Zeitgeist, an art gallery in Nashville, TN, recently hosted a panel discussion; the panel included Rocky Horton, Kelly Williams, Terry Thacker, and gallery director, Lain York. The goal of the panel was to address six questions relating to the contemporary situation of painting. To no one’s surprise, only four questions were discussed before time ran out. Before the questions were actively addressed the participants explained a little bit about themselves and why they paint.
Terry Thacker, fine art chair at Watkins College of Art and Design, used a biblical allegory to contextualize his painting in a contemporary setting. He was essentially defending the necessity of participating in what some regard a dead medium. He relayed the story of the woman who spent all the money she had to buy perfume for Jesus and then poured it on his feet. He described this as a microcosm of painting in the now and how it is perceived. He said, “[Painting is] tears on dirty feet; it has no pragmatic end.” The disciples were furious with the waste of perfume to no apparent pragmatic end. The woman’s act was branching out from the disciples’ codified cultural text. Jesus understood the end that this means presented. Terry used this metaphor as an example of how painting is viewed in a contemporary setting.
Kelly Williams, another professor at Watkins, described her painting as, “dependent on an aspect of domesticity.” She explained that apart from the Modernist painters, she was seduced by the narrative of painting instead of the paint itself. For her, painting is “A traditional media that has made its way into my every day.” Her art involves things tied directly to her life at home and, often, life as a mother; it is “bound to the parameters of [her] life.” She admittedly lacks concern with the question of where her art lies; whether in the realm of craft or fine art, and she draws tension from this line of demarcation.
The final painter, Rocky Horton, is a professor at Lipscomb University. Rocky started by saying he hasn’t made a painting in two years. He explained that when he was a younger artist he was captivated by the heroism of Modern art, and particularly Minimalism- “I am object, hear me roar.” He now finds himself a painter against his free will. He almost uses painting as a restraint in an attempt to “get where painting isn’t painting.” He described it best when he said that he doesn’t shop in the painting section at art stores anymore. No matter what form or media is used, his work still fits into the conditions of painting.
Luckily, these lengthy introductions basically answered the first question, “Who is your audience, and what conversation do you participate in?” Terry added, “Painting is discursive. It must have more than a cut and paste relationship to history.” These ideas are fleshed out further in the answer to the second question, “Name an artist you should hate, but you secretly love.”
Terry responded with Brice Marden. He loves this artist because he is, “somewhere between Mondriaan and Pollock—perfect.” The reason he feels he should hate this artist is that Marden is painting in what Terry would call a frozen past. His work is not a reinterpretation of Expressionism or a contemporary dialog with it. It is simply a replication of the past. Terry says it is this stale idea that, “I am trying to push against.”
Kelly chose Neil Welliver. She loves his work but hates his attitude and idea of process. Her choice was similar, in reason, to Rocky’s which was Jeff Koons. Rocky hated that he was so, “cool power-tie 80’s.” He described his interest in the work as coming from a sense of surprise and spectacle.
The third question was in regards to hierarchy in painting. This discussion ended up being about what is popular, right now, in the market. Kelly said that “Figurative painting has had its day,” but Rocky claimed that it was coming back, at least briefly in the art market. All three agreed this was to be a brief stay. Then Terry discussed the popularity of Thomas Nozkowski. He claimed that abstraction “from personal sources” was becoming very popular in the market as well as the art community.
The fourth, question they were asked was how to move ahead as a painter. This boiled down to two heavily debated points. The first was discussed by Terry. His main concern was the danger of living in a frozen past. He said, “There are things in Rembrandt that need to die.” He is referring to the necessity for painting to be discursive in the time in which it is created. This was a very controversial statement because it challenged the work of much of the audience.
The second point reached was the idea that now painting is more of a conscious decision. They agreed that painting has been dying off since photography; people no longer paint because it’s the only way to render an image. In the past people often painted because that is what an artist was expected to do. But the advances in technology have vastly changed this context. In some senses, painting is a dumb way to make an image. Therefore, the medium now has a conversation of its own. Painting now evokes meaning in the same way that working in a non traditional medium does.
