Municipal Picture Gallery / Museum Kiscell
Churchspace
1037 Budapest, Kiscelli u. 108.
April 24–June 1 1997
Curators: Anikó B. Nagy, Péter Fitz
Exhibition Director: Emmerich Oross
Catalogue edited by: Péter Fitz
Translated by: Lídia Dobos
Design by: Ferenc Eln
ISBN 963 7096 59 0
Our world is full of adroit artists. There are ones whose qualities are acknowledged world-wide, ones who receive admiration late, and there are those whose work never, not even posthumously, receives appreciation. Not that this would effect the artistic –– it hardly can be appreciated equally, regardless of where an actual artist was born, lives or works. The process of being evaluated is so complex that the same recognition can almost never be obtained by the same quality. Being a Hungarian, I know this very well, since the art of such a small nation is less likely to get opportunities and together with it outlook than that of bigger countries, richer cultures. Also this is not a question of quality. Tihanyi Lajos's Cubist portrait of a man is hanging next to a Picasso in the Brooklyn Museum, evidently not only by chance, however their international recognition can not be compared. In the same hall there is also a Rippl-Rónai, of whom, save Hungarians and a handful of experts, nobody has ever heard. Something similar happened to Vance Kirkland's art, too. Most of his life he was a Mid-Western. His vegetative-ornamental Surrealistic watercolors from the forties represent the same level as Max Ernst's. But he missed to live in Europe when he was supposed to; at a time the relevance of American art was ignorable as compared to the post-war period. At a time when the influential artists, trends and goings-on could be found in Paris. Kirkland's case is a carbon-copy of what the majority of nineteenth and twentieth century Hungarian artists have gone through. A painter from Denver
The end of World War II has brought about a new era of American painting, unprecedented in its productiveness. Abstract Expressionism was the trend that earned appreciation enough to allow American art to become an independent, utterly distinguishable factor, influential even on a large-scale, universal level. The transition of Surrealism to "action-painting" could be anticipated easily. Marcel Duchamp had lived in the USA since 1915, Tanguy and Matta arrived in 1939, and a strong influence from André Masson, Miro and, of course, Picasso was also present. The best known example is Jackson Pollock, who worked on isolating and excluding actual experiences from his memory to be able to create pictures of his subconscious, thus eliminating their influence. This approach, largely similar to that of the Surrealists — regarding the subconscious as a well of symbolic simili — led to a different result: the depiction of pre-conscious perceptions. This modified the relationship between the painter and his canvas, Pollock's legendary practice as a painter being the most renowned example. The unmounted canvas spread on the floor, the use of various tools, plotting the surface with drops of liquid paint, sprinkling the canvas with "non-paintlike" materials (sand, splinters of glass), "entering the picture" — these were not naughty pranks, but signs of a radical change in attitude. This influenced the whole American and universal art scene, radically reshaping the general rules and relations, and changing the self-assessment of American art as well. The spontaneous, action-based abstract Expressionism, that helped the subconscious and preconscious rule painting, obviously brought about the reappearance of the rational in the second half of the fifties. One possible direction was to turn to geometric, structural ways of expression; this aspect already had American forerunners, like the influence of the Chicago New Bauhaus on Moholy-Nagy, Herbert Bayer, Knox Martin or the early Rauschenberg. Another, much stronger movement was the breakthrough of the figurative pop art, also in the end of the fifties. The burst of the figurative aspect overshadowed the fact that it was not only a counter-movement, but a trend that helped live such characteristics on, as sticking to the tactility of surfaces, certain techniques, while keeping a close relationship with such art historical forerunners as the Dada. The elevation and integration of elements of mass culture can also considered to be the invention of American art. This fifty years — the American avant-guarde period — logically ended with the almost antithetic, rational concept art of the seventies. This is the rough outline, lacking any detail and even some of the significant trends, of the half a century Vance Kirkland, shyly keeping some distance from the centers, worked in.
A detailed list of the periods and trends of painting can be found on the last pages of the catalogue. As regards technique, Kirkland's oeuvre can be divided into two distinct parts: for nearly 25 years he had almost exclusively used watercolors, gouache, and tempera on paper. Then he exchanged them to oil and canvas, and has never returned to his old tools. Spiritually speaking, however, his chain of works constitute one whole oeuvre, within which intertwined concepts are materialized, representing a constant change and a constant painter's attitude. His themes are exhausted to the extreme and stripped to the innermost layers by a painters mind eager to complete his quest; the next problem will eventually grow out of a yet untouched upon question, a previously ignored line of thought. This search for self-definition was sometimes totally unique among, although sometimes in complete correspondence with the trends of the rest of the world - which left Kirkland almost unbothered.
At the end of the twenties, he started off with watercolors in the manner of the slightly conservative, typical Mid-Western painters. Among his themes were the barren ranges and dramatic shapes of the Rocky Mountains, cliffs, trees, bleak industrial buildings, desolate towns and some portraits. In the thirties, those plants in the foreground of the landscapes were gradually starting to be handled more and more freely and audaciously; huge trees and cliff ranges to be stylized. The faintly romantic ruins had by then disappeared, and one by one elements of his former works had evolved to become independent motifs, The Rock on Truesdale Ranch being an apt example. The dimensions of his paintings had also grown bigger, together with a more delicate elaboration on the details of the increased surface, which required an improving technical knowledge, especially when using watercolors. His favorite themes remained, but the landscapes became so imaginary that a spectator, without knowing the astounding shapes of the Rockies, would regard these pictures as representations of a painter's wild dreams. Sometimes it is hard to distinguish the cloud-shaped rocks from the rock-shaped clouds. By the end of the thirties the emphasis from the depicted theme had moved to the colors, shapes and the whole composition on Kirkland's paintings, making him a renowned, fashionable scenery painter by the turn of the forties.
The next step in his stylistic evolution was the animation of natural forms — dried-out trees, rocks and various plants. Kirkland's surrealism, similarly to Max Ernst's, is connected to vegetation, although they followed different tracks on their way. Realistic and fictitious forms blend on the paintings, besieging the barriers that the opportunities of the watercolor provided. In 1947 he participated in the art historic event of the "Abstract and Surrealism in American Art" exhibition, organized by the Chicago Art Institute, and together with Archipenko, Herbert Bayer, Baziotes, Calder, Salvador Dali, Max Ernst, Archile Gorky, Matta, Motherwell, O'Keeffe, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Tanguy.
By the second half of the forties the artistic forms could no longer be handled within his old gender, watercolor, and he abandoned an almost 25-year-old, refined technique for the sake of new forms of self-expression. The shift to oil on canvas brought along a change in style, and he took the step from realistic-surrealistic painting to abstraction. This period is marked by the use of distinctly vivacious colors, strongly drawn contours, and although his titles echo past experiences (Rocky Mountains Abstraction, Yellow Clouds and Red Mountain, Branch Abstraction), the reference and imagery are completely different. Then the vegetational element is cut out, however clear it is that, knowing the history and origins of his abstraction, Kirkland still transcribes elements taken from nature. Through the transformation of colors he produces the essence from natural forms — using lively, reddish backgrounds, for example, he emphasizes the blossoming shapes growing apace. The elements are divided by precise outlines, and the whirling of spots and lines, colors and shapes, in spite of all the abstraction, still carry within them the reference to their roots in nature.
At the beginning of the fifties Kirkland had already had a mature technique and a definite view of the new direction his new art would take. Amazingly the theory and practice of abstract expressionism, the leading factor in art of the time, is parallelly defined by his former works and by the different trends of this era, however independently they progressed. Kirkland's contribution to the technical eccentricities — following the steps of Pollock — was the mixing of oil and watercolors on canvas. These two substances, since they are chemically repellent, produce special effects when, drying out, they eventually blend. This technique, unique to Kirkland, is his contribution to the extravagant tools of abstract expressionism. Another strange technique of his was when he hanged straps above the canvas lying on the floor, and with their help (fortunately he was a short man) he could work on the whole surface from a different angle. He also used plotting, blotting and running thin paint down the surfaces; the use of different liquids apart from water also produced special effects.
His definition for the decade from 1953 to 1963 was the era of "floating abstraction". Huge, cell-like shapes, the orgy of red-blue amoebas as if seen through the lens of a microscope, and highly intensive colors mark the initiation of this period. Not only the science of this era, but also the public focused on the research concerning the outer space and the whole Universe — this also became a theme of Kirkland's paintings. The natural unity of the micro and macro worlds on his pictures is so harmonic, that it was no chance he gave the name "Nebulae Abstraction" to a whole period.
From the second half of the fifties through the mid-sixties Kirkland traveled and explored Italy, Burma, India and Cambodia. The impressions from the Italy experience, the frescos of Pompeii and the sun-faded hues of antiquity are traceable on his subsequent use of vivid red and earthly colors together with the forms shaped with fine movements. On the Asia-inspired pictures the definite red colors are complemented by gestures, calligraphic lines; the canvases are lined by rows of puppet-like, vertical figures. The fourth set of works from the Abstract Expressionist period is called the "pure abstractions", where the background colors may not be as intensive as before, but the whole picture is crowded with forms emanating from more refined, minuscule details. The titles are less poetic, too; rather are they objective: Red, Gold and Black; Pink, Green and Brown Painting; Painting No.15.
Kirkland's oeuvre, throughout his last period, took a turn away from he main world-wide artistic trends again. At the end of the sixties and the beginning of the seventies, when the whole world fanfared the marching in of Pop Art, he stuck with Abstractionism. A highly unique period ensued, the long series of "dot paintings". The compositions on the increasingly bigger and bigger canvases are comprised of elaborately positioned, exactly round-shaped plots of paint. This technique might remind one of Pointillism, but only in theory, not in practice — the relation is distant, for the matrix scheme of the picture is present, but the blending of colors in this method is far from that of the Pointillists. The big, organic forms are built up from tiny dots, using powerful, sometimes brutal colors -- blue, red and gold — in resemblance, in this respect, to the world of Pop Art. The dots of paint are plastic, they protrude from the surface of the painting, almost transforming it to a relief. His technique of blending watercolor and oil resulting in a dispersing effect is eventually refined in this period, too. Kirkland resumes the application of poetic titles: "Vibrating Energies in Outer Space; Secret Energies in Outer Space; Energy Explosions in Outer Space". Odd, but romantic, these titles are nevertheless appropriate; the firm connection between the pictures is derived from the powerful depiction of suspense, the cumulating energies on his canvases. The periodicity of the ever disappearing and re-emerging concept of actuality-timelessness embodied in Kirkland's works from the end of the seventies shows that his large-scale, expressively dynamic paintings from this period correspond to the style of the era again.
Vance Kirkland died in 1981, his painter's oeuvre has become relevant again by now. His works have never been forgotten, his paintings continually reappear on the walls of American museums even after his death, but his international fame and recognition has not come until now. However prolific a painter he was, surprisingly but luckily the bulk of his works is cared for by one institution, their proprietor, the Vance Kirkland Foundation, thus remained intact and together. The primary aim of the present touring exhibition, consisting of seven shows all over Europe, of which the first station is the Fôvárosi Képtár/Kiscelli Múzeum in Budapest, is to help build a world-wide reputation for the artist. This project was initiated and organized by chief curator of the Vance Kirkland Foundation, Hugh Grant, and Emmerich Oross, director of the exhibition series. Special thanks are due to Lewis I. Sharp, chief curator of the Denver Art Museum, and his colleagues, Dianne Perry Vanderlip and Nancy B. Tieken for their contribution, altruistic help and lending of some of Kirkland's works to the project. I truly hope that the Vance Kirkland Exhibition Series, representing a full cross-section of the artist's whole oeuvre, will appeal to the spectators in Budapest, and will win their appreciation.
Péter Fitz