Mavericks: To Be or Not To Be

Albert Pinkham Ryder, Antonin Artaud, Henri Michaux, Raoul Hague, Paul Thek

In a time where artists are bunched together either by movement or brand (beware of the double threats of decorative and Pop), it is interesting to examine why certain artists resisted categorisation and how their reception changed over time. The following very personal take on some artists who made lasting impressions on my mind came from reflecting on a project of mine that unfortunately never took flight due to a lack of funding: Salon des Oubliés, a research facility into exactly that and in reference to the Salon des Réfusés of 1863.

Albert Pinkham Ryder may be America's most underrated 19th century artist of the moment. His hallucinatory seascapes are among the most moving images of the century, releasing a true spirit of topoi and elements. His moonlit "Toilers of the Sea"(c.1880-85) and "Moonlight Marine" (c.1870-90), both in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum, New York, manage to conjure in quintessential compression and an almost alchemical handling of material the relentless hardship of seafaring and the endless chimera of light and water. Ryder was an inspiration for a number of artists going all the way to Brice Marden, but now would be a good time for an exhibition re-examing his work. One could put him next to Victor Hugo, Medardo Rosso and Jasper Johns and I am sure his best work would hold up beautifully.

Antonin Artaud is one of those artists whose influence is felt long after his time. One could argue that he is godfather to Günther Brus and Chris Burden and an influence on a range of artists such as Jean Dubuffet, Louise Bourgeois, Georg Baselitz, Nancy Spero and Kiki Smith. In 1997 the Museum of Modern Art, New York showed a survey of Artaud's drawings in conjunction with the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. "Few graphic expressions in the twentieth century show the power and authentic inner necessity seen in Artaud's drawings," said Margit Rowell, then Chief Curator, Department of Drawings, who organized the exhibition. Maybe this would be an interesting time to re-visit him and to pair him with Brus, McCarthy and others.

Henri Michaux proved a difficult case for art historians, as he veered between literature and art with ease. His "Meidosems" text and imagery is a one-time achievement that is imaginative beyond story-telling, hallucinatory, yet also real. His best work harks back to a prehistoric time, reminiscent of cave drawings, and to oriental calligraphy in all their splendour, but it also opens up new forms of expression in condensing, re-employing and re-forming the aforementioned. Despite excellent exhibitions with accompanying catalogues of his work such as at the Drawing Center, New York (Henri Michaux, Untitled Passages, 2000, ed. Catherine de Zegher) or at Circulo de Bellas Artes, Madrid (Henri Michaux, Icebergs, 2006, ed. Juan Manuel Bonet), to name but two, a definitive exhibition of his work is still due.

Raoul Hague was THE sculptor of the group of American artists associated with Abstract Expressionism. Of Armenian origin, he was born Haig Heukelekian in Constantinople in 1905 and died in Woodstock in 1993. In 1921 he came to the United States and in 1931 he became an American citizen. In 1956 he was included in Dorothy C. Miller's ground-breaking exhibition "Twelve Americans" at the Museum of Modern Art. Inasmuch as his work is in numerous museums throughout the United States and Lennon Weinberg Gallery in New York continued to stage carefully curated exhibitions of his work over the years, he has vanished from discussion. The fact that he only made sculpture (he shunned preparatory drawing and cut directly into the wood that was his only material all his life, with the exception of a few very early efforts in stone) may have been a deterrent for some. It certainly made it an effort to show his work, as some of the sculpture is massive and takes half a dozen people to move. Unlike stone, bronze and stainless steel sculptures, his are meant solely for interior spaces. His best sculptures move into a realm of nature spirit condensed: "Willy's Bride (1981-82)" is an elegiac, yet muscular compression of form that is at once totemic and tender, a contradiction in terms that seems typical for his work. In "Otsego Falls (1976)" and in "Maple Crest (1983) he not only wills the wood into cascading forms reminiscent of water, but he also goes to the extreme of cutting into it, testing the limits of the material and arriving at breathtakingly beautiful forms full of tension and flow that betray their massiveness. Works from the 1940s such as "Ohayo Wormy Butternut"(1947-48) in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York and "Robert's Choice" (1948) plus "Walnut Mink Hollow" (1961) in the collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art show echoes of the human body in more and more abstracted form. Certain affinities to Brancusi that seem to come with Hague's DNA married parts of ancient traditions of the American land and shakes hand with some of the best Northwest-Coast art such as in Haida, Tlingit and Tsimshian cultures and in Eskimo art. And yet, his work stands alone. Raoul Hague is ripe for re-discovery.

Paul Thek was re-discovered in recent years, but there is still considerable confusion around his work that would amuse him personally. Much stems from the fact that artefacts from his "processions" that survived the installation at the time are now treated as works in their own. Many of his often fleeting works on paper were originally part of an installation as in his last shows at Iolas Jackson Gallery, New York. So in many ways his legacy is a difficult one. Nevertheless even fragments of his spiralling work convey a sense of wonder and of an immersion in process that spits out poetic results full of sparkling detail. An at times delicate, sometimes crass humour embellishes his work, too. His early wax pieces like "Warrior's Leg" (1966-67)  from the series "Technological Reliquaries" hark back to anatomical wax models as in the collection of Museo Zoologico La Specola, Florence, but they clearly extend meaning into a post-apocalyptic imaginative time zone. Stark warnings, they also embody accumulative beauty as emeralds on butterfly wings. His work remains mystifying in its complexity and warrants re-visiting.

The word hallucinatory appears several times in this text. It describes a state of mind where the real and the imagined intertwine. Rather than sticking to the often negative connotation of the word (as it comes in medical terms as a side effect of high fever or excruciating pain), I take it as a positive sign of being transported: out of this reality into another, thus gaining new insights. To get transported is among the best one can ask of art, literature, music, dance and the theatre. It is in that ensuing internal journey that senses are awakened and heightened and with it emotions. Of course nature and certain architecture manage that, too. The most creative chefs in cuisine, too.

Alfred Kren