I F I E D E X T E R N A L I Z A T I O N A N D I N T E L L E C T U A L PRESTIGE
imagine (while contemplating Piero della Francesca's frescoes) what subjective experience but a universal faculty—"the principle of our
the artists daydreamed of or thought about while painting.45 The old own being and life."49 According to Hegel, we discern in paintings
saying that "every painter paints himself' captures the widespread what "is operative and active within ourselves."50 And it's precisely
belief that paintings tell us something about their author: that the because we believe we recognize in it a familiar potential that we
painter has somewhat entered into his or her work. The trope of immediately feel "at home" with it. In other words, painting, in Hegel's
the absent artist's ghostly presence in the picture has a long history view, moves us also because it stages principles that feel familiar
Vasari's and Felibien's lives of artists already drew a direct connection to us and that constitute us, such as the ability to form a distinctive
between an artist's public bearing, his character, his typical com­ personality or individual conception of something. The decisive
portment, and his paintings. Since the early modern era, and espe­ point of this argument is that Hegel aligns painting with the subject
by ascribing a capacity to it—the capacity of subjectivity—that is,
cially in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, artists were ex­
properly speaking, the exclusive privilege of subjects. Only subjects
pected to apply a "palette of affects" to the canvas. This expectation
46

can evolve an independent mental life. Yet such subjectivity, he

conversely justified the assumption that how an artist wielded the
argued, is more than "pure interioritv"; it's intertwined with outward
brush indicated something about him or her as a person. Diderot, i
existence.51 Painting, that is to say, doesn't stage mere subjectivity
instance, assured his readers that like him painters bared their
but, more importantly, brings out the bonds that tie that subjectivity
soul in their work, and perhaps even more fully than he could.4'
to external constraints. Like a subject, painting can arrive at in­
Yet this fantasy of an authentic revelation of the painter's sell, wo
sights and exhibit relations, such as that between interior and exte­
argue, is also a direct consequence of the language of painting, its rior subjectivity. Adorno articulated this idea of the subject-like
materiality, that leads to the assumption that painting can sug^t quality of painting even more pointedly and extended its scope to art
life—and this despite its factual lifelessness. Painting has to e con­ in general. In his view, art was a "collective subject," a sort of better
sidered a language that provides the practitioner v\ ith a set ot human being who takes on a life of its own, independent also of
niques, procedures, and stratagems that allow him or her to a ^ the artist.52
the impression of an authorial quasi presence as an effects Yet to conceptualize its "collective essence," Adorno first had to
actually revealing anything. So it's not so much a genuine qualify the import of the "individual human" subject. Hence his
the painter's soul that we encounter in the painting but rat e indefatigable insistence that art was "no replica of the subject" (i.e.,
fiers designed to simulate such an exposure. the artist-subject)—though it had passed through that subject, it
ultimately transcended him or her.53 The ascent of art to the status
Critique of the Subject and of universal subject in Adorno is patently tied to the insight that
Quasi Subjectivity the significance of the artist-subject has faded.

In light of this history, it's no surprise that painting has Aliveness Is a Projective Effect
been described as maintaining a privileged relations ipN ^ nl(Kje0i'
jectivity. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel aptly defined it as^ We encounter the tendency to elevate art to the status of a subject
artistic representation into which the principle ot nl ^ not only in modernist aesthetics, as in Adorno, but also in the semi-
otic readings presented by Marin. Both approaches share the desire
ternally infinite subjectivity" erupted.48 In this view, ev<\
to penetrate to the heart of the matter, to the "latent or manifest
defines a subject would break through the paintings,SU^.vj(juai
Subjectivity, however, designates here not the artists in

THE KNOWLEDGE OF PAINTING

forces of the picture."54 The problem is just that this heart of the capable of inserting a sort of meta-level on which it supplies its own
matter isn't a given presence, as Adorno's model of immanent interpretation. A form of knowledge about painting that ultimately
reconstruction" assumes; it's always also the product of a projective remains external to it has here apparently been supplanted by one said
effort So what these exertions often lose sight of is that the activi­ to, as it were, inhabit painting itself—a knowledge generated solely
ties of the beholders and the processes they initiate" are what let a by painting. Now, there is no doubt that painted pictures can operate
picture appear subject-like.33 in a discursive register and frame their own theories. Still, the ar­
In French art theory, the idea is nonetheless widely current ticulation of these theories, as I have suggested, requires an interpreter
that painting itself is capable of thinking. Art historians like Marin who records the picture's self-activity and translates it into words.
and Hubert Damisch have frequently described painted pictures What makes the trope of the thinking painting problematic, more­
as having thoughts they believe need to be brought to light. Instead over, is the frequent invocation of "painting itself," which implicitly
of imposing meanings on pictures or interpreting them, Marin essentializes it and, more importantly, proclaims that it can be
writes, the aim must be to uncover the "discourse of painting' itself.56 clearly delineated, as though painting were a given entity possessed
For instance, he argues that the Arcadian shepherds who are point­ of its own essence—an idea that's hardly convincing today in the
ing to an inscription on a tomb in Poussin's painting Ft in Arcadia era of the much-debated dissolution of the boundaries between the
ego (The Arcadian Shepherds, 1638-40) seem to also raise questions arts. Another questionable aspect is that painting is transmuted
regarding the discourse of painting, which leads to a painting that in this perspective into some sort of discursive engine that arrives at
its own insights. Again, theory overburdens painting in a way that's
is capable of interpreting itself.57 In other words, the picture is
also compensation for a loss. Whereas the Renaissance theorists of
painting still sought to base the special status of this art on its
ability to engender aliveness, the theorists of the twentieth century,
having released it of its mimetic obligation, declares painting itself
to be alive. A deity that brings the dead back to life and allows what
is absent to appear present has become a quasi human said to be
capable of thinking.

Art as a Subject—
Myth and the Experience of Production

The notion of painting as a sort of higher being that holds a position

of authority is a leitmotif that runs through all painting discourses.
Artists in particular have done much to propagate this myth. Many
painters, such as Francis Bacon, Sigmar Polke, Albert Oehlen,
and Charline von Heyl, have tended to stylize painting into a quasi-
subjective entity that confronts the painter with specific demands he
or she would do well to comply with. Bacon, for instance, mentioned
in a conversation with David Sylvester that he often felt as though

Nicolas Poussin, The Arcadian Shepherds. 1638 40

THE KNOWLEDGE OF PAINTING

55
P A I N T I N G ' S INTFNISlFiPn f y t p c k i a i 17 ATinw a m d i m t f i l F r T U A L PRESTIGE
 painting dictated what he must do as he was working.58 Polke offered relation to poetry. Later, painters of the seventeenth century used
an ironic take on this trope in Hohere Wesen befahlen: Rechte obere the camera obscura to refine their painting techniques.62 Any mean­
Ecke schwarz malen! (Higher Beings Commanded: Paint the Upper ingful discussion of painting as a medium requires a conception
Right Corner Black!, 1969), in which the pictorial form (a black tri­ of media as intrinsically heterogeneous. Yet this fundamental hybrid-
angle on white ground) is said to be the product of an otherworldly ity is denied, with special vehemence, by modernist theories of
"command." The mention of higher beings evokes the notion that painting. Clement Greenberg was the leading champion of the idea
painting possesses its own essence, a claim frequently implicit in the that art is defined by the "essence of [its] medium," as though the
inconspicuous definite article of die Malerei ("the painting"). What's medium dictated the rhythm of the artwork as though certain quali­
more, this particular picture seems to have painted itself, alluding ties were inherent to it.63 He regarded painting in particular as
to—and ridiculing—the myth of painting's self-activity: the reference characterized by "essential norms or conventions" that, he believed,
to higher beings is also a sideswipe at Joseph Beuys and his enthu­ works of art needed to engage with.64 But if the privilege he accorded
siasm for the supernatural spirits in the writings of Rudolf Steiner.59 the medium as a frame of reference has come to seem highly question­
Oehlen, by contrast, chose a discursive strategy that made the pic­ able in light of the much-debated dissolution of the boundaries
ture quite literally the subject, for instance, by facetiously mention­ between the arts since the 1960s, the same is doubly true of the es­
ing the ability of his paintings to shoot him angry looks or scold sence he described it as possessing. Even in painting itself, the
him.60 His works confronted him like foes who had every intention to trend toward expanded and conceptual practices has been undeniable,
give him hell. Von Heyl, too, recalled the "bad mood" of one of her practices that have drawn on a wide variety of formats (photography,
pictures (Clown of Thorns): "I like its absolutely dead stare, the sculpture, text, performance, etc.) to bring about an unmistakable
cartoonish goofiness, the way it is both a clown and this Jesus face. 61 impurity and extension of the medium that threaten its alleged
We might brand these manifold attempts to anthropomorphize essence. It's true that artists, and especially painters, still encounter
painting as a return of superstition, animism, and magic, and we problems in their practice that they ascribe to the specificity of their
would not be entirely wrong. Works of art, after all, are dead matter medium. Yet it's one thing to acknowledge a certain degree of medium-
and not living beings. At the same time, these strategies painters specificity in this production-aesthetic dimension, and another to
adopt do capture an experience that virtually anyone who produces derive a general norm of medium-specificity. For a long time, media
art has had at one time or another. Whether we write a text or paint theorists, too, have generally accepted that no medium is defined
a picture—sometimes it seems to us as though the work in our by specific inherent and invariant qualities. Its character is instead
hands were almost producing itself, pushing us forward, raising spe­ determined by how the artist engages with it.
cific demands. Myth and the experience of production are closely Hence my proposal is that we conceive painting not as a medium
interwoven in the trope of the living picture. but rather as a type of sign production that's experienced as highly
personalized. One advantage of this definition is that it takes into
Specificity under the account the manifold expansions and extensions of painting. We can
Conditions of Despecification encounter the same form of sign production also in non-painterly
works, such as Isa Genzken's and Rachel Harrison's assemblages.
Historically speaking, painting has never been pure, if "pure paint­ When we speak of painting, in other words, we mean something spe­
ing" implies a homogeneous medium. In antiquity, Horace introduced cific that has nonetheless undergone drastic despecification.
his famous dictum ut pictura poesis, which sets painting in close

THE KNOWLEDGE OF PAINTING 57

56 PAINTING'S INTENSIFIED EXTERNALIZATION AND INTELLECTUAL PRESTIGE
I — . -—
 The Duty to Become One's Self

Still, we ultimately have to ask ourselves: Doesn't the tendency

to declare painting a quasi subject appear in a different light once we
discuss it in view of the new form of capitalism that, as is well
known, aims to incorporate personality, affects, and social relation­
ships?65 If painting no longer merely serves as a purveyor of alive-
ness (its function in the Renaissance) and is now declared to be a sort
of self-acting living being, doesn't it deliver exactly what the mod­
ern form of power seeks to domesticate—subjectivity? And shouldn't
it ideally reflect on these circumstances, which would once again
lend it a semblance of a reflecting subject? We have come full circle
once again. It would seem that there's no way around the premise
of painting's subject-like character. But we still have the option to in­
cessantly point out that works of art aren't subjects—they may at
most behave like subjects. In this way, we might retain the idea of an
artwork's "agency" without endorsing animistic scenarios. Maybe
we regard artworks, and paintings especially, as better human beings
so that they deserve our interest in them. We ultimately project
the same dynamic spirit of action onto them that today's "new psy­
chological economy" demands of us.66 Just as we are ceaselessly
encouraged to become the agents of our own transformation, we cer­
tainly tend to treat art—and painting in particular—like a knowing
and thinking agent capable of effecting change.
 Edouard Manet's paintings are exemplary examples of works of art

The Outside Is the Inside that open themselves up to their exterior world. Their outward-
orientation became palpably obvious in the 2011 exhibition, Manet,
inventeur du Moderne," at the Musee d'Orsay in Paris, and this
despite legitimate criticism that had been directed against it. Critics

On Edouard Manet rightly found fault with this show for singling him out as the sole
inventor of modernism.67 They had a point: the comprehensive ex­

at the Museed'Orsay,
hibition's focus was indeed on Manet as a singular individual. Still—
and this, to my mind, was its great merit—it sought to take the
social dimension of the artist's work into account by embedding him

Paris and his oeuvre in a great variety of interrelations. This enabled

the visitor to experience Manet's paintings as complex reference sys­
tems. It might be remarked, of course, that opening Manet's oeuvre
toward its social historical outside is something art historians have
always done.68 Yet insights such as the recognition that, in his later
paintings in particular—most importantly his Nana (1877), which
was unfortunately not on view—an immersion into female life-worlds
(maquillage rituals, lace dresses, undergarments etc.) is achieved
and showcases social shifts that are embodied by these new images
of femininity that had previously been accessible only to readers of
scholarly literature and not to exhibition visitors.69
The Paris show, by contrast, was rife with opportunities to
observe how Manet's pictures recast their outside as inside, breaking
down and even exploding the boundary between the pictorial and
the social. They do so in a variety of ways, for instance, by means of
allegorization; thus in Olympia (1863), where the female black
servant not only embodies the other but also literally brings to mind
the merciless rule of economic forces from the outside world into
the picture. It's she, after all, who presents a bouquet (presumably sent
by a benefactor) to her madame, the courtesan resting on the canape,
reminding us not only of the servant's subaltern position, but also
of her employer's economic subordination (to her male clients),
despite an appearance of self-sufficiency. Relations of economic de­
pendency, in other words, enter into the scene of the closed interior
just as the maid must secure her employer's continued goodwill, the
prostitute could not sustain her lifestyle if her patrons stopped

THE OUTSIDE ISTHE INSIDE

PAINTING'S INTENSIFIED EXTERNALIZATION AND INTELLECTUAL PRESTIGE

soliciting her services. On the other hand, as French novels on cour­ an arbitrary decision. For the imagery of his paintings never end at
tesans have demonstrated, they could be quite petulant and im- their frames; they always overspill them. That's most clearly recogniz­
perious pitilessly exploiting the yearnings of the men who desired able in his Les courses a Longchamp (The Races at Longchamp,
them and keeping them forever wanting more. It was only when 1867), where jockeys on racehorses gallop straight toward the viewer.
the women aged that their power waned, as seen, or example, in the The painting doesn't merely assert that it reaches out into the
demise of the heroine in Alexandre Dumas's novel The Lady of the world beyond its varnish; it forcefully erupts into the life-world of
Camellias (1848). An aura of pride and confidence surrounds the those who stand before it. As T. J. Clark has observed, the form of this
young courtesan in Manet's portrait, who appears to have no need new art cannot be discussed independently of its subject matter.72
for her admirers' affections, and pays no attention to the bouquet of The Paris exhibition offered a particularly' good opportunity
flowers. Crucially, however, the border between the interior and to study this perpetual interplay between form and content, between
the outside world is instable in this picture, an instability Manet often technique and subject. An example of this can be seen in Manet's
also hints at by symbolic means, indicated by the balcony rai mgs La liseuse (Woman Reading, 1879-80), a painting on view near the
and lattices that appear in many of his paintings.™ Both are em­
blematic of the fact that the boundary between the private and t e
public has become permeable; it is a conduit for the fluent transi­
tion between his painting's intrinsic features and its extrinsic deter­
minants. Manet's obsession with transparent fabrics such as laces
and veils, too, is an almost literal indication of this permeability as
is apparent in La maitresse de Baudelaire allongee (Jeanne Duval,
Baudelaire's Mistress, Reclining (Lady with a Fan), 1862), apie-
ture of the poet's lover enthroned in an enormous dress that trans­
mutes into an abstract expanse of white. She is shown before a
sheer white lace curtain that tellingly serves as a sort of upper pic­
ture frame and at once potentially guides the gaze beyond the
painting—we see only a section of the fabric, imagining its contin­
uation outside the picture. Berthe Morisot a I'eventail (Berthe
Morisot with a Fan, 1872), too, is illuminating in this regard, a Mac
lace fan conceals the sitter's face. We can see her eyes behind the
lace fabric, but they are unclear; eye contact is withheld from us.
Jacques Derrida identified transparent fabrics and, even more
importantly, the veil as exemplary parerga that, he argued, raise
the question of the relationship between the picture s insi e an i
outside, making a rigorous distinction between what was intrinsi
and what was extrinsic to it fundamentally impossible.'1 Manets ^
paintings demonstrate how any attempt to determine unambiguous.
what's within their frame and what isn't would ultimately rest on
Edouard Manet, Woman Reading, 1879-80

THE OUTSIDE IS THE INSIDE

IKITCI I prTHAl PRESTIGE
end of the exhibition in a thematic section devoted to his portraits been more information on Manet's fellow painters and innovators, such
of highly fashionable women. The loose, even desultory, quasi- as James McNeill Whistler or Alphonse Legros. Yet the show didn't
Impressionist style with which the paint has been applied corresponds dwell on the "generation of 1863" in any detail,73 instead drawing
to the liberalization of mores that manifests itself in the picture. attention to the influence of Manet's teacher Thomas Couture, whose
The motif of the woman sitting by herself in a beer garden and im­ impact on Manet has still not been sufficiently appreciated, by
mersed in reading a magazine, probably a fashion magazine, captures integrating some of Couture's paintings into the presentation. Couture
the fact that there was a freedom allowed to these women who could had everything Manet aspired to at the beginning of his career—
sit in public on their own and read (rather than being in the home his works earned recognition at the Salon and fetched high prices in
doing housework). The theme of the female reader had fascinated the art market. But the student, presumably driven by a mixture
painters since the seventeenth century not least because reading em­ of the anxiety of influence and patricidal instinct, allegedly also de­
powered women and indicated an increase of freedom from patri­ rided his teacher. Antonin Proust reported that Manet rejected his
archal control. That's also why as Manet's figure peers over the pages lessons and perpetually wondered what he was doing in Couture's
of her magazine, she seems a little distracted, as indicated by a studio.74 Despite these attempts to distance himself from his teacher,
few rough and rapid brushstrokes. It is as though she is keeping an Manet's paintings bear the mark of Couture's painterly procedure,
eye on her environment—looking for opportunities for flirtation as the exhibition made clear. Couture's Portrait d'Henri Didier
or assessing other women's outfits—while also putting herself on (1844), for instance, evinces many qualities that Manet's early por­
traits, such as L'enfant a I'epee (Boy Carrying a Sword, 1861),
display. The painting is a monument to the female voyeuse and her
would adopt and take further: the seemingly artificial light on the
tendency to superficially appraise everything she sees: on a picto­
face that appears to radiate from the luminous white of the collar;
rial level it looks like a perfunctory, quickly jotted-down sketch, as
the emphasis on the staged aspect of the figure—the model is patently
though Manet, who had frequently been reproached for exhibiting
posing for the artist and viewer alike; and the tendency to spotlight
unfinished and sketch-like pictures, had chosen, toward the end ot
the specific material quality of painting by applying the paint in
his life, to feed the flames, having the backing of the Impressionists
thick blotches in selected places, such as the sword belt hanging
in this regard.
from the boy's arms, a technique used to emphasize the inauthentic
The exhibition was explicit about its emphasis on social history
and artificial aspect of the depiction. This focus on materiality,
from the very outset: it opened with Henri Fantin-Latour's group
I believe, should not be understood solely in the modernist sense, as
portrait Hommage a Delacroix (1864). The painting can be read as
painting's reflection on its own medium, a deliberate return to the
striking evidence that Manet, far from operating solitarily, worked
specificity of the genre. Rather, the primary issue, I would suggest, is
in close association with friendly critics and writers. The only artist
an unusual approach to the old aesthetic ideal of the semblance
to be included in the scene, he is suggestively framed by two critics,
of life, which is revealed in Manet's portrait to be a pictorial construc­
Charles Baudelaire and Champfleury. In real life, Manet had also
tion, the product of identifiable painterly techniques. Unlike
received strong support from Emile Zola and later collaborated closely
Couture, Manet had his early figures appear, as if out of nothing,
with Stephane Mallarme. The appearance of critics and painter as
from brownish-earthy backgrounds, painted coarsely, in saturated
peers in the picture also recalls that back then, unlike now, these
colors. Couture, by contrast, worked to furnish his paintings with
professions merited and were accorded equal status.
elaborate backdrops, draperies, and accessories (as seen in his
The writings of the critics were thus set out in various glass cases
Portrait d'Henri Didier), as though to enhance the credibility of the
scattered throughout the exhibition rooms, but there could have

THE OUTSIDE IS THE INSIDE

PAINTING'S INTENSIFIED EXTERNALIZATION AND INTELLECTUAL PRESTIGE
 arresting intensity. What's more, the painting overcomes the imma­
figure he depicted. Where Couture labored to create the impression
nent aesthetic classificatorv schemes and demarcations that had
of authentic liveliness, Manet's Le petit Lange (Child Portrait, 1861),
for example, seems to exaggerate the modern notion that the artist, been in force in Manet's time: a picture that, we might say, announces
in a godlike act of creation, fashions his figures from dust in a way that the contemporary "post-medium condition" of art, as later described
exposes that notion as a cliche. Manet's works always clearly show by Rosalind E. Krauss.78
that the impression of liveliness is a fiction-an artificial effect pro­ It was therefore a pity that the show's title—"Manet, inventeur
duced by the devices of painting.75 The importance of posing and du Moderne"—seemed to perpetuate the modernist narrative in
the pose in his art accordingly only increase over time. The culmi­ which Manet figures as the father of modern pure painting. The cura­
tors hastened to distinguish modernity in the sense they intended—
nation of this tendency is probably Lefifre (The Fifer, or Young
Flautist, 1866), a painting of a flute player who looks stiff, like a cut­ the modernity of Baudelaire—from the modernism of, say, Clement
out, almost falling out of the painting, which emphasizes the arti­ Greenberg. But from today's perspective there is more at stake in
ficiality of his appearance while also metaphorically pointing to the Manet than merely the execution of a Baudelairean program, as the
exhibition, despite itself as it were, illustrated quite adeptly. There
hard discipline required for the boy's occupation.
Although central works such as Un bar aux Folies-Bergere can be no doubt that Manet, like Baudelaire, devoted himself to the
(A Bar at the Folies-Bergere, 1881-82) were absent from the exhibi- phenomena of "modern life," as the section in the exhibition titled
tion, the show made clear how a picture like Le dejeuner sur "Le moment Baudelaire" showed with remarkable clarity. The prob­
I'herbe (Luncheon on the Grass) could cause such a stir at the 1863 lem was just that the presentation of the work sometimes created
Salon des Refuses. Interestingly, most critics reproached Manet the impression that Baudelaire's themes were literally taken up by
arguing that he had left painting behind by overstepping its boun a- Manet—from his praise of artificiality and maquillage to the black cat
ries. While many critics did, in other words, see painting as a firmh of Olympia. While his works from the early 1860s certainly testify
circumscribed entity that was under threat, not all critics judged to a Baudelairean spirit, I believe that these pictures speak a much
Manet's picture harshly.76 The caricatures published in newspapers at more consequential twofold movement: Manet challenges the speci­
the time included striking examples of the scorn and derision felt ficity of painting by charging it with the social conditions of its time
toward Le dejeuner at the time. The critic Jules-Antoine Castagnary while incessantly reminding the viewer of its specificity, for instance,
for instance, classified it as "bad painting"'—and back then, that bv emphasizing the material and gestural qualities of the applica­
label was not yet meant as a compliment.77 Even today's viewer can tion of paint. Today, this paradox—that despecification is compatible
understand how it could have struck Manet's contemporaries as with the insistence on specificity—is at the heart of an increasingly
an affront. Like a collage, the canvas presents a juxtaposition of d" controversial debate as the boundaries between the arts dissolve
ferent painterly styles, from Raphael to Titian and Chardin. The and painting regains its special status. To my mind, the show would
painting also seeks to blend a variety of genres—the portrait, the lan have benefited from bringing out such affinities between Manet's art
scape, the still life, the history painting—not only attesting to Manets and issues in contemporary art with greater clarity.
presumptuous attitude, but also effectively declaring the bounda- ^
ries between the genres obsolete. This is obviously not "pure painting
in the modernist sense. The barriers between the picture and the
world outside have been torn down, as the female's gaze directed to
ward the viewer, a much-discussed feature, demonstrates with

PAINTING'S INTENSIFIED EXTERNALIZATION AND INTELLECTUAL PRESTIGE

THE OUTSIDE IS THE INSIDE
67
 Jutta Koether:I'd like to start with a question that's fundamental and,

Painting in a to my mind, very topical today. Seeing the Joan Mitchell exhibition
last year at Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin,79 with my students, I began

Different Light to wonder about why and how we look at her paintings today. We
might connect Mitchell's current relevance to the observation that, in
recent years, artists who had more or less been forgotten or con­
signed to minor positions have reemerged in art-historical appraisals,
which then lead certain galleries to take a fresh interest in them.

A Conversation with It usually starts with a small survey exhibition that's then suddenly
followed by retrospectives. I wonder what the reason behind this

Jutta Koether about

might be. Does the reconsideration of these works have effects
or repercussions relevant to current theories and discourses around
painting?

Joan Mitchell i s a b e l l e G r a w : It is extremely important to understand the current rele­

vance of Mitchell's work and the way it connects to certain dis­

courses. You've brought up the logic of the market, which over time
appropriates even those supposedly rather marginal women artists
who have been members of hegemonic artist groups (in this in­
stance, the second-generation artists of Abstract Expressionism).
Now its Mitchell's turn—this is also a ramification of one of the struc­
tural laws of the commercial sphere, which assimilates those figures
that insiders treasure as so-called artists' artists as well. There are
additional aspects to her painting that are of interest at the moment
in the way they align with current theoretical debates around
painting.

J.K. Let me rephrase my question and be more specific. There are

these laws of the market that we might question on a fundamental
level. We're confronted with these waves, and suddenly a certain
issue is on the agenda. Is it nevertheless possible to still make
discoveries that transcend the market logic, that go beyond previ­
ous readings of her work?

i.G. One could explain the current interest in Mitchell's paintings

by pointing to patterns of reception and certain theoretical conjunc­
tures that her work suddenly fits into. Her early work, in particular,
caters to the resurgent desire for painterly gestures and composi­
tion. Literature on her work has repeatedly pointed out that her
early pictures aren't Abstract Expressionist allover paintings but in
fact retain the idea of composition and figure-ground relations.'9

PAINTING IN A DIFFERENT L I G H T
P A I N T I N G ' S I N T E N S I F I E D E X T E R N A L I Z A T I O N A N D I N T E L L E C T U A L PRESTIGE
 into chaos in places, only to then distance herself from her imagery
The clumps of paint placed centrally in her paintings ol the 1960s
and take a conceptual approach. Perhaps it's this alternation be­
might in fact be perceived as something rather figurative—because
tween impulsive action and a considered approach that's of interest
all the forces within the paintings drive toward these central clumps
to us today in relation to a model of "conceptual expression,"
in a manner that could be described as centrifugal. Her paintings
as I've called it with regard to Martin Kippenberger's paintings?82
seem to become further animated by the density of the paint and the
variety of brushstrokes, the apparently calligraphic lines around
J.K. I wouldn't necessarily draw that comparison. After all, concep­
them forming a kind of background. As described in a recent essay
tual expression, even if it's present here, is based on completely
by Mark Godfrey in Artforum, this holding on to compositional
different premises. It's always bound up with social spaces such as
devices sits well with the rehabilitation of composition in recent paint­
the gallery. During the visit to the Mitchell exhibition I've men­
ing theory.80 Godfrey praises painters like Amy Sillman and Charline
tioned, another visitor asked if we would mind if the lights were
von Hevl for painting in new and unforeseen ways,81 arguing that
switched off so that we could all view the works in natural light. It was
non-compositional procedures, such as aleatory procedures, have long
as if the stage lights had been turned off—we had to read the paintings
been exhausted and overcome. all over again. This was solely about the relation between work,
space, and artist—everything else was irrelevant. And yet the paint­
j. K . I take a somewhat different view. I don't think this desire for
ings register something "external"—like a sentence on a piece of
composition, also in Godfrey's sense, is perceptible in Mitchell. Even
paper, manifesting above all the artist's explicit will to be a painter.
if a compositional element briefly emerges in her work, it subse­
quently dissolves again. Mitchell isn't hesitant, but she's very skepti­
i.G. The feminist art historian Linda Nochlin has convincingly argued
cal of these compositional marks: her practice is geared toward
that Mitchell's early work attests to what she calls a rage.83 I should
them but doesn't end with them. You're right, there are these clumps
add, however, that this was never the authentic rage of the artist her­
in her paintings, but if you compare them with the agglomerations
self, but rather an aggressive energy that's not gendered. The
in Philip Guston's work, they're rather frayed and soft—they posi­
insignia of cliched femininity is absent from Mitchell's paintings.
tively dissipate along the edges. Although they look extremely vitalistic, they don't transmit any
signs that could be read as typically feminine.
i.G. Yes, they also look internally frayed, forming delicate and ner­
vous mesh structures ... J.K. I've also recently reread this essay by Nochlin, and it occurred
to me that Mitchell conceptualizes this "rage" in the sense that she
J. K. Mitchell's clumps are always fractured and their coloring is ne\er
translates it into her own painterly language. She works through
unequivocal. The more her work evolves and develops, the more
it by recruiting the help of other "rage-ists," such as when she seizes
process-based it becomes. When I recently had the opportunity to
Vincent van Gogh's Sunflowers (1887)—a high-intensity painting—
revisit her large-scale paintings, I was struck by both: there were t e for her own Sunflower III (1969), extracting that extremely harsh
stripes or vertical gestures that could be seen as something entire) yellow. In this approach, she's basically employing the same lan­
compositional, as series or figural formations, but as soon as >ouu guage she also uses to process a Monet painting, which is to say, her
decided to read them in a certain way, she immediately shatters rage has found its own signature or painterly language that wrests
that interpretation. Incomplete and hesitant elements always reman1' elements from these male role models, transforming them into her
although the gesture, the manner in which she employs the bnis1- own gestures. This doesn't just involve feelings of kinship or affinity
is invariably very powerful. There's an intensity but also a trenni ou with the role models but also, paradoxically, an assertion of her
vibrancy, as if she were never finished. claim to autonomy, idiosyncrasy, and her own gestural style.

i.G. The intensity of her paintings has something planned and con­
ceptual about it. There's the impression of the painter descending

PAINTING IN A DIFFERENT LIGHT 71

PAINTING'S INTENSIFIED EXTERNALIZATION AND INTELLECTUAL PRESTIGE
 I.G. Helen Frankenthaler would be another artist with this sort of
I G Her paintings actually testify to a headstrong power, which is
self-image—she, too, wanted to be "one of the boys," embracing
especially apparent in her works from the 1980s, when her positing
the role of the exceptional woman among the Abstract Expressionists.
of the brush grows bolder and bolder. And there's nothing to sug­
In Mitchell's case, this desire for equality with her male colleagues
gest that this is the force of someone who occupies the social posi­
even extended to her everyday habits—according to her biographers,
tion to which women are assigned.
she drank just as much as the other painters at the Cedar Street
Tavern in New York and could be just as acerbic and cruel. Neverthe­
j. K. The power has become uncoupled from her gender. The things
less she later permitted herself to come into contact with feminist
she had said during her lifetime would in fact suggest that she
art history; for example, Marcia Tucker curated her first retrospective
distanced herself from other women. She's hardly alone—many
at the Whitney Museum in New York in 1974, and she also ex­
women of her generation, like Jo Baer or Lee Krasner, for example,
changed letters with Nochlin.
displayed a similar lack of solidarity with other female artists.

J.K. Other women artists have such alliances: the collaboration

between Isa Genzken and the curator Sabine Breitwieser is one ex­
ample that comes to mind. On the surface, there's a distinct dis­
tancing from, or refusal to negotiate, certain issues that the artist
doesn't want to address in her work (or life). But out of a kind of will
to survive—and this also has to do with artistic instinct—she
nonetheless forges alliances when the opportunity presents itself.
Even more important, of course, are the people with whom there's
an intellectual connection.

I.G. Another interesting factor in Mitchell is the interplay between

proximity and distance thatI explored in an early essay: her work
spans two geographical poles and draws its tension from that.84
Arriving in New York in the late 1940s, she rather purposefully
sought out the group of artists who dominated the scene at the time,
making friends with painters such as Franz Kline and Willem de
Kooning and becoming a member of the Eighth Street Club, which
was extremely significant in enabling her to participate in the rele­
vant discussions and intellectual exchanges. In 1951 she rented a
studio in close proximity to Guston's, and her study of his approach
to painting is apparent in her work. But by the mid-1950s, she
went into self-imposed exile—as the curator Jane Livingston has
called it—in Paris, though she didn't give up her studio in New York
and traveled back and forth. She had numerous exhibitions in
New York, but for personal reasons—she'd become involved with the
painter Jean-Paul Riopelle—she lived in Paris, continuing to work
in completely different social surroundings that, at the time, weren't
the center of art-historical attention. Having spent the 1960s be­
tween New York and Paris, she eventually settled in Vetheuil.

Joan Mitchell, Sunflower III. 1969

PAINTING IN A DIFFERENT LIGHT 73

PAINTING'S INTENSIFIED EXTERNALIZATION AND INTELLECTUAL PRESTIGE
 j.K. Rather than Paris. j. K. We might view this as a second stage of the rage we previously
discussed, which becomes reformatted as something productive.
i G Exactly She worked in Vetheuil, the Parisian suburb where It's renegotiated, as it were, using the means of artistic expression.
Monet had once lived and worked too-it is pretty out of the way. Dissatisfaction and personal issues also play into such reformat­
When considering Mitchell's career, I can't help thinking ot your own ting. You can feel that the scene surrounding you is about to change,
history and your own work spanning two poles—initially between and you don't want to be part of a change that's both inevitable
New York and Cologne, and now New York and Berlin. By now you re and would confine you within a prescribed role. Mitchell, too, played
a specific part in New York and had made some progress, but then
also in the position of having two studios and making distinct kinds
this period of productive friction came to an end and she left.
of art in each. If I remember correctly, you left Cologne in the early
1990s just as the local art scene was becoming professionalized
I.G. In New York, she was cast in a particular role, which was that of
and experiencing the first signs of institutional recognition. Even
the exceptional woman among the second-generation Abstract
though you found an equally interesting situation in New lork, you
Expressionists—she'd conquered that position, but then she became
were in a sense distancing yourself from the environment that
stuck in it. It's interesting, in this context, that her early work en­
had originally forged you, and this also entailed developing a different
gages with the formal language of some rather marginal figures asso­
formal language. We might almost argue that your situation was
ciated with Abstract Expressionism, such as Arshile Gorky and
similar to Mitchell's—just as Mitchell's pictures became more trans­
Roberto Matta, as if in doing so she intended to claim a particular
lucent in Paris, as she applied the paint more thinly, your own
position—one that was just slightly off—for herself. So there was only
paintings immediately after your move to New York show a similar
one way for her to escape her prescribed role, and that was to
tendency, as seen, for example, at your first Pat Hearn exhibition,
abandon it for a new social universe where she could reinvent herself.
where you showed extremely translucent surfaces with a pastel sheen.
This development was probably only made possible by the distance J.K. She reinvented herself, but was also forced to renegotiate the
you put between yourself and Cologne. way she encountered the world and develop a painterly language
appropriate for such an undertaking. In the history of painting, an
artist's actions can't be disentangled from his or her awareness
of that larger history. But the cultural context and the perspective
informed by it will be different depending on whether you're in
Europe or America, in a rural or urban environment, an expat or an
involuntary exile. These factors result in changes to your self-
awareness, your identity, your relationship with language, and so on.
Other artists, such as Cy Twombly and Jo Baer, also semi-
consciouslv chose to become solitaries. Of course, the solitary figure
exists in other cultural areas as well. WhenI was very young,
Ionce got Mitchell mixed up with Patricia Highsmith! I'd also include
Ingeborg Bachmann in this class. But making such decisions isn't
altogether unproblematic—you pay a high price for them. You may
well be very lonely at times. Mitchell too lived through very dark
periods and struggled with alcoholism.

i-G. Until 1956, she presented shows in yearly intervals at the

prestigious Stable Gallery in New York, but in France, where there

Jutta Koether, Freud Broodthaers #1. 2016

PAINTING IN A DIFFERENT LIGHT

Kir:
 as a radical step. In these paintings there's a complete dissolution
. . h„r work her exhibitions grew more infre- or deindividualization—they tear open an abyss that no longer has
was very little mteres 1 , ati'cauy with the "Grande Vallee"
anything to do with her biography, reflecting more of a universal
quent. That would chang.^ . These paintings produced in France
delirium. It becomes clear in these paintings that she didn't have too
980s

much time left and was trying to make a statement through her
could probably not have pemhted terfl ex-
decisions relating to painting—by means of format, composition, and
use of color; T palette beoame more gesture. I'm profoundly impressed by how she persevered to the
impressionistic, richer, and more nuanced. end in order to articulate herself one last time.

, , , f 1 -h. had to restrain herself anymore. It was no I.G. What makes Mitchell so relevant today is also the way in which
j.K. She didn t teel s ^ thing or a fresh idea once a year,
her pictures invoke the trope of painting's self-action. She herself
longer about showing she also sidestepped the emerging
repeatedly stressed in interviews that she wasn't in control of
as it had been in New ^^ towardnon-painterly production,
the painterly process. She called this situation "no hands"—to paint
momentum ot Pop art rtflrH_lllar part and had come a long
like riding a bike with no hands,85 the bicycle riding itself, with
In New York she d paye a «. everyone involved wasto
no one steering. But at the same time she also spoke, like many other
way, but engagement was over,
painters, of the painting telling her what to do. To the degree that
divvy up the spoils. T P rd & more experunental
Iler exile in France enabled her to turn ^^^ she abandoned control, her status as subject devolved upon the paint­
ing. What's interesting about Mitchell is how this myth of the subject­
and even more process-base appro , h i became broader
like, "living" painting takes on the character of an experimental
oped in terms of the formats she ***
setup. The process can be traced in the paintings themselves the way
in range, and she now began making ll ing cry, "Stopdeli-
ra y

the artist-subject backs off, pauses, considers, and deliberately

same time she seems to have aear business
vering the goods!" It wasn't supposed to ^ ab°U; attempts to eliminate itself, permitting the painting to become subject­
beyond,
anymore, but about the bigger picture, about someth g . like. The painter becomes the catalyst for this mythical experiment.

j.K. That's a good point you've described veryr well. In Mitchell,

,.G. IVe read these multi-panel paintingsuch
abstract painting becomes open to renegotiation in interesting ways.
a literal expression of the urge to expand. als0 inte-
At the same time, her work also presents problems. The older she
compass several canvases, as it she were unstoppableHt s^ ^
gets and the more she invests in these experimental setups, the more
resting that, from the outset and througlhou . j kind 0f her work becomes limited to the studio. Nothing external is per­
in large formats, laying claim to a grand and mean g
mitted to enter in a visible manner. Of course that was a conscious
painting. decision on her part, but to my mind it also raises new questions.
Would it have been possible to admit any kind of outside, beyond the
j. K. This challenge, of how to be physically d°^J^orkbecomi^
work of other painters—in her case, that Monet/Giverny story?
yourself, to step into the limelight, but with * h u hoW it can
You can tell she obsessively studied Monet, but she no longer engaged
a megalomaniacal production-you can see in m** with the (art) world out there. Instead she explored the topography
be done, especially if you turn off the gallery lighting.
of her surroundings, nature, and Monet, who had gone through the
same processes in the same place.
I.G. In her last tondos, too, you get the impression that
taking all liberties, loosening the reins, even if she was i.G. You're right—there's something claustrophobic about it. Before
herself at the same time by using an unusual format. you mentioned Monet, I thought the outside of these paintings was
painting itself. This was already true of the series displaying lumps of
j.K. The tondo in particular is an extremely oV®rdf. . ^
difficult form. That's why I see Mitchell's move to

PAINTING IN A DIFFERENT LIGHT

paint of the 1960s, which, even though they communicate morpho­ l.G. But in Guston's case it had to do with the rupture in his work,
logically with Guston, ultimately evoke remnants of pamt on a palette. his turn to figuration, which was initially met with rejection.
The lump of paint stands for painting in the picture, andI inthe
final anaWsis it declares only one thing: that this is paintu^There J.K. In Mitchell, too, it had something to do with her painting. Even
were certainly sociological and biographical reasons that made though there was no harsh discontinuity as there was in Guston,
such a declaration necessary-instead of opening up her pa.ntings there were still a number of smaller breaks. For example, she left her
to soeial conditions, she was forced to stand her ground as a painmr. home turf—that was the first considerable break. She became
But the literature on Mitchell also mentions how she created her autonomous and she abandoned the language and the role or position
own social environment at her house in Vetheuil, where she accom­ she'd been cast in, also in terms of painting. She no longer main­
modated assistants and a continual flow of guests. It seems to me tained the same determination or relentlessness, as I already men­
that there were limits to this openness—she only let those into her tioned in the beginning. Moving away, an artist also deliberately
world that she wanted to. Unforeseen encounters no longer oc­ cuts off or vitiates social and cultural biotopes. He or she departs on
curred Perhaps she had to maintain her project at a certain remove an emotional voyage and endeavors to devise a painterly expres­
from the art world, in order to pursue it in its consistency and sion for it. The work evolves accordingly—no more refining of argu­
radicalness. In her lifetime, of course, she never received the insti­ ments or further highlights.
tutional (and commercial) recognition her work deserved. That
always makes me wonder: Why was the institutional art world, along l.G. What exactly do you mean by that? That Mitchell's painting
with the commercial sphere, so hesitant when it came to placing didn't receive the recognition it was due because it provided no
the trust in her that her work required for success in institutional further highlights that could be marketed like a product? That she
tended to work in more of a quiet, ongoing process?
and economic terms?

j. K. That's a reasonable question to ask, of course, although some of J. K. It's an ongoing process that has its dramatic moments, but it's
Mitchell's contemporaries, such as Guston, also needed a longtime. not an enactment of the popular drama. There are no drastic highs or
lows in the painting, neither for reasons of desperation nor for
purposes of entertainment. At the time she was leaving New York, Pop
art, for example, was on the rise—completely different types of
art suddenly became interesting, and nobody was expecting anything
interesting from painting. At this point, Mitchell wasn't trying to
hog the limelight or saying anything particularly radical or incisive.
At that time, which painter was? Except for Picasso, who kept
trying into old age.

I-G. Well, in the early 1950s there was de Kooning with his "Women"
series. And the 1960s saw the rise of the media society in which the
person behind the product became ever more important. The Pop
artists, and of course Andy Warhol above all, understood this very
well. And at this moment Mitchell withdrew to France—this was after
New lork had stolen the idea of modern art from Paris. I think
that it was difficult for people at the time to make sense of the work
of a painter who'd moved to a suburb of Paris and studied Monet
and such. Today, it would also be unthinkable to defy the networking
imperative, though it wasn't quite as pronounced then, as Mitchell did.
J u t t a K o e t h e r . Bond Freud National Gallery. 2 0 1 6

PAINTING IN A DIFFERENT LIGHT

PAINTING'S INTENSIFIED EXTERNALIZATION A N D INTELLECTUAL PRESTIGE
 J.K. That sounds about right!
j K. It would actually be completely unthinkable.

I.G. Yes, only that in Mitchell I have the impression the drips were
, o And there lies the source of Mitchell's fascination-that she
a consciously employed mannerism. It's made clear that we're
pursued options that would be unthinkable today. not dealing with the authentic traces of her actions but with a voca­
bulary that has long been mannered and that she deploys quite
> K It's also her "product" that's unthinkable-thafs why ever,™!
deliberately.
all over it today. People are incredulous precisely because it se«
hardly credible, and that's why it elicits such boundless desire.
J. K. And then also overdoes. But when you deliberately adopt a man­
Mitchell's paintings present a challenge-because yon « "*" nered approach, you also abandon the prevailing discourse. You
stand it and share in it, it's a craving for the unattainable. Mitch 11
consent to your own marginalization. The behaviors that her paint­
represents something outrageous today: the possibility of aa autom ings register—her abandonments, her distrust of membership,
mous life. her perseverance, and all the psychological contingencies—she con­
solidated in particular forms. For starters, there's the allover
l G. We should remember at this point that being independently dabbing, then the loops, then there are the straight lines, similar to
wealthy enabled her to afford her autonomous life. the broad, long lines; she was always employing specific marks.

j. K. That was the prerequisite for her artistic life, in which she I.G. The fascinating thing about these marks is that they constantly
very deliberately explored something unknown and took real refer to their physical nature. Mitchell's work powerfully reminds
us that painting is a language whose signifiers primarily refer to their
I.G. The product "Mitchell," however, not only involves her decision physical materiality. These are the things that come to the fore in
to withdraw from an artistic movement and to risk becoming a Mitchell, not the painter who applied the marks.
solitary figure. The original bohemian milieu of New York, including
the creative exchange with such artists as Yves Klein, de Kooning, J.K. All of that is much more prominent in Mitchell than people,
Guston, has left its mark on the product as well. The earh New or bodies with heads, a woman, or anything else to do with the world.
period is a decisive subtext to her work's fascination. Moreover, These are things of complete indifference and only present in
Mitchell also made some personal sacrifices by choosing not to ia\e traces. In fact, nothing is present. It's basically a kind of self-deploying
children/family so that she could focus on her work. mechanism that's applied in a similar way to Agnes Martin's grids.
Martin also introduces variation into her grids, a different but never­
J.K. Yes, it's an approach you have to be able to afford in theless structurally similar formal language; in both cases certain
logical terms as well! Such decisions can be harrowing t e, fixed elements are being deployed.
also involve hurting others and yourself. They re life-changin
cisions few of us are prepared to make. Still, there s a "in o I.G. Nevertheless Mitchell's paintings, in contrast to Martin's,
to them. nourish the vitalistic projection of the absent painter as a ghostly
presence. They seem to have been painted in full awareness of
I.G. Mitchell's paintings also witness to her awareness of the emble their vitalistic projective force.
matic nature of painterly language. Drips and runs function differ­
ently in her paintings than they do in, say, Jackson Pollock's Action J.K. Looking at Mitchell's paintings always turns into a kind of

painting. Greenberg once criticized the second-generation Abstract session.87 There's no getting inside this art because there isn't any
Expressionists for their "Tenth Street touch," arguing that their dis­ inside. Its impenetrability is part of her concept, since even-thing
tressed brushstrokes, speckled, streaked, and dripped, were ulti­ initially points to the opposite: gesture, staging, and the painting's
mately just a kind of mannerism.86

PAINTING IN A DIFFERENT LIGHT 81

PAINTING'S INTENSIFIED EXTERNAUZATION AND INTELLECTUAL PRESTIGE
 Careers Today: Criticism and Its Markets,
scale ensure an immersive character. They challenge the viewer
Notes ed. Daniel Birnbaum and Isabelle Graw
(Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2008), 75-88.
to delve into them, but this immersion doesn t really work. As a
1 See Hans Belting and Christiane Kruse, 14 See Branden W. Joseph, Beyond the Dream
result, you're sucked into her psychological model. Die Erfindung des Gemaldes: Das erste Syndicate: Tony Conrad and the Arts after
Jahrhundert der niederlandischen Malerei Cage (New York: Zone Books, 2008).
(Munich: Ilirmer Verlag, 1994), 11. 15 See my essay, "Market Reflexivity after the
I G A psychological model in which the external remains outside; 2 "Boundary-defying" may seem an unfortunate Bioeconomic Turn: Andrea Fraser and
the door stays closed and the world is kept at a distance. choice of terms, suggesting an expansive Merlin Carpenter," in High Price, 214-17.
movement where new boundaries have 16 Marin, De I'entretien, 73.
in fact been drawn and new conventions 17 Alberti, On Painting, 75.
J K . That strikes me as an interesting model to work ™'h^™y 18 See Helmut Draxler, "Painting as Apparatus:
established. However, it captures a genuine
be a clichd, but the power of these paintings only unfolds when truth: the expansive gesture of reaching Twelve Theses," Texte zur Kunst, no. 77
you're in a space full of them. That's why I've developed the parad#. out toward life that was implicit in art's (March 2010): 108-11. Draxler says that
adoption of increasingly heterogeneous "art is identified with painting where
of the "room full of paintings," since it doesn t work with just one painting is conceived as art 'proper'" (108).
media.
painting—a^single w'ork is precisely not the work." However- 3 Editing Texte zur Kunst, I regularly dealt 19 See Marin, De I'entretien, 32.
with critics who preferred to defer to 20 See Martin Warnke, The Court Artist:
energy you put into something you then present as the latest On the Ancestry of the Modern Artist, trans.
colleagues they regarded as specialists when
masterpiece" this dependence of one picture on the other nose­ it came to discussing painterly practices. David McLintoek (Cambridge: Cambridge
less comes into play, there's a constant negotiation and conmum 4 Leon Battista Alberti, On Painting, ed. and University Press, 1993), 252.
trans. Rocco Sinisgalli (Cambridge: 21 Warnke, 151.
cation between the paintings themselves. It s not about expenencug Cambridge University Press, 2011). All 22 See, for example, Hubert Damisch,
one painting, but about experiencing the entire space. further citations of the book refer to this La peinture en dcharpe (Brussels: Yves
edition. Gevaert, 2001).
5 See Louis Marin, De I'entretien (Paris: 23 Louis Marin, To Destroy Painting, trans.
I.G. Mitchell's multipart panels are also interesting in this per- Editions de Minuit, 1997), 33-34. Mette Hjort (Chicago: University of Chicago
spective—because they insist on internal affiliations between t eir 6 See Stefan Germer, Kunst-Macht-Diskurs: Press, 1995), 34.
Die intellektuelle Karriere des Andre 24 Werner Busch, Das unklassische Bild:
canvases. They're constructed like a piece of music and similar Felibien im Frankreich von Louis XIV Von Tizian bis Constable und Turner
to a score, maintain a cross-referencing between the individual ele­ (Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1997), 463. (Munich: Verlag C. H. Beck, 2009), 52.
ments. You become enveloped by them as if there was no outsi e. 7 See Andre Felibien, Entretiens sur les vies 25 Alberti, On Painting, 48.
et sur les ouvrages des plus excellens 26 Winfried Menninghaus, '"Ein Gefiihl der
peiiures anciens et modernes, 2nd ed., Beforderung des Lebens': Kants Reformu-
J . K . At bottom it's utterly perverse. Because on the one 2 vols. (Paris: Chez S. Marbre-Cramoisv, lierung des Topos 'lebhafter Vorstellung,"'
16S5-88), n.p. in Vita aesthetica: Szenarien cisthetischer
space filled with Mitchell's paintings is a shelter, on the ot e
S See my essay, "Cooperate 'til You Drop," in Lebendigkeit, ed. Armen Avanessian,
it's also a torture chamber: it's both. High Price: Art between the Market and Winfried Menninghaus, and Jan Volker
Celebrity Culture, trans. Nicholas Grindell (Zurich: diaphanes, 2009), 77.
(Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2009), 105-8. 27 See the editors' preface in Sabeth
9 See Michel Foucault, "The Political Function Buchmann, Helmut Draxler, and Stefan
of the Intellectual," Radical Philosophy, Geene, eds., Film, Avantgarde, Biopolitik
no. 17 (Summer 1977): 12-14. (Vienna: Schlebriigge Editor, 2009), 6-7.
10 See the editor's introduction in Leon Battista 28 Sabeth Buchmann, "Im Innen und Aufien
Alberti, On Painting, trans. John R. Spencer des Films," in Film, Avantgarde, Biopolitik,
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 23.
1956), 15. 29 Georges Didi-Huberman, La peinture
11 See Germer, Kunst-Macht-Diskurs, 499. incarnee, suivi de Le chef-d'ceuvre inconnu
12 See Peter Bexte, epilogue to "Sinne im (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1985), 37.
Widerspruch: Diderots Sehriften zur bilden- 30 T. J. Clark, The Sight of Death: An
den Kunst," in Denis Diderot, Sehriften zur Experiment in Art Writing (New Haven, CT:
Kunst (Berlin: Philo Fine Arts, 2005), 300. Yale University Press, 2006), 85.
13 See Merlin Carpenter, "'The Tail That 31 Marin, To Destroy Painting, 1.
Wags the Dog': A Lecture for Art Center in 32 Clark, Sight of Death, 84.
Pasadena, Not Delivered," in Canvases and

NOTES TO PAGES 33-46

PAINTING'S INTENSIFIED EXTERNALIZATION A N D INTELLECTUAL PRESTIGE

 Representation nach Louis Marin,ed. Vera and fashionable self-staging. See T. J. Clark, 82 See my essay, "Conceptual Expression: On
33 See "There Is No Such Thing as 'Painting : A
Beyer, Jutta Voorhoeven. and Anselm The Painting of Modern Life: Paris in the Conceptual Gestures in Allegedly Expressive
Conversation between Isabelle Graw and
Haverkamp (Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, Art of Manet and His Followers (Princeton, Painting, Traces of Expression in Proto-
Achim Hochdorfer," Texte zur Kunst, no. 77
2006), 15. NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986); and Conceptual Works and the Significance of
(March 2010): 112-17. 55 Horst Bredekamp, Theorie des Bildakts Carol Armstrong, Manet Manette (New Artistic Procedures," in Art after Conceptual
34 Alberti, On Painting, 46. Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002). Art, ed. Alexander Alberro and Sabeth
(Berlin: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2010),47.
35 Alberti, 43. 69 See Beth Archer Brombert, Edouard Manet: Buchmann (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
56 Marin, To Destroy Painting, 7.
36 Alberti, 47. Rebel in a Frock Coat (Chicago: University 2006), 119-34.
57 Marin, 7.
37 Alberti, 45. 58 See David Sylvester, The Brutality of Fact: of Chicago Press, 1991), 139. 83 See Linda Nochlin, "Joan Mitchell: A Rage
38 For the Renaissance trope of the artist as 70 Michel Foucault was the first to observe this to Paint," in Paintings of Joan Mitchell,
Interviews with Francis Bacon (London.
quasi divine, see the introduction to "game of verticals and horizontals" in Manet, 49-59.
Thames 8c Hudson, 1988).
Fredrika H. Jacobs, The Living Image in but read it very differently, as a "closing 84 See my essay, "Nahe aus Distanz," Texte zur
59 Kathrin Rottmann, "Polke in Context: A
Renaissance Art (Cambridge: Cambridge of space." To my mind, the decisive aspect Kunst, no. 35 (September 1999): 164-72.
Chronology," in Alibis: Sigmar Polkc 190-
University Press, 2005), 7. of these grid structures is that they point 85 See Joan Mitchell, "Conversations with
2010, ed. Kathy Halbreich, Mark Godfrey.
39 Alberti, On Painting, 45-46. beyond the edge of the picture. See Michel Joan Mitchell, January 12,1986," by Yves
Lanka Tattersall. and Magnus Schaefer.exh.
40 Carol Armstrong recently pointed out how Foucault, Manet and the Object of Painting, Michaud, in Joan Mitchell: New Paintings,
cat. (New York: Museum of Modem Art,
painting became stronger from the process trans. Matthew Barr (London: Tate Publishing. exh. cat. (New York: Xavier Foureade
of its hybridization. See Carol Armstrong, 2014), 29.
2011), 38, 44. Gallery, 1986), n.p.
"Painting Photography Painting: Timelines 60 See Albert Oehlen, interview by Eva torcher.
Suddeutsche Zeitung am Wochenende. 71 See Jacques Derrida, "The Parergon," in 86 Greenberg, "Post-painterlv Abstraction,"
and Medium Specificities," in Painting The Truth in Painting (Chicago: University in Collected Essays and Criticism, vol. 4,
October 9-10, 2010,2 and 8.
beyond Itself: The Medium in the Post- of Chicago Press, 1987), 15-148. 192-97.
medium Condition, ed. Isabelle Graw and 61 Charline von Ileyl, "Painting Paradox
72 See Clark, Painting of Modern Life, 5. 87 Compare Koether's exhibition "Double
by Christopher Turner and Claire Barliam.
Ewa Lajer-Burcharth (Berlin: Sternberg 73 See Michael Fried, Manet's Modernism: Session" at Campoli Presti, London, in
July 7, 2009. blouin artinfo, http://ww*
Press, 2016), 123-13. Or, the Face of the Painting in the 1860s May 2013. The show was based on a literal
41 Alberti, On Painting, 75. .blouinartinfo.com/news/story/3L-"'
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996). as much as painterly engagement with
42 Leonardo da Vinci, On Painting, ed. Martin /painting-paradox#.
74 Antonin Proust, Edouard Manet: Souvenirs the concept of the session as elaborated by
Kemp (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 62 See Daniel Arasse, Vermecr: Faith in
(Paris: H. Laurens, 1913), 31. Jacques Derrida in his book Dissemination
1989), 5. Painting (Princeton, NJ: Princeton 75 See Barbara Wittmann, "Anti-Pygmalion: (London: Athlone Press, 1993).
43 See Louis Marin, "Die Malerei im 17. Jahr- University Press, 1994), 70. Zur Krise der Lebendigkeit in der realis- 88 "Room Full of Paintings" was Koether's work­
hundert," in Diefranzosische Malerei 63 Clement Greenberg, "The New Sculpture
tischen Malerei, 1860-1880," in Avanessian, ing title for her exhibition "Champrovent"
(Freiburg: Herder Verlag, 1983), 74. (1949), in The Collected Essays and Menninghaus, and Volker, Vita aesthetica, at Reena Spaulings Fine Art, New York, in
44 Marin, 39. Criticism, vol. 2, Arrogant Purpose ^ 177-91. 2014. This was a deployment of painting in
1949, ed. John O'Brian (Chicago: Chicag
45 Daniel Arasse, "Le tableau prefere," in 76 See Stephane Guegan, "Manet en vue, Manet the pursuit of a post-installation and post-
Histoires de peintures (Paris: Editions University Press, 1988), 314. a vue,' in Manet inventeur du Moderne, exh. site-and-social-specific exhibition concept.
Denoel, 2004), 26. 64 Clement Greenberg. "Modernist Pain cat., ed. Stephane Guegan (Paris: Editions Alterations to the gallery were dispensed
46 Rene D6moris, "About the Practice of (1960), in The Collected Essays and Gallimard, 2011), 33. with, and the lighting was kept to a min­
Painting in France (1660-1770)," in Graw Criticism, vol. 4, Modernism 77 Quoted in Archer Brombert, Rebel in a Frock imum. The paintings surrendered to these
and Lajer-Burcharth, Painting bevond Itself, Vengeance, 1957-1960, ed. John OBJ Coat, 131: "Before the exhibition of the economic conditions as pure quantity in
210. (Chicago: Chicago University Press, refuses, we could not imagine what a bad a "whatever showroom": they formed a
47 Denis Diderot, "Notes on Painting," 89 . ? painting could be. Now we know." "room full of paintings."
in Diderot on Art, vol. 1, The Salon of 1765 65 See Martin Saar, "New Spirit ot Criticism. i 8 Rosalind E. Krauss, A Voyage on the North
and Notes on Painting, ed. John Goodman The Biopolitical Turn in Perspe*ntn • Sea: Art in the Age of the Post-medium
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, Introduction," trans. Karl Hofm • Condition (London: Thames & Hudson
1995), 198. zur Kunst. no. 81 (March ' |^ 1999).
48 G.W.F. Hegel, "Die romantische Kunstform," 66 See Alain Ehrenberg.Lusocif dumn '9 See Jane Livingston, "The Paintings of
in Vorlesungen iiber die Asthetik, vol. 3 (Paris: Odile Jacob. 2010), 226. ^ Joan Mitchell," in The Paintings of Joan
(Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 67 See Peter Geimer, "Manel' ® Mitchell, exh. cat. (New York: Whitney
1970), 17. Mann die Moderne erhnden ., ^ Museum of American Art, 2002), 23: "She
49 Hegel, 17. Allgemeine Zeitung, April , • ^ often needed the old fashioned "figure-
50 Hegel, 17. 68 From T. J. Clark's legendary; history ground' convention."
51 Hegel, 25. reception of his oeuvre, which fint Sfl Mark Godfrey, "Statement of Intent: On the

52 See Theodor W. Adomo, Aesthetic Theory, readers to truly grasp the scan Art of Jacqueline Humphries, Laura Owens,
trans. Robert Hullot-Kentor (London: Olympia (1863), to Carol. . s . ween Amy Sillman and Charline von Hevl,"
Continuum, 2004), 220-21. brilliant study of the connectio . Artforum, May 2014, 294-303.
S1 Amy Sillman (b. 1955), Charline von Heyl
53 Adorno, 52. Manet's painting, the construe
(b. 1960). '
54 Louis Marin, "Das Sein des Bildes und seine identity, and the crucial techmq ^
Wirksamkeit," in Das Bild ist der Konig: which this identity rests, such a.

NOTES TO PAGES 61-82

85
84 NOTES TO PAGES 46-61
C h a p t e r II

PROCEDURES
AND SELF-ACTIVE
 The Laconic Painter

The Force of With his "Black Paintings" (1958-60), composed of broad stripes of

the Impersonal Brush black paint on white-primed canvas, Frank Stella is said to have
opened the way for Minimalism more than any other artist.1 A num­
ber of features of the paintings, including "their monochrome flat­
ness, their mechanical execution, and the unusual thickness of their
frames," were indeed taken up by Minimalists.2 However, as well as
Reflections on a reduced formal language, Stella was also substantially responsible
for a new kind of artistic self-conception. In the following pages, I
Frank Stella's take artistic self-conception to mean the image artists have of them­
selves as artists, taking the form of self-representations staged

Early Work across a variety of media. While there are thus distinctly imaginary
and performative components to this artistic self-conception, it's
also communicated through the artistic work and sometimes appears
in aestheticized form.
With this in mind, Stella's self-conception can be characterized
by his break with the conventional view of the artist that Caroline A.
Jones describes as a "terrifically sensitive person."3 Rather than
appearing to be an artist who enriches his work with his ego, Stella
adopted the attitude and habits of an industrial worker, and sought to
free his work of "human touch."4 Ilollis Frampton's legendary photo
series "The Secret World of Frank Stella" (1958-62) shows Stella,
his self-conception vividly palpable, painting in his studio: Stella's
performance is that of the laconic painter, casually and mechanically
doing his work, without visible internal participation, sometimes
with one hand in his pocket. Like a dutiful housepainter, he evenly
tills the canvas with black stripes, as if to advertise his artistic
self-conception with absolute clarity. But at the same time, the "Black
Paintings" also do justice to the specific format of canvas painting,
since the white-primed canvas between the stripes remains visible,
almost as if to point it out. To the same degree that Stella portrays
himself as a purely implementing agent—as an "executive artist"0—
his "Black Paintings" also point toward the particularity of their
medium. It was this characteristic that won the approval of modern­
ist art critics, with figures like Clement Greenberg attesting to the

Hollis Frampton, #3 (Painting Getty Tomb),

from the series "The Secret World of Frank Stella." 19oS-6_

THE FORCE OF THE IMPERSONAL BRUSH

ANTI-SUBJECTIVE PROCEDURES AND SELF-ACTIVE PAINTINGS

"hightened sensitivity of the picture plane."® Michael Fried, too, cele­ of anxiety of influence to be found here! Even today, Stella's "Black
brated Stella for the way his pictures acknowledged the flatness and Paintings" are regarded as prototypical of the new paradigm. In
two-dimensionality of painting.7 , . these works, serialism and modularity are just as significant as the way
But unlike Greenberg and Fried, who in the 1960s saw their mod­ their visual structure—a pattern of stripes—derives from a basic
ernist ideal of painting confirmed by Stella's later "Shaped Canvases' geometric form that is simply repeated and extended within the pic­
above all I will interpret the dynamic of stripes m the "Black torial space. Of course the artist had first to make a decision on
Paintings" as a procedure that lends painting an aura ol greater ong- that basic geometric element, in this case stripes, thereby ensuring the
inalitv and assured authority. The pattern of stripes does not, in continued significance of authorship. But the resulting patterns
my view, primarilv reflect the rectangular shape of the canvas, as are also the product of a system created quasi-automaticallv by the
modernist readings would claim. Rather, it extends paintings spatial stripes themselves. For this reason, Stella's early work is often
sphere of authority, revitalizing the medium. Getty Tomb(l%8), credited with undermining the principle of authorship.11 The black
from the "Black Paintings" series, is an example of this: stripes extend enamel paint also contributes to the impersonal impression of
the "Black Paintings," giving their surface the rich, glossy texture of
dynamically across the canvas, as if moved from inside to out
an industrial product. Moreover, the symmetry of the stripes' ar­
by some centrifugal force within the painting. However, in unfolding
rangement, along with the uniformity of the pattern produced, has
these centrifugal forces, as it were, the painting seems to emit
encouraged the belief among Stella's anti-modernist viewers that the
an aura of independent action. The stripes are clearly not so much
"Black Paintings" stood for an abandonment of the illusionism of
generated by the painting's format, as Fried claims; instead, they
painting.12 Admittedly, Stella himself encouraged this viewpoint: in
form an iterative structure covering and exceeding the paintings sur
his well-known 1959 Pratt Institute lecture, he insisted that he wanted
face, a structure that appears to have created itself.s In this way,
to "force" illusionistic space out of his painting "at a constant rate."13
Stella's early work is seen in a different light—it in no way aims to
On the basis of statements like this, the literature on Stella has
"overcome painting with the methods of painting, as Gott rie
long held that these pictures marked a point in abstract painting
Boehm and others have claimed.'' Rather, by breaking with a series
at which it could no longer create "any form of illusion."14 However,
of traditional ideas of painting, Stella's work tends to strengt en
some critics have objected to this anti-illusionist consensus, led by
painting, painting understood as a changing and specific tormatioi
Boehm: as early as 1977, he suggested that Stella's "Black Paintings"
did not, in fact, abolish the figure-ground relation at all.15 And as
The Persistence of Illusionism long as a difference could be discerned between figure and ground,
between black stripes and white canvas, illusionism was not far
The impact Stella's early work (from the late 1950s and early 60 away. According to Boehm, a distinction can also be made between
had on Minimal art was also emphasized by his artistic peers ^ the glossy and matt black on the canvas, which creates an addi­
especially by Carl Andre. Andre went so far as to explicitly trace tional effect of depth.16 In addition, he suggests that the stripes have
own artistic methods, for example, with the repeated layering frayed edges" that are readable as traces of the painting process,
identical elements in his 1959 "Pyramid" objects, to Stella's appro* which remain quite present in the pictures.17 Examined more closely,
"But the method of building it with identical, repeated segment Stella is revealed as neither a mere "executive artist" nor a pure
of two by four derives from Stella."10 In other words, Andre c°n machine in the studio," as argued by Jones—although both claims
firmed that Stella was the figure to whom he ultimately owe n^ are frequently asserted. Instead, the early Stella should be regarded
ular system, based as it was on serialism and repetition. No trac

THE FORCE O F T H E I M P E R S O N A L B R U S H

ANTI-SUBJECTIVE PROCEDURES AND SELF-ACTIVE PAINTINGS

as an artist who attempted to use his brush in the most impersonal not be confused with the real meaning of their art, it's nonetheless
way possible. This became his personal signature style, which had significant here that Stella himself drew an inner connection be­
both a mechanical aspect and, at times, quite a painterly effect* tween an artist's painting and his self-conception. For Stella, to be
a painter meant "to profess one's own self-conception."22 Self-
Painting as Self-Conception conception here does not refer only to something individual, he
added, but rather to an identity "big enough that everyone can partic­
However, this focus on the painterly is not without problems. Most ipate in it." Obviously other people should also identify with this
recently, the major Stella retrospective at the Whitney Museum in self-conception he limns. It's not so much the creator's own self-
New York (2015-16) made a point of discussing his early work with conception that's at stake in Stella's pictures—this would be a reduc-
a greater emphasis on questions of painting. Michael Auping noted, tivelv biographical position. Instead, the pictures articulate a larger
as Boehm had before him, the "slightly feathered"—in other words, identity, something bigger than ourselves. This calls to mind the
frayed—quality of the edges of the lines in the "Black Paintings." divine force that began to be associated with painting in the early
For Auping, this impression of "spatial depth" was amplified by the modern era.23 Self-conception in Stella's work means a particular
fact that the stripes are not in straight lines, creating an illusion conception of painting, one with echoes of sixteenth-century person­
of "soft vibration."19 So he, too, finds illusion and optical effects in ifications of painting.24 Through its personified representation,
Stella's early work. But however correct this sort of observation, painting is compared with an act of creation, lending it agency. I
it tends to relegate Stella's "Black Paintings" to a conventional con­ would argue that an echo of this early modern idea of a quasi-automatic
ception of painting—possibly even a conservative one. I believe this painting is palpable in Stella's pictures. But the afterlife of the trope
misses what was specifically at stake with these paintings in his­ is clearly also present in many statements by modern artists, from
torical terms; moreover, it allows what was at stake in them to be 1* rancis Bacon to Stella, all of whom ascribe a subject position to
forgotten, which to my mind seems fatal. There is certainly no doubt painting itself, as if it had an independent will, and the agency that
that the pictures, most basically by being painted, deploy a painterh goes with that.25 Certainly in the "Black Paintings" Stella opts to
rhetoric, and for this reason have not entirely broken with tradi­ use an apparently impersonal, serial procedure. But examined more
tional ideas of painting. It's also true that in looking at some of the closely, the process actualizes the early modern trope of auto-
"Black Paintings," such as Delphine and Hippolyte (1957), the eye generative image creation: the picture seems to have produced it­
self.26 lo a certain degree, this displacement—the move away from
can lapse into a kind of "labyrinthine imprisonment" (the phrase
a sole focus on the artist's agency toward painting as a quasi agent—
is Boehm's)—the picture actually seems to pull the viewer in, in
is the very point of Stella's early painting. For example, his program­
a way reminiscent of the effects of Op art.20 However, the decishe
matic declaration, "My pictures are pictures about 'being painting,"'27
fact is that Stella's "Black Paintings" mark the appearance of
makes a claim for a "being" of painting with its own form of exist­
a new and different artistic self-conception, one that, amid the onu
ence and aliveness. In the midst of Stella's industrial aesthetic, the
nance of Abstract Expressionism in the late 1950s, was regar e
early modern ideal of aliveness enjoys a surprising renaissance.28
as radically novel and provocative.21 In place of the affect-charge pro
Stella s "being painting" refers to a being that necessarily surpasses
cess the art historian Harold Rosenberg termed "Action painting, the painter's own singular, temporally limited being. References to
there appeared an artist who was (apparently) emotionally un- this larger identity also suggest that Stella's attempts to remove traces
involved, who aimed at an impersonal, industrial aesthetic. At oug of himself from his paintings fuel a vitalistic projection that painting
artists' statements should not be taken at face value, and shou

T H E FORCE O F T H E I M P E R S O N A L B R U S H

ANTI-SUBJECTIVE PROCEDURES AND SELF-ACTIVE PAINTINGS

 m. msly, artists like Aleksandr Rodchenko attempted to abandon
• ii „>t,r,.Yi it's revealing that Stellas*-.
mposition in favor of construction.34 But Stella always strongly
£ '!» compared to the creation of.
from the > arly ntested any suggestion that European geometrical abstraction
j|U of a brand is to surpass its sinfcik
i .d played a role in his work. He went so far as to emphasize his
commercial brand Tl J" PreciSely because its stftdfan*
•lslike for the work of artists like Rodchenko or Kazimir Malevich.35
^ ££SST- develop a force of instead of considering historical predecessors as influential on
"hit remains bound up with its creators name. ins approach, he sought to inscribe the "Black Paintings" into the
. story of Abstract Expressionism, although they in fact marked
High Impact through Symmetry , break with the self-conception of that movement. In one interview,
hi insisted that the "Black Paintings" merely represented a version
A central aspect of Stella's brand, his impersonal-pereonal »tyt ... .1 Abstract Expressionism.36 A particular concern was to under-
dtat like Harnett Newman before him, he sought to free hind so,re Willem de Kooning's influence: he emphasized that de Kooning,
from compositional deliberation.- In any case, for artists!^ hke himself, worked with a "house painter's brush" using a "house
ilIU, Donald Judd the idea of composition was painter's technique." 37 Stella clearly did everything he could to
European tradition of "relational paint,ng, wh.ch they feIt ** situate his work within recent American painting, but this came at
completely abandoned." For them, relational Pa'nt,n«rt'^ the cost of dismissing all European influences. However, the prin-
an obsolete idea of painting, one still striving for batancebewem, iple of Stella's modular system is already visible in Rodchenko s
tortal elements to create Ulusionistic pictorial space. In his to work, as the art historian Maria Gough has convincingly argued.38
lecture at the I'ratt Institute, Stella attempted to clearly is • In a work like Spatial Construction no. 12 (ca. 1920s), Rodchenko
self from this idea: "The painterly problems of what to put here ilso derived the pattern from an originally geometric form, in this
and there and how to make it go with what was already diere. ise the ellipse, which is repeated and made three-dimensional. As
mild, were ultimately "unsatisfactory" and thus worn out. o (lough sees it, even Stella's famous dictum, "What you see is what
"better way" he argued for the idea of symmetry: "Make it the* % on see," is a revenant of Rodchenko's ideal offaktura, according to
all over."** Through symmetry, regular patterns could be cr*atc*_ which the work should present nothing more than its constitutive
thw arting the emergence of illusionistie space. But artists like e* lements, its own mode of construction. Just as Rodchenko's Pure Red
Stella. Andre, and Judd not only prized symmetry as the ami ou l<,r (1921) consists exclusively of canvas and paint, Stella also
to composition, but more importantly it allowed for an intensi ^ nsisted that there was nothing more to see in his paintings than paint
of the affective "impact" of the work by creating an impression ^^ n canvas.39 However, if Stella, almost in the same breath, insisted
"wholeness " In other words, these artists regarded symmetry » n the object-like quality of the "Black Paintings"—"every picture
appropriate means to attain pictorial force and directness. In . an object"—he did not mean that the work should be turned into
a symmetrical pattern leaps immediately to the eye, as if direct r functional object, as was the aim of the Russian eonstructivists.
pressing forw ard, precipitously forcing itself on the spectator »t course, Stella was far from producing utilitarian objects. His idea
i (he object is quite different: in calling his pictures objects, I be-
Stella was viewed as the most prominent representative of l
VC he was aspiring to the force and dynamism associated with the
new idea of painting, which claimed "directness" and "anti-ilk1
as its virtues However. Stella and his peers (Judd and Andre)
• rm. from the Latin for something thrown in the way.40
Ignored the fact that the Russian eonstructivists in the early t>vcr
tietli century had already declared composition to be the enemy

-,.t roRCE OF THE IMPERSONAL BRUSH 95

 Module with Human Force Stella's "Irregular Polygons" (1965-67) are reliefs whose geo­
metric forms seem wedged together as if by their own free will. The
Thanks to the anti-compositional rhetoric of artists like Stella or Judd, pictures drew much criticism from devotees of Minimalism, while
it's easy to overlook that they do, in fact, preserve a remnant oi their modernist advocates—above all Michael Fried—were enthusi­
composition in their artistic process. Simply by choosing a particular astically in favor.44 In his history of Minimal art, James Meyer ex­
element as the basis of their serial structure, they are making a plains that an important reason why Stella's literalistic colleagues felt
compositional decision. There is clearly no getting away from some betrayed by the "Irregular Polygons" series (1965-66), was the way
residual element of composition, even in anti-compositional paint­ the spatiality of the colored reliefs created optical illusions.45 Even
ing Ultimately, even the pictures' impression of auto-generative nnage today, criticism of the "Irregular Polygons" claims they mark a sharp
break with the principles of Stella's previous pictures, akin to a fall
creation can be traced back to a decision made by the artist. In this
from grace. However, I would argue the contrary: that the pictures
way, Stella is ultimately responsible for the way the stnpes mTUrhsh
extend the logic of the "Black Paintings," even taking it to the extreme.
Mambo (1959-60) seem to bend, as if intending to move in a differ­
In place of apparently self-acting, dynamic patterns of stripes, the
ent direction on their own. He remains the author of the suggestion
"Irregular Polygons" feature geometric forms (triangles, squares,
of self-motivated activity—he was its initiator. The suggestion is
trapezoid forms) wedged together in similarly dynamic constellations.
even clearer in his 1960 aluminum series in which the stnpes have e
At times, the shapes even look to be locked in a struggle against each
power to impose their external form on the canvas. The pictures
have holes or indentations, as seen in Averroes (1960), as if yielding
to the force of the stripes and making room for them. In other
works, like Kingsbury Run (1960), it appears as if the corners ot tne
picture plane have been trimmed on account of the dynamic pat
tern of stripes. Thus, as Stella correctly observed, the stripes in t es
aluminum pictures possess "more individuality. 41 In fact, t e
sheer willfulness of their "behavior' is on par with that ot in IVI T
One might say the "shaped canvases" of Stella's aluminum an ^
copper pictures (1960-61) present an idea of painting reaching eyon
its own support medium, the painted canvas, forcing it to c an^e
its form, as for example in Ophir (1960-61).42 To put it anot: erv
a shape is imposed on the canvas, which is the result ot t e • na
mism of the pattern of stripes. In this way, the canvas mutates,
contributing to this process of dynamization is the enormous
thickness of the stretcher frame: in a painting like Ileana Sonnet
(1963), the sheer distance between the painting and the \\a cr®*
ates the impression that its trapezoid shape is aggressively urs ;
outward. The picture pushes out into the room, asserting a gr
authority.43
Frank Stella, Chocoruci IV, 1966

THE FORCE OF THE IMPERSONAL BRUSH

other. Significantly, Stella himself went so far as to attribute human Painting as a Self-Determined Being
force to the forms, as in his commentary on Chocorua N (1966):
Using Stella's early work as an example, I have demonstrated how
"It's like you took a plane and stuck a triangle into it, and you felt
the break with certain painterly traditions (expression, composition)
that the rectangle could fight back and shoot the triangle backup."46
has given the impression that a painting acts of its own accord,
According to Stella, the geometric forms in "Irregular Polygons" are
and perhaps even has a life of its own.51 Gottfried Boehm, who intuited
engaged in a kind of battle, as if possessed of human force, as if
early on this sudden shift from critique of painting into a return
living an independent life.
of pictorial essentialism, observed that the "Black Paintings, in dis­
pensing with conventions immanent to the image, brought forward
Paint Lives "new kinds of being."52 Interestingly, Boehm became convinced that
the pictures dealt with subject-like forms. Stella's contemporaries
For this suggestion of self-acting forms to work, color comes to play
also had a keen sense for the way his pictures—in particular the alu­
a greater role in Stella's work after 1965. As mentioned, in the
minum paintings like Avicenna (1960)—appeared to have the force
"Black Paintings" Stella used viscous black enamel paint, which he
of a living being. In 1964, the critic Bruce Glaser said of Stella's
said he wanted to leave in its original condition: "I tried to keep
aluminum pictures: "You can feel it behind you even when you ve
the paint as good as it was in the can."47 When taken from the can, this
paint is akin to a ready-made, but this does not reduce paints po­
tential for affective, psychological, and bodily experience in anyway.48
On the contrary, it could be argued that industrial paint only dis­
plays its intrinsic affective-bodily potential when seen its pure state:
unmixed and undiluted. Left untouched by Stella, the paint's rich
gloss texture is visible, just as it would be, say, on a freshly painted
radiator. He is clearly concerned with the tactile appeal of these
surfaces to increase painting's force of attraction. In later works, like
one version of Moultonboro (1966), fluorescent paints and mate­
rials create an enormous luminescence of color: at times, they shine
so intensely they seem to reach out from the wall into the space.49
Color incidentally also played this role—as vitality-producer—in
the eighteenth century when Denis Diderot declared color to be the
divine breath" that brought a drawing to life, giving it the appear­
ance of being animated.50 With industrial paint, of course, the divine
breath has a quite different character. Unlike oil paints and their
pigments, which retain a connection to earth and nature, paint from
a can is artificially created: it is thus the breath of industrial societ}
that blows through Stella's pictures.

Frank Stella, Avicennci, 1 9 6 0

THE FORCE OF THE IMPERSONAL BRUSH

ANTI-SUBJECTIVE PROCEDURES A N D SELF-ACTIVE PAINTINGS
 got your back turned."53 Quite possibly this is what modernist critics Then again, to the same degree to which the "Black Paintings,^
like Fried meant by their ideal of "presence" or "presentness"—an even on the level of process, relativize the meaning of their creator's
effect of presence, analogous to that set off within us by another subjectivity, they can also be read as modeling an ideal of self-
person, a human counterpart. But how can a painted image compare determined subjectivity. Ultimately, they give up the articulation and
with a person's presence? Through the suggestion of self-activity. relationality immanent to the picture only in order to do something
that is more and more demanded from contemporary social subjects:
To the degree that the "Black Paintings" dispense with tasks specific
to painting, such as composition or expression, they have the ap­ to become agents of their own transformation.61 Paradoxically, the
pearance of self-determination modeled on that of the modern sub­ suggestion of a self-acting subject in the "Black Paintings" would
ject. However, this kind of analogy is predicated on understanding thus contain both an echo of a resigned attitude—typical of postwar
the work of art as a "rhetorical figure of the subject."54 Of course, intellectuals, who invoked all-powerful systems to justify their own
works are not subjects, but they appear as representatives of the sub­ withdrawal—and a look forward to the contemporary economic
subject, obliged to take responsibility for itself, to take its life into
ject. In other words, a certain understanding of the subject appears
within them, entering into tense reciprocal relations with the self- its own hands. In this way, structural and systemic problems are
today transformed into individual inadequacy. Here, perhaps, is the
conception of the artist. Thus, on the one hand, Stella's early works
ultimate source of the actuality of Stella's early work: it conjures
are indebted to an ideal subject, controlled by unknown drives but
up contrarian conceptions of the subject that are both historical and
nonetheless ultimately self-determining (and always seen as male):
in postwar New York, this was a popular response to a growing sense absolutely contemporary.
of precariousness of the subject.55 On the other hand, these works
deploy a kind of subject-critical method, reminiscent of the loss of
self-assurance also experienced by the subject in the 1950s.
Intellectuals and authors in the postwar period ultimately tended
to see themselves as being confronted by anonymous structures and
processes, to which they believed themselves powerlessly in thrall.""
Interestingly, these social structural processes, in a way comparable
to Stella's system of stripes, were ascribed characteristics like auton­
omy or momentum: for this reason, they were regarded as only
minimally subject to control.58 Analogously to a political attitude ot
resigned withdrawal in the face of over-powerful social structures
and pressures, Stella's "Black Paintings" can be read as allegories ot
autonomously guided, all-powerful systems that curtail any subjec­
tive room for maneuver.59 Some of their titles—Arbeit machtfrei or
Die Fahne hoch!—also contribute to a sense that the paintings have
been, as it were, transformed by history, or to be more precise, by
the history of totalitarian extermination in the concentration camps,
as Benjamin H. D. Buchloh has convincingly argued.60 Traditional
bourgeois subjectivity has been obliterated.

THE FORCE O F T H E I M P E R S O N A L B R U S H 101

100 ANTI-SUBJECTIVE PROCEDURES AND SELF-ACTIVE PAINTINGS
 Throughout his career, Ellsworth Kelly gravitated back to working in
Painting as black and white (though he often concurrently produced additional
works in which he realized the same shapes in color). "Schwarz
"Object-Tableau" und Weifl," his 2012 exhibition at Haus der Kunst in Munich, was
dedicated exclusively to his black-and-white works, emphasizing
their non-painterly nature and extolling their critique of subjectivity
in art. The curator, Ulrich Wilmes, interpreted Kelly's "sparing use

Ellsworth Kelly at of painterly means' as a "renunciation of the traditional painted

panel" and described the reduction to black and white as a rejection

Haus der Kunst, of the "subjective and emotional expression implicitly contained
in color."62 Yet as the exhibition vividly illustrated, black and white

Munich can also create a sense of subjective, psychological space. What's

more, a closer look at the works casts doubt on Kelly's status as a
pioneer of a subject-critical and impersonal form of anti-composition.
Maybe he wasn't in fact the Ellsworth Kelly that art historians have
portrayed.63 It's a commonplace view in critical literature that his
work erases the artist-subject most fundamentally through the use
of details from nature, shadow patterns, or parts of buildings as
structural templates for his pictorial objects.64 But as the Munich show
made clear, Kelly was one of those postwar artists—Frank Stella
and Robert Rauschenberg were others—whose subject-critical proce­
dures paradoxically resulted in a revitalization and re-subjectivization
of painting. Especially illuminating was the presentation of the
photographs in which Kelly captured natural or architectonic details
that were used as morphological sources for his pictorial and sculp­
tural works. These pictures not only captured a highly subjective
perspective, but they also infused his paintings and objects with a
sense of lived reality.
In a series of studies, Yve-Alain Bois—perhaps Kelly's most influ­
ential scholarly advocate—characterized the artist's procedures as
non-compositional and indexical. Building on this analysis, Wilmes
writes that the artist employed a method of visual transfer that
amounted to "anti-composition" and exempted him from both the
mimesis imperative and its opposite—the pressure to innovate.63
It's certainly true that Kelly consistently drew on external design tem­
plates for the construction of his shapes, using a real-world shadow

PAINTING A S " O B J E C T - T A B L E A U 103

102 ANTI-SUBJECTIVE PROCEDURES AND SELF-ACTIVE PAINTINGS
 to determine the contours of a form, for instance, or tracing the pattern subjectivity. His photographs—or to be more precise, his photographic
of a tiled floor. He also spoke of the subjects of his work as "already image sources—attest to a positively obsessive eye for structure.
made"60—that is to say, preexisting, prefabricated—to mark its
They reveal that Kelly was especially interested in and captivated
relation to and difference from the Duchampian readvmade. Yet as by certain kinds of forms and structures. Recurrent motifs include
the photographs demonstrated, he never merely replicated what sloping lines, trapezoidal roof shapes, curves, and the edges of
he found; compositional and subjective choices did inform his work. shadows. A reciprocal interplay unfolds between the formal principles
The legendary Window, Museum of Modern Art, Paris (1949), that guide this subjective perception of reality and his art itself.
which Kelly once described as his first "object," and the painted Just as Kelly subjected the world to his structural lens, the structures
folding screen La Combe II (1950-51) exemplify this subjective factor that he discovered in the world shaped his work. Rather than
in his art. The two works are based on very different templates— articulating a critique of the subject or undermining the idea of
the former was inspired by a window in the Musee d'Art moderne de authorship, then, the disclosure of his sources reveals that Kelly was
la Ville de Paris, while the latter has its origin in one of the photo­ an artist with a specific sensibility and formal predilections.
graphs Shadows on Stairs, Villa La Combe, Meschers (1950) taken What's nowhere to be seen in Kelly's abstract constellations, how­
on the Atlantic coast of France. For Window, Kelly joined together ever, are traces of workmanship. This remarkable absence lends
two panels and painted the top white and the bottom gray—a treat­ especially his monumental shaped canvases from the 1990s an air of
ment that very clearly marks the work as not a representation
but a reconstruction by means of paint, stretcher, and canvas. In short,
it represents an expanded form of painting and by no means a
mere "transfer" of a template.67 In La Combe II, he similarly did not
just faithfully translate the shape of the shadow in the photograph
into an object but dismantled it into its elements and then reproduced
it piece by piece in altogether nine panels. In both works, the
source is rendered diagrammatically—in a graphical representation
that abstracts from the original. Diagrams, it's worth noting, don't
just reproduce the preexisting world (in the sense of an already made)
but bring a new type of reality into being. In other words, rather
than simply using preexisting structures, Kelly made specific subjec­
tive formal choices, selecting a particular motif or detail of a larger
image. More properly speaking, his works should be called subjec­
tively mediated reconstructions. In comparison to, say, Marcel
Duchamp's act of selection for his readymades, Kelly's choices of par­
ticular sources imply a higher degree of individual intentionality.
The artist-subject reenters through the back door of the already
made. What the artist does isn't a mere transfer of something pre-
fabricated or preexisting, but rather its subjective mediation. Kelly's
works have manifestly passed through the crucible of his creative
Ellsworth Kelly, La Combe II, 1951

PAINTING AS "OBJECT-TABLEAU"
104 ANTI-SUBJECTIVE PROCEDURES A N D SELF-ACTIVE PAINTINGS 105
 the intensity with which it invoked its own agency while being in­
dynamic agency, whether they push out into the third dimension or
stalled was palpable—an effect, notably, for which it remained
come in unconventional shapes that deviate from the rectangle.
dependent on the dimensions of the room. By taking up almost the
The term he coined for these works, "object-tableaux,"68 strikes me
entire space of the section of the gallery it was installed, as if to
as aptly chosen. On the one hand, it indicates his arts roots in the
forcefully affirm its primacy, the visitor was forced to tiptoe around
tradition of the painted panel, claiming a status that a work like White
it. If this object was emblematic of Kelly's abandonment of tradi­
Curved Panel (1994) no doubt merits in light of its boldness, uni­
tional panel painting, upon reflection it turned out to be an expanded
fied form, and monochrome painted surface. On the other hand, the
form of painting, one that has left the narrow frame of the painted
emphasis in object-tableau is on the word object, as though his
canvas behind in order to assert its claim to a capacious presence
work is endowed with the power that resonates in that word. In White
and step up the medium's characteristic effects. Such expansiveness
over Black (1963), for example, another shaped canvas or painted
only heightens its air of self-action and quasi subjectivity. In Kelly's
relief, the bottle-like tapered white shape extends beyond the bottom
work, then, the renunciation of the painted panel should not be
edge of its square black background, not only canceling out, as all re­
mistaken to signal that the painterly formation has forfeited its
liefs do, the distinction between the real and fictional pictorial spaces,
authoritative power. On the contrary, his art invests painting with
but also creating the impression of a forcefully self-acting form. The
sleekly elegant aluminum object White Curve (1974) looks like it is new energy.
about to move away on its own, an effect reinforced by its slight
distance from the wall and its silhouette, which resembles a bird
soaring in the air. In other works that integrate the white wall as a
pictorial element—with Bar (1955), for example, a horizontal black
band pushes back against the narrow white edge of the picture,
which forms a visual unit with the wall—Kelly seemed above all con­
cerned with incorporating the architectonic context, over which
his objects ultimately triumph: they dictate the conditions of their
presence, one might say. In Munich, this effect was perhaps most vivid
in the installation of Dark Gray Panel (1986), a charcoal trapezoid-
shaped object that seemed to absorb and swallow up the walls around
it. In this instance, as in others, the shaped canvas signaled a newly
dynamic and revitalized form of painting. Expanded not only in formal
terms but also more literally, in its spatial compass, it dominates
the gallery and sometimes even takes control of the site of its display.
In a surprising twist, Kelly's work also resurrects the modern
myth of the self-creating picture. Consider, for instance, Black
Curves, a site-specific floor piece conceived specifically for the ex­
hibition in Munich. It occupied the gallery like a black whale, stretch­
ing outward as though it were about to break out of its confines.
Although this site-specific work was destroyed after the show closed.
Ellsworth Kelly. White over Bluck. 1963

PAINTING A S " O B J E C T - T A B L E A U '

106 ANTI-SUBJECTIVE PROCEDURES AND SELF-ACTIVE PAINTINGS
 The Gray Haze of The billboard outside the Neue Nationalgaleri,e m 2012^vert^d
its retrospective show with the terse message: RICHTER. 1 he art
ist's first name was apparently considered dispensable, as though
Subjectivity Richter were a household name, like Picasso whom everyone knows
even without the mention of "Pablo." Setting aside the unspoken
assumption that there can be only one Richter, which ignores the ex­
istence of another well-known artist with the same surname, Darnel
On Gerhard Richter Richter the poster exemplified the increasingly customary personal­
ization of artworks reflected in the synonymous use of the name

at the Neue to designate the author as well as his work.6' The artist stands for his
art and vice versa.
Nationalgalerie, Yet Gerhard Richter's paintings in particular have been widely
said to employ anti-subjective procedures and undermine the artist

Berlin subject's authority in manifold ways. So the exhibition like eailier

Richter shows, should have revealed how, in his case, the close bond
that usuallv ties the artist's person and his product together in
visual art has been relaxed or even severed. Interestingly, it did the
opposite: it demonstrated with perhaps unprecedented clarity that
the haze of subjectivity veils especially those of Richter s works
that have been held up as examples of his anti-subjectivism.
The weirdly labvrinthine layout of the show paradoxically nur-
tured the impression that one was looking at a kind of painting imbued
with subjectivity. Drawing the visitor's attention to picture alter
picture in chronological succession, the presentation heightened the
svmbolic impact of an isolated painting and obscured the seria
nature of Richter's output,70 making it harder to comprehend the art­
ist's approach in which his pictures are always conceived in ensem-
bles: more than ever, the work seemed to point to its author, becoming
what Alfred Gell has called an "index of agency."71 The series natu­
rally brackets the individual picture and foregrounds the process; the
picture removed from the series conversely brings into locus the
ftgure of the painter himself as a point of reference.
Entering the gallery, the visitor was confronted with the hrst in­
stance of a kind of arrangement that formed a programmatic leit-
motif throughout the exhibition: the presentation ol pairs ol wor s
exemplifving ostensibly contrasting techniques. A hieratic painting

109
THE GRAY H A Z E O F S U B J E C T I V I T Y
108 ANTI-SUBJECTIVE PROCEDURES AND SELF-ACTIVE PAINTINGS
 from 1977 with "wounds" inflicted by the squeegee, for example, was blance of self-activity. As it happens, Richter himself, in an inter­
hung beside the much smaller portrait Ella (2007), with which it view with Buchloh, firmly rejected his critic's characterization of his
shared the predominant maroon tones. The mise-en-scene of such "chance procedures" as an attempt to anonvmize and objectify the
diachronic "encounters"—in another instance, Tisch (Table, 1962) painterly process.74 It's worth noting that such conversations are
was facing the object Spiegel (Mirror, 1981)—seemed to demon­ illuminating and entertaining often because of the abundant produc­
strate above all that Richter commands a large formal and thematic tive misunderstandings between interlocutors. While such inter­
repertoire that has been instrumental to the formulation of an ex­ views allow the artist's intention to be known, they give the critic an
panded conception of painting. In his universe, figuration and opportunity to offer his or her own interpretation of the work. Be
abstraction aren't mutually exclusive; neither are painting and the that as it may, Richter, unlike Buchloh, sees his anti-subjective pioce-
implications of the readymade. In other words, even on a conceptual dures as a way to make the pictures "louder" so that "they are not
level, the exhibition suffused Richter's production with the reflection so easily overlooked."75 Loud pictures clamoring for attention—
of his person—or rather, of what's thought to be his person- another aspect of the work that bears the traits of a subject. I he artist
ensuring the artist's presence in his product. plays down his own subjectivity to amplify the subjectivity of his
Since the 1970s, Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, Richter's best (and paintings; the anti-subjective technique is patently apt to fuel the
most loyal) critic, has been a prominent proponent of the idea that myth of self-activity. Or, in a production-aesthetic perspective:
his art articulates an anti-intentionalist critique of the subject.73 the more the artist withdraws from the process of making, the more
As Buchloh has rightly pointed out, Richter's preference for aleatoric subject-like his pictures seem. Yet the recourse to anti-subjective
practices, such as copying industrial color charts in the large color and aleatoric procedures by no means amounts to a complete elimi­
grids, grows out of the subject-critical spirit of the postwar years, nation of the artist from the production process. His subjectivity
Fluxus, and the legacy of Duchamp and Cage.73 Still, one cannot but remains involved, most basically in the choice of one particular exper­
wonder whether creative subjectivity sneaks back into Richter's imental arrangement over others. The artist sets the course, as it
work. Might it be that the emphasis on the objective has merely were, for his own disempowerment.
Richter, however, consistently delegates the act of pictorial inven­
refrained—and, in the end, enhanced—the status and significance
tion and composition to outside sources and agents from the photo­
of the subjective?
graphs he uses in the 1960s and the abovementioned color charts ^
For an answer to this question, we can turn to a painting like
to the squeegee, that "semi-mechanical device," as Buchloh calls it,'6
4096 Farben (4096 Colours, 1974) that, with its randomly arrayed
with which he "paints" his abstract pictures. If the readymade as
grids of color, looks like it painted itself. In this instance, the use
an abstract principle represents above all the abrupt entrance of
of an aleatoric procedure serves to lend the picture an aura of subjec­
nonart into art, Richter has elaborated its consequences for painting,
tivity. This impression of pictorial self-agency was heightened by
obviating the need for creative choices either by copying external
the installation on the monumental marble pillar of the Mies van der
(photographic) images or by resorting to mechanical processes. The
Rohe-designed Neue Nationalgalerie. Marble is a metamorphic rock
large number of glass pieces in the exhibition—some did double
composed of carbonate minerals—for my taste, the implicit suggestion
duty as room dividers—left no doubt that Richter's work is in some
that the color chart was the product of a similarly quasi-natural
ways a response to Duchamp and his The Large Glass (1915-23).
process of transmutation was laying it on a bit too thick. The con­
Yet where Duchamp reframed painting as a discourse a revolution
trast between the virtually organic structures of the marble and the
he underscored by declaring his notes an integral part of The Lai ge
picture's geometric grid only seemed to highlight this shared sem­

T H E GRAY H A Z E O F S U B J E C T I V I T Y 111
110 ANTI-SUBJECTIVE PROCEDURES AND SELF-ACTIVE PAINTINGS
 brushstrokes. The viscid consistency of these brush tracks lets us
Glass Richter's glass panes, especially the ones covered in gray paint,
reconstruct—even more: gives us a vivid physical sense of—the
come across as "proxies for painting," as Rachel Haidu has written."
painter's movements. The painterly aspect of these early works has
In his art, painting—the medium and genre—emerges victorious
often been downplayed, as when Dietrich Helms described Richter
from the encounter with the readymade principle and its injection of
as someone who is known for painting copies of photographs.78 But
factors external to art into the picture.
on closer consideration, they were copied in a way that identifies
Similarly, his widely praised "blurring" technique may at first
them as traces also to a painting subject's activity. The basic purport
glance signal a mimetic emulation of the aesthetic of amateur photog­
of any trace, Carlo Ginzburg has argued, is that "someone passed
raphy with its out-of-focus shots and shaky camerawork, infiltrating
this way":79 it witnesses the presence of an absent person. In Frau
an anonvmous mechanical quality into the photographv-based
mit Kind (Strand) (Woman with Child (Beach), 1965), a spot of im-
pictures. Yet this technique also aims to render the motif unrecog­
pasto white paint interrupts the homogeneous surface of the blurry
nizable—it appears both more abstract and visibly painted, demon­
depiction—a kind of painterly punctum reminding the viewer not
strating once again that painting is a process of mark making, its marks
just of the materiality of paint but also, and more importantly, of the
being indexieal references to the presence of the (absent) artist
artist subject. Someone manifestly smeared on the paint or, more
subject. In Tiger (1965), for example, the horizontal broad lines that
precisely, manufactured the effect of a paint smear.
effected the blurring of the motif are distinctly recognizable as

Gerhard Richter. Woman with Child (Beach), 1965

Gerhard Richter. Tiger. 1965

THE GRAY HAZE OF SUBJECTIVITY 113

112 ANTI-SUBJECTIVE PROCEDURES AND SELF-ACTIVE PAINTINGS
 By emphasizing the close conjunction of painting and indexicality, a defense mechanism against the temptations of design and luxury
I don't mean to deny the gulf that separates a work of art from the amid the drabness of postwar Germany. Richter gazes with longing
artist's true self. What is revealed in Richter's indexical painterly marks upon the designer tables and sports cars (Ferrari, 1964) that promise
isn't his authentic self. Rather, as indices, these marks are signifiers an escape from the dourness of the early 1960s, only to nip such
producing the suggestion of the absent artist's presence. In other words, concupiscence in the bud—he paints over the car with a dark gray
painting, in Richter no less than in other artists, is a highly differ­ cloud.85 In many instances, the central image has visibly been scraped
entiated idiom, with a number of rhetorical devices and artifices that off, as done in September (2005), a painting that exemplifies Richter's
allow for the creation of this impression of a quasi presence as insistent efforts to work with motifs fraught with massive political
an effect. significance (the burning World Trade Center) as well as his wish to
The peculiar fascination exerted especially by Richter's early alter them beyond recognition.86 His pictures are alive with the tension
work, I would argue, derives from the interplay between pictorial and between presence and absence (of the motif, of the artist's persona),
photographic indexicality. This is illustrated in the first entry in between evidence and latency (of meaning); they are ideal screens
the official 1962 catalogue raisonne of Richter's oeuvre, Table (the for critics who try to render such ambiguity plausible but ultimately
title reads as an allusion to the German idiomatic expression reinen can't explain it away. Gray scale—shades of the paradigmatic life­
less color—is the perfect idiom, effectively burying the photograph's
Tisch machen, or "wiping the slate clean"). In biographical terms,
reference to life. The use of photographic sources imprints the
it represents the artist's fresh start after his arrival into West Germany
"stamp of the real" on Richter's paintings,87 supplying them with a
and his repudiation of the earlier work he had produced in East
semblance of the hum of lived reality, but in the end painting symbol­
Germany, a telling decision from which he never wavered. Table is
ically triumphs over this suggestion of life.
a programmatic picture, exemplifying Richter's new approach and
technique. It's based on a photographic source—a shot of a designer
table from a 1950 issue of the Italian architecture journal Domus—
and transfers the motif into the register of painting.80 So the indexical
signifiers of photography are inscribed, though latent, in the paint-
ing, endowing it with the "exceptional power of denotation' of that
medium.Sl Where the pictorial index points to the artist subject, the
photographic index, as Charles S. Peirce has shown, is defined by
its physical connection to the things about which it shows some­
thing82—it's saturated with the reality of life. So the use of a pho­
tographic source implants the reference to life that's characteristic of
photography in the painting.83 But then Richter recasts this photo­
graphic indexicality in the mold of the pictorial index. He doesnt
merely paint a faithful—indeed, photorealistic—copy of the original
Table subordinates the photographic motif to a painterly gesture
that critics have variously characterized as a vigorous and express!^
act of overpainting or as a kind of erasure.84 In a psychological
mode, we might read this obliteration of the photographed table as
Gerhard Richter, Table, 1962

THE GRAY HAZE OF SUBJECTIVITY 115

114 ANTI SUBJECTIVE PROCEDURES AND SELF-ACTIVE PAINTINGS

 Painting, in Richter's work, remains a form of mark making that
strongly brings the artist subject into play even when the artist
himself is not or only indirectly involved in the manual work of mak­
ing his art. In the abstract pictures created using the squeegee,
for example, he has largely relinquished control over the outcome.
Still, as Corinna Belz's 2011 documentary, Gerhard Richter Painting,
showed, how he moves his body and brings its physical energy to
bear on the medium remains crucial.88 We watch him slowly passing
the squeegee over the surface of the canvas, stopping abruptly
every now and then or yanking the tool upward or downward with
sudden vehemence. So the artist subject inscribes itself on these
paintings as well—they resemble an imprint of his exertions. At some
point in the film, Richter remarks that his works do what they want.
The notion of pictures that aren't just actively involved in processes,
in the manner of Bruno Latour's actants,89 but full-fledged agents
in their own right invokes the familiar myth of painting's self-agencv.
Like all myths, it rests on a truth about production. A painter
may indeed feel like his or her hand is being guided, like he or she is
obeying the commands of the picture. Yet it would be a mistake to
infer from this productive act that painting actually possesses agency.
Still, when artists like Richter efface themselves from the produc­
tive process, it adds to the illusion of their pictures' self-agencv. His
recent digital prints, the so-called Strip paintings, in which manual
labor plays no part, illustrate that a technique that explicitly negates
the artist's hand can nonetheless stamp his signature on the work.90
It's because Richter has inventoried all the variants of the painterly
critique of subjectivity with patient thoroughness, always employing
the most advanced techniques, that he has achieved prominence
as a sort of meta-artist, asserting the value of the objective against the
encroachments of the subjective in order to infuse painting itself
with subjectivity. His product bears the features of subjectivity, just
as, conversely, his name has all the hallmarks of a product: it's
a Richter.

116 ANTI-SUBJECTIVE PROCEDURES AND SELF-ACTIVE PAINTINGS

 Unreconciled:
I s a b e l l e Graw: In the early 1990s, we often met in your studio in

Diisseldorf to discuss painting. Your pictures at the time were replete

with highly suggestive references or figurative elements recogniz­

De-skilling versus able body shapes such as a woman's arm or a female silhouette, as well
as objects, like a ladder or an armchair. All these elements were

Re-skilling
arranged in almost collage-like fashion. But these paintings also pre­
vented the viewer from projecting "content" onto them, or they at
least seemed to send a distinct signal that this sort of meaning-making
was both unnecessary and beneath the work. In retrospect, I'd say
that they merely triggered such recognizable meaning in art, which

A Conversation with was regarded as indispensable by artists in early 1990s Cologne-

while ensuring at once that they were irreducible to such meaning.
Might this simultaneous suggestion and retraction of content have

Charline von Heyl something to do with the vaguely feminine motifs in your pictures
from that time? Might this have been about preventing a typical res­
ponse from viewers to such feminine motifs, which are often asso­
ciated with their author's gender?

Charline von Heyl:The feminine motifs may have been the ones that
stood out most, since they seem to address the viewer very directly.
For example, I deliberately placed small patches of "skin" in the
paintings, which immediately catch the viewer's eye; skin is more
charged than any other color or shape. Of course I was conscious ol
the gender connotations of these motifs and I liked to use them
as "preemptive missiles" of a sort. So the motifs were intentionally
deceptive and multilayered. They often came from what I was
reading—philosophy, poetry, and theory. I had a thing for grand exis­
tential questions that must not be asked straight up—there was a
deafening silence around them that I wanted to use in my paintings,
collaging the fragments into faux ideas to match the trompe l'oeil
effects and artifices of the material execution. You're right, it some­
times made the content implode, become meaningless or just
weird, and sometimes funny in a daft way. I was fascinated by pain­
ting's capacity to operate outside of language, so I was careful
to change tack or distance myself once the motifs formed a complete
phrase. The pictures were formally elaborate compositions to
which meaning was appended almost arbitrarily. For example, when
I needed a circle for the composition, why not use a wheel or a
breast? Or an orange or a pupil ?

U N R E C O N C I L E D : DE-SKILLING V E R S U S R E - S K I L L I N G
119
118 ANTI-SUBJECTIVE PROCEDURES AND SELF-ACTIVE PAINTINGS
 I. G. You've said that motifs are able to form a phrase and mentioned I o I'd like to describe this multidimensionality more precisely and
concepts such as "meaning" or "reading," which seems to imply scrutinize how your early works fend off reductive and exclusively
that painting is a kind of language. On the other hand, you say that content-focused readings. In my view, these paintings forcefully indi­
painting has the ability to act outside of language. Is the paradox cate in manifold ways that painting is a specific language Under-
of painting that it has a semiotic dimension and that it transcends stood in semiotic terms, as a system of signifiers, painting .s defined
its meaning at the same time? The belief that language is ultimately by the fact that, regardless of what they refer to, signs draw atten­
incapableof comprehending painting, that painted pictures elude tion to the physical quality of paint. All of painting's signifiers, whether
our efforts to translate them into words, is as old as painting itself iconic or symbolic, are perceived and experienced as physical first
and one of its central myths. Are you maybe holding on to this and foremost. And your paintings exhibit this physicalrty or materi­
mythical narrative because—like all myths—it grows out of a truth ality of the painterly sign. We might describe them as a masterly
or, more precisely speaking, an actual experience? survey of the spectrum of forms of materiality, especially in the way
they showcase different types of brushstrokes, textures, and sur­
C.v.H. It's not just painting; everything transcends language. Even face effects coexisting side by side. Whatever these paintings repre­
sent we will always read them as physical manifestations of your
language itself doesn't operate on the linguistic level alone. That's
technical expertise and dexterity. Was it your intention at the time
something art and painting in particular thrive on. I don't think it's
to demonstrate mastery and painterly know-how? And a related
possible to make anything that is entirely without words, and
question, what did you make of the model known as bad painting
I wouldn t want to, but I find the in-between spaces of not knowing,
the deliberate de-skilling and abjuration of technical expertise in
where the narrative doesn't quite gel, much more interesting and
combination with a do-it-yourself attitude that had its roots in the
stimulating. I'm still exploring them. I'm also not sure I would call that
punk movement—that was very popular among your colleagues
a paradox of painting: multidimensionality might be a better word.
until the late 1980s?

C.v.H. Bad painting was definitely my approach back then! You

need to go through a bad painting phase to get to a new place.
De-skilling is like shedding an old skin, a kind ot alienation that
calls everything in question. But then you need to re-skill. At the
time I needed that nervous, giddy giggle of delight that comes
from purposely doing something embarrassing and totally wrong
that, surprisinglv, not only works but actually works out as a
painted picture, as painting. Bad painting was a method used to
get trulv weird and unexpected results that made me
that challenged my own taste. So instead of using the calligraphie
qualities of the brush, which can only go so tar in terms of eith
"good" or bad painting, I went for other ways of applying paint: in
layers, by hand, with sponges, as pure pigment or a paste mixed * i
sand, as papier-mache, dirt, or spray paint, rubbing it in or scrap­
ing it off, applying colored glazes, using polyurethane or ename
for ae^hc paints, or whatever else was at hand. I wasn't interested
in technical expertise-what was crucial was that the material and the
content both packed a symbolic punch. This conjunction betwe
the physical reality of the motif and ambivalent associations

Gharline von Heyl, Untitled (3/95 I), 1995

121
UNRECONCILED: DE-SKILLING VERSUS RE-SKILLING
120 ANTI-SUBJECTIVE PROCEDURES AND SELF-ACTIVE PAINTINGS
 level of content prompts a physically and psychologically active
or her picture, as I've shown in a discussion of Gerhard Richter s
experience of the painting in its entirety. Materials, imagery, size, and work. Is that what you mean when you refer to subjectivity roaring
colors all work together as well as against each other in paradoxical
loudest in non-composition?
ways, yielding a peculiarly unstable visual experience.
C.V.H. No, that's not whatImeant. I was thinking primarily of pain­
I. G. I'm not sure that a de-skilling phase is necessarily followed by one tings whose energy derives from gestural mark making, that are
of re-skilling. It's an evolutionary model that reminds me of Mark painted rapidly and expressively without any regard for questions of
Godfrey's argument in his essay iorArtforum on four women painters: composition. But of course that doesn't mean they're devoid
you, Jacqueline Humphries, Laura Owens, and Amy Sillman.91 of composition—so I was wrong on that point.
He explicitly rejects empty gestures—gestures that simulate expres­
sion. And to my mind, such gestures were central to the rhetoric I.G. Does that mean there's no way around composition and mark
of bad painting. Godfrey, however, praises the four of you for having making in painting?
developed new "subjective compositional procedures"—he takes
it for granted, it seems, that the procedures of non-composition, whose C.v.H. Even merely choosing a canvas size is a compositional de­
purpose was to undermine the artist subject's authority, are ex­ cision. To make a painting that's alive and kicking, one ought to start
hausted and obsolete. So you wonder: Why is the repertoire of anti- from scratch as much as possible, and not pay too much attention
composition, very much including the gestures of anti-composition, to fashions and opinions. In any case, the situation now is one of hor­
considered so passe right now? Because such painterly gestures izontal differentiation; there's no longer an avant-garde spearhead.
that sever the connection to the painting subject aren't just premised There are just too many people who do sincere work on that project
on a de-skilling but, more importantly, threaten the deeply rooted called painting. "Not knowing" has long been demystified and
belief in painting as a sacred art form that requires serious engage­ become an accepted part of painting's operating system. It's anything
ment and technical skills. No one would ever admit to this belief, but goes now.
it s there consider the way people in Germany, partly because of
how the definite article works in German grammar, often refer to I.G. But the notion that one can start from scratch with a new piece,
die Malerei in a tone of reverence, as though it were a higher being. that idea of complete freedom: That's a fantasy isn't it^ It can be
a productive fantasy, but it remains a phantasmic construction that
C.v.h. Both de-skilling and re-skilling are mannerisms, I think. For protects one from acknowledging the real. In your early work, for
me at the time, that just meant exchanging one approach based example, I see an abundance of painterly conventions and fashions
on gestures and speed for another that favored a slow buildup, relying that, far from ignoring, you specifically engage: from the sculptural
more on composition and effects. For example, I have a talent for shapes of Fernand Leger to the dry figuration of Konrad Klapheck,
the elegant line, which I can make use of or work against. And I still from circles a la Sonia Delaunay to the palette of early Markus
love elaborate over-the-top compositions, although back thenI Liipertz. I also don't agree that anything goes now. Are you really
used them mainly to disassociate myself from the painting around advocating a pluralist stance, a kind of aesthetic relativism? Isn't it
me. By the way,I don't agree with you: I think non-composition is especially important in light of today's highly segmented and plu-
exactly where subjectivity roars loudest. ralized art world to develop normatively ambitious arguments for or
against certain artistic practices? Especially since we live in an
economy Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello have aptly described as a
I.G. Thats true—non-composition in the end can't undermine sub-
"connexionist world" in which everyone's afraid to criticize the
jecti\ ity, although that's its aim. I'd even argue that anti-subjective
other because they might lose a valuable social connection.92
procedures, such as aleatoric techniques in painting, were instrumen-
ta to infusing painted pictures with greater subjectivity. As the
artist cedes his or her agency to chance, it effectively accrues to his

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122 ANTI-SUBJECTIVE PROCEDURES AND SELF-ACTIVE PAINTINGS
 C. v. H. Paintings I saw in catalogues were always very inspiring for me, I.G. You're right, authorship in Cologne was bound up less with one s
especially since I was always looking for stuff I didn't know. For own work than with one's public bearing. One's attitude the
example, discovering Juan Gris's synthetic Cubism was enormously Hcdtung everyone was talking about—mattered more than anything.
thrilling. And of course I was influenced by the painters 1 admired, The artist had to be convincing as a person, and his or her personal
especially Albert Oehlen, who was a friend, and Jorg Immendorff, for credibility rubbed off on the work, which then also seemed credible
whom I was working. And later it was the culture of debate in the and trustworthy. But wasn't the same nexus between person and
Cologne circles around Michael Krebber and the discussions I had product operative in 1990s New York as well? Didn't you also have to
with you and Merlin [Carpenter] and Mayo [Thompson]. When I say perform yourself convincingly in New York for your work to be
that one has to start from scratch as much as possible, what I mean taken seriously?
is that one needs to stake out an autonomous and idiosyncratic
position. It's important to keep freedom as an idea and energy in C .v.H. Maybe I was already established enough, or maybe I simply
mind even if being truly free is, needless to say, a total fantasy. But ignored demands of this sort at the time or didn't pick up on them.
if you lose that fantasy, everything else is no fun anymore. Either way, it didn't feel like I had to perform in one way or another.
And the New York art world was already so heavily segmented that
I.G. There's an interesting tension in your early work. On the one it was perhaps easier to find a milieu to be comfortable in. In the end,
hand, it insists on reference, as though to open painting up to the ex­ it all depends on the work anyway.
ternal conditions in which it has its life. On the other hand, it
emphasizes painting as a specific system of signs, the more so since
you constantly work on and underscore the physical reality of
these signs. And that phvsicality lets them point also to painting's ab­
sent creator, who seems to maintain a ghostly presence. I like that
that tension is never resolved—your pictures are neither about
something nor just manifestations of their absent author. But toward
the end of the 1990s, when you were already living in New York,
your work shifted toward less obviously figurative and referential ele­
ments. Could you explain why?

C. v. H. In Cologne, authorship needed to be backed up by dogmatic

statements or a convincing coolness. Artists not only made the
work but also provided the key to interpret it, as though that kind of
access was the privilege of a small and select group. They delibera­
tely limited their audiences, and conversely needed to puff their
authorship. In New York, by contrast, the atmosphere was more
generous and affirmative. Authorship was granted freely and gladb.
This allowed me to make some paintings of the "because I say so
variety, testing the boundaries of what a picture needs or doesn tneca
before it falls apart. In Germany, that would have been seen as a
purely strategic move, but in New York I didn't need to defend myself—
I could simply assert authorship, and people accepted it at face
value. That was quite liberating. Conversations with other painters,
too, were uncomplicated exercises in connoisseurship, and that
shows in the pictures as well. Charlinc von Heyl. Igitur, 2008

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124 ANTI-SUBJECTIVE PROCEDURES AND SELF-ACTIVE PAINTINGS
 i.G. I'm not sure it depends, or ever depended, on the work alone. C.v.H. I don't think it's a secret knowledge; rather, it's a kind of
visual intelligence, and that's neither imaginary nor arbitrary. Some
With regard to this question, it's illuminating to reread Vasaris
people have it and choose a career in which they can put it to use
Vite, which primarily memorialized artists such as Raphael and
becoming artists or art historians. It's also a competence that evolves
Michelangelo as personalities—the descriptions of their art are
the more you use it and the more you learn. It's a talent or instinct
secondary. Vasari never discusses the work only: he portrays the art­
no less than an intuitive grasp of mathematics, mechanics, or garden­
ists' actions and public bearing, which then lend significance and
ing, and not some kind of exclusive snobbery. Yet connoisseurship
credibility to their works as well. So I don't think you can draw
also brings the category of taste into play, and that's where it gets
an absolute distinction between the artist and his or her product.
trickv—oil the other hand, it's where the real fun comes in. Taste is
Product and persona signify each other; they're linked by a
the last anarchist agent, being fed by desire. At its core, it's fueled
metonymic relationship. I recently reread Jutta's [Koether] first
bv pure feeling. Much of painting's power derives from its potential tor
novella,/. Although she insists on the longevity of painted pic­
engendering desire, or refracting it, or just playing with it. Painting
tures—"In the end, they will be there when I'm not anymore"93—
engages the beholder directly without presupposing special knowledge.
the book is also about the increased importance of the artist's per­
It doesn't matter if someone's response is positive or defensive
sona in our media society, where the focus is on the person behind
what matters is that it activates engagement and people's capacity
the work. Jutta has always conceived of the way she staged herself
to decide for themselves.
in public as an integral part of her practice. Her discourse, the
books she reads, the records she listens to—it's all described in/.
i.G. Taste is fundamentally subjective, yes, but it also solicits the
assent of others, as Kant demonstrated, so there's a normative and
C.v.H. Yes, that was the credo in Cologne at the time, and it was what
universalizing side to it. When I pass aesthetic judgment I also
I wanted to learn: how to behave as an artist or, as you put it, how
demand assent from others-therein lies its normative dimension.
to become a persona. That was why I chose Galerie Nagel in Cologne
But to persuade others I need to disclose my criteria and embed
for my first exhibition—a context in which I was pretty isolated
my argument in a specific situation. And that's exactly what s not
as a painter and had to take a lot of criticism. But it was also the most
happening when one picture is flatly declared to be superior, skip­
interesting scene with the most interesting discourse, precisely
ping the argument and the criteria. Wouldn't it be necessary to
because it wasn't about painting. I don't think I would be where I am
at least try and explain why i
without those strategies, they shaped me as much as my pictures.
C.v.H. But why? Christopher and I didn't disagree to begin with—
I.G. You talked earlier about the connoisseurship you shared with we were in agreement—and that was founded not only on taste but
other painters in New York. Why do you affirm a type of knowledge on a shared knowledge. Which, by the way, isn't to say that we
that's both exclusive and partly imaginary? Isn't connoisseurship,
don't argue sometimes.
when embraced by artists, a way of defending their utterly arbitrary
decisions by obviating the need to make them plausible? I remem­ I G I also wonder what it means to claim authorship for painting,
ber visiting Christopher [Wool] in his studio with you at some point as you say you did during your time in New York. Do you mean that
in the 1990s. The two of you were looking at two of his pictures painting merits authorship, or do you refer to the fact that painting
that looked very similar, and you immediately agreed that one was has a specific way of suggesting authorship? It's been my observation
better than the other, though you couldn't explain why—it seemed that even anti-subjective procedures in painting—like Richter s
evident to you. That struck me as one manifestation of connoisseur­ use of the squeegee—end up endowing the painting with a sort ot sub­
ship and the way it operates: a knowledge that's inaccessible to jectivity. The pictures seem to have a life of their own and appear
others and that can't be put into words. Is this kind of secret knowl­ t0 be self-active, as though they'd painted themselves. Are you inten­
edge that's often associated with painting really something we ought tionally trying to lend your pictures agency and make them come
to cultivate today? Shouldn't we much rather admit that it's to a
certain degree imaginary?

127
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126 ANTI-SUBJECTIVE PROCEDURES AND SELF-ACTIVE PAINTINGS

 across as quasi subjects? Might we say that your authorship consists delimited entity, or do you agree with me that the boundary be­
in furnishing them with authorship? tween what's inside painting and what's outside it is fundamentally
unstable?
C.v.H. No—pictures are objects. There's always an author, be
it a painter, a printmaker, a squeegee-ist, or whatever; to my mind it C.v.H. It's what the painted picture does that I m interested in,
doesn't make a difference. Marilyn Minter and Jeff Koons don't not what it is. And what it does is constantly shifting and depends on
touch their pictures at all, but they're still good painters. It seems to where, when, and by whom it's being seen. But I love painting's
me that you fetishize the way the paint ends up on the canvas. power and its persistence as an object, and I love the process of paint­
I think that's an approach that leads nowhere. As a painter, I make the ing. I don't see that as a contradiction. So I can't give you a precise
pictures. It doesn't really matter how it happens—but the pictures answer.
definitely don't paint themselves. I don't see how it could be otherwise,
and why should it? For me there's no question revolving around I . G . Historically speaking, painting since the postwar era has increas­

authorship. But I, as the author, make decisions that allow the paint­ ingly turned its attention to its contexts and expanded in manifold
ing to take on a life of its own—not literally, obviously, because ways—whether incorporating its social conditions, opening up to
it remains an object, but as a medium of visual information that's other art forms, or declaring the artist's social relationships to be its
loose and suggestive enough to give different viewers room for their true substance, as in the recent tendency known as network paint­
individual perceptions, in which they follow their own imaginations ing. It's just that when painting actively becomes unspecific in these
more than mine. ways, it's increasingly difficult to articulate whats specific about it.
What are the ostensibly external parameters that you think of
i . G . I think there's been a misunderstanding. I don't fetishize the as integral to painting? And if we restrict painting to the picture-on-
way the paint ends up on the canvas—far from it! What I'm interested canvas format, or variations on it, might that be a way to grasp
in is painting's capacity to trigger these sort of vitalistic projec­ its specificity?
tions. And that capacity, I think, is due to the specific indexicality of
paintings signifiers and by painting I mean the picture-on-canvas C.v.H. I believe in a potential that's specific to painting. Standing
format or variations on it. The painted canvas has the ability to evoke before a painted picture, you can look at it and let it all happen all at
the impression of a ghostly presence of its absent author—it hovers once, but you can also let it unfold layer upon layer, as it were,
etw een the suggestion of aliveness and factual lifelessness. So paint­ over time. No other art form accommodates these different paces of
ing is a specific language that provides a variety of artifices, methods, simultaneous perception. Painting is made to be seen, and in the
techniques, and ruses to generate this impression of the absent first instance, everything happens in that space and time of visual at­
authors presence as an indexical effect. And for these indexical tention. However painting is supposed to function in the end, and
effects to occur, the artist doesn't need to have put his or her own it must engage with that fact, there's no way around it. For me, that
hand to the picture, guiding the brush or throwing paint on the first moment is also the most interesting: I've decided to stop there
and find out whether I can extend that first glance and what I can do
canvas. A mechanically produced picture, as done by Andy Warhol
with it—for example, whether I can activate the space between
or \ade Guyton, can produce the same impression-for example, bv
picture and viewer even more. My surfaces refuse to offer the inviting
irtue ot imperfections deliberately left uncorrected. Does that
make sense to you? window-like vista of a pictorial space, instead reaching out into
the viewer's space of perception in order to activate it. 1 hat space is
external and internal at the same time. It exists only as long as
C.v.H. Yes, that's exactly what I meant.
the viewer looks at the picture, for the duration of the act of contem­
plation, of shifting thoughts, of alternation between attention and
t0 aSk 3 question ab°»t what your definition of
letting one's mind wander, between abundant opinions and the
pamtmg ts. Do you regard painting as a clearly delineated and

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128 ANT,-SUBJECTIVE PROCEDURES AND SELP-ACT,VE PAINTINGS
absence of words. The mental picture that emerges in this process isn't of the surface of a canvas destroyed its
Notes virtual flatness, producing illusions. On this,
really something you can integrate into your consciousness and Fried again agreed with Greenberg's view­
"take away," most simply because it's never just one picture. If you've 1 James Meyer, Minimalism: Art and Polemics point, likewise noting that it's impossible to
distinguish the surface of the canvas from
felt a genuine connection, you'll want to come back again and in the Sixties (New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press, 2001), 90. the illusionism it produces. See Fried,
again to update your recollection. The love of painting is also a love 2 See Johannes Meinhardt, Ende der Malerei "Shape as Form," 79.
of one's own ability to make a picture one's own in this way. und Malerei nach dem Ende der Malerei 13 See Frank Stella, "Pratt Institute Lecture"
(Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 1997), 151. (1959), http://theoria.art-zoo.com/pratt
3 Caroline A. Jones, "Frank Stella, Executive -institute-lecture-frank-stella/, accessed
Artist," in Machine in the Studio: December 19, 2017.
Constructing the Postwar American Artist 14 Meinhardt, Ende der Malerei, 151.
(Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1996), 15 Boehm, "Bild-Dinge," 11.
164. 16 Boehm, 13.
4 Jones, 164. 17 Boehm, 12.
5 Jones, 117. 18 Stella himself compared the way an artist
6 Greenberg, quoted in Michael Fried, "Shape held the brush and applied paint to a kind
as Form: Stella's Irregular Polygons" (1966), of handwriting to relativize, in the same
in Art and Objecthood: Essays and move, the significance of that handwriting:
Reviews (Chicago: Chicago University "1 found out that I just didn't have anything
Press, 1998), 78. to say in those terms." "Questions to Stella
7 Greenberg, in Fried, "Shape as Form." and Judd," interview by Bruce Glaser, in
8 Caroline A. Jones states: "Even Stella's Minimal Art: A Critical Anthology, ed.
sense of his own agency in his production Gregory Battcock (New York: E. P. Dutton,
slips, and the works themselves assume a 1968), 148-64.
power and autonomy, an independence of 19 Michael Auping, "The Phenomenology
will: they occasionally take the subject of Frank: 'Materiality and Gesture Making
position in the grammar of his remini­ Space,'" in Frank Stella: A Retrospective,
scence." Jones, "Frank Stella, Executive exh. cat., Whitney Museum, New York,
Artist," 123. ed. Michael Auping (New Haven, CT: Yale
9 See Gottfried Boehm, "Bild-Dinge: Stellas University Press, 2015), 17.
Konzeption der 'Black Paintings' und einige 20 It's unsurprising that in 1965 Stella was
ihrer Folgen," in Frank Stella: Werke 1958- invited to be part of the exhibition "The
1976, exh. cat., ed. Gottfried Boehm Responsive Eye," whose other participants
(Bielefeld: Kunsthalle Bielefeld, 1977), 11. included figures like Bridget Riley and
10 Cited in Maria Gough, "Frank Stella Is a Victor Vasarely.
Constructivist," October, no. 119 (Winter 21 Buchloh made clear Stella's break with the
2007): 101 (italics added). conventions of his time, by characterizing
11 See Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, "Painting as the "Black Paintings" as an "assault on the
Diagram: Five Notes on Frank Stella's Early formalist traditions of New York School
Paintings, 1958-1959," October, no. 143 modernism." Buchloh, "Painting as
(Winter 2013): 126-44. Buchloh interprets Diagram," 128.
Stella's stripes in the "Black Paintings" in 22 Stella, quoted in Gregor Stemmrich, "Frank
the sense of an elimination of "even the last Stella: What Painting Wants," in Frank
remnants of [...] authorial investment" Stella-Die Retrospektive: Werke 1958-
(p. 134). See also Meinhardt, Ende der 2012, exh. cat., Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg.
Malerei, 154. ed. Holger Broeker, Claudia Bodin, and
12 See Buchloh, "Painting as Diagram." 135. Hubertus von Amelunxen (Ostfildern: Hatje
For example, Buchloh ascribes to them Cantz, 2013), 34.
the "emphatic elimination of modeling 23 See Ulrich Pfisterer, Kunst-Geburten:
and the illusions of depth and volume." Kreativitat, Erotik, Korper (Berlin: Verlag
However, modernist art criticism had no Klaus Wagenbach, 2014), 153.
problem with illusion, which it thought to 24 See Pfisterer, "Erotik der Verkorperung,"
be unavoidable. Thus Greenberg suggested, in Kunst-Geburten, 7-22.
not incorrectly, that even the first marking

NOTES TO PAGES 89-93 131

 25 Caroline A. Jones was the first to draw 48 See Buchloh, "Painting as Diagram," 135. 79 Carlo Ginzburg, Clues, Myths, and the
64 See Gottfried Boehm, "Paul Cezanne und
According to Buchloh, the abandonment of Historical Method, trans. John Tedeschi and
attention to Stella's rhetoric serving to die Moderne," in Cezanne und dieModerne
color is accompanied by a "loss of access to Anne C. Tedeschi (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
subjectivize painting. See Jones, "Frank Stella, (Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2000), 25.
Executive Artist," 123. psychic plenitude and somatic experience.'' University Press, 2013), 93.
65 Wilmes, "Black and White."
26 On this trope, see Pfisterer, Kunst-Geburten, 49 See Auping, "Phenomenology of Frank," 24 66 Ellsworth Kelly, "Notes from 1969," in 80 Ginzburg, 93.
50 On this point, see Denis Diderot, "Notes on 81 Roland Barthes, Image, Music, Text, trans.
145. Ellsworth Kelly: Paintings and Sculptures,
Stephen Heath (New York: Hill & Wang,
27 Quoted in Meinhardt, Ende der Malerei, 154. Painting: To Serve as an Appendix to the exh. cat., ed. Edy de Wilde, Rini Dippel,
28 On the Renaissance trope of aliveness, see Salon of 1765," in Diderot on Art, vol.1, and Ellsworth Kelly (Amsterdam: Stedelijk 1977), 21.
82 Charles Sanders Peirce, "What Is a Signr'
also Fredrika H. Jacobs, The Living Image The Salon of 1765 and Notes on Painting, Museum, 1979), 30.
(1893), in The Essential Peirce: Selected
in Renaissance An (Cambridge: Cambridge ed. John Goodman (New Haven, CT: Yale 67 Yve-Alain Bois, "Ellsworth Kelly's Dream
Philosophical Writings, vol. 2,1893-1913,
University Press, 2005). University Press, 1995), 196. of Impersonality," Institute for Advanced
ed. Peirce Edition Project (Bloomington:
29 See Jones, "Frank Stella, Executive Artist," 51 Frank Stella: "In the newer American Studies Letter (Fall 2013), https://www.ias
.edu/about/publications/ias-letter/articles
Indiana University Press, 1998), 9.
157-58. painting we strive to get the thing in the
83 As Buchloh reminds us in his essay on
30 See Meyer, Minimalism, 80. middle [...] but just to get a kind of force." / 2013-fall /bois-ellsworth-kelly.
Riehter's Atlas, the photograph both evokes
31 Stella stated: "But [my] motivation doesn't Glaser, "Questions to Stella and Judd," 149. 68 See Ellsworth Kelly, Thumbing through the
the real and attests to its death. See Buchloh,
have anything to do with that kind of 52 See Boehm, "Bild-Dinge," 16: "In the Folder: A Dialogue on Art and Architecture
with Hans Ulrich Obrist (New York: D.A.P., "Gerhard Riehter's Atlas," 11.
European geometric painting." Glaser, twilight of painting as an image, brought 84 John J. Curlev, "Gerhard Riehter's Cold War
"Questions to Stella and Judd," 149. about by Stella, new kinds of being can be 2010), 9.
Vision," in Gerhard Richter: Early Work,
32 Stella, "Pratt Institute Lecture." See also seen emerging onto land." 69 See Karin Gludovatz, Fahrten legen-Spuren
1951-1972, ed. Christine Mehring, Jeanne
Gough, "Frank Stella Is a Constructivist," 53 Cited in Jones, "Frank Stella, Executive lesen: Die Kiinstlersignatur als poietische
Anne Nugent, and Jon L. Seydl (Los Angeles:
102. Artist," 170. Referenz (Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag,
J. Paul Getty Museum, 2010), 18-19.
33 On this, see also Stella's statement: "In the 54 See Michael Liithy and Christoph Menke, 2011), 14.
85 Another indication of the primacy of painting
newer American painting we strive to get editors' introduction to Subjekt und 70 An earlier version of the retrospective at
in Richter is the fact that the advertising
the thing in the middle." Glaser, "Questions Medium in der Kunst derModerne (Zurich: London's Tate Gallery took the opposite
copv included in the pictures is always
to Stella and Judd," 149. diaphanes, 2006), 10. approach, guiding visitors through a
cropped, as in Ferrari. The works disclose
34 Gough, "Frank Stella Is a Constructivist," succession of constellations that helped them
55 Michael Leja, "Narcissus in Chaos: the provenance of the visual material in print
101. appreciate the different phases and
Subjectivity, Ideology, Modern Man and media, while leaving no doubt that the text
35 Gough, 106. production units in the artist's oeuvre.
Woman," in Reframing Abstract is secondary to what really matters: painting.
36 See Frank Stella, "Order within Chaos: Expressionism: Subjectivity and Painting 71 Alfred Gell, Art and Agency: An
86 For an extensive discussion of this picture,
Claudia Bodin in Conversation with Frank Anthropological Theory (Oxford: Clarendon
in the 1940s (New Haven, CT: Yale see Robert Storr, September: A History
Stella," in Frank Stella: The Retrospective. University Press, 1993), 203-74. Press, 1998), 16.
Painting by Gerhard Richter (London: Tate
72 See most recently Benjamin H. D. Buchloh,
Works,1958-2012, ed. Markus Briiderlin 56 Leja, "Narcissus in Chaos." Publishing, 2010).
"The Chance Ornament: Aphorisms on
(Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2012), 21. 57 See Lutz Niethammer, "Rekapitulation," 87 Rainer Rochlitz, "'Where We Have Got To,'
Gerhard Riehter's Abstractions," Artforum,
37 "We use mostly commercial paint, and we in Posthistoire: 1st die Geschichte zu Ende: in Photography and Painting in the Work
February 2012,168-78.
generally tend toward larger brushes. In a (Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1989), 67-72. of Gerhard Richter: Four Essays on Atlas
73 Benjamin H. D. Buchloh. "Gerhard Richters
way, Abstract Expressionism started all this. 58 Niethammer, 69. (Barcelona: Museu d'Art Contemporani de
Atlas: The Anomic Archive," in Benjamin
De Kooning used house painters' brushes 59 Buchloh also argues that, in his view, Barcelona, 1999), 105.
H. D. Buchloh, J. F. Chevrier, Armin Zweite,
and house painters' techniques." Glaser, Stella's "Black Paintings" are diagrams and 88 See Hubertus Butin, "Gerhard Richter auf
and Rainer Rochlitz, Photography and
"Questions to Stella and Judd," 156. thus recognize that ruling external der Leinwand," Texte zur Kunst, July 25,
Painting in the Work of Gerhard Richter:
38 See Gough, "Frank Stella Is a Constructivist," conditions are prior to artistic subjectivity 2011. http://www.textezurkunst.de/daily
Four Essays on Atlas (Barcelona: Museu
101. and intention. See Buchloh, "Paintingas /2011 /jul/25 / gerhard-richter-corinna-belz
d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, 1999), 30.
39 Glaser, "Questions to Stella and Judd," 46. Diagram," 139. 74 See Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, "An Interview -hubertus-butin.
40 Glaser, 46-47. 60 Buchloh, 135. 89 See Bruno Latour, Fine neue Soziologie
with Gerhard Richter 1986," in Gerhard
41 Gough, "Frank Stella Is a Constructivist " 61 See Alain Ehrenberg, La societe du malaise fur eine neue Gesellschaft: Einfuhrung in
Richter, October Files, vol. 8, ed. Benjamin
95. (Paris: Editions Odile Jacob, 2010). die Akteur-Netzwerk-Theorie (Frankfurt
11.1). Buchloh (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
42 Gough, 95. 62 Ulrich Wilmes, "Black and White, in am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2007), 123-24.
2009), 29.
43 Michael Fried saw things precisely the 90 Liithv and Menke, editors' introduction to
Ellsworth Kelly: Black and White, ed. Ulrieh 75 Buchloh, 29.
opposite way, suggesting that the stripes take Subjekt und Medium in der Kunst der
Wilmes (Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2012), 6.2. 76 Buchloh, "Chance Ornament," 172.
on the format of canvas painting: "the literal 63 See Yve-Alain Bois, "Ellsworth Kelly in 77 Rachel Haidu. "Images of the World and the Moderne, 9.
shape determines the structure of the entire 91 Mark Godfrey, "Statements of Intent: On the
France: Anti-composition in Its Many Inscription of History," in Gerhard Richter:
painting." See Fried, "Shape as Form," 79. Art of Jacqueline Humphries, Laura Owens,
Guises," in Ellsworth Kelly: The Years in Panorama, ed. Mark Godfrey and Nicholas
44 See Fried, 77-99. Amy Sillman, and Charline von Heyl,"
France, 1948-1954, exh. cat., ed. Yve-Alain Serota (New York: D.A.P., 2011), 203.
40 See Meyer, Minimalism, 122-23. 78 Dietrich Helms, "Uber Gerhard Richter.' Artforum, May 2014, 294-303.
Bois, Jack Cowart, and Alfred Paequemeni
46 Stella says this in "Order within Chaos," 21. (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art. in Gerhard Richter: Arbeiten 1962-1971,
41 Quoted in Meinhardt, Ende der Malerei 1992), 9-36. exh. cat. (Diisseldorf: Kunstverein fiir die
115. Rheinlande und Westfalen, 1971), n.p.

NOTES TO PAGES 103-122

133
132 NOTES TO PAGES 93-103
 92 Luc Boltanski and five Chiapello, The New
Spirit of Capitalism, trans. Gregory Elliott C h a p t e r III
(London: Verso, 2005), 63-103.
93 Jutta Koether, f., trans. Nick Mauss and
Michael Sanchez (Berlin: Sternberg Press,

PAINTING
2015), 41. Originally published in German
in 1987.

AGAINST
PAINTING

134 NOTES TO PAGES 123-126

 False Front Lines
Painted Critique Browsing the earliest issues of Texte zur Kunst, you will find essays on

of Painting Michael Asher or Dan Graham, artists conventionally associated

with the first generation of institutional critique and Conceptual art,
right next to pieces on German painters like Albert Oehlen or Jorg
Immendorff.1 In the early 1990s, treating these ostensibly opposite

From Anti-essentialism artistic positions as equally worthy of discussion was an unusual,

even provocative stance to take. In retrospect, the focus on what
were generally seen as mutually exclusive tendencies aimed to break
to the Myth of Self- through a firmly entrenched frontline in debates in American art
history, which portrayed a stark antagonism between institutional
Activity in the 1960s critique and Post-Conceptual practices on one side (the good) and
Neo-Expressionist practices on the other (the bad). Ihis polarization
and 1980s seemed questionable by the early 1990s, not least because certain
artistic practices prompted critics to work with an expanded, non-
restrictive, and anti-modernist idea of painting. In this new under­
(Immendorff, Polke, Koether, Oehlen, Kippenberger)
standing, "conception" and "expression" were no longer considered
polar opposites. On the contrary, our engagement with numerous
painterly practices of the 1980s had revealed the possibility of a
"conceptual expression" in which expression proved to be an effect
of a conceptual experimental arrangement.2 From this perspective,
even Conceptual art was not altogether devoid of expressive ges­
tures, while pictures of a distinctly figurative-expressive bent might
turn out to be results of a conceptual experimental setup. A more en­
compassing conception of painting was also suggested by the fact
that, since the 1960s, painted pictures gestured beyond their frames,
and not only in metaphorical ways: they quite literally transcended
them. Robert Rauschenberg's combine paintings are an excellent
example: they reached out into the real world by incorporating
elements from it. The modernist contention that painting had unam­
biguous boundaries and possessed a defined "essence" proved unten­
able as earlv as the 1960s. A restrictive conception of painting was
supplanted by a wider understanding in which the medium effectively
assimilated its own critique, and Texte zur Kunst framed and refined
this new conception in several issues devoted to the subject.3 In

Francis Picabia, Natures mortes: Portrait tie Cesanne.

portrait tie Rembrandt, portrait de Renoir. 1920

PAINTED CRITIQUE OF PAINTING

137
PAINTING AGAINST PAINTIMG
America, by contrast, critics since the early 1980s had operated with . cirl ,n he a collective portrait of these "great" painters as a way of
S Sl• d fun
fun of
a conception of painting and media in general that paradoxically them and also buries the mimetic ideal .of painting
making of them anidm as foolish The ready-
enough tended to re-essentialize painting. Douglas Crimp and others
vigorously oppugned the modernist primacy of painting, but in
rejecting it outright, they remained wedded to the conceptual frame­ i,hT".k. And ,h, I ,1— I"!
work of modernism.4 sive character.
The decisive step for the genesis of a non-essentialist idea of
painting, I would argue, was the historic reconciliation between paint­ Primal Scenes of the Critique of Painting
ing and the readymade. A paradigmatic example is Francis Picabia's
\rt historians have studied the history of the readymade and mani­
assemblage Natures mortes: Portrait de Cezanne, portrait de Renoir,
fold ways in which it has influenced painting (in Fluxus F op art
portrait de Rembrandt (1920),5 where painting forfeits what was
Appropriation art. and other movements) in great detail.' In the fol­
considered to be its essence (i.e., paint on a flat surface organized ac­
lowing pages I will focus on the fusion of painting, readymade
cording to aesthetic criteria) by submitting to an extrinsic element:
and text in two pictures from the 1960s that were both extraordinar-
a stuffed animal mounted on the picture's cardboard surface. The
plush monkey is a readvmade gleaned from the sphere of consumer ily influential, although they could not be
rhetic terms- Immendorffs Hort auj zu malen (Stop Painting, iv ),
goods that here, as George Baker aptly put it, "stubbornly clings
a crudely executed figurative "Bad Pauning.- wlmro thc^wor
to the domain of painting."6 But when the readvmade intrudes into
are written aeross the painting, and
the sphere of painting there is an inevitable break with painterly
conventions, such as the model of expression or the idea of a purely
internal image order. It would be futile to scour a readvmade for
signs of composition or the artist's unvarnished expression because it
privileges external parameters. The artist selecting an object such acttns to mind The resemblance between the two works is located
as the plush toy and injecting it into painting has ceded control on the level of procedure: they take the tendency impl.c,t mtheready-
to an outside element—specifically, a consumer product that now made to privilege external parameters one m.tch urther n
remodels his or her picture on the level of the motif, opening the c-ornorate writing and text, metamorphosing into Conceptua .
artwork up to the outside labor world and making expression compar­
atively insignificant. What is extrinsic to art enters into it via the
readvmade, although of course it is the artist's decision to prioritize subordinating painting to a funcUon ^exmnstc ^
and mediatize what is extrinsic to his or her particular artistic vehicle for the exhortation to stop painting,
way. The engagement with life, work, and consumption impliedb> strumentalizes painting -^leliberately, itt would
and

the readvmade in Picabia's Natures mortes also undermines the it to an instrument of ccommunication ° e*pl ., ;nQther QSten.
assemblage's ostensible essence. This work no longer has an identi­ irony, subjects it to the command of higher being
fiable "core," being essentially defined by its external relations. sibly external authority. The black triangle is said to be
Then again, it's also a picture that speaks: its visual language br*-- of an instruction issued by a superior agency 1 , ,
coded by textual elements in the form of the names—Cezanne, a threat to the notion of an allegedly autonomous internal logic
Rembrandt, Renoir—inscribed on the picture. The stuffed monke)

139
PAINTED CRITIQUE OF PAINTING
 of painting in which the intention of an authorial artist subject is para­
mount. Both procedures—Immendorffs functionalization of paint­
ing as a means of communication and Polke's painting of a black
triangle, apparently because of an order from an external authority-
repudiate the modernist credo that painting, by virtue of its medium,
is distinguished by a specific essence and that its flatness implies
closure and delimitation.8
These two decidedly anti-modernist pictures, I would argue, limn
the primal scene of the model of a "painting against painting" that
reemerged in the Rhineland—more specifically, in Cologne and
Dusseldorf—in the early 1980s, when numerous artists explicitly in­
voked it and refined it in diverse ways. In Polke and Immendorff,
painting against painting implied two things: one, that painted pictures
Eohere *esen befahlen-' reohte otere Ecke schwarz
malen!
were transmuted into speech acts; and two, that their genesis was
attributed to an ulterior source of agency ostensibly located outside
them. They either surrendered to an external message that they
transmitted, as in Immendorff, or their formal design was playfully
Slgmar Polke, Higher Beings Commanded: Paint the ascribed to the influence of higher beings, as in Polke. The procedures
Upper Right Hand Corner Black!. 1969
underlying these two pictures were a seminal inspiration for a
younger generation of artists, as I will show in a discussion of works
by Jutta Koether, Albert Oehlen, and Martin Kippenberger.9

Speaking Pictures and Artists

Performing Themselves

Another aspect revealed by closer examination of the painting-critical

painting of the 1980s is that its anti-essentialist stratagems, while
resulting in a break with the modernist myth of painting's essence, of­
ten also fuel the myth of its self-activity. Demystification and re-
mystification frequently go hand in hand, especially in painted pictures
that reject modernist ideas. That's because once attention shifts
away from the exclusive focus on what's thought of as intrinsic to
painting—its distinctive logic and internal interrelations—and toward
the manifold external factors that impact it, we encounter two
possible scenarios. Either the painted picture appears to be infused
with a quasi-subjective force, as when it broadcasts slogans and

Jdrg Iramendorff, Stop Painting. 1966

PAINTED CRITIQUE OF PAINTING 141

140 PAINTING AGAINST PAINTING
 (seemingly) speaks to us, like Koether's 100% (Portrait Robert Johnson
world in Germany, painting often comes with an air of pathos,
(1990). Her diptych is a homage to the American blues musician
thanks to a quirk of German grammar that encourages hypostatizing
Robert Johnson. The right-hand painting lists different characteristics die Malerei (the painting) and transforming it into a subject—a
associated with him, such as the words "electric" or "obsessed.-' sort of higher being possessed of agency or even, as in Polke, the au­
with "100%" written on both sides of each word. This list of traits, how­ thority to issue commands. This rhetorical aggrandizement is a
ever, is also claimed for the painting and its author—the painting distant echo of those paintings of the early modern era that allegorized
seems to present us with a list of its own features (i.e., it is "1009b representations of painting as a (female) person.12 The tradition
painted"). One could therefore say that Koether's work playfully takes of furnishing painting with the features of a person is what makes it
up and rewrites the early modern tradition, personifying painting possible today to invoke it as a kind of subject. But it would be too
in the form of a textual message.10 But paintings can also underscore simple to repudiate the notion that painting is capable of "acting" like
their referential connection to the artist's lifeworld by incorporat­ a person in a reflexive move of ideological critique, to dismiss it as
ing certain social conditions extrinsic to it, as in Kippenberger's self- mere myth. From a production-aesthetic standpoint, it's undeniable
portrait Bitte nicht nach Hause schicken (Please Don't Send Me that this myth, like many others, has a basis in an experience many
Home, 1983), a self-portrait—the painterly execution is decidedly artists relate to. Painters from Francis Bacon to Joan Mitchell have
crude—that alludes to the history of the Rote Armee Fraktion and imi­ said on record that it sometimes felt like their hand was being guided,
tates the aesthetic of the terrorists' photographs of their prisoners. like the picture painted itself. Mitchell termed this state "no hands"
The art scene of 1980s Cologne, whose denizens preferred life in pub­ and compared it to riding a bicycle hands-free.13 What these reports
lic venues like bars to domestic quiet, is also reflected in the painting from the studio have in common is that they mobilize the trope
Ivippenberger strikes the pose of a kidnapping victim but, incon­ of painting as self-acting and lend it experiential plausibility. It's ob­
gruously, doesn't want to be sent home, as the painted cardboard viously an idea that's mythical and yet saturated with experience,
both fictional and fertile. And crucially—this is especially pertinent
poster hung around his neck states.11 The disrespectful satire remind
with a view to painting-critical practices of the 1960s and 1980s—
us that art that opens up to the realities of life around it will spur
it's a myth that can be destabilized and exploited.
an interest in the artist, resulting in a personalization of the work, which
Another problematic aspect of the way the term "painting" is
then appears to be steeped in his or her persona and circumstances.
used is that it collapses the difference between production and insti­
I would argue that both developments—the transformation of the pic­
tution.14 The art historian Stefan Germer proposed a way out of
ture into a speaking quasi subject, suggested by Koether's early this semantic quandary, arguing that we should make a fundamental
work, and mounting pressure on the artist to perform because of the distinction between painted pictures and the institution of painting.
expansion of painting into life, as exemplified by Kippenberger- The problem, I think, is that the distinction can't be drawn as clearly
have their starting points in both Immendorff and Polke. and unambiguously as Germer envisioned, since any painterly
practice ultimately remains directly related to, entangled in, and reli­
Painting as an "Unresolved Category" ant on the institution of painting. A further peculiarity of painterly
practices is that, in the course of what has been widely described as
The fundamental problem with any debate over painting is that t - the blurring of the boundaries between the arts, their hybridization
term is used to refer to very different things. Sometimes it desig­ since the 1960s, they have gone through processes of ever more
nates a medium; at other times, a genre; or it serves as an unib - drastic differentiations, despecifications, and expansions that make
term for a technique (oil or acrylic on canvas). In the commercial

PAINTED CRITIQUE OF PAINTING 143

 them harder to classify. In this regard, too, painting remains an
Conceptual Expression
"unresolved category."15 It has long left its traditional home, the pic­
ture on canvas, and is virtually omnipresent and at work in all In the late 1980s, figurative painting was criticized—if not condemned—
media. Yet despite this manifest loss of specificity, critics regularlv as­ by numerous contemporary American theorists. The critics, no
sert that its boundaries can be delineated; the claim is made, for doubt, made some valid points. Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, for example,
instance, in numerous painting exhibitions and survey catalogues.1'1 was right to argue that "excited brushwork and heavy impasto
What's more, in a phase in the evolution of the arts that has been paint application" must not be mistaken as an immediate expression
characterized by their much-invoked de-limitation, or, to use Adorno's of artistic intention.23 But it was unhelpful when these critics
term "fraying," painting seems to have successfully defended its lumped together all painters who employed a figurative formal language
position as a "meta-medium," especially in the world of art auctions, under the catchall term "Neo-Expressionism"; they failed to see
where its exceptionality is evident in the disparately higher prices that some of these artists explicitly employed the marks of expres­
painted pictures still fetch in comparison to, say, works of media an. sion as part of a painterly code that feigned a gestural language.
In May 2015, the final version from Picasso's series "Les femmes The primary function of the undifferentiated—and pejorative-
d Alger (1954-55) was offered at Christie's and became one of the most label of Neo-Expressionism was to summarily dismiss positions
expensive work of art ever sold at auction17—it's not by chance. I in painting variously described as "obsolete," "retrograde, or regres­
would argue, that it was yet again an oil painting that set a new record. sive." The widely different practices of artists from Rainer Fetting and
Paintings special status in the commercial art world is explained Julian Schnabel to Werner Biittner were tarred with the same
in part by quite pragmatic reasons: painted pictures are cheap to make brush. In retrospect, it's easy to see that Neo-Expressionism was a
and easy to transport. There's the fetishistic quality of all art, which fighting word, a shibboleth, wielded to fend off the rise of the wild
seems especially prominent in the case of paintings, a phenomenon painting" that seemed to flood the market in the 1980s. And be­
owing to the way they both condense and store human labor.18 cause the apologists of the Pictures Generation and Appropriation art
Since Leon Battista Alberti's treatise Delia pittura, if not even earlier, felt they were on the defensive, they understandably didn t waste
painting has also been associated with expertise and intellectual their time on forming a more nuanced understanding of what their an­
refinement, in contrast, for example, to sculpture.19 It should be re­ tagonists were doing. Their perspective left no room for the idea
membered, moreover, that its oft-cited materiality intimates a close that Oehlen's gestural daubery might also function as second-order
|iex^s ^ physical matter and creation, or in other words, with expression.24 Similarly, Kippenberger's lumpy strings of paint,
ite. Then, too, its specific indexicality makes it seem saturated with sometimes squeezed directly from the tube onto the canvas, unmis­
t le painter s individuality—which is to say, the uniqueness of the takably operate as stereotyped marks signifying immediate ex­
pression and must certainly not be read at face value, as indications
painted picture fosters the notion that its singular author is some­
of an authentic mental-psychological state. In other words, they
what contained within it.21 It thus holds out the (fictional) prospect
spell out the fact that they're elements of a painterly rhetoric, which
t at to engage with a painted picture is to come into contact with
they visibly deploy. While a vestige of authenticity may resonate in
the creator's lived reality. If we consider, finally, that the matters of
these staged-authentic gestures, what is crucial is that Kippenberger s
i e av e become a kind of currency in our society, which marvels
paint turds underscore the semiotic dimension of painting. They
amous people and is fixated on the lives of stars, may he announce themselves as a vocabulary the painter resorts to, aiming
painting

unusua \ capable of supplying the resource that is in great demand

to produce certain effects.
in an art world governed by celebrity logic.22

PAINTED CRITIQUE OF PAINTING 145

144 PA| NTING AGAINST PAINTING
 The Medium and Its Essenee conclude that painters, if they indeed wish to be painters, need to
engage exclusively or chiefly with medium-specific issues. Those
From the 1960s until the early 1990s, American art historians who painterly practices that initiate a more or less playful external exper­
were critical of modernism routinely proclaimed either the obsoles­ imental setup and see where such an external framework takes
cence or the end of painting.25 The fact aside that such melancholy them, are more promising to my mind if only because they reject
assessments inevitably aligned the critic with conservative accounts the idea that painting could function in a purely immanent fashion.
that portrayed cultural history as one of inexorable decline, the
notion that a medium might have served its purpose or become ob­ The Rhineland and Its
solete at some point was a questionable piece of media theory.26 Love of Painting
Media are not substantially given entities; they undergo historical
metamorphoses. Moreover, to declare, in finalistic fashion, that paint­ For the reasons discussed above, many artists in late 1980s and
ing is over is to perpetuate a teleological conception of history, the early '90s New York, including those generally classed as Appropriation
unstated assumption that painting is moving toward its demise and is artists, viewed painting with mounting skepticism and instead
a compromised medium to begin with. In reality, no medium is in­ turned to other media such as film or photography (the few exceptions
herently questionable—what may be questionable is the way it's used included Mel Bochner and Sherrie Levine).29 The art scene in the
and deployed in a given set of circumstances. It's telling that in his Rhineland, an area in western Germany, didn't share this aversion to
essay The End of Painting" (1981), Douglas Crimp's critique of paint­ painterly practices. Since the 1960s, local artists had mobilized
ing from a postmodernist perspective ultimately operated with a extra-pictorial means to attack and critique painting in the sense of
substantialist and essentialist conception of the medium. "Painting an institution, but then they had integrated this critique into their
las an essence, he wrote, "and that essence is" an inevitably com­ conception of painting; see, for example, Jorg Immendorffs Aktions-
promising illusionism."27 Many of Crimp's points were legitimate, for bilcler (Action paintings), originally created as props for actions,
and Blinky Palermo's work, which extended painting into three-
example, he criticized the art critic Barbara Rose for still believing
dimensional space. Yet Palermo's art not only underlined painting's
m t e superiority of painting—but he promoted an essentializing view
"architectural spatiality,"30 it also tied the painted picture back to
of the medium as inherently doomed to be illusionistic. So his anti-
the artist's public demeanor, the staging of his persona, as though to
modernist postmodern narrative paradoxically rested on a modernist
highlight the bond between person and product, which seems to
conceptual framework according to which every medium has inal-
be especially close in painting. Think, for instance, of the photographs
ra e inherent qualities. A similarly essentialist conception of the
in which he strikes his characteristic James Dean pose, smoking a
medium informs the writings of Rosalind E. Krauss, who, though she
cigarette as he nonchalantly leans against the walls he has painted on.
sought to de-hypostatize it and to shed light on its internal plurality,
Work and persona are inextricably linked in this theatrical display.
e on to the (modernist) assumption that a medium is determined Immendorff, too, repeatedly brought his persona into play, as in his
its given conventions," which is to say, substantial properties.'" book Hier undjetzt: Das tun, was zu tun ist (1973), which flirted
ts un eniable that artists, in the process of making their work, with the confessional genre and sketched a deliberately exaggerated
is ^ Jnter Pro^^ems that may arise from their medium of choice
0l
and seemingly self-critical portrait of his boundless ambition.
cedf^ft 3S pdrticu/ar challenges it poses. Yet it's one thing to con­
There were a variety of reasons for the central role painting
firm -r exi stence of certain medium-related problems of produc­ played in the Rhineland^ of which I can sketch only a few. One struc-
ts anot ler to derive a media-theoretical norm from them and

PAINTED CRITIQUE OF PAINTING 147

146 PAINTING AGAINST PAINTING
 tural feature of the local art scene was that painting was firmlv an­ The Genesis of a Special Status
chored in its institutions, led by the Museum Folkwang in Essen,
where the legendary exhibition "Wahrheit ist Arbeit," the first show- In reality, painting did not begin the ascent to its latter-day position
to unite work by Martin Kippenberger, Albert Oehlen, and Werner of supremacy until the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when
Biittner, was on view in 1984. No less seminal was "Von hieraus," it underwent a gradual process of institutionalization. The foundation
a 1984 survey show in Dusseldorf organized by Rasper Konig, again of Vasari's Accademia delle arti del disegno in 1563 set the course
featuring Kippenberger, Oehlen, and Biittner. The Rhineland was also for the disassociation of painting from the skilled crafts and trades.
home to several galleries that focused on painting—the gallery owner Under Charles Le Brun, the Academie royale de peinture et de
Michael Werner, for example, believes to this day that painting is the sculpture, established in 1648, emulated the Florentine model and
one true art.31 Immendorff recalls that Werner responded to his so- was instrumental to professionalizing painting and improving its
called Rechenschaftsbildern ("Statement of accounts" pictures) such reputation. The significance of these institutions for the status of
as Fragen eines lesenden Arbeiters (Questions of a Reading Worker. painting as a form of knowledge production cannot be emphasized
1976) by saying that he saw "nothing but apples"32—even in the ex­ enough.34 An elite now formed within the community of painters, and
plicit political iconography of these works he was unable to discern people discussed the criteria of their metier during conferences
anything other than the pure painting of a Cezanne.33 Other gallerists held at regular intervals and set it on a systematic theoretical founda­
who were primarily invested in painterly practices included Erhard tion. Of course, these theoretical efforts also enhanced the intel­
Klein, who, in the early 1980s, served as a bridge of sorts between lectual prestige of painting. Unlike sculptors, whose "messier" craft had
Polke s generation and artists like Georg Herold, Kippenberger, Oehlen. unmistakable roots in craftsmanship, as Leonardo da Vinci already
and Biittner. The dominant gallery in mid-1980s Cologne, Galerie noted,35 the painters eventually succeeded in intellectualizing theirs.
Max Hetzler, was likewise associated with painting. And then the From an economic perspective, the painted canvass mobility also
ineland was also the kind of place where you met a certain type contributed to its growing popularity starting in the sixteenth century
ot collector, the painting connoisseur (prominent examples included art that was easy to ship was eminently suited to being traded in
Keiner Speck, Hermann Grothe, and Thomas Borgmann). an increasingly international market. And as painting rose to the apex
Taken together, these factors suggest that the emergence of a of the artistic hierarchies, collectors' interest in it increased.-
painting-critical painterly practice requires certain institutional con- Even then, collecting paintings was no longer a pastime exclusively
fGXtS« ore Pai*ticularly, circumstances are especially auspicious for aristocrats. Not unlike today, the nouveaux riches, whose for­
or a painting against painting' when painting is elevated to the sta­ tune was made in the financial markets, were the leading investors
lls ot a sacred institution, as it was in Cologne, where, to this day, in painted pictures.37 Given the odor of "new money" that clung
parts ot the art world speak respectfully, even solemnly, of die to them, a painting collection may well have appealed as a show of
a erei. is often pathos-laden discourse of painting tends to ob- wealth with enhanced intellectual cachet. In any case, it was
thought that painted pictures were guaranteed to increase in value,
istoricitv, it is as though painting had always existed.
as evident in the advice the Marquis de Goulanges gave to his
cousin the Marquise de Sevigne. He counseled her to buy pictures, ar­
guing that they were like gold ingots and could be resold for twice
the original price.38 Artists, too, pinned high expectations on paint­
ings, as the Salons show, where painters outnumbered sculptors

148 PAINTING AGAINST PAINTING PAINTED CRITIQUE OF PAINTING

149
 by two to one.39 The majority of artists obviously regarded painting mischievously invokes the long past era of commissioned painting,
on canvas as the format that promised superior symbolic and eco­ signaling skepticism concerning the ideal of creative autonomy,
nomic returns. In the nineteenth century, its dominance was strength­ which had come to seem rather questionable by the 1960s.
ened when painters increasingly integrated what they learned from Immendorff, meanwhile, acts as though he had the premodern
other art forms (such as fashion, photography, music, or dance) into patron's authority to dictate subject matters and formal choices
their pictures. For instance, Manet's motifs as well as his ideal to artists—in today's perspective, a fruitless and absurd proposition.
of pictorial texture originated in the world of fashion,40 while Edgar So Polke's and Immendorffs pictures each limn a possible way
Degas painted numerous pictures that articulated insights into the to restore the relevance of art, which increasingly felt rather hollow:
disciplined body via dance.41 through a (playful) regression to the premodern model of commis-
Through such "absorption of other art forms," painting attained sioned art (Polke) or a (no less playful) instrumentahzation of art o
a sort of "omnipotence," as Hans Belting has put it, which culmi­ purposes of propaganda (Immendorff).
nated in the late nineteenth century.42 Yet instead of being mindful This comparison of Immendorff and Polke might be objected to
of this history behind its evident success, the protagonists of today's in that the two pictures employ very different aesthetic forma
art world are inclined to regard painting as inherently endowed idioms. Polke's black triangle on a white ground, allegedly the product
with great symbolic significance, which is also to say, to naturalize it of a command issued by higher beings, is a nod to the expanded
as an institution. This situation prepares the ground for a critique conception of painting in, say, Palermo, whose triangles always relate
ol painting that takes aim at such overdetermination, calling painting's to the architecture of the exhibition space. On the other hand, e
symbolic significance into question while of course also benefiting painted typewriter text in the bottom half of the picture, complete wit
from it. misaligned letters, recalls both the instructions typed on graph
paper that were typical of Fluxus actions and the Surrealist procedure
Painting as Semiological System of ecriture automatique ("automatic writing"), in which the artist
was transformed into a mere "recording device," as Andre Breton once
Immendorffs Stop Painting confronts us with a performative con­ put it.45 Immendorffs picture, by contrast, confronts the viewer
tradiction that is characteristic of any critique of painting by painterly with a massive overestimate of the artist's own significance and a
means: the picture stridently calls for an end to painting yet is ex- ' decidedly presumptuous demand, while the childlike handwriting
actly that—painting. But what's crucial is that the motif Immendorff intimates that the hope for social impact will be in vain. The painted
painted out-a bed and a hat stand, if he is to be believed«-isn't cross looks expressive, denoting ferocity in a way that suggests the
j st stnK' out by a ferocious brushstroke; it's overshadowed by a mes­ transmission of signals of "rage." We're prompted to read the gesture
sage. The panel appears to speak. A similar observation can be as related to the artist's mental-psychological state and simultane­
made m Polke s Higher Beings Commanded: Paint the Upper Right ously warned against such a reductive psychological reading.
Hand Comer Black! , while it doesn't address us in a demanding tone, Polke appears to abdicate the position of authorial subject,
itrelates a command that it alleges was literally complied with. whereas Immendorff stubbornly insists on his right to issue commands
in infantile fashion. What the two pictures have in common despite
11 T mmen or s Picture speaks in the imperative mood, Polke's
these considerable differences is that they lend themselves to being
,e pretflds' not without self-irony, to be the result of an
read as "semiological systems," to use Roland Barthess term.
to invnk°n o °V6 a Potshot at Joseph Beuys, who liked
to invoke Rudolf Steiner's supernatural spirits)." Yet it ako

150 PAINTING AGAINST PAINTING PAINTED CRITIQUE OF PAINTING

 takes on the character of a dictum. And a dictum, needless to say. Finallv, the higher beings Polke's painting invokes also recall
can be decoded, complied with, or rejected. Immendorffs picture in the earlv modern notion of an auto-generative pictorial genesis.--"1
particular may moreover be said to be a performative utterance, Polke subsequently offered variations on this trope of a painting that
a speech act that, since it expresses a command, is "illocutionarv" owes its existence to alchemical processes and in a sense brings
in J. L. Austin's terminology.47 Similarly, Polke's higher beings un­ itself into being, especially in his pictures from the 1980s. But it was
mistakably speak in the imperative mood, as emphasized by the always the artist himself who made the requisite arrangements
exclamation mark in the title. Yet both performative utterances differ he remained the initiator of an experimental setup designed to pro­
from a speech act in the strict sense in that the subject of the utter­ duce the suggestion of self-active pictures.
ance doesn't coincide with that of the act.
Beyond Painting?
Anti-essentialism and Self-Activity
For an adequate understanding of these pictorial politics, we also
What's more, Immendorffs picture has been assigned a mission need to consider their social and historical contexts. For both artists,
it can't possibly accomplish—no one will take it by its word and stop painting, in the late 1960s and early '70s, was little more than a
painting. As Austin has put it, the fact that its performative utter­ sideshow. Protesting the policies of the Dusseldorf Academy ol Art,
ance is made in the framework of art destines it to be "unhappy."45 Immendorff had established his LIDL Academy in 1968; he also
Still, it clearly supplants the modernist assumption that there's an un­ joined a tenants' association agitating against landlords demanding
ambiguous and definable essence of painting with an instrumental exorbitant rents. In the early 1970s, he became a Maoist sympa-
thizer, and his growing radicalism led him to label his work Red Cell
conception of painting in which it can be used as a vehicle for com­
Art." Polke, too, was politically active and involved in various col­
mands. At the same time, the performative speech act transmutes
lectives. From 1972 until 1978, he lived in a kind of artists' commune
the painting into a quasi subject supposedly capable of issuing instruc­
at Gaspelshof in Willich, outside Dusseldorf. So activities such as
tions, a first intimation of how the anti-essentialist critique of paint­
planning for political actions, writing manifestos, and experimentation
ing can unexpectedly turn into a re-subjectivization of the picture.
with drugs, photography, and film took up no less room in both
We can discern a similar twofold movement in Polke's painting.
artists' lives than their painterly practices, and the former inevitably
Higher Beings Commanded submits to an (imaginary) outside
informed the latter. Once the boundary between work and lite be­
power, which ultimately suggests that it painted itself. At first glance,
came blurred, their paintings could not possibly end at their Irames,
its true that the artist no longer presents himself as the author of
and it would seem a hopeless undertaking to try to study them in
his work, so we face a different situation than in Immendorffs pic­ isolation. Yet there's a flipside to this essentially expanded nature ot
ture. let this attention of the authorial subject is only relative- painting in Polke and Immendorff. If their pictures are wide open
alter all, someone must have been the originator of the experimental to their social contexts, that conversely means that they increasingly
arrangement and made the necessary preparations for the correct bring their authors into play; or more precisely, that the authors
reception and implementation of the commands of higher beings. The are under mounting pressure to perform compelling public selves.
artist may be no more than a recording device, but then that device The artist's persona is a crucial part of the social reality of these paint­
is what actually matters. So that's the loophole that allows for the ings that can be glimpsed in the work. So the more that an artv ork
return of the artist subject: it has, we might say, prepared the ground reaches out into the artist's lived reality (Lebenswirklichkeit), the
lor its own demotion. Any critique of subjectivity is necessarily
mediated by the artist subject, as Adorno already noted.49

PAINTED CRITIQUE OF PAINTING

153
PAINTING AGAINST PAINTING
 more likely he or she will be capable of self-performing and self-

-s—•>
promoting him- or herself. But Immendorff and Polke devised fairly
different responses to this imperative—which, beginning in the
1960s, was also enforced by the media society—to groom their pub­
lic personas. Immendorff seems to have positively encouraged the frequently surfaces in Oehlen s wot: . propositions such as
tabloids to publish stories about him, reinforcing the personalization aesthetic as the outcome of a p-cture entirely

of his work: by the time he died, he was the favorite painter-star

of the lifestyle magazine Bunte. Polke, by contrast, withdrew from the in shades of ochre. "essential norms or conven-
public sphere, as though to disassociate himself from his pictures— in question norm> in Oehlen, has effectively been

a move that added to the impression that his paintings were agents in tions of painting - —the e. , absurd or childish) experi-
their own right. As the artist gradually disappeared behind his supplanted by external (an -P . speaking picture and
mental stipulations. Yet both pre_
works, they only seemed more "alive." Many of Polke's paintings from
the late 1980s and '90s indeed gave the impression that they painted the picture that, by ™tue ° J__feed into the vitalistic projection that
scription, seems to paint 1 . existence that it possesses au-
themselves, owing to the alchemic processes that operated them.
painting has a sort of in ®Pe® ^ emph'asis on the subject-like
These paintings fed into vitalistic projections to the exact degree that
the artist shunned exposure. thority and self-agency. N 01 , deneral development
quality of painting converges wi ^ ^ ^ world has come under
that has gained force in rece y ' ^ and in Qther settings,
When Pictures Appear Like Subjects
the sway of celebrity culture. subjects: a Warhol, a
works of art are discussed as though theyweresuj ^ ^
Ow ing to the procedures and to the anti-essentialist understanding Wool, a Basquiat. In recent deve opmeevident; see the writ-
of painting underlying them, Polke's Higher Beings Commanded
surgent desire to attribute a£ency he frameWork of the
an Immendorff s Stop Painting are among those paintings that proved
ings of Bruno Latour °^rah^ new materialism or speculative
u' C Jert^e sources of inspiration for a later generation of artists. "actor-network theory, the s Dractical tendency to
• 7mend°rff' artist:s such as Koether, Kippenberger, andOehlen realism. Then again, the ' «' "
34 h re Cal ^Xm"nted by a counter-
sinn ar \ turned their deliberately bad paintings into vehicles for subjectivize things and art o jects 1!\ b A tbe artist's life-
S a OI path°s formulae. Instrumentalizing painting to such vailing trend: artists are turning mm vrr ua o ^ets
d egree had the effect of laying the modernist idea of its purity world becomes part of the work, the process
• a" onomy to iest once and for all.51 Immendorffs Stop Painting.
increasingly relies on his or her Pe^soiaa_ , b t n 0f the millen-
(J ^ drewfairly sincere tributes, as in Koether's Hysterics To my mind, it was Koether^ who,resulting subjeet-
Imn , flre
e fanned) (2000), a picture that replicated nium, devised the most persua poonlDanving expansion of the

it of itQ 6°Tt S T0t,d °f effacement through crossing out but stripped like quality of works of art an t e a big or ^er persona. The

cancellfHUwrhemenCe f°r a calmer a^ more saturated form of economic sphere to include t e ar 1 ctice and her work as a

motif untilI> -1616 Immeil(^orff had ferociously overpainted his boundaries between Koether s pain initially fluid,
the female f Waf Unreco^nizahle, Koether painted a green X across writer, a member of ^f~fsh wasn't even a real painter. In
drawing the persistent rebuke that sne w
painting su^TsfsThat wo ^ R63d metaPhoricall>'- KoetherS
omen artists making paintings had no

155
PAINTED C R I T I Q U E O F P A I N T I N G
154 PAINTING AGAINST PAINTING
 her 2009 performance Lux Interior at Reena Spaulings Fine Art in Immendorff, or does it reveal itself to be fractured, fragmented, and
New York, she abandoned the painting-as-speech-act model in favor profoundly shaped by social as well as spatial conditions, hke the work
of the picture as a self-active quasi subject: framed by a construc­ of Koether? We can note, in any case, that anti-subjective painter y
tion of movable walls and propped up on "legs," the painting stood on procedures that, as in Polke, seek to undermine artistic authorship
literally shaky ground, with one "foot" on the stage and one backstage. end up endowing the picture with a subject-like energy. Similarly,
It "stood" on the stage and seemed to go off stage at the same time, those pictures that, like Immendorffs, incorporate text in order-to
lighted like an actor by a stage lamp. The close nexus between the metamorphose into linguistic positions have once again highlighted
picture and Koether's persona was also evident in the way she inter­ the inadequacy of the modernist idea of pure painting, but t ey
have also fostered the vitalistic projection of a speaking or living wor .
acted with it during the performance, conferring a kind of person­
ality on it. She talked to the painting and gestured toward it, which Still if the manifold attempts to practice a "painting against paint-
ing" have ultimately revitalized the medium, that doesn t diminish the
conferred a personality on it. Yet she also declared it capable of
historical significance of these efforts. On the eontrary-as I see it,
constituting its own context, of taking up a position both on- and off­
a kind of painting that repudiates its supposed essence will always
stage. This would give it a reality beyond its personalized appear­
be preferable to one that keeps within its allotted boundaries and has
ance, a distinct self worth engaging. Its translucent-looking pictorial
body beneath a coat of pastel-like paint was reminiscent of tattooed unbroken faith in itself.
skin, heightening the spectators' impression that they were looking
at what Georges Didi-Huberman has called "painting incarnate."55
Koether's interaction with it asserted that the picture itself had a per­
formative dimension, bringing it to a kind of "life." On the other
hand, this suggestion of animation was a mere illusion, making it an
effective defense against the pressure to perform a public persona
that is increasingly expected since the structural transformation of
the art world that began in the 1990s. The work would subsequently
also appear by itself, taking its author a little out of the line of fire
of the capitalist logic that is, now more than ever, aimed at the artists
affects, vital energies, and social relationships. Koether has accord­
ingly dialed down the performative side of her work in recent years in
order to shift her audience's attention toward her pictures, which
are meant to speak for themselves even if they remain steeped in the
artist's persona.
Do paintings suggest self-activity and fuel the myth of a living
painting, or do they resist our new economy's appetite for life?
lere s no universal answer—it depends on the particular situation
an t e features of each work. But I think we can identifv a central
question: What sort of painterly subject are we dealing with in a given
instance. Does it project itself as authoritative and unified, as in

PAINTED CRITIQUE OF PAINTING

157
PAINTING AGAINST PAINTING
'Hi, Here I Am, The Pitfalls of the Emphasis on Life

T h a t M u s t B e Enough" Martin Kippenberger was celebrated widely as an exceptional aitist

after his death in 1997; critics ranked him far above his colleagues
and peers 56 During his lifetime, by contrast, his work (and his public
demeanor, from which, as I will argue, his art is inseparable) had
been quite controversial. Only a handful of curators, collectors, and
The Persona and critics had supported his work, which was often not taken seriously,
and even some of his artist friends had begun to distance themselves
t h e P r o d u c t in from him in the mid-1990s because they needed a break from his
(often insulting) public performances. Posthumous fame after a dif­

M a r t i n Kippenberqe ficult process of institutional recognition isn't unusual for modern

and postmodern artists. Still, Kippenberger's sudden popularity in the

Work first years of the new millennium was striking to observe—all at

once, everyone seemed to like Kippenberger.
So when I drafted an earlier version of this chapter for the cata­
logue raisonne of Kippenberger's paintings in 2013,57 1 was quite
surprised to find that the winds had shifted yet again. Many art-world
insiders and especially my students in Frankfurt (perhaps because
they had had to sit through my lectures on Kippenberger) made it very
clear to me that they considered his work and theatrical persona
rather dated and irrelevant. They were no longer interested in the type
of male subjectivity implied in his work. The reputation of an artistic
position obviously rises and falls over time: what's praised at one
historical juncture can be called into question and even rejected out­
right when the circumstances have changed.
Conscious of the volatility of popularity, I will nonetheless pro­
pose in the following pages that some of the artistic procedures
Kippenberger developed remain relevant, especially from a contem­
porary perspective. To my mind, his work presents a still relevant
negotiation of the close bond between the artist's persona and his or
her product. One major reason why this bond is especially tight
today is that the art world is increasingly ruled by what I have else­
where called the "celebrity principle": the comprehensive expansion
of the "star system" since the 1960s and the way it has reshaped
the art world.581 use the concept of "persona" in the sense it has in

"HI, HERE I AM, THAT MUST BE ENOUGH"

159
anthropology, designating a role or, as Marcel Mauss put it, a "ritual art form's specific semiotic potential. This peculiarity of the paint­
mask" that tends to become indissolubly melded to the true nature erly sign is brought out by its enhanced physicality and materiality
of the individual.59 A persona, in other words, is staged and authent:. to twofold effect: the impression of the artist's ghostly presence is
in equal measure. both evoked and veiled. Kippenberger's paintings are therefore both
But as much as Kippenberger's art is fed by the artist's (ostensible indexes of creative agency, whose presence they suggest, and protec­
persona and (putative) lifestyle, it also addresses the pitfalls of tive disguises that fend off such a reductivist reading. The engage­
such an emphasis on life in a neoliberal economy that, as numerous ment with questions of value, in particular, was a longstanding concern
social scientists have demonstrated, produces and markets the for Kippenberger, whose understanding of painting's specific value
ways we live.60 Some of his work moreover hints at the price the art­ form is evident even in his early works.
ist pays for this distinctive reference to life. Take, for example, the witty poster he made for his artist studio/
Among the elements of Kippenberger's practice, it is painting office Kippenbergers Bliro in 1978. It not only advertises an entire
in particular that caters to vitalistic fantasies and often gives the im­ "palette" of sendees such as "mediation" and "consulting" that the
pression of being steeped in his lifeworld. But—and this, I would enterprise purports to offer, quoting the bureaucratic rhetoric of
argue, is crucial—they are also emphatic about the fact that they art Conceptual art. It also features a classic painter's palette (complete
merely lifeless matter. Kippenberger's Nicht wissen warum, aber with brush and splotches of paint) as its central motif, hinting at
wissen wozu (.Not knowing why, but knowing what for, 1984) exem­ the conventional image of the painter at his easel. But then the pal­
plifies this conjunction of countervailing tendencies. Its function­ ette motif is flanked by various means of payment including bank
alist motto merges with its material facture: the text is inseparable from notes, coins, and checks, bringing the economic dimension into play
the painting's materiality, the silicone letters on the surface having and indicating an awareness of how painting in particular has been
associated with the prospect of financial gain at least since the eigh­
effectively become its substance.61 The textual reference is endows
teenth century.63
with a kind of visual materiality, fusing it with the visual references
We can list a number of reasons rooted in the history of art and
of the picture. Yet the motto thus literally embedded in the work con­
culture for the sustained faith in the medium's economic potential:
versely turns it into a linguistic proposition: the picture seems to
the mobility of the painted canvas, which facilitated international and
speak to us or, more precisely, creates the impression that someonc-
now global transactions starting in the sixteenth century; paintings
most likely the artist himself—speaks to us through it. 1hen again., intellectual prestige, which has only grown since the first treatises on
suggestion that the picture is in some sense alive is revoked at once and apologies of painting (by Alberti and Leonardo and, later, Roger
by the demonstratively exaggerated display of streaks andrunm de Piles and Felibien); its positively bodily materiality, which has al­
drips. The excess of drip tracks is a blatant reminder of the factt - ways instilled fantasies of "presence" or "aliveness"; and, finally,
what we're looking at is really inanimate matter. The painting af its association with a form of manual labor that seems improbable and
pears to be dead and alive at the same time, and it fosters the fan® therefore all the more fascinating in our digital world.64 All these
that the artist is simultaneously present in and absent from it. factors together have no doubt contributed to the favorable position
I believe that this double capacity, the ability to suggest Pa-y painting occupies in the symbolic and economic landscape of the
and absence at the same time, is why painting—understood a. - early twenty-first century. In other words, the diverse arguments in
recourse to the convention of the painted canvas or variations on favor of the medium that its apologists have proffered since the early
format—occupies a special position in Kippenbergers work. ^ modern era have not altogether lost their force. But what makes
his paintings activate as well as exhibit with particular clarit.

"HI, HERE I AM, THAT MUST BE ENOUGH" 161

painting seem so attractive and desirable today, I would argue, is pri­ Although painting is fused with photography and sculpture in this
marily its specific semiotic potential—a potential that Kippenberger's work, suggesting the medium's hybrid and relational nature in
painted pictures not only harness and activate, but also make visi­ Kippenberger's practice, it nevertheless receives a distinctly special
ble, put on display, and occasionally mock. treatment. Even smashed and thrown into the dumpster, the can­
vases are still recognizable: we can see the fabric and stretcher
Despecified and Yet Specific frames, and even make out areas covered with paint smears. In other
words, it is a monumental tomb that bids farewell to painting and
By focusing on Kippenberger's paintings, it may seem that I am over­ pays homage to it.
looking the obvious fact that his practice stands out because he By entering this association with photography and sculpture,
used a variety of media: objects, catalogues, paintings, posters, draw­ painting undergoes despecification—although, in the container, it ar­
guably remains quite specific. This contradictory approach to the
ings, and invitation cards. So in a purely descriptive perspective,
medium is adumbrated early on in a letter Kippenberger wrote to the
painting doesn't occupy a "dominant position" in his oeuvre,65 which
writer Gisela Stelly during his stay in Florence (1976-77). He men­
exhibits all the traits of those late-modern practices that, since the
tions that he has started to paint: "I've now also added painting to
1960s, have not only done away with the borders that once separated
my program—even on canvas."66 He seems to be aware of painting's
different genres, but also reconfigured the transitions between art
traditional intellectual prestige, and the manifold claims that have
and nonart, between art and life. Given this inter-media and hybrid
been made for it ("even on canvas"). Yet he also plays down its signif­
character of Kippenberger's artworks, it would seem pointless to
icance by declaring it to be just one item on his program: it s nothing
try to single out painting as a defined segment of his oeuvre.
special and yet something very special.
Still, I believe the special status of painting remains intact in the The same paradoxical conception of painting is discernible in a
predominant role it played in his art from the outset and more set of paintings that occupies Kippenbergers Biiro in a photograph
specifically in the way he treated it. Kippenberger, it seems, was not taken in 1979. Laid flat and stacked atop each other, these canvases
only cognizant of its historic overdeterminacy, but he also took ad­ are the artist's first group of paintings titled Uno di voi, un tedesco
vantage of it. His installation Heavy Burschi (Heavy Guy,1989/901 in Firenze (One of You, a German in Florence, 1976-77)—needless
is an excellent case in point: stretching the boundaries of painting, to sav, this peculiar presentation makes any aesthetic experience
it both abuses and pays tribute to the medium. The work consists ot of them impossible. Yet while the photograph doesn t let us contem­
paintings executed by Merlin Carpenter, the artist's assistant at the plate the individual pictures, we can imagine them being hung and
time, who repainted Kippenberger's paintings from photographs t'oun beheld, as in fact they were on numerous occasions: for a long time
in catalogues. When Carpenter was done, the pieces were photo­ they were on view at the Paris Bar in Berlin.
graphed, and then framed in a way that parodied the pictorial aes Stacking them may have despecified these paintings one might
thetic of large-format photography associated with the style of tlw go so far as to say that it turned them into a sculpture67—and yet
so-called Becher school (a style developed by artist-photographs they potentially retain their special capacity. When on display, they
like Andreas Gursky or Thomas Struth who had studied with Bern have often been read as an Oedipal rejoinder to Gerhard Richters
and Hilla Becher at the Dusseldorf Art Academy). Kippenbergers 48 Portraits (1971-72), which was first shown at the 1972 Venice
original paintings, meanwhile, were painstakingly destroyed an Biennale.68 The interpretation isn't unreasonable: like Richter before
dumped in a custom-built wooden garbage bin that had a rather him, Kippenberger chose a serial approach, painted from photo-
painterly air itself, with its exterior painted in monochrome co o

" H l , H E R E I A M , THAT M U S T BE E N O U G H " 163

graphic sources (postcards and ephemera as well as his own pictures paints himself"—a tendency he actually thought regrettable.71 Sized
of window displays in Florence), and restricted his palette to black to match the artist's height, Kippenberger's stack would evince the
and white. Yet where Richter's series exclusively celebrated male same auto-mimetic trait.
heroes of high culture in a uniform painterly style, Kippenberger
mostly resorted to inscrutable and grotesque pop-cultural sources
ranging from a corny silhouette of a heterosexual couple to a Nazi
comic strip. The emphatically coarse and ham-fisted style, careening
between abstraction and figuration, between graphical flatness
and viscous impasto, adds to the doubts concerning the systematic
sincerity of his endeavor as well as the cultural significance of his
material, in contrast with the earnestness and cultural gravitas
of Richter's series. With Kippenberger one never knows whether he's
serious—maybe one should imagine quotation marks around his
art? Or perhaps his project is serious in that he gives us permissior
to not take it too seriously.

Persona and Product—

A Metonymic Relationship

Legend has it that Kippenberger's original plan for I no di-con®

to keep painting until the stack would be as tall as the artist imse
six feet two.69 The anecdote is of the kind that artists legends a
been made of ever since Giorgio Vasari's Vite. It also infuses
Kippenberger's work with the immediacy of life (or rather, w ats
imagined to be his life). In a production-aesthetic perspective-^
moreover informs us that the product in question, a stac' o pa>^
ings, owes its existence not to the artist's unfathomable intent
but to an external—and decidedly absurd—stipulation.
Finally, the anecdote suggests that the artists heightan K
stature are somehow latently present in the stack, as though^
animate it. But as so often in Kippenberger's work, the vit
jection is both encouraged and exposed as absurd. It mig t
that the stack echoes the covert anthropomorphism ot inl^|
sculpture while also pointing to the widespread belief inslX t.
century Italy of the godlike figure of the artist creating a pi ^
contains his soul.70 Leonardo famously observed that even P Martin Kippenberger in Kippenbergers Biiro. Berlin, 1979

"HI. HERE I AM, THAT MUST BE ENOUGH1

 On second consideration, however, the stack hardly conforms victims for his series "Das Flofi der Medusa" ("The Raft of Medusa,"
to the early modern presumption that a morphological resemblance 1996). But the crucial point remains that his conceptual procedures
obtains between works of art and their creators: Kippenberger didn't always went hand in hand with a strong focus on his own persona.
implement his original plan to make a six-foot-two stack of pictures- Indeed, the more conceptual the experimental setup, the more the
he fell far short of this target, as the medium-sized stack of canvases persona moved to the fore.
centrally positioned before the desk as seen in a 1979 photograph On the other hand, it must be remembered that, in the early
of Kippenbergers Biiro. It consists of no more than forty-one paint­ 1990s, Kippenberger's cultivation of his image as an enfant terrible,
ings. In reality, the artist had made twice as many pictures, but his abrasive and sometimes outright insulting and sexist behavior,
even that number, when stacked up, didn't reach to the requisite elicited widespread hostility and condemnation, especially from the
height. However close or mimetic the relationship between the prod­ protagonists of what was called "context art" (artists like Fareed
uct and its creator is said to be (the placement right in front of the Armalv, Andrea Fraser, Renee Green, and Christian Philipp Miiller),
desk is symptomatic), the diminutive size of the stack compared to who were developing a different, and sorely needed, model of identity
Kippenberger indicates the gulf that ultimately separates them. politics that was more self-aware and politically correct. Interest­
The connection between product (in this instance, a stack of paint­ ingly, Kippenberger in effect tried to cast his lot with his antagonists
in a 1991 interview with Jutta Koether, programmatically declaring
ings) and the creator's persona (the artist seated at his desk) is
that the masculinist model he was associated with was dead: "There
revealed to be metonymic; each refers to, signifies, and rubs off on the
is no more flat painting—male production—but explaining, research,
other, but they never coincide.72 It's telling, too, that Kippenberger
representation."73 The future, he thought, belonged to a practice that,
visibly staged his appearance in the photograph, as though to de­
like Post-Conceptual context art, made "explaining, research, rep­
clare his pose to be the content of his work. His persona, too, is a
resentation" its mission. Aside from the fact that the prediction was
production, oscillating, as always, between theatrics and residual
entirely accurate (witness the recent rise of so-called artistic re­
authenticity.
search), Kippenberger himself seemed intent on pursuing such a
research-based agenda. But whereas the artistic research model is pri­
Conceptual Painting? marily associated with media such as photography and film even
today, Kippenberger stuck with painting, albeit with an understanding
It would be a mistake, of course, to take the picture of Kippenberger
of it that made room for other media and integrated pieces of the
as an office worker seriously, as an authentic representation, since artist's lifeworld. That's why his work is conventionally associated with
he's so clearly flirting with the role, as his pose—he's leaningfonvar an expanded conception of painting that paved the way for the me­
in a gesture of exaggerated solicitude—signals. Still, the self-staging dium's resurgence in the late 1990s. In the 1970s and '80s, artists
should be read as articulating a sincere commitment to the post- who painted were still under pressure to justify their choice of me­
studio practice" favored by many artists of the 1970s such as Hans dium; in the early 2000s, by contrast, the idea became popular that
Ilaacke and Michael Asher. At bottom, post-studio meant replacing the painting could be conceptual and even a medium of institutional cri­
messy painter's atelier for an office-like setting, where the artist tique as well, a process in which the posthumous publicity for
now produced discourses, planned interventions, undertook researc 1. Kippenberger's art played a considerable part. So his (sometimes
and communicated. flippant) despecification of painting paradoxically enough contributed
This model of a discursive and research-based practice under to the "normalization" of painting since the 1990s and helped shore
lay Kippenberger's art well into the 1990s, as when he madeadeta'e up its legitimacy.
study and replica of the poses of Theodore Gericault's ship\vrec

'HI. HERE I AM, THAT MUST BE ENOUGH1 167

166 PAINTING AGAINST PAINTING
 Mass Media, Personalities, as a legible mark.80 A characteristic part of the Haltung Kippenberger
and the Cult of Haltung and his male colleagues cultivated was an obviously overdone im-
itation of the forceful and brisk movements of disciplined (and trained)
Another aspect of the posthumous reception of Kippenbergers German soldiers-a kind of physicality with distinctly male connota-
work was the enormous interest in what he was like as a person. Ex­ tions that wasn't available to women artists at the time.81 It stemmed
hibition wall texts such as those in the retrospective of his art in in part from the punk and new wave movements, which similarly
Berlin in 2013 marveled at his "extravagant lifestyle,"74 and biogra­ hewed to an ideal of "hardness." The soldierly pose was a way of com­
phies used his life as a key to an understanding of his art.75 Needless ing to terms with recent history: the artists in a sense embodied
to say, there's nothing new about this sort of mythologization. We their authoritarian fathers, as though to shoulder the responsibility
already encounter it in Vasari's Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, for their families' denial of German war crimes. Yet the strong beliel
Sculptors and Architects (1550), where the writer relates anec­ in Haltung manifestly also helped blur the boundaries between art
dotes from an artist's life—say, Raphael—to confer credibility on his and an artist's lifeworld, between product and persona. The persona—
the dramatization of a way of life-became central, so much so that
work (which is secondary to the life). The fascination for the artist
some artists, including Kippenberger, declared the operative man­
as a singular personality has only intensified and broadened in the
agement of this way of life to be a work of art in its own right.
modern era. It was in the nascent mass-media society of the 1960s.
I would argue that the artist's persona served as a blueprint for the
making of the celebrity artist; conversely, the media's general inter­
Personalized Works of Art
est in the lives of stars—in how they spent their time outside the
in the Media Society
limelight, how they dressed, in their public appearances—extended
Of course, other postwar artists before Kippenberger and his circle of
to artists as well.76 The German sociologist Andreas Reckwitz has
artist friends had faced up to the challenges of the media society
explained the zeal with which the media society manufactures and devised responses. See, for example, Timm Ulrichs's performance
celebrities with their ability to generate affects and sensual-emotional Self-Exhibition (1961), in which the artist presented himselt as
stimulation.771 might add that these same potentials are regarded an exhibit in a glass case, a "live" exposure of his self and body that
as valuable in the "bioeconomy," which eagerly gobbles them up (as anticipated the media society's appetite for living persons. Kippen­
in reality TV shows or on social media). Painting, too, operates in berger and his colleagues (Albert Oehlen, Werner Biittner) thought
the realm of sensual and affective qualities, be it only by virtue of its highly of the piece (and no doubt also laughed about it)—they in­
tactile appeal," which many artists—from Rembrandt to Courbet, cluded a picture in their legendary artists' book Wahrheit ist Arbeit
from Frank Auerbach to Kippenberger—have enhanced by adding layer (1984). Other artists of the postwar generation chose a more latent
upon layer of pigment.78 presence in their works; think of Piero Manzoni's Merda d artista
let Kippenberger and his artist friends didn't respond solely (Artist's Shit, 1961), a work that's a kind of relic, allegedly containing
with painterly means to the media society's voracious interest in life­ the artist's excrement, while possibly misleading us concerning its
style and personality. They fetishized what they called the artist s content, since the cans of "shit" might be filled with anything.
Haltung ("attitude" or "posture").79 Haltung was generally thought No discussion of this subject would be complete without mention­
of as synonymous with someone's public demeanor: his or her choice ing Sigmar Polke's self-presentation actions, in which the artist
of this or that pose and this or that way of life. It counted for much had his photograph taken dressed as a palm tree (1968) or attired in
more than tangible works of art, on which it would ideally be stamped

" H I , H E R E I A M , THAT M U S T BE E N O U G H '

169
168 PAINTING AGAINST PAINTING
 snakeskin (1973). They were an important model for Kippenberger Pictures Fraught with Social Conditions
and his friends: Polke had a knack for exposing himself and putting
his body in the balance in ways that not only sometimes seemed Looking at a picture that, like Dialog mit der Jugend, seems to be in­
to embrace queerness, but also revealed the potential of self- fused with personal experience, we need to remember that we're
abasement. Deliberately striking vulnerable or grotesque poses—this dealing with a highly stylized and mediated version of Kippenberger's
was the lesson to be learned from Polke—didn't erode the artists lifeworld. That's doubly true of Bitte nicht nach Hause schicken
authority; on the contrary, it added to his stature. (Please Don't Send Me Home, 1983), another self-portrait so crammed
Yet although Kippenberger seems to have had even less reser­ with references to private and social life that it seems to consist
vations or sense of shame about exposing himself in his works, he also almost entirely of them. Once again, the execution is deliberately
made sure that the latter would not be read as mere reflections of rough. German viewers at least are immediately reminded of the his­
his persona. His first book, Vom Eindruck zum Ausdruck: 1/4 tory of the Rote Armee Fraktion: the overdetermined iconography
Jahrhundert Kippenberger (1979), is especially illuminating in this mimics the snapshots the terrorist group used to send to the press ot
respect. Ostensibly published by a bogus imprint called Pikasso's their kidnapping victims holding signs spelling out their status as
Erben ("Pikasso's heirs"—note the intentionally disrespectful mis­ "prisoners." Here it is unmistakably Kippenberger himself who poses
spelling), it came with a set of pictures from Kippenberger's family as the abductee, and if the painted sign hung around his neck
photo album, as though to lend it a more personal touch. It's a gesture (which separately also exists as a readymade) is to be believed, he
that may seem overzealously catering to the media society's appe­ doesn't want to be sent home. So two things happen at the same
tite for the artist's private life, but the enclosure is bound to disappoint time: one, language enters into the painting, destabilizing its bound­
aries and transforming it into a linguistic proposition; and two, the
the viewer—the private photographs tell us little if anything about
painting or the person it portrays "speaks," effecting a rather disre­
Kippenberger as a person and his upbringing beyond the fact that he
spectful context shift. By staging himself as a kidnapping victim,
had three sisters and was always the center of attention. Dialog
Kippenberger inserts his own situation—the bohemian lifestyle ot the
mit der Jugend (Dialogue with You th Today, 1981-82), a motif he
Cologne art scene or a fantasy of that life into the RAF motif.
variously used on his invitation cards, is also based on a real-life
In retrospect, the art world of 1980s and '90s Cologne can be
incident: it shows his battered face and bandaged head, supposedly
characterized as a social universe whose protagonists preferred to
after a group of punks beat him up so badly that he had to be taken
live life in public and would always rather stay at the bar for an­
to the hospital. other drink—as the painting puts it: they absolutely didn't want to be
The earthy-crusty surface of the self-portrait of the same title sent home. Home, in any case, carried thoroughly negative con­
accordingly exudes an existential intensity that brings the paintings notations, being associated with the female sphere of reproduction,
of Jean Fautrier to mind. Yet the air of solemnity is contradicted with intimacy and femininity. Another reading of the kidnapping
by graphical elements—champagne glasses and musical notes—that allusion is that the artist signaled that he was captive to his alcoholism,
suggest a party atmosphere and for their part recall drawings Polke which forced him to stay in the bar and drink. Finally, the Plctur^
made in the 1960s reprising iconographies from the 1950s. The pic­ clearly illustrates that a kind of painting open to the realities ot lite
ture gives the impression of being steeped in authentic experience that condition it inevitably also mobilizes the artist's persona.
but then leaves no doubt as to its semiotic construction. So it is satu­ The emphasis on the latter is the price to be paid for an expanded con­
rated with life while also demonstrating that painting, as a language ception of painting that doesn't end at the frame.
in the strict sense, can transmit signifiers that denote such seeming
authenticity.

HI, HERE I AM, THAT MUST BE ENOUGH'

171
170 PAINTING AGAINST PAINTING
 The Specific Semiotic Capacity of Painting appear in the context of painting, they suggest a no less physical
connection to their author, who emerges as a ghostly figure, absent
The German noun for painting (the practice, not the individual and present at once.
work), Malerei, is feminine, and the definite article that often accom The index seems to put us in touch with Kippenberger and yet
panies it would seem to emphasize the medium's subjecthood. even withholds actual contact. Consider the areas of smudged and sludgy
inflecting it with a certain pathos. In this instance, German grammar pigment in the interior of the painted hand in No go home: they
may be said to preserve a personalization of painting whose origins emphatically demonstrate that painting is like a language, composed
lie in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century allegories of the medium of signifiers whose physicality is prominent.85 Irrespective of what
Painting was often represented as a (female) person possessed these signifiers represent or what they refer to, their physicality
of agency—that idea, too, resonates in the solemn invocation of die will be experienced as the manifestation of an absent (and imaginarily
Malerei. On the one hand, Kippenberger's work arguably resurrects present) author. In other words, Kippenberger's outstretched finger
the old myth of painting as a kind of subject, but then, crucially,his reminds us of the fact that the painting's material signs tend to be read
pictures consistently highlight that it is a language capable of gen­ as traces—traces that communicate first and foremost that some­
erating such vitalistic effects. For example, many of his canvases are one was here and smeared or purposely dribbled paint on the canvas.86
adorned by clumps of pigment or lumpy strings of paint that appear From this perspective, the running drips in many of Kippenberger's
to have been squeezed straight from the tube and, with their intensely paintings must be read as deliberately placed markers of "action" or
"life." They are clear about their rhetorical character, especially
tactile appeal, fill the viewer with a vivid sense of a human pres­
since they were already regarded as "mannerist" signs in the hands
ence.82 Yet they also leave no doubt that they are purposefully employed
of second-generation Abstract Expressionists.87 Kippenberger now
as a stylistic device, which is to say, a piece of painterly rhetoric.
employs these blotches and streaks as highly mannered stylistic de­
In the series "Acht Bilder zum Nachdenken, ob's so weitergeht
vices that allow him to generate effects of indexicality.
(Eight pictures for pondering whether things can go on like this, 19S3
one of the paintings addresses the specific semiotic potential of
Delegating Authorship
painting quite explicitly. Note how the series heading, like manyi
Kippenberger's titles, feeds into the fantasy that the artist is speaking But what happens when the artist hasn't even been in touch with
to us through his pictures, which, in this instance, are meant to his work, when he hasn't painted the pictures with his own hand, as
convey his doubt as to whether "things can go on like this." Aogo is often the case in Kippenberger's work? He regularly commis­
home (1983) would seem to proffer an answer: it resembles a stop TS" sioned professional painters to make pieces or delegated the work to
as though to warn us that in fact things can't go on like this. But assistants; see the series "Lieber Maler, male mir" ("Dear Painter,
the hand with an outstretched index finger is actually lifted from tK Paint for Me," 1981), the abovementioned Heavy Burschi, and the two
design of an ice cream brand, which was popular with German versions of Paris Bar (1991 and 1993), to name only a few exam­
children at the time, so the picture is evidently not to be taken as an ples. Delegating authorship was standard procedure for Kippenberger,
entirely serious proposition. Meanwhile, the wagging finger quite in a tradition that extended from Laszlo Moholy-Nagy's commis­
literally points to the semiotic qualities, the specific indexicality01 sioned telephone paintings (1922) to the silkscreen prints Andy
painterly signs.83 Indexieal signs have the power of a pointing bnger. Warhol had his assistants make, such as the "Flowers" series (1964-
a power that, as Charles Sanders Peirce has noted, is positively mag­ 70). In each of these instances, the delegated painterly act was
netic.84 They can magically touch the world. When these signs

"HI. HERE I AM, THAT MUST BE ENOUGH" 173

 ultimately attributed to the commissioning artist, who was regarded friendships, the artist's persona inevitably moves into the spotlight,
as the conceptual mind behind the experimental arrangement and as seen in the many invitation cards and posters bearing his like­
rose to the status of a kind of meta-author. His initiative remained ness and also in his numerous self-portraits. The 1990s, however,
stamped on the product even though someone else executed it. Con­ brings a crucial change in the way Kippenberger's work refers to his
trary to what many art historians have argued, I don't think that persona, to the way the artist performs himself.
delegating authorship, in the way Kippenberger and others did, under­ The series of self-portraits he made in 1992 evinces a keen sense
mines the notion of the author. Rather, it effects a reconfiguration of the challenging situation in which an artist, whose work has in
of authorship and can ultimately strengthen the delegating artist's many ways been fueled by self-exposure, finds himself. Tellingly,
claim to creative originality and control. Kippenberger labeled them "hand-painted pictures," as though to
Still, it's worth noting that Kippenberger often compensated for underline the indexical aspect of physical contact. Yet the emphasis
his absence from the manufacturing process by ensuring that he on the handmade also appears to indicate his awareness of paint­
remained visibly present in the painting. Consider one picture in the ing's phantasmic potential, on how it unleashes vitalistic fantasies
series "Lieber Maler male mir" ("Dear Painter, Paint for Me") that through the mere suggestion that the work contains the artist's hand­
shows him in the company of a friend. They're walking away from craft, physical labor, and lived time. In any7 case, as self-poitraits,
the viewer on Diisseldorfs Ratinger Strafle, which puts them in the the pictures seem to cater to the desire to encounter the person in the
product, an effect heightened by the depictions: Francis Bacon-
vicinity of the Ratinger Hof, a legendary bar frequented by artists,
style variations on the theme of the artist's tortured, mutilated, and
an implicit reference to their alleged lifestyle of bohemian transgres­
peculiarly contorted body cast into the pictorial space. But this
sion. Another picture of the series presents a bird's-eye peek into
body—which at times appears to be no more than a crouching mass
the breast pocket of Kippenberger's jacket, which contains various
of flesh and colors, with strangely foreshortened limbs or a beer
pencils, ballpoint pens, and similar utensils, alluding to the artist's
belly—also attests to the fact that it can be quite painful to surrender
signature style as well as the self-image or persona of the artist-as-
oneself to the demands of a "bioeconomv' that wants all of us, body
writer that the photograph depicting Kippenbergers Biiro already
and soul, and sees our lives primarily as a source of profit.88 W hat s
flirted with. Both are indirect or veiled self-portraits that bring
more, the fact that the artist's body is displayed as painting, as
Kippenberger's persona to the fore despite having been painted by
a canvas smeared with paint, spotlights the medium's unique rheto­
someone else. What emerges in these paintings would seem to be that
ric, which can bring flesh and blood into play without ever letting
the more the artist effaces himself from his works, for example by
us forget that this is merely a painted body, an object from which the
delegating or mechanizing the painterly process, the closer the bond artist has withdrawn. These self-portraits are energized bv the art­
tying them to his persona will be. ist's self-exposure, but they also withhold his presence from us.
steeped in his life, they at once guard it against our intrusive gaze.
Exposure and Withdrawal in Self-Portraiture We may discern a similar gesture of withdrawal in the fact that
several of the paintings are signed "Ii Bn," the initials of the
If its true that what Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello have described German ceramic artist Hedwig Bollhagen (1907-2001), whose work
as the new spirit of capitalism" increasingly targets our commu­ in the Bauhaus tradition Kippenberger had come across at a friend's
nicative, cooperative, and affective potentials, then artists like home. Self-portraiture as a genre has traditionally encouraged
Kippenberger pay an especially steep price. To the extent that his viewers to draw inferences concerning the artist s state of mind, a kind
work explicitly feeds on communication, social relations, and

HI, HERE I AM, THAT MUST BE ENOUGH" 175

174 PAINTING AGAINST PAINTING
 of biographical reductivism the inscription "H Bn" blocks. Perhaps Kippenberger's move as a kind of restoration of justice, the long-
Kippenberger sought to offer symbolic resistance to the growing curi­ overdue recognition of the role Picasso's muse and widow played as
osity about his persona—a curiosity that, as we have seen, his own a cocreator of his oeuvre. But it's more complicated than that:
work also incited and nurtured. Kippenberger by the same token also claims Picasso's own place,
It's worth noting, moreover, that many of the 1992 self-portraits purporting to finish the master's work. Acting in Picasso's name as a
show him handling objects of various kinds, as though to draw at­ producer, he simultaneously occupies the sphere of reproduction.
tention away from him. There's no doubt that the objects are physi­ The artist is painter and muse in one, as though to demonstrate
cally connected to the artist—he's often reaching toward them, once again that he approaches painting from both inside and outside.91
and in one instance, paint flows from his hand. These scenes clearly
undertake a negotiation of the interrelation between persona and The Price of Life, the Value of Work
product.
I've already noted that Kippenberger's pictures often reflect on
Je est une autre their own value form. The first series of "Preisbilder" (1987)—which
could also be translated as both "Prize" or "Price" paintings-
Strikingly, the identity Kippenberger symbolically tapped into by focuses on the distinction between value and worth. Each picture is
signing his self-portraits "H Bn" was female. Resembling Marcel declared to be a "prizewinner" by an inscription, in a sequence
Duchamp's creation of his alter ego, Rrose Selavy, this gesture would that, after the second, third, and fourth prizes, jumps to the seven­
seem to run counter to Kippenberger's reputation as a macho artist. teenth prize, as though to underscore the arbitrariness of any
From another perspective, however, it is an example of how male award. Besides these accolades, marked on the pictures in a black
artists still absorb female identities. The female alter ego casts doubt handwritten imitation of printed letters, the canvases show various
on and threatens the privileges of the male position, yet adopting colorful checkered patterns that bring home the human labor that
a woman's name is also a way for the male artist to take possession of was expended on making them. But an evident gap separates value
and worth: nothing about the paintings themselves makes this
feminine terrain. Kippenberger's remark, in the abovementioned
ranking plausible. The series is emblematic of the arbitrary way in
interview with Koether, that "I'm a woman, too," should therefore be
which relative worth is distributed in domains like the art world
seen less as a declaration of solidarity with structurally disadvan­
that run hierarchical distinctions. If, by contrast, the inscriptions
taged women artists than as a deliberately controversial attempt to
are read as indicating prices, the "Preisbilder" series anticipate the
extend his own sphere of influence.89 The artist jokingly appropri­
reduction of works of art to their monetary value thats character­
ates even life as a woman, as though in anticipation of the greatly in­
istic of some sectors of the art world such as the auction market.
creased importance of the sphere of reproduction in the economy.""
Presenting themselves as defined by their prizes or prices, they also
In this light, Kippenberger's series "Jacqueline: The Paintings Pablo
make any critical appraisal seem superfluous, demonstratively
Couldn t Paint Anymore" (1996) should similarly be seen as an ef­
providing their own ready-made ranking and evaluation.
fort to occupy the positions of male producer and muse in the sendee When Kippenberger returns to the theme of prizes/prices in a
of reproduction. The portraits of Jacqueline Picasso (after photo- second series in 1994, the deftly executed colorful variations on grid
gi aphs by the American David Douglas Duncan) bear the oversized patterns are replaced by red, gray, or white vertical and horizontal
signature J. P.,' the sitter's initials, with each letter in a different bars that form a kind of scaffold for the perfunctory7 markings runny7
color chosen to match those in the portrait. One might think of

"HI, HERE I AM, THAT MUST BE ENOUGH 177

1 / 6 PAINTING AGAINST PAINTING
 paint, hurried brushstrokes. Matching the even more desultory strangely with the figure's cartoonishlv oversized black-and-white
and crude painterly execution, there are no more prizes to be handed head. Color seems to be what brings the painting to life, proving once
out. Dropping the aspirational aspect, these "Preisbilder" paintings again to be the "divine breath that animates" it.93 But in another
operate solely within the monetary meaning of the word. One advertises perspective, life is drained from the picture, as in the graphical-
itself as "budget-priced," while another strives to be "priceless"— looking and emphatically lifeless head. There's manifestly no real
with horizontal bars in reds and pinks behind which an unfinished- Kippenberger to be discovered in this self-portrait, the last one he
looking area of orange comes into view, it paradoxically lays claim painted before his death.
to an unlimited symbolic value that can't be measured in money. The The suggestion of animation through color aside, some of his pic­
very paltriness of its formal design is supposed to buttress its con­ tures also create the impression that they painted themselves, up­
tention that it is art that money can't buy. Trostpreis (Consolation dating the myth of the self-acting painting (a derivative of the
Prize), too, hinges on the mismatch between a work's symbolic Pygmalion plot) that was popular in the nineteenth century. Literary
significance and its pecuniary value. An artist whose work is commer­ texts such as Balzac's Le chef-d'oeuvre inconnu (1831) and Zola's
cially worthless may take consolation from the fact that his col­ L'oeuvre (1886) offered spellbinding variations on the trope of the
leagues hold it in high regard. During his lifetime, Kippenberger was painted-picture-as-woman who submits the artist to her commanding
rule. More recently, some of Kippenberger's colleagues have revived
recognized primarily by colleagues and art-world insiders, and
there are well-known examples of this consolation prize—popularity
in a small circle of initiates—translating into posthumous market
success (as it eventually did for Kippenberger). But there's no guaran­
tee that it ever will.

The Living Painting

Kippenberger's pictures "speak" not only through their titles and

the words inscribed on them, but they also employ color as a tradi­
tional technique that can produce "different degrees of animation"
in painting.92 The prodigal use of paint and excessive colorfulness
are characteristics in particular of his late work: the series of Matisse
remakes, "L'atelier de Matisse souloue a Spiderman" ("The Matisse
Atelier Sublet to Spiderman," 1996); the "Jacqueline" portraits; the
Medusa series; and his last series of fashion portraits, "Window-
shopping bis 2 Uhr nachts" ("Window Shopping until 2 a.m.," 1996).
A striking example is a self-portrait, Untitled (Martin Kippenberger)
(1996), in which the artist is wearing a robe by Issey Miyake, a
c esigner pi esumably chosen because he was a favorite of some women
gallensts in the 1980s. In the picture, the garment is rendered by
splashes of luscious yellows, reds, and greens, which contrast
Martin Kippenberger. Untitled (Martin Kippenberger),
from the series "Window Shopping until 2 a.m.,"1996

"HI, HERE I AM, THAT MUST BE ENOUGH" 179

PAINTING AGAINST PA
 the myth; see Albert Oehlen's installation Malerei (Painting 20l3i
in which a hand prosthesis holding a brush seems to be at work painting with his rag—the work, as it were, paints itself. With its in­
on a portrait of the artist lying in bed. The installation highlights the tentionally amateurish execution—it's so poorly painted that it's
apparently inescapable auto-mimetic tendency of painting: what's hard not to laugh—it both fuels and mocks the phantasmic belief in
being painted here is forever only a self-portrait of the artist. Further­ painting as a medium that stores up the artist's labor (and life). It
also suggests that the picture keeps on working on itself even though
more, the piece feeds into (and ironically overplays) the notion
the artist has died, a reminder of painting's longevity.
of a godlike agency on the part of the work, which keeps painting itself
However much the signifiers of painting, due to their peculiar ma­
even after the artist has long gotten out of bed.
teriality, encourage the fantasy that they're somehow imbued with
A rarely discussed picture from Kippenberger's "The Raft of
the artist's lived time and labor, the same physical reality, the tangi­
Medusa" series, Untitled (1996), gives this theme of the self-active
bility of paint, at once defeats such a reductive reading.94 Further­
picture another twist. The pose the artist affects—the execution
more, the value of analogue materials is almost certainly bound to rise
is markedly crude and demonstratively sloppy—is that of the ship­
in a digital economy, making painting seem ever more desirable
wreck victim in the Gericault painting who desperately waves a and adding to its capacity to fascinate.95 As a language, it will continue
scrap of red-and-white cloth hoping to capture the attention of some­ to trigger abundant vitalistic projections, but in an ideal scenario,
one on the ship that appears on the distant horizon. Kippenberger as in Kippenberger's case, it also foils such fantasies.
struck the pose for a photograph taken by Elbe Semotan-character-
istically, a bed, or more precisely a sofa, served as the raft, replacing
he political icon with a paradigmaticallv intimate setting. The
photograph readily complies with the demands of a bioeconomv that
1ZCS VV^at usec* to be private. In the painting, however,

the figure of the shipwreck victim has turned into a caricature-a

colossus of brown-and-white paint smears.
But the composition's punctum is a dirty painter's rag soaked with
i n s an turpentine in the place of the red-and-white cloth in
hie 1Cf^U t Sj ^ainting' which is held up by a man like a flag. Kippenberger
nf! . ? t0 thG CanVaS in deliberately crude fashion, with gobs
of congcMed paint and glue. What was a signifier, a signal, in Gericault
nhvsio^1116 3 Fe ic.°* sorts' a rea' thing that was supposedly in
nf hie 3 C.°ntact with the artist and has literally absorbed the traces
to rh/V°r °n> Painting. It's illuminating to compare this detail
HQri . Pamters ra £ that hgures in Robert Rauschenberg's Wall Street
the (aI °n V1^W at Museum Ludwig. Rauschenberg hung
berwlF» ^il ° , °* ^ P
ri n r n t t 1G icture > as though to maintain the distance
of rh » 11 le Pro uct bearing the traces of labor and the person
mjdht th- ?ru°\'ng in t^1G stucfi°- In Kippenberger's picture, you
mk that the ar«st's painted avatar is about to continue

Martin Kippenberger. Untitled,

from the series 'The Raft of Medusa," 1996

180 PAINT|NG AGAINST PAINTING "HI, HERE I AM, THAT MUST BE ENOUGH" 181
 P a i n t i n g a s a C o v e r Story isabelle Graw: Let's try and clarify first what we mean when we say
"painting " Do we speak of an aesthetic and social formation that
occurred in Italy in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries following the
invention of the picture on canvas? Or do we simply refer to colored
marks on a flat surface? Do we restrict painting to the picture on can­

A Conversation vas and variations of this format or do we assume an expanded

notion of painting?

with Merlin C a r p e n t e r Merlin Carpenter:Painting is whatever current theoretical structure

exists around it in the art world, for example, the exhibition
"Painting 2.0" in Munich (2015/16). Apart from that it is an artwork
that is to be sold. Paintings look like commodities, feel like com­
modities, can be moved around, and have an object-like status. Many
of them are just made of cloth but there is something about the
way the cloth is stretched tightly over the frame that gives them a
bizarre solidity, like skin on a face, shiny metal on a car, which
echoes the illusions that other commodities generate.

I G Yes the picture on canvas is similar to commodities insofar as

it also puts a veil over its social conditions of production. Its history
demonstrates how it can't be separated from economic considera-
tions. Painting was mainly invented because it allowed tor a hig er
degree of mobility and easy transport. One could say that economic
ideas such as transaction or exchange are contained within it.
Its commodity status is therefore more pronounced than in, say,
large, heavy sculptures.

M C. I think that this developed over time, because originally paint­

ings were produced for specific places, even if those places were
domestic. I think they are objects to be sold first of all, but they are
also whatever theories are being bandied around painting at a
particular time.

I.G. When we sav that painting is whatever the painting discussion is

at a particular time, and if we take the exhibition "Painting 2.0"
as an example as you suggest, we need to consider the assemblages
by Isa Genzken or Rachel Harrison as painting as well since they
were included in this exhibition. We need to assume an expanded
notion of painting.

M.C. Yes, these works still orbit around the same commodity and the
same discourse.

183
182 PAINTING AGAINST PAINTING PAINTING AS COVER STORY
 I.G. If it is true that paintings are commodities in a more obvious
I.G. The Berlin Biennale even proudly mentioned the fact that they
or evident way, is this the reason why you and many other artists con­
showed only one oil painting, but when you looked more closely
tinuously hold on to this format? I mean, you've worked in many
at the exhibition, there was a lot painterly rhetoric (the tableau for­
other formats as well, but the occupation with painting runs through
mat, framed pictures on the wall, painterly surfaces) thrown around.
your work. I'm not saying that you define yourself as a painter,
even though that you once actually called yourself a painter in
M.C. Agreed, it is not as if painting utterly dominates the art world.
a tongue-in-cheek way in the show at the Vienna Secession (2000)
But sometimes it seems like it does. And sometimes this priority
which was titled "As a Painter I Call Myself the Estate Of." for painting appears to function unquestioned—in both the world of
David Joselit and at auction sales.
M.C. I actually call myself an artist and a painter.
I.G. Its specific historicity and the fact that it actually poses a
I.G. I didn't know that. But why hold on to painting? Is it the vast problem get overlooked.
amount of intellectual prestige that it has gained over centuries,
its historically overdetermined status, or its highly compromised M.C. Yes, it still does. But I think that when people say, "Painting has
commodified nature? always existed," it actually means "painting has always existed like
it is now since the eighties or nineties." I think that this naturaliza­
M.C. It's to get money. tion exists in a quite recent time frame. Only this much more
recent painting has done its Post-Conceptual work on itself. It is to
I.G. You mean that painting is, as Warhol pointed out in his work, some extent the first painting.
like printing a dollar bill?
I.G. What do you mean by first painting? Do you mean that it
M.C. The way I see it is that if you want to retain your intellectual has incorporated the lessons of Conceptual art and institutional cri­
freedom, you're going to have to do something to make money— tique and therefore became painting, in a new sense that it was
apart from teaching, or curating, or running a design studio. So, it's being reborn or appearing for the first time? Once it was proved by
actually about having freedom to think. To produce a product people like you or me that painting, as in the case of Kippenberger,
that brings in cash, which then allows for a separate intellectual pro­ can also perform institutional critique, that it can address social net­
cess to take place. But I do think that this painting product has works, and that it integrated the lessons of Conceptual art
become a bit dated over the time I've been involved. Its reinvention and the readymade, it seemed to be taken for granted and was
in the eighties still had a degree of freshness, and even still in de-problematized.
the nineties. I think it is a bit more flat now.
M.C. Yes, by the first painting I mean a painting that is fully turned

I.G. It seems to me that the pressure to legitimize one's painterly against itself has achieved self-reflexive circularity within a wider
practice has disappeared, or decreased, since, say, the mid- to late critical debate. In the early twentieth century, Malevich and others
nineties. In the eighties and nineties, artists who resorted to painting in the former Soviet Union turned nonrepresentational bourgeois
art in a political direction. But after Conceptual art was formalized,
still felt compelled to somewhat justify their decision. Painting has
I am wondering if there was a finishing touch applied, which you
become naturalized since, as if it were the given medium of the day.
could call a beginning? In a way, you can go quite far into this history
to find the source of this rejigging of painting into a mode of cri­
M.c. Although a segment of the art world actually still exists without
tique, to the seventies at least, back to artists like Jennifer Bartlett or
paintings. The 2016 Berlin Biennale didn't have many paintings
Gerhard Richter. So Stephen Prina or Martin Kippenberger or I
in it. 1 he documentas and the new Tate extension don't have man}
are just links on a chain of it somehow being made to seem serious
paintings.

PAINTING AS COVER STORY

184 PAINTING AGAINST PAINTING 185
 again, which maybe it hadn't really been since the mediated shlock I G. True. These practices reject a conventionalized and by now
of Pollock or Yves Klein. It's a continuum of rehabilitation, and institutionalized "conceptual" version of painting. But they also open
the market obviously has had a strong voice in this. But you might the door for painting's false naturalization since their criticism of
as well start with the recent and work back, as start from the past and the existing legitimation strategies seems too implicit. Michaela
work forward. So, starting from the first half of this decade, it Eichwald's work in particular is also usually associated with the his­
seems to me that that there is a reason why a post-Columbia Krebber tory of a certain social universe (Cologne) and seems to be loaded
student, year-2010 artist can use painting in a very free way, like with context as well. It satisfies the longing for this specific history
Mathieu Malouf, Nic Ceccaldi, or Michaela Eichwald. This group (that while in fact promoting a romantic hippie-esque I-can-do-what-
I am inventing for the sake of argument) can just go crazy on the ever-I-like attitude, which feeds right into the desire for a bohemian
canvas, because they don't think that painting has anything to do and truly self-determined young artist in the art world.
with art anymore. For them the art world has come to a halt, leaving
this space for painting. There was a generational shift where M.C. Well, she's not a young artist, she's my age, and you are right.
younger artists suddenly found it possible to paint in a hippie way But she has also grasped a much more recent shift, maybe via
that I, or someone of my generation, wouldn't have allowed. What you feedback to her blog or whatever. If you see painting's self-critique
through the seventies, eighties, and nineties as being similar to
are actually saying when painting this way is: "Fuck the art world."'
It's against the legitimation strategies of the art world. Painting has institutional critique, in terms of people and players and discourse
here been freed to perform what is still a wider critical role, but it and the intellectual politics around it, then it's that notion of cri­
doesn't need to have any self-critique as painting at this point. tique, and the complacency of it, that's again under attack by this
"what-the-fuck" painting. That doesn't mean that this free
painting being done as if nothing had happened before is not any less
conservative; it certainly doesn't make it any less art world. But
it has a specific relationship to previous generations in the art world
and tries to negate our failed self-critique, using this kind of paint­
ing precisely because it's an unacceptable weapon of critique.
In that way it's just like eighties painting, but less one-sided. It has
absorbed the fact that painting has been legitimated. It's not a
wild flirt with conservatism, like in 1981, so it's not about feeling
guilty; it's an actuality now, an available tool. But its also more flat.

i.G. But likewise I have always considered your practice from the
early nineties to be "painting against painting" since it can be
perceived as being offensive by those who expect a specific aesthetic
experience from it. Your early works also don't allow for meaning
production, which can be experienced as irritating or disappointing.
But considering a painting from "The Opening" series (2007-9),
say the one that has only the word "skinny jeans written on it (The
Opening: The Corner: 5, 2008), one can't look at it without taking
into account how you painted it in public during the opening, how
each exhibition was carefully conceptualized according to the
location, and how your performing body is somewhat contained in
it. Maybe it is for this reason that there is a kind of virtuosie quality
to this work—painting lovers can enjoy these paintings aestheti­
Mathieu Malouf, The Looming Return ofG.R. cally as well.
(in C.B./on F.B.), 2013

PAINTING A S C O V E R S T O R Y
PAINTING AGAINST PAINTING
 \1. C. So you are interviewing me about my work now? Er... okay. The I G I agree with you, it is difficult to ignore the contextual-conceptual
painting against painting period is over for me. In the work of the dimension of your work. But as a commodity, painting also tends
later period you mentioned—"The Opening" (New York, Los Angeles. to eclipse its conditions of production and mystifies them. As a com-
Berlin, Zurieh, London, Brussels, 2007-9) and "Solo Show" (Miami. modity it doesn't reveal its background conditions.
2010)—I was in fact thinking very seriously about painting and
M C. Yes, the collector has to forget some of that stuff, but not neces­
what it eould be today. One answer was to just stretch some preexist­
sarily the audience. I am perhaps in some cases trying to fool the
ing fabric, a la Blinkv Palermo; another was to do a silly painting-
collector by saying that a painting is more traditional than it actually is.
performance in a seemingly casual way with no time to think.
Similarly Wade Guyton maybe believes that black ink printed by a
,.G. You have often juxtaposed paintings with readymades such as
machine is the truly traditional painting nowadays. The idea being
that the only virtuosic painting you could possibly make in these boats or bicycles in your exhibitions.
times is a contextual, knowledgeable, politicized work operating with
M c You are still interviewing me about my work ... I consider the
a Post-Conceptual language. And simultaneously a reflexive com­ paintings themselves to be readymades. If a painting is inheren y
modity. Right there is the virtuousity, the "painting." You won't find a commodity because of its form and its history then what s the dif-
it elsewhere. If you want to get away from that, you'd have to start
ference between them?
painting more like what looks virtuoso, but that would be a kind of
Daniel Richter fail. I G I always thought your work also emphasized the differences
between, say, a speedboat and a painting, by juxtaposing them.
i.G. But what if one of your paintings from "The Opening" series
landed somewhere without this whole contextual information about M.c. No. That's why the paintings have such cliched subjects, because
the performance in the gallery space and was also disconnected they are also readymades.
from the whole thought procedure that went into it? If someone didn t
know what is at stake in your work, would he or she still get a sense I.G. But isn't there a difference between you making the paintings
of it being saturated with these propositions? and a company producing the speedboats

M.C. Well, you only have to Google my name and you'll find all the M.C. No, I'm a readymade.
main facts. And you can't separate your own experience from
knowledge anyway. 1 G. But readymades contain social labor, while paintings suggest
a close nexus to their author, the artist, and they also live off
the mythological dimension of this identity and the social privi-
leges attached to it.

M.c. Okay sure, I'm not just a readymade, but the starting position is
artist as a readymade. The person, or the ambitious art's he s -
iectivitv which would produce a painting like that, is a chche wh
fam prepared to inhabit. But I do exist in a context, which changes
over time, and I am a person who exists within a d^'urswe space
and can move within that space, to some extent. But > es wha
saving with "I'm also a readymade" is that it's not just that I m
I painting a familiar subject, it's also that I'm acting in a familiar fash-
ion to create a whole effect of completed obviousness.

Michaela Eichwald, Freiheit, 2011

189
PAINTING AS COVER STORY
 I.G. I would agree but only up to a point. You have painted cliches,
such as models, yes, but you can't prevent these paintings from
nourishing the fantasy that they somehow contain your life and labor
time. Paintings are perceived as consisting of traces of their maker
even if they have been produced by a machine. And I think that you
and many other artists have nourished and mocked this fantasy
simultaneously as when deliberately producing drips for instance.

M.C. But drips are readymades.

I.G.Exactly. They are regarded as a totally mannerist device since

they have been used by second-generation Abstract Expressionists.

M.C. When you see drips, brushy handwriting, or stylistic haptic

events in my work, they are incidental traps for collectors. To have
a career I needed to allow for this incidental reading of the acci­
dents of picture making, as if they were in fact the yearnings of a
romantic. It is part of the cliche and it was necessary to get money.
And it's like this other more conventional person standing along­
side me. But I don't identify with this person.

I.G. So these are lols for art lovers?

M.C. Yes, for people that hardly even exist, actually. And I kind of
reject this idea anyway. I'm not interested in it anymore. I have
rejected quite a lot of my old strategies. I feel that I only really started
to get a clear handle on what I was doing last year, having made
art since 1991! For sure an illusion too, but generally I have had
a slow personal development. However at the same time I have left
behind a highly baroque series of traces, some of which are pointing
toward an institutional critical and supposedly serious subject
matter, others are saturated with incidental virtuosity. But none
of the specifics of the incidental virtuosity are of interest to me.
They're actually compromises, in fact, to make money. I'm not blam­
ing people if they now criticize me for those commercial decisions.
My own experience of it is different; I think if you took any five-
year segment of my work, you would see that I was involved in
slightly different ideas, the content of these changing ideas being
the institutional-critical element as I grasped it at that time, and
painting as a cover story. Even today.

Merlin Carpenter, "Poor Leatherette." MD72.

Berlin, 2015, installation view

PAINTING AS COVER STORY

190 PAINTING AGAINST PAINTING
 I.G. What do you mean by "painting as a cover story"?
I.G. It is a crafted critique of what—painting?

M . C . Well, the paintings don't exactly look like the thing that they're
M.C. No. Anti-painting is now conservative. It's a crafted comment,
embodying. And part of the reason is that they are commodities.
we'll put it that way: a crafted explication of a position. But it's
not all that critical. Let's move on to more general questions, because
I. G . I would like to know more about this "other person-painter" you I don't really want to publish this if it's just an interview about
created but didn't identify with. I remember that for your show at my work. I really think you should move off the script.
Friedrich Petzel in 1996 you produced a poster that showed you in a
rowing boat on the Thames. I.G. But am I allowed to refer to concrete examples from your work?

M.C. Yes, I was trying to create a whole fake life at that time as M.C. No. Let me ask you instead about your ideas of the vitality that
a weekend bourgeois painter in the suburbs. From which fake reality a painting has. What are you actually talking about when you're
the bourgeois paintings would emerge unforced. But at the same talking about painting's value? Are you talking about yourself as an
time I was also doing the opposite kind of work in central London. art critic analyzing the art world or are you talking about the
I'm running through an endless series of unfunny jokes. Actually, capitalist circulation of commodities? And how does this relate to
there's something serious behind each joke, but that is also a failure. the projection of vitalism that is produced by painting? And what does
But what is not immediately visible is that behind all this is that this mean for me? Because in a way, I've been saying that such
there is a fairly worthy project, which is simpler: more like how to do a projection is a bit of a false trail, because I only had to create this
art today. I see myself as a John Miller-type, proceeding with an image of vitality to get money.
idea until it gets boring, continuing with another; sometimes these
ideas cancel each other out, or make me look stupid. What I mean I . G . I guess I am talking about the capitalist circulation of paintings

more specifically is that there has been a series of breaks that have as commodities from the point of view of a critic who tries to
happened over the years between different ways of using art or analyze it. Let's start by assuming that paintings are, as you under­
painting in a political context. These were one-way changes of mind, lined, commodities. I would add and specify here that they are
inflection points between the current methodology and another actually commodities of a special kind. While resembling the com­
that possibly contradicted it. These changes were reflected both in modity fetish as Marx describes it in many ways (by also mystifying
the origins of their value), paintings also differ from commodities
the look of the works (pseudo-virtuosity) and their inner structure
insofar as they actually nourish the vitalist fantasy that they are
(critique). So that now I look back and think I can't really agree
actually enriched with the labor- and lifetime that was expended on
with most of what I did before. This is what I mean about being an
them. This is a total fantasy of course—it is actually bullshit—but
earnest student. But there is a risk that by explaining this under­
it has a strong appeal.
lying logic, for instance, here in this conversation, my position
becomes even more earnest... but I will try to talk about it in another
M.C. It's visible that it is a fantasy, yes.
way: I like the painting itself, the result, and I feel attached to
it and I think it is not without merit. So in that sense I've done an I.G. It is visible as a fantasy in the language of painting, in the
okay job of making this object, which somehow touches upon my physical, bodily materiality of its signs. Owing to their material sub­
thought process as well as a lot of lying. There's this element of stance, these signs suggest presence and point to absence at the
having achieved a stripped-down commentary. There it is; I'm proud same time. There are artists who have deliberately fed this vitalist fan­
of the object, but I'm not sure to what extent that makes it a tasy and others, like you, who also visibly spoil it. But it often
unique painting in the traditional sense. I see it as a crafted critique seems to me in retrospect that artists (like Richter or Polke) who have
tried to prevent vitalist projections by opting for mechanic devices

PAINTING AS COVER STORY 193

192 PAINTING AGAINST PAINTING
 or readymade strategies have often ended up producing paintings that
seemed even more alive and self-active. I have observed that at­ I.G. I agree there is vitalism in every Instagram post, but paintings
tempts to make paintings appear "dead" or "empty" do not succeed have a more substantial appeal and also evoke a material, seem­
For instance, in your series "DECADES" (2013-14) I think it's ingly self-determined work process that is fascinating and desirable
especially in a digital economy where it is most incongruous. You
actually the colors especially, sorry to say, that are able to produce
used acrylic for "DECADES," which supposedly is more lifeless then
vitalist fantasies. I think of course there is a difference between a
work that deliberately tries to spoil that fantasy and a work that just say oil paint.
caters to it. But I believe that it is because of the rhetoric of paint­
M.C. There's a certain kind of acrylic used to make the exact kind
ing and its particular history that it can't completely step out of
of pictures that I was copying. The colors are specific to the sub­
this production of vitalist fantasies, which are so crucial for capital­
ject, and the subject of this work is interiors from the precise time
ism. It is painting that triggers these fantasies that are equally in which such pictures were made (the nineties). I had restricted
projected upon it. They result from a dynamic between the object the aesthetic choices. The "DECADES" project was quite tight and
and viewer. the pictures were well received; they sold well and they generated
these fantasies. The earlier works, which deliberately allowed for
M.C. But isn't that particular art-lover-tvpe person dying away, or some more arty decisions, had not in fact always sold quite so well, or
becoming anyone with an iPhone? There is a lot of vitalism in in fact they often had done, but to a more idiotic audience, and
every Instagram post since it started. The comprehension of these they weren't hyped by the real tastemakers. It all did not function
aesthetics is pretty spread out. In the case of "DECADES," those quite as successfully as when I removed all fake haptic content
colors are chosen because they're straight from the can, using the and I played it straight. Then, suddenly, a big Instagram-related ideo-
paint amateur artists use to make that kind of painting. —1

191 PAINTING AS COVER STORY 195

 they were "on topic" and so fairly hip. And then of course you get a M. C. There's plenty of labor in it, but it's not productive labor or labor
conversation with the adviser and the curator—because they feel power as Marx defines it. But just to come to another point, which
involved exactly because I was staying on message. But nevertheless is maybe more in agreement with what you're saying. This comes
I am still secretly introducing to them the fake-bourgeois ready- from a recent conversation with Sam Lewitt. You've got the produc­
made painting, but with their collaboration. Both kind of paintings tive sphere and the unproductive sphere of the economy, and
are readvmades; it's that just one readymade is a little more... you've got the whole of production and you've got the entirety of
circulation. But both the productive and the unproductive, and pro­
duction and circulation, are working together, enmeshed with each
i.G. It's harder?
other. So once you look more with a broader view, both of these two
M.C. Yes, it's a harder readymade, but that makes it much softer. things closely resemble each other when seen on the fetishized
surface of capitalist relationships. Work in the circulation sector be­
comes ultra-similar, in terms of how it conforms to economic
i.G. Who determines these nuances? Who decides the painting
norms, to what happens in the production side. And the same thing
is a readymade? Even if the artist is not a wage laborer someone still
happens with productive and unproductive labor. The unproductive
must have actually worked to initiate an experimental setup that
laborer is exploited the exact same way as the productive laborer.
actually produces these readymade effects?
Just because I've tried to delve into the notion of productive labor
to clarify that I don't see any surplus value in art, that does not
M.C. Not really. In fact it's an ongoing discourse, a continuation
mean that I fail to see that unproductive elements of capital, like
of Conceptual art. luxury-good production by artists, are still bound by the same logic
of productive labor and exploitation. Except that the artist herselt
i.G. But someone needs to have prepared the ground for a certain is a kind of bourgeois manager and actually has a social advantage
conceptual-experimental setup to happen, and it will be credited to (and also a fundamental limitation) through that reactionary class
him or her as in Duchamp's case? affiliation. Artists are exemplary figures who represent capitalist orga­
nization to itself. Perhaps the artist's managerial role appears as
M.C. Isn't it constantly revisited and re-grounded? A new generations if it is labor, which gives it a certain vitalism. But the luxury product
use as an inherent given what the previous one struggled for could she makes is actually more like a guiding hand. For example, it is
be an example of this. able to ground the readymade effect we mentioned before.

i.G. Do you think that such an understanding of the artist, as i.G. Artworks are structurally very similar to luxury goods, I agree,
someone who must effect constant paradigm shifts through ready- but they also have acquired an intellectual prestige since the eigh­
made or other strategies, is symptomatic for the way work has teenth centurv that luxury items only can dream of having. The
changed in general in a new economy where entrepreneurial com­ sociologists Luc Boltanski and Arnaud Esquerre recently demon­
petences are expected from all workers? Aren't artists therefore strated how luxury production has been increasingly responsible tor
just an embodiment of how work has changed in general? the economv's growth at least in France. They also pointed to how
luxurv goods take the unique artwork as their model by producing
M.C. If the employee has to do all this extra entrepreneurial compe­ limited editions and so on. So maybe luxury production-like art
tency work, that is just more work. That's still labor power, just ^ production—plays the role of an ideal type of model economy that
in a more extreme way including their intellectual labor as we . other economical agents try to imitate, and in that sense it creates
the artist working there by herself is definitely not like a laborer surplus value?
she is more like a manager.

I.G. But didn't you argue in your 2015 essay "The Outside Can t Co
Outside" that there is no labor power in art?

PAINTING AS COVER STORY

197
 M.C. If this luxury production were producing a new model for to the extent that they are an individual offering help to others)
the generation of labor, then we wouldn't be living in mass austerity are actually functioning as default managers for ruling-class power.
and with worsening conditions for our children. The success of And the sad painter putting the painting front and center is putting
the luxury-goods sector follows the money. It's just inequality. The their class position front and center rather than denying it.
1 percent are the only ones who have spending power, and they
buy the luxury goods. Of course, companies that produce these goods
are creating jobs and pay real money to their employees and the
wages of the luxury-good employee are actually the same as the
"essential commodity" employee; no lower or higher. But still these
wages in the luxury sector are not increasing the wealth of capi­
talist society, so no surplus value. It might be worth mentioning here
that this is all not quite so simple. In contrast to Michael Heinrich's
strict reiteration of Marx's law, which insists that wages are set by
what is necessary to keep the worker alive, thirty years earlier Ernest
Mandel spoke about a kind of sliding scale or ratchet effect be­
tween needs and luxury goods. To a very limited extent, yesterday's
luxuries become today's essentials—smartphones being a good
example—and wages must then reflect the need for workers to pur­
chase them.

I- G. Cool, but this is not ultimately what I was saying. I was not say­
ing that the luxury sector was increasing wealth; I was saying
that it is playing a more dominant role and that art is closely inter­
twined with it. And don't artists structurally belong to this luxury
VIP zone? And why would this mean that they are outside of value
production?

M.C. Artists are managers of value production; they assign roles for
productive and nonproductive production. According to my logic,
they are drones that assign and allocate value without knowing what
they re doing and without knowing who or what for, irrespective
of the content of their work. I agree they recreate existing value, but
only in a symbolic and organizational sense. They do have this MP
position right at the top of the cultural sector. Obviously most artists
do not make much money but a surprising number make a fortune.
Their class affiliation makes it structurally unlikely for them to affect
change, and a painting is a good example of that. But this could
lead back toward a reflexive critical potential of painting. For me, both
the painter and the socially engaged artist (and the latter to the
extent to which they're inhabiting the role of a cultural producer, not

PAINTING AS COVER STORY 199

198 PAINTING AGAINST PAINTING
 Notes painting, a rejection motivated in no small
20 The seminal discussion of the significance 32 See Wilfried Dickhoff, ed., Jorg Immendorff
measure by sexism. By now, a number of of painting's specific material may be found im Gesprdch mit Pamela Kort (Cologne:
retrospectives have removed any remaining in Yve-Alain Bois, "Introduction: Resisting Verlag Kiepenheuer 8c Witsch, 1993), 52.
1 See, for example, "Avantgarde und Massen- doubt that her art has received institutional Blackmail," in Painting as Model (Cambridge, 33 In conversation with me, Michael Werner
kultur," Texte zur Kunst, no. 1 (November recognition. MA: MIT Press, 1990), 12. suggested that even Marcel Broodthaers,
1990); and "Was ist Social History?," Texte 10 For the personifying representations of an exponent of institutional critique whose
21 See Nathalie Heinich, Du peintre a Vartiste:
zur Kunst, no. 2 (March 1991). painting in the early modern era, see also work he represents, is, to his mind, ultimately
Artisans et academiciens a I'age classique
2 See my essay, "Conceptual Expression: On Ulrich Pfisterer, "Erotik der Verkorperung," a painter.
(Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1993), 53.
Conceptual Gestures in Allegedly Expressive in Kunst-Geburten: Kreativitat, Erotik. 22 See my essay, "Market-Reflexive Gestures 34 See Heinich, Du peintre a I'artiste.
Painting, Traces of Expression in Proto- Korper (Berlin: Verlag Klaus Wagenabach in Celebrity Culture," in High Price: Art 35 He attempts to portray the sculptor's work
Conceptual Works, and the Significance of 2014), 7-22. between the Market and Celebrity Culture, as purely mechanical: "His face becomes
Artistic Procedures," in Art after Conceptual 11 Kippenberger, who frequently realized his trans. Nicholas Grindell (Berlin: Sternberg plastered and powdered all over with marble
Art, ed. Alexander Alberro and Sabeth motifs in various forms, also made the poster Press, 2009), 157-68. dust, which makes him look like a baker. [...]
Buchmann (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, as an object. 23 Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, "Figures of His house is in a mess and covered in
2006), 119-34. 12 See Pfisterer, "Erotik der Verkorperung." Authority, Ciphers of Regression," in Art chips and dust from the stone." Leonardo
3 See Texte zur Kunst, no. 31 (September 13 See Yves Michaud's 1986 interview with Joan after Modernism: Rethinking Representation, da Vinci, "The Works of the Eye and Ear
1998) and no. 77 (March 2010). Mitchell, in Joan Mitchell: Retrospective— ed. Brian Wallis (New York: New Museum Compared," in Leonardo on Painting: An
4 See Douglas Crimp, "The End of Painting" Her Life and Paintings, exh. cat., Kunsthaus of Contemporary Art, 1984), 120. Anthology of Writings by Leonardo da
(1981), in On the Museum's Ruins Bregenz, ed. Yilmaz Dziewior (Cologne: 24 See Graw, "Conceptual Expression." Vinci, with a Selection of Documents
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1993), 84-106. Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther Konig, 25 For a discussion on the obsolescence of Relating to His Career as an Artist, ed.
5 The work is lost but survives in a photo­ 2015), 55. painting, see Gregory Battcock, "Painting Martin Kemp, trans. Kemp and Margaret
graphic reproduction. 14 See Stefan Germer, "Vorsicht friseh Is Obsolete" (1969), in Conceptual Art: Walker (New Haven, CT: Yale University
6 George Baker, "The Artwork Caught by the gestrichen: Thesen zu alteren und neueren A Critical Anthology, ed. Alexander Alberro Press, 1989), 38-39.
Tail: Dada Painting," in The Artwork Caught Medien," Texte zur Kunst, no. 31 and Blake Stimson (Cambridge, MA: MIT 36 See Heinich, Du peintre a I'artiste, 55.
by the Tail: Francis Picabia and Dada in (September 1998): 60. Press, 1999), 88-89. On the end of painting, 37 See Heinich, 55.
Paris (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007), 101. 15 See the press release announcing the exhi­ see Crimp, "End of Painting." 38 See Heinich, 55.
7 A small selection of essential writings on bition "Gambaroff, Krebber, Quavtman, 26 See Dieter Mersch, Medientheorien zur 39 Heinich, 50: "Un tiers de sculpteurs pour
the subject: Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, Einfiihrung (Hamburg: Junius, 2006), 10: deux tiers de peintres academiciens jusqu'k
Rayne" at Bergen Kunsthall, November 2010,
"Readymade, Photography, and Painting "The first axiom of media theory is: there la mort de Louis XIV."
http://www.kunsthall.no/en/?k=l&id
in the Painting of Gerhard Richter" (1977), are no media in the sense of substantially 40 See my essay, "Impressionism, Fashion,
=26&aid=784&ark=l&aar=2010&arrtID
in Neo-Avantgarde and Culture Industry: and historically stable entities." and Modernity," Artforum, December 2013,
=6&ArrLokID=18cindex=6.
Essays on European and American Art from 27 Crimp, "End of Painting," 91. 220-23.
16 Recent examples of the unabated tendency
1955 to 1975 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 28 Rosalind E. Krauss, A Voyage on the North 41 See Sabeth Buchmann, "Rehearsing in/with
to treat painting as an art apart include
2000), 365-403; Ilal Foster, The First Pop Sea: Art in the Age of the Post-medium Media: Some Remarks on the Relationship
the exhibition "Painting 2.0" at the Museum
Age: Painting and Subjectivity in the Art of Condition (London: Thames & Hudson, between Dance, Film, and Painting," in Graw
Brandhorst, Munich, and the books pro­ and Lajer-Burcharth, Painting beyond Itself,
Hamilton, Lichtenstein, Warhol, Richter 1999), 6.
duced by Phaidon Press, in which the notion 145-69.
and Ruscha (Princeton, NJ: Princeton 29 Another central objection to painting
that painting is a self-contained medium 42 See Hans Belting and Christiane Kruse, Die
University Press, 2012); and Julia Gelshorn, at the time concerned its association with
remains unchallenged; see, for example, Tony Erfindung des Gemcildes: Das erste nieder-
Aneignung und Wiederholung: Bilddis- masculinity and male privilege. Even now,
Godfrey, Painting Today (London: Phaidon, latulische Jahrhundert der Malerei (Munich:
kurse im Werk von Gerhard Richter und people shrug it off when artists like Baselitz
2014)." Hirmer, 1994), 11.
Sigmar Polke (Munich: Wilhelm Fink asserted that women, because of something
17 See Shane Hickey, "Picasso Painting Breaks in their nature, can't paint, a recognizably 43 "The picture shows a bed and a hat stand,
Verlag, 2013).
Record for Most Expensive Artwork Sold phobic defensive reaction to female compe­ but I didn't like it, so in a fit of rage I crossed
8 See Clement Greenberg, "Modernist Painting" at Auction," Guardian,May 12,2015, tition. The argument has a long tradition— it out with red and blue paint." In Dickhoff,
(1960), in The Collected Essays and
https://www.theguardian.com/artand in the early modern era, when women were Jorg Immendorff im Gesprdch mit Pamela
Criticism, vol. 4, Modernism with a
design / 2015 /may /12 / pablo-picasso-work Kort, 25.
Vengeance, 1957-1969, ed. John O'Brian said to be anatomically incapable of painting:
-sets-record-for-most-expensive-artwork while men gave birth to artistic creations, 44 Kathrin Rottmann, "Polke in Context: A
(Chicago: Chicago University Press 19931 -sold-at-auction.
85-93. ' h women were wrapped up in the business of Chronology," in Alibis: Sigmar Polke 1963-
18 See my essay, "The Value of Liveliness: actual childbearing. See Pfisterer, Kunst- 2010, ed. Kathy Halbreich, Mark Godfrey,
9 Mentioning Oehlen, Kippenberger, and
Painting as an Index of Agency in the New Geburten. Lanka Tattersall, and Magnus Schaefer
Koether in the same breath may create the
Economy," in Painting beyond Itself: The 30 Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, "The Palermo (Munich: Prestel, 2014), 29: "Beuvs widely
impression that Koether was regarded
Medium in the Post-medium Condition, ed. Triangles," in Blinky Palermo: Retrospective discussed 'higher beings' mentioned in
as a peer by the other protagonists of the Rudolf Steiner's esoteric writings."
Isabelle Graw and Ewa Lajer-Burcharth 1964-1977, exh. cat. (New York: Dia Art
formation in question and outside observers 45 Andre Breton, quoted in Maurice Nadeau,
(Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2016), 79-101. Foundation, 2010), 36.
Nothing could be further from the truth:
19 See Leon Battista Alberti. On Painting, ed. 31 Michael Werner in conversation with the The History of Surrealism, trans. Richard
her position was initially marginalized and
and trans. Rocco Sinisgalli (Cambridge: author. Howard (New York; Macmillan, 1985), 28.
dismissed as a bad version of the "good" bad
Cambridge University Press, 2011)-

200 NOTES TO PAGES 137-144

NOTES TO PAGES 144-151 201
 "I'm no 'real' painter [...]. I just watch
it from outside and sometimes interfere."
'"One Has to Be Able to Take It!,'" 18.
92 See Victor Stoichita, The Pygmalion Effect:
From Ovid to Hitchcock, trans. Alison
Anderson (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 2008), 132.
93 See Denis Diderot, "Notes on Painting:Jb
Serve as an Appendix to the Salon of 1765,
in Diderot on Art, vol. 1, The Salon of 1765
and Notes on Painting, ed. John Goodman
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
1995), 196.
94 Note the early formula Alberti found for the
concrete and "tangible" quality of painting:
he called it a "pinguior Minerva," a "plumper
Minerva."
95 See Hachmeister, "Es gibt keine digitale
Gesellsehaft."

204 NOTES TO PAGES 178-181

The Absent Painter 1 Thesis 1: Marcel Broodthaers's work revolves around questions
of value, an aspect the recent focus on its poetic dimension tends
to obscure.

Six Theses on the

The major 2016 retrospective at MoMA in New York has made it
obvious: Broodthaers is no longer an insider's artist. Artists and art
historians (myself included) have long held his installations from
Reflection on Value the 1960s and '70s in high esteem for the way they deftly and
expertly blurred the boundaries between the formats of image, text,
and Painting in object, photography, and film.2 What's more, his work invariably
takes an unvarnished look at the specific commodity character of art,

the Work of Marcel which makes his practice seem especially relevant today.3 For in­
stance, when he publicly enacted his legendary conversion from poet

Broodthaers to visual artist in 1964, he presented it as motivated solely by eco­

nomic considerations, though an ironic overtone was evident. As
the well-known text on the invitation to his first exhibition, Moi
aussi, je me suis demande si je ne pouvais pas vendre quelque chose
et reussir dans la vie ..." (1964), notes, he, too, wanted to "sell"
something and be "successful" for once in his life.4 He playfully asso­
ciated his new self-image as a visual artist with the prospect of finally
turning a profit. In other words, Broodthaers suggests in a deliber­
ately exaggerated fashion that the starting point of his work is the
acknowledgment of the art object as a form of commodity. While his
statement from 1964 can of course not be taken literally, it still
points to art's compatibility with the commodity form as the crux of
his work.
The art commodity and questions of money and value were also
pivotal to a project he launched a few years later titled the Musee
d'Art Moderne, Departement des Aigles, which proved especially in­
fluential not least importantly because of its systematic flouting
of the boundaries between different media. Between 1968 and 1972,
several "sections" of this fictional museum—Broodthaers even had
official stationery printed on which he figured as its director were
presented at various venues, including the artists apartment in
Brussels, Kunsthalle Dtisseldorf, and documenta 5. Not only did it
mimic and satirize the colonialist displays of the ethnological

Marcel Broodthaers, Musee d'Art Moderne,

Departement ties Aigles, Section XlXeme siecle. 30 rue de la Pepiniere.
Brussels, 1968-69. installation view

THE ABSENT PAINTER 207

 collections, with their focus on different genres, his museum aL
poked fun at the abiding belief in the value (and significance)of,,* • cesses of commercial exploitation, since it is transformed into
of art. In one section, for example, each object on display earner• - pace-filling and marketable paintings and objects. In the MoMA
a label saying, "This is not a work of art," a disqualification that „ AN . however, the shrewd and sensible way that Broodthaers reacted
also an allusion to Rene Magrittes Ceci n'est pas urw pipe I mi,w his respective market conditions has been slightly overlooked.
" 1929) lnstead of presupposing the work of art-its imp,n 1 lie emphasis of the exhibition was mainly on the irreducible quality
and hence its value—as a given, the presentation identified each t bis poetic language and less on his market-reflexive insights.
artwork as the result of a social act of classification, which itsUii Vet the exhibition's interest in the poetic side of his oeuvre, I would
be noted, can also be withheld: an object that passes as art at am irgtie, is also related to the current popularity of the artist-poet
given moment might lose that status when conditions change W„fc mi -del, an identity many artists in the centers of the Western art world
Ins mock museum, Broodthaers not only (playfully) arrogated tlx ii.tve adopted.7 And the enthusiasm for that model as ostensibly
art institution's authority but he also demonstrated how arbitran g, uunune to co-optation is often motivated by the latent wish to discard
T IK- ideal of the critical artist, which has become questionable any-
attributions of value could be. On the other hand, slipping into
w.iv, and perhaps discard critique altogether.8 Broodthaers, too, occa-
the role of director of his fictional museum implied that to critique tin
si< mally expressed vehement disapproval of the critique of engage
institution one has to identify with it, get closely involved in it
artists like Jean-Luc Godard and Joseph Beuvs.9 Yet however war-
t was precisely because Broodthaers did not exempt himself (has fc
r anted his criticism of the self-righteous pose of critical artists and
institutional contexts he scrutinized that his museum, in the l<Nt»
their penchant for speaking from an imaginary outside position may
became a central point of reference for a younger generation of have been, it is, in today's perspective, grist to the mill of a general
artists associated with institutional critique, such as Fareed Atmah sentiment that experiences any form of critique as no more than a
Fred Wilson, Christian Philipp Mailer, and Renee Green. Like tyrannical gesture."10
si I i t "LrV ' ,c* ' c'aim to occupy an imaginary position out­
side the institution. In the scholarly discussion of art, too his Thesis 2: In Broodthaers, even empty shipping crates can be
T>C,atCd primaril>" withhistoric institutional critique ft. painting, and such politics of substitution bring value into play.
.1 g time: the retrospective at MoMA was the first to shift the
en ph. s,s by underscoring the poetic dimension of his work ' \ not her aspect of Broodthaers's art that has received considerably
:::;L,rs zas anointed as the p^totvpie.,1 less attention but, to my mind, no less groundbreaking, is his paint-
l ' , , '1'1 Sr,m aJto«ether '"appropriate given his fondness lot i r/v practice.11 Although Broodthaers was not a painter in the con­
The nrohi i t V°la,ilitV °f ^-tion in svmbolist poetrv ventional sense—he rarely used a paintbrush—his art nonetheless
insistently addressed questions of painting and more specifically its
tfie unsiwlk 'thiS fOCUS °" the P'-hc is often bound up .id
"napoken assumption that poetry is a purer, more resistant production, circulation, value, and rhetoric. In fact, engagement
w ith questions of painting runs through his entire oeuvre, from the
BrtHKlthV compromised by market conditions-a hopetlut
. .uivas on which he tellingly projected his filmLe corbeau et le
w rk '. ,7 ;r: nClCarly <>" <He contrary, his venfin,
•, nurd (The Crow and the Fox, 1967) after the fable by La Fontaine
„ i,, nr 7 ' "V1 '"r Which he embedded his published
ti. the shipping crates that were inscribed with words such as
even poet re ") them li,r*el>' "legible, demonstrated that
; minting" or "pictures," and often served as seating furniture in his
commodity form 77-"! 7° l"l °bj"' fU"y congruem tti,h ^ •k tional museum. For a 1968 invitation card, Broodthaers adapted
Broodthaers s work is hardly exempt fro«

208 PAINTING WITHOUT PAINTING T H E A B S E N T PAINTER 209

La Fontaine's text, while making a peculiar alteration: Le corbeau
conventional notions of value. The camera not only zooms in on
sonne. Le peintre est absent ("The crow rings. The painter is absent
several details of this picture, it also scans the broad golden frame,
The "absent painter," which substitutes the word "fox," mav well h
as though to emphasize again the significance of the framework in
been referring to Broodthaers himself.13
which art appears and the permeability of the boundary between its
The word "painting" stenciled on some of his shipping crates, i ^ inside and its context. Toward the end of the film, the frame is
example, seems to promise what's inside—but the promise, and shown without the painting, which has been cut away, as a way of
the boxes are empty. More generally, Broodthaers did not see emp: telling us that only the frame matters after all.
ness as having negative connotations. He once remarked: "Intact, Painting, in any case, is never pure in Broodthaers—it is always
I was establishing a relationship between the emptiness—which I don bound up with other art forms, be it film, as in Analyse d'une
necessarily use as a pejorative concept—of painting, between the peinture, or sculpture, as in the shipping crates. In other words, paint­
absence of signification and the emptiness of the crates."14 For ing appears as a fundamentally heterogeneous and hybrid medium.
Broodthaers, painting in particular was associated with an emptintv That's true even of the postcards of paintings the artist presented in
that the crates rendered literal. If painting (or more precisely the various sections of his museum: that particular genre fuses
speaking, the painted canvas) implies an emptiness that could arc­ painting with photography. Section XVIIeme siecle (1969), an itera­
hly be derived from its internal structure—the initially blank can­ tion of his fictional museum in Antwerp, for instance, contained
vas stretched over a frame—its painted surface might be said tow., postcard reproductions of paintings by Peter Paul Rubens. Aside
that essential nothingness. At painting's core thus exists nothing­ from the site-specific character of this gesture, which in a sense
ness. At the same time, Broodthaers's empty crates also allude to the brought Rubens back to his town, the inclusion of postcards of
mobility of painting, which was described as its greatest commer­ famous paintings in the museum had the basic effect of ensuring the
cial advantage as early as the fifteenth century.15 Once sold, a pain: medium's symbolic presence. Despite of painting's absence, it was
ing is usually packed in a crate for shipping. Themes of the painted there, though only by proxy—shipping crates, canvases, frames, or,
in the case of the postcards, fairly worthless reproductions.17 They
canvas's mobility and emptiness return in Dix-neuJ petit tableaux <
play the part of painting and become substitutions for it, pointing to
pile (1973), which consists of just such canvases, their surfaces
the importance of symbolic substitution in his work. And these
unpainted; that is also to say, they are devoid of meaning, stacked lifc
stand-ins for painting are—in contrast to the original—not associated
merchandise prepared for shipping. Only their edges are coated
with value. One could therefore say that Broodthaers perpetually
with paint and therefore worked on in a painterly fashion, highlit
stages relations of substitution in his work that implicitly raises the
ing that, as Broodthaers saw it, what really matters happen> nc
question of value. The philosopher Jean-Joseph Goux argued as
within the painted picture but outside it, on its margins. Compare early as 1975 that symbolic operations of exchange always revolve
film Analyse d'une peinture (1973), which doesn t actually uiw around value, an aspect he ascribes to the substitutive nature of these
take an analysis of a painting. The object of scrutiny is anamate operations that presuppose value because they stand in for some­
painting, which Broodthaers supposedly purchased in an antu - thing else. Their metonymical quality structurally resembles the me­
store in Paris, of a fishing boat.16 Besides playing the lea roe tonymy of value itself: "Whether this exchange involves comparison,
film, it was also on display in his 1973 exhibition at Galerie wi substitution, supplementation—or translation and representation—
Cologne, together with the film and the artists peinture* value enters into it."18 By this logic, value is operative in any
By treating an amateur painting as though it were a mJten^. symbolic exchange most basically because it's the paradigmatic
Broodthaers implicitly valorizes its amateurism and un erm

THE ABSENT PAINTER

211
 metonymical principle. As Goux notes, Marx already pointed out
that nothing is valuable in itself—the value of one commodity finds
expression in the body of another.19 Whether it really follows from
this metonymical structure of value that it is implied in any symbolic
or linguistic substitution, as Goux maintains—there is something
totalizing to his claim—is a question we need not delve into. What's
crucial for our context, however, is that Broodthaers insistently
the conception of painting that was ascendant in the 1J6Us, as
enacts relations of symbolic substitution and exchange that inevitably
Rauschenberg or Warhol, who similarly presented printed canvase
bring up the question of value, sometimes more, sometimes less
as paintings Yet Broodthaers went one step further: the pemtur
explicitly.20 Htt« he ereated between 1972 and 1978 demonstrate that can-
vases can be treated like any empty page in a book-one can simp y
Thesis 3: Broodthaers dismantles painting, isolating its mythical
print words on them. Doing so not only undercuts the modernist
and rhetorical components with a view to gaining a better under­
belief in an "essence" of painting, it subjects the medium
standing of its value form.

A relation of symbolic substitution is also operative in the series

of palette objects made of plaster titled "P. 1974" (1974). The palette
is emblematic of the painter's art as in allegorical representations
of it since the sixteenth century, although Broodthaers's palettes, while
imitating the shape of the utensil, aren't the real thing: they evoke
its likeness, but they're not smeared with paint; the artist has merely
painted circular forms on them and printed the letter P for "palette"
or peinture. Brood thaer's palette is a form of symbolic substitution
that poses the question of the value of such relics or, more precisely
speaking, pseudo relics. Collectors value palettes used by famous
painters because these objects seem to be saturated with the artists
labor, whose traces they bear in the form of paints mixed and used.
They're revered with almost fetishistic intensity and sometimes
even put on display because they are regarded as marking the inter­
section between the painter's hand and his or her product—they're
a kind of transitional object. Even more than paintings themselves,
palettes are ideal foils for art lovers' projections, nourishing the illu­
sion that they preserve something of the world in which the artists
lived and worked. One of Broodthaers's palette objects encourages
this fantasy, if only for fun: a vaguely Pollockian white paint spatter
would seem to attest to painterly activity. However, the spot turns
Marcel Broodthaers. Peintures (L'art et Us mots),1973

213
THE ABSENT PAINTER
212 PAINTING WITHOUT PAINTING
conditions of literature, especially since the artist demonstratively
conceptualist colleagues (Art & Language, Ed Ruscha, and others)
made the pieces in editions of five. For Broodthaers, the essence
had produced throughout the 1960s. In this context, a text painting
of one art form (painting) is always to be found in the other: "What
refers to a picture in which writing is the primary ingredient; in
is painting? It is literature."21 So if we would grasp the core of
Broodthaers's signs, the text may also consist of individual words,
painting, we must conceive of it as literature and treat it as such
letters, punctuation marks, or pictograms. On a side note, the emer­
We encounter relationships of substitution here as well. The series gence of text as a motif in painting in the 1960s was related to the
Peintures (L'art et les mots) (1973) illustrates with particular elarin concurrent "linguistic turn" in the humanities: the new attention to
that such relations of substitution always touch on the question language meant that text became the privileged object of research,
of value. Printed on the canvases are words that denote either the and so the adherents of structuralism, for example, increasingly de­
painter's tools ("brush," "canvas," "nail") or some of the criteria thai voted themselves to the study of linguistic signs. A similar focus on
have been developed since the early modern era for the assessment text was characteristic of Conceptual art. For artists like Broodthaers
of paintings ("style," "color," "composition"). Yet amid this technical who worked in its orbit, painting was hardly an obvious choice: it
and evaluative vocabulary, we repeatedly encounter the word prix came to be viewed as the epitome of a commodity form to be over­
or "price." In these pictures, market value—an economic category- come.23 It also seemed irredeemably fraught with the outdated ideal
ranks on a par with categories of production of reception. The mention of aesthetic experience.24 In the rare instances when Conceptual
of price in this context moreover reminds us that, like today, in artists devised painterly practices at all, they tended to repurpose the
the decades after the Second World War, painted pictures in particular painted picture as an information medium, usually at the expense
were still closely associated with money and the expectation of of its material-visual dimension. Broodthaers's plastic signs, too, ap­
future increases in value.22 So the peintures litteraires attest to pear at first glance to be defined primarily by their messages, be it
Broodthaers's acute awareness of the specific value form ofpaintinj that they advertise his museum, Musee d'Art Moderne, or that they
mimic a street sign as an expression of his admiration for his great
which conversely appears to be at the heart of his sustained inter­
artistic role model (e.g., rue Rene Magritte). Yet the relief format
est in painting.
makes their material facture salient, lending them a tactile quality,
and so these works cannot be reduced either to their linguistic mes­
Thesis 4: His Poemes industriels (Industrial Poems) pretend
sage or to their materiality.25
to be advertising surfaces, but they don't convey unequivocal Nor do their messages resolve into an unambiguous purport, call­
messages, and that undermines their commercial character. ing their commercial character in question. Even the signs that
promote the artist's museum feature absurd details such as a note that
The multifaceted engagement with the rhetoric and history ot p admission is denied to children: enfants interdits. The excessive
ing in Broodthaers's work goes back to the early vacuum-forme rigidity of this prohibition seems designed primarily to signal that we
plastic signs used for advertising, the Poemes industriels, whic should not take the sign at face value. When Broodthaers first pre­
began to have manufactured in 1969. Although such signs are sented his plastic signs in a bookstore in Paris, he called them Poemes
at home in advertising and traffic signage, they resemble Pj*int^Y industriels, a curious compound identifying them as products of
in that they are two-dimensional pictures using color. Broodn^ industry and poetic creations. Using industrial techniques to create
them made in editions of nine, the conventional number tor r the series firmly roots them in the commercial-industrial sphere.
sculptures (another respect in which these pieces invoke t Comparable to the "telephone pictures" (1922) Moholy-Nagy com­
missioned from a commercial sign manufacturer, Broodthaers's
artistic tradition). They always bear inscriptions, and so t e\
be described as a commercial variant of the "text paintings

THE ABSENT PAINTER

 Po&mes industrials aim to undo the close nexus between paintin Thesis 5: Invoking the tradition of sign painting, Broodthaers's
and the painter's hand and abdicate the uniqueness of the work of an Poemes industrials bridge the gulf between applied and autono­
in favor of industrial serialism—they bear the imprint of commer­ mous painting.
cial manufacturing, as products whose sole purpose is advertising Or
the other hand, they're still associated with the artist's name, so By reactivating the genre of signs, Broodthaers's Poemes industriels
they retain the status of singular works attributable to an author. not only take up the important role of advertising signs in the
Moreover, as poems, they also tap into the privileges traditionally ac­ historical avant-garde, as in Russian Constructivism, but also tie in
corded to poetry: that it is exempt from the need to have purpose with the tradition of sign painting in seventeenth- and eighteenth-
or meaning.26 Like poems, their messages are not unambiguous and century France. Numerous artists of the time, including Jean Simeon
have to be decoded. The meaning of the Poemes industrials is fur­ Chardin and Antoine Watteau, worked as sign painters on the side
ther qualified by the fact that Broodthaers had a negative version made even though the form was regarded as belonging to commercial rather
of each sign (with an unreadable text), which symbolically turns than high culture.28 A rigorous distinction was drawn between sign
their original meaning into its opposite and cancels it out: anotherin- painting and the artists organized in the Academie, but there were
stance ot the emptying-out of meaning. As I have mentioned, some pictures—Watteau's two-panel L'enseigne de Gersaint (Shop Sign of
ot them publicized the installments of his museum, such as the Gersaint, 1720) is one famous example—that were used to promote
Section XlXieme siecle, for example, by announcing opening hours an object or a place as well as paintings in their own right, mediating
(°-g-> ^ a.m. to 6 p.m.), but that is not their only function. The Poemes between the spheres of commercial and noncommercial art. In
industrials illustrate that, as Alexander Alberro has argued, Conceptual Watteau's work, the applied-art/commercial dimension reenters paint­
art is distinguished by novel advertising strategies, and even more, ing just at the moment when painting tried to dissociate itself from
that there s an intractable "promotional" side to painting.27 But it. as a consequence of its autonomization via its transformation
because the purport ot his industrial poems remains in abeyance, their into a professional academic discipline.29 In Broodthaers's Poemes
ad\ertising function is brought into question as well: it's not always industriels, by contrast, the impression that they solely serve com­
mercial objectives is a product of playful make believe: the imita-
clear what they promote. finally, the two-dimensional pictorial qual­
tion of advertising signage makes it seem like increasing turnover is
ity of Broodthaers s signs is also the reason why they invoke con-
their entire purpose. Yet however much these signs appear to be
\entions ot painting; this is especially evident in the sign Departemen:
dedicated to their marketing function, they of course also remain the
das Aiglas (David-Ingres-Wiertz-Courbet) (1968). It lists canonical
inventions of a relatively autonomous artist. Not resolving this
painters I)a\ id, Ingres, and Gourbet as well as their lesser-known
tension between autonomy and function in favor of one or the other
c gian eo league as though their works were on view in Broodthaers
side, I would argue, is very much the point: the pieces indicate
ui. eiun . Antoine \\ iertz s name has been smuggled into the classical
that even the autonomous artist remains beholden to commercial re­
canon of rench painting and suggests Broodthaers's own position:
quirements external to his art. Needless to say, there's a difference
o t ie outsider putting his stamp on the history of art and paint- between traditional sign painting, which was commissioned art first
K• • antioning \\ iertz on par with recognized masters moreover and foremost, and Broodthaers's signs, which he had commissioned.3
I 1 nstI"ates 1 lat subverting the official hierarchies and value attri- Still, in Broodthaers, the modern artist's liberty to choose his or
too ° ''I1 • 'St01? can as easy as adding a name to a list. Here,
her own subject matter and format does not imply that his work serves
stake C t,UCStl<>n °*Nalue, or more precisely, of evaluation, is at no marketing function or is exempt from the need for promotion.

THE ABSENT PAINTER

217
216 PAINTING WITHOUT PAINTING
 On the contrary, his plastic signs show that fine artists, just like the* i nriinjs The deliberately hermetic language of the plastic signs,
working in the commercial sphere, need to promote their project S also rlc« BrooLaers's steadfast refusal to engage in the
or themselves. In Broodthaer's well-known 1969 signature pictures ti tod »roduction that was expected of Conceptual art."
of me

content is pared down to the artist's initials, MB—the acronvm resisted the desire, which is once again prevalent tn art
work

features in what's effectively self-branding avant la lettre. Watteau's audiences today, for the meaning of art to be clear, an
advertisement for Gersaint, too, remained subservient to its mar­
keting purpose—it was meant, after all, to increase the store's sales.
And so Watteau painted an appealing and inviting interior, not least didn't altogether give up on the ideal of the artist as a producer
with a view to lure potential customers. He staged elegantly dressed meaning.
ladies—their robes resplendent—eyeing the spread of merchandise,
including pictures and also artisan craftwork and luxury items. In a Thesis 6: The picture Amuser ou Le plus beau tableau du morale
similar way, Broodthaers chose an advertising aesthetic defined is "bad painting" avant la lettre.
by the signal colors red, black, and white, which were used by the
Russian Gonstructivists to communicate their cause in eyecatching I have discussed above how Broodthaers disassembles painting into its
and easily comprehensible visuals. And like Broodthaers, Watteau
inserted curious details into his composition, like the motif of the -n
straw bale on the left, which may be meant to suggest that painting
is like straw spun into gold, or the dog crouching in the Far Right
corner, which could stand in for the artist's signature and embodies material-visual dimension. I've also shown how palettes or shipp g
his exhaustion (Watteau painted the picture shortly before his crates figure in a politics of symbolic substitution that brings the
death). In the scene on the left panel, a portrait of King Louis XIV question of value into play. In this last thesis I will look at an excep­
tional painting a rare case of an expressive (or, more specifical y,
the court painter Charles Le Brun, which is either being packed
concepmal e^ressive) gesture in Broodthaers's artidieblack-and-
up or removed from the crate (there's no way to tell which), is
white Amuser ou Le plus beau tableau dumoude (Toentert
anot ler reference to the mobility of the painted canvas and the ad-
v antages it offered in terms of bringing art to the market. Moreover. or The most beautiful painting in the world, l967"70'71 W

le oI^cia' royal portrait is emblematic of an artistic and political

surface sports a zone of demonstratively smeared white paint I
^gue that this work is "bad painting"
ra vv ich the picture either declares to be over or ominously por-
1 it s is nowhere near finished. The equivocation remains unresolved,
to sav a picture that's good by seeming to be bad. The phrase bad
painting' came into currency a few years after the work was made,
diff1 Gr Para^e^ to Bnoodhaer's signs that, while produced under fn 1978 when Marcia Tucker chose it as the title of an exhibition
circumstances, had a similarly open-ended meaning. How-
she curated in New York. She came up with a
Par-1 1n;ratiV6 structure found in Broodthaer's signs is not corn- a certain kind of figurative art, which Amuser ou ... s definite*mot
give i ^ t0 atteaus Shop Sign of Gersaint, which is hardly surprising
in tvpical Broodthaersian fashion, it's a language or letter pannti g.
late n' ^ ^ection
re narration found in history painting of the But if we conceive of bad painting more broadly ^ the dehber^ ^
Broodth 61661 }!- Century anc*, more forcefully, in postwar art. Where
rejection of modernist conventions such as the cuk of
a referen ^
meanin £s—consider the pictogram of a bottle, as the resulting subjection of painting under the laws of language
ce to a coholism—these visual signifiers defy unambiguous

219
218 PAINTING WITHOUTPA|NT|NG THE ABSENT PAINTER
 and the associated renunciation of traditional painterly skills, then ]
Does it welcome or deplore the con\rersion of the art world into a
believe Amuser ou ... is a textbook example.
branch of the entertainment industry? In this regard, too, the picture
The French verb amuser ("to amuse"), painted in imitation plays it close to the vest, which strikes me as a smart move on
block letters whose execution is pointedly dilettantish, appears in the
Broodthaers's part.
work as a kind of headline. Letterpress printing once again enters When the painting was first on public display in 1974 as part
the sphere of the picture, but this time as a painterly effect, and so of the artist's exhibition "Eloge du sujet" at the Kunstmuseum Basel,
painting may be said to dominate in this encounter with printing. The the curator tellingly described it as being "ugly as sin."33 Yet both
main motif and protagonist on the linguistic stage is a single crudely artist and curator in fact treasured this ugliness—the painting graced
painted letter E, and it's embedded in a zone of perfunctorily smeared the front and back covers of the exhibition catalogue. More gener­
white paint. This painting of language too, invokes a long tradition, ally, Broodthaers was in the habit of making a statement only to turn
which goes back to classical antiquity (with Horace's close conjunction it on its head right away. The most beautiful picture, in his world,
of painting and poetry in the famous formula ut pictura poesis) could be the ugliest picture only a moment later, and "bad painting"
and extends to Magritte's language paintings (which Broodthaersfre­ could be good painting.
quently paraphrased) and the linguistic propositions of his fellow But Amuser ou ... stands out not just because it reduces painting
Conceptualists—the group Art & Language comes to mind again, as to a vehicle for language, in violation of the modernist conviction
does Lawrence Weiner. Like Conceptual art, Amuser ou... takes that there's an immanent "essence" of painting. What makes it a
painting into service for linguistic communication, but—and the dif­ truly exceptional picture is the abovementioned zone of white paint
ference, I think, is crucial—the meaning of its message remains
indeterminate. Neither the word "AMUSER" nor a single E amount to
much of a proposition.
Its helpful to know more about the genesis of the picture. The
artists widow, Maria Gilissen, recalled that he first placed the word
MUSE and the capital E on the canvas—taken together, these would
have read "MUSEE" ("museum").32 However, in light of his recent
decision to announce the closing of the Musee d Art Moderne (sup­
posedly pour cause defaillite, "on account of bankruptcy"), the pun
may have seemed redundant: the museum that the work would have
translated into a pictorial space no longer existed. So Broodthaers
altered muse into amuser, alluding to the integration of the public
museum into the entertainment sector, a shift whose first symptom*
were felt in the early 1970s and that by now very much appears
to be complete. The fact that the picture was created over the course
of sex eral years—Broodthaers worked on it between 1967 and 19/c—
similarly suggests that it captures the incipient structural transfor­
mation of the art world. Still, we can't say with certainty whether
Amuser ou ... is intended to express cultural critique or affirmation
Marcel Broodthaers, Amuser ou Le plus beau
tableau du monde, 1967—70/1971-73

THE ABSENT PAINTER 221

PAINTING WITHni IT DAiMTiur
 slathered on the canvas around the E with expressively gestural brush
strokes. The gesture is utterly atypical of Broodthaers, who other­ and that character is what Broodthaers foregrounds. Then again,
Amuser ou ... stages this materiality of the pictorial sign with such
wise took pains to avoid such tokens of expression in his work. In this
crude ineptitude that we can only laugh about the vitalistic pro­
instance, by contrast, it looks like he meant to produce an emphat­
jections the painting provokes in the viewer, such as the idea that
ically amateurish suggestion of a painterly trace. Bv purposely botch­
the artist might have touched it. While the paint smear suggests
ing the pictorial space that awkwardly surrounds the E, he makes
that we should recognize it as the trace of the absent artist's paint­
it tilt out of that space: it positively falls in the viewer's face, and its
erly act—the execution is so clumsy and unappealing that this
hard to resist the temptation to read this letter projecting from
suggestion falters, and conspicuously so. We're manifestly looking
the picture out loud, as though one were looking at a spelling book for at an effect of painting that was deployed for our entertainment.
children. While it's a general feature of painted pictures incorpo­ If the picture is literally amused by this coup, we're invited to laugh
rating language that they seem to speak to us, Broodthaers heightens
about it too.
this effect by making his letter E look movable.
I he work strikes me as good bad painting also in that it demon­
stratively fails to parade the artist's painterly skills. Such eschewal
of technical expertise, known as "de-skilling," can easily turn into a
sort of "re-skiliing," as recent works that are recognizably inspired
by Broodthaers's language paintings illustrate. The deliberately gauche
visual idiom of Amuser ou in particular, has long become an
established painterly convention that artists like Michael Krebberhave
copy-and-pasted into their works (see, for instance, Krebber's ex­
hibition. C-A-NA -A-S, Uhutrust, Jerry Magoo, and guardian.co.uk
Paintings" 2011). Similarly, Amuser ou ... rides roughshod over tradi­
tional notions of "pictorial composition," treating the canvas like
a blank sheet of paper to write on. It also doesn't capitalize on the
vitahstic potential of a wide spectrum of color. The dark ground instead
makes it look like a blackboard on which the artist has written in
c a , only the writing unlike, say, in Beuys's blackboard pictures
rom the early 1970s—doesn't promulgate any doctrine.
. t K)u§h painting is conceived as a language and treated as a
semiotic medium in this work, it counteracts the reduction of paint­
erly to linguistic signifiers that was and still is characteristic of the
emiotic perspective on painting. That's because the zone of smeared
paint is a leminder of the peculiar physicality and materiality of
B " .S^ns anc* t^1's Respite a surface that seems rather dry.
b -r <lr f J ? °* W^at anc' how such marks signify, we perceive them
S
st and foremost as possessed of a distinctive physical character.

222 PAINTING WITHOUT PAINTING THE ABSENT PAINTER 223

 Painting w i t h o u t Isabella Graw: I would like to first talk about your notion of painting
since your work is produced by a printer: there is no brush involved

a Painter and you don't ever touch it. But you print on primed canvas and
hold on to the picture on canvas as a format. Your work is therefore
often classified as painting, most recently in the 2015-16 exhibition
'"Painting 2.0" in Munich where it was included. Do you have a prob­
lem with such a classification?

A Conversation Wade Guyton: No, but let me start by saying that I never identified as
a painter. I came to making these paintings by route of thinking

with W a d e Guyton about art objects and the language that frames them. Gonceptualism
and photography were more seductive to me personally than the
material of pain't or the physical practice of drawing or painting
Around 2001,1 realized that the objects I was making were just taking
up a lot of space and I couldn't afford darkroom time, film, or the
paper. So these were economic decisions as well as conceptual ones.
Drawing with the printer for me preceded making the paintings.
I decided to use the cheap desktop printer I had in the studio rather
than my own hand. I was dragging images off the Internet or typing
things in Microsoft Word or scanning objects or pictures from books
and transferring the images to blank paper and later onto pages
torn out of books. Old art books I was using as research would then
be the ground for these marks and images.
And once I became comfortable with these works as drawings,
I thought: Well, maybe I'm not a painter either, but how would
I make a painting? So I started using the same tool and changed the
material support. I bought some primed linen—and I've continued
to use the same material ever since. For me it was a question of how
to make a painting if I'm not a painter and if I don't have a per-
sonal connection to its history. I was never interested in making a take
painting either, or trying to infiltrate painting to undermine it in
some way. It was more of an exercise in figuring out how to do some­
thing in the studio. And I shared a studio with a painter (Judith
Eisler) so this interest in just using the technology ot the computer,
the "office" part of the studio—answering emails—intersected
with my ...

I.G. Lifeworld ...

w.G. ... and to my physical being in the studio! My first attempts were
not stretched like these [points to a stack of works in his studio],

224 PAINTING WITHOUT PAINTING PAINTING WITHOUT A PAINTER

 they were printed on raw linen and would hang loose on the wall
I.G. If printing is a way of recording the objects that you are sur­
The images consisted of black lines or rudimentary forms drawn i-
rounded by then one could also say that it stores the way you live and
Word and combined with scanned images, like the red and green'
spend time. The history of mechanically produced paintings is also
stripes I use, previous drawings or scanned objects. I've always really
activated in your work. 1 am thinking of Andy Warhol's silkscreens
thought of these paintings more as photographic objects, because and how he also delegated the artistic procedure to a technological
the printer was designed, really, to replace darkroom photograph device. Warhol deliberately allowed for mistakes and even cultivated
them—which you do as well: crooked lines, stains, irregularities,
nonmatching halves, drips, and fraying color are allowed to stay; they
are what your work consists of. However, by allowing for "mistakes
you also resort to a painterly language that has become rather con­
ventional by now.

W.G. I wasn't nor am I currently really invested in that particular

painterly language. But I know it's important for other people.
It's more interesting to think about what constitutes painting itself.
The twentieth century was about determining the contours of
what painting could be. As a category, it's quite elastic and resilient.
Every intentional attack on painting has been co-opted by painting
itself.

I.G. Yes, all the historical attempts to produce paintings against

painting only contributed to its revitalization.

w.G. Right. So as much as I know that I'm not a painter, I also know
that they are paintings.

I . G . Allowing for mistakes or accidents is traditionally considered

a way to undermine the artist's authority. But I believe it is through

mistakes that the artist-subject gets reinserted back into the pro­
cess. Because it is the artist who usually initiates these mistakes that
(seemingly) undermine his authority. Many artists like Michael
Krebber have fetishized accidents and mistakes in the 1990s."4
I wonder about their artistic potential under such circumstances
don't they belong to a repertory that by now has become rather
conventional?

w.G. I don't fetishize them. I often feel that they don t have any
meaning other than just their factual nature. In fact, 1 don t use the
words "mistake" or "accident." This is applied to the work only
in criticism. There are events in the making of the work, maybe the
heads dry out, or the canvas drifts off its aligned path and I need

Wade Guyton. Untitled, 2015

226 PAINTING WITHOUT A PAINTER 227

PAINTING WITHOUT PAINTING
 to pull it back in line in order to finish the print. This might be,., w.G. Apparently I did. I come across them later and say to myself:
as creating an accident, because it might result in an area of owT Oh yeah, that should have never gone out. But that's ok. [Laughs]
printing, or a blank area.

I.G. Gould you describe your criteria for deciding whether a painting
I.G. But isn't the deliberately provoked mistake like overprinting or
should or should not be in the world?
a mismatch between the two halves of a painting the place where
the artist subject reenters his work through the back door? Couldn't w.G. No. These criteria change over time. My thoughts about the
one say that it's here, in the mistake, where we sense something work change.Ichange. Circumstances and contexts change and you
like a residual human decision or activity? respond with the work. I've found that thingsIrejected in the past
I mav now find worth exploring. Other times things were too attrac­
W.G. Maybe. But mistakes are often also avoided. And of course™, tive or interesting to look at and 1 was wanting the artwork to have
don t see the mistakes that are avoided because, well, you avoided a different kind of attitude.
them So [laughs j there are probably many catastrophes that could
have happened in the process of making of things. So the ones that I.G. Maybe you didn't want it to be too painterly?
end up becoming visible or register to someone else as a mistakemav
also not be a mistake at all. The problem with the concept of the w.G. Or not expressive. At times, yes.
mistake is that it assumes an ideal that hasn't been achieved.
I.G. Because drips in particular have been considered a mannerist
I.G True. The talk of mistakes assumes an aesthetic norm that device already when excessively used by second-generation Abstract
devZTrt m m°d,em art" There iS n° norm from which your work Expressionists.
deviates. The mistakes are the norm.
w G. Often these painterly effects, the drips in particular, could
distract people from really looking or thinking about the work, soI
. *^ ®
I e s e e3 nts < * r e j u s t p a r t o f i t . A n dI u n d e r s t a n d t h e t h e a t r i c a l -
actually found them to be obstacles rather than vehicles ol mean­
-m t°- S°me ° mistakes." Sometimes they are great to look at
ing or useful mannerisms. Now that I am older, the work is more in
nnp«S!t,raetlnieS they aren t. So whether you invest meaning into the
^ond I' T g°°d ^ ,0°k 3t' and "0t int° the ones that are "0t the world,I feel likeI can reintroduce things that might have been
rejected or reevaluate my positions. Ican play with different leehngs
T( ° °°1 at' mayhe becomes an aesthetic or painterlv question,
about the work.
work If"3"7 3 ,0t of thi"^ that I don't like to look at in my
when I 1Ht T ma^ a persona^ thing. And then there are times
I.G. Maybe your reluctance to embrace the identity of a painter has
WhenI wan, ,0 look a, a thing that is not so good ,0 look a,.
something to do with the shift from painter to artist that took place
in the eighteenth century as described by Nathalie Ileinich in her ex­
aesthetic defisTons i^the ^ °therS y°U cellent book Du peintre a Vartiste (1993).35 Painters then were
cedure that seems to automatic, anti-aesthetic pro- still associated with the handmade, with craft and skills—but once
trary taste of the anist they became artists their work's intellectual prestige increased
enormously. There is a rejection of traditional skills implied in your
work as well.
ones !hauZTlL0tTCh°UrSe that '

W.G. Iunderstand these arguments but it is not that I'm afraid of the
a lot of bad ones in the worid"too a"d bad 0"eS' ^"
handmade or even not interested in the handmade, nor is it an
ideological position of mine. It feels simply a bit more honest to me.
1 G You let them into the world?

229
228 PAINTING WITHOUT PAINTING PAINTING WITHOUT A PAINTER
 I arrived at making these objects in a particular way, and it wasn't interested in the works entering that conversation, using the lan­
a result of processing a particular history of painting 1 imagine other guage, but I also see them as standing next to the debate rather
painters might have processed, so it feels false for me to suddenly
than at the center.
claim it.
1 G By using the digital printer and delegating authorship to a
i.G. But there is a history of painting that your work actually relates certain degree you opted for an anti-subjective procedure that seems
to: the history of painting's negation and resulting turn into Con­
to undermine authorship.
ceptual painting that started with Duchamp up to artists like Sigmar
Polke. Duchamp positioned himself against painting while produc­
ing quasi paintings as most famously in The Large Glass (1915-23).36
Artists like Polke or Oehlen also questioned the idea of a painter
making intentional "internal" decisions. They opted instead for ab­
surd external directives, such as the commands of "higher beings"
as in Polke, which seemed to determine the gestalt of the work.
When you just mentioned how your work records what you are sur­
rounded by—the books you had on the table or the desktop on
your computer, I was reminded of these artists' method of favoring
external parameters that (seemingly) decide upon the aesthetic
of the work. So you are in the midst of a painterly tradition!

W.G. I am of course aware of that. But I perceive in some painters the

weight of painting and that there is a battle that they are waging,
and I don't think I've ever felt the weight of that battle. Ijust don't
think that I'm even in that battle. But I know that mv work has
been enlisted in that battle.

I' h h7 C3n T n0t acknowl*dge the fact that painting is

Gained in f °VCr"dfermined discourse and practice that has onlv
g ned in intellectual prestige since the modern age?

,, G, \°an! ^Ut tllat doesn't necessarily make me a painter. Maybe

I m being delusional!

the connotr ^ t0 keGP ilS hiSt°rical over-determination,

it of^"Xr 7 ar°Und Pai"ting' thG i-ider-language that
"I'm not a painter"? Pamtings sPecific semiotics at bay by saying,

importanrT ^ hat niight be it. The rejection of painting isn't so

time like tb 1 3m included in painting shows now all the

time hke the exhibition in Munich you mentioned. I am

Wade Guyton. Untitled. 2007

230 PAINTING WITHOUT PAINTING PAINTING WITHOUT A PAINTER

 W.O. Possibly.
W.G. Sometimes. Sometimes there is a struggle and 'tsvery frost
rating and I can have very emotional experiences making these
Mi. Hut on the other h.,nd-nnd this happens in many paintings that works. Other times things go smoothly. I haven t erased mYse
have been associated with anti-subjective procedures-the resul­ completely from the scenario. And to me a lot of these works aren
ting painting seems to behave like a subject on its own. This isespe finished until I do exhibitions, until they are interacting with
eially true in your works since we find all these traces of the activity
space or a viewer outside the studio.
of the printer in them—at times they seem to have painted them­
selves. Maybe this is why your work is included in a lot of painting ,.G. Since the 1990s, many painters have put emphasis '^"eal
shows l>ccnuse it allows for this fantasy, often nourished by painting installations and display that become an integral part of the wo
that it is alive and possesses a certain degree of self-activity. But why exactly did you opt for recreating your stuoho floor y
exhibitions in New York, Paris, and Frankfurt in 2007/8.
w.t;. It is important to realize that I'm actively involved in their
making, even though I'm standing next to a machine that is in a senst w G. The first of these shows was in New York at Petzel, and this was
making them. Hut like with all work tools, there's a relationship an attempt to foreground their difference from other paintings n
between the human and the tool. Friedrich s gallery. He shows a lot of painters
tion to exhibit these as ersatz paintings or pretend that.they^arent
I.O. Yes, you initiate and supervise the whole process, different kinds of objects from say a Charline vonHeyl_or•*i Ihchard
Phillips. I was thinking about their life in the studto and1th•
w.o. And occasionally I intervene. tion to exhibition. They are printed on rather expensnm|ta^«d
linen from France, so there is the materiality of f
I.e. So you suddenly stop the printer? \Laugfut] the ink application appears somewhat mechanical I
an element of the studio into the gallery would be important for the
exWWtion. These works also spend a considerable
>V<.. Well, on occasion, but normally I like the operation to com­
piled up on the floor of the studio, so it seemed appropriate to br g
plete itself. However, I m interested in the structure of the way thai
in the floor and the theatricality of the studio.
they re made and in limiting that structure. I like to come to work
I like to IK- very regular about my day, and I like that the software,
I.G. So you reconstructed the studio as a stage that had been in touch
the machine, the materials I've chosen, all put these pressures on
with the painting?
the work, and then in making the work, it's also recording itself aai
recording its own process of becoming. W.G. Yes, and this was the only surface in the room thatwraspainted.
It was like a large sculpture that you telt throug i >
I was just thinking that your work could be described as a reen- you looked at the printed works on the wall.
actment and technological update of Robert Morris's Box xcith the
Soutul of Its (Hen Making (1961)! If I understand you correctly, I.G. Of course, creating a painted floor-stage
you sometimes allow for the (phantasmatic) sensation that the site-specific gestures associated with institutiona
painting has painted itself and at other times vou intervene, change rather cliche gestures 1 might add. In your case, it seems to be ad
it, or edit it?
mitted that these gestures have turned into decor.

W.G. Yes, on occasion It's good if the artist appears to be alive and W.G. Of course, it was a sexy glossy-black ^
willful.

1(>• But how is your subjectivity affected by the digital printer—how floor was also making you aware of where you were standing in
wou c y ou describe your relationship with it: As a struggle?

226 233
PAINTING WITHOUT A PAINTER
232 PAINTING WITHOUT PAINTING
 gallery also in a conventional way. When the show then moved
to Paris at Chantal Grousel's, 1 thought not only to remake the hi i.G. 1 agree that human ideas are culturally and technologically
paintings, but also to essentially remake the show. If each paint™ mediated. But think of an artist like Frank Stella who tried to relativ-
ize the importance of the artist-subject in his "Black Paintings"
can come from the same file, we can make ten more paintings!
by painting them in the laconic manner of a house painter, in a rather
the floor gets dragged over to Paris as well. Then it went on to "
mechanical, nonemotional fashion. It is precisely his restrictions
Portikus. So the exhibition was like a file that could be reopened
executed again. on artistic authority that allowed for his work to turn into a suc­
cessful brand. The more he tried to erase his subjectivity from his
work, the more his work became quasi subjective in return—
L C. But why did you opt for this high-quality, hand-primed canvas?
"a Stella." This transformation of anti-subjectivist strategies to
Did it function as a counterpoint to the digital procedure?
branding also happens in your work.

w.G It was not intended as that. I went to the art store, because w.G. The quasi subjectivity of the works isn't necessarily something
had no experience with linen or canvas, and looked throughabos I would discourage. I have certainly made things that unwittingly
of samples and this one felt good. It turned out to be the fanciest became brands. But making an artwork serve as a brand isn't so inter­
one you could get! It was a very tactile, physical decision. It wasn't esting to me.
ike it worked really well; it just happened to have physical prop­
erties that I liked.
I.G. There also seems to be little interest in using the most advanced
technology. You started by using a desktop printer, which reminds
primerTateriaIity th3t P,eased y°u' that wasn't so good for the me of Albert Oehlen choosing to work with the least advanced graphic
program for his computer paintings in the 1990s.

an. i wasn t even uuuui uiai. iius wasnt W.G. Yes, and I am not even using the technology well enough!
a concern. But it created problems that I had to solve. So,inasense. The first desktop printer was just there for printing texts or emails
prope e the work, just because I desired this one piece of linen. so I enlisted it in drawing, bringing all the default programming
with it. Microsoft Word is for writing, with the attendant formatting,
so I let this structure the drawings. The works always bear some
rellttUjr"k'n emireIy dete™hned by external constraints
resulting from the machine nor by your intentions. traces of what the machines are and what job they are supposed to
be doing. They are also multitasking machines. These paintings
[points to stack of artworks] are made while I'm reading the New
o'0k,that 1 make every decision. There are certain things and
t> • . at laPPen' diat I am not controlling, but I am allowing. York Times online.
dnnV ^ iraa^inin^- ^ i gave someone else my files and mvprinter.I
don t think they would make the same paintings. I.G. That's an interesting point: while you are reading the news and
at the same time printing out a painting, you also record your life-
activity at a specific historical moment that will be somewhat con­
which Would ml'lTthm v' ^ £nnter therefore Purely instrumental, tained in the works. I would argue that your work often integrates your
Is your subjecrivkv rh T SUbmit * t0 y°Ur °Wn Purposes? life or the way you (supposedly) live and spend your time as when
objectivity therefore not affected or marked by it?
you reenacted your studio floor for several exhibitions or when you
used your kitchen tiles as background in vitrines. Against the per­
right word for'k ^3 CO,,aboration that happens-if that's the ception of your work as lacking human presence, I would actually
claim that it is enriched with traces of your lifeworld.
think thf emi?!; me'I10r 'S ^ entirely the machine, but I also
human anyway3 ^ U> th"lk that there is ever something entirely

234 PAINTING WITHOUT PAIMTING PAINTING WITHOUT A PAINTER 235

 w.G. That's certainly part of the work: I'm not making web pages. . r Yes We are not encountering life "as it is" but a staged version
These are real objects in real space and part of their lives is in the of i t Your work nourishes the fantasy-the word "fantasy has to
studio with me. be underlined here-that you can somehow get a hold ot its authors
life in the midst of a depersonalized, cool painting. I m not say ing
i.G. You sometimes dragged the canvas over the floor. That's also that collectors really think like that!
a way of allowing it to literally absorb your life- and work conditions.
W.G. I don't know what they think like!
W.G. Well it's picking up all the dust and dirt.
R G The way color, or rather ink, is used in your work contributes to
i.G. Exactly. And thereby getting metaphorically saturated with this effect in my opinion. The printer's ink is directly ™Prmte<l
your life and labor time, if I may insist. on the canvas to allow for the preservation of its materiality. This i
similar to how Stella used color directly from the can ,n order to
W.G. To me these paintings are extremely physical objects. I install preserve its tactile appeal. You also allow these ink pigments to un-
them low to the ground so they relate to the body, and not higher fold their potential.
up, where they are only relating to your head. [Points to two of the
black paintings] They're bisected, they're asymmetrical sometimes. W.G. [Laughs] Maybe! But many paintings are just black paintings!
They are the span of my arms. I move them around a lot myself. It is Sometimes the black is comprised of all these different
a very personal physical process. I make them myself; no one else Furthermore, the printer is mixing and laying down color in a very
presses the button. So ... methodical way—so maybe this is very Stella, but ...

i.G. You don't have a factory? [Laughs] I.G. What do you mean by methodical ?

w.G. I don't! w.G. In some paintings you can see, for cxamp the stnationSf
le

This is the trace of the printer head, moving back and forth, left to
i.G. But don't these paintings encourage the vitalist fantasy that the right. Each of the inks is laid down individually. So they re no
mixed in the same way that you would mix them on a palette. But
absent artist is somewhat present in them if only by showing traces
of the dirt in the studio? they get mixed in their proximity to each other on the surface.
Each layer is quite thin. Each dot of ink is tiny.
W.G. I am not sure. I mean it's ridiculous if we are going to say that
I.G. You mentioned before how there is a stractural similarity
the scratches of the floor or the ink that leaks onto the image be­
between your paintings and writing-how they consist o f t h c o t o
come expressive gestures. Or if we invested in the dirt from the floor
printing out texts. They actually point to what writers and painters
of my studio and believed that it means anything.
have in common: the blank page that they are confronted witfn
Now historically there have been a lot of painters who.pushedhh>
~G" Y(f and no- 1
am not suggesting that the traces of your studio
analogy between painting and writing very tar: think of C,' J^mbly,
shouid be read as an expressive gesture. But they strongly
Agnes Martin, or Christopher Wool. In your work, language also
suggest that these mechanically produced paintings are somewhat
saturated with labor and studio life. enters the canvas, as when you produced paintings that d.sp ay let-
ters like theTs or the ITs. By turning into language, or text, these
paintings come close to functioning like linguistic propositions, th y
w.G. But the life of a studio is also very theatrical.
seem to speak. When I first saw one of your "X paintings, w
also thinking of Ronald Bladen's sculptures and the X as a minimali
vocabulary.

237
236 PAINTING WITHOUT PAINTING PAINTING WITHOUT A PAINTER
 w.G. There are tons of works that use the X—it's a very generic ab­
stract minimalistic form. I liked that theX could read as linguistic
or as gestural. It was legible as a negation or marking a spot. It'sals ^r(aalbeithoriZontal) stack
pervasive as a sign: X-Men, Xbox, or Generation X (our generation that occupies his they cannot
It's fluid and empty and had a physical presence that was also antb
pomorphic. It's also an illiterate's signature. All from one key.

I.G. Considering the manifold semantic implications of the X, the

painting that displays it seems to speak. And that which speaks
is usually alive. So again I detect a suggestion of liveliness in your
W.G. The printer has been busy. It's been aI coupfc, years smc* Ive ^
work that I seem to be so obsessed with!
done any shows and 1 guess they are e ^ is not

w.G. It's OK! They're alive! stack them in this way-And fetishmJ disrespect they'll
that ---f th,s way though,
I.G. It is a digitally produced form of aliveness though—and I wonder
how digital technology affects or changes your subjectivity as an being shuffled^ having to talk
artist? take on diff^ent personas. For now

the stack is a good structure.

w.G. I think that our subjectivity in general has changed, because
we have entered a completely different environment than wehada
I.G. And do you try to control the way they will get treated and
decade ago. We are so much more in a digital space visually or
their distribution to a certain degree.
experientially than we were ten, fifteen years ago. It's hard to sepa­
rate an artistic subjectivity from just a plain old Western human
subjectivity. I don't know where those boundaries would be.
you can control. You do s\n . conflicting interests. Art-
The art world is made up ot n . Wavs Things happen
I.G. I agree that we can't separate the individual subjectivity of
works go out into the world in -"^^X^ Things
an artist from the historical ideal of subjectivity. But maybe the dis­
tance to the old bourgeois subject that was assumed to be in con- fctmsX^r "X It's a way of hgnring out how to let
tr° 'Un^°ken and ""divided, has become even greater in a digital
the artwork reassert its power.
world:' We are not only split, incomplete, and damaged subjects,
but our subjectivities also tend to merge with all these technological
devices, which in return have changed the way we walk, act, date,
and operate.

'w* logically, it would make sense tha

J,WOr would experience a similar type of crisis of subjectivity
•'UStu ook at t'lis wad for instance with all these differem
m ings, t eir formats are all consistent, but—whether it's a pi
g aph ot my chair sculpture, a monochrome, anX, an image of
to m <tr"1" * C ^Stud'°'or tke news in December—mv relationsl
to making each one can be quite different.

239
PAINTING WITHOUT A PAINTER
PAINTING WITHOUT PAINTING
 Today's art world is rife with yearning for the human figure, or more
Human Figures with specifically, for works onto which the viewer can project a figure.
In the following pages I will focus on the works of Isa Genzken an
a Painterly Appeal Rachel Harrison to show in detail how, as in the 1960s, it is now
often the rhetoric of Minimalism that serves to suggest the presence
of a human being (who, needless to say, is in reality absent) in
manifold ways. These two artists' early assemblages, in particular,

On speak a Minimalist formal idiom. In their later works, the human

proxies are increasingly accessorized with props such as gym equip­

Anthropomorphism, ment, vitamin pills, clothes, or umbrellas, which fiirther emphasize

their anthropomorphic quality. When Harrison "seats her biomor-
phicallv shaped objects on a table in a conference room (asm her
Mannequins, and show at Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler, Berlin, in 2016), or when Genzken
throws jackets over her trolley cases (as she did for her installation ^
P a i n t i n g in theWork Oil at the 52nd Venice Biennale, in 2007), this triggers the viewers^
fantasy that these assemblages could be perceived as "quasi subjects
of Isa Genzken and who shoulder the burdens of life in a neoliberal economy tor us,
as our proxies such as the imperative to optimize ourselves through

Rachel Harrison exercise or the call to be always on the move.

What I mean by quasi subjects is that these objects behave (or
seem to behave) as subjects, as though they are possessed ot agency
and changeable inner states and capable of acting upon their envi-
ronment. Some of them may also be read as allegories ot a damaged
subjectivity: there are maltreated dolls, tattered mannequins, an
shapeless entities that appear to have lost control of themselves. But
what's remarkable is that it's invariably painterly gestures that
further heighten this suggestion of aliveness. Harrison's objects are
always painted in ways that invoke the rhetoric of modern painting,
from Impressionism to Color Field painting, or from the crust} sur aces
of postwar Informel to the hefty gestures of Abstract Expressionism.
Genzken's assemblages, too, often look like the artist sprav-painte
them in expressive or impetuous gestures; colorful adhesive tape
or clothes slung over the assemblages sometimes stand in tor painting
properly speaking. So although Harrison's and Genzken's works
have left the narrow frame of the flat painted panel far behind—their
fully realized three-dimensionality leaves no doubt of that—they

HUMAN FIGURES WITH A PAINTERLY APPEAL

241
240 PAINTING WITHOUT PAINTING
 articulate a "painterly" aspiration that ties them back to painting as the viewer's identification with them.44 They relate to states of mind
a formation or more precisely, as a historically established set we're all familiar with. Instead of thwarting facile identification,
of conventions.37 It makes sense that curators and critics now some­ instead of confronting us as truly other, they prod us to contemplate
times treat them as a version of painting, as in the 2016 exhibition our own lives. What's more of an issue is that they misrepresent
"Painting 2.0: Expression in the Information Age" at the Museum social problems as individual inadequacies, a distortion ot realities
Brandhorst in Munich, where a window dummy by Genzken dressed that's commonplace today. The focus is on the subject, be it damaged,
in a painted shirt (Untitled, 2012) and Harrison's Sculpture with psvchotic, or afflicted with a personality disorder, distracting from
Raincoat (2012), a piece slathered in reds and blues, were flatly cat­ the social structures that engineer such subjects. This fixation on
egorized as paintings. That's an astonishing sleight of hand, requir­ subjective states and blindness to the social conditions that produce
ing an extraordinarily elastic conception of painting, one by which them, I think, needs further discussion.
ultimately anything—any object with paint on it—can be a painting
But why are Harrison's and Genzken's anthropomorphic assem­ Art and the Subject—
blages included in the sacred halls of painting? A Reciprocal Relationship
First and foremost, it is the use of color that enriches these
objects with painterly potential. More specifically, effects traditional) The idea that a work of art is structurally analogous to a living subject
associated with color such as the semblance of animation or motion is hardlv new, but the idea was anathema to modernist critics like
reinforces the anthropomorphic traits of the two artists' works. Color, Michael Fried. Fried insisted that it was essential for art to transcend
after all, has always been a "defining feature of life," as Anita Albus subjectivity. In his essay "Art and Subjecthood" (196/), hei liars y•
has written:38 it can lend dead matter the appearance of being animate. criticized the "latent or hidden [...] anthropomorphism he detected
So the primary objective of the recourse to a painterly repertoire at the heart of Minimalist sculpture.45 He experienced the works
in Genzken and Harrison would be to energize the animistic dimen­ of artists like Donald Judd and Robert Morris—pieces whose dimen­

sion of their art. Color, moreover, is at the root of painting's ability sions were patently chosen with the human body in mind, leaving

to touch its viewer, to address him or her directly and elicit an affec­ no doubt about their reference to subjectivity—as "surrogate per-
sonlsl" that blatantly, even aggressively, imposed their quasi subjec-
tive response, as Daniel Arasse has rightly noted.39 In the work of
Harrison and Genzken, psychological implications of the applications
tivity on him: "Being distanced by such objects is not, I suggest,
entirely unlike being distanced, or crowded, by the silent presence o
of color are central to the objects' being perceived variously as
another person,"46 That these objects conducted themselves like
damaged,40 psychotic,41 or mentally disturbed.42
people—or like characters in a play-gave him a feeling of physical
In Genzken s Schauspieler (Actors, 2012) the mannequins, with
discomfort. And it's not a big step from person to quasi subject.
their eccentrically tattered getups, mirrored sunglasses, and viva­
Fried's phobic response was triggered primarily by Minimalism s
ciously colored clothes, manifestly try to live up to the demand for
central innovation: art that projects an embodied counterpart and
bold self-presentation in our neoliberal economy. But Schauspieler
aims to involve him or her. As a modernist who clung to the mythi
also demonstrates to the viewer that the doomed attempt to be
idea of a "continuous and entire presentness ot the work, Fried
lu ly functional in that type of economy takes its toll. So to look
categorically refused to become involved.47 It was years later before
at them is to contemplate a familiar quandary. But that's also where
Georges Didi-Huberman rehabilitated the "basically anthropomor­
think the problem lies: prompting associations with borderline-
phic nature" of Minimal art.48 With palpable enthusiasm, he noted
personality disorder or the "weariness of the self,"43 these figures court

HUMAN FIGURES WITH A PAINTERLY APPEAL

243
PAINTING WITHOUT PAINTING
 that the "abrupt" or "forceful" bearing of Judd's non-relational "spe­ blocks— one made of chocolate and theothernrfhmd be

cific objects" imperceptibly transmuted them into subjects.49 theMinimalist tLn (1991-92)
Whereas Fried was put off by objects that seemed to engage the havior, whereas Kelley ^ ^ d and ostensibly
neutral
viewer, Didi-Huberman gave them credit for attaining a kind of subjec­
tivity by virtue of their dimensions and emphasis on interaction.
My misgivings about anthropomorphism in Minimalist-inspired social order that meted out discipline an p contributed
contemporary art concern a different point. I don't share Fried's Since the new millennium, numerous artiste ha
phobic rejection of the interactive aspect in art, but I also think that toanother revival of the
Didi-Huberman's animation axiom is questionable. It's one thing with identity polities or ideologi Dresence of an absent
to note that works of art act like subjects and another to flatly declare a Minimalist formal languaget^ by way o{ Minimahsm, I
them to be subjects, as Didi-Huberman does, because that obscures human figure. This shift J ^ different as Michaela
their material origin as well as the conditions of their production, would argue, is Ithe_s are ea^u^ Sohfiir eine befallen
their history. That's why I believe it's indispensable that we address T ZtZ05) and^mBurr'sAddict-LouefaOOSJ.Genzkens
the subject-like quality of recent contemporary art as an open Trompete (2005), an thinking in particular of
problem, examining it in light of a neoliberal economy that treats sub­ and Harrison's earl>^ asse™^f yienna in 2006 and Harrison's
jects as a resource and so animates them to incessantly invest in
themselves.50 ^-t^ncy

Bodies, Identities, and the Human Figure

Latent Anthropomorphism
As is well known, Minimalism subscribed to an industrial aesthetic
to counter the impression that the works associated with it were rpfprence was unmistakably
Genzken's early w°rks, w ose pn^ ^ endow them with human-
charged with personal or subjective experience. The Post-Minimalists
to architecture, prompted th the columns she cre-
of the late 1960s and early '70s, by contrast, nudged the spotlight
back toward the personal and subjective dimension of their art. like qualities. Yet the an ^° p0 .. . latent; in'the assemblages of
ated between 1994 and 20 ^ wa , saient. The column picked
Consider, for example, Eva Hesse's Sans II (1968), which combines
the Minimalist principle of seriality with a materiality reminiscent the past ten years, by contrast'j, P Jat surfaces, for example,
up on a central format in Mini 73) and the work of Anne
of fragile and porous bodies for a not altogether "impersonal" look.
ia Robert Morris's "Columns" series and mirror
Another example of how these artists charged the formal idiom
Truitt. The rec^n&uUr ™ Genzken mounted on the surfaces
of Minimalism with personal issues and physicality would be Vito
glass panels in various dime " i ted with the Minimalist
Acconci's Seedbed (1972): lying beneath a wooden ramp, the artist
of her columns likewise P^ntfy eommun-am deriyed
masturbated, as though to literally reinject the repressed sexual convention. Their latent ^ropomorphtem^ ^ ^ ^
f~r Minimal arL In the 19«0s and early '90s, Janine Antoni, from the titles the artis ^ ° 9g) for Wolfgang Tillmans, Dan
h ^ C ' 3n<^ ot*iers to°k this subjectivization of the Minimalist
Genzkens artist friends, ^ Rai Althoff. 0ne of them-
i ^ ^er
urt intertwining it with identity politics or ideo­ (1999) for Dan Graham, Kai (2uu >
logical critique. Antoni's Gnaw (1992), comprising visibly chewed

245
HUMAN FIGURES WITH A PAINTERLY APPEAL
244 PAINTING WITHOUT PAINTING
 Isa (2000)—bore the artist's own name, signaling her exceptional
status as the only woman amid a constellation of men. Most basical] has aptly characterized the overall impression of the installation,
what lent these objects the semblance of subjects was the fact that writing that it consisted of "sculptural objects masquerading as peo­
ple."52 The more Harrison's and Genzken's works draw on the Mini­
they were titled—perhaps we should say baptised—after living per,
malist formal repertoire, the clearer their propensity becomes
pie. They also challenged the viewer to relate to them, to approach
to populate the gallery with people, perhaps even quasi subjects, in
them as one would a person: one had to walk around them to examine
various disguises. Then again, the forms of Minimalism have lately
their different aspects and multifaceted surface treatments Each
been complemented both in Genzken's and, even more markedly, in
column had a different "skin," a unique "face." And with the mirror
Harrison's art with mannequins (Genzken) and abstract forms
elements, to look at them was to feel uncannily assimilated into
(Harrison).
the work, as though one's body were inscribed into the object's own
bodily volume. What these pieces staged was a face-to-face encounter
between two persons.

Ghostly Presence

The encounter with the human figure is more explicit in Genzkeni

works trom the 2000s, such as Oil XV (2007), that incorporate
mannequins and small plastic figurines. The latter already featurein
Emptre/Vampire, Who Kills Death (2003), which includes a set
of twenty-two assemblages. Quoting Theodor W. Adorno, we might
descr.be these pieces as literal "representatives of the total social
subject. Unlike her columns, the action figurines don't just invite
us to read human traits into them but they are genuine simulacra
the human figure, plastic figures that are replicas of human beings
in mrmature. Other works, such as the untitled wheelchair sculp­
ts Genzken has made since 2006, dispense with the figurines or
the ore f pr°mpt US to complete them by supplying

imDossihl"136 ? a" ent human in our mind's eye. It feels virtually

chairs 6 n° '° proiect an 'mage of people sitting in the wheel-

slun?oTaTS°Cla u°n 6VOked by the Ien«ths ^orfnl fabric loosely

Thelumi em'w ich also heighten the impression of dynamism.

hZ" T °£ the t6Xtiles' too' e™de vitality.

figuration cTTT confronts us with similar suggestions of human
(20071 alahT mstance' imr installation Trees for the Forest

objects'and th^t arrangement of custom-built pedestals, found

objects and thrrft-store portraits. The art historian George Baker
Isa Genzken. Untitled, 2006

246 PAINTING WITHOUT PAINTING HUMAN FIGURES WITH A PAINTERLY APPEAL 247
 Self-Acting Painting In Genzken's case, virtually all of her assemblages from Schwules
Babv (1997) onward have been painted all over or coated with a
The latent anthropomorphism of the objects is amplified by the layer of spray paint, aligning her work with graffiti art as well as the
treatment of their surfaces: Harrison generally paints hers, while convention of 1960s California spray painting. Tinted foils applied
Genzken uses spray paint, as well as foils and tapes. These techniques to surfaces sometimes stand in for coats of paint; in other assem­
invoke the rhetoric of painting in a way that reinforces the sug­ blages, the adhesive tape that divides their surfaces is operationally
gestion of an animate quasi subject. In Genzken's oeuvre, the appli­ equivalent to brushstrokes organizing the picture plane.54 The liter­
cation of a modernist palette goes back to her "Columns," such ature on Genzken's oeuvre has largely ignored the ubiquity of paint­
as those she presented at Kunstverein Braunschweig in 2000, where erly codes or else interpreted them as a beautification measure.
it appeared in the form of tinted metal and mirrored panels mounted For instance, writing about Schwules Baby, Laura Iloptman, who
on the objects. These claddings seemed to make them "sculptural curated the retrospective at MoMA, wrote that the fluorescent spray
bodies in real space," as Benjamin II. D. Buchloh once put it.53 In the paint these relief sculptures had been "bombed with' led to their
assemblages Genzken created for the 2007 edition of Skulptur "embellishment."55 By contrast, I would argue that the bright spray
Projekte Miinster, the colorful sunshades and umbrellas likewise ap­ paint, and also the tape, foils, and streaks of paint that were used
peared to function as a sort of pictorial ground for "figures"—dolls for the objects that compose Fuck the Bauhaus (2000) aim not so
ostensibly maltreated and disfigured in a variety of ways, such as by much at the beautification of but the activation of the vitalistic poten­
spray-painting their heads with "dead" silver paint. Here, it is the tial of color.
use of color that identifies the quasi subject as a victim of abuse. Color adds urgency to the claim these models lodge to being true
1 he surfaces of Harrison's earlier objects—see, for instance, Trees to life and their request to be brought to life, while conversely
for the Forest and Claude Levi-Strauss (2007)—likewise feature making them appear more alive. Genzken also harnesses the specific
painterly gestures reminiscent of Impressionism or Abstract Expres­ qualities of paint as a substance, as seen with the "shirts and
sionism. A shift toward a painting style with equally bright colors "jackets" that have been slathered or soaked with paint in her 1998
but scabby surfaces is apparent in more recent pieces such us Lazy works, in which the materiality of paint produces a positively bodily
Hardware (2012), an amorphous, seemingly formless abstract presence—even without a wearer. One of the numerous portraits of
s ape that would seem to owe its morphology to some sort ofcrea- the artist by Wolfgang Tillmans (Isa Mona Lisa, 1999) shows her
tural energy, which is underlined by bloody reds. The masses of dressed in one of these pieces—silver, blue, and red paint give it real
i astro Lindo (2012) consisting of wood, cement, and polystyrene- heft—as though to literally fill it with life and crank up the sugges­
i,S° as t^lou§h swelled by some vital force surging within tion of vitality. The portrait unmistakably signals that painting, in
t cm t at lends them the appearance of self-action. In analogy with Genzken's oeuvre, is above all about effects of animation.
e agency painters have long attributed to their medium, the ob­ Both Genzken's and Harrison's art represents an expanded form
ject s morphology here suggests that it has generated itself. Then of painting that has left its traditional place, the painted canvas,
far behind—painting without painting. I would nonetheless argue that
•. ' Pa*nt*n^ sometimes turns up in Harrison's assemblages in the
it is the ubiquity of the rhetoric of painting that fuels the impression
Te<roi Omo\nu°na' f°rm of an integrated canvas, as in Wandering
that these two artists' works are possessed of a kind of subjectivity.
f j .. "" f a t * nc ' u des includes a painted zone executed in color-
Dai nft°tf 0llS i" & Stract str°kes, an example in which the role of
painting in her art is blatantly obvious.

248 PAINTING WITHOUT PAINTING HUMAN FIGURES WITH A PAINTERLY APPEAL 249
 Painterly Gestures in
an Anti-modernist Setting the way she throws various fabrics over her assemblages is an expres­
sive gesture; take, for instance, the "Wind" series (2009), in which
textiles appear to add motion, which is to say, animation to the ob­
It might be objected, not unreasonably, that these multimedia installa­
tions have nothing to do with painting in any strict sense Are thev jects, endowing them with a semblance of life. Yet however much
these ostensibly expressive gestures remind us that painting has in­
not much rather expressions of the widely debated "post-medium
corporated the principle of subjectivity,58 they also—and this is
condition," as Rosalind E. Krauss has labeled a state of affairs defined
where Genzken's art differs from Harrison's—confront us with the loss
by the multiplicity of media and the instability of the boundaries
of this potential. Genzken's work leaves no doubt that painterly
between them?" There is no doubt that the installations hybridize
traditions, having been adopted and adapted by popular design, are
various media. Still, I would argue that it is painting, in the sense of a
no longer to be had in pure form.
specific rhetoric with particular substantial signifiers, that Genzken's
and Harrison s works mobilize.
Damaged and Importunate Subjects
the hHalrirfS^nG°re (2007)' 3 block that is higher than
die height of a tall person, exemplifies such painterly specificity em-
It's necessary to consider what sort of subjectivity we encounter in
edded in a non-medium-specific installation. It is dappled with green these quasi subjects, or more precisely, which conception of the sub­
ark red, pmk, and yellow in a style that, as David Joselit has noted ject they promote. The subjects the pieces purport to be are mani­
recalls Impressionism, but "without falling into camp reenactment." festly neither unified nor sovereign and in control; on the contrary,
tuition r ctri " an,ironic gesture." I think Joselit's basic in- they are distinctly impaired and disfigured, which calls their au­
is indee i k T S °f the painterly codes of Impressionism
is indeed sincere. But how are we to understand the art world's
tonomy in question on a symbolic level. The frequency with which
mannequins, masks, and celebrity portraits appear in both artists'
illusframd hSSth Unironio rCTival of Impressionist gestures, as oeuvres—see Genzken's Strafienfest (Street Party, 2008-9) or
works? A ^ re u Cnt inStitutional accolades for Harrison's Harrison's Alexander the Great (2007)—suggests that these are
of her i f iJ
X See !t ' C e intermec *ia> theatrical, anti-modernist nature damaged subjects whose autonomy is perpetually under threat.
palamrth ! n mS ^ m°demiSt P-nterly gestures As mentioned, Genzken and Harrison are not the only artists
overt the t :° Ulde,iCit ske P«ci-sm in a panel painting. The same to use window dummies; see, for example, Heimo Zobernig's Untitled
to im^ n u y tha' Fried held in such would seem (2008), David Lieske's Imperium in Imperio (Domestic Scene I)
(2010), and John Miller's My Friend (1989), to mention but a few.
traditional modeTpXtTi1311300118 agai"St ^ SUSPi°i0n ****
Mannequins are found in a lot of contemporary art, an echo of the
allow for°fhtradlStinCti0n' the Painter)y gestures in Genzken's work omnipresence of dolls in Dada and Surrealism, which I don't think is
l °£Painting- More specifically, herassem- coincidental: then as now, they emphasize the structural kinship
otht do T th3t COd6S 0f Painti"g have long migrated into between the work of art and the commodity—both the mannequin and
areZenZ ~~ mS graPhiC °'Ub Culture' g^ti-whSe they the art piece are integral elements of commercial displays. But
foils snrav " PUrpOSes and lns trumentalized. The use of tinted metal the current popularity of the window dummy also strikes me as con­
Tower 1200KI "''lY adllesive taPe in Pieces such as Memorial nected to the conditions of life in the neoliberal economy, in which
be argued th iT 3 n ° seoret its roots in graphic design. It might products increasingly take on human traits, as when they come
at Genzken treats even the tape like pigment, or that to life as individual brands in their own right, while people conversely

250 PAINTING WITHOUT PAINTING

HUMAN FIGURES WITH A PAINTERLY APPEAL
251
 fit ever more neatly into the product mold, as in the widely discussed
phenomenon of self-branding. In more abstract terms, the aspects economy,' as Alain Ehrenberg has called it, relentlessly exhorts us
to nurture our pathologies.61 That's perhaps why Harrison has re­
I've discussed—the emphasis on animation through the use of paint-
cently accessorized many of her quasi subjects with psychiatric medi­
ing, the Minimalist elements, and anthropomorphism—are expres­
cations and substances, such as energy drinks, that large numbers
sions of the changed role in which this new economy casts the
of people consume to keep up with the fast pace of the economy and
subject.
to make life bearable under such conditions. In other words, these
works tell stories of a state we're only too familiar with and go through
Products with Human Features
at times—the feeling that we're not cohesive subjects, that we're
at the mercy of conditions that seek to domesticate our subjectivities.
Sociologists have proposed various theoretical models to describe So instead of confronting us with something truly other, something
this neoliberal economy more precisely.59 Its defining feature is said that does not submit to our tendency to make everything about
to be the systematic integration and exploitation of individual life ourselves—which is what art ideally does—they prompt us to reflect
and human resources broadly conceived.60 In other words, the neo­ on conditions we're acquainted with. Critics have universally
liberal economy seeks to control, master, and extract aliveness. praised the narrative tendency of Genzken's and Harrison's art and
Unlike in the past, when it was our labor capacity and our bodies thai have seen no problem with its telling of familiar stories.62 But when
were subject to exploitation, it is now our affects and desires that works of art entertain us with what we already know, when they
the new form of capitalism is after—our subjectivity, even our very confront us with comprehensive narratives, we have reason to also
lives. view them with skepticism.
The mannequin seems to be an emblematic embodiment of this
situation in which the boundary between product and person be­ Readymades with a Human Face
comes blurry: it is a product with human features. But what are we
to make of the fact that, as in Genzken's Schauspieler, the dolls Similar to Genzken's wheelchair sculptures that conjure up the pres­
often appear out of control, collapsing in on themselves or getting out ence of people who might be sitting in them, Harrison's Perth
of hand ? How should we read the fact that the artist's window dum­ Amhoy (2001), a room-sized work that comprises photographs, sculp­
mies and cheap plastic figurines frequently look like they are in bad tural assemblages, and a cardboard labyrinth including a Becky
shape, as if they have suffered demonstrative acts of abuse and Friend of Barbie doll sitting in her wheelchair while contemplating a
defacement? In the Skulptur Projekte Munster, for example, she left picture hung in front of her (a photograph of a green screen taken
her baby dolls without a roof over their heads, exposing them to by the artist). Like the mannequin the Becky doll is a readvmade with
the weather and other possible dangers. As I see it, these maltreated a human face, perhaps signaling to us that human beings are a kind
figures remind us of the old psychoanalytical insight that the sub­ of readvmade, a prefabricated product that doesn't function perfectly
ject is not the master in its own house. Yet they also solicit our iden­ and must live with restrictions in the neoliberal economy. Similarly,
tification with their pathological and deficient condition and their the Slim-Fast container balanced atop Harrison's Fcits Domino (2006)
inner strife. is a humanized readymade, figuring as a quasi subject's "head,"
albeit a rather small one. In this instance, the readymade serves both
M e might go further and say that it's precisely because they
as a vehicle of figuration and as a narrative device—the diet shake
appear as precarious borderline subjects that a sense of inti­
trigger
container of course also hints at a story of today's obsession with
mate familiarity in the viewer. After all, today's "new psychic

HUMAN FIGURES W I T H A PAINTERLY A P P E A L

PAINTING WITHOUT PAINTING
 weight loss. Such narrative activation of the readymade is a charac­ Structural Change—
teristic feature of Harrison's art: the protein powder in Syntha-6 When Artworks Are Traded Like Subjects
(2012) gestures toward addiction to physical exercise, while the vac­
uum cleaner in the assemblage All in the Family (2012) turns the Finally I believe that by performing like quasi subjects that behave
sculpture into one of the ubiquitous but invisible workers who keep like subjects, Genzken's and Harrison's works also reflect a struc-
the art space spotlessly clean.63 As John Roberts has persuasively ll change. As I showed in my book High Price (2009), the commer­
argued,64 the point of Duchamp's readymade was to transpose the cial art world, formerly a business dominated by reiat.ve y sma l
labor of others—manufacture workers—into artistic labor. In Harrison, retail trades, underwent a transformation starting in the late 199
by contrast, the readymade's specific properties as a product matter. and turned into an "industry producing visuality and meam g.
Instead of fusing different labor spheres—social and creative labor- In its transactions, this industry has increasingly tended to treat art­
it is taken literally. And as the world of labor recedes into the back­ works as though they were human beings: at auctions, in particular^
ground, the readymade emerges as a central figurative element in a calling objects to be sold "a Koons" or "a Hirst is standard parlance.
narrative fabric. This personalization of works of art also registers the collector
fantasy that purchasing a piece by an artist gives them immediate ac­
cess to the creator's life and person. In a sense, they buy PeoPle .
Harrison's and Genzken's quasi subjects seem to intensify and exag­
gerate this situation in which artworks are treated as it they

""XreTanother possible reading: that these anthropomorphic

sculptures quote the old ideal of the living work of art and carry it to
excess,its distortion a reflection of the new pressures of the neold>
eral economy. After all, the mannequins do exactly what the legen
ary artist is expected to do in a media society: to construct.ai com-
pelling persona and present him- or herself in a favorable light The
implantation of media in all domains of social life after the Second
World War has only added to this pressure on artists, and not only
them, to perform a compelling self. Such performance crucially de­
pends on the right apparel, a fact brought home by the colorful rain
capes, reflective vests, and oversized sportswear on Genzken s
"actors."66 Harrison's Sculpture with Raincoat (2012), too, leave
no doubt that it's the clothes that make the man. The painted forms
suggestion of a human figure largely depends on the red raincoat

'S "nTs'else, Genzken has outsourced this work of self-presentation

to her actors, reducing the burden on her. The artist, an ex aus e
self" if ever there was one, at the end of her communicative rope a

Rachel Harrison, All in the Family, 2012

254 PAINTING WITHOUT PAINTING

255
HUMAN FIGURES WITH A PAINTERLY APPEAL
 suffering from networking fatigue, sends a proxy out onto the stage lifeless and full of lite in the neolib-
of life. Hence, perhaps, the impression that some of these figures are likeness in them an pay for this focus on the sub-
Genzken's alter egos: one, Untitled (2012), presents a portrait eral economy. The pne ^ of the social conditions

photograph of the artist at eye level, while others wear hats embla­

s s — y
zoned with the letters "Isa." Each of these actors, we might say,
contains a piece of the artist, who fields them, but also hides behind
them. always has social implications.

Subjectivity—
The New Currency

As surrogates, these quasi subjects also confront us with the kind of

subjectivity—battle-weary, incapable of functioning without the
help of psychiatric medications—that figures as a currency in todays
new economy. The neoliberal economy, rather than exploiting
merely our labor, more comprehensively extracts value from our en­
tire personalities, our emotions, our social relations, and other
formerly noneeonomic aspects of our lives. Faced with a new tech­
nique of power that is utterly invested in subjectivity and seeks
to infiltrate it, Harrison's and Genzken's sculptures seem to provide
exactly what's very much in demand right now: subjectivity as a
product. Yet it's hard to tell whether these works merely cater to the
new desire for theatrical subjectivity or limn its overdrawn re­
flection to shine a light on the problems this new economy creates.
What seems beyond doubt, however, is that these disfigured quasi-
human assemblages restage the story of the pathological and damaged
subject, a narrative we're only too familiar with. Never before
has the media reported so much about burnout, depression, and
borderline symptoms, which means that the general public is familiar
with these phenomena, a knowledge Genzken's and Harrison's
anthropomorphic figures invoke and illustrate. So instead of de-
subjectivizing art and turning it into a kind of epistemological inves­
tigation, as Duchamp and the Gonceptualists did in different ways,
these two artists confront us with objects whose subject-like qualities
make them resemble magical relics, an art that makes no secret
of its kinship with the sacred art objects. Ensouled fetishes, at once

257
HUMAN FIGURES W I T H A PAINTERLY A P P E A L
256 PAINTING WITHOUT PAINTING
 who pursues the withdrawal of meaning,
Interviews Timothy Brennan on the State connection between the relationality of
and this, in turn, facilitates his art's
Notes of Left Theory," Texte zur Kunst, no. 101 the linguistic sign and the relationality of
commodification."
(March 2016): 50. value made explicit by the abandonment
32 See Marcel Broodthaers: Eloge du sujet,
11 See Kim Konatv, "Paintings," in Cherix of the gold standard. See David, "Le musee
1 See Rachel Haidu's brilliant study exh. cat. (Basel: Kunstmuseum Basel,
The Absence of Work: Marcel Broodthaers, and Borja-Villel, Marcel Broodthaers, du signe," 21. 1974), n.p.
270-73. And see also Viola Hildebrand- 21 This bon mot (1963) is quoted in Konaty,
1964-1976 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 33 See Marcel Broodthaers.
Schat, Literarische Aneignung und "Paintings," 271. 34 See Isabelle Graw, "The Last Resort:
2010). 22 See, for example, what Francis Ponge
2 See Rosalind E. Krauss, A Voyage on the kiinstlerische Transformation: Zur Michael Krebber's Perspective,"
~~ wrote when he was asked to pen an essay
North Sea: Art in the Age of the Post- Literaturrezeption im Werk con Marcel Kaleidoscope, no. 17 (Winter 2012/13):
Broodthaers (Munich: VerlagSilke about Fautrier: "And then it must bring in
medium Condition (London: Thames and 60-70.
Schreiber, 2012), 39: "Besides echoes of some money. [...] Some money and one or
Hudson, 1999). Krauss identified a new 35 See Heinich, Du peintre a I'artiste.
Surrealism and Symbolism, a recurrent two of these pictures." The request to be
conception of the medium in 36 The 2014 exhibition "Marcel Duchamp: La
paid in money and pictures hints at the
Broodthaers's films according to which it element is the examination of question? 1 peinture, meme" at Centre Pompidou in
monetary value of art. See Francis Ponge,
deviates from itself and is composed of painting, as in 'question de peintre' and Paris, curated by Cecile Debray, put
Texte zur Kunst (Frankfurt am Main:
multiple strata but nonetheless remains 'enfin.'" fonvard the idea that Marcel Duchamp was
Suhrkamp Verlag, 1967), 20.
specific. She conceded the medium's 12 The text is reproduced in the MoMA above all a painter. While the exhibition
23 See Gregory Battcock. "Painting Is
"internal plurality" but ultimately held catalogue; see Cherix and Borja-Villel. did do justice to the fact that his work had
Obsolete," in Conceptual Art: A Critical
on to the modernist notion that it's bound Marcel Broodthaers, 142. a specific investment in painting, it tended
Anthology, ed. Alexander Alberro and
by certain conventions. 13 See Konaty, "Paintings," 272. to downplay the power (and implications)
Blake Stimson (Cambridge, MA: MIT
3 See my essay, "The Poet's Seduction: 14 See Christian Rattemever, "Musee— of his negation of it.
Museum," in Cherix and Borja-Villel, Press. 1999), 88-89.
Six Theses on Marcel Broodthaers's 37 See also my essay, "Ecce Homo: Art and
24 See Battcock, 88.
Contemporary Relevance," Texte zur Kunst, Marcel Broodthaers, 167. Subjecthood," Artfomm, November 2011,
25 On how semantic and material aspects are
no. 103 (September 2016): 48-72. 15 Martin Warnke writes: "According toYasan. 241-47.
interwoven in aesthetic objects, see also
4 See the reproduction in the catalogue considerations of transportation moti­ 38 Anita Albus, Die Kunst der Kiinste:
Christiane Voss, "Verteidigung einer
accompanying the MoMA retrospective: vated the introduction of one of the most Erinnerungen an die Malerei (Frankfurt
Asthetik der Erfahrung: Ein Kommentar
Christophe Cherix and Manuel Borja-Villel, consequential innovations in fifteenth- am Main: Eichborn Verlag, 1997), 127.
zu Stefan Majetschak." in Zwischen Ding
eds., Marcel Broodthaers (New York: century painting, the painted canvas: 39 See Daniel Arasse, Histoires de peintures
und Zeichen: Zur asthetischen Erfahrung
Museum of Modern Art, 2016), 80-81. 'so that paintings could be shipped from (Paris: Editions Denoel, 2004), 24.
in der Kunst, ed. Gertrud Koch and
5 See Francesa Wilmot, "The Object and Its country to country, the painted canvas 40 See Graw, "Ecce Homo," 246.
Christiane Voss (Munich: Wilhelm Fink
Reproduction" and Sam Sackeroff, "Literary was invented, which is lighter and easy 41 See Benjamin II. D. Buchloh, "All Things
Verlag, 2005), 192.
Exhibitions," in Cherix and Borja-Villel, to transport in any size.'" MartinWamkt Being Equal," in Isa Genzken: Ground
26 On this dialectical dynamic, see also
Marcel Broodthaers, 116-18 and 136-39. Hofkunstler: Zur Vorgeschichte des Zero, exh. cat., Hauser & AVirth, London
Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, "Open Letters,
6 This view of the poet speaks, for instance, modernen Kiinstlers (Cologne: DuMont (Gottingen: Steidl, 2008), 16. Buchloh
Industrial Poems," in Buchloh,
from the final sentence of an essay by Buchverlag, 1985), 266. associates Genzken's assemblages with a
Broodthaers, 67-100.
Catherine David that quotes and implicitly 16 See Konaty, "Paintings," 272. 27 See .Alexander .Alberro, Conceptual Art psychotic mental disposition on the part
affirms Jean-Joseph Goux's romantic 17 In one instance, Broodthaers actually of the sculptor that is the inevitable
and the Politics of Publicity (Cambridge,
characterization of the poet: "le poete est showed paintings: the Section XBmc NLA: MIT Press, 2003). consequence of her subjection to the
le resistant, l'opposant solitaire et siecle in Dusseldorf included art by the 28 See Julie .Anne Plax, Watteau and the world of consumer products.
sacrificiel a l'omnipotence de l'argent..." Dusseldorf School of Art, valorizing these Cultural Politics of Eighteenth-Century 42 In an interview, Rachel Harrison spoke of
See Catherine David, "Le musee du signe," works that figure prominently in local an France (Cambridge: Cambridge University personality disorders like amnesia or
in Marcel Broodthaers, exh. cat. (Paris: history. Each of the paintings representee multiple identity, insinuating that her own
Press, 2000), 166.
Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume, 1991), a different genre—still life, landscape, 29 See Nathalie Heinich, Du peintre a work was about these pathologies of the
history painting, and even animalI paintmi subject as well. See Rachel Harrison in
22. I'aniste: Artisans et academiciens a I'age
7 See Graw, "Poet's Seduction." were all present in this display We classique (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1993). "Interview with an Artist: Martin Germann
8 See "Thesis 6: One Purpose of the Poetic encounter relationships of substitute 30 Legend has it that Watteau approached his and Rachel Harrison," in Fake Titel:
Mode's Renouncement of Programmatic here as well. . friend the art dealer Gersaint and offered Rachel Harrison, exh. cat., S.M.A.K.,
Demands Is to Dispose of Critique," 18 Jean-Joseph Goux, Symbolic Economy to paint a sign for the gallery. See also Ghent, ed. Susanne Figner and Martin
After Marx and Freud, trans. Jennifer Michael Hutter, "Unterhaltung fur das Germann (Cologne: Verlag der
in Graw, "Poet's Seduction," 68-70.
Curtiss Gage (Ithaca. NY: Cornell moderne Selbst, 1720-1890," in Ernste Buchhandlung Walther Konig, 2013).
9 As Broodthaers said in an interview in
1968, "This seeming engagement of people University Press, 1990), 9. Spiele: Oeschichten vom Aufstieg des 43 See Alain Ehrenberg, The Weariness of the
like Godard disturbs me." Cited in 19 Goux, 22. asthetischen Kapitalismus (Paderborn: Self: Diagnosing the History of Depression
20 Catherine David saw this when. i Wilhelm Fink A'erlag, 2015), 181-205. in the Contemporary Age (Montreal:
Benjamin II. D. Buchloh, ed., Broodthaers:
Writings, Interviews, Photographs essay on Broodthaers, she rete '1 See Graw, "Poet's Seduction," 62-68: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2010).
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987), 38. Goux's book Le monnayeurs de tang- Thesis 5: Broodthaers is a discursive artist
10 See "Et sous la plage ...? Philipp Felsch (Editions Galilee, 1984), which draw

N0TES TO PAGES 214-242 259

258 NOTES TO PAGES 206-212
 44 See Cora Waschke's discussion of Genzken's capacity, and that is why "we are at OIKS
work, which she argues, "lowers the more at home" in it. See G. W. F. Hegel, Chapter V
threshold for audiences that have had little Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine An, trans.
exposure to art by incorporating material T. M. Knox (Oxford: Clarendon. 1975), 797
from the world of consumer goods and the 59 See Martin Saar, "New Spirit of Criticism?
media": Cora Waschke, "Collagierte The Biopolitical Turn in Perspective:
Lebensfiille," in Genzken, Harrison, Introduction," trans. Karl Hoffmann. Tate
Pernice: Collagierte Skulpturen, exh. cat., zurKunst, no. 81 (March 2011): 131-33
Arthena Foundation, Dusseldorf (Bielefeld: 60 For an exemplars' discussion of the new
Kcrber Verlag, 2014), 14. capitalism's investment in subjectivity,see
45 Michael Fried, "Art and Objecthood," in Art Maurizio Lazzarato, Signs and Machines
and Objecthood: Essays and Reviews Capitalism and the Production of
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Subjectivity (Los Angeles: Semiotest(e).
1998), 157. 2015).
46 Fried, 155 (emphasis in the original). 61 See Alain Ehrenberg, La societe du malaise
47 Fried, 167. (Paris: Odile Jacob, 2010).
48 See Georges Didi-IIuberman, Ce que nous 62 In her essay, Laura Hoptman commends
voyons, ce qui nous regarde (Paris: Genzken's tableaus for taking the viewer oa
Editions de Minuit, 1992). a "narrative journey." See Hoptman, "Artoi
49 Didi-Huberman, 39. Assemblage," 137.
50 See Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: 63 See Diedrich Diederichsen, "Questions
Neoliberulism's Stealth Revolution (New from an Abstraction Who Reads." in Fake
York: Zone Books, 2015), 32-33. Titel, 74-78
51 Theodor W. Adorno, "The Artist as Deputy," 64 John Roberts, The Intangibilities of Form:
in Notes to Literature, vol. 1, trans. Sherry Skill and Deskilling in Art afterthe
Weber Nieholsen (New York: Columbia Readymade (London: Verso, 2007).
University Press, 1991), 107. 65 See my book High Price: Art between the
52 George Baker, "Mind the Gap," Parkett, Market and Celebrity Culture, trans.
no. 82 (May 2008): 143. Nicholas Grindell ( Berlin: Sternberg Press.
53 See Benjamin II. D. Buchloh, "Isa Genzken: 2009).
The Fragment as Model," in Isa Genzken: 66 It's worth noting that the androgynous look
Jeder braucht mindestens ein Fenster of her figures dressed in oversized func­
(Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther tional wear also anticipated the designs of
Konig, 1992), 137. Vetements, a very fashionable label, in
54 The tapes made their debut in her artists 2015-16.
book / Love New York, Crazy City (1995-96),
a conjuncture that is noteworthy in that
the book also marks the shift toward a more
expressive or personal approach to art-
making in her oeuvre.
55 Laura Hoptman, "Isa Genzken: The Art of
Assemblage 1993-2013," in Isa Genzken:
Retrospective, exh. cat. (New York: Museum
of Modern Art, 2015), 142.
56 See Krauss, Voyage on the North Sea.
57 David Joselit, "Touch to Begin: Rachel
Harrison, in Rachel Harrison: Museum
with Walls, exh. cat., Bard Center for
Curatorial Studies, Annandale-on-IIudson,
M (Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung
Walther Konig, 2010), 186.
58 As Hegel argues, painting is where an
abstract "principle of finite and inherentlv
infinite subjectivity" finds articulation;
it is, in other words, a medium of a human

260 NOTES TO PAGES 243-255

 Painting = Problem?
Frozen References Avery Singer's art is distinguished by its considerable capacity for
to Life in Avery Singer's communicating with those rituals and convictions that currently
govern a specific social universe known as the "art world." Iler shrewd
Paintings handling of those rituals is readily apparent in her "Press Release
Me" project (since 2013) in which she writes mock press releases to
satirize the language used in press texts to counter the kind of ex­
planations readers expect. In one she quotes a passage from the young
artist's (no doubt fictitious) last will, while another characterizes
that same artist's paintings as a platform to express feelings of self-
abasement. Elsewhere, she jokingly refers to herself as a "Cologne
painter." inserting herself into the history of a scene that was notori­
ous for its exclusion, with few exceptions, of women artists. Her
public statement also displays an awareness of the present cultural
moment where painting has shaken the reputation it once had
of being a dubious enterprise or even obsolete, since it doesn't try to
defend painting either.
In the 1970s and '80s, by contrast, Conceptual artists like Mel
Ramsden or John Baldessari had sought to strip painting of its intel­
lectual prestige, to bury or demystify it. Ramsden's Secret Painting
1967-68), for example, poked fun at the mystical aura that sur-
" mnded monochrome paintings in the manner of Kazimir Malevich.
die diptych combines a black panel and a text painting in a slightly
-mailer format, the proposition subverting what might be taken
11 be the essence of the painted panel: "The content of this painting

y invisible; the character and dimension of the content are to be

"-Pt permanently secret, known only to the artist." The paratext ac-
c ' 'Paying the picture appears to make it speak but then an-

"nces that its message will not be disclosed to the viewer. The tex-
I d'mensR>n breaks up the hermetically sealed surface of the

II chrome panel, as though to undercut its metaphysical claim,

1 *' though it makes a mockery of the notion that the picture

ors a secret, it doesn't reveal that secret in the end.

iere Ramsden's critique of painting remained within the format
e pa,nted canvas, Baldessari, in The Cremation Project (1970),

262 BEYOND NETWORK PAINTING TERENCES TO LIFE IN AVERY SINGER'S PAINTINGS 263
 In other words, the talk of the network suggests that all actors in
opted for its actual destruction: he literally made it go up in smoke.
it enjov the same opportunities, and in a critical perspective on social
In a ritual act he had all of his paintings created between 1953
and 1966 incinerated in a crematorium. Yet he also meticulously doc­ reality, it fails to recognize the persistence of factual disparities.
The art historian David Joselit's seminal and widely read essay
umented the various steps of this obliteration and preserved the
"Painting beside Itself," published in 2009, drew the connection be­
remaining ashes in labeled cardboard boxes. The iconoclastic act had
tween art, more specifically painting, and the network idea. In ^
a twofold effect: comparable to the Nazis' autos-da-fe, which effec­
the course of the reception of this text the label "network painting
tively affirmed the significance of the books in question, Baldessari's
came to be applied to a wide variety of works. Joselit singled out
act erased and acknowledged the historical significance of painting.
pictures by Martin Kippenberger, Amy Sillman, Thomas Eggerer, Jutta
Like Ramsden, Baldessari carried painting with its aspirations to its
Koether, and others, suggesting that they "visualized" their respec-
grave while enshrining the traces of it that remained.
tive social networks. Moreover, he argued that the circulation of a work
in its particular social sphere informed its materiality and helped
Network Painting and Biopower
constitute meaning. Yet Joselit's focus on contemporary tendencies
led him to overlook the fact that such an entry of the social world
Since the late 1990s, however, the media-aesthetic insight has
and more particularly, of the artist's circle of friends—into painting
become widely accepted that no artistic medium, not even painting,
is hardly a novel phenomenon, as pictures like Francis Picabias
is problematic in and of itself. What can be questionable is the
Voeil cacodylate (The Cacodylic Eye, 1921), Max Ernst's Das Rendez­
way it is used.1 The enormous posthumous popularity of Martin
vous derFreunde (1922), and Florine Stettheimer's Studio Party,
Kippenberger's oeuvre played a crucial role in improving the reputa­
or Soiree (1917-19) illustrate. All these works bear witness to the
tion of painting, which came to be seen as compatible not just with
importance of friendships, social contacts, and peer groups in visual
conceptual approaches but also with procedures of institutional
art, be it by depicting a salon the artist frequented (Stettheimer)
critique.2 The new millennium then witnessed the advent of "network
memorializing the exchange of ideas within an (exclusively male)
painting," a catchphrase that, however loosely defined, gave another
circle of artist friends (Ernst), or transposing the friends signatures
boost to the medium's legitimacy.3 Its rise was fueled by the omni­
into the materiality of the picture (Picabia). Yet the current discus-
presence of the term "network'" in the social sciences, where the
sion of the conjunction of network and painting disregards such his­
concept has been increasingly in vogue, in no small measure thanks
toric painterly reflections on how artists are embedded in networks.
to Bruno Latour's actor-network theory.4 Against the fixation in
In fact, the concept of the network seems to encourage a peculiar fix­
sociological theory on social forces, this theory advocated greater at­
ation on the present that ignores its historical genesis.6 ^
tention to objects, a recommendation that, not surprisingly, was Still, I believe that the fusion of the terms "network and paint­
eagerly welcomed in the art world. Those objects were now said to be ing" has a positive side effect: it does away once and tor all with
initiators of actions in their own right and involved in the "course the modernist ideal of a clearly delimitable sphere of pure painting.
of action. s Yet while making room in sociology for objects—however Under the aegis of the network, painting is conceived as—in Joseiits
contentious the attribution of agency to them remains—can close a term—"transitive,"7 which is to say, as overflowing into its environ­
major gap, the network strikes me as an altogether unsuitable ment, and so the boundary between its inside and what s outside
metaphor when it comes to describing the social world. It tends to it has become-perhaps we should say, has always been-tundamen-
overemphasize frictionless connectivity and to underestimate the tally unstable. Historically speaking, what's now widely discusse
significance of social hierarchies, relations of power, and inequalities.

FROZEN REFERENCES TO LIFE IN AVERY SINGER'S PAINTINGS

265
264 BEYOND NETWORK PAINTING
 as network painting has taken the diverse efforts in pre- and postwar emphatic embrace of life in an extraordinarily productive and as-
painting to open up the canvas to the frameworks in which it ap­ tute manner. They confront us with black-and-white scenarios that
pears one step further, by insisting that the social (and digital) uni­ revolve around the conventional topic of the "artist's life," but they
verse in which the artist operates is no more extrinsic to the painting don't actually divulge much about this artist's life and social rela­
than those other outsides. tionships. Rather, paintings such as The Studio Visit and Jewish Artist
So although network painting makes a definite break with mod­ icith Patron (both 2012) present overdrawn and schematic versions
of the artist's lifeworld. The pictorial stages on which these theatrical
ernism's restrictive conception of painting, it opens the door to
new problems, especially in today's economy, in which social relation­ scenes are produced leave no doubt that the studio visits, meetings
ships, including those cultivated via social media, are regarded with collectors, performances, and live gigs the titles evoke are stereo­
as symbolically and economically valuable. By adopting the web of typical fantasies of what it's like to be an artist. The Studio Visit,
social relations in which the artist is embedded, his or her intercon- for example, is distinguished by markedly rigid visual imagery.
nectedness, as its material, such painting has its basis in those con­ A robotic figure is seated at the table with a male visitor, with cliched
tacts. It might be argued that it stores and purveys the very kind sample pieces of modern art in the background. The conspicuous
of communal existence that our new global economy of the twenty- stiffness of the characters makes clear that this is not an anecdote
first century—an escalated version of the technology of power from Singer's own life but an abstract experimental setup that, al­
Michel Foucault has termed "biopower"—avidly absorbs. Biopower though there is some overlap with reality, is ultimately far removed
for Foucault is a form of regularization that takes aim at the way from the artist's everyday life. Other paintings, including Happening
we live, a reticulate and non-disciplining technology that, as he apt} and The Happening (both 2014), speak of a certain wistful nostalgia
put it, "is centered [...] upon life."8 Life is regarded by this tech­ for the actions, happenings, and performances of the avant-garde
nology as a valuable resource amenable to economic extraction. of the 1960s, formats that have recently had a renaissance, especially
The advent of novel communication systems since the 1970s nov in the New York-Berlin transatlantic artistic circuit. I'm thinking,
most saliently, of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and for example, of Berlin's New Theater, a community-run playhouse that
Instagram—has considerably amplified this absorptive tendency of staged plays about the networked lives of the actors, most of them
biopower, and we all are (though usually voluntarily) subject to Berlin-based expats; each new production was announced online.
such extraction, as when we post so-called life events on Facebook. Similarly, Singer harnesses the potential of social media, for example
The historic avant-gardes thought of such an opening-up toward by sharing the various stages of the genesis of her drawings with
life as a desirable, even progressive shift, but by now the parameter her Facebook friends. This practice allows a selected audience to feel
have changed.9 Obviously, the old avant-gardistic aspiration to •ike they re invited to an exclusive preview, and by clicking Like,
transform art into a "praxis of life," as Peter Burger has put it, be­ they can even become directly involved in the artist's production of
lsua' material, effectively putting their stamp of approval on a
comes questionable at a time when that life is reframed as a big }
coveted economic resource.10 aft. Singer also doesn't seem to have a problem with the fact that
is !ransmutes her paintings into "cellularized and abstracted [...]

Petrified Life References f un content' that has shed its materiality.11 On the contrary,
- prepares and accoutres her art with a view to the requirements
Singer's paintings, I would argue, address this nexus between bio $tal dissemination by, for example, working in black-and-white
power, the artist's networked existence, and the historic avant-g«'rt shout, which reproduces better online—black-and-white makes

266 BEYOND NETWORK PAINTING

ZEN REFEREnCES TO LIFE IN AVERY SINGER'S PAINTINGS 267
 for a more graphic look than color, which never comes out exactly as where it plays the part of a female figure dropping her gaze in em­
intended on digital devices. barrassment; and The Great Muses (also 2013), where it stands on a
Yet Singer's paintings also attest to her keen interest in the stage next to an assemblage that recalls Isa Genzken's more recent
visual idioms and emphatic embrace of life of the historic avant-gardes sculptures. Such repetitive reuse transforms Gabo's stereometric
She brings back the formal aesthetics of movements including object into a free-floating set piece, flat where Gabo's original literally
Constructivism, Futurism, and Vorticism. I've already mentioned her projected into space to proclaim its metaphorical openness to the
use of grisaille, a technique that yields a somber palette. Twentieth- reality of life. Singer's pictures drain the relief of this emphasis on life,
century painters resorted to the technique whenever things turned or more precisely, they freeze its lifelikeness. The three-dimensional
"serious," as when they addressed momentous political subjects; relief in space has turned into a two-dimensional visual element
prominent examples include Picasso's Guernica (1937) and Richter's slotted into the various painted scenes like an arbitrarily chosen prop.
18. Oktober 1977 (1988). So is it Singer's intention to revive the Not much is left of its original intention of metaphorically breaking
dead avant-garde and its political ambitions? Quite the contrary. down the barrier between art and life.
I think—her work demonstrates the futility of such an undertaking.
Consider the several pictures in which Naum Gabo's relief Head of Fantasies of Bohemia
a Woman (1917-20) circulates as a motif: Resident's Reprieve (2014). and Phantasmatie Projections
where it replaces the head of a kneeling figure; Exhibitionist (2013),
So instead of forcing an opening of art toward life in the manner
of the historic avant-gardes, Singer's works nurture fantasies about
the lives of artists working today. Iler first exhibition at Kraupa-
Tuskany Zeidler in Berlin in 2013 was titled "The Artists," as though
the gallery hosted a screening of a reality TV show or the first
season of a new series. The Studio Visit, discussed above, shows two
robotic figures that look like coarse wood carvings: the artist (the long
hair is Singer's, while the face is blank except for a nose and eye­
brows) and a male visitor wearing a baseball hat. They sit at a table
before a wall adorned with stereotypical pieces of modern art. We
can make out a figurative painting reminiscent of Picasso's retour a
I ordre period and, next to it, a depiction of a machine painting with
Jangling cogwheels and piston rods. A canvas on a stretcher frame
has been turned toward the wall; before it, towering above the
scene, stands a vaguely anthropomorphic modernist sculpture. The

,lrlist
bgure holds a bottle in her hand, codified already by Henri
burgers novel Scenes de la vie de boheme (1851) as the hallmark
' me extravagant and dissolute lifestyle traditionally associated
uh artists. Singer picks up on cliches projected onto the contempo-

rar> artist while paraphrasing and satirizing the characteristic

Aver>' Singer. The Studio Visit. 2012

268 BEYOND NETWORK PAINTING

0ZEN REFEREncES TO LIFE IN AVERY SINGER'S PAINTINGS 269
 morphologies of modernism. The event she depicts, the studio visit, is
even more momentous now than it was in the nineteenth centurv-
given their economic circumstances, many artists are compelled to
play nice and open their studios' doors to the agents of the market.
And this theme of the artist's precarious as well as transgressive-
bohemian life is all over Singer's oeuvre. Saturday Night (2011),
for example, shows a realistically painted bottle on a bar counter next
to a slumped figure executed in Cubist-style fragmentation who
is having a literal meltdown, the breach of his or her personal bound­
aries signaled by the softening blocks and blurry contours. But ol th. artist's bat, » .I.""*1
unlike other pictures that explore the mental states induced by the
drugs many artists take to stimulate their creative energies, and
especially the many variations on the theme of the inebriated artist— „ as fast ari "" " b* ''y y 2".»arlt
Kippenberger made a series of self-portraits under the title
"Alkoholfolter" ("Alcohol Torture," 1981)—Singer's painting dram­ nainting is not unusual in that regaru. d ,,
atizes the phantasmic image of the artist-boozer. The stereotypical that whereas, say, Kippenberger's or Amy ^"^ P^eaUy
charged network paintings promise to communicate something
an authentically lived corporeal life, Singer s artleave

^^l^s^tmd^om^isitions before
Tl<dn<s an airbrush to execute them in a monochrome grisaille, sn p

Avery Singer. Performance Artists, 2013

271
FROZEN R E F E R E N C E S T O LIFE I N AVERY S I N G E R ' S P A I N T I N G S
270 BEYOND NETWORK PAINTING
 Modernism (2013). Such painterly emphasis on the staged quality Through the integration of practices not usually associated with fine
of her scenes constantly reminds the viewer of their dramatic art, Singer's pictures achieve what Joselit has recently called "the
overstatement. externalization of the medium":14 it transcends its own boundaries
while conversely allowing extrinsic elements to enter into it. In Singer's
The Return of Illusionism case, the resulting paintings seem to bear no trace of artistic work­
manship and yet they evince an unmistakable signature style: grisaille,
But what sense are we to make of Singer's stubborn insistence on digitally generated shapes, illusionistic depth, and the recourse
representational-figurative painting and highly illusionistic tableaus? to an avant-gardistic formal idiom. Perhaps there's a connection be­
In his essay "The End of Painting" ( 10,S 1), the critic Douglas Crimp tween the forceful impact of digital culture on painting and the
went so far as to accuse painting of inherent illusionism, as though return of illusionistic figuration Singer's art heralds? It might be that
deceiving the eye was an essential trait of the medium.IJ Since deliberately opting for a figurative-illusionistic language is a way
the traditional alliance between painting and illusionism broke apart, of compensating the disembodiment and dematerialization effected
many artists and especially female painters—most prominently, by digital technology.
Lucy McKenzie have worked with techniques of illusionism such as
the trompe-1 oeil effect, which proved to be a useful alternative Bohemia Today
to gestural painting especially for women in the arts, foregrounding
gender-neutral skills and discouraging attempts to discern subjec­ Many of Singer's paintings show memorable scenes from the lives of
tive expression and reductive notions about hallmarks of "femininity." today's artist-bohemians—in the studio, at the bar, during a per­
Using the trompe-1 oeil effect is a way of preventing reductivist as­ formance. Works like Performance Artists (2013) can come across as
sumptions about the female or male artists gender. In other words: formally cluttered, especially since the various figures, striking
by leading the focus away from the artist's gender this technique different poses of rest and accoutred with props and masks, are ar­
prevents the artwork from getting reduced to it. Singers illusionism ranged in a highly theatrical setting—on a platform, a motif that is
is no doubt motivated in part by this anti-essentialist potential, a fixture of the artist's work. And the moment something takes place
u i s primary source of energy is the illusionism of digital culture, on a stage, we're warned to view the "reality" of what we see with
e computer-generated motifs as well as the use of projector and skepticism—what we see is staged. Artists, too, now increasingly per­
1 US /"£SU C *n a 'oss oJ
materiality and subjective indexicality. form themselves in everyday life—to paraphrase the sociologist
R
has roots in digital culture, ma nv critics have
approach Erving Goffman, there's something "theatrical" about their existence—
^sified her work as "post-internet art." a label that strikes me and that is reflected in Singer's compositions. They register group
dynamics and how it assigns different performative roles, as in
ical dim3 ^ m ,3t ^ wou'^ seem to give primaev to the teehnolog-
Flute Soloist or the ocular panoptics of Director (both 2014), which
were H ""SI°n ^ nWke the art ^ondary, as though technology
zooms in on the flutist from the former picture. Robotically rigid
I would a P°r i!"' and not Just one aspect among many. If anything,
X ZT [ ^aSinger'S availin« '—If Of elements of digital
figures also quote the motif of the articulated mannequin, a symbol of
alienation that was already a staple of the historic avant-gardes,
work Her n ^ a? undersc°res the heterogeneous nature of her
as in the Surrealist paintings of Giorgio de Chirico. In Singer, however,
:™qts LT "l ,
S ro^eneous insofar as it absorbs tech-
it has evolved into a kind of robot, hinting at the more profound
industry or IV, VU • rusllln £> whieh is conventionally used in the car alienation represented by the simulated life of the digital era's avatar.
dustry or for the tnereasingly popular airbrush body painting.

272 beyond
FROZEN REFERENCES T O LIFE IN AVERY SINGER'S PAINTINGS
 Singer's paintings send out many signs that indicate they belcr
to an expanded notion of painting: from the exposition of the con­
ditions in which today's bohemians live to its roots in digital culture
One could say that the distinctive features of so-called network
painting are present in it, which make it appear slightly strategic. How­
ever, with their cool visual idiom and printed look, her paintings
also make clear that there is no reason today to glorify the creative-
bohemian lifestyle. Bohemia may once have been regarded as a
milieu in which no one cared for anyone's background and pecuniary
circumstances, but the neo-bohemian scenes in the metropolitan
centers of today's art world are increasingly populated by indepen­
dently wealthy trust-fund kids who are ever more adept at self-
promotion and self-branding. The bohemian lifestyle, in other words,
is now the privilege of those who can afford it because they're
financially secure—for everyone else, slacking poses risks thev can't
afford. \et Singer's pictures are not so much snapshots from the
everyday lives of today's bohemians than dramatizations of those lives
as a fantasy- an art-market, art-world, and art-historical fantasy.
On the other hand, the expressionless characters in her paintings
seem to be aware that the only reason they're latching on to the
bohemian social set is that ideally it'll turn out to have been the
shortest routes to the VIP lounge. That doesn't mean, however,
that Singers scenarios present a thoroughly demystified portrait of
artist communities. The many paintings showing happenings
and performances at various alternative project spaces and gal­
leries indicate that this is about more than the projection of fanta­
sies framed by those stages. Singer's art also gestures toward a
potential obscured by those projections of a desirable life and sealed
off from the outside world. It's precisely because such venues
nurture collective fantasies while still being ruled by economic ob­
jectives that they can simultaneously function as scenes of residual
artistic freedom—as in Singer's paintings, where they actually be­
come platforms for a sophisticated practice.

274 BEYOND NETWORK PAINTING

 2. v. That's true—the rise of network painting has expanded paintings the conception of network painting, which, Joselit writes, is the key
authority. And the implied notion that painting can incorporate to a field in which the power of the painterly mark has passed
the social and digital conditions on which it is predicated has also to the objects themselves, including the painted picture.21 Network
done much to strengthen its legitimacy in recent years. Still, there's painting, then, would mean that the subjective force of the act
something disconcerting about the way most people in the art world of painting has metamorphosed into a quasi-subjective energy inher­
have unquestioninglv embraced the network concept and use it affir­ ent in the picture. The picture turns into an agent. Now, Euler's
matively, as though it were entirely unproblematic. The ascent electrical socket pictures, Where the Energy Comes From, would
of the network metaphor started in the social sciences; a prominent indeed seem to buzz with some such quasi-subjective energy, and
example is Bruno Latour's actor-network theory, which also drew so they do function as network painting in the sense Joselit has
notice in the art world.19 Latour's penchant for networks is readily outlined. Presenting themselves to the eye as painted wall sockets,
explained by the fact that the concept allows us to think about a motif that takes up the entire canvas except for the corners, they
the interconnectedness between humans and things, which is his cen­ purport to be sources of power—in this instance, electric power.
tral concern. There are no sharp boundaries in networks, only
gradual transitions. When it comes to describing the social world, how­ 2. v. But electricity is not a human force, is it? And it seems to me
ever, 1 would argue that the network is an utterly unsuitable meta­ that you've taken the electrieal-socket motif in Euler both too liter­
phor. Evoking a vision of frictionless connectivity, it obscures the ally and too seriously. True, these paintings let us peer inside the
reality of social hierarchies, inequalities, and power relations. What
strikes me as baffling is the fact that curators in particular should
show such sustained fondness for a concept that is effectively de-
politicizing by masking social conflict.

l.v. Perhaps the network metaphor is so popular in the art world

and in the social sciences precisely because it neutralizes conflict and
makes inequalities disappear? And then talking about networks
evokes a view of the social sphere as a realm of fluent passages in
which objects can, as La tour writes, attain agency (become
actors ).-° His proposal that objects or "things" should be regarded
as actively involved in courses of action is no doubt productive in
some ways, encouraging attention to their specific qualities, which
the social sciences have by and large neglected. But by crediting
objects with agency strictly speaking he indulges in a kind of animism
that definitely overestimates their power, and what's worse, he
blurs the distinction between subjects and objects, whose particular
contours in a given setting then become invisible.
In the art world, however, Latour's partisanship for objects
possessed of a kind of subjectivity fell on highly fertile ground. For
fairly ob\ ious reasons, artists and art-world professionals are keen to
embrace an argument that invests objects—specifically, works of
art £reaCer agency, which I should note in passing also makes
art criticism seem redundant. Latour's premise of the "quasi
o ject endowed with human capabilities recognizably echoes in
Jana Euler. Daniel Guam, from the series
"Ambition Universe," 2009

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278 BEYOND NETWORK PAINTING
 outlets, as though to revive the nineteenth-century mythical idea thai
Another picture in the series, Ruth Suckale (2009), a portrait of
painting is possessed of its own distinctive powers.22 But to the
Ruth Noack, the cocurator of doeumenta 12, suggests that women,
extent that Euler's paintings of electrical sockets invoke this fantasy
as well as men, can be objects of Oedipal desire. Surrounded by male
they also refute and even ridicule it. Because when you actually
heroes, Noack looks to be the token woman in the series, illustrating
look at them, these canvases don't exert any force, as the painting
a structural law of the German art world: only one woman from any
technique, which creates an impression of lifelessness, underlines. creative formation can achieve such a high degree of institutional
For the "bodies" of these sockets, Euler used colors like a sickly stale recognition. But Noack's head was grafted onto a naked body clearly
yellow or an ashen white, making them look more dead than alive. identified as male by chest hair and broad shoulders, which may
The application of fairly dry paint results in a graphic look that recalls be read as hinting at the fact that her contributions to doeumenta 12
Konrad Klapheck's pictures of machines, reinforcing the sensation were largely eclipsed by the media's fixation on the show's director,
that the outlets are in fact devoid of all energy and life. So the title, Roger M. Buergel (who was her partner at the time). Hence, perhaps,
Where the Energy Comes From, reads as a genuine statement, the male body that supports Noack in the portrait and, as it were,
and the putative source of the power associated with the paintings symbolically reeodes her.
is manifestly located not inside them but somewhere else. 1 think
Euler's paintings primarily distance themselves from the ideal of 2. v. 1 think that by focusing exclusively on the public figures repre­
network painting, especially since they also cannot possibly be de­ sented in these portraits, on their gender or social standing, we reduce
scribed as allowing for a smooth transition to their social digital con­ the paintings to what they represent and miss the complexity of
text. On the contrary, the motifs are chosen to undercut the notion their message. Also, it's simplistic psychology to read the series as an
of networking: the outlets she paints are outdated European models expression primarily of Euler's own desire to build a network.
that are incompatible with most contemporary plugs. What such interpretations obscure is the specificity of her pictorial
language. For example, the figures in the series are all shown in
l. v. But didn't Euler's early portrait series "Ambition Universe" (2009) peculiarly compressed frontal views that, surprisingly enough, recall
indeed accomplish exactly the sort of "visualization of networks" Gustave Gourbet's self-portraits. Just as something seems to urge
that is supposedly characteristic of network painting?23 After all, the the French master forward in his self-portrait The Man Made Mad
with Fear (1846-48), Euler's figures approach you with their arms
portraits graft the heads of art-world figures including Daniel
wide open and stretched out toward you—you might almost think
Birnbaum, Wolfgang Tillmans, and Diedrieh Diederichsen onto the
they're about to grab you with their oversized hands.
bodies of Euler's young male colleagues, a hybridization spelled
out in their titles. See, for example, Diedrieh Ceccaldi (2009), in
which the theorist Diedrieh Diederichsen's head sits atop the body of
l.v. But in Courbet, this excessive and theatrical gesture conveyed the
Nicolas Ceccaldi, who, like Euler herself, is represented by Real
mental state of despair—in Euler, by contrast, it symbolizes un­
bine Arts in New York. The series title, "Ambition Universe," gives it bridled ambition: her figures represent individuals who have rolled
away: these pictures certainly read as an ambitious young artist's up their sleeves and built major careers. In conjunction with the
attempt to network with the most influential actors in her own field forward-moving dynamic energy of the figures, the large format of the
(most of whom are men). In certain circles, such as the Stadelschule portraits likewise reads as signaling their thirst for power, their
in Frankfurt, where Euler was a student until 2008, her sitters are in­ influence and omnipresence—it's almost impossible for a young art­
deed regarded as authorities.24 And the portraits take literally the ist to avoid them, since they occupy key positions in the art world
aggressive Oedipal wish to take the place of the "father figure" that and set its agenda in ways that he or she must engage with.
is often said to drive young artists—they get to embody their se­
niors. 1 he starry sky in the background likewise reads as a metaphor: 2. v.But the artistic significance of this portrait series isn't reducible
study ing with Diederichsen, you (perhaps) launch your career to the cultural influence of the sitters! I would argue that it's less
under a lucky star.

THE CURSE OF THE NETWORK 281

 about the positions of power that artists like Wolfgang Tillmans The Emotions Discuss in the Postmodern Side Room about the
are said to occupy in the art world than about the invisible social forces Transformation of Their Bodies 2 (2010), who take visible joy in
that apparently actuate their bodies. More precisely speaking, the intensity of their networking activities even as they effectively
these arc the forces of a competitive society- that manifest themselves comply with the ideals of networked capitalism. The flipside of
in the expansive and aggressive gestures of the figures. The almost this compulsion—what 1 have elsewhere called the "networking
monstrous movements of their hands, too, bear witness to those tech­ imperative"29—is revealed by their heads, which are painted
nologies of power dating from the seventeenth and eighteenth in realist fashion. Their faces disfigured by pain into extravagant
centuries that Foucault had analyzed. Their distinguishing quality grimaces, their mouths wide open as if to scream, they articulate
is that they act through the individuals, pervading their bodies.25 the distress that the need to communicate nonstop and build
contacts also inflicts on the individual. An economy in which social
l. v. But as Foucault also notes, this "biopower" that operates on the connections are regarded as a resource inevitably produces thor­
body is organized in the form of a network as well, spinning a oughly instrumental relationships that leave us emotionally isolated,
web over the bodies that get caught up in it.26 When subjects become despairing, and mentally fragile.
overly entangled in the sphere of this power, the results can be
monstrous—and Euler's "Ambition Universe" doesn't fail to capture l.v. If Euler's work is indeed about the positive as well as negative
the monstrous aspect of her domineering "father figures" (and effects that result from compliance with biopolitical body ideals or
one mother figure). She has given their faces expressions of grimly networking imperatives, I wonder what to make of the seemingly
determined ambition, which aren't exactly likeable, so rather than postmodern stylistic pluralism of her oeuvre? Formally speaking, the
portraits in the "Ambition Universe" series quote the grotesquely
being flattered, her subjects might well feel that the series is an
exaggerated verism of New Objectivity, as in the work of Otto Dix,
attack on them. Perhaps we can agree that "Ambition Universe" is
whose portraits similarly feature sharply creased faces and over­
about the effects of networked life in capitalism on the social be­
sized hands that lend his figures a monstrous air. By contrast, other
havior and the bodies especially of cultural producers?
works by Euler such as her Analysemonster (2014), a composition
in pink flesh tones with the green eyes of an alien and enormous ears,
2.V. I would put it differently: to my mind, Euler's paintings revolve
have more in common with the aesthetic of controversial celebrity
around the "emotional logic of capitalism," as Martijn Konings painters like George Condo, who produced a similar piece for a
has aptly termed the affective aspect of this economy.2' For just as Kanye West cover. Meanwhile, Euler's series of star pictures Universe
this economy invests in bodies and the networks that interconnect 1, 2. and 3 (2016), where faces composed of genitalia loom among
them, it can conversely bank on individuals who act in keeping the stars in the night sky, are reminiscent of the "soap bubble
with its interests—which is to say, who network or internalize its pictures" of the painter Jiri Georg Dokoupil, a member of the 1980s
biopolitical body ideals. For an example of how perfectly social formation Miilheimer Freiheit who is now largely forgotten. This
forces harmonize with the technologies of the self, look at Euler's patently wide stylistic spectrum might be a strategy on Euler's part
Anonymous Powergame (2012), in which muscular bodies with to put the importance of the individual painting in perspective.
Dubuffet-style balloon heads, their faces distorted as though drawn Or does she, on the contrary, eschew a uniformly applied coherent
by a Cubist, try to stay afloat by performing gymnastic exercises. visual language in order to frame each painting as the "isolated
The techniques of the self that figure in this picture—fitness, a care reality" that Deleuze, writing about Francis Bacon's work, still pre­
for the self that doesn't stop at painful physical contortions- supposed it was? 30
correlate with a biopower that seeks to extract more from our
bodies.28 But the overdrawn grins that Euler has implanted on these 2. V. I think the stylistic diversity of Euler's paintings is first and
heads also hint at the pleasure the subjects derive from the inter­ foremost an indication that her art is about questions that lie beyond
nalization of biopolitical ideals. The same can be said of the posse style, beyond the individual painting, beyond painting. She's not
of wildly gesticulating and interacting stick figures in Euler s

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282 BEYOND NETWORK PAINTING
 the only one, by the way, who's looking back to the progressive an also dramatizes the life of an artist as an ongoing test. Composed
of New Objectivity: several of her colleagues, including Lukas of layered ultrathin glazes, the painting alludes to New Objectivity
Duwenhogger and Lucy McKenzie, have taken inspiration from and its interest in old master panel painting on the level of tech­
painters like Otto Dix and Christian Schad, although their aspiration nique as well.
has generally been to revive painting as a medium of social critique Another self-portrait, Identity Forming Processes Overpainted
Euler's work, on the other hand, suggests a skeptical take on such (2012), satirizes a trope that was popular since the early modern
a project: the sitters in "Ambition Universe," for instance, appear to­ age: that of the self-painting picture. Euler depicts three brushes in
gether with depictions of their zodiac signs before starry skies. the act of putting the finishing touches on her face, one on each
It's fairly obvious that these pictures aim at psychological profiles with cheek and one on the forehead. This device highlights the similarity
a tinge of esotericism rather than a typology for purposes of social between the painter's work and the act of putting on makeup, be­
critique. Combining the sitters with their zodiac signs is also yet tween cosmetics and color paste, a trope that goes back to painters
another way of pointing to outside—in this instance, astrological- like Manet.32 But when you actually look at Euler's self-portrait, it's
forces that guide their actions and inform their aggressively demand­ perfectly good as it is—there's enough "rouge" on her cheeks, and
ing demeanor. so it makes sense that the brushes are painted as distinctly static.
The picture is still at work on itself, but it's also marked as a lifeless
l.v. As I see it, Euler's penchant for the aesthetic of New Objectivity artifact, a product of labor that generates at most a semblance of
has more to do with the fact that the artists of the Weimar Republic self-activity.
anticipated the contemporary interest in the biopolitical regime and
its power over the body. As Graham Bader has persuasively argued
in a discussion of the movement's verist representatives, the numer­
ous depictions of mutilated or disabled bodies that are a charac­
teristic feature of their work reflect a politics shaped by a growing
interest in the body and its intimate life, which it sought to control,
for example, through hygiene regulations.31 In Euler's paintings,
however, it's a different biopolitical subtext that is at issue: networked
capitalism, a variant of biopolitics in which we find ourselves per­
petually called upon to invest in ourselves, to stay fit and seize any
opportunity to network in order to enhance our market value. Yet the
pictures also tell us something about how this networked economy
both elicits affective bonds and torments people.

2 . v. Euler's numerous commanding self-portraits, in particular, strike

me as evidence that she doesn't believe she's exempt from these

conditions, from the pressures of networked life. An early example.
Untitled (2008), reveals that she certainly saw herself as a player
in the "Ambition Universe." It shows her with her right arm heldo\er
her head, the hand covering the left half of her face—a contorted
pose that, I think, alludes to the formerly widespread German prac­
tice of classifying children as ready for primary school when they
were able to reach over their head and touch the ear on the other side.
So Euler certifies her own maturity and insider status, but she
Jana Euler, Identity Forming Processes
Overpainted. 2012

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284 BEYOND NETWORK PAINTING
 l. v. With Nude Climbing Up the Stairs (2014), Euler confidently invisible, they run the risk of being identified with, even reduced
claimed her place in an all-powerful and still male-dominated canon to, their bodies. By literally keeping herself covered by not exposing
of artists from Marcel Duchamp to Gerhard Richter. Unlike the front of her body—and by painting a translucent, almost in­
Duchamp, whose Nude Descending a Staircase (1912) dismantles substantial and evanescent figure, she brings her body into play with­
a vaguely female figure in mock-Cubist fashion, and unlike Richter, out exposing herself too much.
who immortalized his pregnant wife in Ema (Nude on a Staircase)
(1966), Euler chose to paint not a female muse: she herself is 2.v. Another illustration of how power technologies reach into the
the nude we see from behind as she ascends a staircase. The scene bodies of women artists can be found in her Female Jesus Crying in
spells out the contradictory double role women painters find Public (2015), whose four legs make her a proxy not only for one,
themselves cast in: they are both muse and producer. That she walks but for many women. As though to insinuate that victimhood can be
upstairs rather than downstairs adds to this portrayal of her situ­ its own kind of pleasure, the female figure on the cross sheds an
ation: the young female artist—Euler was born in 1982—can't afford oversized cartoon-stvle tear. Grimly scowling male heads in the win­
not to aim high. Any standing she achieves will always remain dows of two buildings with pointed roofs (the architecture is a
tenuous, and so the coquettish flirtation with the idea of failure that distant echo of the Portikus, a public art venue in Frankfurt) are wit­
is popular with male painters right now is not an option. And finally, nesses as the female Jesus sacrifices herself for humankind; they
the nude hints at a specific problem women artists face: What are presented as both perpetrators and mourners, complicating the
to do with their bodies? When they choose not to make themselves conventional binarism of female victim and male offender. At the
same time, the picture alludes to the misogyny with nationalist-
populist undertones that's making a comeback these days—some men
are fed up with women's unstoppable social advancement. In any
case, since the 1980s, the unspoken rule has been that for a German
female artist to be successful—specifically, commercially successful—
she must make compromises or behave in a certain way, be it that
she decides not to have children or a family, be it that she loses her
sanity or projects a public image of herself as a pathological subject.

l. v. Then again, a far more sanguine self-portrait contradicts the cry­

ing female Jesus's basic note of pessimism: the realistic painting
Jeune Fille, ein Selbstportrat (2015) shows Euler as a young teenager
sporting a youthfully cheeky smile and a 1980s-style layered hair­
cut. It's not like the forces of society have lost their power—note the
tomboyish air of aggressive self-confidence, a demeanor many
young women adopt, while the hairstyle bespeaks fashion's influence
over bodies and self-images. Still, the peculiar hyperrealism of the
depiction in conjunction with the translucent soft pink backdrop
makes for an irresistibly memorable self-portrait, as though to signal
that the future was Euler's even when she was just a girl. This self-
portrait depicts her as an exceptional personality that was destined
to become an artist even at a young age, as if to claim an old artis­
tic myth for herself. But this portrait also insists on her different ap­
proach to painting, where the constraints of a networked life are
carried to their extreme.
Jana Euler. Nude Climbing Up the Stairs, 2014

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286 BEYOND NETWORK PAINTING
Follow Me: Painting in isabelle Graw: Warhol once said in his book The Philosophy of Andy
Warhol (1975): "You should always have a product that's not just

t h e A g e of Social Media
'you."'33 Your work seems to go against this dictum since it often
literally suggests that it contains you. One example would be the wet-
suit sculpture, Self-Portrait (Wet Suit) (2015), which is a cast of
your body. Your body is of course absent from this wet suit but
remains captured within it. The "skin' of the wet suit also evokes a
narrow bond between you (the artist) and your work because it
A Conversation with consists of the same stucco substance that covers the surfaces of
manv of your paintings, the so-called flats. The wet suit therefore

Alex Israel seems to say, "My work consists of me quite literally." On the other
hand, you also make sure that nothing is revealed about you by
wearing sunglasses from your brand, Freeway Eyewear, when ap­
pearing in public. In a similar fashion, your self-portraits while sug­
gesting presence only present a silhouette of your head in profile,
a superficial outline of your face. These self-portraits don t deliver
something substantial about you. But at the same time they are
filled with motifs from your life in Los Angeles from surfboards
(Self-Portrait (Surf Shop), 2016) to the Sunset Strip (,Self-Portrait
(Sunset Strip), 2016). So there is a tension in your work: it con­
stantly promotes and hides its author simultaneously.

Yes, but there is a lot of tension in that Warhol quote

Alex Israel:
as well! Who is a bigger product than Warhol himself? He was the ulti­
mate person/product that one could imagine. His legacy has given
us the ultra person/product: Kim Kardashian. I'm curious what he
was actually referring to when he said that—what was his product,
aside from himself?

i .g . I think that he addressed the difference between visual artists

like himself and models or actors. And he thought of his paintings

and films as products that weren't only him because they existed and
circulated without him. While he certainly performed like a celeb­
rity in media society, he was also hiding at times as when he famously
sent a double to do a lecture tour in 1967.

A.I. But even if his product is a painting, and not one of his many
self-portraits, this product still acts as a kind of extension of him—
conceived of and/or touched by him. He said, very famously, that
if you want to know him he is right there, on the surface of his
works. And that's one model for how the contemporary art market

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 works: everything an artist makes, in some way, is an extension
version of that. So there's a history as to why it's everywhere, but
of his or her being and body. That's how the system has evolved,®
more to the point: it coats everything, and there's a sort of skin-like
I believe that has a lot to do with how Warhol himself designed i t
quality to that. And where there's a skin there's a volume or a
body underneath, and if you're following me, there's a certain interi-
I.G. However the question remains: Are you feeding this fantasy that
ority or hollowness to the walls and buildings that stucco covers.
the artist is his or her product, or are you rejecting it by deliber­ I wanted to bring that into the work, so the flats are made with a kind
ately preventing it? You seem to feed this desire quite systematically of thickness to them. They are built with aluminum framing to
in your work.
be about three inches thick, and in turn, they have an interior space.
The stucco skins them, in a way. As for the wetsuit, well by defi­
A.I. I am certainly working through this idea of desire. But I wonder nition it's like a second skin.
whether or not this system and its design is still a fantasy, as you
call it. It's been around so long, or at least longer than I have, and for I.G. For me stucco is also a way of suggesting substance. It em­
me its probably more of a reality than a fantasy. Or maybe it's a phasizes the relief-quality of your painting-objects and it gives texture
cliche? Speaking of which, I'm not really a surfer but I often think to their fiat airbrushed surfaces. In a way, the stucco with its em­
about my approach as related to surfing: I'm on a wave, and I either phasis on substance and relief compensates for the sense of flatness
go with it or I don't. And in some ways I find it interesting to just and emptiness caused by airbrushing.
let myself go with it, to see where it goes and to see how it works. And
maybe that gives me the energy or the fuel to be able to carve into
it, or to do tricks on it, or to change things up without fighting it—
I m speaking metaphorically here, as I can't actually do any tricks
on a surfboard. But anyway, this is the way that I've always been.
I m not a punk in the traditional sense, I don't come from that tradi­
tion or world, or from the point of view that I must reject the sys­
tem, or reject everything, in order to individualize myself. I think
that you brought up an interesting point about the way that the wet-
suit sculpture has the stucco-like texture of the flats grafted onto
its surface.

I.G. Yes, the sculpture is not only a cast of your body but is made
of t e same surface material as some of your paintings. I understood
this as a tongue-in-cheek way of saying, "If you get my paintings,
you get me."

A. I. I didn t really think about it in that clear or linear a way, but I al­
ways thought about the surfaces of those paintings, the flats, as
being like a skin. They're coated in stucco and stucco is like a skin.
When you're in Los Angeles, which is where I live, you see it on
every building: from Taco Bell, to, I don't know, my house-it's just
everywhere. It s part of the landscape. I think it developed out of
adobe, which was the material used to build California's first perma­
nent mission settlements, and it's kind of a cheap or superficial
Alex Israel. Self Portrait, 2013

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 A .I. I think about it in the reverse. I use the airbrush as a tool to

create the illusion of atmosphere and depth. This effect that I aim t Nonetheless, they do carry a kind of real Hollywood energy: on
achieve in airbrush is that which happens when you look out into some level I've always felt that they are backdrops waiting to be used.
the great, expansive vastness of the sky: you see gradients of color - In their existence they sort of define a possibility for some kind
you move your eye up from the horizon. The stucco, on the other of performative action to happen in front of them. That backdrop
hand, is all surface, a very real couple of millimeters of it. So yes. I did functionality is there because they're made within the studio system,
at Warner Brothers, in the same shops and by the same people
use these two elements in pairing to create an optical or physical
that produce decorative flats for use in television and film. There is
tension in the work. But they were being used, in my mind, for the
a readymade aspect to that, and a mass-media potential built into
opposite reasons than those you just described.
them. It's in their DNA.
I . G . This texture is used for decorative purposes in vernacular archi­
I . G . So could one say that while the backdrop paintings are empty
tecture, so by using it you seem to embrace the idea—or at least
and flat, they are enriched with social interaction?
not reject it—that your paintings have a strong decorative potential?
Yes. And I like to imagine, more specifically, that they are en­
A. I.
A.I. Yes these paintings are abstract, decorative flats. This is what
riched by a latent performative functionality.
flats do in the context from which I originally resourced them.
They liven up a game show set, or add a layer of depth to the design I . G . Owing to their pictorial language, the backdrop paintings also tap
of a talk-show set. I took the shapes of the flats from decorative into the tradition of Color Field painting, with its emphasis on a
architecture—the Spanish Colonial Revival style, which is a Holly­ flat picture plane, large fields of color, and non-gestural application
wood mainstay—the window and doorframe shapes of golden-age of paint. What do you find so attractive about this particular paint­
homes and office buildings. erly language and why did you decide to update it?

I . G . The fact that they derive from your own talk show, As It Lays A . I . For a lot of reasons. When I designed and built the set for
(2012), where they served as backdrops is something that you As It Lays, I wanted it to feel "very LA," for lack of a better adjective.
emphasized in your 2016 exhibition at the Astrup Fearnley Museum, And I looked to the sky's coloring at various times of day around
Oslo. 1 he original stage—backdrops included—was reconstructed sunset to devise coloring for the flats, and to the image of the sky it­
for the show and one could also watch the interviews you conducted self for the large sky backdrop that would hang behind them. And
with celebrities like Melanie Griffith or Molly Ringwald in a cinema- as I said before, there is a kind of gradient quality to the sky, which
tvpe situation. I was wondering if the history of these backdrops— I attempted to emulate when painting the flats. I made the set
used for a talk show that dealt with celebrity culture and hosted and produced the show in a space in the Pacific Design Center, and
a number of stars—is somewhat latently present in these paintings? I didn't have theatrical lighting there, so there was something about
They seem lifeless but actually are saturated with what happened applving the washes of color to the flats in this kind of cloudburst,
in front of them, with the celebrity's privileged lives. airbrushed—I don't want to say gesture, because we're talking about
something opposite from a gesture ...
A .i. Well, that is definitely true of the set. I feel that the As It Lays

set retains some metaphysical aura of everything that transpired I.G. Manner?
on and around it—like a relic, a readymade sculpture carrying some
immeasurable bit of infrathin, or a used movie prop. With the indi­ A. I.Yes, in this manner that allowed the paint dust to settle across
vidual flats that are shown like paintings on the waU, hanging indepen­ them and to catch along their stucco texture in such a way to almost
dently, it s a little bit different because they haven't been used in suggest that theatrical light had been shown across their surfaces.
So that was another element in how I was thinking about them. There
the talk show and they didn't have celebrities sitting in front of them.

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 is also something very tech or digital about the gradient. I had I.G. But your work does contain the labor of another person. You have
been experimenting with gradients on Photoshop. With ray classmate often mentioned how you use Warner Brothers production to fab­
Keith Bormuth, I made the logo for my web series Rough Winds ricate your paintings and that you in fact commission the work to
(2010), and I remember being really excited about using the gradient someone called Andrew Pike who paints the set backgrounds.
tool. We made a whole bunch of mockups using different gradients,
sometimes overlapping, on his computer. This evolved into my think­ A. I. Yes, I work closely with Pike and both the sign and scenic-art
ing about how to use gradients in a more physical way. departments at Warner Brothers on the fabrication of all of my paint­
I don't recall ever thinking about Color Field painting in relation­ ings. I like to be transparent about that, and I also really like the
ship to my work. I was always thinking about California's art his­ association: it's exciting for me to make work in this place that makes
tory. I had been looking at the work of the artists associated with the all of this other Hollywood stuff. I truly believe that there is a mag­
Finish Fetish school of the 1960s, and I was specifically really ex­ ical quality or a kind of invisible sheen that exists as a by-product of
cited about the work of Billy A1 Bengston. When I was in mv first year something's being made on a Hollywood back lot. It's the same
of graduate school, I curated a show called "The Endless Summer," Hollywood magic that accrues on and around stars, celebrities, prod­
and Bengston was in it and Ronald Davis was in it, along with a num­ ucts, and props that come out of this system. And I like thinking
ber of other artists who had shaped LA's art and cultural history, or even believing that some of that Stardust—I like to call it Stardust—
and whose techniques I was thinking about a lot at that time. Most of sort of gets sprinkled into my work while it's being made in that
them used airbrushing because they made surfboards and they environment.
painted their own cars. They simply used the tools that were part of
the culture, part of LA life. I.G. You're definitely not the first artist who uses the facilities of the
creative industries to produce work. In 1923 Laszlo Moholy-Nagy
commissioned, via telephone, his enamel paintings from a company,
I.G. Using an airbrush implies three things to my mind: 1) proximity
and Martin Kippenberger also asked a professional poster painter
to the industrial sphere and commercial-looking surfaces; 2) a kind
to paint his series "Lieber Maler, male mir" ("Dear Painter, Paint for
of depersonalized procedure; and 3) a certain degree of body action
Me," 1981).
and performativity that is also paradoxically implied.

A. I. Many artists have delegated the production of their work in

A.I. It's funny because again, for me, I think about airbrushingin
this way.
the opposite way. 1 don't really think about the body's presence when
I look at something that has been airbrushed. However, it's probably
I.G. But you have spoken of a collaboration between you and Pike.
worth mentioning that there are multiple ways of using an air­ I low are we to imagine this? Are you painting the backdrops next
brush. When making my work, we use a much bigger spray gun than,
to him?
say, a finer airbrush used for more detailed or linear work.
A. I. While it's been a unique process with each body of work, every­
I.G. But someone must have used the bigger spray gun, right? Is it thing that is painted at Warner Brothers begins first on the com­
not an automatic or mechanical process like silkscreen or printing? puter. For the first flats, for example, I drew their shapes by hand and
then translated these drawings into computer renderings. I made
A.I. \es, and therein lies your paradox. Even still, an airbrushed sur­ samples with small pieces of wood, coated in stucco, and I spray-
face feels close to something that could have been made by a ma­ painted them. I didn't have an airbrush, so I used canned spray paint
chine. There are machines that paint things with airbrushes, various to develop a series of colorway samples on a small scale. A color-
products and cars on assembly lines. And I think it's this deperson­ way involved multiple colors of paint sprayed in different directions
alization that's more prevalent for me, when I think about or look a' over the textured surface: an undercoat of red, blue from the left,
airbrush work.

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294 BEYOND NETWORK PAINTlNir,
 fluorescent orange from the right; an undercoat of pink, yellow from A.I. That is a reallv good question. For me there is a certain qualit)
the left, and fluorescent pink from the right. A bit of blue added to paint that is very different from the quality of ink, when ink
at the top of a composition for a more atmospheric effect, and so on. gets applied through a printer.
I developed these colorwavs by both observing the LA sky and by
experimenting. Once I had organized these colorways, I could trans­ I.G. IIow would you describe this difference?
late them to Andrew as basic instructions, explaining to him how
they were to be painted. He can, of course, translate these instruc­ A. I. There is a much more bodily or physical quality to paint than
tions on a much bigger scale. There is massive space at Warner there is to ink.
Brothers where we could work; the studio has an old scenic painting
loft that was largely unused as most backdrops are now printed I.G. But you use acrylic paint, which is thinner than oil paint and
rather than hand-painted. I worked with the studio's metal shop to consists of pigments that have less luminosity and body? When
figure out how the panels would be constructed, and as I mentioned acrylic paint was first used by artists in the 1950s in the form of
before I made sure they were about three inches thick. Generally, house paint, it was supposed to be lifeless and cold ...
televisual flats are made a couple inches thick for bracing purposes.
A. I . Something water-based and therefore watered down?
I.G. Because of this thickness, their object-character is emphasized?
I.G. Exactly. But now compared to digital printing, is it full of life?
A.I. Yes, I wanted them to have an objectness, just like all the flats
A. I . I think so. Acrylic, even when sprayed, can be denser, brighter,
I saw around the back lot, sometimes freestanding, sometimes
and more vibrant than printer ink. My decision to use paint is
stacked on a dolly. The finished panels were then coated in stucco
also inspired by my interest in the traditional scenic painting style.
before they were painted. The decision to insist on the thickness of
Before they were printed, scenic backdrops were painted in a ?
the panels also goes back to the idea I had mentioned earlier, with
verv specific way, to be seen through a camera's lens—its a craft thats
regard to stucco being like a coating or a skin, applied over an
Verv much tied to Hollywood history and to this region. So maybe ^
interior space. There is that hollow cavity trapped between the wall
there's a little bit of nostalgia in my preference for paint, but I don t
and the panel—that volume which is key. So once the panels were
reallv think about it on those terms. For me, its capacity to be
sprayed evenly with stucco (I chose a specific kind of stucco called
brighter and more physical than digital printing is key. For the paint­
Ardex, for the specific quality of its texture), Pike would paint
ings I recently made with Bret Easton Ellis, we employed a combi­
them using my instructions. And at the end of his process, we would
nation of inkjet printing and painting, again using acrylic, to achieve
meet and look at them, and then I guide him in making various
the desired affect. In these works, where the text is paint and the
adjustments. So I might say, "Oh, we need to add some more blue
image is printed, these distinguishing qualities become very clear.
on this side, or we need to add more red on this side." He does it
while I m there, and if we add too much, we then paint it out, going
I G You produced text paintings with Bret Easton Ellis and their
back and forth until I feel like it's perfect and done.
visual components, motifs like palm trees or the LA skyline which
derive from stock images and are connected to the digital sphere.
I .G. Why don't you produce your paintings digitally all the way?
But painting is also functionalized and surrendered to language
Many artists opt for digital prints nowadays because thev can now
in these works because each of these paintings carries a textual mes­
have a painterly quality. But there seems to be an insistence
on the handmade and on this kind of cultural industrial labor in vour sage only.
work—a potentially extinct labor I might add since it is being '
A.I. They are a lot like signs.
replaced by digital processes?

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296 BEYOND NETWORK PAINTING
 I.G. Yes, they resemble billboards because of their format and size. don't like me unfollow me." The influence of Jeff Koons looms large
But they also behave subject-like and speak with sentences that here since he also used a billboard when announcing his fictive
are painted on them like "I'm going to be a very different kind film Made in Heaven in New York in 1989. With your billboard, the
of star," or "He still thought art could change the world, just a little distinction between the work and the artist collapses once again
less so now." because it is implied that not liking this show means not liking you,
the artists. This personalization of one's work, which is also im­
A.I. Well, I didn't write the texts, but we did choose them together, plied in this billboard, is typical on social media because one's worth
and Bret wrote a lot of texts for us to choose from. We picked the depends on the amount of Likes one receives.
texts that we felt were strongest, and in some cases, that strength
came from the potential for a viewer to read the texts as if they were Right, you mainly "unfollow" people on social media. It's a word
A . I.

the voice of the artist: Bret, me, or our combined voice. that links directly to Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat. Bret and I
joked that twenty years ago, this text might have said something like,
I.G.Each typeface that you chose also seemed to match the type of "If you can't take a joke you can get the fuck out of my house
proposition that was being made. (Christopher Wool). And while I certainly love and admire Koons, the
gallery has a tradition of announcing their annual "Oscars" show
A.I. Yes, one font simulates that of a typewriter. I actually chose every year with a billboard. It happens to be a coincidence that the
it because it's the typeface one uses to write a screenplay. Hollywood works Bret and I made look a lot like billboards, and therefore
fiction is somehow a part of its meaning. the billboard became much more like a work. Every day for about a
week leading up to the show, I uploaded short video-photo adverts
I.G. When I saw that font I was reminded of the typeface used in with pop music scores to my Instagram account.
Fluxus instructions!
I.G. So you created a preview excitement via social media? Many

A. I.We also used a tall and skinny font from the Univers font family artists use it in this way, with some showing images on Facebook of
that's used on most movie posters, we used the font from Vanity their paintings being made ...
Fair magazine, and the font from Variety magazine, and two fonts
Yes I made these "teaser" posts. I followed the common count­
A . I.
that are used by the Hollywood Reporter. We mocked up a few pieces
down model employed by pop stars and actors before an album
using the font from Whole Foods Market, but I don't think we ended
launch or a movie premier. I work with social media in this way be­
up actually making any of those works; that one didn't survive
cause it's one of the tools that I've found to be most enabling of
the editing process. But yes, all the fonts were chosen for their very
certain kinds of communication.
specific associations.
I.G. But social-media platforms are not innocent or neutral tools.
I.G.And the sentences are placed very differently on each canvas.
They want us to perform our life online so that it can be further
Some sentences are very much in the center, and some are found at
marketed by them. Are you just embracing social media or are you
the bottom of the painting as if to demonstrate how you treat
painting just like a page. negotiating your relationship to it? Would it also be possible to
deliberately stay absent from these sites?
A.I.And then sometimes the text covers the entire surface of the A. i. Well, the certain land of communication social media helps to en­
piece, becoming a dominant, allover formal element within able is largely self-promotional. So I'm using social media. And
the composition.
it's useful. I'm sure that my efforts, as well as Bret's posts to Twitter
and Instagram, helped to bring a lot of people to the gallery for
I.G. The 2016 show at Gagosian was announced with a large billboard the opening, and just generally, to see the show. Like I implied before,
showing the image of a red gradiant sky plus the sentence: "If you

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 when using the metaphor of the wave: I always find I learn the for all their followers to see. And while I try to understand what
most about something by using it, going with it, or embodying it and it is that they want other than attention, they are creating some sort
of power and possibly a viable economic structure around their
existing within it.
selfies. I've done some research and I've learned that they go on tour,
they go to high schools and shopping malls around the country
I.G. But one does not have to embrace all aspects of celebrity culture
and around the world, they meet with kids and take pictures with
and media society—one can also negotiate the resulting economic
them, and these younger kids look up to them. And the only
and social constraints and reflect on the impact they have on us.
thing that these social-media stars are conceivably good at is pro­
moting themselves. That's what their talent boils down to.
A.I. In Los Angeles, where social media plays a large part in fueling
the local economy, celebrity culture and mass media are partic­
I.G. Like celebrities they are famous for being famous (among their
ularly integral to everyday life: these are the things that compose t/ie
followers). But in order to be famous in this way they need to
wave. And I want to be on it, working to understand and to trans­
promote themselves and their lives successfully via social media.
late these rapidly evolving entities through my work. I believe that
negotiating celebrity culture and media society to reveal the negative
A.I. Yes. But traditionally, people were famous because they had
impact they have on us would feel, for lack of a better word, redun­
some other talent besides the ability to self-promote; they could sing
dant. In today's world we all already know and understand that Holly­
really well, or dance really well, or play sports really well, or per­
wood manipulates us, and that the effects can be negative. Through
form as someone else really well on camera. Even models I believe
social-media channels, and through the capacities we now have
there is a real talent to being a model and it's not something any
to make and distribute homemade versions of media content on our
great looking person can just do. Today, fashion brands are hiring
computers and smartphones, we have both the information needed
models based on the strength of their social-media following. So maybe
to judge these entities, and an understanding of how to digest it.
talent, as we knew it before, has completely changed and morphed
We ourselves can conclude what we want to about Hollywood and we
into simply being the ability one has to successfully self-promote. And
do, often coming back for more in spite of our better judgment. I think that's interesting. This could be, possibly, a defining factor
I aim to be as close to Hollywood as possible. While I may always re­ of this moment in time, for better or worse. It's something to think
main slightly removed, my efforts at embodiment do not simply
about and to deal with.
constitute an endorsement. Ideally, they're a way of understanding
the magic of Hollywood from the inside out. I.G. We are maybe one step further from those actresses, say, like
One thing I've been thinking about a lot, very recently, is Angelina Jolie, who was not only famous for being a good actress but
how the definition of talent has changed dramatically in recent years. for how she seemed to live her life.
A few months ago, I started following a bunch of teenagers on
Instagram, and they have a huge number of followers; millions of Yes, but she is an actress and at least we know that. We know
A.I.
people are looking at them every day and they are posting nothing what she does, how she earns a living.
but selfies—really, literally! And I'm thinking, what are these kidsr
Are they models? Are they actors? And it's very unclear what I.G. But she also promoted herself, her former family life with Brad
to call them. I don't really know what they're trying to achieve, Pitt, for instance, very consistently. The media was more interested
other than ... in her private life than in her acting performance.

I.G. ... obtaining validity? A. I. The tabloids focus on that aspect of her life ...

A.I.It seems that they are just trying to make themselves look I.G. I would go further and say that the press in general is more
as good as possible, to find the perfect light and capture that moment fixated on people's lives or what is imagined to be their lives. I have

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300 BEYOND NETWORK PAINTING
 one question about these kids you mentioned: Are they promoting personality. It is as if you understood how necessary it is for artists
every aspect of themselves on Instagram or are there aspects of their to (seemingly) expose themselves in a media society.
lives they deliberately keep secret and therefore are not
commodified? A .I. Wearing the sunglasses in public is also a way of distancing my­

self. Sometimes I feel shy.

A.I. I think you're right about the press in general, and its fixation
on people's lives. As for these kids on Instagram, we often see a I.G. But you also branded yourself with this immediately recogniz­
whole lot of selfies but still have no idea who they are, rarely hear­ able profile that has circulated in many formats—as stickers,
ing their voices and never learning their opinions about things. portraits, or logos as in the advertisement of your recent show in Oslo
(2016). In an interview, you once said that you don't want to think
I.G. You have actually merged the selfie with the self-portrait in about your work as artistic practice but as branding. Most artists,
Self Portrait (Selfie and Studio Floor) (2014) where the silhouette even those who created brands with their work, would distance
of your profile contains an image of you taking a selfie. Now this their practice vehemently from branding but you don't.
self-portrait, which also shows paint drips on the floor, stores a
photographic image of the artist and your equally visible hands. At A . I.I remember that I was sitting once with one of my art dealers,
the same time it delivers a highly mediated digital version of you. and I asked, "What do you think about this, da-da-da-da-da'F And
he was like, "Yeah, I think it's good," and I was like, "Yeah, I think
A. I. We live in a selfie state. In many cases, it's hard to understand the it's really good for my brand." And he said, "You just called your art
difference between a person and their social-media persona. My practice a brand!" And I said, "You're right." And he said, "You
should just always call it that!" And I thought: "You're right." Because
self-portrait logo, the graphic profile of me in my sunglasses, origi­
that's what it is. I think it makes so much sense, for example, to
nated with As It Lays. It was the logo I created for that project;
think about Donald Judd as a brand—one of the most amazing brands
I landed on it as a reference to Alfred Hitchcock. I was thinking a lot
ever created.
about how Hitchcock described actors—as cattle, or meat—as
I had many of them coming through my studio. There's a cold, harsh
I.G. On the one hand, I would agree with you: artists have branded
way Hollywood deals with its people. To acknowledge that, I chose
their work for a long time, for example, think of Leonardo, Diirer,
to emulate the moment in the opening credits of Alfred Hitchcock
or Rembrandt. And maybe the artist's unique signature style served
Presents when his video-graphic likeness dissolves into a line drawing
as a blueprint for commercial brands. But on the other hand, if
of his profile. The profile is also an art-historical trope, of course.
we equate art to branding, then we assume that it is like any other
It goes back to Egyptian paintings, Roman coins, and of course commodity and not a commodity of a special kind?
Duchamp used it often. In my case, opting for the profile was also per­
sonally motivated: I have a really big nose. I always hated my A .I.These are interesting questions that I don't have the answers to.
profile so I figured, finally, maybe I should just embrace it! I'm just trying to work through them and understand them as best
I can through practice, from the inside out. I think on the one hand
I.G. That's an interesting explanation! we can be seduced by the magic of art and what that means, and
on the other hand we can be seduced by the practicality or pragma­
A. I. I designed and produced sunglasses that were more flattering tism of just commodity, which can at times be equally inspiring
to my profile, and they helped move things along. and refreshing. You get sick of one way of understanding cultural
production so you turn toward the other: from art to commodity and
I.G. This image of you in profile wearing sunglasses is the visual then back to art. I have to work in both veins, to use them against
leitmotif of your work. Once again work and persona get merged in it. each other in my work and in my life to keep things, maybe,
But you also seem to have consciously produced a media

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 interesting for myself. And maybe that's because of how I entered I .G. If we agree on maintaining a difference between art as commod­
this world: I grew up watching television and playing videogames, ity and commodity-commodities, then my question would be:
but also being taken to museums to look at paintings. Do you try to control your art commodity in any way that is differ­
ent from how you treat your commodities? Do you refuse certain
I.G. But you have always insisted that your sunglasses, for example, venues or circulations in order to protect the special commodity
are not to be considered artworks. So there seems to be a limit status of your artworks?
that you set somewhere, when something is only a commodity and
not an artwork? A.I. Yes, but I do that with the sunglasses as well. I mean, I determine
through which channels the sunglasses are going to be distributed
A.I. Yes, the sunglasses are not art, but that's not because they're in order to maintain a certain understanding of what the brand,
utilitarian or what some might consider low. At the time I began the Freeway Eyewear, means. We have made certain sunglasses rare by
project, I wasn't sure whether or not I would consider them an. producing limited-edition collaborations with ForYourArt and
but ultimately made a decision. I decided to make something that Los Angeles-based artists John Baldessari, Barbara Kruger, and
wasn't art, as a counterpoint to the rest of what I was making at Raymond Pettibon. I have also said no to certain requests, to certain
the time, and that, for me, ended up being an important exercise. It people who wanted to put the sunglasses in their stores. I can
was a very liberating thing for me to simply say, "No. They're not control which retail stores I sell them to, but I can't control to whom
art. They don't have to be." they are sold after that. I can't control their secondary market, if
for example someone wants to resell them on eBay. This is also analo­
I.G. But why the sunglasses and not, say, your frozen yogurt sculp­ gous to the situation in art. I imagine there is a similarity to how
ture The Bigg Chill (2012-13)? one manages the distribution of any product, of any branded entity.
When I created the Freeway brand, I was still thinking that it
A.I.Maybe I'll make frozen yogurt one day that's not art, I don't might possibly be an artwork, and also wondering how I would con-
know! There is another product that I'm making right now: facial sun­ textualize the glasses and express the Freeway ethos. I hired the
screen. It's called Icarus SPF-18, and it features in SPF-18, the graphic designer John Van Hamersveld to design the logo; he designed
movie that I'm making. It's just sunscreen. the poster for the movie The Endless Summer and the album cover
for The Magical Mystery Tour, among other amazing things that
I.G. Is it a prop that relates to the movie like a relic? are now part of our cultural history. He told me that ultimately the
sunglasses don't matter, and that I had to focus my energy on their
A.I. Well, it started out as a prop. image. When constructing such an image, one deals with numerous
elements: the background, the models, the shadows, the quality
I.G. So this sunscreen was put on by the actors when you made of light, the placement of the logo, and so on. These are all concerns
this film? that are manipulated in a way that's very similar to how I might
construct a painting or a mise-en-scene for a video project. Every
A.I.It was used in the movie, and they do apply it to their skin, yes. decision, be it form or content-driven, carries meaning.
But when I made the actual product, to make this one bottle for
the movie, I ended up making two thousand bottles, and they are all I.G. But we would never expect that sunglasses provide knowledge or
intellectual insights or an experience of truth that is what is tradi­
in my garage and I don't know what to do with them. When the
tionally expected from paintings.
movie conies out, I'll figure out how to put them out into the world.
Sunscreen has an incredibly long shelf life as it's made to withstand
A. I.Maybe. Maybe not. What if I said that the sunglasses were an art
heat.
project? Would we direct those expectations toward a urinal?

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304 BEYOND NETWORK PAINTING
 I.G. Not immediately of course, but there aren't many artworks that
are interpreted so much or are loaded with symbolic meaning as now have immediate access to doing all different kinds of things.
Duchamp's urinal! I can have these objects [points to his charger with an Alex Israel
sticker on it] made in China, by simply emailing back and forth
A.I. As a counterpoint to making art, making the commitment to with my friend Edison who lives there. I can find somebody to do a
create something that isn't art can actually feel freeing, like it's un backdrop painting in a movie studio. I can post a video to YouTube
locking something in my thinking. Sometimes, it just feels good and more people can see it than a blockbuster movie or a marquis
to make something else. It can also be helpful: often this nonart- show at a major museum.
making side of what I do ends up informing the art-making side, or(
working in tandem with it. It can also be a way of expanding the I.G. But this also means that artistic and entrepreneurial com­
audience and the dialogue around what I do. petences overlap and that you have to work all the time, eventually
exploiting other people's cheap labor.
I.G. But it makes a difference whether you liberate yourself in this
way as an artist. There's more freedom and privilege still associated A.I. I'm a workaholic and I always have been, so I'll work all the
with the artist. He or she is expected to make these arbitrary deci­ time regardless. When you produce different kinds of things using
sions—can transform nonart into art. entrepreneurial models, you pay people for their work, and you
choose to work exclusively with manufacturers and fabricators that
provide excellent working conditions and environments for their
A. I. ^es you re correct. There's a way in which this approach to employees.
art making and nonart making protects a certain kind of freedom,
But to further address the idea of wearing multiple hats: my
power, and ability to manipulate that is somehow unique to artists—
point of walking you through the similarities that exist between the
an ability to be arbitrary and intuitive. And this freedom needs
branding of sunglasses and how I might think about painting was
to be protected.
to illustrate that in fact the hats don't really change as much as one
When I finished graduate school, I had my thesis exhibition might think, at least for me, from one project to the next.
and I w anted to do something in the gallery, something for the white Mounting an exhibition, making a movie, launching a web
cube. So I did a sculpture exhibition. I rented around thirty mode series, developing a sunscreen, fabricating a sculpture, building an
props, put them on pedestals, titled them, and they became rented Instagram following—there are obvious differences, but I'm often
readymade sculptures. The same week, I launched "both Freeway surprised to find how consistent the through line of my working
A ewear and Rough Winds, a web series that I made for the internet and thinking can be, regardless of the form I'm engaging with. Maybe
t lat, among other things, provided ample opportunity to product this is just a roundabout way of saying I put myself into everything
p ace the sunglasses. And it was a deliberate decision for me to do that I do. Maybe doing multiple things is a natural way of working
these three different things in these three different "worlds" or con- in this age of the internet. Maybe social media has encouraged
texts, and to establish, from the starting point, a certain amount me to take on multiple personalities, enabling this mentality—these
ot flexibility and freedom for myself and my work. are probably all valid explanations of the condition, and there are,
I'm sure, countless more.
curronr 1 ^ ° " Wear many hats and need to multitask in the

have a . j° "y' * know many artists who do shows, run a gallery,

eC nor I.G. Didn't the fact that you now show with Gagosian change the
production and reception of your work? I've seen many artists
and thev t10n 7nd' °r W°rk 38 an assistantthe same time,
and they do so often out of an economic necessity. who lost touch since having been represented by this mega-gallery.
Their works mainly circulated in a VIP sphere and they were dis­
• Yes, and I believe this is a condition brought upon us by the connected from those more relevant discussions that take place in
other segments of the art world.
nternet. The world was made a lot smaller by the internet, and

306 BEYOND NETWORK PAINTING F O L L O W M E : P A I N T I N G IN T H E A G E O F S O C I A L M E D I A

307
 A. I. I think showing with Gagosian, which I've done twice now,
the seated dessert tasting at the Lautner House and wondered:
breeds far more skepticism than it does actual disconnection. Certain
'How do I fix him?'" When Jay-Z and Beyonce came to see the show
critics don't like it when an artist starts to work with Gagosian;
[laughs], I don't know them, but I met them and brought them
they see it as a kind of selling out. And I've felt that criticism. The
into the back gallery to show them this painting, and Jay-Z looked at
truth is the show that Bret Easton Ellis and I mounted at Gagosian in
the painting and read it and then looked at me and said, "That's
February didn't just exist for a so-called VIP audience; it existed a little bit sad."
for everybody. A lot of people, in turn, saw, discussed, and wrote
about it. A lot of people were exposed to my work for the first time. I . G. Yes these works are not just a celebration of Hollywood and the

Oscars but they record a rather desperate and pathetic mental space.
i.G. But don't you belong to a different social VIP-sphere now and
doesn't this mean losing contact to those people who would actually A . I . Bret's writing is generally, in tone, a lot darker than my work,
discuss your work controversially? at least on the surface. And that was kind of an exciting proposition,
and one of the many reasons why I was excited to work with him.
A.I. I've definitely met some interesting people through the gallery. We were forced to meet somewhere in the middle: somewhere
I've always felt compelled to be social within the art community in between a man with a chainsaw hacking up a woman in his New
as an extension of my work, and it's a community of patrons, peers, York apartment, and a sky painting.
and other colleagues who have in some cases become close friends. The show's context may have created a more complicated re­
But I live in the city in which I was born and raised, so I've had a lot lationship between the work and some of its viewers—Jay-Z, I
of the same friends either since I was a young child or else since imagine, shares a close personal friendship with Kanye—but that's
high school. I mostly hang out with my family and with these same one of the things that we were hoping for. We wanted to ensure that
people I've been friends with for most of my life. the exhibition was a total experience, from our announcement
talk with Hans Ulrich Obrist at Miami Basel, to the text-only invitation
i.G. But doesn t working with a mega-gallery affect at least the pro­ card that read "You can be rich and still be a good person," to the
duction and reception of your work? It frames it differently ... Instagram-teasers, the timing of the opening during Oscar Week,
the celebrities who attended, the glossy Beverly Hills location, the
A. I. Well yes, and that is precisely why Bret and I chose to mount our dinner at Mr. Chow, etc., all of it was really thought out. I even wore
exhibition at Gagosian Gallery, in Beverly Hills, when we did. The a Hawaiian shirt to the opening.
frame that this gallery provides is unique in LA, especially in February
during Oscar week. It's a very Hollywood frame, one that opens i.G. I have a final question about Self-Portrait (Signature) (2014)
up to include the entertainment community alongside the art world. where one sees you signing the back of one of your self-portraits
Bret and I held back and waited so that the unveiling of our col­ under an equally visible stamp of Warner Brothers. This painting
laboration could happen at this very specific time and place. We seems to acknowledge the importance of the signature as the place
wanted our audience to include the people that had, to a large extent, where artworks are visibly connected to their author.
inspired the work.
A.I.The signature is a dying form. My friend is a well-known singer,
I.G. I also have the impression that it is the collective capitalist and just a couple months ago we went to a Rihanna concert together
unconscious of the Hollywood universe that is spelled out and also in LA. Literally every five minutes, someone approached him and
mocked in these text paintings. asked for a selfie. So I asked him, "Does anyone ever ask you for an
actual autograph?" His answer: "No."
A.I. There was a painting hanging in the back room and it stated,
i.G. Yes, that's a very good point—signatures have become obsolete
over an image of Los Angeles at night: "Kim glimpsed Kanye during
in the digital age.

F O L L O W M E : P A I N T I N G IN T H E A G E O F S O C I A L M E D I A
308 BEYOND NETWORK PAINTING 309
 A.I. They are obsolete because you can do all your banking online, I. G. But next to you signing your work we see the Warner Brothers
you don't need to sign anything. With Apple Pay you don't even stamp, as if you were admitting who actually produced this work.
need to sign for credit-card payments. When I bought my house, there You still sign it as yours but it is visibly also made by someone else.
were documents that I had to sign, and I was sent them over email. Since you initiated this process, you remain its author.
I was directed to a website called DocuSign to pick the font I wanted
to use for my signature, and then I just clicked to sign my name. A.I. I actually wanted to make some paintings using the traditional,
art-historical artist-in-the-studio trope. So far there have been
I.G. Nevertheless, in painting, signatures are still crucial. two: there's the signing the back painting, and there's the selfie with
studio floor.
A.I. So is paint! [Laughs] I think that it's important to note the other elements that make
up the signature painting, it's not just the Warner Brothers logo
I.G.Artists tend to sign their paintings either on the back or on the that's visible, one also sees the edge of a Lakers T-shirt, and there is
bottom of the painting's surface. a New Balance "N" logo on my sneaker. There is also the Sharpie
pen, with the Sharpie logo on it. And there is the logo of my
A.I. I sign them on the back. Just like in the painting you self-portrait, which is the frame in which all of this is captured. So it
is also very much a painting about branding.
mentioned.
I.G. And the Pollock drips on the floor remind us that it was actually
painted. The theme of the painter's studio is mobilized and merges
with the digital sphere of the selfie.

A.I. Yes! I work on the back lot, but in a mobilized way. I don't have
a proprietary right to space at Warner Brothers—I'm a guest,
I'm a client of the studio, and I just come and go with my parking-pass
access for meetings or to check in on production. One more thing
I wanted to mention is that the selfie picture was inspired not only by
Pollock, but also by the Mannerist painter Parmigianino, his Self-
Portrait in a Convex Mirror (1524). In the painting the young artist
is holding a little convex mirror and he's painted his reflection in
it on an actual convex panel. It's a work about seeing and transmitting
one's image by way of an optical device, and in a way this is analo­
gous to how the iPhone is being used in my painting.

I.G. Maybe the attraction of the painter's studio even increases in a

post-studio digital world where most artists sit in front of their
laptops?

It's funny you say that, because since graduate school I haven't
A. I.
ever really had a proprietary studio work space. I work at Warner
Brothers and people say that my studio is at Warner Brothers, but as
I mentioned it's not technically mine. In LA, whenever someone

Alex Israel. Self-Portrait (Signature). 2014

FOLLOW ME: PAINTING IN THE AGE OF SOCIAL MEDIA

311
 is going to "the studio," they don't mean that they are going to mat
Notes 10 Peter Burger, Theorie der Avantgarde
art in an artists' loft, they mean they're going to Warner Brothers. (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag,
Sony, 20th Century Fox, Disney, or Paramount. I always wanted to he 1974), 29.
1 See Thomas Eggerer, Isabelle Graw, Aram 11 John Kelsey, "The Sext Life of Painting,"
able to say that, and for it to mean both things. One of the paint­ Lintzel, and Astrid Wege, foreword to in Painting 2.0: Expression in the
ings that Bret and I made has a text that says, "Again, Carter though: "Medien," Texte zurKunst, no. 32 Information Age, exh. cat., Museum
(December 1998): n.p. Brandhorst, Munich, ed. Manuela Ammer,
defeated, leaving the studio, there was no one left to trust, but 2 See my essay, "Conceptual Expression: On Achim Hochdorfer, and David Joselit
then he cheered up when he remembered there was never anyone t Conceptual Gestures in Allegedly (Munich: Prestel Verlag, 2016), 268.
Expressive Painting, Traces of Expression in 12 Jacques Lacan, "Kant with Sade," October,
trust to begin with." The image shows the back of a warehouse with
Proto-Conceptual Works, and the no. 51 (Winter 1989): 62.
two doors. You actually don't know if it's a movie studio or if it's Significance of Artistic Procedures," in Art 13 See Douglas Crimp, "The End Of Painting"
an art studio. And I enjoy that, because that's kind of my situation after Conceptual Art, ed. Alexander Alberro (1981), in On the Museum's Ruins
and Sabeth Buchmann (Cambridge, MA: (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1993), 84-106.
MIT Press, 2006), 119-33. 14 See David Joselit, "Marking, Scoring,
I. G. But historically speaking artists like Warhol or Koons had big 3 See David Joselit, "Painting beside Itself," Storing, and Speculation (on Time)," in
October, no. 130 (Fall 2009): 125-34. Painting beyond Itself: The Medium in the
studio enterprises and collaborated with the culture industry.
4 See Bruno Latour, Reassembling the Social: Post-medium Condition, ed. Isabelle Graw
Maybe it is the point of this painting that we can't clearly delineate An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory and Ewa Lajer-Burchart (Berlin: Sternberg
the artistic sphere from the sphere of entertainment industry (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). Press, 2016), 17.
5 Bruno Latour, Eine neue Soziologie fur eine 15 See, for example, "Jana Euler to Receive
anymore? neue Gesellschaft: Einfiihrung in die First Solo Show at Kunsthalle Zurich,"
Akteur-Netzwerk-Theorie (Frankfurt am AMA, May 28, 2014, https://en.artmedia
Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2007), 122. agency.com/86629/jana-euler-to-receive
A.I.Maybe. One last thing, and here comes the contradiction: in
6 See, for example, Lawrence Alloway's early -first-solo-show-at-kunsthalle-zurieh/:
now going to have to get a studio. I want to makeAsItLays2an: account of the 1970s art world as a network. "Works by Jana Euler, a German artist
The Pacific Design Center gave me space to house the first As ft Using the term to designate solely the whose works reflect upon networks."
repercussions of the rise of communication 16 See Joselit, "Painting beside Itself."
Lays set, but now I'm on my own. systems and the growing mass-cultural 17 The show, "Painting 2.0: Expression in the
interest in visual art since the 1960s, he Information Age," was on view at Museum
described the growing interconnectedness Brandhorst, Munich, in 2015-16 and then
of the actors and the dissemination of art traveled to the mumok—Museum Moderner
through marketing and media. Portraying Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna. Note the
this network in which, as he sees it, we're subtitle of the accompanying catalogue:
all involved, he interestingly argued that it's Ammer, Hochdorfer, and Joselit, Painting
"not an hierarchic structure." Even then, 2.0: Expression in the Information Age.
the network metaphor obviously served to The Vienna museum's website advertised a
gloss over existing hierarchies and declare thematic guided tour of the exhibition with
them a thing of the past. See Lawrence a focus on "network painting" on October
Alloway, "Network: The Art World Described 23, 2016, https://www.mumok.at/de/events
as a System," in Network: Art and the /network-painting-1.
Complex Present (Ann Arbor: UMI Research 18 As described on the mumok website; see
Press, 1984), 3-15. ibid.
7 Joselit, "Painting beside Itself," 128. 19 Latour, Reassembling the Social.
S See Michel Foucault's lecture of March 17, 20 See Bruno Latour, Politics of Nature: How
1976, in "Society Must Be Defended": to Bring the Sciences into Democracy,
Lectures at the College de France, 1975- trans. Catherine Porter (Cambridge, MA:
1976, ed. Mauro Bertani and Alessandro Harvard University Press, 2004).
Fontana, trans. David Macey (London: 21 David Joselit, "Reassembling Painting," in
Penguin, 2004), 249. Ammer, Hochdorfer, and Joselit, Painting
9 See my essay, "Leben ist viel wert: Uber 2.0: Expression in the Information Age, 173.
Kunstkritik und Kunstwissensehaft im 22 See, first and foremost, the nineteenth-
Zeichen von Entgrenzung und neuer century novellas and novels about painters,
Okonomie," Zeitschriftfiir Kunstgeschichte most prominently Honore de Balzac's
78, no. 1 (2015): 75-83. Le chef-d'oeuvre inconnu (1831) and Emile

NOTES TO PAGES 264-280

313
BEYONn NFTU/noi/ DAikiru^
 Zola's L'amvre (1886), in which painting
figures as a living being endowed with
tremendous powers to which painters
devote themselves as lovers to an
inamorata.
23 Joselit, "Painting beside Itself," 125.
24 As a teacher at the Stadelschule, I know the
milieu from personal experience. The fact
that I now write and publish these reflec­
tions on Euler's work even though she didn't
include me in the series arguably attests to
the success of her networking strategy.
25 See Foucault, lecture of January 14, 1976,
in "Society Must Be Defended," 23-41.
26 See Michel Foucault in an interview with
Lucette Finas, in Power, Truth, Strategy,
ed. Meaghan Morris and Paul Patton
(Sydney: Feral, 1979), 67-75.
27 See Martijn Konings, The Emotional Logic
of Capitalism: What Progressives Have
Missed (Stanford, CA: Stanford University
Press, 2015), 28.
28 See Foucault, "Society Must Be Defended,"
35-36: "This new mechanism of power
applies primarily to bodies and what they
do. (... j It was a mechanism of power that
made it possible to extract time and labor,
rather than commodities and wealth, from
bodies."
29 See the chapter "Market-Reflexive Gestures
in Celebrity Culture," in my book High
Price: Art between the Market and
Celebrity Culture, trans. Nicholas Grindell
(Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2009), 157-226.
30 See Gilles Deleuze, Francis Bacon: The
Logic of Sensation, trans. Daniel VV. Smith
(London: Continuum, 2005), 2.
31 Graham Bader, "The Body Politic: 'Glitter
and Doom' at the Metropolitan Museum of
Art," Artforum, January 2007, 227-31.
32 See Carol Armstrong, Manet Manette (New
Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000),
258.
33 Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy
Warhol (San Diego: Harcourt Brace, 1975),
86.

314 NOTES TO PAGES 280-289

 The Economy of Painting In his notes on Jean Fautrier's painting series "Hostages" (1943-45),
the writer Francis Ponge always mentioned "the painters" in the
same breath with "their dealers": "It would seem that the painters, or
their dealers, avidly desire that their pictures occasion words."1

Reflections on the The phrasing suggests that the distinction between painters and art
dealers is effectively moot, in no small part because their conduct
is declared to be identical. They form a kind of community united by
Particular Value a basic mindset, with all their aspirations focused on their pictures.
Ponge's intuition that painters and their products are intimately
Form of the Painted involved with commerce (or its representatives, the dealers) can serve
as a point of departure for my reflections on the value of painting.
Canvas Like Ponge, I argue that artists, and especially painters, are inescap­
ably enmeshed in the art trade simply by virtue of their product's
specific value form. In the following, I will show that their work is
social to its core, and that artists and painters must therefore be
regarded as actors in a capitalist system whose essential objective is
the maximization of profits.2
What the painters or their dealers wish more than anything,
Ponge writes, is that their pictures "occasion words," that is, that they
are written about. In Ponge's view, this eagerness to be the subject
of a textual production is connected to business considerations, which
is why it unites painters and dealers. The explicit inclusion of the
latter, as the primary commercial actors, identifies the hunger for texts
as an exigency also imposed by the market. Of course, Ponge's
essay on Fautrier—it was included in an exhibition catalogue—was
apt to enhance the symbolic and market value of the works dis­
cussed, an aspect the author made no effort to conceal,2 mentioning
not only his fee but also the "one or two of these pictures" he would
receive as compensation for his efforts.4 Payment in kind—which is
to say, in the form of artworks—remains a commonplace practice
in the art world today, though it's rarely talked about. If Ponge
was given two paintings by Fautrier as remuneration for his essay, the
implication was that he was a direct participant in the speculation
on their rising market value, to which his writing was a not inconsid­
erable contribution. The reflections of a writer who had already
made a name for himself no doubt helped establish Fautrier's pastose

316 THE VALUE OF PAINTING THE ECONOMY OF PAINTING

317
 "Hostages" pictures with their peculiarly crusty relief-like surfaces as Value Presupposes Commodity Form
culturally significant and, by extension, symbolically and econom­
ically valuable.5 So the formation of value not only involves painters It bears emphasis, however, that "value," in this connection, denotes
and their products as well as the dealers, but also those recipients not a painting's symbolic value but its "commodity value"—a value
who, like Ponge, generate meaning and significance. For a more accu­ that, as Karl Marx argued, is represented and "embodied" exclusively
rate account of the value form of the painted picture, we will there­ by commodities.6 This value has a thinglike and concrete manifes­
fore need to combine the production-aesthetic focus on the creative tation, and so it should in principle be identifiable in painted pictures
labor and its products with an approach grounded in the aesthetics as well: no value without a physical object.7 But the concept of
of reception. commodity value also implies that, in Marx's perspective, value at­
taches only to commodities—to put this central premise of his labor
theory of value in the briefest of terms, there's no value without
a commodity. So if works of art, and paintings in particular, are said
to be "valuable" in this sense, they must likewise be regarded
as commodities.8 And like the commodity, the painted picture would
have to be a good that straddles the distinction between use value,
including symbolic value, and economic value.9
Now commodities, according to Marx, are goods destined for
exchange that circulate and change hands.10 Given their highly mobile
quality, paintings would seem to be especially suitable for such
transactions: in that sense it might be said that it's their transporta­
bility that predestines them for the commodity form. And in a
global economy of the sort that has taken hold in the art world as else­
where in recent years, paintings circulate more widely than ever.
Taken by themselves, they can be regarded as pure products of labor,
neither commodities nor values. Yet the moment they're, say, sold
at auction or presented and discussed in the framework of one of the
many biennials—which is to say, the moment they're exchanged
for a fee, cash, or symbolic recognition—they're transmuted into
things of value, or in other words, into commodities.
However, we must not identify their commodity value with their
price, a common misconception when it comes to ordinary com­
modities. Marx consistently emphasized the difference between the
two: a commodity's price, he argued, is the monetary name of the
labor objectified in it, which is to say, it expresses value in the cate­
gory of money without itself being that value.11 It follows that price
and value need not match. For Marx, as for Adam Smith before him,

Jean Fautrier. Tete d'otage 1945. 1945

THE ECONOMY OF PAINTING

318 THE VALUE OF PAINTING
319
value was ultimately based on human labor, but—and this is where makes it an especially suitable tool for the analysis of the value form
Marx diverged from Smith's conception of value—it had cast off of works of art and paintings in particular. Engaging with art, one
its origin in labor.12 Smith had declared labor to be the essence of com­ often realizes that the works are not valuable "in themselves." Their
modity value, but Marx—and that, I believe, is the strong point of value doesn't inhere in them; it cannot be located within them. As
his conception of value—disavowed such substantialism. Value, from Marx noted, it's constitutively relational: it appears in the interrelation
his perspective, remains related to labor,13 but it has become disas­ between one work, one picture, and another. So with respect to art
sociated from individual labor to become a representation of "human no less than other commodities, value must be described as a social
labour in the abstract/'14 phenomenon.

Value Is Rooted in Labor and The Fetish Character of Painting

at Once Abstracts from It
The "secret of the commodity form," Marx wrote, is that it reflects
Marx defined value as human labor "in its congealed state, when "the social character of men's labour" back to them as "an objective
embodied in the form of some object"15—a formula that emphasizes character stamped upon the product of that labour."19 The commo­
its relation to labor as well as the fact that the latter undergoes a dity, in other words, mystifies the labor conditions that produced it—
transformation: the phrasing "the form of some object" (in German. its social dimension—by presenting them as its own intrinsic quality.
gegenstandliche Form) signals that human labor, in value, is rendered That's why, as Marx put it, commodities appear as "independent
in a thing, which is to say, transmuted into something else. So while beings,"20 and therein lies their "fetishism": like fetishes, they're ex­
value in Marx remains related to concrete human labor, it s at once perienced as quasi-living and self-acting beings because the social
also the locus of abstraction from that concrete human labor, it ^ character of the labor expended on making them is both rendered in­
undergoes a metamorphosis into what Marx called abstract labour. visible in them and perceived as their own nature. Now, the very
Abstract labor, Marx wrote, is "undifferentiated human labour or structure of paintings suggests that they have much in common with this
"labour directly social in its character," which is to say, a labor strippe commodity fetish that mystifies its own social dimension. For in­
stance, the canvas tautly stretched over the frame may be described
of its specific qualities, a universal socially determined labor that
as a firm, smooth, and impenetrable coat that, like the commodity
comes into being only in the act of exchange.16 In othei words, a
fetish, quite literally covers up its social conditions. Some recent
stract labor means that different instances of private labor are tram
painterly practices have carried the essential fetishism of painting to
formed, in the course of being exchanged for each other, into soci
extremes. Consider Sarah Morris's colorful grid paintings in large
labor. What they have in common becomes manifest in the it an
formats, which foreground their product- and commodity-like qual­
of exchange and is represented in their value; the latter abstract
ities. Their extraordinarily glossy and saturated surfaces seem utterly
from the concrete individual labor conditions that are inusi \ u ^
impregnable, an opaque coating that recalls the outer "skin" of
tained in it.17 This abstract labor in which concrete labor is ten
lacquered luxury goods such as jewelry boxes or sports cars. As with
invisible and made to disappear, Marx argued, constitutes va ue- the commodity fetish, the specific labor that was expended on
So value is difficult to grasp and chimerical and yet nece.ssari making these surfaces vanishes from view in contemplating them.
resented in a thing. They instead function as a kind of mirror of value in which general­
This twofold character of Marxian value—that it suggests pre ized human labor emerges only as a quality that seems inherent
while being premised on the withdrawal of presence is« a in them.

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321
 On the other hand, numerous painters of the postwar era have Painting as a Special Kind of Commodity
sought to symbolically reveal the concrete conditions in which the
painting is made. Take Tagli ("cuts"), for example, the slashed or Unlike ordinary commodities, paintings are unique material objects,
lacerated canvases by Lucio Fontana, or David Hammons's or David distinguished by their singularity and physical presence. The paint­
Hammons's work between 2009 and 2011. The selective destruction ing's uniqueness is directly associated with the singular individuality
of the support medium brings what lies "behind" it (the conditions of its creator, implying a close nexus between person and work
of its production, its social dimension) into play in a variety of figu­ that's authenticated by the signature.21 Its material character can
rations. Still, we don't actually learn anything about these conditions, encourage the fantasy that the author's labor process is immediately
and so the works only demonstrate again that the painting is a contained in it.22 Unlike the commodity fetish, paintings can create
product of labor whose social dimension remains concealed even the impression that they wear the conditions in which they were
when the artist strives to uncover it. The paintings fetish character created on their bodies as an index of sorts, in the form, for example,
it turns out, persists despite the symbolic attempt to dismantle it. of material traces of labor. What's more, even canvases the painter
Although paintings are structurally analogous to the commodityfetish, never actually touched, delegating or mechanizing the process
of making the picture, present themselves as "metaphysical indices"
they constitute a special kind of commodity.
by suggesting a spiritual rather than physical connection to their
creator.23 So paintings whose production was outsourced nonetheless
in a sense contain their author's initiative. That's why the painting's
uniqueness as well as specific materiality can spark the precapi-

Kerry James Marshall. Untitled. 2009

Sarah Morris, Council [Abu Dhabi]. 2017

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323
talist fantasy that the labor process is, immediately or indirectly, de­ them in ways that associate them with an individual author.26 Both
posited and stored up within it. practices aim to make consumers forget the luxury good's industrial
The painter Kerry James Marshall recently tound a succinct origin and instead establish a mental link to the unique work of
formula for this twofold character of the painting-it being structur­ art and, more particularly, the singular painting. The most recent
ally similar to the commodity fetish while also being unlike any testament to the luxury industry's desire for painting is Louis Vuitton's
other commodity.24 In an interview, he described painted pictures as "Masters" range of bags (2017), designed by Jeff Koons. Each bag—
"independent," echoing Marx's characterization of the commodity a version of classic designs of the brand such as the "Neverfull"
fetish as an "independent being." This independence, Marshall argued, bag—is printed with a "masterpiece" from the history of painting;
is highlighted by the comparison with digital images—unlike the the dominant element are the names of the creators (all men) printed
latter, they cannot "crash." They have a durable physical presence in gold letters on top of the images. The monumental lettering not
that makes them independent also in the sense of not requiring only demonstrates the enormous cultural prestige of painters such as
online access or a connection to the power grid. Expanding on this Titian, Rubens, and Van Gogh and excludes women painters from
25

description of painted pictures in the categorical framework ol the this history once again, but also proves that painting's products
commodity fetish, Marshall added that what makes them special is are inextricably bound up with and have in a sense internalized the
that they incessantly remind the viewer of the fact that someone names of their creators. The bags make clear that while luxury
made them, which is to say, that physical labor went into them. An goods can partake in the enormous symbolic meaning of the "masters,"
this quality of having been made that is apparent in the painting they can never directly claim that significance for themselves. Final
itself, Marshall noted, points to "consciousness," to thoughts-the proof of this is the Louis Vuitton logo, which has a strongly reduced
presence in the Koons edition. Quite unlike Louis Vuitton's usual
consciousness or thoughts, one infers, of the creator. The painted
picture's demonstrative "made-ness" prompts the notion that its
allover branding on its other bags, the logo here seems to yield to the
far more significant names of historic painters. Furthermore, the
directly charged with something animate: with its creators e. b
"LV" is combined with another signature, Jeff Koons's "JK." Koons,
vitalistic fantasy usually requires a viewer willing to engage in pro
and the paintings he cites, clearly gain the upper hand in this en­
jection, to imagine life into dead matter, an aspect Marshall didn t mo­
counter between painting and luxury product, a fact underlined by
tion. Nonetheless, his remarks are a useful reminder that painting
a reference to Koons's "signature" work, Rabbit (1986), taking the
and this is what sets them apart from ordinary commodities—ca
form of a rabbit-shaped tag hanging from a leather strap in matching
nourish the illusion that their value is substantial, andw ats n
colors. The Louis Vuitton brand is here remolded by the Koons
that they induce this illusion by virtue of their made-ness. brand with his "best of the history of painting" compilation, although
allowing itself to be outshone in this way ultimately redounds to
Painting as a Model Commodity Louis Vuitton's advantage. We can of course point out the common
for the Luxury Industry ground that artistic products and luxury goods share as brands:
both depend on an individual authorial name that promises unique­
Painting's ability to induce the illusion that its value is su'JSt^(justry ness, durability, and quality. At the same time, these bags are
makes it an ideal commodity, and in recent years the luxun mass-produced and oddly trashy, reminiscent of souvenirs from
has increasingly taken its cue from this ideal: manufacturers a museum shop. Ultimately, in their very trashiness, they supply im­
released their industrially produced goods in limited e, pressive evidence for the fact that luxury products, in spite of their
them an approximation of the unique work's aura, or ran

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325
structural affinity with artworks, can never approximate painting's as unpaid excess labor.29 Furthermore, with respect to artistic labor,
special status and intellectual prestige. Although the two classes it's interesting to note that, in Marx's view, one and the same kind
of products often circulate in the same social sphere, being among of labor can be both productive (value-generating) and unproductive
the favorite accoutrements of the ultra-rich, paintings remain asso­ (not value-generating) depending on the situation and perspective.
ciated with a claim to symbolic-aesthetic significance buttressed In his example, "a singer who sells her song on her own is an unpro­
by a long history that luxury products such as Koons's "Masters'' bags ductive singer. But the same singer, commissioned by an entrepre­
aspire to in vain. neur to sing in order to make money for him, is a productive worker,"
generating capital.30 So the same labor can turn out to be produc­
Painters Are Not Productive Wage tive or unproductive in different constellations. Yet unlike the singer,
Laborers, but Their Product Implicates who sells his or her vocal skills and must be physically present to
Their Labor in Value Formation do so, visual artists, and especially painters, usually make a product
that can circulate independently of them (although it's imaginarily
The painted picture's special value form is rooted not only in its mani­ charged with their labor power). And this product—like "all products
fest made-ness, but also in the intellectual prestige associated of art and science, books, paintings, statues, etc."—does, according
with it. The historic privileges that are still accorded to artistic labor, to Marx, form part of material production, which is to say, of the
and the painter's work in particular, likewise inform its value form. totality of relations of production.31 In this light, we might say that
But isn't it precisely the privileges bound up with creative work that artists, although they are not productive wage laborers strictly
make it incompatible with Marx's conception of value generations speaking, also remain involved in the generation of value by virtue of
their product.32 And since the painter's work in particular main­
As Marx argued, the productive wage laborer is the sole source of
value, including surplus value, which is to say, an excess of labor that tains an imaginary presence in his or her product, the labor is ulti­
mately implicated, by proxy of its product, in the sphere of value
goes unremunerated.28 Although numerous artists, beginning with the
formation.
historic avant-gardes of the early twentieth century, flirted with
a working-class habitus—consider, in particular, the Russian Constmc-
.Artistic Work Straddles the Distinction
tivists and the exponents of Minimalism—artists are clearly not
between General and Specific Labor
wage laborers; unlike the latter, they don't sell labor power but a re­
sulting product that moreover belongs to them, at least in part,
In the past few years, sociologists have rightly pointed out that the
until it circulates, say, in the sphere of art auctions. And even then
creative and self-determined form of work we typically associate with
an artwork remains associated with an artist's name; he or she is
artists has become the ideal type of labor in general.33 Ostensibly
regarded as the sole author and has a monopoly on it. artistic virtues such as creativity, self-reliance, and flexibility are now
Still, there are situations in which artistic work does indirect!} widely prized in typical working environments. Yet despite this
generate value, as for instance when agents, collectors, or auctioneers
recent convergence between artistic and conventional labor, I would
make a speculative profit by reselling the artwork. While some o argue that a painter's decision to engage in self-exploitation by
the artist's labor has been paid for, as when his or her works are so burning the midnight oil still isn't the same as when a creative worker
first, other parts of his or her labor remain invisible and unpaid? in an advertising agency puts in overtime. The painter is largely
especially when profits are made after the artist sells the work. Marx free to set the goals and objectives of his or her work, while the
construed profit as deriving from surplus labor, which he delme

THE ECONOMY OF PAINTING

T H E VAL U F O F P A i N T l M r ;
creative worker's efforts are necessarily geared toward goals and.,/,
use Marx's term, we must leave the production-aesthetic dimension
jectives determined by others. The painter owns his or her product
and turn our attention to the aesthetics of reception, that is, the
which has a physical existence and is distinguished by its unique­
interaction between art and its viewers. Marx wasn't interested in the
ness. By contrast, the likelihood that the creative worker's labors ulti­
motives of the humans engaging in exchange, in the directions their
mately yield a material product is slim, especially in an increasingly desires took. In his view, labor time was the measure of the magnitude
digital neoliberal economy. And where the painter's ideas will be of value, and as he argued, it was not immediate labor time but only
publicly associated with his or her name, the creative worker's name the "socially necessary labour-time," a sort of quantitative average,
will be subsumed under the agency's label. In the creative worker's that determined that magnitude.34 With regard to art commodities
perspective, the painter enjoys privileges that he or she can only that claim seems questionable since even works that require no labor
dream of. time, such as the spontaneously discovered objet trouve, can have
It might be argued that, structurally speaking, artists often occupy a quantifiable value. Conversely, years spent laboring on a picture
the social position of the capitalist, for example, when they employ doesn't guarantee that it will attain any magnitude of value. Proposals
a large team whose unpaid surplus labor they exploit. The artist- to expand the conception of labor to include immaterial forms of
entrepreneur model—embodied by Rembrandt, Warhol, Koons.and. work, through collaborating or networking, have proved to be insuf­
most recently, Olafur Eliasson (with few exceptions, an all-male ficient to explain value magnitudes:35 it's hardly true that nights
cast)—would suggest as much. Yet even in this scenario the specific of boozing and schmoozing or days spent building contacts directly
quality of artistic work is evident: in comparison to conventional enhance the value of an artist's work. On the contrary, nothing
entrepreneurs, these artists are allowed considerable latitude, as thei: suggests that an exhausting social life translates into increased net
often unorthodox business practices reveal. However much the worth. Value is obviously a function not so much of the totality
artist-entrepreneur seems to serve as the matrix for the widely dis­ of an artist's productive activities as rather of its reception, which is
cussed "entrepreneurial self" (Ulrich Brockling) in the neoliberal why I agree with the French economist Andre Orlean that value
economy, he or she can afford to act in ways that would be counter­ also must be conceived as the expression of a strong collective recep­
productive from a strictly economic point of view—in fact, such tive force that transcends the individual.36 This force—Orlean calls
uneconomic behavior is positively expected of him. In this regard, t it affect commun—is invested in certain objects or, in our case, in
certain paintings. It operates by way of mimesis, that is, it bends the
the artist's work straddles the divide between artistic and general
individuals' desires toward the objects of the observed or putative
labor rather than unambiguously falling on either side of the distinc­
desires of others.37 So the basis of value is a collective imitative desire
tion. This tension is also reflected by the value form of the product
that confers great value on some things and none at all on others.
that results from it—its ambiguity between ordinary and special
It's important to note that this collective affect doesn't come from
commodity.
nowhere; it has a long history, has been developed over time by peo­
ple, and results from social struggles. Artworks can also attract
Value Also Expresses a Collective these powerful flows, capturing and distilling them. As a result, the
Force on the Part of Viewers affect commun will invariably navigate toward the artworks.
The art world abounds with examples of the mimetic nature
To gain a better understanding of the painted picture's value ton1 of this longing, with numerous collectors chasing after a small set of
not enough to focus solely on artistic labor and its products. To names. However, the hvpostatization of desire implied by Orlean's
grasp why different products have different "magnitudes of vahR

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329
T H F V A I I IE (~ic D A i M x i k i / -
 affect commun can blind us to the significance of the objects, of
production are directly or indirectly preserved in them. Viewers often
what seems to have its origin in them, for the question of value: in a
project vitalistic fantasies onto paintings, endowing them with
scenario in which desire reigns supreme, no object or picture is
human attributes such as authority, self-will, or vigor. These fantasies
especially predestined or entirely unsuitable for the formation of value
are vitalistic in that they imagine a life force, or elan vital, that is
because of its specific features or of what's at stake in it at a given
expressed freely and autonomously without encountering limitations
moment in history. Desire can fasten on to any object, regardless of
obstacles, or conflicts. In other words, these fantasies hold out the
how it's made or what it's about. Yet as art-world experience shows,
P™mise of a "life without negativity," as Samo Tomsic has put it.40
it does matter in certain situations what a particular product has to
i egativity is Tomsic's term for the reality of class struggle, which
offer, how it intervenes into the formation with which it engages. cuts across the capitalist society and its subjects. Vitalistic fantasies
So the occasions on which desire is aroused merit scrutiny as well.
make this reality disappear and replace it with the phantasm of
Still, the trajectory of this collective affective force is not deter­ self-willed and autonomous self-realization. They are central to the
mined solely by the pictures themselves or their allegedly immanent functioning of capitalism, Tomsic argues, because they can mask
qualities. In the final analysis, value formation also hinges on the the reality of class struggle—the real inequalities, injustices, and rela­
narratives—legends and anecdotes, as well as art history and art tions of exploitation—in favor of the illusion of an unfettered energy.
theory—with which works of art have traditionally been enriched.5' Historically, viewers have often projected just such a self-realizing
Such narratives are extrinsic to the works and yet impinge on the core energy onto paintings, and today, as many examples discussed in this
of their being. With their aid, the value of art—in reality a chimera- book illustrate, paintings are still a preferred vehicle for these vita­
is lent a semblance of plausibility. The belief in value eagerly seizes listic fantasies.
on anything that can justify what's ultimately a precarious construct And yet when we look at a painting, we are also confronted with
with no real foundation and lend it an appearance of solidity. c cac matter, factual absence, and an author who eludes us; a va­
cancy looms at the heart of the artist's ghostly virtual presence. Para­
Paintings Are Irreducible to Their doxically, the same materiality that often sparks vitalistic fantasies
Value and Yet Instill the Illusion is also a literal barrier that blocks them: the tangible physical reality
of a "Life without Negativity" of a painting is what resists facile interpretation and cannot be ex­
plained away. This irreducibility of the work of art and of the painting
In closing, I should point out that paintings are more than their in particular, a standing trope in aesthetics since Kant, ultimatelv
value, this excess in turn greatly benefits their value form. In a booh contributes to its value form; the more so because the tension be­
on Renaissance painting, Michael Baxandall aptly characterized tween presence and absence, between dead and seeminglv animate
pictures as "fossils of economic life," but he also noted that thevuta matter, between commodity fetish and special commodity, cannot be
such fossils "among other things."39 Renaissance paintings represent resolved in favor of one side. And anything that defies resolution,
economic conditions in sedimented form, but to note this is by that cannot be disambiguated and yet has a durable physical existence,
no means to exhaust them. Baxandall's studies always evince a k# - 1 is a source of boundless fascination in an increasingly digital eco­
sense of painting's economic dimension without reducing it to this nomy. The focused labor on a material picture we usually associate
with painters is in itself a fascinating anachronism in today's world of
aspect. Similarly, I would argue that paintings must be undent
social media. Instead of yielding to the ubiquitous distractions or
be things of value, yet things of value of a particular kind, since
following the ever faster cycle of political or other news online, the
they foster the (phantasmic) impression that the conditions oi

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330 THE VALUE OF PAINTING 331
painter must be attentive for extended periods of time on a material
industry have thoroughly eclipsed social labor and rendered it invi­
object he or she manufactures using analogue—or, increasingly,
sible. By contrast, the painting's uniqueness, which points to its
digital—techniques. On a side note, the recourse to digital techno­ singular creator's specific labor, as well as its materiality (which is
logy, it seems to me, seeks to assert painting's contemporary rele­ read as a trace of that singularity), let it nourish the vitalistic fantasy
vance at a time when, simply by virtue of its physicality and the that the labor of its making is somehow preserved within it. Mean­
outdated manual craftsmanship associated with it, the conditions of while, the same physical presence continually discourages us from
a digital economy threaten to make it obsolete. Painters like Avery indulging in such phantasmic and fallacious inferences. In the end,
Singer and Merlin Carpenter have devised a different way to bridge there is no final answer in how to understand a painting. The fact
the gap between their craft and the specific demands of the digital that the meaning of painting is open-ended, often suspended between
sphere by choosing colors or forms that quote what we might call the different interpretations, also contributes to its value form. As
Instagram aesthetic. The look of their work is not just an allusion viewers, we return, time and time again, to this thing of value that
to its online circulation but actually a kind of formal preparation for exceeds its own economic dimension. While painting allows for the
it: it's made for the photo blogs on which a growing share of the fantasy that its value has substance, it also ensures that its value
audience will see it. is forever put on hold.
In this light, it might be objected that my reflections on value, by
taking inspiration from Marx's theory of labor value, implicitly pre­
suppose the transhistorical validity of his categories. Marx, after all.
analyzed industrial society of his time, whereas the paintings who*
value form I examine exist in an increasingly digital economy
dominated by financial capitalism. But the argument is unconvinbiV
the industrial society persists, though many aspects of it are no«
outsourced to so-called low-wage countries. What's more, the con^F
tual framework provided by Capital is designed for a t h e o r e t i c1

analysis of capitalism's foundations, not just the observation

specific phase of capitalism. And since we still live under cap'
or more precisely, under a particular variant of the capitalist
tem, I believe it's entirely legitimate to learn from Marx. Vd11'
to the influence now wielded by financial institutions, its 41

worth noting that he very much foresaw the growing powei o ^

The sphere of production, he argued, was closely connected
circulation of money, and so credit gave the "individual cap1'
absolute control not only over the capital of others, but also o
their labor, which is to say, over "social labour."42 So the saIIie^s or
labor lies hidden inside financial instruments such as der»v ^
options even when they seem utterly disconnected from ^f^cial
economy. Unlike the painting, though, the products of the

THE ECONOMY OF PAINTING 333

 Questions of Value Kerstin Stakemeier: Regarding the question of value in painting, the
distinctive point of your argument, to my mind, concerns the uses of
vitalism. The "vitalistic projections" you've identified in the writ­
ings of theorists of painting such as Hubert Damisch, Georges Didi-
Huberman, and Louis Marin are never altogether misplaced.43 You

A Conversation describe them as rooted in a specific capacity of painting, and more

particularly, in the indexicalitv of its signifiers: by presenting them­

between
selves as the trace of an activity, painterly signifiers indicate that
labor force was expended on them. I would like to take a closer look
at this vitalistic index of painting because, where the art historians

Kerstin Stakemeier you quote are primarily concerned with the vitalistic projection on
the plane of depiction, which is to say, in a sense that's always

and Isabelle Graw primarily iconic, your thinking seems to chart a more far-reaching
and much more materialist approach to the question of vitalism
in painting.

Isabelle Graw: It's true that the various vitalistic projections that have
been aimed at painting over time haven't been "misplaced" for the
simple reason that painted pictures also occasion and trigger them.
That's because of the physical and substantial materiality of their
signifiers. Traditionally, painting has created the impression of anima­
tion while also being lifeless, dead matter. From a semiological
perspective, painterly signs are distinguished by the specific form of
their indexicality: they can be read as traces of a ghostly presence
while simultaneously also attesting to the absence of their author.
But I think there's another advantage to a semiotic approach to paint­
ing, which allows for an expanded conception of the medium, one
that understands painting as a language. That's because painting's
signifiers can also appear outside the narrow frame. Unlike most
painting theory of the twentieth century, I didn't want to focus
entirely on the isolated painted picture in my research; instead I've
sought to outline an idea of painting that has opened up to various
contexts in manifold ways.
Painting has for a long time merged with other art forms, just
as painters since the late nineteenth century have absorbed and
processed the lessons of other media (such as photography and film).
On the other hand, I've tried to avoid an overly elastic conception
in which potentially everything can be painting, and so I've de­
veloped an expanded and, as it were, despecified understanding that
nonetheless registers specificity. Painting as I use the term thus
encompasses all those practices that refer to the rhetoric of the

334 THE VALUE OF PAINTING

QUESTIONS OF VALUE
335
 painted canvas or variations of that format, without necessarih "semiotic traps" pinpoints something in, say, Picabia's or Krebber's
being "oil on canvas." paintings. They demonstratively feign significance, but at bottom
And then I'm also interested in painting in a materialist, they re about the emptying-out of meaning.
or more precisely, a socio-critical perspective, since it's one of those It s just that the metaphor of the artist as someone who sets
"vitalistic fantasies" that, as Sarno Tomsic has argued, is central traps presupposes a voluntaristic artist subject that acts deliberated
to the functioning of capitalism.44 Capitalism is based on the fantasy and controls its "subversive" creative process, which, from a psycho­
that commodities have creative potential and intrinsic value, and analytical perspective, is a rather questionable assumption. After
painting, too, is frequently regarded as self-active and intrinsically all, the psychoanalytical subject is precisely not master in its own
valuable. Painting encourages such fantasies by providing a material house. Take Picabia's emphatically clumsy dot paintings (1949)
vehicle for them. On the other hand, painters from Manet to Picabia, or the (ostensibly) hesitant mark making in Krebber's paintings from
from Manzoni to Polke, from Richter to Krebber, have frequently the 1990s: these are actually vitalistic effects that also poke fun at
sought to foil these vitalistic fantasies by not catering to them or by the vitalistic fantasies we project onto them. But in the end, it
ridiculing them. Still, the more their works profess to being lifeless or doesn't matter whether they're employed deliberately. What's crucial,
without value, the stronger the impression that they produce a kind rather, is that they produce a vitalistic suggestion (the vision of
of second-order liveliness that is clearly manufactured by painterly an artist who's either clumsy or hesitant), but identify it as a painterly
means and makes their paintings appear self-active and valuable. effect as well.
I think that painterly production can't really escape this suggestion As you've noted, painting perpetually also implies an erotic
of capitalist fantasies. But what's critical. I believe, is how paint­ mise-en-scene—consider, for example, the allegorical depictions from
ing's potential is handled in each case, and that's a question that the sixteenth century in which painting appears as a female figure,
can be examined and answered only in specific situations and indi­ seducing the painter, who is always conceived as male and devoted to
vidual instances, in the example of concrete artistic practices. her service, body and soul. The act of painting was imagined as
a male procreative act from which women artists were excluded. So
K.s. That's because its vitalism is also rooted in its capitalist form female painters must aim to put their stamp on this gendered
In Felix Guattari, capital itself figures in this sense as a "semiotic erotic model—to claim it for themselves. As I see it, both Baer and
operator, 43 a network of significative traps. He describes capital ;i Euler treat painting on canvas as a quasi-human counterpart with
a semiotic operator because it organizes material life around an whom the painter maintains a—staged—relationship charged with
idealistic core. The semiotic operator is a perpetuum mobile or, a: unmistakable erotic energy. In Baer's pictures that eroticism is fairly
Marx put it in the first volume of Capital, an "automatic subject."46 literal, playing out on the plane of the motifs, as in the painted
Gould we apply this model to painters like Picabia or Krebber, wh< "chains" that seem to shackle the painter to her picture or the empty
expose that same idealistic and empty core to ridicule, but also bottles of alcohol that identify painting as an addictive habit. Euler
to, say, Monika Baer or Jana Euler, who work on its de-idealization has a more abstract way of framing her pictures as zones of contact
\ making paintings that exhibit the various material manifes­ and sources of energy, as in her electric plug pictures from 2014
tations of this semiotic operator as a profoundly libidinal game? on the one hand, they read as metaphors for being "energized,"
while on the other hand, the power outlet motif makes them figura­
LC. I'm not sure I would follow Guattari in conceiving capital as a tive energy supplies for something that happens elsewhere. So
UnT,^ ""T1"'" 7 emehasizi"« "s semiotic quality, its quasi- what's essential—energy, the social—is located outside them.
"renmsemT' "u aCkn°wled«e its symbolic function as well as
the Sf ac, character. And the term "operator" aptlv captures K.S. It's true that Guattari doesn't address the question of value. Still,

nLnk TsT "T u°aPita1' BUt Wh3t that 'fores. his conception of capital as a semiotic operator may be read as
sum whose nrim0 t. a0teriStiC °f CapM °f hcinS a cer,:"n value reprising Marx's automatic subject, which bears witness to the ideal­
sum whose pnmary objective is to generate surplus value. But yes, ism of the value relation. Whereas Marx's automatic subject

336 THE VALUE OF PAINTING

QUESTIONS OF VALUE
337
 articulates his critique of how Hegel's world spirit takes on a life
principle, the way the (post-)operaists did,47 you sketch a critical
of its own in capital, Guattari describes the machinelike return of
conception of human labor as a category of capitalist value produc­
this (failed) figure on the semiotic plane. It seems to me that this
tion similar to the one proposed, for example, by value theory, as
(un)eonscious machine subject is also at work in your portrayal of in Frank Engster's recent book.48
the intentionally unintentional de-voluntarizations in Picabia and
others. I.G. I would definitely advocate a critical conception of labor that,
Unlike the vitalism of value, which Marx renders in the figure of
like the later writings of Marx, distinguishes between concrete and
the automatic subject, the vitalism of labor appears only in Marx's
abstract, value-generating, labor.49 But first we must ask whether
early writings, such as Griindrisse, that still conceives of labor as
artistic labor can actually be described as labor in Marx's sense. The
located beyond this totality, as an ontologicallv fundamental human artist is not a wage laborer, as Merlin Carpenter has recently em­
capacity, which is to say, a vitalistic principle. In the volumes of
phasized.*0 Unlike the wage laborer, he or she exercises control over
Capital, by contrast, labor has ceased to be a human vitalism and
his or her labor process, and he or she owns the product of his or
become one of capital (living labor, here, is always also abstract
her labor, or at least holds a share in it. His or her work is more self-
labor). And I think this insight that the vitalism of human labor is
determined, although this self-determination has its price and has
always also one of capital resonates in what you've said about
in any case now become an ideal of the neoliberal working world.
Krebber, Picabia, and Euler: instead of idealizing labor as a vitalistic Drawing on Marx's theory of the value of labor to define the value of
painting is a problematic move also because works of art are a
special kind of commodity: one, they circulate as unique objects; and
two, their exchange value is utterly independent of the labor ex­
• v pended on them. Plus they command enormous intellectual prestige;
that's especially true of painted pictures, which look back on a long
# ' history of efforts to theorize their peculiar capacity. So although
the artist isn't a wage laborer and although his or her product is a
special kind of commodity, I do think his or her product is fed by the
fantasy that lived time and labor went into it. This fantasy is trig­
gered especially by painted pictures that, by virtue of their material­
+ ity, suggest that they're enriched with concrete labor—that they,
as it were, contain the traces of this labor within themselves. So there
are precapitalist fantasies of concrete labor or self-determined
labor that lend wings to painting in particular. But the moment painted
pictures are traded as commodities in the art market, they (like
the commodity) are subject to an abstraction in which the concrete
labor disappears from view. What's more, painting is especially
good in concealing and mystifying this concrete labor. So its pecu­
liar value form would be defined by the way it caters to the nostalgic
yearning for concrete labor while being based on abstract,value-
generating labor to which concrete labor is utterly irrelevant. James
Abbott McNeill Whistler was a nineteenth-century painter who
already intuitively recognized this double character of painting
with respect to its value form. During the trial against John Ruskin,
when asked how he could ask for two hundred guineas for the
Francis Picabia. The Sky. 1949

338 THE VALUE OF PAINTING

QUESTIONS OF VALUE
339
 work of a mere two days, Whistler replied with the legendary remark
and Luler, where classic tropes of painting are depicted in ways that
that he charged that sum for the "experiences of a human life. "51
run counter to their classic function. And in a certain sense, these
The argument is entirely in keeping with the precapitalist fantasy
are exactly the places, if I understand you correctly, where the
triggered by painting that a painted picture is steeped in the artist's
labor of painting exchanges its ontological status for a semiotic one.
lived time and labor, which are condensed in its surface. But Whistler
also never tired of asserting just the opposite—his credo was that
I . G . It's actually important to me to avoid ontologizing painting in one
a "masterpiece" must contain no hint of the master's sweat and ex­
way or another, so my point isn't to define its essence. I think it
ertions. So for the work to be worth talking about and worth its
needs to be scrutinized as a historic formation in the Foucauldian
money, it ought not to evince any traces of concrete labor, and yet
sense, one that's subject to specific but by no means inalterable rules.
it prompts vitalistic projections such as the notion that it contains hen again, by highlighting its semiotic character, I'm not trying
a lifetime's worth of experiences of living and working.
to reduce painted pictures to signifiers. Painting also has a prominent
material dimension, which doesn't necessarily resolve into mean­
K.S. I'm completely with you regarding the precapitalist fantasies ing^ fhats why I've always been interested in artists like Koether and
painting elicits. Painting owes its cultural existence to the fact that it Oehlen who ve placed certain rhetorical effects in their pictures
functions as an insignia of simple commodity circulation. In fact, but without making them about a facile production of "meaning."
this imagination of an immediate metabolic exchange between human our proposal to disregard the specificity of the individual work of art
beings and nature is today in a certain sense the uni(|iic selling w icn it comes to the question of value is very productive, I think,
point of painting as social labor. Yet the nostalgic yearning for the especially since it's not the work's concrete facture that underlies its
modernist dissociation of this labor from all other cultural labor value. Still, we need to recognize that artists, too—and this in­
is precisely what's now characteristic of its value form. That's why I cludes painters—operate in a capitalist environment. They enjoy the
would want to argue that its real subsumption doesn't hinge pri­ privileges of small businessmen or major entrepreneurs who are
marily on the concrete character of the individual artist's material (seemingly) self-determined in how they work. Artists are structur­
actions—it has more to do with the systemic professionalization ally stuck in a compromised social position; in a way, they're
° painting as the extremely malleable commodity form that you've aligned with the ruling class regardless of whether they make little
shown it to be. The concrete (artistic) work exists only as part of money or lots of it. Also because of the intellectual cachet associ­
e capitalist value form. Ursula Pasero, for example, has described ated with "art," the labor on a work of art is a special kind of labor,
this categorical status of "nonlabor time" as the necessary eon,- although it must be admitted that the notion of "creative" labor
p ement to circulation.52 So the systemic character of the value form is by now a pretty universal ideal. I think the increasing profession­
s not primarily in the series of products it pushes onto the mar­ alization of the artist you've mentioned (which starts early on,
tyr W m itS existence as a processing totality. Nonlabor time is in- for example in Rubens or Rembrandt) is also part of why there's no
s° Aand so' In the end> is critique. Kngster notes that "it antagonism between art and capital, a fact Beuys highlighted by
thrr. °U^ tIlG non~identical were compelled to express itself putting the combative equation Kunst = Kapital on ten German mark
And vm H Pr°POSIition that f"l ^closes it as the excluded."" bills. The artistic field has undergone increasing internal differen­
isn't nnl ^ t0ta ity ? va'ue ^r111, against the critique of value, tiation and professionalization since the eighteenth century. Since
vjdnoi 'phPr0n rt0 Crisis' a'so remains unacceptable to the indi- the 1990s, there's been a counter-trend in which distinctions within
legible ac 6 Vlta 1Sm capital, I would argue, must always also remain the field have become blurry, as in its structural assimilation to
vitalism an 1S^ a^ainst caPital. The idea of such a beleaguered other cultural industries.
struggle u°r examp'e' in Walter Benjamin's discussion of the Increasingly professionalized, artists have also gained the priv­
*2m-v? T k thu Iic*uidation ^e epic element"54 Its liqui- ileged license to be unprofessional—I'm thinking, for instance, of
the model of the unpredictable and unreliable "bad boy" berserk
this same n i!l * ,icluldation of representation as critique. And
ua itx of representation as critique resurfaces in Baer artist, which is very popular from time to time, especially in Germany.

340 THE VALUE O F PAINTING

QUESTIONS O F VALUE
341
 Men—and, rarely, women—who play this part draw plaudits for
their pushy, aggressive, and utterly unprofessional public demeanor. as m Pmin0nfi ^iiuepuon ot painting
By defying the usual standards of behavior, they underline the ex­ as the lahor H r? P°rary PraCU°e' S° its Enable status
ceptional status of art, which needs to represent the Other to merit , artlSU° oomPltan<* With the commodity form is

inclusion—for an exception to be included, it must remain the ^ueTsf 7 e'XOePti0nall5' suited » critique of the labor on
exception. And of course this exceptionalness of the art commodity, value. It seems to me that in your discussion of various artistic posi­
its vaunted singularity, helps sustain its compliance with the com­ trons you ve often thrown this duality into sharp relief.
modity form and enhances its value form.
I. a. Yes painted pictures are ideal commodities, most basically
K.S. When painting extends beyond the representational order of Afte'r all !h "t"flatneSS> and fair,ylow cost of Production
its modernist frame, when, in contemporary art, it is articulated as teen r7 7 P'0'"6 °n Ca"VaS was Evented in the six-
a specific labor capacity in a wide range of formats (and, as you've doban tra" t'" ® ™W l° <he in<*matlonal (and now
shown, in very different historical alliances): that's when it grows In eit for a m° "nS POSSiWe' ^ °omPared to tf>e produc­

into a historically concrete vitalistic principle. tion cost for a film or an art installation, the expenses for even
But it's precisely because painting's forms of labor are so closely the most precious pigments and fine canvases are modest, which im­
interwoven with the developments of capital of their time that plies potentially greater profit margins. We might also say that
they re conversely so heavily dependent on certain market trends and he fetishistie quality of this commodity is fairly pronounced because
the resulting aestheticisms; that was very much on display in the the form of the canvas stretched over a frame, it literally veils
the conditions of its production.
also hthink that pa,intinf is currentIy in vogue in our digital economy
< • o because it evokes the imaginary notion of a thoroughly mate- '
r W01* 0n the Picture." It's often associated with a secluded exist­

ence in the studio, which looks like a desirable residual sheltered

space, especially in light of how social media and other forces colonize
the private sphere. The more unlikely the lifestyle people associate
with painting has become, the greater its ability to fascinate
taking their cue from Duchamp or Warhol, many painters have
mechanized their production, organizing it with a factory-style di­
vision ot life and turning the studio into an enterprise. Another well-
known trend that's emerged in recent years is the integration of
digital technologies and stock images from the web as well as the
much-discussed social networks into painterly practices, which has
seemed to allow painting to make immediate reference to the social
and economic conditions that frame it. Yet what this coupling of
new and old media has demonstrated more than anvthing is the su­
periority of the painterly idiom, as in Albert Oehlen's computer
paintings. Having proved in the 1990s that they were capable of con­
ceptual work or institutional critique as well, painterly practices
have now opened up to their digital social environment, which has
vet again boosted their legitimacy. In the early years of the new
millennium, people thought of painting as the medium of the day
and seemed to regard it as utterly uncompromised.
Monika Baer. Untitled. 2015

342 THE VALUE OF PAINTING

QUESTIONS OF VALUE
 »\.o. IUUI analysis Lanes LIIC s y i i L i i e i i e p o t e n t i a l 01 p a i n t i n g , its ab
ity to, as you put it, reframe social tendencies as the individuated
suggestion of a capitalist fantasy, and dissects the various dimensio;>ns Ae practices youd~At the sa™
of this fantasy. And your argument relies neither on the modernist assert the social and cult 1 ° " t0 continually re-

notion of art (and painting specifically) as a mythological figure of un­

alienated labor (a view Dave Beech has recently put back on the
table),33 nor do you surrender painting to arguments about total
socialization (as Suhail Malik, for one, does with all of contemporary
art).36 This perspective lets us ask the question from yet another
angle: What's your perception of the temporality of painterly practice
in the current situation? Insofar as painting is unalienated labor, tha^lTd^^sten^oTs ^tr f "la°ked style'"
of a system" as well as the "eeleot' ^ °A Styles.'" to the "absence
its temporal mode would be a purely qualitative time; insofar as it's
systems."58 Kippenberger too ^ 3 ofadopted or invented
an aspect of total socialization, it would be an expression of a
stvle for his office Td- > 1 GemS £ ° haVe used thi« ^ck of
purely quantitative time. How do you conceive of the time expended
in painting? state of social culturalInde C°ntemporary wor'd'8 persistent

orscape to forever new extremes"0"."0 that pushes this col^e-

or struggle whether volnnta • /• n° °n ^ as a se,i"chosen expression,

I-G. Painting, as I see it, nurtures a fantasy of unalienated labor but
must nonetheless be understood as a social relation of production
hat manifests itself in the form of painted pictures. The implication
for its temporality is that it intertwines different temporal registers-
jus as a painted picture, on one level, prompts the fantasy that
r:rhE qualitative time" °f 'he painting and life process, it
renders that process invisible and withholds it from us as well
ent eil f" r ,''"f PUrely 1uantitative market value, which is
on h Rn i•" ? the C°nCrete 3mount °f labor upended
rarv historv^1 n ,S/WayS also bound "P with a certain contempo­
rary history; pamted pictures must be regarded as elements of a

orwfo^TateI1mdObendfit flT ^ °reated' Sav" in the

to thetetnerete h ? ^ * C°l0&"e S°ene' In additi°"
tnese concrete historic conditions they effectively earn- within
he contemporarmess of painting is never integral.
alsoToVtain theh Tt* ^ bC glimpsed in th™', painted pictures
that can bTeome an T their Potential future value
avanltta't?"'8'8 Kippenbe^ '"^ng to the historic
with the possibility of making mo0"13110"' They re c,ose,y
associated gardes or to one of his role models PrviL-^ o-> • -
already captured in the poster fo"^' T Marti" ^PP6"^61" intuitively understood that the
the motif of a painter's palette is Whidl
payment.57 Besides otF,rv " "anked by various means of
societv how W3r' CCaUSe °f thG imp'antation of a media
"pictures," which were se^n^ "°ffice" a,SO SO,d -' h°v an artist presented him- or herself emerged as the
£ Potentially very lucrative.
The cieof B. PreSUmably made b™ka a work of art as well

ing of the diST" moreOT" illustrates how the hard train- '
emphatic come BUt the" Kippenber^er was in a position to assert an
with ft dlsciphnary society concurred in the late 1970s and '80s
mporariness that's no longer relevant today because
-th softer techniques of subjeetivation exerted by the society

344 THE VALUE O F PAINTING

QUESTIONS O F VALUE
 of control that aim at internalization. A sculpture such as Martin,
ab in clie Ecke und schcim Dich (Martin, into the Corner; You
Should Be Ashamed of Yourself, 1989) alludes to the long arm of a
black pedagogy that disciplines through punishment, whereas
the self-portraits from the 1990s in which he sports a beer belly
bear witness to a neoliberal imperative to perform a public persona, from normal commodities thai a- e i reasons why it differs
are thus marked byaniln! *1* ^ Paint^
although the artist at once demonstratively flouts the associated
"fitness" standards. ousiy, but their meaning can be whlthelT t s '
the reasons why the fashion inn <- i '•
ST gfaSPed Simultane"
tension is one of
The simultaneous presence of different systems and modes of
and why they are often -i ^ fY 13S so attracted to them
production was previously in evidence in Warhol's silkscreen
recently, Sterling ^7^ °PS *" Most
prints, which were manufactured in a Fordist-style assembly line but
then touched up manually, so that painterly skills and handcraft (2014) and also Warhol's llJs (4?91)

peared in two fashion spreads for Ca1 • eSJ fl° Ibl)e) (1963) ap-
were preserved amid this automation. The significance of manual
Sparsely dressed half-naked A i T* (spring/summer 2017).
labor and analogue materials is only growing in todays digital world,
as I would argue Alex Israel's work illustrates right now. They have are depicted contemplating either^^or Wa' hV
a digital basis, being initially designed on the computer, but then In front of Warhol's silkscreens we *i I slenlr d§
man dressed only in underpants murines h-, andr°gynous white
they're executed by an associate at Warner Brothers and, therefore
androgvnous-lookin^ white £ lls arm around an equallv
incorporate his manual skill. In theory, Israel might just make
digital printouts of his works, but he's invested in the peculiar materi­
ality of acrylic paint, which lends his art a different physicality,
a luminosity that printing ink can't match. Daniel Arasse identified template. The suggestion of a "living picture ^^
in Warhol's series—RIvic io i • 5 picture> which is quite literal
inhTh ° ' Paint) earlyon,
f paint (in his case oil
m his book Hrstovres de peinturesf* writing that it was what allowed and seems to move toward hfm orher Listen ^ Viewer
picture—echoes in the half i ai eppmS outside the
paintings to touch us in a special way. And note the way cosmetics
the Calvin Klein mercha d n e ' °f the mode,s who market
ZLtrna'T8 ^t tHeir P^ucts-be it lipsticks,

sTbstan^e thaH I ° F Y lotions ~™* Pictures of a creamy

seems to m^l 0°nS ** T SOmeh°W painterl>'' a consistency that
seems to mimetically emulate that of
a regressive tactile desire iTthe consumer V Pam'' T ? mental size. Painting appears to be tlm one ZosTZ "itZZ'
substances, be in physical I^m^

and both snarks and i ee ' complies with the commodity form
PQintinen pr°jections- Fantasies and disap-

never far apart in fa!nUng Withdrawal> * appears, are

provides haptic^nsadcms^cmd fYus^ t0,tOUch 3 paintin£ jt thus

time. I consider the restricted fo " haptlc desire at the same

creating distance from fh « • rmat of the picture on canvas as

is limited, things must be^erT^ t0 the fact that its surface

which makes it possible for us'to refet, " a comPressed form,

egister what is depicted on it simul-

346 THE VALUE OF PAINTING

QUESTIONS OF VALUE

347
 Notes »•••*• yuiuuin;.

Ilaymarket hooks, 2015)—I don't see i#n„, . -- vuiumes o/narl

somprh" ' 4°: "°ne °nl>' descr'bes Materials, Politik uer
1 Francis Ponge, "Note sur les Otages, peintures artistic, and more specifically painterly,
something as a commoditv if it is Materialist, ed. Susanne Witzgall and
de Fautrier," in L'atelier contemporain production as exempt from the general laws
exchanged."
(Paris: Editions Gallimard, 1977), 17. of value generation. Beech writes that an 2^TlS3ta2k7emeier (ZUriCh: di3phanes'
2 On the primacy of profits in capitalism, see 11 Marx, "Money, or the Circulation of
constitutes an "exceptionalism" in the
Commodities," Capital, vol. 1 111-12 23 For the distinction between "physical" and
also Michael Heinrich, "Capitalism and capitalist society because works of art are 12 Marx, 117-18. metaphysical" indices, see Diedrich
Marxism," in An Introduction to the Three not standard commodities and artistic labor Diederichsen, "Art as Commodity," in
Volumes of Karl Marx's "Capital," trans. 13 Unlike sociological theories of value—see
is not productive and value-generating. On (Surplus) Value in Art: Reflections
Alexander Locascio (New York: Monthly most recently, Luc Boltanski and Arnaud '
Yet as I will argue in the following analysis, (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2008), 42.
Review Press, 2014), 16. Esquerre s Enrichissement: Une critique de
works of art, and especially paintings, must
tot marohandise (Paris: Editions Gallimard, .,Ich™ache bei dem Spektakel nicht mit-
3 Unlike today's art critics, Ponge was indeed IK- regarded as commodities, though
' 1 toll°w Marx in insisting on the bin Gesprach mit dem amerikanischen
recognizably anxious to be transparent commodities of a special kind. I moreover
connection between value and labor, also Maler Kerry James Marshall," Frankfurter
about the economic side of his assignment. believe that the "exceptionalism" hypo­ _ AUgemeine Zeitung, May 9, 2017, 11
4 Ponge, "Note," 20. because it allows for a more accurate under­
thesis overlooks the fact that no clear standing ot relations of capitalist exploi­ 25 This argument obviously does not apply to
5 The physical matter accreted on them, distinction can be drawn between artistic digitally generated paintings, a case '
tation. Boltanski and Esquerre define value
Ponge wrote, served "to mask that trace, labor and the products that result from it. Marshall does not address
to bury it," so that the viewer was "thrown as a set ot justificatory practices that legiti­
The artist, selling not his labor power but mizes or questions prices. Value, in this
off the track." The choice of words suggests
26 ne,Stra!egie-S 0f the ,uxury industry, see
a product, is not a wage laborer strictly perspective, is considered solely in relation
that the history of Germany's brutal 27 t ?, / 3nd Es<iuerre, Enrichissement.
speaking, yet as I will show, the peculiarity to price,, obscuring the social nexus in 7 See also Merlin Carpenter, "The Outside
occupation of France lies buried beneath of his products—and that's especially true Can t Go Outside" (2015), http.-//www
which it's bound up with relations of labor
the surface of these pictures, its presence of the products of painting—is that they and exploitation. •merlincarpenter.com/outside pdf
invisible but palpable. Ponge, 39. nurture the fantasy that they retain their 14 See Marx, "Commodities and Money," 5L- Carpenter strictly distinguishes the artist's
6 Karl Marx, "Commodities and Money," in author's labor process. See Beech, Art and from the wage laborer's work and likens it
But the value of a commodity represents
Capital, vol. 1, The Process of Production Value, 19, 27, 239. Michael Heinrich has instead to the work of an agent who produces
human labour in the abstract, the expendi­
of Capital, trans. Samuel Moore and similarly described works of art as a class a specific kind of value he calls "control
ture ot human labour in general "
Edward Aveling, ed. Frederick Engels 15 See Marx, 59. value.' This control value is associated with
separate from that of objects of value
(London: Lawrence & VVishart, 1996), 45. because of their uniqueness, arguing that, 16 See Marx, 68. 28 SeeK TuUCt'<ai,3nd nonetheless specific.
Marx s theory of labor value provides a unlike with ordinary commodities, the 28 See Karl Marx, Theories of Surplus Value
1 < See also Frank Engster, Das Geld als Mad
helpful conceptual scaffold for the attempt labor time expended on them is irrelevant trans. G. A. Bonner and Emile Burns
Mittel und Methode: Das Rechnen mit der
to determine the particular value form to their exchange value. Yet as I see it, there ™"f derZeit (Berlin: Neofelis Verlag 29 l24LaWrenCe&WiShart, 1951X 120.
of the work of art or, in this instance, the are objects that are unquestionably com­ 2014). Engster writes that commoditv value
painted picture: he explicitly rejected 30 Marx, 186.
modities and yet have an exchange value is where the productive force vielded by the
the notion of an "intrinsic" value, which is 31 Marx, 170.
that's not determined by the labor time exploitation of dead and living labor time is
as popular as ever in the art world and 32 On the debate over the productive or
expended on making them, luxury goods, set in relation and rendered as specific
especially in the realm of auctions. Value unproductive labor of the artist, see also
for example. Pace Heinrich, I will argue that 18 SUv.'br a,,o m3de £° disaPPear (p. 43).
Marx argued, must be sought not in a thing IS See Michael Heinrich, Die Wissenschaft Carpenter, "The Outside Can't Go Outside "
the uniqueness of the work of art, and of die
itself, but its properties; it expresses a social 22 bee most importantly Pierre-Michel Menger
painting in particular, makes it the perfect com Wert: Die Marxsche Kritik der
relation, though one rooted in labor. That's politischen Okonomie zwischen Portrait de I'artiste en travailleur:
object of value, the ideal commodity. See
why Marx allows us to throw the abstract, wissenschaftlicher Revolution und Metamorphoses du capitalisme (Paris-
Heinrich, Introduction to the Three Volumes
virtually intangible, and chimerical character klassischer Tradition (Miinster: Verlag Editions du Seuil, 2002); and Ulrich
of Karl Marx's "Capital," 43.
ot value—including the value of the work Westfalisches Dampfboot, 2011), 211. Brockhng, The Entrepreneurial Self
On the twofold nature of the commodity,
of art into sharp relief without losing sight 19 Marx, 'Fetishism of Commodities and the Fabricating a New Type of Subject, trans.
of its relation to labor. see also Moishe Postone, "The Historically
Determined Character of the Marxian Secret Thereof," Capital, vol. 1 83 Steven Black (London: Sage, 2016)
That's why practitioners of immaterial 20 Marx, 83. 24 Marx, 'Commodities and Money," Capital
Critique," in Time, Ixibor, and Social
artistic forms such as performance art 21 l or the manifold implications of the vol. 1, 46; and "Production of Absolute
Domination: A Rcinterpretation of Marx's
leave'mat31 ephemeral appearances Critical Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge signature, see also Karin Gludovatz, Fahrten Surplus-Value," Capital, vol. 1, 211- "For
relics or H" ^ ^ f°rm P™P*. University Press, 1993), 127. On the split legen-Spuren lesen: Die Kiinstlersignatur in the creation of value, the time that is
relics, or documentation. Such concrete socially necessary alone counts."
dividing the art commodity into use and als poietische Referenz (Munich: Wilhelm
Physical manifestations are necessary Fink Verlag, 2011). 35 Diedrich Diederichsen has proposed that
as anchors ot value. exchange value or symbolic and market
22 Compare the writings of the "new we should count the time artists invest in
Unlike Marxist-inspired theories of the value, see also my book. High Price:
materialists," who describe matter as training and in staking out a distinctive
Art between the Market and Celebrity
energetic, self-acting, and animate. For an position as "socially necessary labour-time"
Culture, trans. Nicholas Grindell (Berlin:
introduction, see Susanne Witzgall, "Macht in Marx s sense; see Diederichsen, On
Sternberg Press, 2009), 27-33.
(Surplus) Value,33. But even if we accept

348 NOTES TO PAGES 317-319

NOTES TO PAGES 319-329
 Diederichsen's extended conception of time oee neinncn, vaiue, nanor. Money, J9-79
and include the artist's "apprenticeship 50 Carpenter, "The Outside Can't Go Outside."
years" (the time spent at venues such as art 51 See Michael Wood. Bruce Cole, and
academies or bars), it's hard to see how that Adelheid Gealt, eds., Art of the Western
explains differences in value. By contrast, World: From Ancient Greece to Post­
Merlin Carpenter has argued that these modernism (New York: Simon & Schuster
social activities must not be taken to be 1989), 251.
value-generating in a strict Marxist sense; 52 Dirk von Holt, Ursula Pascro, and Volkbert M
see Carpenter, "The Outside Can't Go Roth, Aspekte der Marxschen Theorie,
Outside." vol. 2, Zur Wertforrmanalyse (Frankfurt am
36 See Andre Orlean, L'empire de la valeur: Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1974), 186.
re/onder I'economie (Paris: Editions du 53 Engster, Das Geld als MaB, Mittel und
Seuil, 2011). Methode, 349.
37 Orlean, 200-2. 54 Walter Benjamin, Gesammeltc Schriften,
38 For the role such narratives play in value vol. 1.3, ed. Rolf Tiedemann and Hermann
formation, see also Boltanski and Esquerre, Schweppenhauser (Frankfurt am Main:
Enrichissement, 153-95. Suhrkamp Verlag, 1974), 1243.
.39 Michael Baxandall, Painting and Experience 55 Beech, Art and Value.
in Fifteenth-Century Italy: A Primer in the 56 See Stefan Breuer, Aspekte totaler
Social History of Pictorial Style, 2nd ed. Vergesellschaftung (Freiburg: ya ira Verlag.
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 2. 1983). Suhail Malik discussed this at length
40 Samo Tomsic, The Capitalist Unconscious: in the lecture series "On the Necessity
Marx and Lacan (London: Verso, 2015), 7. of Art's Exit from Contemporary Art" at
41 See Karl Marx, "Division of Profit into Artists Space, New York, in 2013,
Interest and Profit of Enterprise: Interest- http://artistsspace.org/programs/on-the
Bearing Capital," in Capital, vol. 3, The -necessity-of-arts-exit-from-con temporary
Process of Capitalist Production as a -art.
Whole, trans. Samuel Moore and Edward
57 See my essay, "The Person in the Product:
Aveling, ed. Frederick Engels (London:
Observations on the Status of Painting in
Lawrence & Wishart, 1996), 402.
the Work of Martin Kippenberger," in
42 Marx, "Division of Profit into Interest and
Martin Kippenberger: Werkverzeichnis der
Profit of Enterprise," 438-39.
Gemalde/Catalogue Raisonnd of the
43 See my essay, "The Value of Liveliness:
Paintings, vol. 4,1993-1997, ed. Gisela
Painting as Index of Agency in the New
Capitain, Regina Fiorito, and Lisa Franzen
Economy," in Painting beyond Itself: The
(Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther
Medium in the Post-medium Condition,
Konig, 2014), 40-57. And also see the essay
ed. Isabelle Graw and Ewa Lajer-Burcharth
on Martin Kippenberger in this volume.
(Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2016), 79-101
58 Peter Gorsen, "Subjektlose Kunst," in
44 See Tomsic, introduction to Capitalist
Unconscious, 7. Transformierte Alltaglichkeit oder
Transzendenz der Kunst: Reflexionen sur
4o Felix Guattari, "Capital as the Integral of
Entasthetisierung (Frankfurt am Main:
I ower Formations," in Soft Subversions:
Europaische Verlagsanstalt, 1981), 62.
texts and Interviews, 1977-1985, trans
Sylvere Lotringer (Los Angeles- 59 Daniel Arasse, "Le tableau prefere,"
Semiotext(e), 1996), 256 in Histoires de peintures (Paris: Editions
Denoel, 2004), 24.
46 Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political
Economy, vol. 1, trans. Ben Fowkes (New
'°rk: Vintage, 1977), 255
47 See Nathaniel Boyd, Michele Filippini, and
£d ' The Autonomy of
the' Political: Concept, Theory, Form ' '
(Maastricht: Jan van Eyck Academie, 2012)
which examines the roots of this debate
m Mario Tronti and others
48 °aS Ge'd als Ma&> Mittelund
Methode.

350 NOTES TO PAGES 329-346

 Acknowledgment ts
Ae MCCo™ 'TCfU't0 ?abEth Buohlmn". invited me to
This book is not the work of a mind laboring in total isolation It ^ 201 Comite International d'Histoire de l'Art (CII1A), the inter­
could not have been written without the institutional and personal national congress of art historians in Nuremberg, which gave me an
support offered by colleagues, friends, family, and many others. Z°oZZ7 C°nne0t ^ 0bSe™ti0n a c°mebaok TZZ
Thank you first to all those scholars, art historians, museum pomotph'e figures, as seen in the work of Isa Genzken and Rachel
directors, and curators who in the past several years have provided happening? qUeSt""'S S°°ial theory: ™>y was this comebaek
me with opportunities to present my reflections on painting in ;i
variety of institutional contexts. Michael Ilagner invited me to the S r a 2 0 l l 1r a S L u ° B o l t a n s k i ' s i n e s t a t t h e School for Advanced
Studies m the Social Sciences (EHESS), Paris, for the workshop
Competence Center History of Knowledge (ZGW) at KTII Zurich,
where I read an early German version of "For Connoisseurs Only: where6! d '"J ValT: Sae0tion' evaluation, justification,"
where I discussed my reflections on the value of art with the other
Painting Specialists and Their Subject Matter." The diseussion
participants. Boltanski and I have a long-shared interest in the
the paper prompted was instrumental in helping me map out the
question of value, the subject of an ongoing and inspiring exchange
subsequent trajectory of my research project. In 201 1 art berlin
contemporary (abe) hosted a conversation about painting between withThom^T ^ d'7 ak° mUCh OWiged IO Ewa Lajet-Burcharth,
Peter Geimer and me; the transcript of the talk was published in a Tli pu r P C symposium "Painting beyond Itself-
he Medium m the Post-medium Condition" at Harvard University
book titled Uber Malerei (August Verlag, 2012). Geimcr's objections
m 2013 the proceedings were published in an anthology of the
and critical questions were most helpful as I refined my theses on
same title in 2016. The work on the theoretical underpinnings of
painting. I am also grateful to Daniel Birnbaum, who allowed me
the sj-mposium as well as the excellent contributions of the speakers
great leeway in my work at the Institute for Art Criticism we jointly strengthened my conviction that the special status of painting must
established at the Staatliche Hochschule fiir Bildende Kunste be considered m a perspective of historical genealogy. I would be
(Stadelschule) in Frankfurt am Main. A conference we Olgmlzed in remiss not to thank Jack Bankowsky, who invited me to ArtCenter
2011 at the Institute, "Art and Subjecthood: The Return of the
Human Figure in Semiocapitalism," was crucial in encouraging me ''Scutome 7*"!** 'n 20M t0 thC Stable discussion
Sculpture after Sculpture with Michael Fried, Michelle Kuo
to pursue my interest in subject-like pictures and object-like forms Charles Ray, and Scott Rothkopf-I learned a great deal from'our
of staging the artist's persona. My engagement with the "painting controversial debate. On the occasion of Avery Singer's exhltaZ at
against painting of the 1960s and '80s, meanwhile, benefited greatly the Kunsthalle Zurich in 2014, Beatrix Ruf kindly asked me to give
from Birnbaums invitation to present an early version of "Painted a keynote lecture on the artist; it was a welcome occasion for me to
Critique of Painting" on the occasion of Jutta Koether's exhibition dev elop a theoretical framework in which to think about the com­
The Thirst" at the Moderna Museet, Stockholm, in 2011. One year plexity of network painting. Jens Hoffmann, formerly of the Jewish
earlier at the conference "The Field of Painting" at mumok in i useum, New York, generously invited me to speak at the insti­
ienna, Achim Ilochdorfer offered me an opportunity to expound on tution in 201o, giving me the first opportunity to present my theses
m\ belief that anti-essentialist painting sometimes yields pictures on aliveness and the special value form of painting to a larger
"TV ,1 VCr" muc^ stant* on essence. In my talk at the conference vaTue™ renCe" That ST ^ ' eXamtaed the linkage between
I he Labour of the Multitude? The Political Economy of Social Port T "Iweness m-depth in a talk at the Serralves Museum
reativitv (2011) at the Free/Slow University of Warsaw, I first fleshed Porto graciously organized by Suzanne Cotter. I am especially grate-
""sPeci^c_sPeci^c conception of painting and pinpointed
tne link between paintings as quasi persons and the dimension the \1tolvT d' Wh°dhaS inVked me a' regUlar 'nterVals to sPeak at
llvasthere '"Z ^ NeW Yolk' Most Gently,
A* Ue,' 3nC* ^ would like to thank the organizers, Michal Kozlowski. there in 2016 to present my theses on the work of Martin
iesz a Kurant, Jan Sowa, Krystian Szadkowski, and Kuba Rippenberger and the students' challenging questions made for a

352 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

353
 verv fruitful discussion. Also in 2016, Alex CJartenfeld heated me of my essays in various stages of refinement and offered corrections
at the Institute of Contemporary Art (1CA). Miami, for a talk m ulutli and helpful remarks. I am most grateful to them as well as to Jutta
I revised my reflections on Kippenberger's ' persona inside i lie- Koether, with whom I have exchanged thoughts and theoretical ideas
product" with a view to the way the painterly subject in Ins work about painting on a regular basis for many years—her insightful
also eludes the viewer's grasp. In the last few years, Michelle Kuo suggestions inform many arguments in these pages. Merlin Carpenter,
commissioned mc to write a series of essays for Artfonim on the too, shares my long-standing interest in questions of painting and
painterly practices of artists including Jana Euler, Ellsworth Kelly, value; our ongoing discussions, which have touched also on issues in
Kippenberger, and Singer; 1 am grateful to her as well as to the editors Marxist theory and political events, resonate throughout the book.
my writing never fails to benefit from their critical acumen. I would Benjamin II. D. Buchloh and I are united in our love of—or more
also like to thank Briony Fer for inviting me to University College properly, our love-hate relationship with—painting, a passion that
London in 2016, where I tested another version of the Kippenberger keeps sparking productive disagreements between us about painterly
chapter. Christoph Menke and I share an interest in the question practices such as Gerhard Richter's; these debates were never far
of value, though we approach it from very different angles Mis per­ from my mind as I wrote. A special thank you goes to my friends
spective, which is primarily informed by an aesthetics of experience, and colleagues Sabeth Buchmann and Beate Sontgen, both of whom
persuaded me to enhance my focus on the aesthetics of production read several sections of the book at an early stage, and their anno­
by bringing greater theoretical pressure to bear on art 's interaction tations helped me close many a gap and remedy weaknesses in
with its beholders. Menke and I organized the 201 7 conference my argument. Attentive and sharp-eyed readers, they made me frame
"The Value of Critique" in Frankfurt, which was held in cooperation my points with greater precision, and if the book is better for it,
between the Cluster of Excellence "The Formation of Normative it is in no small part thanks to them. Josephine Pryde, who read
Orders" at Goethe University Frankfurt and the StUdelschule, and is several lectures that went into the manuscript, not only helped to
where I first presented my thoughts on the special value form of polish my English but also brought inconsistencies to my attention.
painting. Ileinz Driigh has repeatedly asked me to speak to the stu­ David Lieske offered encouragement when political developments
dents in the master's program in aesthetics at the Goethe such as the Brexit vote and Trump's election made me doubt the
University; most recently, in 2017, I used the opportunity to read purpose of the whole enterprise.
a more trenchantly argued version of the Kippenbergei chaptei I would also like to thank Elena Sanchez, who edited the
Ulrich Pfister's invitation to the Zentralinstitut fiir Kunstgeschichtc German manuscript; the text as it now stands has profited a great
in Munich in 2011 was a godsend as I struggled to complete the deal from her diligence and meticulousness. If the book is in fact
book. Once the participants of a reading-intensive seminar there the best it could have been, I owe a special debt of gratitude to my
discussed the introduction—then still a work in progress *1th me translators, Gerrit Jackson and Brian Hanrahan, and to Niamh
wat !nC°Uragei m6 t0 StiCk t0 my guns' finali2inS the manuscript Dunphy, who edited the English manuscript. Gerrit pointed out sev­
was surprisingly quick and painless. Finally, I owe a gratitude ... my eral linguistic and logical weak spots in the German original, and
mykcture SMdelsohule- wh° Patiently .sat through many of the translation has benefited from his careful eye; Niamh read the
Z ,~r " f t,he'r questi«"s. wh'ch often came out of left book with painstaking critical attention and edited the text with
C 7 0eW Ped gUid° mv w"rk i" the right direction. a keen and unerring sense for the nuances of the English language.
I have never felt in better editorial hands! I am grateful also to
my project,'this bwl^sT^erouTof^ a"d °PP"r,UniticS my publisher, Caroline Schneider, who chaperoned this book to
completion with unflagging enthusiasm and was a great support when
* I was flirting with writer's block.
and c™edUore tf TLmenti?' a"d f°remOSt' the
I must not conclude without thanking the artists who were
Bechstette, ZwZli willing to talk to me and allowed me to include the interviews in the
> y Busta, and Anke Dves read manv

354 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
 book: Jutta Koether, Gharline von Ileyl, Wade (Juyton, Merlin Author Biography
Carpenter, and Alex Israel. Kerstin Stakenieier was game wla n I si*
gested that she turn the tables and question me about my concept Isabelle Graw is a professor of art theory and art history at the
of value in painting—the conversation that ensued will. I hope, help Staatliche Hochschule fur Bildende Kiinste (Stadelschule), Frankfurt
shed light on the premises of my theory of value. She was also my am Main, and is the cofounder of Texte zur Kunst. Her previous
guide to the more recent Marxist literature on value. publications include Where Are We Now? (2015), Painting beyond
Last but not least, I want to thank Jakob Lehrecke, who gener­ Itself: The Medium in the Post-medium Condition (coedited with
ously and lovingly supported my pursuit of a project that had me Ewa Lajer-Burcharth, 2016), Texte zur Kunst: Essays, Rezensionen,
working many a weekend. My daughter, Margaux. just as lovingly for­ Gesprache (2011), and High Price: Art between the Market and
gave her mother when she found her at her desk more often than Celebrity Culture (2009).
either of us liked.

Portrait of the author: © Josephine Pryde

356 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY 357
 Bibliographic Note p. 158: "Die Person im Produkt: Anmerkungen
zum Stellenwert der Malerei im Werk von
Martin Kippenberger," in Martin Kippenberger:
Some texts in this book have been published Werkverzeichnis der Gemalde, vol. 4:1993-
elsewhere in different form, and are indexed 1997, ed. Gisela Capitain, Regina Fiorito,
below for reference. All other essays were and Lisa Franzen (Cologne: Verlag der Buch-
written for The Love of Painting and appear handlung Walther Konig, 2014), 22-38.
in this book for the first time. Translated from the German by Gerrit Jackson.

p. 32: "Nur tor Kenner: Malereiexperten und p. 240: "Art as (Gendered) Quasi-subject:
ihr Gegenstand; Ein Durehgang in 6 Schritten," Anthropomorphism, Human Figures and
in Universitat, Nach Feierabend: Ziircher Mannequins in the Work of Isa Genzken and
Jahrbuchfiir Wissensgeschichte 6 (Zurich: Rachel Harrison," in The Challenge of the
diaphanes, 2010), 139-51. Translated from Object: Proceedings of the 33rd International
the German by Gerrit Jackson. Committee of the History of Art, ed. G. Ulrich
Grossmann and Petra Krutisch, Wissenschaft-
p. 48: "The Knowledge of Painting: Notes licher Beibiind zum Anzeiger des Germa-
on Thinking Images, and the Person in the nischen Nationalmuseums, no. 32 (Nuremberg:
Product," Texte zur Kunst, no. 82 (June 2011): Verlag des Germanischen Nationalmuseums,
114-25. 2013), 1171-74.

p. 60: "Painting through the Wall: Isabelle p. 262: "Openings: Avery Singer," Artforum,
Graw on F.douard Manet at the Musee d'Orsay, November 2014, 264-67.
Paris," Texte zur Kunst, no. 83 (September
2011): 216-21.

p. 68: "Painting in a Different Light: Joan

Mitchell—A Conversation between Isabelle
Graw and Jutta Koether," in Joan Mitchell:
Retrospective; Her Life and Paintings,
ed. Yilmaz Dziewior (Bregenz: Kunsthaus
Brcgenz, 2015).

p. 102: "Ellsworth Kelly: Haus der Kunst,

Munich," Artforum, Summer 2012, 310.

p. 108: "Der Grausehleier dcr Subjektivitat:

Ober Gerhard Richter in der neuen National-
galerie Berlin," Texte zur Kunst, no. 86 (June
2012): 232-38. Translated from the German
by Gerrit Jackson.

p. 118: "Our Love for Painting: A Conversation

between Charline von Heyl and Isabelle Graw,"
in Charline von Heyl, Diisseldotf: Paintings
from the Early 90s,exh. cat. (New York: Petzel,
2015).

p. 136: "Malerei gegen Malerei? Vom Anti-

Essenzialismus zum Subjekt-Bild; Eine Untcr-
suchung in Zehn Schritten," in The Happy
Fainting of Painting, ed. Hans-Jiirgen Ilafner
and Gunter Reski (Cologne: Verlag der Buch-
handlung Walther Konig), 32-38. Translated
from the German by Gerrit Jackson.

BIBLIOGRAPHIC NOTE
 Image Credits Chapter II
Anti-subjective Procedures and
Self-Active Paintings
Chapter I
Painting's Intensified Externalization and p. 87: Antoine Watteau, L'enseigne de Gersaint,
Intellectual Prestige 1720, detail. Oil on canvas, 306 x 163 cm.
GK I 1200/1201. Stiftung Preufiische Schlosser
p. 31: Antoine Watteau, L'enseigne de Gersaint, und Garten Berlin-Brandenburg. Photo: Jorg P.
1720, detail. Oil on canvas, 306 x16.3 cm. Anders.
GK 11200/1201. Stiftung Preufiische Schlosser
und Garten Berlin-Brandenburg. Photo: Jorg P. p. 88: Hollis Frampton, #3 (Painting Getty
Anders. Tomb). Gelatin silver print, 25.4x20.32 em.
From the scries "The Secret World of Frank
p. 35: Florentine school, Leon Battista Alberti, Stella," 1958-62. © Estate of Hollis Frampton.
1600s. Oil on canvas. Gallcria degli Uffizi,
Florence. © bpk/Seala. p. 97: Frank Stella, Chocorua IV, 1966.
Fluorescent alkvd and epoxy paint on shaped
p. 39: Pierre Drevet, after Charles Le Brun, canvas, 304.8 x325.12 x 10.16 cm. Hood
Portrait d'Andre Felibien, 1700s. Chalcography Museum of Art. Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH;
print, 45x31.5 cm. fecole nationale superieure purchased through the Miriam and Sidney
des Beaux-Arts (ENSBA), Paris. © bpk/ Stoneman Acquisition Fund, a gift from Judson
RMN-Grand Palais/image INIIA. and Carol Bemis, Class of 1976, and gifts from
the Lathrop Fellows, in honor of Brian P.
p. 54: Nicolas Poussin, Et in Arcadia ego, Kennedy, Director of the Hood Museum of Art,
1638-40, 2nd version. Oil on canvas, 2005-10. © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2017.
85 x 121 cm. Musee du Louvre, Paris. © bpk/
RMN-Grand Palais/Stephane Marechalle. p. 99: Frank Stella, Avicenna, 1960.
Aluminum paint on canvas, 189.2 x 182.9 cm.
p. 63: Edouard Manet, Woman Reading, 1879- The Menil Collection, Houston. © VG Bild-
80. Oil on canvas, 61.2 x 50.7 cm. Mr. and Mrs. Kunst, Bonn 2017.
Lewis Lamed Coburn Memorial Collection,
Art Institute of Chicago. © bpk/The Art p. 105: Ellsworth Kelly, La Combe II, 1951. Oil
Institute of Chicago/Art Resource, New York. on wood, folding screen of nine hinged panels,
99.7 x 113 x 6.7 cm. Courtesy of Ellsworth Kelly
p. 72: Joan Mitchell, Sunflower III, 1969. Oil Studio. © Ellsworth Kelly Foundation.
on canvas, 285.8x 199.4 cm. Gift of Mr. and
Mrs. David K. Anderson, Martha Jackson p. 107: Ellsworth Kelly, White over Black,
Memorial Collection, Smithsonian American 1963. Painted aluminum, 183.5x 199.7 x 14 cm.
Art Museum, Washington, DC. © Estate of Daros Collection, Switzerland. Courtesy
Joan Mitchell. of Ellsworth Kelly Studio. © Ellsworth Kelly
Foundation.
p. 74: Jutta Koether, Freud Broodthaers HI,
2016. Oil on canvas, 180x270 cm. Courtesy of p. 112: Gerhard Richter, Tiger, 1965. Oil on
Galerie Buehholz, Berlin/Cologne/New York. canvas, 140 x 150 cm. Museum Morsbroich,
Leverkusen. © Gerhard Richter 2018 (0031).
p. 78: Jutta Koether, Bond Freud National
Gallery, 2016. Oil on canvas, 200x350 cm. p. 113: Gerhard Richter, Frau mit Kind
Courtesy of Galerie Buehholz, Berlin/Cologne/ (Strand), 1965. Oil on canvas, 130 x 110 cm.
New York. © Gerhard Richter 2018 (0031).

p. 115: Gerhard Richter, Tisch, 1962. Oil on

canvas, 90 x 113 cm. Private collection.
© Gerhard Richter 2018 (0031).

IMAGE CREDITS
p. 120: Charline von Heyl, Untitled (•< 95 D
1995. Oil, acrylic, and charcoal on canv.iv
p. 231: Wade Guvton, Untitled, 2007. Epson p. 291: Alex Israel, Self Portrait, 2013. Acrylic
180x200 cm. Courtesy of the artist and IV'/.-I UltraChrome inkjet on linen, 213.4 x 175.3 cm.
— •*"» •"« • «>n*» 77.5x62 and bondo on fiberglass, 175 x 152.5 x 7.5cm.
New York. Photo: Ron Amstutz. © Wade Guvton. Courtesy of Peres Projects, Berlin. Photo:
4 'he ariM ami lu-,| Pine Arts,
» Vorh Joshua White. © Alex Israel.
p. 125: Charline von Heyl, Igitur. 2()()H Aery p. 247: Isa Genzken, Untitled, 2006. Chair,
on linen, 208.3 x 188 x 3.8 cm. Courtesy of On­ two wheels, mirror foil, fabric, ribbons, p. 310: Alex Israel, Self-Portrait (Signature),
anist and Petzel, New York ' '
... -lef,phlIcon
."***.201, adhesive tape, and lacquer, 92 x 77 x 142 cm.
Photo: Rainer Iglar. Courtesy of Galerie
2014. Acrylic and bondo on fiberglass,
243.8x213.4 x 10.2 cm. Photo: Joshua White.
Buchholz, Berlin/Cologne/New York. © VG © Alex Israel.
Chapter III " '* ",r ""4 drprndancc, Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2017.
Painting against Painting llniMvl. O \ t, |hkl Kunx Ikmn 2017. Chapter VI
p. 254: Rachel Harrison, All in the Family, The Value of Painting
p. 135: Antoine Watteau, L'enseigne d< < I,•> -tint p I \l, ill,i < >>!«,,!,, • iv«wleatherette," 2012. Wood, polystyrene, chicken wire,
1720, detail. Oil on canvas, 306 x 16.1 cm Installation , u i > 7 » IVriln.2015. cement, acrylic, and Hoover vacuum cleaner, p. 315: Antoine Watteau, L'enseigne deGersaint,
GK I 1200/1201. Stiftung Preufiischc SchlflMcr I'lioi.i Stria,i Kort* © Mr,tin t Urpcntcr. 236.2 x 86.4 x 86.4 cm. Photo:John Berens. 1720, detail. Oil on canvas, 306 x 163 cm.
und Garten Berlin-Brandenburg. Photo .Ion; I' Courtesy of the artist and Greene Naftali, GKI1200/1201. Stiftung Preufiische Schlosser
Anders. I»l> I'M '»! Mrtlin 1 .aijwnlrr. "DECADES," New York. und Garten Berlin-Brandenburg. Photo: Jorg P.
iii-.i .illai • • » >t t •> n A Co, Izjs Angdes, Anders.
2"M Hwm lloan f.rttrat C IflUttOV of the Chapter V
p. 136: Francis Picabia, Suture* morti s
artist a,»«l • hrfiluili S lio . l/« Angeles. Beyond Network Painting p. 318: Jean Fautrier, Tete d'otage 1945,1945.
Portrait de Cezanne, portrait tic Rembmtult.
O Mr,li„ t a»pr,itr» Oil on canvas, 35x27 cm. © bpk/CNAC-MNAM/
portrait de Renoir, 1920. Toy monkey and p. 261: Antoine Watteau, L'enseigne de Gersaint, Philippe Migeat/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2017.
ink on cardboard. Photograph, in Cannibalc. 1720, detail. Oil on canvas, 306 x 163 cm.
no. 1, April 25, 1920. (Painting no longer exist- ) ( liaptrr II GK I 1200/1201. Stiftung Preufiisehe Schlosser p. 322: Sarah Morris, Council /Abu Dhabi],
Painting "ill".'' I'wilM und Garten Berlin-Brandenburg. Photo: Jorg P. 2017. Household gloss paint on canvas,
p. 140: Sigmar Polke, Hiihere U'escn hgftihlcn Anders. 152.5 x 152.5 cm. Courtesy of the artist and
Rechte obere Ecke schivurz tntden'. 1969 Petzel, New York.
Lacquer paint on canvas, 150x 125.5 cm p. 268: Avery Singer, The StudioVisit, 2012.
( > K I i . H . . - ™ u ; 0 : ¥ Acrylic on canvas, 244 x 183 x 4.5cm. Photo: p. 323: Kerry James Marshall,Untitled, 2009.
Sammlung Frohlieh, Stuttgart. © The Estate <.t
Roman Marz. Courtesy of the artist and Acrylic on PVC, 155.3x 185.1x 9.8 cm.
Sigmar Polke, Cologne/VG Bild-Kunst. Bonn
2017. Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler, Berlin; Gavin Brown's Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman
Amlrr.
Enterprise, New York. Gallery, New York. © Kerry James Marshall.

p. 140: Jorg Immendorff, IItin airf en mulct, v..

P • p. 270: Avery Singer, Performance Artists, p. 338: Francis Picabia, The Sky, 1949.
1966. Acrylic on canvas, 135 x 1.15 cm Van 11, ml. 2013. Acrylic on canvas, 264 x 198x4.5cm. Oil on wood, 75 x 64 cm. Private collection,
Abbemuseum, Eindhoven. © Estate of JOrg
Immendorff, courtesy of Galeric Michael
.V/Vr.
la rrpt«»»* „ |i„o-'«
,- 1 ^ f
^,u0<Miirccl
» i 7 PhoCO:
Courtesy of the artist and Kraupa-Tuskany
Zeidler, Berlin; Gavin Brown's Enterprise,
Turin. © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2017.

Werner, Markisch Wilmeredorf. Cologne and TI1U

Srptrnil f • • 1 . a ftaflfl 201 «• New York. p. 342: Monika Baer, Untitled, 2015.
New York. |lr— Oil on canvas, 250 x 220 cm. Courtesy of
p. 279: Jana Euler, Daniel Gnam. Oil on the artist and Greene Naftali, New York.
Mart
canvas. From the series "Ambition Universe,"
p. 165: Kippenberger* Biiro, Herlin 1979 khart.
—
/V,nn'
^ fh
h
j t Mao
| l r T w 1 2009. Courtesy of the artist; Pro Choice,
Photograph. © Estate of Martin Kippcnbergcr Vienna; and dependance, Brussels.
'" i mm". „
Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne n»m
f kw*A„, i-oundaii®-
UA«;BAl"" ^
nd
rvl" "* Jlrct* p. 285: Jana Euler. Identity Forming Processes
p. 179: Martin Kippenberger. Ohne Titcl ' -""CuJii h""1 Overpainted, 2012. Oil on canvas, 139.7 x
(Martin Kippenberger). Oil on canvas 180x 99 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Real Fine
150 cm. From the series "Window Shopping b*» vrr.hi-o Arts, New York.
2 Uhr nachts," 1996. Photo: WolfgangC
p. 286: Jana Euler, Nude Climbing Up the
Rademacher & Gunzel. Courtesv <„ Sia.uhcb
Stairs, 2014. Oil on canvas, 180 x 120cm.
KunsthaUe Baden-Baden. © Estate of Marrtn
Courtesy of the artist. © Stefan Altenburger
Kippenberger, Galerie Gisela Capitain. cSjne p<
Photography.
K--
OUanH fMrtin Kippenb<-'nier. Ohnc Titcl Mao-'
Oil and fabric on canvas, 180 x|S" i
the "Das Flo6 der f"'"

IMAGE CREDITS
Isabelle Graw
The Love of Painting
Genealogy of a Slice-ess Medium

Published by Sternberg Press

Translation: Brian Hanrahan. Gcrrit Jackson

Editor: Niamh Dunphv
Proofreading: Mark Soo
Image research: Zoe Harris
Design: Tom Richter, Markus Weislxx*k
Surface, Frankfurt am Main/Berlin
Printing: KOPA, Vilnius

Cover: Antoine Watteau, L'enscigtu tie

Gersaint, 1720. Oil on canvas. 306 x I 6.1 « ni
GK I 1200/1201. Stiftung PreuGische Schlosscr
und Garten Berlin-Brandenburg
Photo: Jorg P. Anders.

ISBN 978-3-95679-251 -9

© 2018 Isabelle Graw, Sternl>erg Press

All rights reserved, including the right of

reproduction in whole or in part in any form

Sternberg Press
Caroline Schneider
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D-10243 Berlin
www.sternberg-press.com